"I have no doubt, Clare, that he has come about this business," said Mr. Carruthers, when the servant had left the room. With this consolatory assurance he left her to herself. She snatched up the newspaper, and read a brief account of the proceedings of the previous day--the close of the inquest, and some indignant remarks upon the impunity with which so atrocious a crime had, to all appearance, been committed; which wound up with a supposition that this murder was destined to be included in the number of those mysteries whose impenetrability strengthened the hand of the assassin, and made our police system the standing jest of continental nations. How ardently she hoped, how nearly she dared to pray, that it might indeed be so! She lingered in the breakfast-room, waiting for her uncle's return. The restlessness, the uncertainty of misery, were upon her; she dreaded the sight of every one, and yet she feared solitude, because of the thoughts, the convictions, the terrors, which peopled it. Three letters lay on the table still unopened; and when Clare looked at them, she found they were addressed to Mrs. Carruthers, and that two of the three were from America. The postmark on each was New York, and on one were stamped the words, "Too late." "She is too ill to read any letters now, or even to be told there are any," thought Clare. "I had better put them away, or ask my uncle to do so." She was looking at the third letter, which was from George Dallas; but she had never seen his writing, to her knowledge; and the two words, which he had written on the slip of paper she had seen, being a Christian and surname, afforded her no opportunity of recognizing it as that of Paul Ward; when Mr. Carruthers returned, looking very pompous and fussy. "I shall communicate with the Home Office immediately," he began. "This is very important. Evans has been here to tell me he has read all the proceedings at the inquest, and the waiter's description of the suspected individual tallies precisely with his own recollection of the purchaser of the coat." "But, uncle," said Clare, with quick intelligence, "you told me the man's evidence and Evans's description were as vague as possible. Indeed, I was quite struck by what you said: 'A description that describes nothing' were your words. And don't you remember telling me how frequently you had observed in your magisterial capacity that these people never could be depended on to give an accurate account of an impression or a circumstance? And how you have told me that it was one of the chief distinctions between the educated and uneducated mind, that only the former could comprehend the real value and meaning of evidence? Depend on it, Evans has no new ground for his conviction. He has been reading the papers, and thinking over the importance of being mixed up in the matter, until he has persuaded himself into this notion. Don't you recollect that is just what you said you were sure he would do?"