nother gang to open the
new shaft to the bottom, and see if any sufferers could be saved that
way. Whatever he did was wise, but his manner was frenzied. None of his
people thought he had so much feeling, and more than one of the quaking
women gave him a kind word; he made no reply, he did not even seem to
hear. He wandered about the mine all night wringing his hands, and at
last he was taken home almost by force.

Humanity overpowered prejudice, and Colonel Clifford came to the mine to
see if he could be of any use to the sufferers. He got hold of the deputy
and learned from him what Bartley was doing. He said he thought that was
the best course, as there would be division of labor; but, said he, "I am
an old campaigner, and I know that men can not fight without food, and
this work will be a fight. How will you house the new-comers?"

"There are forty-seven men missing, and the new men can sleep in their
cottages."

"That's so," said the Colonel, "but there are the wives and the children.
I shall send sleeping tents and eating tents, and provisions enough to
feed a battalion. Forty-seven lives," said he, pityingly.

"Ay, sir," said the deputy, "and such lives, some of them; for Mr. Hope
and Miss Mary Bartley--leastways that is not her name now, she's Mr.
Hope's daughter."

"Why, what has she to do with it?"

"I am sorry to say, sir, she is down the mine."

"God forbid!" said the Colonel; "that noble girl dead, or in
mortal danger."

"She is, sir," and, lowering his voice, "by foul play;" then seeing the
Colonel greatly shocked and moved, he said, "and I ought not to keep it
from you. You are our nearest magistrate; the young lady told me at the
pit mouth she is Mr. Hope's daughter."

"And so she is."

"And she said there was a plot to destroy her father in the mine by
exploding the old workings he was going to visit. One Ben Burnley was to
do it; a blackguard that has a spite against Mr. Hope for discharging
him. But there was money behind him and a villain that she described to
us--black eyebrows, a face like a corpse, and dressed in a suit of tweed
one color. We hoped that she might have been mistaken, or she might have
warned Mr. Hope in time; but now it is to be seen that there was no
mistake, and she had not time to warn him. The deed is done; and a darker
deed was never done, even in the dark."

Colonel Clifford groaned: after a while he said, "Seize that Ben Burnley
at once, or he will soon leave t