ould have been more sad than usual; but she
no longer loved him and his death could only be regarded as a release
from all manner of trouble and shame and evil foreboding. With his
decease would have ended her fears for poor Nellie, her apprehensions for
the future in case he should return and claim her, the whole weight of
her humiliation, and if she was too kind to have rejoiced over such a
termination of her woes, she was yet too sensible not to have fully
understood and appreciated the fact of her liberation and of the freedom
given to the child she loved, by the death of a father whose return could
bring nothing but disgrace. But now she did not know whether Walter were
alive or dead. If he was alive he was probably so much injured as to
preclude all possibility of his escaping, and he must inevitably be given
up to justice, no longer to imprisonment merely, but by his own
confession to suffer the death of a murderer. If on the other hand he
was already dead, he had died a death less shameful indeed, but of which
the circumstances were too horrible for his wife to contemplate, for he
must have been torn to pieces by Stamboul the bloodhound.

She unconsciously comprehended all these considerations, which entirely
deprived her of the power to weigh them in her mind, for her mind was
temporarily loosed from all control of the reasoning faculty. She had
borne much during the last three days, but she could bear no more;
intellect and sensibility were alike exhausted and gave way together.
There were indeed moments, intervals in the fits of hysteric tears
and acute mental torture, when she lay quite still in her chair and
vaguely asked herself what it all meant, but her disturbed consciousness
gave no answer to the question, and presently her tears broke out afresh
and she tossed wildly from side to side, or walked hurriedly up and down
the room, wringing her hands in despair, sobbing aloud in her agony and
again abandoning herself to the uncontrolled exaggerations of her grief
and terror. One consolation alone presented itself at intervals to her
confused intelligence; Mr. Juxon was safe. Whatever other fearful thing
had happened, he was safe, saved perhaps by her warning--but what was
that, if Walter had escaped death only to die at the hands of the
hangman, or had found it in the jaws of that fearful bloodhound? What was
the safety even of her best friend, if poor Nellie was to know that her
father was alive, only to l