ll ye, my lad,--you 've but one chance--"

Here the speaker's voice sunk into a whisper, and I did not
catch another word. The two men soon took a reconnoitring
glance at the weather; and after looking up the street and
down the street, and up at the sky, where nothing was visible
but a thick mass of gray clouds, they seemed to awake to the
thorough hopelessness of the case, and walked off, muttering
imprecations on the weather.

I remained by the window absorbed in thought, till Mrs. Hatton
apprised me that tea was come. There was, indeed, matter for
thought in the few words these men had uttered; and the
thoughts they suggested were perplexing in the extreme. It was
of Alice Tracy they had spoken, for I had twice distinctly
heard her grandmother's name pronounced. She was in Salisbury
at this very moment, it appeared; these two rough and somewhat
discreditable men were acquainted with her. A gentleman (to
use their own expression) was after her; but the youngest man
of the two had expressed a hope that he was at present
devoting himself to some other person. Could this gentleman be
Henry Lovell? Had he been base, vile enough to attempt the
ruin of the lovely girl whose beauty and innocence had seemed
to me to belong to a higher sphere than that of this world of
ours? Was his devotion to me what was alluded to in the
conversation I had overheard? Who was the person whose death
they seemed to expect? I was lost in a maze of doubts and
conjectures; among which the most distressing was the one that
presented to my mind the idea of Alice becoming a victim to
the infamous pursuit of Henry Lovell. But again, what could
they mean by his (the gentleman, whoever he was,) being in
Mrs. Tracy's clutches? I vainly racked my brain to form some
conjecture which would account for the different parts of this
short conversation. Poor Mrs. Hatton must have thought me apt
to be silent, not only in a carriage, but out of one, too, if
she judged by my taciturnity on this occasion. When the waiter
came in to fetch the tea-things away, I asked him if he knew
of any person living in Salisbury, and bearing the name of
Tracy? He did not know of any such, he said, but would inquire
if I wished. As he was going out of the room, he turned back,
and holding the handle of the door with one hand, and passing
the other through a bushy head of hair, he added: "I suppose
it's quality you are asking for, Ma'am?"

"No; any persons of that name: do