ch as jealousy or revenge, can be assigned, and there
should be no witness by to prove that the violence was not premeditated,
then the law does not call it manslaughter, but murder. Was it not that
thought which made you so imploringly exclaim, 'Go soon; keep out of his
way'?"

The woman made no answer, but, sinking back in her chair, gasped for
breath.

"Nay, madam," resumed Kenelm, mildly; "banish your fears. If you will
help me I feel sure that I can save your son from such perils, and I
only ask you to let me save him. I am convinced that he has a good and
a noble nature, and he is worth saving." And as he thus said he took her
hand. She resigned it to him and returned the pressure, all her pride
softening as she began to weep.

At length, when she recovered voice, she said,--

"It is all along of that girl. He was not so till she crossed him, and
made him half mad. He is not the same man since then,--my poor Tom!"

"Do you know that he has given me his word, and before his
fellow-villagers, that if he had the worst of the fight he would never
molest Jessie Wiles again?"

"Yes, he told me so himself; and it is that which weighs on him now. He
broods and broods and mutters, and will not be comforted; and--and I do
fear that he means revenge. And again, I implore you to keep out of his
way."

"It is not revenge on me that he thinks of. Suppose I go and am seen no
more, do you think in your own heart that that girl's life is safe?"

"What! My Tom kill a woman!"

"Do you never read in your newspaper of a man who kills his sweetheart,
or the girl who refuses to be his sweetheart? At all events, you
yourself do not approve this frantic suit of his. If I have heard
rightly, you have wished to get Tom out of the village for some time,
till Jessie Wiles is--we'll say, married, or gone elsewhere for good."

"Yes, indeed, I have wished and prayed for it many's the time, both for
her sake and for his. And I am sure I don't know what we shall do if
he stays, for he has been losing custom fast. The Squire has taken away
his, and so have many of the farmers; and such a trade as it was in his
good father's time! And if he would go, his uncle, the veterinary at
Luscombe, would take him into partnership; for he has no son of his own,
and he knows how clever Tom is: there be n't a man who knows more about
horses; and cows, too, for the matter of that."

"And if Luscombe is a large place, the business there must be more