mmit the crime.

In the popular phrase, I could "hardly believe my own eyes." I read the
last sentences of the confession for the second time:

"...I heard their voices at the limekiln. They were having words about
Cousin Naomi. I ran to the place to part them. I was not in time. I saw
Ambrose strike the deceased a terrible blow on the head with his
(Ambrose's) heavy stick. The deceased dropped without a cry. I put my
hand on his heart. He was dead. I was horribly frightened. Ambrose
threatened to kill _me_ next if I said a word to any living soul. He
took up the body and cast it into the quicklime, and threw the stick in
after it. We went on together to the wood. We sat down on a felled tree
outside the wood. Ambrose made up the story that we were to tell if
what he had done was found out. He made me repeat it after him, like a
lesson. We were still at it when Cousin Naomi and Mr. Lefrank came up
to us. They know the rest. This, on my oath, is a true confession. I
make it of my own free-will, repenting me sincerely that I did not make
it before."

(Signed)

"SILAS MEADOWCROFT."

I laid down the paper, and looked at Naomi once more. She spoke to me
with a strange composure. Immovable determination was in her eye;
immovable determination was in her voice.

"Silas has lied away his brother's life to save himself," she said. "I
see cowardly falsehood and cowardly cruelty in every line on that
paper. Ambrose is innocent, and the time has come to prove it."

"You forget," I said, "that we have just failed to prove it."

"John Jago is alive, in hiding from us and from all who know him," she
went on. "Help me, friend Lefrank, to advertise for him in the
newspapers."

I drew back from her in speechless distress. I own I believed that the
new misery which had fallen on her had affected her brain.

"You don't believe it," she said. "Shut the door."

I obeyed her. She seated herself, and pointed to a chair near her.

"Sit down," she proceeded. "I am going to do a wrong thing; but there
is no help for it. I am going to break a sacred promise. You remember
that moonlight night when I met him on the garden walk?"

"John Jago?"

"Yes. Now listen. I am going to tell you what passed between John Jago
and me."

CHAPTER IX. THE ADVERTISEMENT.

I WAITED in silence for the disclosure that was now to come. Naomi
began by asking me a question.

"You remember when we went to see Ambrose in the prison?" she said.

"P