ie's voice had called
him. She must be near. Slowly he began to walk back, half dreading to
behold her image rise before him, with deep, reproachful eyes.

He had not gone twenty yards, when he started back, having almost set
his foot upon something which lay face downward in the snow, clad in a
dress almost as white. He would not have seen her but for her brown
hair, which, falling loosely about, was caught and stirred by the
inquisitive breeze. She herself lay quite still.

Bressant took her beneath the arms, and lifted her up. Crouching down,
he supported her head against his shoulder, and brushed away the snow
that had adhered to her face. There was a cut upon her chin, but the
blood, after running a few moments, had congealed. Her eyes were not
quite shut, but the lids were stiff and immovable. The mouth, too, was a
little open. Was it the moonlight that gave her that death-like look? or
was she dead indeed?

The young man broke out into a long, wavering cry. It was not weeping;
it was not laughter; yet it bore a resemblance to both. It curdled his
own blood, but he could not repress it. It was the voice of
overstrained, unendurable emotion, and a horrible voice it was to hear.
He feared he was losing his senses--looking in that white, motionless
face, and uttering such a cry! At last, however, it died away, and there
was silence. The silence was almost worse than the cry--the utter
silence of a winter night.

"What shall I do?" he said to himself, helplessly.

The unearthly voice, and the discovery to which it had led, following
the other events of the night, had made Bressant unfit to deal with this
matter after his usual ready and practical style. But he would have
found the problem an awkward one at his best. How could he appear at the
Parsonage? What account could he give there of this lifeless body? What
account could he give of it to himself? He was utterly bewildered and
aghast. It seemed that the dead had risen from the grave, to drag him
relentlessly back to the fullest glare of earthly ignominy--to the
keenest experience of human suffering. And yet, did he quite deserve it?
Was there no grain of leaven in his lump of sinfulness and weakness, if
all were known? He is a hardened criminal, indeed, who can find no hope
in the thought of appealing from human judgment to Divine!

Meanwhile, Mr. Reynolds had been luxuriating in a very unmistakable
sense of injury. To some persons there are a positive reli