ood himself have done the murder, and did he
purposely let father find the body? It seemed a'most wicked and cruel
to so much as think such a thing; but now that he tries to throw it upon
father, I go back to it as if it was a truth. Can it be a truth? That
was put into my mind by the dead?'

She asked this question, rather of the fire than of the hostess of the
Fellowship Porters, and looked round the little bar with troubled eyes.

But, Miss Potterson, as a ready schoolmistress accustomed to bring her
pupils to book, set the matter in a light that was essentially of this
world.

'You poor deluded girl,' she said, 'don't you see that you can't open
your mind to particular suspicions of one of the two, without opening
your mind to general suspicions of the other? They had worked together.
Their goings-on had been going on for some time. Even granting that it
was as you have had in your thoughts, what the two had done together
would come familiar to the mind of one.'

'You don't know father, Miss, when you talk like that. Indeed, indeed,
you don't know father.'

'Lizzie, Lizzie,' said Miss Potterson. 'Leave him. You needn't break
with him altogether, but leave him. Do well away from him; not because
of what I have told you to-night--we'll pass no judgment upon that,
and we'll hope it may not be--but because of what I have urged on you
before. No matter whether it's owing to your good looks or not, I like
you and I want to serve you. Lizzie, come under my direction. Don't
fling yourself away, my girl, but be persuaded into being respectable
and happy.'

In the sound good feeling and good sense of her entreaty, Miss Abbey
had softened into a soothing tone, and had even drawn her arm round the
girl's waist. But, she only replied, 'Thank you, thank you! I can't. I
won't. I must not think of it. The harder father is borne upon, the more
he needs me to lean on.'

And then Miss Abbey, who, like all hard people when they do soften,
felt that there was considerable compensation owing to her, underwent
reaction and became frigid.

'I have done what I can,' she said, 'and you must go your way. You make
your bed, and you must lie on it. But tell your father one thing: he
must not come here any more.

'Oh, Miss, will you forbid him the house where I know he's safe?'

'The Fellowships,' returned Miss Abbey, 'has itself to look to, as well
as others. It has been hard work to establish order here, and make the
Fellowships w