in one of the rooms. After dinner, while she was dozing in her chair, he left his hiding place to accomplish his terrible purpose. He put poison into the glass from which she drank, added brandy and water to it, and stole away-leaving her to drink it and die!

"He believed that she had made a will in his favour, but he was mistaken. The first will, made when he was a boy, making him her heir, she had destroyed when they quarrelled, and in her last will she cut him off with a hundred and fifty a-year. This, then, was what he gained by his crime! How he has suffered since! In six months he has become an old, haggard, broken-down, miserable man! He knows no peace by night or day; he can get no rest; his sleep is disturbed and fitful; he-but need I say more? Oh, any one who is brooding some crime in his heart should see him, and he will never carry his dark project into effect. Oh, all who are hurrying along the terrible road of sin, who are rushing forward into the abyss of crime could they but see him once, they would'

be saved. No one who has not witnessed it can have any idea of the immense influence

the mind has on the body. With a guilty conscience it is impossible that the body can long be well. And now I have done. that I have to tell is told.

All

"In less than an hour I shall have left your house, my good, kind husband, never to return. I go, but whither must ever remain to you an impenetrable mystery. I go with a great sorrow at my heart-sorrow for the past. I go, and shall weep many tears for all that I leave behind me-my home, my husband, my daughter. I go, and will try and atone for my sin by devoting my life henceforth to good works-charity, kindness, work! I go, and my last words are: Thank you very, very much for the many years of happiness, peace and enjoyment you have given me. Thank you, and though I am unworthy to say it, bless you!

"Your wicked and heartbroken wife,
"MRS. WAINING."

Thus ended this strange letter-this confession of a woman's sin! That she had written hurriedly was evident from its style; that it had cost her many an effort, many a

pang of the heart, was also evident from the number of tear-stains on every sheet! And yet all the sentences were not full of sorrowful sentiments; there was in it a mixture of despair and hope, of callousness and nobleness, of anger and remorse, of coldness and warmth. At least so thought Bulton. And Waining and his daughter shut themselves up, and for a long time refused to be comforted, and their neighbours and friends, with the solitary exception of Mr. Bulton, never knew the true story of Mrs. Waining's disappearance.

CHAPTER XIII.

A HAPPY RELEASE.

"The world recedes, it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:

Lend, lend your wings: I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy victory ?

O Death! where is thy sting?"

POPE.

CHARLES ROSS fortunately reached London in time to catch the evening train to Leeds, but he had to waste an hour and more at a junction station before he could get a train to E—.

It was late when he rang the bell of No. 7, Queen Street.

The door was opened immediately, and a cross-featured woman, with a flaming tallow candle in her hand, asked him "to walk in for the gintlemin on the first floor was very anxious to see him, and had been hexpecting him all the harfternoon."

ill?”

“Is he very ill ?" inquired Ross, uneasily. "Yes, sir," was the answer.

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"What is the matter with him ?"

"I is sure I does not know, sir." "Has he had a doctor?"

"In course, sir; he didn't want to have one, he didn't, honly hi jist sent hoff for un. I wasn't a going to 'ave 'im die wright hoff without no hadvice, and me get blamed for it."

"You did quite right," said Ross.

“I should think so, sir; if a gintlemin chooses to jine one of they pecooliar sects and ate nothing, and drink nothing, and thin gat hill, why he must 'ave the doctcr."

"What! do you say your lodger is a peculiar person?" inquired Ross, somewhat surprised at her words.

"Well, sir, he's not altogither wright; there's something quare about 'im, begging your pardin if he's your brother, or a relation."

"How long has he been ill ? "

"Lor! sir! months I should think, 'cause, sir, when he come to me some days ago he did look terrible bad. He was like one of they spirits you've heard tell on."

"Poor man!" said Charles, compassionately,