boy so
dear to her, so soon forgotten by the wife of his bosom.

Not many days after, Katherine and her mother set forth upon their
travels, leaving nothing they regretted save the two little boys,
respecting whose fate Katherine felt anything but satisfied. Of this she
said nothing to her mother. And so, with temporary forgetfulness of the
deed which was destined to color her whole life, she saw the curtain
fall on the first act of her story.

CHAPTER XI.

"A NEW PHASE."

"An interval of three weeks--six months--ten years," as the case may
be--"is supposed to have elapsed since the last act." This is a very
commonly used expression in play-bills, and there seems no just cause or
impediment why a story-teller should not avail himself of the same
device to waft the patient reader over an uneventful period, during
which the hero or heroine has been granted a "breathing space" between
the ebb and flow of harrowing adventures and moving incidents.

It was, then, more than two years since the last chapter, and a still
cold day at the end of February--still and somewhat damp--in one of the
midland shires--say Clayshire. The dank hedges and sodden fields had a
melancholy aspect, which seemed to affect a couple of horsemen who were
walking their jaded, much-splashed horses along a narrow road, or
rather lane, which led between a stretch of pasture-land on one side and
a ploughed field on the other. The red coats and top-boots of both were
liberally besprinkled with mud; even their hats had not quite escaped.
Their steeds hung their heads and moved languidly; both horses and
riders had evidently had a hard day's work. Presently the road sloped
somewhat steeply to a hollow sheltered at one side by a steep bank
overgrown with brushwood and large trees. The country behind the
huntsmen was rather flat and very open, but from this point it became
broken and wooded, sloping gradually up toward a distant range of low
blue hills.

"Ha, you blundering idiot!" exclaimed the elder of the two men, pulling
up his horse, a powerful roan, as he stumbled at the beginning of the
descent. He was a big, heavy man with a red face, thick gray mustache,
and small, angry-looking eyes. "He'll break my neck some day."

"Don't take away his character," returned his companion, laughing.
"Remember he has had a hard run, and you are not a feather-weight." The
speaker was tall (judging from the length of the well-shaped leg which
lay close