I shall be able
perhaps to set your mind at ease about the bag;" and he left the room.

"Jane," he said, addressing his sister, who was seated in her usual
place by the kitchen fire, "I've a letter for you, and it has come in
rather an odd way;" and he then repeated to her James Barnes's story.

Much puzzled, but with no great amount of curiosity or interest, Jane
took the letter from her brother's hand. From whom could it have come?
There was of course no postmark, as it had been sent by messenger; and
she knew nothing of the handwriting. When she had opened it she found
only one small leaf, and but very few words on that; but these words,
few though they were, seemed to take her breath away, and to overwhelm
her with overpowering emotion. She sat staring at the miserable scrawl
as though the letters were potent with some mighty spell, and then,
throwing the paper on the table by her, gave way to a passionate
outburst of weeping.

"Jane, Jane dear, what's amiss?" cried her brother in great distress.
"The Lord help us! What has happened?"

She did not look up, but pushed the letter towards him, and he read as
follows:--

"Dear Jane,--I am sorry now for all as I've done at you. Pray forgive
me. You will find a letter all about it in the bag; and I've put your
little marked Bible, and the other br---t with it, into the bag. So
no more at present from yours--JH."

Slowly the facts of the case dawned on Thomas Bradly's mind. John
Hollands was trying to make amends for the cruel wrong he had done to
poor Jane, and had sent her a written statement which would wipe off the
stain he had himself cast on her character; and with this he had sent
Jane's dearly-prized Bible and the companion bracelet to the one seen by
Lady Morville in Jane's hand, and given up by her to her mistress on
that unhappy morning. And what of John Hollands himself? No doubt he
was making the best of his way, under fear of detection and punishment,
to some foreign country; and had left the bag through a feeling of
remorse, that he might clear Jane's character. Both brother and sister
saw this clearly; and that the means of relief for poor Jane had been
just within their grasp, but now, by the cruel carelessness of James
Barnes, had slipped away from them, and perhaps for ever. Where was the
bag which had in it what would set all things straight? Who could tell?

"I see it all," said Bradly, sadly, to his sister. "It's very try