of the charge as it was.
Well, if poor Harry lives, perhaps it is well as it is, if not"--

"You have but spared the hangman some trouble," said I. "Come, man,
don't give way to this morbid feeling. I don't say but what it does
you credit, Brown, to regret the necessity for taking a man's life,
even to save your friend's; but, depend upon it, your conduct to-night
is justifiable before a far higher inquest than the coroner's. Do you
think if I had been in your place I should have hesitated one instant?
No! nor have been half as scrupulous afterwards, I fear."

"You have not blood upon your hand," said Brown gloomily. "And
remember, if we had taken poor Chesterton's advice, and frightened
them off at first, all this might have been spared; it was my folly in
determining to take upon myself the office of thief-taker--cursed
folly it was!"

The impression which the events of the last hour had left upon my own
mind was any thing but a pleasant one; but I was obliged to assume an
indifference which I did not feel, and use a lighter tone than I
should willingly have done in speaking of the death of a
fellow-creature, however unavoidable, in order to keep up Brown's
spirits, and prevent him from dwelling upon his share in the
catastrophe with that morbid degree of sensitiveness, of the effects
of which I began to be really apprehensive. He wanted me to lie down
and try to sleep, saying that he would watch with Chesterton; but this
I was in no mood to agree to, even had I not been unwilling to leave
him to his present reflections; so we drew a small table close to the
fire in the sitting-room, leaving the door open that we might hear any
movement of the patient, and waited for daybreak with feelings to
which perhaps we had been too little accustomed. They were doubtless
wholesome for us in after life; but at the time those hours of
watching were painful indeed. It was a night which, then and since, I
wished could be blotted from my page of life, and be as if it had
never been. I have grown older and sadder, if not wiser, since, and
feel now that there are recollections in which I then took delight
which I could far more safely part with.

The danger in Chesterton's case, though at one time imminent, was soon
over; and a few days' quiet at the farm enabled him to be removed to
college. Reading was, of course, forbidden him for some time; and
before term began, he had left Oxford with his father, to keep
perfectly quiet for