innocent girl who had not only been his
pecuniary benefactress for a time, but had warmed and lighted his house
with her beauty and affection.

Busy men, whose views are all external, are even more apt than others to
miss the knowledge of their own minds. This man, to whom everything was
business, had taken for granted he did not actually love Grace Hope. Why,
she was another man's child. But now he had lost her forever, he found he
had mistaken his own feelings. He looked round his gloomy horizon and
realized too late that he did love her; it was not a great and
penetrating love like William Hope's; he was incapable of such a
sentiment; but what affection he had to bestow, he had given to this
sweet creature. His house was dark without her; he was desolate and
alone, and, horrible to think of, the instrument of her assassination.
This thought drove him to frenzy, and his frenzy took two forms, furious
excitement and gloomy despair; this was now his life by night and day,
for sleep deserted him. At the mine his measures were all wise, but his
manner very wild; the very miners whispered amongst themselves that he
was going mad. At home, on the contrary, he was gloomy, with sullen
despair. He was in this latter condition the evening after the explosion,
when a visitor was announced. Thinking it was some one from the mine, he
said, faintly, "Admit him," and then his despondent head dropped on his
breast; indeed, he was in a sort of lethargy, worn out with his labors,
his remorse and his sleeplessness.

In that condition his ear was suddenly jarred by a hard, metallic voice,
whose tone was somehow opposed to all the voices with which goodness and
humanity have ever spoken.

"Well, governor, here's a slice of luck."

Bartley shivered. "Is that the devil speaking to me?" he muttered,
without looking up.

"No," said Monckton, jauntily, "only one of his servants, and your
best friend."

"My friend," said Bartley, turning his chair and looking at him with a
sort of dull wonder.

"Ay," said Monckton, "your friend; the man that found you brains and
resolution, and took you out of the hole, and put Hope and his
daughter in it instead; no, not his daughter, she did that for us, she
was so clever."

"Yes," said Bartley, wildly, "it was you who made me an assassin.
But for you, I should only have been a knave; now I am a
murderer--thanks to you."

"Come, governor," said Monckton, "no use looking at one side of the
pictur