much in his manner of receiving her inquiries, replying
to some promptly enough, and gruffly refusing, in the plainest terms, to
give a word of answer to others.

He was quite willing, for example, to admit that he had procured her
temporary address at Bangbury from her daughter at Rubbleford; but he
flatly declined to inform her how he had first found out that she lived
at Rubbleford at all. Again, he readily admitted that neither Madonna
nor Mr. Blyth knew who he really was; but he refused to say why he had
not disclosed himself to them, or when he intended--if he ever intended
at all--to inform them that he was the brother of Mary Grice. As to
getting him to confess in what manner he had become possessed of the
Hair Bracelet, Mrs. Peckover's first question about it, although only
answered by a look, was received in such a manner as to show her that
any further efforts on her part in that direction would be perfectly
fruitless.

On one side of the door, at Dawson's Buildings, was Mr. Randle's shop;
and on the other was Mr. Randle's little dining parlor. In this room
Mrs. Peckover left Mat, while she went up stairs to see if her sick
brother wanted anything. Finding that he was still quietly sleeping, she
only waited to arrange the bed-clothes comfortably about him, and to put
a hand-bell easily within his reach in case he should awake, and then
went down stairs again immediately.

She found Mat sitting with his elbows on the one little table in the
dining-parlor, his head resting on his hands. Upon the table lying by
the side of the Bracelet, was the lock of hair out of Jane Holdsworth's
letter, which he had yet once more taken from his pocket to look at.
"Why, mercy on me!" cried Mrs. Peckover, glancing at it, "surely it's
the same hair that's worked into the Bracelet! Wherever, for goodness
sake, did you get that?"

"Never mind where I got it. Do you know whose hair it is? Look a little
closer. The man this hair belonged to was the man she trusted in--and he
laid her in the churchyard for her pains."

"Oh! who was he? who was he?" asked Mrs. Peckover, eagerly

"Who was he?" repeated Matthew, sternly. "What do you mean by asking me
that?"

"I only mean that I never heard a word about the villain--I don't so
much as know his name."

"You don't?" He fastened his eyes suspiciously on her as he said those
two words.

"No; as true as I stand here I don't. Why, I didn't even know that your
poor dear sister's n