ead!" repeated Stevens.

"Yes; and what's more, he's buried--so he's safe enough, squire; and I
shouldn't be at all surprised if you'd be glad to have me gone too."

"I would to God you had been, before I put myself in your power."

"'Twas your own hastiness. When it came to the pinch, I wasn't equal to the
job, so ye couldn't wait for another time, but out with yer pistol, and
does it yerself." The wretched man shuddered and covered his face, as
McCloskey coolly recounted his murder of Mr. Garie, every word of which was
too true to be denied.

"And haven't I suffered," said he, shaking his bald head mournfully;
"haven't I suffered--look at my grey hairs and half-palsied frame, decrepit
before I'm old--sinking into the tomb with a weight of guilt and sin upon
me that will crush me down to the lowest depth of hell. Think you," he
continued, "that because I am surrounded with all that money can buy, that
I am happy, or ever shall be, with this secret gnawing at my heart; every
piece of gold I count out, I see his hands outstretched over it, and hear
him whisper 'Mine!' He gives me no peace night or day; he is always by me;
I have no rest. And you must come, adding to my torture, and striving to
tear from me that for which I bartered conscience, peace, soul, everything
that would make life desirable. If there is mercy in you, leave me with
what I give you, and come back no more. Life has so little to offer, that
rather than bear this continued torment and apprehension I daily suffer, I
will cut my throat, and then _your_ game is over."

Lizzie Stevens stood rooted to the spot whilst her father made the
confession that was wrung from him by the agony of the moment.

"Well, well!" said McCloskey, somewhat startled and alarmed at Stevens's
threat of self-destruction--"well, I'll come down a thousand--make it
four."

"That I'll do," answered the old man, tremblingly; and reaching over, he
drew towards him the cheque-book. After writing the order for the sum, he
was placing it in the hand of McCloskey, when, hearing a faint moan, he
looked towards the door, and saw his daughter fall fainting to the ground.

CHAPTER XXXI.

The Thorn rankles.

We left the quiet town of Sudbury snow-clad and sparkling in all the glory
of a frosty moonlight night; we now return to it, and discover it decked
out in its bravest summer garniture. A short distance above the hill upon
which it is built, the water of the river that glides