made no sign. Going to my own room, I waited until I heard Arthur come
out of the stable and go away by the door in the rear wall. Then I stole
out again. I carried a small bag with me, but no coat or hat.

"Pausing and listening again and again, I crept downstairs and halted at
the table under the rack. The keys were still there. Putting them in my
bag, I searched the rack for one of my brother's warm coats. But I took
none I saw. I remembered an old one which Adelaide had put away in the
closet under the stairs. Getting this, I put it on, and, finding a hat
there too, I took that also; and when I had pulled it over my forehead
and drawn up the collar of the coat, I was quite unrecognisable. I was
going out, when I remembered there would be no light in the club-house. I
had put a box of matches in my bag while I was upstairs, but I needed a
candle. Slipping back, I took a candlestick and candle from the
dining-room mantel, and finding that the bag would not hold them, thrust
them into the pocket of the coat I wore, and quickly left the house.
Jenny was in the stable, all harnessed; and hesitating no longer, I got
in among the bear-skins and drove swiftly away."

There was a moment's silence. Carmel had paused, and was sitting with her
hand on her heart, looking past judge, past jury, upon the lonely and
desolate scene in which she at this moment moved and suffered. An
inexpressible fatality had entered into her tones, always rich and
resonant with feeling. No one who listened could fail to share the dread
by which she was moved.

District Attorney Fox fumbled with his papers, and endeavoured to
maintain his equanimity and show an indifference which his stern but
fascinated glances at the youthful witness amply belied. He was biding
his time, but biding it in decided perturbation of mind. Neither he nor
any one else, unless it were Moffat, could tell whither this tale tended.
While she held the straight course which had probably been laid out for
her, he failed to object; but he could not prevent the subtle influence
of her voice, her manner, and her supreme beauty on the entranced jury.
Nevertheless, his pencil was busy; he was still sufficiently master of
himself for that.

Mr. Moffat, quite aware of the effect which was being produced on every
side, but equally careful to make no show of it, put in a commonplace
question at this point, possibly to rouse the witness from her own
abstraction, possibly to restore the