ah, one of the servants, looking
at me.

"Lor, sir, where have you been?" she cried, but strange to say, in a
low tone. "You look as if you had seen a ghost." And her eyes turned
suspiciously to the key which I held in my hand.

I felt as if some one had clutched me round the throat. Thrusting the
key into my pocket, I took a step towards her. "I will tell you what I
have seen if you will come down-stairs," I whispered; "the ladies will
be disturbed if we talk here," and smoothing my brow as best I could,
I put out my hand and drew her towards me. What my motive was I hardly
knew; the action was probably instinctive; but when I saw the look which
came into her face as I touched her, and the alacrity with which she
prepared to follow me, I took courage, remembering the one or two
previous tokens I had had of this girl's unreasonable susceptibility to
my influence; a susceptibility which I now felt could be utilized and
made to serve my purpose.

Taking her down to the parlor floor, I drew her into the depths of
the great drawing-room, and there told her in the least alarming
way possible what had happened to Mr. Leavenworth. She was of course
intensely agitated, but she did not scream;--the novelty of her position
evidently bewildering her--and, greatly relieved, I went on to say that
I did not know who committed the deed, but that folks would declare it
was I if they knew I had been seen by her on the stairs with the library
key in my hand. "But I won't tell," she whispered, trembling violently
in her fright and eagerness. "I will keep it to myself. I will say I
didn't see anybody." But I soon convinced her that she could never keep
her secret if the police once began to question her, and, following
up my argument with a little cajolery, succeeded after a long while in
winning her consent to leave the house till the storm should be blown
over. But that given, it was some little time before I could make her
comprehend that she must depart at once and without going back after her
things. Not till I brightened up her wits by a promise to marry her some
day if she only obeyed me now, did she begin to look the thing in
the face and show any evidence of the real mother wit she evidently
possessed. "Mrs. Belden would take me in," said she, "if I could only
get to R----. She takes everybody in who asks, her; and she would
keep me, too, if I told her Miss Mary sent me. But I can't get there
to-night."

I immediately set to