ccasional sentences which seemed to
persuade him that she suspected nothing. At last he drew rein, and the
weary horse stood still.

'We are in a fix,' he said.

She answered eagerly: 'I'll hold the reins while you run forward to the
top of the ridge, and see if the road takes a favourable turn beyond. It
would give the horse a few minutes' rest, and if you find out no change
in the direction, we will retrace this lane, and take the other turning.'

The expedient seemed a good one in the circumstances, especially when
recommended by the singular eagerness of her voice; and placing the reins
in her hands--a quite unnecessary precaution, considering the state of
their hack--he stepped out and went forward through the snow till she
could see no more of him.

No sooner was he gone than Laura, with a rapidity which contrasted
strangely with her previous stillness, made fast the reins to the corner
of the phaeton, and slipping out on the opposite side, ran back with all
her might down the hill, till, coming to an opening in the fence, she
scrambled through it, and plunged into the copse which bordered this
portion of the lane. Here she stood in hiding under one of the large
bushes, clinging so closely to its umbrage as to seem but a portion of
its mass, and listening intently for the faintest sound of pursuit. But
nothing disturbed the stillness save the occasional slipping of gathered
snow from the boughs, or the rustle of some wild animal over the crisp
flake-bespattered herbage. At length, apparently convinced that her
former companion was either unable to find her, or not anxious to do so,
in the present strange state of affairs, she crept out from the bushes,
and in less than an hour found herself again approaching the door of the
Prospect Hotel.

As she drew near, Laura could see that, far from being wrapped in
darkness, as she might have expected, there were ample signs that all the
tenants were on the alert, lights moving about the open space in front.
Satisfaction was expressed in her face when she discerned that no
reappearance of her baritone and his pony-carriage was causing this
sensation; but it speedily gave way to grief and dismay when she saw by
the lights the form of a man borne on a stretcher by two others into the
porch of the hotel.

'I have caused all this,' she murmured between her quivering lips. 'He
has murdered him!' Running forward to the door, she hastily asked of the
first person she