nt with Hinton was broken off, that her
wedding was not to be. Old Jasper was beset just now by a thousand
fears, and Charlotte's manner and Charlotte's words had considerably
added to his alarm. There was a mystery; Charlotte could not deny that
fact. This letter might elucidate it--might throw light where so much
was needed. Jasper Harman felt that the contents of Hinton's letter
might do him good and ease his mind. Without giving himself an instant's
time for reflection, he took the letter into the dining-room, and,
opening it, read what was meant for another. He had scarcely done so
before Charlotte unexpectedly entered the room. To save himself from
discovery, when he heard her step, he dropped the letter into the fire.
Thus Charlotte never got her lover's letter.

Hinton, bravely as he had spoken, was, nevertheless, pained at her
silence. After waiting for twenty-four hours he, however, resolved to be
true to his word. He had said to Charlotte, "If you refuse what I demand
as a right, nevertheless I shall exercise my right. I will come to you."
But he went with a strange sinking of heart, and when he got to Prince's
Gate and was not admitted he scarcely felt surprised.

CHAPTER XLVI.

"THE WAY OF TRANSGRESSORS."

It is one of those everlasting truths, which experience and life teach
us every day, that sin brings its own punishment, virtue its own reward:
peace, the great divine reward of conscience to the virtuous; misery and
despair, and that constant apprehension which dreads discovery, and yet
which in itself is worse than discovery, to the transgressors.

"The way of transgressors is hard."

That Bible text was proving itself once more now in the cases of two old
men. John Harman was sinking into his grave in anguish at the thought of
facing an angry God: Jasper Harman was preparing to fly from what, alas!
he dreaded more, the faces of his angry fellow-creatures.

Yes; it had come to this with Jasper Harman; England had become too hot
to hold him; better fly while he could. Ever since the day Hinton had
told him that he had really and in truth heard of the safe arrival of
the other trustee, Jasper's days and nights had been like hell to him.
In the morning, he had wondered would the evening find him still a free
man; in the evening, he had trembled at what might befall him before the
morning dawned. Unaccustomed to any mental anguish, his health began to
give way; his heart beat irregularly, une