with a sneer. "But remember, if the
letters are not forthcoming to-morrow I shall be here again, and then,"
concluded he in a threatening tone, "my visit will not be as harmless as
this has been!"

After they had gone, Clarence rose and walked feebly to his desk, which,
with great effort and risk, he removed to the bed-side; then taking from it
little Birdie's letters, he began their perusal.

Ay! read them again--and yet again; pore over their contents--dwell on
those passages replete with tenderness, until every word is stamped upon
thy breaking heart--linger by them as the weary traveller amid Sahara's
sand pauses by some sparkling fountain in a shady oasis, tasting of its
pure waters ere he launches forth again upon the arid waste beyond. This is
the last green spot upon thy way to death; beyond whose grim portals, let
us believe, thou and thy "little Birdie" may meet again.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

"Murder will out."

The city clocks had just tolled out the hour of twelve, the last omnibus
had rumbled by, and the silence without was broken only at rare intervals
when some belated citizen passed by with hurried footsteps towards his
home. All was still in the house of Mr. Stevens--so quiet, that the ticking
of the large clock in the hall could be distinctly heard at the top of the
stairway, breaking the solemn stillness of the night with its monotonous
"click, click--click, click!"

In a richly furnished chamber overlooking the street a dim light was
burning; so dimly, in fact, that the emaciated form of Mr. Stevens was
scarcely discernible amidst the pillows and covering of the bed on which he
was lying. Above him a brass head of curious workmanship held in its
clenched teeth the canopy that overshadowed the bed; and as the light
occasionally flickered and brightened, the curiously carved face seemed to
light up with a sort of sardonic grin; and the grating of the
curtain-rings, as the sick man tossed from side to side in his bed, would
have suggested the idea that the odd supporter of the canopy was gnashing
his brazen teeth at him.

On the wall, immediately opposite the light, hung a portrait of Mrs.
Stevens; not the sharp, hard face we once introduced to the reader, but a
smoother, softer countenance--yet a worn and melancholy one in its
expression. It looked as if the waves of grief had beaten upon it for a
long succession of years, until they had tempered down its harsher
peculiarities, giving a subdued