ou believe that
if you lived to the age of Methuselah you could find another? You don't
answer me; you are silent. Well, Tom, I ask you to be such a friend to
me, and I will be such a friend to you."

Tom was so thoroughly "taken aback" by this address that he remained
dumfounded. But he felt as if the clouds in his soul were breaking, and
a ray of sunlight were forcing its way through the sullen darkness.
At length, however, the receding rage within him returned, though with
vacillating step, and he growled between his teeth,--

"A pretty friend indeed, robbing me of my girl! Go along with you!"

"She was not your girl any more than she was or ever can be mine."

"What, you be n't after her?"

"Certainly not; I am going to Luscombe, and I ask you to come with me.
Do you think I am going to leave you here?"

"What is it to you?"

"Everything. Providence has permitted me to save you from the most
lifelong of all sorrows. For--think! Can any sorrow be more lasting
than had been yours if you had attained your wish; if you had forced or
frightened a woman to be your partner till death do part,--you loving
her, she loathing you; you conscious, night and day, that your very love
had insured her misery, and that misery haunting you like a ghost!--that
sorrow I have saved you. May Providence permit me to complete my work,
and save you also from the most irredeemable of all crimes! Look into
your soul, then recall the thoughts which all day long, and not least at
the moment I crossed this threshold, were rising up, making reason dumb
and conscience blind, and then lay your hand on your heart and say, 'I
am guiltless of a dream of murder.'"

The wretched man sprang up erect, menacing, and, meeting Kenelm's calm,
steadfast, pitying gaze, dropped no less suddenly,--dropped on the
floor, covered his face with his hands, and a great cry came forth
between sob and howl.

"Brother," said Kenelm, kneeling beside him, and twining his arm round
the man's heaving breast, "it is over now; with that cry the demon that
maddened you has fled forever."

CHAPTER XX.

WHEN, some time after, Kenelm quitted the room and joined Mrs. Bowles
below, he said cheerily, "All right; Tom and I are sworn friends. We are
going together to Luscombe the day after to-morrow,--Sunday; just write
a line to his uncle to prepare him for Tom's visit, and send thither
his clothes, as we shall walk, and steal forth unobserved betimes in
the morning. N