nd
confronting him with cheeks that had suddenly become colorless, and eyes
that stared in terror and astonishment. "Lord save us! how did you come
by that? And who for mercy's sake are you?"

"My name's Matthew Grice," he answered quickly and sternly. "This
Bracelet belonged to my sister, Mary Grice. She run away from home, and
died, and was buried in Bangbury churchyard. If you know her grave, tell
me in plain words--is it here?"

Breathless as she was with astonishment, Mrs. Peckover managed to
stammer a faint answer in the affirmative, and to add that the initials,
"M. G.," would be found somewhere on the broken board lying at their
feet. She then tried to ask a question or two in her turn; but the words
died away in faint exclamations of surprise. "To think of me and you
meeting together!" was all she could say;--"her own brother, too! Oh! to
think of that!--only to think of that!"

Mat looked down at the mud, the brambles, and the rotting grass that
lay over what had once been a living and loving human creature. The
dangerous brightness glittered in his eyes, the cold change spread fast
over his cheeks, and the scars of the arrow-wounds began to burn redly
and more redly, as he whispered to himself--"I'll be even yet, Mary,
with the man who laid you here!"

"Does Mr. Blyth know who you are, sir?" asked Mrs. Peckover, hesitating
and trembling as she put this question. "Did he give you the Bracelet?"

She stopped. Mat was not listening to her. His eyes were fastened on the
grave: he was still talking to himself in quick whispering tones.

"Her Bracelet was hid from me in another man's chest," he said--"I've
found her Bracelet. Her child was hid from me in another man's
house--I've found her child. Her grave was hid from me in a strange
churchyard--I've found her grave. The man who laid her in it is hid from
me still--I shall find _him!"_

"Please do listen to me, sir, for one moment," pleaded Mrs. Peckover,
more nervously than before. _"Does_ Mr. Blyth know about you? And little
Mary--oh, sir, whatever you do, pray, pray don't take her away from
where she is now! You can't mean to do that, sir, though you are her own
mother's brother? You can't, surely?"

He looked up at her so quickly, with such a fierce, steady,
serpent-glitter in his light-grey eyes, that she recoiled a step or two;
still pleading, however, with desperate perseverance for an answer to
her last question.

"Only tell me, sir, that you do