and eager with their questions. Deadly
were their fears, their hopes fainter and fainter, as day after day went
by, and both gangs, working in so narrow a space, made little progress,
compared with their own desires, and the prayers of those who trembled
for the result. It was a race and a struggle of two gallant parties, and
a short description of it will be given; but as no new incidents happened
for six days we shall preserve the chronological order of events, and now
relate a daring project which was revived in that interval.

Monckton and Bartley were now enemies. Sin had united, crime and remorse
had disunited them. Monckton registered a vow of future vengeance upon
his late associate, but in the meantime, taking a survey of the present
circumstances, he fell back upon a dark project he had conceived years
ago on the very day when he was arrested for theft in Bartley's office.

Perhaps our readers, their memory disturbed by such a number of various
matters as we have since presented to them, may have forgotten that
project, but what is about to follow will tend to revive their
recollection. Monckton then wired to Mrs. Braham's lawyer demanding an
immediate interview with that lady; he specified the hour.

The lawyer went to her directly, the matter being delicate. He found
her in great distress, and before he could open his communication she
told him her trouble. She said that her husband, she feared, was going
out of his mind; he groaned all night and never slept, and in the
daytime never spoke.

There had been just then some surprising falls and rises in foreign
securities, and the shrewd lawyer divined at once that the stock-broker
had been doing business on his own account, and got pinched; so he said,
"My dear madam, I suspect it is business on the Exchange; he will get
over that, but there is something that is immediately pressing," and he
then gave her Monckton's message.

Now her nerves were already excited, and this made matters worse. She
cried and trembled, and became hysterical, and vowed she would never
go near Leonard Monckton again; he had never loved her, had never been
a friend to her as Jonathan Braham had. "No," said she; "if he wants
money, take and sell my jewels; but I shall stay with my husband in
his trouble."

"He is not your husband," said the lawyer, quietly; "and this man is your
husband, and things have come to my knowledge lately which it would be
imprudent at present to disclos