le
hour in going to America."

"I didn't think," said Sarah, "that Dalton ever murdered Sullivan till
I heard him confess it; but I can well understand it now. He was hasty,
father, and did it in a passion, but it's himself that has a good heart.
Father, don't blame me for what I say, but I'd rather be that pious,
affectionate ould man, wid his murdher on his head, than you in the
state you're in. An' that's thrue, I must turn back and go to them--I'm
too long away: still, something ails me--I'm all sickish, my head and
back especially."

"Go home to your own place," he replied; "maybe it's the sickness you're
takin."

"Oh, no," she replied, "I felt this way once or twice before, an' I know
it'll go off me--good-bye."

"Good-bye, Sarah, an' remember, honor bright and saicresy."

"Saicresy, father, I grant you, but never honor bright for me again.
It's the world that makes me do it--the wicked, dark, cruel world, that
has me as I am, widout a livin' heart to love me--that's what makes me
do it."

They then separated, he pursuing his way to Dick o' the Grange's,
and she to the miserable cabin of the Daltons. They had not gone far,
however, when she returned, and calling after him, said--

"I have thought it over again, and won't promise altogether till I see
you again."

"Are you goin' back o' your word so soon!" he asked, with a kind of
sarcastic sneer. "I thought you never broke your word, Sarah."

She paused, and after looking about her as if in perplexity, she turned
on her heel, and proceeded in silence.

CHAPTER XXVI. -- The Pedlar Runs a Close Risk of the Stocks.

Nelly's suspicions, apparently well founded as they had been, were
removed from the Prophet, not so much by the disclosure to her and
Sarah, of his having been so long cognizant of Sullivan's murder by
Dalton, as by that unhappy man's own confession of the crime. Still, in
spite of all that had yet happened, she could not divest herself of
an impression that something dark and guilty was associated with
the Tobacco-box; an impression which was strengthened by her own
recollections of certain incidents that occurred upon a particular
night, much about the time of Sullivan's disappearance. Her memory,
however, being better as to facts than to time, was such as prevented
her from determining whether the incidents alluded to had occurred
previous to Sullivan's murder, or afterwards. There remained, however,
just enough of suspicion to t