will. I promise you that freely. Of my own knowledge, of course, I
can say but little concerning them, but, upon that warranting, I well
believe they deserve abundant sympathy, and from me they shall have it."

"A thousand thanks! With your assistance, I have little doubt of being
able to extricate them from the tangled web of dreadful incidents which
has turned them from their home; and now, whatever you may choose to
tell me of the cause which drove you to be what you became, I shall
listen to with abundant interest. Only let me beseech you to come into
this summer-house, and to talk low."

"I will, and you can pursue your watch at the same time, while I beguile
its weariness."--"Be it so."

"You knew me years ago, when I had all the chances in the world of
becoming respectable and respected. I did, indeed; and you may,
therefore, judge of my surprise when, some years since, being in the
metropolis, I met you, and you shunned my company."--"Yes; but, at last,
you found out why it was that I shunned your company."

"I did. You yourself told me once that I met you, and would not leave
you, but insisted upon your dining with me. Then you told me, when you
found that I would take no other course whatever, that you were no other
than the--the----"--

"Out with it! I can bear to hear it now better than I could then! I told
you that I was the common hangman of London!"

"You did, I must confess, to my most intense surprise."

"Yes, and yet you kept to me; and, but that I respected you too much to
allow you to do so, you would, from old associations, have countenanced
me; but I could not, and I would not, let you do so. I told you then
that, although I held the terrible office, that I had not been yet
called upon to perform its loathsome functions. Soon--soon--come the
first effort--it was the last!"

"Indeed! You left the dreadful trade?"

"I did--I did. But what I want to tell you, for I could not then, was
why I went ever to it. The wounds my heart had received were then too
fresh to allow me to speak of them, but I will tell you now. The story
is a brief one, Mr. Chillingworth. I pray you be seated."

CHAPTER LXXII.

THE STRANGE STORY.--THE ARRIVAL OF THE MOB AT THE HALL, AND THEIR
DISPERSION.

[Illustration]

"You will find that the time which elapsed since I last saw you in
London, to have been spent in an eventful, varied manner."--"You were in
good circumstances then," said Mr. Chillingworth.--