by Clifford's hands."

"Whence came those circumstances?" exclaimed Phoebe. "He being
innocent, as we know him to be!"

"They were arranged," said Holgrave,--"at least such has long been my
conviction,--they were arranged after the uncle's death, and before it
was made public, by the man who sits in yonder parlor. His own death,
so like that former one, yet attended by none of those suspicious
circumstances, seems the stroke of God upon him, at once a punishment
for his wickedness, and making plain the innocence of Clifford. But
this flight,--it distorts everything! He may be in concealment, near at
hand. Could we but bring him back before the discovery of the Judge's
death, the evil might be rectified."

"We must not hide this thing a moment longer!" said Phoebe. "It is
dreadful to keep it so closely in our hearts. Clifford is innocent.
God will make it manifest! Let us throw open the doors, and call all
the neighborhood to see the truth!"

"You are right, Phoebe," rejoined Holgrave. "Doubtless you are right."

Yet the artist did not feel the horror, which was proper to Phoebe's
sweet and order-loving character, at thus finding herself at issue with
society, and brought in contact with an event that transcended ordinary
rules. Neither was he in haste, like her, to betake himself within the
precincts of common life. On the contrary, he gathered a wild
enjoyment,--as it were, a flower of strange beauty, growing in a
desolate spot, and blossoming in the wind,--such a flower of momentary
happiness he gathered from his present position. It separated Phoebe
and himself from the world, and bound them to each other, by their
exclusive knowledge of Judge Pyncheon's mysterious death, and the
counsel which they were forced to hold respecting it. The secret, so
long as it should continue such, kept them within the circle of a
spell, a solitude in the midst of men, a remoteness as entire as that
of an island in mid-ocean; once divulged, the ocean would flow betwixt
them, standing on its widely sundered shores. Meanwhile, all the
circumstances of their situation seemed to draw them together; they
were like two children who go hand in hand, pressing closely to one
another's side, through a shadow-haunted passage. The image of awful
Death, which filled the house, held them united by his stiffened grasp.

These influences hastened the development of emotions that might not
otherwise have flowered so. Possibly, indee