t Hillsborough that term, Darrel
came to sit with him a while.

"An' what are these?" said the tinker, at length, his hand upon the
shot and iron.

"I do not know."

"Dear boy," said Darrel, "they're from the kit of a burglar, an'
how came they here?"

"I took them from Louis Leblanc," said the young man, who then told
of his adventure that night.

"Louis Leblanc!" exclaimed Darrel. "The scamp an' his family have
cleared out."

The tinker turned quickly, his hand upon the wrist of the young man.

"These things are not for thee to have," he whispered. "Had ye no
thought o' the danger?"

Trove began to change colour.

"I can prove how I came by them," he stammered.

"What is thy proof?" Darrel whispered again.

"There are Leblanc's wife and daughter."

"Ah, where are they? There be many would like to know."

The young man thought a moment.

"Well, Tunk Hosely, there at Mrs. Vaughn's."

"Tunk Hosely!" exclaimed the tinker, with a look that seemed to
say, "God save the mark! An' would they believe him, think?"

Trove began to look troubled as Darrel left him.

"I'll go and drop them in the river," said Trove to himself.

It was eleven o'clock and the street dark and deserted as he left
his room.

"It is a cowardly thing to do," the young man thought as he walked
slowly, but he could devise no better way to get rid of them.

In the middle of the big, open bridge, he stopped to listen.
Hearing only the sound of the falls below, Trove took the odd tools
from under his coat and flung them over the rail.

He turned then, walking slowly off the bridge and up the main
street, of Hillsborough. At a corner he stopped to listen. His
ear had caught the sound of steps far behind him. He could hear it
no longer, and went his way, with a troubled feeling that robbed
him of rest that night. In a day or two it wore off, and soon he
was hold of the bit, as he was wont to say, and racing for the lead
in his work. He often walked to school with Polly and went to
church with her every Sunday night. There had been not a word of
love between them, however, since they came to the village, until
one evening she said:--

"I am very unhappy, and I wish I were home."

"Why?"

She was not able to answer for a moment.

"I know I am unworthy of you," she whispered.

His lungs shook him with a deep and tremulous inspiration. For a
little he could not answer.

"That is why you do not love me?" she whispered