ealment, if not
to the destruction, of her own legitimate offspring?"

"Sir, to me it is not incomprehensible at all. She was at once an orphan
and a widow; a stranger in a strange land; a poor, desolate,
broken-hearted child, in the power of the cunningest and most
unscrupulous villain that the Lord ever suffered to live! I wonder at
nothing that he might have deceived or frightened her into doing."

"Heaven forgive us! Have I known that man for ten years to hear this
account of him at last? But tell me, sir, have you really any true idea
of what has been the fate of the poor young widow?"

"No; not the slightest. Immediately after his brother's funeral, Gabriel
Le Noir gave out that Madame Eugene had lost her reason through
excessive grief, soon after which he took her with him to the North,
and, upon his return alone, reported that he had left her in a
celebrated lunatic asylum. The story was probable enough, and received
universal belief. Only now I do not credit it, and do not know whether
the widow be living or dead; or, if living, whether she be mad or sane;
if dead, whether she came to her end by fair means or foul!"

"Merciful heaven, sir! you do not mean to say----"

"Yes; I do mean to say; and if you would like to know what is on my
private mind I'll tell you. I believe that Madame Eugene Le Noir has
been treacherously made away with by the same infernal demon at whose
instigation her husband was murdered and her child stolen."

The minister seemed crushed beneath the overwhelming weight of this
communication; he passed his hand over his brow and thence down his face
and sighed deeply. For a few moments he seemed unable to reply, and when
he spoke it was only to say:

"In this matter, Major Warfield, I can offer you no counsel better than
that of your confidential attorney--follow the light that you have until
it lead you to the full elucidation of this affair; and may heaven grant
that you may find Colonel Le Noir less guilty than you apprehend."

"Parson, humbug! When charity drivels it ought to be turned off by
justice! I will follow the little light I have. I suspect, from the
description, that the wretch who at Le Noir's instance carried off the
nurse and child was no other than the notorious Black Donald. I have
offered an additional thousand dollars for his apprehension, and if he
is taken he will be condemned to death, make a last dying speech and
confession and give up his accomplices, the ac