ou don't value your own?"

"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Monckton. "That's a very different thing."

"Oh, you do value your own foul life?"

"At any amount of money," said Monckton.

"Then why do you risk it?"

"Excuse me, governor, that's a thing I make a point of not doing. I risk
my instruments, not my head, Ben Burnley to wit."

"You are risking it now," said Bartley, looking still more
strangely at him.

"How so, pray?" said Monckton, getting a little uneasy, for this was not
the Bartley he had known till then.

Bartley took the poker in his hand and proceeded to poke the fire; but
somehow he did not look at the fire. He looked askant at Monckton, and he
showed the white of his eyes more and more. Monckton kept his eye upon
him and put his hand upon the handle of the door.

"I'll tell you," said Bartley--"by coming here to tempt, provoke, and
insult the wretch whose soul you destroyed, by forcing me to assassinate
the best man and the sweetest girl in England, when there were vipers and
villains about whom it's a good action to sweep off God's earth. Villain!
I'll teach you to come like a fool and madden a madman. I was only a
rogue, you have made me a man of blood. All the worse for you. I have
murdered _them_, I'll execute _you_," and with these words he bounded on
him like a panther.

Monckton tore the doors open, and dashed out, but a furious blow fell
before he was quite clear of the doorway. With such force was it
delivered that the blunt metal cut into the edge of the door like a
sword; the jamb was smashed, and even Monckton, who received but
one-fourth of the blow, fell upon his hands and knees into the hall and
was stunned for a moment, but fearing worse, staggered out of the hall
door, which, luckily for him, was open, and darting into a little grove
of shrubs, that was close by, grovelled there in silence, bleeding like a
pig, and waiting for his chance to escape entirely; but the quaking
reptile ran no further risk.

Bartley never followed him beyond his own room; he had been goaded into a
maniacal impulse, and he returned to his gloomy sullenness.

* * * * *

Walter's declaration, made so suddenly before four persons, startled
them greatly for a moment--but only for a moment. Julia was the
first to speak.

"We might have known it," she said, "Mary Bartley is a young lady
incapable of misconduct; she is prudence, virtue, delicacy, and purity in
person; t