Jacob Gray’s first care, when he left Ada, was to repair to the room in which he concealed his money. Hastily collecting together the really large sum he had from time to time wrung from the guilty fears of Learmont, he bestowed it about his person, and then carefully placing his written confession, with its dangerous address, in his breast, he hurried to the street-door, upon the back of which he wrote with a piece of chalk, ”J.G. and A. left here June 2nd,” thus endeavouring to paralyse the magistrate’s exertions in the way of search by inducing him to think that the house had been deserted by Jacob Gray for some time. He then with wild haste ran through the house concealing everything in the shape of provisions which would undeniably indicate a recent occupancy of it. Ada’s bed and his own he cast into a dusty cupboard, and altogether succeeded in producing a general appearance of litter and desertion. Then, without daring to cast another look from the windows, for fear he should be seen, he rushed to the room in which he had left Ada, and getting through the opening in the wall, he closed the panel and stood trembling so exceedingly on the ladder, that had he wished he could scarcely have commanded physical energy sufficient to descend. His object, however, was to remain there, and listen to what was passing, which he could not do below. “Ada, Ada,” he said, in a low tone, “you—you are safe?” “I am here,” said Ada. “Hush! Hush! Not another word, not even a whisper; hush, for your life, hush!” A heavy knock at the outer door now echoed fearfully through the spacious passages and empty rooms of the house. To Gray that knock could not have been more agonising had it been against his own heart. By an impulse that he could not restrain, he kept on saying in a half-choked whisper, “Hush—hush—hush!” while he clutched the sides of the ladder till his nails dug painfully into the palms of his hands, and a cold perspiration hung in massive drops upon his brow. Ada meanwhile was getting a little used to the darkness of the place, and feeling cautiously about, she found one of the baskets she recollected to have seen there before. This she sat down upon, and burying her face in her hands, she gave herself up to gloomy reflections, while tears, which she would not let Jacob Gray see for worlds slowly and noiselessly trickled through her small fingers. In a few moments the knock at the door again sounded through the house, and Gray, although he was expecting it, nearly fell from the ladder in the nervous start that he gave. Then followed a long silence, after which a voice came to his ears in indistinct tones, saying something which terminated with the words,—“In the King’s name.” There was then a slight pause, followed in a moment by a crash; and Jacob Gray knew that the doors were burst open.