t too much sacrifice of soul. Brandy was his only solace; and
even this only conjured up demons of torture in his fevered imagination.

He was conscious that on the previous night he had drank too much. There
seemed to be a chasm in his recollection which all his efforts could not
fill. He might, while in a measure unconscious of his actions, have
betrayed some of his momentous secrets. The overseer, of whose presence
he had an indistinct remembrance, might have obtained some further clue
to the great mystery. These were annoying reflections, and while he
resolved to be more temperate in future, how fervently he adjured his
patron demon to ward off any danger he might have courted in his
inebriation!

After his accustomed ride through the cane-fields, he retired to the
library. The decanter had been replenished with brandy, and his late
resolutions did not deter him from freely imbibing of its contents. The
equilibrium was restored. His mind, stimulated by the fumes of the
liquor, resumed its usual buoyancy. He paced the room, and drank
frequent draughts of the fiery beverage.

Suddenly he stopped in his perambulation, as a faint recollection of the
lost key came to his mind. He searched his pockets; but it could not be
found. The drawer was locked. Suspicious as he was fearful, he trembled
lest in his oblivious moments he had compromised his secret. He sent for
the overseer, determined to know and provide for the worst.

After the messenger left, his reflections assumed a new direction. He
tried to laugh away his suspicions, applied epithets to himself which it
would not have been safe for another to have applied, and in good round
oaths cursed his own stupidity. In his privacy he was a pattern of
candor, and bestowed upon himself such a rating as, to another, would
have given fair promise of good results.

He satisfied himself that the drawer could contain nothing to implicate
him; and, even if it did, why, he was safe enough in the hands of
Dalhousie. The overseer he regarded as a kind of _thing_, who, while he
retained him in his service, would never injure him. Jaspar, for some
reason or other, had formed no very elevated opinion of Dalhousie's
acuteness. He had bought him off cheaply once, and could do so again. If
he refused to be bought off cheaply,--and Jaspar grated his teeth at the
reflection,--why, a method could be devised to get rid of him.

While engaged in these musings, a knock at the door startled