left me, in flight. I darted along the entry, and reached the stairs. When I had turned round the angle in the wall I stopped for an instant to ascertain whether I had been seen or heard. No sound whatever was discernible behind me. I walked back a few steps so as to command a view of the passage, and found that the large door was still unopened. Encouraged by this indication that the intention of the party to leave the apartment had been changed, and inexpressibly and madly eager to have one chance of discovering something of their proceedings, I ran back to the place where I had been endeavouring to admit myself into the secret room in the wall, and again passed my hand along the channelled mouldings to find the catch which had baffled me before. The roar of the iron bar again smote fearfully in my ear, just as I touched the important spot and the small door flew open. I hastily threw myself within and drew the door behind me at the same instant that the heavy oak of the adjoining one moved upon its hinges. The noise of the closing spring was merged in that of the opening hinges.

The place in which I found myself was a passage channelled out in the thick wall that bounded the entry. Judging from the light which was visible at a little distance along, part of the partition which separated it from the apartment within, was transparent. Fearful, however, of being heard through the thin division which on both sides shielded me, I did not move. The per

sons who were just issuing as I entered this concealment, all left the room excepting two, who still remained behind. When the door was closed some conversation ensued which I was enabled to hear with great distinct

ness.

"Well, Williams," said one of them, "what do you think of this matter?"

"I have no doubt," replied the other, "that jealousy of superior talents is the cause of most of this excitement against Harold. Still, it must be admitted that there is some ground for the charge of treachery, and I think that the matter was very properly taken up. But

I fear very much that injustice will be done. I suspect that Morton's design is to make the decision of our meeting to-morrow night final upon the subject of Harold's guilt, and as we have sworn not to communicate to him any knowledge of the proposed assembly, I suspect that he will be condemned unheard.”

"I tell you what," said the other negligently, after a pause, during which he appeared to have been engaged in writing and had stopped to mend his pen, "if we kill Harold, we shall destroy the very centre and support of our society, and I shall take my leave of it pretty soon. No man can counsel and control like him. None can command the respect which he enforces. Morton can talk, but he lacks the strength and depth of character which long habits of action alone can give."

"As to Harold's behaviour about Stanley," remarked his companion, "proceeding from friendship and kindness to him, the notion is ridiculous. There is as much of such feeling in his breast as there is milk in a ‘male tiger.' And that he should be playing falsely with him is equally improbable, for that would occasion less benefit than the opposite course would ensure, and would farther expose him to great danger. If Stanley is a rogue, why does not Harold initiate him into this company ?"

"True enough. At what hour did they say we meet to-morrow?"

"Ten precisely: and in the upper room of the old central hall."

$6

There is one thing," resumed the first, after a considerable pause, "which makes me disinclined to proceed against Harold; and that is the danger we are in from the Stanleys. If that matter were settled, and all alarm banished, we might amuse ourselves by putting Harold to death for not settling it sooner: but if we lose his aid, or if he by that superhuman sagacity which belongs to him, discover our plot and abandon us, I fear we are gone. I know no means of obtaining the papers which are in possession of young Stanley, and if that cannot be done, our only safety consists in put

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ting both the old and the young one to sleep in the same grave; a clumsy mode, that, of doing the business;" and the speaker went on with his writing.

"That whole matter must be settled to-morrow night, and our system of proceeding ascertained. There is not much time to lose; for after the specimen young Stanley had this evening of our way of managing affairs, he will be very apt to try if he cannot give us some trouble. It would be droll if he applied to the police ha ha! Certainly Harold was right, it was a great blunder to haul him up before the council; but I am not so sure it was exactly as wise to let him go. It was Morton's idea, that of questioning him,-and Harold's vehemence in insisting on sending him away, has raised this storm of virtue in his breast. I hardly know myself why Harold opposed his death. I do not see what harm it could have done."

In possessing myself of a knowledge of the position and policy of these men and their party, I had gained what I wanted, and the tone of this conversation was scarcely so agreeable as to induce me to stay any longer in the place where I was. I therefore touched the spring of the little door which had admitted me, and stepped out into the entry. Every thing there was quiet, and I made my way out of the house without loss of time. I walked rapidly home, and did not feel myself fully at ease till I found myself within my own walls. Throwing myself on a chair before the fire I breathed for the first time with freedom; and availing myself of the opportunity of making my calm reflections upon the events which had befallen me, I reviewed all the incidents which that busy evening had disclosed.

The first circumstance which arrested my curiosity and perplexed my thoughts was, that the letters which my father had sent me, and which I had missed from under my pillow as I have already described, did not appear to be in the possession of those persons whose safety they principally concerned, and whom I had so reasonably suspected. This I inferred, both from the words which I had heard in the darkness of my con

cealment before the mysterious tribunal in the beginning of the evening, and from those which fell from the two speakers in the chamber. The acquisition of these documents seemed to constitute the object which had led to my summons before the first of these bodies, and the possession of them appeared to form the danger of which the latter spoke; and the improbability of my carrying them about my person, which the interrupter of the secret council so reasonably presented, was the consideration, so far as I could judge, which led to my dismissal. On the other hand, the savage determination to obtain those papers, which one of the speakers whom I had heard in the entry on the former evening expressed, and the great importance which he manifestly attached to Thompson's letter especially, seemed to point to him or his party as the only persons likely to make the bold attempt which would be necessary to secure them.

The character and personality of the Mr. Harold, whose name had been so often used, was as dubious and contradictory as any part of the multiform mystery which engaged my meditations. It was he, as I inferred from the dialogue which I had last heard, who intruded upon my first imprisonment and to whom I was then indebted for my liberty. It was he who, although he apparently was the chief and master of the whole society, was the object of the design which the company were to canvass on the former evening. I have already spoken of the fact that my father had mentioned that the person who visited him was named Harold, and that I had heard that very person inquire whether Harold was in the house, and told that he was. What I had learned that evening was equally surprising. Previous incidents and general circumstances rendered it apparent that the chief enemy whom I had to encounter was this person, whoever he might be; and yet the charge against him was that he was colluding with me. That, however, might be the mistaken inference which his companions had drawn from the mere circumstance of

his having urged the propriety of dismissing me without injury from the tribunal before which I had been brought; yet there was another thing which made it probable that broader grounds existed in the minds of these men for the opinion of some intercourse and understanding between us-irrational and impossible to be credited by any one as that appeared to me. One of the men who were conversing in that room which I commanded from my concealment, spoke of the friendship which subsisted between Harold and myself, and although he doubted the sincerity of his regard, his language indicated that the person of whom he spoke sustained at least the semblance of intimacy with me, and was at all events on a footing of familiarity and acquaintance. Certainly this was wholly inexplicable. I did not even know the man by sight: and it was not easy to imagine what circumstances another could contrive to produce in the minds of third parties an impression of an intercourse which had never in any degree existed.

The events of the evening taken together, and coupled with the knowledge which the conversation of the two men had revealed, proved the existence of a band of men united for purposes of extraordinary profligacy, bound by principles of singular hardihood and sternness, and controlled by a spirit and an intelligence which had not often before brought the best defence of virtue to second the worst suggestions of depravity. The glimpse which I had obtained of the system and character of this strange and dark brotherhood presented an outline of daring wickedness and dazzling power, which fancy might fill up as it pleased. What organisation gave unity and vigour to their action, and what definite ends employed their energies I was wholly ignorant; but the only occasion which had brought me under the direct influence of this company was sufficient to inspire an awe for the ingenuity of their means as well as the ruthlessness of their schemes. One of the men who were in the apartment together had