have done so! I will send you
to the penitentiary yet--felon!"

"I think that you will find yourself there, madam, before many months
have passed over your head. There are severe laws against forgery,
perjury and conspiracy," answered Alden Lytton.

Outside of the office the three gentlemen consulted their watches. It
was now six o'clock in the afternoon.

Then they looked about them.

They had come to Wendover in the deputy-sheriff's carriage. That had
gone. And there was no conveyance waiting to take them to Blue Cliff
Hall.

"We must go to the old Reindeer and hire their hack," said Mr. Lyle.

"Excuse me, Lyle; let us walk to your parsonage first. You must give me
house-room there for a few weeks, for I do not wish to stop at the hotel
to be stared at, and--I shall not return to Blue Cliffs, or enter the
presence of my pure and noble young wife, until I shall be cleared from
this foul charge," said Alden Lytton, firmly.

"Not return to Blue Cliffs? Why, Lytton, you will break your wife's
heart if you keep her from you in this your day of sorrow!" exclaimed
Mr. Lyle.

"Her heart is too heroic to be easily broken. And a little reflection
will convince you that, under the peculiar circumstances of this
accusation, it is expedient that I should absent myself from her and
from her dwelling until I shall be cleared. Now if the charge against me
were that of murder, or anything else but what it is, my wife might be
by my side. But being what it is, you must see that I best consult her
dignity and delicacy by abstaining from seeing her until after my
acquittal. No, I shall neither see, speak, nor write to her while I
suffer under this charge."

"I see now that you are perfectly right," said Mr. Lyle.

"Yes, that you are," added Mr. Brent, as the three walked out toward the
minister's cottage.

"I only wish you to install me, Lyle, by explaining to your good old
housekeeper that I am to be an inmate of the parsonage during your
absence, so that she may not take my presence as an unjustifiable
intrusion," said Alden Lytton.

"She would never do that in any case," answered Stephen Lyle.

"And when you have installed me I wish you and Brent to return to Blue
Cliffs and rejoin your brides at once. And you, Lyle, must break this
matter to my dear Emma as delicately and tenderly as you can. She does
not need to be told that I am entirely guiltless of the crime that is
laid to my charge; for she knows that I am inc