one yet. And the prayer was always said, morning
and night, with the same persistent rejection of those words which,
in his present condition, were so damning to him,--rejection from the
intelligence though with the whispering voice the words were spoken.
But still there was the resolve the same as ever. There was no other
way of escape. A stag, when brought to bay, will trample upon the
hounds. He would trample upon them. Llanfeare should all be his
own. He would not return to his clerk's desk to be the scorn of all
men,--to have it known that he had fraudulently kept the will hidden,
and then revealed it, not of grace, but because he was afraid of Mr
Cheekey. His mind was quite made up. But the deed need not be yet
done. The fewer nights that he would have to pass in that house,
after the doing of the deed, the better.

The trial was to be on the Friday. He would not postpone the deed
till the last day, as it might be then that emissaries might come to
him, watching him to see that he did not escape. And yet it would be
well for him to keep his hands clean from the doing of it up to the
last moment. He was quite resolved. There was no other escape. And
yet--yet--yet, who would say what might not happen? Till the deed
should have been done, there would yet be a path open to the sweet
easiness of innocence. When it should have been done, there would be
a final adieu to innocence. There would be no return to the white
way, no possibility of repentance! How could a man repent while he
was still holding the guilty prize which he had won? Or how could he
give up the prize without delivering himself as a criminal to the
law? But, nevertheless, he was resolved, and he determined that the
deed should be done on the Tuesday night.

During the whole Tuesday he was thinking of it. Could he bring
himself to believe that all that story of a soul tormented for its
wickedness in everlasting fire was but an old woman's tale? If he
could but bring himself to believe that! If he could do that, then
could he master his qualms. And why not? Religious thoughts had
hitherto but little troubled his life. The Church and her services
had been nothing to him. He had lived neither with the fear nor
with the love of God at his heart. He knew that, and was but little
disposed to think that a line of conduct which had never been
hitherto adopted by him would be embraced in his later life. He could
not think of himself as being even desirous to be