, he thought that the sorrow would far outweigh
the joy the tidings of her changed condition would bring her; at least,
he hoped that he had so read her nature aright, and it was thus that he
had construed it.

If Quackinboss had none of that refined appreciation of sentiment which
in a certain measure is the conventionality of a class, he had what
is infinitely and immeasurably superior, a true-hearted sympathy with
everything human. He was sorely sorry for "that widow-woman." He had
forgotten none of the charms she threw around their evenings at Marlia
long ago, and he was slow to think that these fascinations should always
be exercised as snares and deceptions, and, last of all, as he said, "We
have never heard _her_ story yet,--we know nothing of how she has been
tried."

"What is it, then, that you propose to do?" asked the Colonel, at the
end of a somewhat rambling and confused exposition by young Layton.

"Simply this: abandon all pursuit of these people; spare them and spare
ourselves the pain and misery of a public shame. Their plot has failed;
they will never attempt to renew it in any shape; and, above all, let
not Clara begin the bright path before her by having to pass through a
shadow of suffering and sorrow."

"Ay, there is much in what you say; and now that we have run the game to
earth, I have my misgivings that we were not yielding ourselves more to
the ardor of the pursuit than stimulated by any love of justice."

While they were thus talking, the others had passed the little wicket
and entered the garden of the cottage. Struck by the quietness and the
unlighted windows, they knocked hastily at the door. A question and
answer revealed all, and the doctor called out aloud, "They are off!
They are away!"

Young Layton pressed Quackinboss's hand, and whispered, "Thank Heaven
for it!"

If Winthrop laughed heartily at an escape that struck him as so cleverly
effected, the doctor, far more eager in pursuit than the others, passed
into the house to interrogate the people,--learn when and how and in
what direction they had fled, and trace, if so it might be, the cause of
this sudden departure.

"See," cried he, as the others entered the drawing-room,--"see what
a sudden retreat it has been! They were at their coffee; here is her
shawl, too, just as she may have thrown it off; and here a heap of
papers and letters, half burned, on the hearth."

"One thing is clear enough," said Alfred; "they discove