next meeting may be a different
one."

The next sentences on both sides I lost. Edmund seems to have refused to
shake hands with Mr. Manners. The last words I heard were George's
half-laughing--

"Next time, Lascelles, I shall not ask for your hand--I shall take it."

Then the door shut, and Edmund went into his study. An hour later he
also went out, and I was left alone once more. I went back into the
drawing-room; the rose-leaves were fading on the floor; and on the table
lay George Manners' penknife. It was a new one, that he had been showing
to me, and had left behind him. I kissed it and put it in my pocket:
then I knelt down by the chair, Nell, and wept till I prayed; and then
prayed till I wept again; and then I got up and tidied the room, and got
some sewing; and, like other women, sat down with my trouble, waiting
for the storm to break.

It broke at eleven o'clock that night, when two men carried the dead
body of my brother into his own kitchen--foully murdered.

But when I knelt by the poor body, lying awfully still upon the table;
when I kissed the face, which in death had curiously regained the
appearance of reason as well as beauty; when I saw and knew that life
had certainly gone till the Resurrection:--that was not all. The storm
had not fully broken till I turned and saw, standing by the fire, George
Manners, with his hands and coat dabbled with blood. I did not speak or
scream; but a black horror seemed to settle down like mist upon me.
Through it came Mr. Manners' voice (I had not looked again at him)--

"Miss Dorothy Lascelles, why do you not ask who did it?"

I gave a sharp cry, and one of the labourers who had helped to bring
Edmund in said gravely--

"Eh, Master! the less you say the better. God forgive you this
night's work!"

George's hoarse voice spoke again.

"Do you hear him?" and then it faltered a little--"Dorolice, do you
think this?"

It was his pet name for me (he was an Italian scholar), and touched me
inexpressibly, and a conviction seized upon me that if he had done it,
he would not have dared to appeal to my affection. I tried to clear my
mind that I might see the truth, and then I looked up at him. Our eyes
met, and we looked at each other for a full minute, and I was content.
Oh! there are times when the instinctive trust of one's heart is, so far
more powerful than any proofs or reasons, that faith seems a higher
knowledge. I would have pledged ten thousand lives, if