ong arms could bear them. The
night was still and calm, though dark, and the water without a ripple.

For some time after they left the shore scarcely a word was spoken
amongst them. At last Holmes whispered something in his daughter's ear,
and she rejoined aloud,--

"Yes, it is time to tell me now; for, though I have submitted myself to
your judgment in this hasty flight, I am not quite sure the peril was as
imminent as you believed it What did you mean by talking of an arrest?
Who could arrest us? And for what?"

"You shall hear," said Trover; "and perhaps, when you have heard, you
'll agree that I was not exaggerating our danger."

Not wishing to impose on our reader the minute details into which he
entered, and the narrative of which lasted almost till they reached the
middle of the lake, we shall give in a few words the substance of his
story. While dressing for dinner at the inn, he saw a carriage with four
posters arrive, and, in a very few minutes after, heard a loud voice
inquiring for Mr. Harvey Winthrop. Suddenly struck by the strangeness
of such a demand, he hastened to gain a small room adjoining Winthrop's,
and from which a door communicated, by standing close to which he could
overhear all that passed.

He had but reached the room and locked the door, when he heard the
sounds of a hearty welcome and recognition exchanged within. The
stranger spoke with an American accent, and very soon placed the
question of his nationality beyond a doubt.

"You would not believe," said he, "that I have been in pursuit of you
for a matter of more than three thousand miles. I went down to Norfolk
and to St Louis, and was in full chase into the Far West, when I found I
was on the wrong tack; so I 'wore ship' and came over to Europe." After
satisfying, in some degree, the astonishment this declaration excited,
he went on to tell how he, through a chance acquaintance at first, and
afterwards a close friendship with the Laytons, came to the knowledge of
the story of the Jersey murder, and the bequest of the dying man on
his daughter's behalf, his interest being all the more strongly engaged
because every one of the localities was familiar to him, and his own
brother a tenant on the very land. All the arts he had deployed to trace
out the girl's claim, and all the efforts, with the aid of the Laytons,
he had made to find out Winthrop himself, he patiently recounted,
mentioning his accidental companionship with Trover, and