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Father, there's a lawyer here-Maurice's lawyer-who says

Here, at sight of the sympathy in her father's look, she broke down and hid her face against his breast.

Miles kissed her with exceeding tenderness: 'It's a mere matter of form, dear, and Brew will make it as easy for you as he can.'

you

'It isn't that, father; but he will tell

Tut! lawyers always make the worst of a case for their own credit, dear.'

'Come up afterwards, father,' she sobbed, unable to say more at the moment. She hurried upstairs to her room, ashamed of her breakdown, and there waited anxiously, hoping against hope that her father might find more comfort than she could in Mr. O'Callaghan's statement of the case.

But the attorney's account only confirmed Miles' forebodings; and, when he had at last got rid of him, he faced Norah with a heavy heart. Mr. O'Callaghan's mission had revealed

to him Maurice's love for Norah, as Norah's wretchedness this morning had revealed her love for Maurice, and this discovery, which at any other time would have gladdened him inexpressibly, now but deepened the pathos of the situation.

Well, father?' asked Norah anxiously, as she opened the door to him.

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Well, dear, I think, perhaps, Brew will dispense with your evidence, if I represent the matter to him as Maurice suggests.'

"You mean that he will have evidence enough without it, father?' she said bitterly, finding this prospect the reverse of consoling.

'He will have Maurice's admission of all that you could testify to, dear. He's a noble fellow, Norah!' exclaimed Miles, making this sudden diversion to Maurice's merits with great tact. To this absorbing subject he kept until he had coaxed Norah into lying down to try to get some sleep. But Norah quite understood the diversion. If her father had any comfort

for her he would have given it, and the diversion to Maurice's merits was an implicit confession that he had none. Therefore, though to please him she lay down as if to sleep, it was only to turn this trouble over and over a thousand times in her mind. What weighed on Maurice -the public exposure and brutal cross-examination of the witness-box-was not once in her thoughts. It was what her evidence might cost him, not what it would cost herself, that filled her mind to the exclusion of everything else. She could not get out of her ears Mr. O'Callaghan's valuation as a lawyer of her evidence as important, most important, allimportant,' so that it appeared to her that Maurice's fate hung upon it alone. It was she, through what seemed now to her a kind of treachery, who had armed his enemies for his destruction; and yet, in this horrible peril into which she had brought him, he had thoughts to spare to the painfulness of her position-no thoughts to spare to anything else—according to Mr. O'Callaghan.

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CHAPTER XXXVI.

'I AM GOING TO ASK MAURICE ABOUT IT.'

And I must die for want of one bold word. - Elaine.

Next morning early, Miles and Norah started together for the court-house of the neighbouring town. During the journey Miles administered to her what comfort he could by suggesting that the inquiry would be private, that her evidence would not be called for, and that Maurice would exonerate himself. Of this last, however, he was himself plainly so uncertain that Norah was not reassured.

But Mr. O'Callaghan said he couldn't, father.'

'He said he couldn't give a full account of all his doings that night, my dear; but there are other ways of clearing himself. Besides,

VOL. III.

G

O'Callaghan's wish was father to the thought. He'd be bitterly disappointed if the case didn't go on.' After thinking over this a little she found in it not much more than that Miles' wish was father to the thought.

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'But if he can't clear himself, father?'

Probably Brew will bail him, dear,' Miles replied evasively.

'But I mean at the trial-if he can't clear himself at the trial?'

Pooh! the thing isn't to be supposed. If he's driven to it, he'll have to explain his doings that night.

'He'll not explain them to save himself at the cost of others,' Norah answered decisively. As this was as certain to Miles as to her, he reverted to his distrust of O'Callaghan's account of the case.

'You may depend upon it, dear, O'Callaghan's made a mountain out of a molehill.' But Norah put pertinaciously the same question again and again until she had extracted from