fe! He told me this very day that he has never even
entered that den of infamy."

"I believe him to be there at this very hour," replied Lucy, calmly. And
Hannah, excited to the highest point of anger and agitation, dared
Lucy to the instant proof, invited her to go with her at once to the
beer-house, and offered to abandon all thoughts of Edward Forester if he
proved to be there. Lucy, willing enough to place the fate of the cause
on that issue, prepared to accompany her; and the two girls were so
engrossed by the importance of their errand, that they did not even hear
Mrs. Colson's terrified remonstrance, who vainly endeavoured to detain
or recal them by assurances that smallpox of the confluent sort was in
the house; and that she had heard only that very afternoon, that a young
woman, vaccinated at the same time, and by the same person with her
Hannah, lay dead in one of the rooms of the Foaming Tankard.

Not listening to, not even hearing her mother, Hannah walked with the
desperate speed of passion through the village street, up the winding
hill, across the common, along the avenue; and reached in less time
than seemed possible the open grove of oaks, in one corner of which this
obnoxious beer-house, the torment and puzzle of the magistrates, and the
peat of the parish, was situated. There was no sign of death or sickness
about the place. The lights from the tap-room and the garden, along one
side of which the alley for four-corners was erected, gleamed in the
darkness of a moonless summer night between the trees; and even farther
than the streaming light, pierced the loud oaths and louder laughter,
the shouts of triumph, and the yells of defeat, mixed with the dull
heavy blows of the large wooden bowl, from the drunken gamesters in the
alley.

Hannah started as she heard one voice; but, determined to proceed, she
passed straight through the garden-gate, and rushed hastily on to the
open shed where the players were assembled. There, stripped of his coat
and waistcoat, in all the agony of an intoxicated gambler, stood Edward
Forester, in the act of staking his gold-laced hat upon the next cast
He threw and lost; and casting from him with a furious oath the massive
wooden ball, struck, in his blind frenzy, the lovely creature transfixed
in silent horror at the side of the alley, who fell with the blow, and
was carried for dead into the Foaming Tankard.

Hannah did not, however, die; although her left arm was broke