k for
some time, no rumor of the affair got about outside the circle of the
conspirators. It need hardly be said that this incident drew Ned
and Bill even more closely together than before, and that the former
henceforth regarded Bill Swinton in the light of a brother.

At the end of the Christmas holidays Mr. Porson brought home a mistress
to the schoolhouse. She was a bright, pleasant woman, and having heard
from her husband all the particulars of Ned's case she did her best to
make him feel that she fully shared in her husband's welcome whenever he
came to the house, and although Ned was some little time in accustoming
himself to the presence of one whom he had at first regarded as an
intruder in the little circle of his friends, this feeling wore away
under the influence of her cordiality and kindness.

"Is it not shocking," she said to her husband one day, "to think that
for nearly a year that poor lad should never have seen his own mother,
though she is in the house with him, still worse to know that she thinks
him a murderer? Do you think it would be of any good if I were to go and
see her, and tell her how wicked and wrong her conduct is?"

"No, my dear," Mr. Porson said, smiling, "I don't think that course
would be at all likely to have a good effect. Green tells me that he
is sure that this conviction which she has of Ned's guilt is a deep and
terrible grief to her. He thinks that, weak and silly as she is, she has
really a strong affection for Ned, as well as for her other children,
and it is because this is so that she feels so terribly what she
believes to be his guilt. She suffers in her way just as much, or more,
than he does in his. He has his business, which occupies his mind and
prevents him from brooding over his position; besides, the knowledge
that a few of us are perfectly convinced of his innocence enables him to
hold up. She has no distraction, nothing to turn her thoughts from this
fatal subject.

"Green says she has several times asked him whether a person could be
tried twice for the same offense, after he has been acquitted the first
time, and he believes that the fear is ever present in her mind that
some fresh evidence may be forthcoming which may unmistakably bring the
guilt home to him. I have talked it over with Ned several times, and he
now takes the same view of it as I do. The idea of his guilt has become
a sort of monomania with her, and nothing save the most clear and
convincing