hing her with a strange,
eager expression on his face; but as he saw her about to leave him he
sprang suddenly forward, and throwing one of his huge arms about her
waist, drew back her head with the other, and imprinted kiss after kiss
upon her lips.

She struggled wildly, but silently; and at last, with an almost
superhuman effort, freed herself from his grasp. She turned, as she did
so, and lifting her small hand closely clenched, struck him furiously
full in the mouth.

The blood gushed over his lips; and never, to the latest day of his
existence, not even when he saw her lie cold and still in her coffin,
did Guly forget the fearful expression in her pallid face, and the
almost demoniacal glare in her black eye, as she marked the effect of
her blow, and darted by him like some frightened bird, escaped from the
spoiler's net.

He shrank further into the darkness as she passed him, and saw her rush
toward the back part of the building, where the large windows descended
to the floor. She flung one up hastily, and leaped through it to the
ground.

The next moment he heard the swift pattering of small feet in the alley,
and the rustling of a woman's dress, as if some one were running.

The head clerk had thrown himself upon a couch, face downwards, after he
received the blow, and Guly seeing he had been unobserved, thought best
not to intrude upon him at this moment; and with a quiet, cat-like
tread, and trembling violently with the excitement of the scene he had
witnessed, he groped his way back to his own chamber.

An hour passed before he ventured to descend the stairs again; and then
he found Wilkins sitting as he had seen him in the morning, at the big
desk, with his coat off, reading.

"This is a late hour for you to be down stairs, my boy! What has
happened to make you so pale? Are you sick?"

"No, sir, but I am troubled."

And Guly stepped toward him, and laid one hand upon the desk, while he
related to Wilkins all that he had felt with regard to his brother,
since he parted from him in the morning.

"Tut, tut!" said he, shaking his head as the boy finished, "this is a
bad business. If I had not thought you were together somewhere, I would
have been with you. I'm afraid your brother has got into bad company,
which I should be sorry enough for, I promise you."

Wilkins spoke this in a tone of such kindly sympathy, at the same time
laying one hand gently upon the golden head beside him, that Guly's
ov