ould she have
sworn she was alone, if Thorn was with her?"

The fact has entirely escaped Mr. Carlyle's memory in his conversation
with Afy, or he would not have failed to point out the discrepancy, and
to inquire how she could reconcile it. Yet her assertion to him had been
most positive and solemn. There were difficulties in the matter which he
could not reconcile.

"Now that I have got over my passion for Afy, I can see her faults, Mr.
Carlyle. She'd no more tell an untruth than I should stick--"

A most awful thundering at the room door--loud enough to bring the very
house down. No officers of justice, searching for a fugitive, ever made
a louder. Richard Hare, his face turned to chalk, his eyes starting,
and his own light hair bristling up with horror, struggled into his wet
smock-frock after a fashion, the tails up about his ears and the sleeves
hanging, forced on his hat and his false whiskers, looked round in a
bewildered manner for some cupboard or mouse-hole into which he might
creep, and, seeing none, rushed to the fireplace and placed his foot on
the fender. That he purposed an attempt at chimney-climbing was evident,
though how the fire would have agreed with his pantaloons, not to speak
of what they contained, poor Dick appeared completely to ignore.
Mr. Carlyle drew him back, keeping his calm, powerful hand upon his
shoulder, while certain sounds in an angry voice were jerked through the
keyhole.

"Richard, be a man, put aside this weakness, this fear. Have I not told
you that harm shall not come near you in my house?"

"It may be that officer from London; he may have brought half a dozen
more with him!" gasped the unhappy Richard. "I said they might have
dodged me all the way here."

"Nonsense. Sit you down, and be at rest, it is only Cornelia; and she
will be as anxious to shield you from danger as I can be."

"Is it?" cried the relieved Richard. "Can't you make her keep out?" he
continued, his teeth still chattering.

"No, that I can't, if she has a mind to come in," was the candid answer.
"You remember what she was, Richard; she is not altered."

Knowing that to speak on this side the door to his sister, when she was
in one of her resolute moods, would be of no use, Mr. Carlyle opened the
door, dexterously swung himself through it, and shut it after him. There
she stood; in a towering passion, too.

It had struck Miss Carlyle, while undressing, that certain sounds, as of
talking, proceeded