e accusation.'

'I ought not,' said Leonard, reddening. 'Every one knows what my
temper can do. I do not think that a poor old feeble man like that
could have provoked me to be so cowardly, but I see it is no wonder
they think so. Only they might suppose I would not have been a robber,
and go on lying now, when they take good care to tell me that it is
ruinous!'

'It is an intolerable shame that they can look you in the face and
imagine it for a moment,' said the Doctor, with all his native warmth.

'After all,' said Leonard, recalled by his sympathy, 'it is my own
fault from beginning to end that I am in this case. I see now that it
was only God's mercy that prevented my brother's blood being on me, and
it was my unrepenting obstinacy that brought me to the mill; so there
will be no real injustice in my dying, and I expect nothing else.'

'Hush, Leonard, depend upon it, while there is Justice in Heaven, the
true criminal cannot go free,' cried the Doctor, much agitated.

Leonard shook his head.

'Boyish hastiness is not murder,' added the Doctor.

'So I thought. But it might have been, and I never repented. I
brought all this on myself; and while I cannot feel guiltless in God's
sight, I cannot expect it to turn out well.'

'Turn out well,' repeated the Doctor. 'We want Ethel to tell us that
this very repentance and owning of the sin, is turning out well--better
than going on in it.'

'I can see that,' said Leonard. 'I do hope that if--if I can take this
patiently, it may show I am sorry for the real thing--and I may be
forgiven. Oh! I am glad prisoners are not cut off from church.'

Dr. May pressed his hand in much emotion: and there was a silence
before another question--whether there were nothing that could be of
service.

'One chance there is, that Sam might relent enough to put that receipt
where it could be found without implicating him. He must know what it
would do for me.'

'You are convinced that he has it?'

'There must be papers in the book valuable to him; perhaps some that he
had rather were not seen. Most likely he secured it in the morning.
You remember he was there before the police.'

'Ay! ay! ay! the scoundrel! But, Leonard, what possessed you not to
speak out at the inquest, when we might have searched every soul on the
premises?'

'I did not see it then. I was stunned by the horror of the thing--the
room where I had been so lately, and that blood on my own rifle too.