across his lowering brows, his rugged features, had told against him in popular estimation and given him a ruffianly aspect in the eyes of the crowd; and yet, when he stood up, and with a sudden rough gesture tossed the hair back from his brows, and faced the judge with a look of unflinching resolution, it was felt that the man possessed a rude dignity which compelled something very like admiration. Courage always commands respect, and, whatever his faults, his vices, his crimes might be, Andrew Westwood was a courageous man. He gripped the rail of the dock before him with both hands, and gave a quick look round the court before he spoke. His face was a little paler than usual, but his strong, hard voice did not falter.

"I have only to say what I said before. I take God to witness that I am innocent of this murder, and I pray that He'll punish the man that did kill Mr. Vane and left me to bear the burden of his crime! That's all I have to say, my lord. You may hang me if you like—I swear that I never killed him; and I curse the hand that did!"

The hard, defiant tone of his speech effectually dissipated the momentary sympathy felt for him by his audience. The judge sternly cut him short, and said a few solemn words on the heinousness of his offence and the impenitence which he had evinced. Then came the tragic conclusion of the scene.

It had grown late; lights were brought in and placed before the judge, upon whose scarlet robes and pale, agitated face they flickered strangely in the draught from an open window at the back of the court-house. The greater part of the building was in shadow; here and there a chance ray of light rested on one or two in a row of raised faces, and threw some insignificant countenance into startling temporary distinctness. A breathless hush pervaded the whole room. Every eye was fixed on the central figures of the scene—on the criminal as he stood with hands still grasping the side of the dock, his head defiantly raised, his shoulders braced as if to support a blow; on the judge, whose pale features quivered with emotion as he donned the black cap and uttered the fatal words which condemned Andrew Westwood to meet death by the hangman's hand.

"And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul!"

The words were scarcely spoken before a loud scream rang through the hall. Westwood turned round sharply; his eyes roved anxiously over the throng of faces, and seemed to pierce the gloom that had gathered about the benches in the background. He saw a little group of persons gathered about the body of a child whom they were carrying into the fresh air. It was his own little daughter who had cried out and fainted at the sound of those fateful words.

The prisoner was instantly removed by two warders; but it was noted that before he left the dock he threw up his hands as if in a wild gesture of supplication to the heavens that would not hear. He made eager inquiries of the warders as to the welfare of his child; and it was perhaps owing to the compassion of one of them that the chaplain came to him an hour later in his cell with news of her. She was better, she was in the hands of kindly women who would take care of her, and she would come to see her father by-and-bye. A convulsive twitch passed over Andrew's face.

"No, no," he said; "I don't want to see her. What good would that do?"

The chaplain, a kindly man whose sensibilities were not yet blunted by the painful scenes through which he had constantly to pass, uttered a word of remonstrance.

"Surely," he said, "you would like to see her again? She seems to love you dearly."

"I'm not saying that I don't love her myself," said the man, turning away his face. Then, after a moment's pause, and in a stifled voice—"She's dearer to me than the apple of my eye. And that's where the sting is. I'm to go out of the world, it seems, with a blot on my name, and she'll never know who put it there."

"If you saw her yourself——"

"Nay," said Westwood resolutely—"I won't see her again. She'd remember me all her life then, and she'd better forget. You're a good man, sir, and a kind—couldn't you take her away somewhere out of hearing of all this commotion, to some place where they would not know her father's story, and where she'd never hear whether he was alive or dead?"

The chaplain shook his head.

"I'm afraid not, Westwood," he said compassionately. "I know of no place where she could be safe from gossip."

"She will hear my story wherever she goes, I suppose you mean," said Westwood wearily. "Ah, well, she will learn to bear it in time, poor soul."

The chaplain looked at him curiously. There was more sincerity of tone, less cant and affectation in this man than in any criminal he had ever known.

"I suppose, sir," said the prisoner, after a short silence, during which he sat with his eyes fixed on the floor—"I suppose there is no chance of a reprieve—of the sentence being commuted?"

"I'm afraid not, Westwood. And you must let me say that your own conduct during the trial makes it more improbable that any commutation of the sentence should be obtained. If, my man, you could have shown any penitence—if you had confessed your crime——"

"The crime that I never committed?" said Westwood, with a flash of his sullen dark eyes. "Ah, you all speak alike! It's the same story—'Confess—repent.' I may have plenty to confess and repent of, but not this, for I never murdered Sydney Vane."

The chaplain shook his head.

"I am sorry that you persist in your story," he said sadly. "I had hoped that you would come to a better mind."

"Do you want me to go into eternity with a lie on my lips?" asked Westwood, fiercely. "I tell you that I am speaking the truth now. My coat was torn on a briar; I fired my gun at a crow as I went over the fields to my cottage. I saw a man go into the copse after Mr. Vane just as I came out. Find him, if you want to know who killed Mr. Vane."

"You have told us the same story before," said the chaplain, in a discouraged tone. "For your own sake, Westwood, I wish I could believe you. Who was the man? What was he like? Where did he go? Unless those questions are answered, it is impossible that your story should be believed."

"I can't answer them," said Westwood, in a sullen tone. "I did not know the man, and I did not look at him. All I know is that he has murdered me as well as Mr. Vane, and blasted the life of my innocent child. And I shall pray God night and morning as long as the breath is in my body to punish him, and to bring shame and sorrow on himself and all that he loves, as he has brought shame and sorrow on me and mine."

Then he turned his face to the wall and would say no more.

CHAPTER II.

Beechfield Hall was the name of the old manor-house in which the Vanes had lived for many generations. The present head of the family, General Richard Vane, was a man of fifty-five, a childless widower, whose interests centred in the management of his estate and the welfare of his brother Sydney and Sydney's wife and child. In the natural course of events, Sydney would eventually have succeeded to the property. It had always been a matter of regret to the General that neither he nor his brother had a son; and, when Sydney's life was prematurely cut short, the General's real grief for his brother's loss was deepened and embittered by the thought that the last chance of an heir was gone, and that the family name—one of the most ancient in the county—would soon become extinct, for a daughter did not count in the General's meditation. It did not occur to his mind as within the limits of possibility that he himself should marry again. He had always hoped that Sydney—twenty years younger than himself,