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me; she covered me with kisses, like those of Judas; her very love for me was hypocrisy; her seeming devotion to me was a cunning lie.”

The young man walked up and down his room, and fanned his forehead with the papers he held, as if burning with heat. Old Daylight looked at him with astonishment. But it is worth while noting, in the study of the man, that his inductive process had already commenced, and that he was already in some way connecting all this with Madame Martin.

"And why was this?" continued Edgar Wade; "why was a poor little baby, a child at its most defenceless time, thus a prey to the cunning of that most cunning of all things—a wicked woman who is a mother?"

"He knows the world, he does," whispered Tom Forster to himself.

"Because "-here the barrister checked himself, and spoke deliberately, as if pleading before a jury; while, as if to mark every word he said with a due weight, he paused where most emphatic" because, by that overloading me with so much care and love, making me the object of so much seeming fondness, she could sooner rob me and deceive others-deceive others for her own sake-rob me for the sake of her child of shame -rob me, ME of a noble name, of well-descended ancestors, of an immense fortune."

""Tis she," muttered Old Daylight. "I see it now; the links draw closer and closer."

The barrister had reached his climax, and sat down overwhelmed by being the victim of so much treachery, of so deep a plot.

Then Old Daylight, after due reflection, began to speak.

"My dear Edgar, look here-I can see pretty clearly what you mean." Then he checked himself, thinking, no doubt, that he must not say too much. "But are you sure of this? The charge is a grave one, the accusation most terrible; but to have carried this scheme out is to suppose Mrs Wade the heroine of a villainous romance-to presume that she had a coolness and an audacity we rarely find in women. She must have been helped in her wickedness-had accomplices, friends, perhaps her husband.”

"Her husband!" said Edgar, bitterly. "No; I took all for granted as it was. I did not suppose her a widow, if you

did."

Edgar Wade knew very well the meaning of a bar sinister! The barrister's face turned almost scarlet with shame, and then grew livid and pale.

"Heaven help you, Edgar," said Old Daylight, calmly, "if you were the victim of such a plot! Your youth embittered thus!"

"But it is no longer so," said the barrister. "Retribution begins to work. We will instal ourselves in our true seat. We will be no longer the victims of these miserable plotters."

The old philosopher sat and reflected; and his eye, microscopic in its observations, ran over the apartment, mechanically taking an inventory. He could not help that. There, for instance, thrown down on the drawing-room table, with the black kid gloves tossed by its side, was the barrister's wellworn hat; there-but the hat was enough. That, somehow, put Forster in mind of out-door work, and his own business He knew he was the very man to help Edgar at this moment; but how to do it without revealing his precious hobby?

"My dear boy," he began, "it seems to me that we are wasting time. You asked me up here, it seems, to consult with me. Well, I perhaps can advise you as well as any man; at any rate, I am entirely devoted to you. Now, look here. You have told me a wonderful story. A woman whom I thought an angel has turned out just the reverse. Poor human nature! But let that pass. You are a lawyer, and know what law is. How have you learnt all this? Where are your proofs ?"

The decided, business-like tone of the old man rather startled the barrister, who, till then, had thought him a pre-occupied, pottering old boy, with no very great amount of mind; and who had only consulted him because he had no one else to consult. But he was ready with his answer.

"I know what law is. I have known this secret for three weeks. I don't act suddenly. I have moral and important proofs-proofs so strong, so undeniable, that, with one or two

words from a living witness, no jury in the world would hesitate a moment. But that word she will never speak. The Widow Martin has been sacrificed to keep me still where I am."

"I see it all," muttered Old Daylight.

"I know that she would have spoken that word. I have seen her when she left her chapel. She promised me that she would tell all; but now I am at the mercy of the world. My father will deny me. Mrs Wade will disown her deeds: she would even with the rope round her neck."

Old Forster shuddered. That neck, which he could have thought fit to wear a chain of the purest gold, a carcanet of rubies, to be touched by the vile fingers of the hangman! And she was his mother, Edgar's mother—at least, he thought her

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"She would deny all," continued the barrister, "I am quite sure. I have proofs; but this unhappy crime has struck me down, and turned those proofs into unrealities. One stroke of a razor across a woman's throat, and farewell all my hopes." "It wasn't a razor!" said Old Daylight, hastily.

Luckily, the barrister did not notice him, or his secret was very nigh out. Then hurrying to cover up the little hole from which it might have escaped, he cried—

"Explain to me, my dear Edgar, this terrible mystery." ("I see it all," thought the old fox.) "Sometimes, you know, old heads are better than young ones. Perhaps I can advise you."

Mr Edgar Wade cast a look upon Old Daylight, which, but for its utter vacuity and helplessness, would have been somewhat rude; for it certainly had in it no particular warmth of trust or confidence. Then he walked up and down the room as if uncertain; then he went to his cabinet, and sitting down, fell into a brown study.

Forster fidgeted terribly, for he was on thorns to begin his inductive process in aid of the young fellow whom he loved best in all the world. He rubbed one worsted stocking against the other; pulled up one slipper after the other; looked at his never-failing watch; counted his huge bunch of seals; and, finally, commenced

"My dear Edgar, you were about to say "-
The barrister held up his hand as if for silence.

"Yes," he said, "I will tell you all;-any confidant, in a matter like this, is better than none."

"Complimentary," thought Forster; "but oh! if he could but tell what I know about it! !"

"You see," said Edgar, "that, as a gentleman and a man of honour, I was at first somewhat to blame in my method of finding this out. Three weeks ago I came home and found Mrs Wade, whom I then thought my mother, out on a visit. I wanted some title-deeds in which were narrated certain incidents which, to amuse my dear mother, as I then thought her, I had shown her. I could not find them, and I went into the room Mrs Wade occupies, and to her desk, thinking that she had referred to them. The desk was open, and there I found these papers; and my eye fell upon the words, 'My darling Eugenie.' The name was my mother's; the writing, I felt sure, was my father's. I determined to read them."

"You did wrong, young man," said Old Forster, severely. "I know I did, and I have been severely punished. Even in my trouble and shame I was happy till then; but nowbut now, it seems as if the firm earth was sinking under me, and I had no foothold and no helping hand to be stretched out to help me."

The young man-so bold, so brave, so cold, so hard and manly-covered his face with his thin, white hands; and Forster thought he saw tears trickling through the fingers. He himself was moved; he forgot his inductive philosophy, and blew his nose violently with his red bandana : it was not to conceal his emotion, it was his manner of weeping. The awful sound brought Edgar Wade to himself. Taking up a bundle of papers, duly arranged, he threw them to Old Daylight, saying

"Here are the letters-read them."

CHAPTER VI.

LOVE LETTERS WRIT FOR OTHER EYES THAN THINE!

OLD FORSTER took the letters, but with a delicate repugnance. Tradesman as he had been, and crime-tracker as he was, he had, at the bottom of his heart, a fund of goodness and delicacy which many gentlemen want.

"You had better read them to me, Edgar, my boy," he said. "My eyes are not very good. But, pardon me, let me look at the writing."

The letters were well preserved, and docketed; written on large quarto letter-paper, in a delicate, cultivated hand. The ink was faded, and the paper yellow with age.

"You are quite right, Mr Forster," said Edgar, touched with his delicacy. "I will read them. You see how they commence they are always pretty nearly the same. Sometimes 'dear' gives place to 'beloved;' but these are minutiæ, which do not concern the case in point.

666

"MY DEAR EUGENIE,-How I wish I were again in France with you, my sweet one! But, alas! it will never be.'" "Mrs Wade was Eugenie. Was she French?" asked Old Daylight. "I had never observed that."

"No," answered Edgar, "her accent was perfect. Most Frenchmen never learn English, but some French ladies speak it as well as we do. Eugenie Autra was the daughter of a good family, which had been reduced, and kept a pension in Paris, at which English young ladies of the highest families were brought up. The wars with England scattered these boarders, and reduced the families from riches almost to poverty, so I have since found; but not before my father, an English nobleman, visiting his little sister, had seen and fallen in love with Eugenie."

"Good," murmured Old Daylight. "That will account for something."

Everything, indeed, accounted for something in the old philosopher's inductive process.

Edgar continued reading.

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