w, it's neither one nor the other;
and I tell you, Archibald, I'll hear what it is. I should like to know
what you and Barbara do with a secret between you."

Mr. Carlyle knew her and her resolute expression well, and he took his
course, to tell her the truth. She was, to borrow the words Barbara had
used to her brother with regard to him, true as steel. Confide to Miss
Carlyle a secret, and she was trustworthy and impervious as he could be;
but let her come to suspect that there was a secret which was being kept
from her, and she would set to work like a ferret, and never stop until
it was unearthed.

Mr. Carlyle bent forward and spoke in a whisper. "I will tell you, if
you wish, Cornelia, but it is not a pleasant thing to hear. Richard Hare
has returned."

Miss Carlyle looked perfectly aghast. "Richard Hare! Is he mad?"

"It is not a very sane proceeding. He wants money from his mother, and
Mrs. Hare sent Barbara to ask me to manage it for her. No wonder poor
Barbara was flurried and nervous, for there's danger on all sides."

"Is he at their house?"

"How could he be there and his father in it? He is in hiding two or
three miles off, disguised as a laborer, and will be at the grove
to-night to receive this money. I have invited the justices to get
Mr. Hare safe away from his own house. If he saw Richard, he would
undoubtedly give him up to justice, and--putting graver considerations
aside--that would be pleasant for neither you nor for me. To have a
connection gibbeted for a willful murder would be an ugly blot on the
Carlyle escutcheon, Cornelia."

Miss Carlyle sat in silence revolving the news, a contraction on her
ample brow.

"And now you know all, Cornelia, and I do beg you to leave me, for I am
overwhelmed with work to-day."

CHAPTER VI.

RICHARD HARE, THE YOUNGER.

The bench of justices did not fail to keep their appointment; at seven
o'clock they arrived at Miss Carlyle's, one following closely upon
the heels of another. The reader may dissent from the expression "Miss
Carlyle's," but it is the correct one, for the house was hers, not her
brother's; though it remained his home, as it had been in his father's
time, the house was among the property bequeathed to Miss Carlyle.

Miss Carlyle chose to be present in spite of the pipes and the smoke,
and she was soon as deep in the discussion as the justices were. It was
said in the town, that she was as good a lawyer as her father had been;
she