Upon reflection, Mr. Graham concluded so, too, and returning to ’Lena, he sat by her all day, soothing her with assurances that Durward would surely come back, as there was no possible reason for his leaving them so abruptly.  As the day wore away and the night came on he seemed less sure, while even Uncle Timothy began to fidget, and when in the evening a young pettifogger, who had recently hung out his shingle on Laurel Hill, came in, he asked him, in a low tone, “if, under the present governor, they hung folks on circumstantial evidence alone.”

“Unquestionably, for that is sometimes the best kind of evidence,” answered the sprig of the law, taking out some little ivory tablets and making a charge against Uncle Timothy for professional advice!

“But if one of my boarders, who has lots of money, goes off in broad daylight and is never heard of agin, would that be any sign he was murdered—­by the landlord?” continued Uncle Timothy, beginning to think there might be a worse law than the Maine liquor law.

“That depends upon the previous character of the landlord,” answered the lawyer, making another entry, while Uncle Timothy, brightening up, exclaimed, “I shall stand the racket, then, for my character is tip-top.”

In the morning Mr. Graham announced his intention of going in quest of Durward, and with a magnanimity quite praiseworthy, Uncle Timothy offered his hoss and wagon “for nothin’, provided Mr. Graham would leave his watch as a guaranty against his runnin’ off!”

Just as Mr. Graham was about to start, a horseman rode up, saying he had come from Canandaigua at the request of a Mr. Bellmont, who wished him to bring letters for Mr. Graham and Miss Rivers.

“And where is Mr. Bellmont?” asked Mr. Graham, to which the man replied, that he took the six o’clock train the night before, saying, further, that his manner was so strange as to induce a suspicion of insanity on the part of those who saw him.

Taking the package, Mr. Graham repaired to ’Lena’s room, giving her her letter, and then reading his, which was full of bitterness, denouncing him as a villain and cautioning him, as he valued his life, never again to cross the track of his outraged step-son.

“You have robbed me,” he wrote, “of all I hold most dear, and while I do not censure her the less, I blame you the more, for you are older in experience, older in years, and ten-fold older in sin, and I know you must have used every art your foul nature could suggest, ere you won my lost ’Lena from the path of rectitude.”

In the utmost astonishment Mr. Graham looked up at ’Lena, who had fainted.  It was long ere she returned to consciousness, and then her fainting fit was followed by another more severe, if possible, than the first, while in speechless agony Mr. Graham hung over her.

“I killed the mother, and now I am killing the child,” thought he.