ever forgive
myself."

"Have I been dreaming? What is all this? You here, too, Mr. George!
But--but there was ANOTHER. Gone! ah--gone--gone! lost, lost! Ha! Did
you overhear us?"

"We overheard you-at that window! See, spite of yourself, Heaven
lets your innocence be known, and, in that innocence, your sublime
self-sacrifice."

"Hush! you will never betray me, either of you--never. A father turn
against his son!--horrible!"

Again he seemed on the point of swooning. In a few moments more, his
mind began evidently to wander somewhat; and just as Merle (who, with
his urchin-guide, had wandered vainly over the old town in search of
the pedlar, until told that he had been seen in a by-street, stopped
and accosted by a tall man in a rough great-coat, and then hurrying off,
followed by the stranger) came back to report his ill-success, Hartopp
and George had led Waife up-stairs into his sleeping-room, laid him down
on his bed, and were standing beside him watching his troubled face, and
whispering to each other in alarm.

Waife overheard Hartopp proposing to go in search of medical assistance,
and exclaimed piteously: "No, that would scare me to death. No
doctors--no eavesdroppers. Leave me to myself--quiet and darkness; I
shall be well tomorrow."

George drew the curtains round the bed, and Waife caught him by the arm.
"You will not let out what you heard, I know; you understand how little
I can now care for men's judgments; but how dreadful it would be to undo
all I have done--I to be witness against my Lizzy's child! I--I! I trust
you--dear, dear Mr. Morley; make Mr. Hartopp sensible that, if he would
not drive me mad, not a syllable of what he heard must go forth--'twould
be base in him."

"Nay!" said Hartopp, whispering also through the darkness, "don't fear
me; I will hold my peace, though 'tis very hard not to tell Williams at
least that you did not take me in. But you shall be obeyed."

They drew away Merle, who was wondering what the whispered talk was
about, catching a word or two here and there, and left the old man not
quite to solitude,--Waife's hand, in quitting George's grasp, dropped on
the dog's head.

Hartopp went back to his daughter's home in a state of great excitement,
drinking more wine than usual at dinner, talking more magisterially than
he had ever been known to talk, railing quite misanthropically against
the world; observing, that Williams had become unsufferably overbearing,
and shoul