soul, on the second it
is different. Jealousy has no longer a share in his thoughts, fear
having full possession of them. And no trifling fear of some far off
danger, depending on chances and contingencies, but one real and near,
seeming almost certain. The day's doings have gone all against him.
The behaviour of Clancy's hound has not only directed suspicion towards
him, but given evidence, almost conclusive, of his guilt; as though the
barking of the dumb brute were words of truthful testimony, spoken in a
witness-box!

The affair cannot, will not, be allowed to rest thus. The suspicions of
the searchers will take a more definite shape, ending in accusation, if
not in the actual deed of his arrest. He feels convinced of this.

Therefore, on this second night, it is no common apprehension which
keeps him awake, but one of the intensest kind, akin to stark terror.
For, added to the fear of his fellow man, there is something besides--a
fear of God; or, rather of the Devil. His soul is now disturbed by a
dread of the supernatural. He saw Charles Clancy stretched dead, under
the cypress--was sure of it, before parting from the spot. Returning to
it, what beheld he?

To him, more than any other, is the missing body a mystery. It has been
perplexing, troubling him, throughout all the afternoon, even when his
blood was up, and nerves strung with excitement. Now, at night, in the
dark, silent hours, as he dwells ponderingly upon it, it more than
perplexes, more than troubles--it awes, horrifies him.

In vain he tries to compose himself, by shaping conjectures based on
natural causes. Even these could not much benefit him; for, whether
Clancy be dead or still living--whether he has walked away from the
ground, or been carried from it a corpse--to him, Darke, the danger will
be almost equal. Not quite. Better, of course, if Clancy be dead, for
then there will be but circumstantial evidence against, and, surely, not
sufficient to convict him?

Little suspects he, that in the same hour, while he is thus distractedly
cogitating, men are weighing evidence he knows not of; or that, in
another hour, they will be on the march to make him their prisoner.

For all his ignorance of it, he has a presentiment of danger, sprung
from the consciousness of his crime. This, and no sentiment of remorse,
or repentance, wrings from him the self-interrogation, several times
repeated:--

"Why the devil did I do it?"

He regre