the extraordinary circumstances, inexplicable to any one but himself, on which the accusation against him was founded, Lady Arden felt a pang of terror paralyse her heart, but as his simple explanations followed, she would exclaim, "Is not that sufficient? Is not that sufficient?"

"In the mouth of an impartial witness, such explanations would be all-sufficient," he replied, "but remember I am the person accused."

"Accused!" she repeated, then gazed with a mother's rapturous love, on the guileless expression of his parted lip, as to comfort her he tried to smile, she fondly poured forth expressions of endearment.

"Alfred, my child! my mild, my innocent, my beautiful Alfred! my gentle, my affectionate, my noble Alfred!" She paused, and, by the working of her features, terrible thoughts seemed to pass in view before her.

"Oh, impossible!" she suddenly exclaimed, clasping him with convulsive agony to her breast, "quite impossible! But if they are so mad," she added, in a hurried tone of subdued agony, "they shall saw these arms asunder before they take him from me!" He was too much affected to reply. Again she looked at him in silence for a time, then added, almost fiercely,

"There must be means, and I will find them! What! allow them to murder him! No—no—I rave, my son. Dreams of horror belong to these walls——but I have no fears—no fears—no fears—I say I have no fears—it is quite, quite impossible!" Even while reiterating that she had no fears, her voice had faltered, and now she burst into a passion of tears, which the effort to brave her feelings quickly changed to an hysterical affection.

This became so serious, and lasted so long, that she was obliged to be carried home, and conveyed to bed, where the kindhearted Mrs. Dorothea, took the post of friendship beside her pillow.

Yet this was, by no means, the most agonizing period of this season of trial. The situation was too novel to be comprehended in its full extent. There was, as yet, more of incredulous amazement, and of proud defiance of the accuser, than of despair or even of apprehension in the feelings both of Lady Arden and of Alfred. They were both at present more indignant that such an outrage had been offered, and that submission to insulting and degrading forms was still necessary, than seriously alarmed as to future consequences.

CHAPTER VI.

In the parlour to which we have already been introduced, sat Mr. Fips—over his wine it must be confessed, yet apparently uniting the utile et dulce, for beside his bottle of port stood an ink-bottle; amid walnut-shells and remnants of biscuit lay sundry long-shaped folded papers, and though he held a glass in his hand, from which he sipped from time to time, there was a pen behind his ear; his wig was pushed on one side and Geoffery was his companion.

"Should we not subpœna Lady Arden?" asked Fips.

"By all means," replied Geoffery, "her evidence will be of great importance: we can prove by it, that Sir Alfred had actually made proposals to and been accepted by Lady Caroline, the very day before his brother came to town: and also, that he felt his disappointment much more bitterly than was generally supposed."

Here Geoffery repeated the particulars of a conversation on the subject, which it may be remembered he once overheard, between Lady Arden and her son. And Fips took down notes, for suggesting questions to counsel.

"Do you think," he said, "there would be any use in sending subpœnas to Lady Palliser and her daughter?"

"No, on the contrary, I have reason to suspect, some circumstances might come out on their examination, rather calculated to raise a doubt in the minds of jurors; I am therefore better pleased that they are on the continent."

"When did they go abroad?"

"A short time before the death of Sir Willoughby; immediately after his return to Arden."

"Are they likely to be brought forward on the other side, think you?"

"I should say not: from the conversations I have had with Sir Alfred, I should think that he was not at all aware that their evidence could be of the slightest service to him."

"You seem to have more reasons for thinking so, Mr. Arden," said Fips, "than you have been pleased to confide to me. Now 'tis well and wisely said, that a man, for his own sake, should have no secrets either from his doctor or his lawyer. That, however, is your look out; I can only serve you to the best of my ability, as far as my information goes."

"Which is quite as far as mine, I assure you Fips. It was merely my own surmise, that Sir Willoughby might not have been quite as well received latterly as his vanity had, at first, led him to believe he should be. Now, I naturally thought that such an idea being promulgated, might suggest the possibility of Sir Willoughby's having taken the poison himself; which idea, though not amounting to evidence on either side, might, as I said before, raise doubts in the minds of a jury, calculated to bias their judgments, and so defeat the ends of justice."

"I thought," observed Fips, sulkily, for he fancied he saw that Geoffery was playing an underhand game, "I understood you to have said, you had reasons for your opinion."

"Yes, so I have—those I have just stated."

He had others, however, which he had not stated, because, as we have said, he did not wish to put himself absolutely in Fips's power, unless there should be no other means of gaining his end.

"His sisters too," continued Geoffery, "and his aunt Mrs. Dorothea, can be produced to prove so far, that Sir Alfred, before the appearance of his brother on the stage, was an assiduous, and believed himself to be a favoured lover. I do not mean to say, that either this or Lady Arden's evidence would be any proof of Sir Alfred's guilt; but, by adding the incentives of jealousy and revenge to that of mere avarice, it makes his having committed the crime much less improbable, and must therefore influence, more or less, the minds of the jury."

When the various subjects under discussion were arranged and the bottle of port finished, Mr. Fips repaired to his office—for he was a labourer at his vocation, late, as well as early—while Geoffery, whom the strains of a female voice, accompanied by a pianoforte, had been long inviting to the drawing-room, repaired thither.

Miss Fips, as the only child of Mr. Fips, was destined to be the receiver of stolen goods to a large amount; or, in other words, to inherit all the money her father had scraped together. She had therefore been sent to a London boarding-school, to receive an education proportionate to her fortune. Her Italian singing-master, called her voice a made one. He had found it impossible to give her either ear or taste; while the unshrinking audacity with which she caricatured a bravura, gave to her performance the semblance of having been got up on purpose for a burlesque: a stranger would seriously have thought, that the most polite thing they could do was to stand by and laugh openly. Her shakes were shudders, and seemed to have been produced by a sort of second-sight view of some approaching horror, invisible to all beside. Her prolonged notes resembled the howls of a chained dog, on a moonlight night; while her abrupt changes, and impassioned passages, were the starts and yells of a maniac.

Without somewhat of the grace of natural timidity, the most splendid performance could scarcely please; with what feeling then, but that of unqualified disgust, could such a display as we have just described have been witnessed; while Geoffery, who had the part of a lover not only of music, but of the lady to maintain, was thereby called upon to enact raptures.

Fips's wife had died, in giving birth to this only child. Fips was then a poor clerk. When the child began to require the aid of a first school, he lodged in a garret, and dined in a cellar, that he might be able to defray the expense. Yet, strange to say,