uccessful. Yet it was not that the police were remiss, or
the country people inclined to shield the murderer. The best of them
would have sold his own father to the guillotine for half the reward
offered by Livingstone, for he lavished as much gold in trying to clear
up that crime as in old days the Cenci or Colonna did to smother theirs.
At length we were forced to give it up, and returned home in the
_Petrel_. I own I despaired of ever being more successful; but my
companion evidently had not done so, for I heard him, more than once,
mutter to himself, in the same low, determined tone, "If he is on
earth, I'll find him."

Immediately on our arrival, Guy went up to Bruce's home in Scotland. He
only learned that the latter had not been there for a long time; but
that some months back, Allan Macbane, a sort of steward and old
dependent of the family, had left suddenly, summoned, it was supposed,
by his master. More the people could not or would not tell.

At his banker's it was discovered that, immediately after the
Forresters' marriage, he had drawn out a very large sum--not in letters
of credit, but in bank-notes--and had not been heard of since. After
much trouble, we did find out that one of the large notes had been
changed at Florence about the time of the murder, but the description of
the person did not answer in the least to that of Bruce or the man who
was supposed to be his attendant. All trace stopped there. So the months
rolled away. I constantly saw Guy, and sometimes was with him both in
town and at Kerton, where Isabel was staying with Lady Catharine. He
still appeared to have no doubt of the ultimate result of the search,
which, personally or by deputy, he never intermitted for a day.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

"He threw
His wrathful hand aloft, and cried 'Away!
Earth could not hold us both, nor can one heaven
Contain my deadliest enemy and me.'"

We were sitting in Livingstone's chambers one night in the following
March, and dinner was just over, when the detective was announced who
for months had been in Guy's pay and on Bruce's track.

He was a stout, hale man, rather past middle age, with a rosy face, a
cheerful, moist eye, and full, sensual lips--just the proper person to
return thanks for "The Successful Candidates" at an agricultural
meeting. Originally of a kindly convivial nature, he had grown familiar
with crime till he despised it. The reward