ut his diabolical purposes
without any effort being made to check him in his career of guilt, or
to justify her pious trust in that God to whom she looked for protection
and justice? No, he knew Lucy too well; he knew that her extraordinary
sense of truth and honor would justify him in the steps he might be
forced to take, and that whatever might be the result, he at least was
the last man whom she could blame for rendering justice to the widow
of her father's brother. But, then again, what reliance could be placed
upon anonymous information--information which, after all, was but
limited and obscure? Yet it was evident that the writer--a female beyond
question--whoever she was, must be perfectly conversant with his motives
and his objects. And if in volunteering him directions how to proceed,
she had any purpose adversative to his, her note was without meaning.
Besides, she only reawakened the suspicion which he himself had
entertained with respect to Fenton. At all events, to act upon the hints
contained in the note, might lead to something capable of breaking the
hitherto impenetrable cloud under which this melancholy transaction lay;
and if it failed to do this, he (the stranger) could not possibly stand
worse in the estimation of Sir Thomas Gourlay than he did already. In
God's name, then, he would make the experiment; and in order to avoid
mail-coach adventures in future, he would post it back to Ballytrain as
quietly, and with as little observation as possible.

He accordingly ordered Dandy to make such slight preparations as
were necessary for their return to that town, and in the meantime he
determined to pay another visit to old Dunphy of Constitution Hill.

On arriving at the huckster's, he found him in the backroom, or parlor,
to which we have before alluded. The old man's manner was, he thought,
considerably changed for the better. He received him with more
complacency, and seemed as if he felt something like regret for the
harshness of his manner toward him during his first visit.

"Well, sir," said he, "is it fair to ask you, how you have got on in
ferritin' out this black business?"

There are some words so completely low and offensive in their own
nature, that no matter how kind and honest the intention of the speaker
may be, they are certain to vex and annoy those to whom they are
applied.

"Ferreting out!" thought the stranger--"what does the old scoundrel
mean?" Yet, on second consideration, he c