spade. They shone fitfully in the light. He
passed down the declivity towards the waterfall,
and then disappeared.

Next morning, at six o'clock, the old
woman, on coming to her daily work, found
the door on the latch. On the table she saw
a note, and took it up- stairs. She knocked
at Arthur's door.

"Come in," he said. " Is that you,
Winnington? I shall get up in a moment."

"No zur, the young gentleman be gone,
and I thought this here letter might be of
conzequence."

Arthur took the letter, and, by the grey
light of dawn, read as follows:—

"I am going to leave you, dear Arthur,
and feel that I did not part from you so
kindly as I wished. I don't like to show my
feelings; for in fact I have so little command
of them, that I am always afraid you will
despise me for my weakness. I will give
your messages and your letter to Lucy. I
will tell her you are coming soon. Even now
the dawn is not far off, and I am going before
the hour I told you; for I will not allow you,
in your present state of health, to accompany
me to Hawsleigh. It is to London I am
going. O! pardon me for going. I think
it my duty to go. You will think so too,
when you reflect. If they are surprised at
my absence (for I may be detained), explain
to them where I am gone. I should have
told you this last night, but did not dare.
Dear Arthur, think kindly of me. I always
think affectionately of you—W. H."

"He should have signed his name in full,"
said Arthur, and laid the letter under his
pillow. " To London—to the attorney—with
specimens of the ore. I shall get to town
before him, in spite of his early rising."

There was a smile upon his face, and he
got up in a hurry.

"He can't have been long gone," he said
to the old woman; " for the ink he wrote
with was not dry."

"I thought I saw him as I came," she
replied, "a long way across the heath; but
p'raps it was a bush, or maybe a cow. I
don't know, but it was very like him."

After breakfast he hurried to the village.
The drunken shoemaker was earning a
farther title to that designation, and was
speechless in bed, with a bandage over his
head, which some one had broken the night
before. The money Winnington had paid
him for carting his luggage was answerable
for his helpless condition. There was no
other horse or vehicle in the place. So,
moody and discontented, Arthur returned,
put a shirt in each pocket of his coat, and
proceeded on foot to Hawsleigh. He arrived
there at one o'clock. The post-waggon had
started at ten. The shoemaker had carefully
instructed the driver to convey Wilmington's
luggage to Exeter; and as he only jogged on
at the rate of four miles an hour, and loitered
besides on the way, he was not to wait
for his passenger, who would probably walk
on a few miles, and take his seat when he
was tired.

There was no conveyance in Hawsleigh
rapid enough to overtake a vehicle which
travelled even at so slow a pace as four miles
an hour with the advantage of three hours'
start; and once in the coach at Exeter, there
was no possibility of contending with such
rapidity of locomotion. It would take him
to London in little more than five days.

Arthur, however, discovered that a
carrier's cart started at three o'clock for the
village of Oakfield, twelve miles onward on
the Exeter road. He was in such a state of
excitement and anxiety to get on, that rest in
one place was intolerable; and though he
knew that he was not a yard advanced in
reality by availing himself of this chance, as
after all he would have to wait somewhere
or other for the next morning's post-waggon,
he paid a small fee for the carriage of a few
articles he hastily bought and tied up in a
bundle, and set off with the carrier. He
seemed to be relieved more and more as he
felt nearer to the object of his journey. With
knitted brow and prest lips he sat in the
clumsy cart or walked alongside. The driver,
after some attempts at conversation, gave
him up to his own reflections.

"A proud fellow as ever I see," he
muttered, " and looks like a lord. Well, he
shouldn't travel by a cart if he didn't speak
to cart's company."

The cart's company increased as they got
on. Women with poultry baskets, returning
from the neighbouring hamlets and farms;
stray friends of the proprietor of the vehicle
who were on their way to Oakfield; and at
last little village children, who had come out
to meet the cart, and were already fighting
as to who should have the privilege of riding
the old horse to the water when he was taken
out of the shafts; it was a cavalcade of ten
or a dozen persons when the spire of the
church came into view. Arthur still walked
beside them, but took no part in the conver-
sation. There seemed something unusual
going on in the main street as they drew
near. There was a crowd of anxious-faced
peasantry opposite the door of the Woodman's
Arms; they were talking in whispers
and expecting some one's arrival.

"Have ye seen him coming, Luke
Waters?" said two or three at a time to the
carrier.

"Noa—who, then?"

"The crowner; he ha' been sent for a
hour and more."

"What's happened then? Woa, horse!"

"Summat bad. He's there! " said a man,
pointing to the upper window of the inn, and
turning paler than before; " he was found in
Parson's Meadow—dead—with such a slash!"
The man touched his throat, and was silent.

Arthur began to listen. " Who is it?
does any one know the corpse ? "