d a swinging handkerchief of lace, redolent of musk. It
was well for Miss Corny's peace of mind ever after that she remained
in ignorance of that daring act. There stood Afy, bold as a sunflower,
exhibiting herself and her splendor to the admiring eyes of the mob
below, gentle and simple.

"He is a handsome man, after all," quoth she to Miss Carlyle's maids,
when Sir Francis Levison arrived opposite the house.

"But such a horrid creature!" was the response. "And to think that he
should come here to oppose Mr. Archibald!"

"What's that?" cried Afy. "What are they stopping for? There are two
policemen there! Oh!" shrieked Afy, "if they haven't put handcuffs on
him! Whatever has he done? What can he have been up to?"

"Where? Who? What?" cried the servants, bewildered with the crowd. "Put
handcuffs on which?"

"Sir Francis Levison. Hush! What is that they say?"

Listening, looking, turning from white to red, from red to white, Afy
stood. But she could make nothing of it; she could not divine the cause
of the commotion. The man's answer to Miss Carlyle and Lady Dobede,
clear though it was, did not quite reach her ears.

"What did he say?" she cried.

"Good Heavens!" cried one of the maids, whose hearing had been quicker
than Afy's. "He says they are arrested for the wilful murder of Hal---of
your father, Miss Afy! Sir Francis Levison and Otway Bethel."

"_What!_" shrieked Afy, her eyes starting.

"Levison was the man who did it, he says," continued the servant,
bending her ear to listen. "And young Richard Hare, he says, has been
innocent all along."

Afy slowly gathered in the sense of the words. She gasped twice, as if
her breath had gone, and then, with a stagger and a shiver, fell heavily
to the ground.

Afy Hallijohn, recovered from her fainting fit, had to be smuggled out
of Miss Carlyle's, as she had been smuggled in. She was of an elastic
nature, and the shock, or the surprise, or the heat, whatever it may
have been, being over, Afy was herself again.

Not very far removed from the residence of Miss Carlyle was a shop in
the cheese and ham and butter and bacon line. A very respectable
shop, too, and kept by a very respectable man--a young man of mild
countenance, who had purchased the good-will of the business through
an advertisement, and come down from London to take possession. His
predecessor had amassed enough to retire, and people foretold that Mr.
Jiffin would do the same. To say that Miss Ca