thee hadst to die for this man's crime! but God has
righted thee at last--at last, in spite of this villain's evidence, who
swore that thy knife did the deed, when he plunged it himself into the
rich man's heart. Ha, ha! I shall live to be revenged upon him--I shall,
I shall!"

"What have I done!" shrieked the unhappy wife. "I have betrayed my
husband into the hands of his enemies!" and she sunk down at the old
woman's feet like one dead. Gloating over her anticipated revenge, Mrs.
Martin spurned the prostrate form with her foot, as she scornfully
commanded her more humane daughter "to see after Noah Cotton's dainty
wife, while she went to the magistrates to make a deposition of what she
had heard."

Shocked beyond measure at what she had heard and seen, ashamed of her
mother's violence, and sorry for Sophia's unhappy disclosure, as she
well knew that, whether the actual murderer of Squire Carlos, or only an
accomplice, her brother was a bad man, who deserved his fate, Sarah
tenderly raised the fainting Sophy from the ground, and placed her on
her own bed. Long before the miserable young woman returned to a
consciousness of the result of her own imprudence, her husband, who had
returned from ---- without her sister or mother, was on his way to the
County Gaol.

CHAPTER XII.

THE NIGHT ALONE.

Sophy returned to her desolate home, the moment she recovered her
senses; for the sight of the Martins filled her mind with inexpressible
anguish. On entering the little keeping-room, she shut the door, and
covering her head with her apron, sat down in Noah's chair by the old
oak table, on which she buried her face in her hands, and remained
silent and astonished during the rest of the day.

"Shall I sleep with you to-night, Mrs. Cotton?" said Sarah Martin, in a
kind, soft voice; as towards the close of that long, blank day, she
opened the door, and looked in upon

"That desolate widow--but not of the dead."

"No, Sarah, thank you; I would rather be alone," was the brief reply.

Sarah lingered with her hand still on the lock. Sophy shook her head
impatiently, as much as to say, "Go, go, I must be obeyed; I know the
worst now, and wish no second person to look upon my remorse--my
grief--my bitter humiliation." Sarah understood it all. The door slowly
closed, and Sophy was once more alone.

Many hours passed away, and the night without, dark and starless, had
deepened around her cold hearth. Still Sophy sat