was a case of
poisoning in Jersey, where the victim was a well-known man of the Turf,
and who was murdered by the party he had invited to spend a Christmas
with him. Paten was one of the company, and included in the accusation.
Two were banged; Paten and another, named Collier, acquitted. Paten's
name was Hunt, but he changed it at once, and, going abroad, entered the
Austrian service, where, in eight years, he became a lieutenant. This
was enough for probation and rank, and so he returned to England as
Captain Ludlow Paten. Stocmar, of course, knew the story: there were
half a dozen more, also, who did, but they each and all knew that poor
Paul was innocent; that there was n't a fragment of evidence against him;
that he lost--actually lost--by Hawke's death; that he was carried
tipsy to bed that night two hours before the murder; that he was so
overcome the next morning by his debauch that he was with difficulty
awakened; that the coroner thought him a downright fool, he was so
stunned by the event; in a word, though he changed his name to Paten,
and now wore a tremendous beard, and affected a slightly foreign accent,
these were disguises offered up to the mean prejudices of the world
rather than precautions of common safety and security.

Though thus Paten's friends had passed this bill of indemnity in his
favor, the affair of Jersey was never alluded to, by even his most
intimate amongst them. It was a page of history to be carefully wafered
up till that reckoning when all volumes are ransacked, and no blottings
nor erasures avail! As for himself, who, to look at him, with his bright
countenance, to hear the jocund ring of his merry laugh--who could ever
imagine such a figure in a terrible scene of tragedy? What could such
a man have to do with any of the dark machinations of crime, the
death-struggle, the sack, the silent party that stole across the grass
at midnight, and the fish-pond? Oh, no! rather picture him as one who,
meeting such details in his daily paper, would hastily turn the sheet
to seek for pleasanter matter; and so it was he eschewed these themes in
conversation, and even when some celebrated trial would for the moment
absorb all interest, giving but one topic in almost every circle, Paten
would drop such commonplaces on the subject as showed he cared little or
nothing for the event.

Let us now hear what these two men are talking about, as they sat thus
confidentially over the fire. Stocmar is the