"William, I have had my death-blow! I have had my death-blow!"

The speaker was Henry Ashley. Four days had elapsed since the trial of Herbert Dare, and William Halliburton saw him now for the first time after that event. What with mind and body, Henry was in a grievous state of pain: all William's compassion was called forth, as he leaned over his couch.

It has been hinted that Helstonleigh, in its charity, took up the very worst view of the case that could be taken up, with regard to Anna Lynn. Had she gone about with a blazing torch and set all the houses on fire, their inhabitants could not have mounted themselves on higher stilts. Somehow, everybody took it up. It was like those apparently well-authenticated political reports that arrive now and then by telegram, driving the Stock Exchange, or the Paris Bourse, into a state of mad credulity. No one thought to doubt it; people caught up the notion from one another as they catch a fever. If even Samuel Lynn had looked upon it in the worst light, bringing to him paralysis, little chance was there that others might gaze through a brighter glass. It had half killed Henry Ashley: and the words were not, in point of fact, so wild as they sounded. "I have had my death-blow! I have had my death-blow!"

"No, you have not," was William's answer. "It is a blow—I know it—but not one that you cannot outlive."

"Why did you not come to me? Four whole days, and you have never been near the house!"

"Because I feared that you would be throwing yourself into the state of agitation that you are now doing," replied William, candidly. "Mr. Ashley said to me on the Wednesday, 'Henry has one of his bad attacks again.' I knew it to be more of mind than body this time, and I thought it well that you should be left in quiet. There's no one you can talk about it to, except me."

"Your staying away has not served your purpose, then. My father came to me with the details, thinking to divert me for a moment from my physical pain; never supposing that each word was a dagger plunged into my very being. My mother came, with this scrap of news, or the other scrap. Mary came, wondering and eager, asking information at second-hand: mamma was mysterious over it, and would not tell her. Mary cannot credit ill of Anna: she has as great a trust in her still as I had. As I had! Oh, William! she was my object in life. She was all my future—my world—my heaven!"

"Now you know you will suffer for this excitement," cried William, almost as he would have said it to a wayward child.

He might as well have talked to the wind. Henry neither heard nor heeded him. He continued, his manner as full of agitation as his mind.

"I am not as other men. You can go forth, all of you, into the world, to your pleasures, your amusements. I am confined here. But what mattered it? Did I envy you? No. While I had her to think of, I was happier than you."

"Had this not happened, you might have been crossed in some other way, and so it would have come to the same thing."

"And now it is over," reiterated Henry, paying no attention to the remark. "It is over, and gone; and I—I wish, William, I had gone with it."

"I wish you would be reasonable."

"Don't preach. You active men, with your innumerable objects and interests in life, cannot know what it is for one like me, shut out from the world, to love. I tell you, William, it was literally my life; the core of my life; my all. I am not sure but that I have been mad ever since."

"I am not sure but that you are mad now," returned William, believing that to humour him might be the worst plan he could adopt.

"I dare say I am," was the unsatisfactory answer. "Four days, and I have had to bury it all within me! I could not wail it out to my own pillow at night; for they concluded it was one of my bad attacks, and old nurse was posted in the bed in the next room with the door open. There's no one I can rave to but you, and you must let me do it, unless you would have me go quite mad, I hope I shan't be here long to be a trouble to any of you."

William did not know what to say. He believed there was nothing for it at present but to let him "rave himself out." "But I wish," he said, aloud, continuing the bent of his own thoughts, "that you would be a little rational over it."

"Stop a bit. Did you ever experience a blow such as this?"

"No indeed."

"Then don't hold forth to me, I say. You do not understand. It was all the joy I had on earth."

"You must learn to find other joys, other——"

"The despicable villain!" broke forth Henry, the heat-drops welling to his brow, as they had welled to Anna's when before the judge. "The shame-faced, cowardly villain! Was she not Samuel Lynn's child, and my sister's friend? What possessed the jury to acquit him? Did they think a rope's-end too good for his neck?"

"He was proved innocent of the murder. If he has any conscience——"

"What?" fiercely interrupted Henry Ashley. "He a conscience! I don't know what you are dreaming of. Is he going to stop in Helstonleigh?"

"I conclude so. He resumed his place quietly in his father's office the day after the trial. He is in London now, but only temporarily."

"Resumed his place quietly! What was the mob about, then?"

The question was put so quaintly, in such confiding simplicity, that a smile rose to William's face. "In awe of the police, I expect," he answered. "The Dares, while his fate was uncertain, have been rusticating. Cyril told me to-day, that now that the accusation was proved to have been false, they were 'coming out' again."

"Coming out in what? Villainy?"

"He left the 'what' to be inferred. In grandeur, I expect. The established innocence of Herbert——"

"If you apply that word to the man, William Halliburton, you are as black as he is."

William remembered Henry's tribulation both of mind and body, and went on without the shadow of a retort.

"I apply it to him in relation to the crime of which he was charged. His acquittal and release have caused the Dares to hold up their heads again. But they have lost caste in Helstonleigh."

"Caste!" was the scornful ejaculation of Henry Ashley. "They never had any caste to lose. Does the master intend to retain Cyril in the manufactory?"

"I have heard nothing to the contrary. If he retained him whilst the accusation was hanging over Herbert Dare's head, he will not be likely to discard him now it is removed."

"Removed!" shrieked Henry. "If one accusation has been removed, has not a worse taken its place?"

"Would it be just to visit on one brother the sins of another?"

"A nice pair of brothers they are!" cried Henry in the sharp, petulant manner habitual to him, when racked with pain. "How will Samuel Lynn like the company of Cyril Dare by his side in the manufactory, when he gets well again?"

William shook his head. These considerations were not for him. They were Mr. Ashley's.

"You heard her give her evidence?" resumed Henry, breaking a pause.

"Most of it."

"Tell it me."

"No, Henry; it would not do you good to hear it."

"Tell it me, I say," persisted Henry wilfully. "I know it in substance. I want to have it repeated over to me, word for word."

"But——"

Henry suddenly raised his hand and laid it on William's lips, with a warning movement. He turned and saw Mary Ashley.

"Take her back to the drawing-room, William," he whispered. "I can bear no one but you about me now. Not yet, Mary," he added aloud, motioning his sister away with his hand. "Not now."

Mary halted in indecision. William advanced, placed her hand within his arm, and led her, somewhat summarily, from the room.

"I am only obeying orders, Miss Ashley," said he. "They are to see you back to the drawing-room."

"If Henry can bear you with him, he might bear me."

"You know what his whims and fancies are, when he is suffering."

"Is there not a particularly good understanding between you and Henry?" she pointedly asked.

"Yes; we understand each other perfectly."

"Well, then, tell me—what is it that is the matter with him this time? I do not like to say so to mamma, because she might call me fanciful, but it appears to me that Henry's illness is more on the mind than on the body."

William made no reply.

"And yet, I cannot imagine it possible for Henry to have picked up any annoyance or grief," resumed Mary. "How can he have done so? He is not like one who goes out into the world—who has to meet with cares and cheeks. You do not speak," she added, looking at William. "Is it that you will not tell me? or do you know nothing?"

William lowered his voice. "I can only say that, should there be anything of the sort you mention, the kinder course for Henry—indeed the only course—will be, not to allow him to perceive that you suspect it. Conceal the suspicion both from him and from others. Remember his excessive sensitiveness. When he sees cause to hide his feelings, it would be almost death to him to have them scrutinized."

"I think you must be in his full confidence," observed Mary, looking at William.

"Pretty well so," he answered, with a passing smile.

"Then, if he has any secret grief, will you try and soothe it to him?"

"With all my best endeavours," earnestly spoke William. But there was not the least apparent necessity for his taking Mary Ashley's hand between his own, and pressing it there while he said it, any more than there was necessity for that vivid blush of hers, as she turned into the drawing-room.

But you must be anxious to hear of Anna Lynn. Poor Anna! who had fallen so terribly into the black books of the town, without really very much deserving it. It was a most unlucky contretemps, having been locked out; it was a still more unfortunate sequel, having to confess to it at the trial. She was not a pattern of goodness, it must be confessed: had not yet attained to that perfect model, which expects, as of a right, a niche in the saintly calendar. She was reprehensibly vain; she delighted in plaguing Patience; and she took to running out into the field, when it had been far better that she had remained at home. That running out entailed deceit and some stories: but it entailed nothing worse, and Helstonleigh need not have been so very severe in its judgment.

Never had there been a more forcible illustration of the old saying, "Give a dog a bad name, and hang him," than in this instance. When William Halliburton had told Anna that Herbert Dare was not a good man, and did not bear a good name, he had told her the strict truth. For that very reason a secret intimacy with him was undesirable, however innocent it might be, however innocent it was, in itself: and for that very reason did Helstonleigh look at it through clouded spectacles. Had she been locked out all night, instead of half a one, with some one in better odour, Helstonleigh had not set up its scornful crest. It is quite impossible to tell you what Herbert Dare had done, to have such a burden on his back as people seemed inclined to lay there. Perhaps they did not know themselves. Some accused him of one thing, some of another; ill reports never lose by carrying: the two cats on the tiles, you know, were magnified into a hundred. No one is as black as he is painted—there's a saying to that effect—neither, I dare say, was Herbert Dare. At any rate—and that is what we have to do with—he was not so in this particular instance. He was as vexed at the locking out as any one else could have been; and he did the best (save one thing) that he could for Anna, under the circumstances, and got her in again. The only proper thing to have done, was to knock up Hester. He had wished to do it, but had yielded to Anna's entreaties, that were born of fear.

Not a soul seemed to cast so much as a good word or a charitable thought to him in the matter. Did he deserve none? However thoughtless or reprehensible his conduct was, in drawing Anna into those field excursions, when the explosion came, he met it as a gentleman. Many a one, more renowned for the cardinal graces than was Herbert Dare, might have spoken out at once, and cleared himself at the expense of making known Anna's unlucky escapade. Not so he. A doubt may have been upon him that were it betrayed Helstonleigh might cast a taint on her fair name: and he strove to save it. He suffered the brand of a murderer to be attached to him—he languished for many weeks in prison as a criminal—all to save it. He all but went to the scaffold to save it. He might have called Anna and Hester Dell forward at the inquest, at the preliminary examination before the magistrates, and thus have cleared himself; but he would not do so. Whilst there was a chance of his innocence being brought to light in any other manner, he would not call on Anna. He allowed the odium to settle upon his own head. He went to prison, hoping that he should be cleared in some other way. There was a generous, chivalric feeling in this, which Helstonleigh could not understand when emanating from Herbert Dare, and they declined to give him credit for it. They preferred to look at the affair altogether in a different light, and to lavish hard names upon it. Every soul was alike: there was no exception: Samuel Lynn, and all else in Helstonleigh. They caught the epidemic, I say, one from another.