ressed with such anguish and fortitude
as might have melted a heart of marble.

The reader may have observed that, upon his rival's disappearance,
Coventry was no happier. This letter was the secret cause. First it
showed him his rival was alive, and he had wasted a crime; secondly,
it struck him with remorse, yet not with penitence; and to be full of
remorse, yet empty of that true penitence which confesses or undoes the
wrong, this is to be miserable.

But, as time rolled on, bringing the various events I have related, but
no news of Little, Coventry began to think that young man must really
have come to some untimely end.

From this pleasant dream he was now awakened by the second intercepted
letter. It ran thus:

"BOSTON, U. S., June 20th.

"MY OWN DEAR LOVE,--It is now nine weeks since I left England, and this
will be a fortnight more getting to you; that is a long time for you
to be without news from me, and I sadly fear I have caused you great
anxiety. Dearest, it all happened thus: Our train was delayed by an
accident, and I reached Liverpool just in time to see the steam-packet
move down the Mersey. My first impulse, of course, was to go back to
Hillsborough; but a seaman, who saw my vexation, told me a fast schooner
was on the point of sailing for Boston, U.S. My heart told me if I went
back to Hillsborough, I should never make the start again. I summoned
all my manhood to do the right thing for us both; and I got into the
schooner, heaven knows how; and, when I got there, I hid my face for
ever so many hours, till, by the pitching and tossing, I knew that I was
at sea. Then I began to cry and blubber. I couldn't hold it any longer.

"At such a time a kind word keeps the heart from breaking altogether;
and I got some comfort from an old gentleman, a native of Boston: a
grave old man he was, and pretty reserved with all the rest; but seeing
me in the depths of misery, he talked to me like a father, and I told
him all my own history, and a little about you too--at least, how I
loved you, and why I had left England with a heavy heart.

"We had a very long passage, not downright tempestuous, but contrary
winds, and a stiff gale or two. Instead of twenty days, as they
promised, we were six weeks at sea, and what with all the fighting and
the threats--I had another letter signed with a coffin just before I
left that beautiful town--and the irritation at losing so much time
on the ocean, it all brought on a