poor brother. "If they should get hold of him, and
murder him!" she said to herself. The thought was very dreadful, but
she comforted herself with reflecting that he might be sent out of
the country, before the knowledge of what he had done should get
abroad. And then by means of that current of thought, which always
runs where it listeth, independent of the will of the thinker, her
ideas flew off to Captain Yorke Clayton. In her imagination she had
put down Captain Clayton as a possible lover for her sister. She
possessed a girlish intuition into her sister's mind which made her
feel that her sister would not dislike such an arrangement. Ada was
the beauty of the family, and was supposed, at any rate by Edith, to
be the most susceptible of the two sisters. She had always called
herself a violent old maid, who was determined to have her own way.
But no one had ever heard Ada speak of herself as an old maid. And
then as to that danger of which Ada had spoken, Edith knew that such
perils must be overlooked altogether among the incidents of life. If
it came to her would she refuse her hand to a man because his courage
led him into special perils? She knew that it would only be an
additional ground for her love. And of Ada, in that respect, she
judged as she did of herself. She knew that Ada thought much of manly
beauty, and her eyes told her that Captain Yorke Clayton was very
handsome. "If he were as black as Beelzebub," she said to herself, "I
should like him the better for it; but Ada would prefer a man to be
beautiful." She went to work to make a match in her own mind between
Ada and Captain Clayton; but the more she made it, the more she
continued to think--on her own behalf--that of all men she had
ever seen, this man had pleased her fancy most. "But Captain Yorke
Clayton, you were never more mistaken in all your life if you think
that Edith Jones has taken a fancy to your handsome physiognomy."
This she said in almost audible words. "But nevertheless, I do think
that you are a hero. For myself, I don't want a hero--and if I did, I
shouldn't get one." But the arrangements made in the house that night
were those which are customary for a favoured young man's reception
when such matters are left to the favouring young lady in the family.

When Mr. Jones found himself alone in his study, he began to think of
the confession which Florian had made. It had gradually come to pass
that he had been sure of the truth for some