be some trick of the senses and imagination and which she could in honest truth neither affirm nor deny. Placed in the witness-box, she could only say that she thought she saw a gray figure flit by in the dusk, and that she spoke under the impression that it was Dr. Everard, but believed herself to have been mistaken. Pressed for a reason for doubting his identity, she could only give his silence when spoken to, and his subsequent denial at dinner of having come in at that hour, and it required no very keen intelligence to discover that Lilian wished to disbelieve in the apparition. She volunteered evidence as to the alleged meeting with Alma at midday, stating that she was with Everard the whole time, and that they had seen no human being besides themselves.

It did not follow from this, as was observed, that Alma was not there, as Mrs. Lee and Judkins had sworn, or that Everard had not intended to meet her at that hour, had he been able to be alone. Alma was not in a condition even to make a deposition on her bed of sickness, since she continued more or less delirious for some weeks after her father's death: but her evidence was not deemed of sufficient consequence to justify a postponement of the trial, which, after a quantity of evidence which it would be tedious to detail, ended in a repetition of the coroner's verdict; and Henry, doubting whether there were any longer a solid earth to stand on, or a just Heaven to appeal to, found himself committed for trial at the next assizes on the capital charge.

CHAPTER XV.

CYRIL's direst anticipations had not reached a capital conviction, though he had feared manslaughter, and even Sir Lionel Swaynestone had his doubts as to the justice of the graver charge. Oldport public opinion, which was naturally stirred to its depths, was divided between the two; of the accused's innocence it had not the slightest suspicion. The little town was Liberal, not to say Radical, in its politics, and disposed to think the worst of a gentleman in his dealings with those beneath him.

Few people had a good word for a medical man of good birth, who was said to have taken advantage of both rank and profession

to work such cruel harm as that imputed to Everard. The medical profession, strangely enough, has never been popular, skill in the healing art being usually attributed by the unlearned to the favor of the Evil One: a clever physician is prized and feared, but rarely loved. Even among the cultured there still lingers a faint repulsion, for the man who is the only welcome guest in the day of sickness and peril, and society is only just beginning to honor the cultivated intellect and recognize the social value of the doctor.

The case of William Palmer, the notorious poisoner, was then fresh in people's minds, and the ease and impunity with which a skillful physician can become a murderer had awakened something of the old superstitious horror of the doctor's occult knowledge in the public imagination. Browne-Stockham and his colleague, a retired merchant of limited intellect and still more limited knowledge, and whose birth and liberal politics prejudiced him against Everard as a scion of a good old Tory family, were both strongly prepossessed against the innocence of a doctor who had manifested such unaccountable eagerness to get a footing in a humble family under pretense of exercising his skill. Dr. Eastbrook had been ready and willing to attend Mrs. Lee as usual in the preceding spring, as his evidence stated; Dr. Everard had asked leave to attend with him, because it was an unusual and very interesting case, a thing neither magistrates nor coroner's jury could understand.

Dr. Eastbrook, an older man, and too busy to be very eager about unusual cases, was not sorry to have Everard's help, since the case required more frequent visits than he could conveniently give, and finally he gave up the case to him altogether. This the public mind could conceive; but Everard's great eagerness and assiduous watching of the sick woman needed some motive to account for it. What motive could there be save that sinister one of seeing Alma constantly and alone? Thus many prejudices gathered together to precipitate Everard's doom, and although the prejudice of class was not so strong against him before the judge and jury at the assizes, yet there his profession exposed him to as great disfavor.

Everard once discussed with Cyril the subject of the doctor's small popularity as compared with the clergyman's, and Cyril accounted for it partly by the usefulness of the surgeon. "Clergymen," he observed, in one of those bursts of ingenuous satire that

delighted Everard, "are of no use save at two or three august moments of life-when a man dies, gets married, or is born-therefore they inspire popular reverence as belonging to the ornamental and superfluous portion of existence-its fringes, so to speak. Doctors, on the contrary, can not be dispensed with; their services are needed and obtained on the most homely occasions, and men never reverence the indispensable. Bread and cheese is taken as a matter of course, but the champagne of festivals is thought much of."

Cyril often affected a cynicism which amused Everard the more from its contrast with his supposed character.

It was difficult to move through the dense crowd which gathered round the Oldport Town Hall when Everard issued from it at the conclusion of the magistrates' inquiry, and public opinion expressed itself in hisses and groans as the vehicle in which he was being conveyed moved slowly, and not without some effort on the part of the guard of police, through the square.

Not every day was there such an exciting event as a trial for murder in the town hall, nor was it often that a culprit of such high social standing appeared in the well-known dock. The little town wore quite a festal air. Street-musicians and barrows laden with nuts, oranges and ginger-beer drove a thriving trade; and there was not a bar at public-house or hotel in the place which did not receive an excess of custom during the inquiry. Nothing else was talked of, and the experience of ages has shown that when marrkind talk they must drink something more inspiriting than water; also that when they drink that something they invariably talk in proportion to its inspiriting qualities. Tea-tables are supposed to be the great centers of gossip, and their female devotees its high priestesses. This is a popular fallacy. The ladies bear their part valiantly, but they can not match the men. From the West End club down to the humblest public-house, male coteries are the great sources of social information, which arrives in a weakened secondhand form at the female tea-board, where, indeed, it is frequently robbed for obvious reasons of its most racy characteristics.

On the evening after the termination of the great murder case, the pleasant bow-windowed room behind the bar at Burton's Hotel, which, as everybody knows, is opposite the town hall, was occupied not only by its nightly frequenters, but also by many less familiar guests, who dropped in ostensibly for a cigar and brandy or pale ale for the good of the house, but really to hear the news, or rather to

enjoy the curious pleasure experienced by human bipeds in retelling and rehearing from many different lips what they know perfectly already-like the readers who enjoy the whole of "The Ring and the Book." Among these grave citizens was Mr. Warner, the owner of the large linen-draper's shop, which makes the High Street so resplendent with plate-glass and fashionable fabrics.

"If ever I saw guilty written on a man's face," he observed thoughtfully, "it was stamped upon Everard's."

"I never saw a fellow with such a brazen look," returned young Cooper, of the great auctioneering firm. "Eastbrook says he is awfully clever."

"Those fellows generally are," added Strutt, the principal tailor, removing his cigar from his lips and looking lovingly at it. "How I pity those poor Maitlands!"

"Nice fellow, young Maitland! I've known him from a boy," said Warner. "They always deal with us. He was in my shop on the very day of the murder."

"Ah! and he was in mine on that same day," added Strutt. "Taking manners he has. Till he went to Cambridge, every thread he wore came from us. I know him well."

"Looks ill; trouble, perhaps," chimed in young Mr. West, cashier at the county bank. "I hear that this Everard was bred up with him."

"He was," returned Warner; "but this young Maitland's manner is up to everything. The young scamp! he came into our establishment on New Year's Eve. Marches up to me with his hand held out, looking as if he'd come from London on purpose to see me. 'How are you, Warner? A happy New Year!' and so 'How well you are looking!' Inquiries for every creature in cash a check for him-check

on.

my house. Presently asks if I can of Sir Lionel Swaynestone's, ten guineas, as good paper as the Bank of England's, of course. He wanted all gold, which we couldn't quite do, and had to send a young man to Cave's for some of it. 'This check is for charities in our East End parish, which is frightfully poor,' said he, and so on, and so on. 'And if you should hap pen by mistake to slip in an additional guinea, Warner,' says his worship, 'I'll promise you to overlook it for once.' Well, there was something in the lad's way that got the better of me, and I was weak enough to slip in the extra coin, though we make a point of keeping to local charities; and, upon my soul, I felt as if I had

received the favor, not he. Those are the manners to make one's way in the world with."

"And those are the people who deserve to get on," interposed the auctioneer; "not your surly, defiant fellows, like this Everard. By George! to see him look at the witnesses. I fancy he'd like to have the physicking of some of them! "

"That's queer about the check,” said Strutt, the tailor. "Why, he got us to cash him a check that same day, and would have it gold, too! Our check was by the Vicar of Oldport-five guineas."

"What! the same day?" asked another citizen, who had been listening. "What did he want with fifteen guineas in gold in his pocket?"

"Well," replied Strutt, "he said he couldn't bear paper; it never seemed real to him. And he got over me with his extra coins just as he did over Warner. We showed him some new patent braces. 'Dear me, Strutt!' says he, 'is it possible that you don't know that the younger clergy expect to have these things found them?' looking as grave as a judge. Found them, really, Mr. Maitland?' says I. To be sure! braces and smoking-caps, worked by devout females.' Not much to say, but the quaintness of the manner tickled me, and one of our young men laughed out. Maitland never smiled, but asked for some handkerchiefs. 'The faithful don't supply handkerchiefs, unluckily,' says he."

"He didn't look much like joking in the box, poor chap! "" said Cooper reflectively. "Wonder what he wanted with all that gold?" "People are fond of gold, particularly ladies and clergymen," observed young West, who was still more surprised than the tradesmen at Cyril's passion for specie. He stroked his moustache thoughtfully, and wished that professional etiquette did not forbid him to relate his anecdote, which he thought might throw some light on the bag of coin found in the wood.

Cyril had visited the bank on that same day, and drawn thirty pounds on his own account. West asked him the usual question, "Notes or gold?" expecting to be asked for, perhaps, five pounds gold, and the rest paper, and looked a little surprised at the ready answer, "Gold."

Cyril laughed. "You think it odd to carry so much gold about, Mr. West?" he asked.

"It is unusual, certainly, Mr. Maitland, and, if it were known, would be dangerous."