ames
were in the churchyard. "Did the gentleman mean the second daughter, who
lived and grew up beautiful, and was, as the story went, the cause of
all the scandal? If so, the young person ran away, and died miserably
somehow--nobody knew how; and was supposed to have been buried like a
pauper somewhere--nobody knew where, unless it was Miss Grice--"

The young man stopped and looked perplexed. A sudden change had passed
over the strange gentleman's face. His swarthy cheeks had turned to a
cold clay color, through which his two scars seemed to burn fiercer than
ever, like streaks of fire. His heavy hand and arm trembled a little
as he leaned against the counter. Was he going to be taken ill? No: he
walked at once from the counter to the door--turned round there, and
asked where Joanna Grice lived. The young man answered, the second
turning to the right, down a street, which ended in a lane of cottages.
Miss Grice's was the last cottage on the left hand; but he could assure
the gentleman that it would be quite useless to go there, for she let
nobody in. The gentleman thanked him, and went, nevertheless.

"I didn't think it would have took me so," Mat said, walking quickly up
the street; "and it wouldn't if I'd heard it anywhere else. But I'm
not the man I was, now I'm in the old place again. Over twenty year of
hardening, don't seem to have hardened me yet!"

He followed the directions given him, correctly enough, arrived at the
last cottage on his left hand, and tried the garden gate. It was locked;
and there was no bell to ring. But the paling was low, and Mat was not
scrupulous. He got over it, and advanced to the cottage door. It opened,
like other doors in the country, merely by turning the handle of the
lock. He went in without any hesitation, and entered the first room
into which the passage led him. It was a small parlor; and, at the back
window, which looked out on a garden, sat Joanna Grice, a thin, dwarfish
old woman, poring over a big book which looked like a Bible. She started
from her chair, as she heard the sound of footsteps, and tottered up
fiercely, with wild wandering grey eyes and horny threatening hands,
to meet the intruder. He let her come close to him; then mentioned a
name--pronouncing it twice, very distinctly.

She paused instantly, livid pale, with gaping lips, and arms hanging
rigid at her side; as if that name, or the voice in which it had been
uttered, had frozen up in a moment all the l