imation that he desired to be left alone.

Mr. Byrd could not resist this appeal. Glad as he would have been for
even a moment's conversation with this man, he was, perhaps
unfortunately, too much of a gentleman to press himself forward against
the expressed wishes even of a suspected criminal. He accordingly
withdrew to the door, and was about to open it and go out, when it was
flung violently forward, and the ever-obtrusive Brown stepped in.

This second intrusion was more than unhappy Mr. Mansell could stand.
Striding passionately forward, he met the unblushing Brown at full tilt,
and angrily pointing to the door, asked if it was not the custom of
gentlemen to knock before entering the room of strangers.

"I beg pardon," said the other, backing across the threshold, with a
profuse display of confusion. "I had no idea of its being a stranger's
room. I thought it was my own. I--I was sure that my door was the third
from the stairs. Excuse me, excuse me." And he bustled noisily out.

This precise reproduction of his own train of thought and action
confounded Mr. Byrd.

Turning with a deprecatory glance to the perplexed and angry occupant of
the room, he said something about not knowing the person who had just
left them; and then, conscious that a further contemplation of the stern
and suffering countenance before him would unnerve him for the duty he
had to perform, hurriedly withdrew.

XIV.

A LAST ATTEMPT.

When Fortune means to men most good,
She looks upon them with a threatening eye.--KING JOHN.

THE sleep of Horace Byrd that night was any thing but refreshing. In the
first place, he was troubled about this fellow Brown, whose last
impertinence showed he was a man to be watched, and, if possible,
understood. Secondly, he was haunted by a vision of the unhappy youth he
had just left; seeing, again and again, both in his dreams and in the
rush of heated fancies which followed his awaking, that picture of utter
despair which the opening of his neighbor's door had revealed. He could
not think of that poor mortal as sleeping. Whether it was the result of
his own sympathetic admiration for Miss Dare, or of some subtle
clairvoyance bestowed upon him by the darkness and stillness of the
hour, he felt assured that the quiet watch he had interrupted by his
careless importunity, had been again established, and that if he could
tear down the partition separating their two rooms, he should