owered the blind over the window. In solitude and
obscurity, the miserable wretch sat down in a corner, and covered his
face with his hands, and tried to realize what had happened to him.

Nothing had been said at the fatal interview with Emily, which could
have given him the slightest warning of what was to come. Her father's
name--absolutely unknown to him when he fled from the inn--had only been
communicated to the public by the newspaper reports of the adjourned
inquest. At the time when those reports appeared, he was in hiding,
under circumstances which prevented him from seeing a newspaper. While
the murder was still a subject of conversation, he was in France--far
out of the track of English travelers--and he remained on the continent
until the summer of eighteen hundred and eighty-one. No exercise of
discretion, on his part, could have extricated him from the terrible
position in which he was now placed. He stood pledged to Emily to
discover the man suspected of the murder of her father; and that man
was--himself!

What refuge was left open to him?

If he took to flight, his sudden disappearance would be a suspicious
circumstance in itself, and would therefore provoke inquiries which
might lead to serious results. Supposing that he overlooked the risk
thus presented, would he be capable of enduring a separation from
Emily, which might be a separation for life? Even in the first horror
of discovering his situation, her influence remained unshaken--the
animating spirit of the one manly capacity for resistance which raised
him above the reach of his own fears. The only prospect before him which
he felt himself to be incapable of contemplating, was the prospect of
leaving Emily.

Having arrived at this conclusion, his fears urged him to think of
providing for his own safety.

The first precaution to adopt was to separate Emily from friends whose
advice might be hostile to his interests--perhaps even subversive of his
security. To effect this design, he had need of an ally whom he could
trust. That ally was at his disposal, far away in the north.

At the time when Francine's jealousy began to interfere with all
freedom of intercourse between Emily and himself at Monksmoor, he had
contemplated making arrangements which might enable them to meet at the
house of his invalid sister, Mrs. Delvin. He had spoken of her, and of
the bodily affliction which confined her to her room, in terms which
had already interested