de
it away for ever. I thought to have done it all by myself, but I see
I cannot. Yon poor man--yes! the dead, drowned creature is, I fear, Mr
Frank, my mistress's first husband!'

Mr Openshaw sat down, as if shot. He did not speak; but, after a
while, he signed to Norah to go on.

'He came to me the other night, when--God be thanked!--you were all
away at Richmond. He asked me if his wife was dead or alive. I was
a brute, and thought more of your all coming home than of his sore
trial; I spoke out sharp, and said she was married again, and very
content and happy. I all but turned him away: and now he lies dead and
cold.'

'God forgive me!' said Mr Openshaw.

'God forgive us all!' said Norah. 'Yon poor man needs forgiveness,
perhaps, less than any one among us. He had been among the
savages--shipwrecked--I know not what--and he had written letters
which had never reached my poor missus.'

'He saw his child!'

'He saw her--yes! I took him up, to give his thoughts another start;
for I believed he was going mad on my hands. I came to seek him here,
as I more than half promised. My mind misgave me when I heard he never
came in. Oh, sir, it must be him!'

Mr Openshaw rang the bell. Norah was almost too much stunned to wonder
at what he did. He asked for writing materials, wrote a letter, and
then said to Norah:

'I am writing to Alice, to say I shall be unavoidably absent for a
few days; that I have found you; that you are well, and send her your
love, and will come home tomorrow. You must go with me to the police
court; you must identify the body; I will pay high to keep names and
details out of the papers.'

'But where are you going, sir?'

He did not answer her directly. Then he said:

'Norah! I must go with you, and look on the face of the man whom I
have so injured--unwittingly, it is true; but it seems to me as if I
had killed him. I will lay his head in the grave as if he were my only
brother: and how he must have hated me! I cannot go home to my wife
till all that I can do for him is done. Then I go with a dreadful
secret on my mind. I shall never speak of it again, after these days
are over. I know you will not, either.' He shook hands with her; and
they never named the subject again, the one to the other.

Norah went home to Alice the next day. Not a word was said on the
cause of her abrupt departure a day or two before. Alice had been
charged by her husband, in his letter, not to allude to the sup