“J.  Danvers”

“He regards it as a merciful interposition of Providence,” muttered Marston, as he closed the letter, with a sneer.  “Well, some men have odd notions of mercy and providence, to be sure; but if it pleases him, certainly I shall not complain for one.”

Marston was all this evening in better spirits than he had enjoyed for months, or even years.  A mountain seemed to have been lifted from his heart.  He joined in the conversation during and after supper, listened with apparent interest, talked with animation, and even laughed and jested.  It is needless to say all this flowed not from the healthy cheer of a heart at ease, but from the excited and almost feverish sense of sudden relief.

Next morning, Marston rode into the old-fashioned town, at the further end of which the dingy and grated front of the jail looked warningly out upon the rustic passengers.  He passed the sentries and made his inquiries of the official at the hatch.  He was relieved from the necessity of pushing these into detail, however, by the appearance of the physician, who at that moment passed from the interior of the prison.

“Dr. Danvers told me he expected to see you here this morning,” said the medical man, after the customary salutation had been interchanged.  “Your call, I believe, is connected with the prisoner, John Merton?”

“Yes, sir, so it is,” said Marston.  “Is he in a condition, pray, to make a statement of considerable length?”

“Far from it, Mr. Marston; he has but a few hours to live,” answered the physician, “and is now insensible; but I believe he last night saw Dr. Danvers, and told him whatever was weighing upon his mind.”

“Ha!—­And can you say where Dr. Danvers now is?” inquired Marston, anxiously and hurriedly.  “Not here, is he?”

“No; but I saw him, as I came here, not ten minutes since, ride into the town.  It is market-day, and you will probably find him somewhere in the high street for an hour or two to come,” answered he.

Marston thanked him, and, lost in abstraction, rode down to the little inn, entered a sitting room, and wrote a hurried line to Dr. Danvers, entreating his attendance there, as a place where they might converse less interruptedly than in the street; and committing this note to the waiter, with the injunction to deliver it at once, and an intimation of where Dr. Danvers was probably to be found, he awaited, with intense and agitating anxiety, the arrival of the clergyman.

It was not for nearly ten minutes, however, which his impatience magnified into an eternity, that the well-known voice of Dr. Danvers reached him from the little hall.  It was in vain that Marston strove to curb his violent agitation:  his heart swelled as if it would smother him; he felt, as it were, the chill of death pervade his frame, and he could scarcely see the door through which he momentarily expected the entrance of the clergyman.