to leave
this house which is my only refuge."

Miss Althorpe, too greatly prejudiced in favor of this girl to hear this
appeal unmoved, notwithstanding the show of guilt with which she had met
my attack, smiled faintly as she answered:

"Nothing short of the best reasons would make me part from you now. If
there are such reasons, you will spare me the pain of making use of
them. I think I can so far trust you, Miss Oliver."

No answer; the young girl looked as if she could not speak.

"Are there any reasons why I should not retain you in my house, Miss
Oliver?" the gentle mistress of many millions went on. "If there are,
you will not wish to stay, I know, when you consider how near my
marriage day is, and how undisturbed my mind should be by any cares
unattending my wedding."

And still the girl was silent, though her lips moved slightly as if she
would have spoken if she could.

"But perhaps you are only unfortunate," suggested Miss Althorpe, with an
almost angelic look of pity--I don't often see angels in women. "If that
is so, God forbid that you should leave my protection or my house. What
do you say, Miss Oliver?"

"That you are God's messenger to me," burst from the other, as if her
tongue had been suddenly loosed. "That misfortune, and not wickedness,
has driven me to your doors; and that there is no reason why I should
leave you unless my secret sufferings make my presence unwelcome to
you."

Was this the talk of a frivolous woman caught unawares in the meshes of
a fearful crime? If so, she was a more accomplished actress than we had
been led to expect even from her own words to her disgusted husband.

"You look like one accustomed to tell the truth," proceeded Miss
Althorpe. "Do you not think you have made some mistake, Miss
Butterworth?" she asked, approaching me with an ingenuous smile.

I had forgotten to caution her not to make use of my name, and when it
fell from her lips I looked to see her unhappy companion recoil from me
with a scream.

But strange to say she evinced no emotion, and seeing this, I became
more distrustful of her than ever; for, for her to hear without apparent
interest the name of the chief witness in the inquest which had been
held over the remains of the woman with whose death she had been more or
less intimately concerned, argued powers of duplicity such as are only
associated with guilt or an extreme simplicity of character. And she was
not simple, as the least glance