eleven; your letter came
at half-past twelve, and I took it her. Soon after that the villain came
to her, and she stabbed him directly with this stiletto. Look at it;
there's his blood up on it; I kept it to show you. I caught her arm, or
she would have killed him, I believe. He lost so much blood, the doctor
would not let him be moved. Then she thought of you still, and would not
pass a night under the same roof with him; at two o'clock she was on the
way to Raby; but Mr. Coventry was too much of a man to stay in the house
and drive her out; so he went off next morning, and, as soon as she
heard that, she came home. She is wife and no wife, as the saying is,
and how it is all to end Heaven only knows."

"It will end the moment I meet the man; and that won't be long."

"There! there!" cried Grace, "that is what I feared. Ah, Jael! Jael! why
did you hold my hand? They would not have hung ME. I told you so at the
time: I knew what I was about."

"Jael," said the young man, "of all the kind things you have done for
me, that was the kindest. You saved my poor girl from worse trouble than
she is now in. No, Grace; you shall not dirty your hand with such scum
as that: it is my business, and mine only."

In vain did Jael expostulate, and Grace implore. In vain did Jael assure
him that Coventry was in a worse position than himself, and try to make
him see that any rash act of his would make Grace even more miserable
than she was at present. He replied that he had no intention of running
his neck into a halter; he should act warily, like the Hillsborough
Trades, and strike his blow so cunningly that the criminal should never
know whence it came. "I've been in a good school for homicide," said
he; "and I am an inventor. No man has ever played the executioner so
ingeniously as I will play it. Think of all this scoundrel has done to
me: he owes me a dozen lives, and I'll take one. Man shall never detect
me: God knows all, and will forgive me, I hope. If He doesn't, I can't
help it."

He kissed Grace again and again, and comforted her; said she was not to
blame; honest people were no match for villains: if she had been twice
as simple, he would have forgiven her at sight of the stiletto; that
cleared her, in his mind, better than words.

He was now soft and gentle as a lamb. He begged Jael's pardon humbly for
leaving Hillsborough without telling her. He said he had gone up to her
room; but all was still; and he was a working