"Ellen," he said, "this is a dreadful business, apart from my unhappy complication with it, and what it has cost my dear mother. I knew this unhappy man; he was a Mr. Deane. I dined with him at that tavern in the Strand. I did wear that coat. All the circumstances are correct, though all the inferences are false. I begin to understand it all now; but who can have murdered him, and for what motive, I cannot conceive. The most natural thing in the world was that they would suspect me, as the man who wore the coat. Mr. Evans will recognize me, no doubt, as he told Mr. Carruthers." "No, no, George; the poor old man is dead," interrupted Mrs. Brookes. "Dead?" said George. "Well, he seemed an honest fellow, and I am sorry for it; but it makes no difference in my position. When I communicate with the police, I will admit all he could prove." "Must you do that, George?" asked Mrs. Brookes, wistfully. She had a natural dread of the law in the abstract. "Of course I must, nurse; I can tell them who the unfortunate man was, and account for him up to a very late hour on the night of the seventeenth of April." "Take care, George," said the old woman. "If you can't account for yourself afterwards, you can't clear yourself." The observation was shrewd and sensible. George felt it so, and said, "Never mind that. I am innocent, and when the time comes I shall have no difficulty in proving myself innocent." "You know best, George," said the old woman, with a resigned sigh; "but tell me, who was this poor man?" "Sit down and I will tell you all about it." Then George seated his old friend close beside him, and told her the whole story of his intercourse with Stewart Routh, of his knowledge of Deane, his last meeting with him, their dinner together, the adjournment to the billiard-rooms, the money won by Dallas from Deane, and his leaving town early the next morning for Amherst. "That was the day they found the body, was it not?" asked Mrs. Brookes. "Let me see," said George; and he again referred to the newspapers. "Yes, it was on Wednesday the eighteenth--in the evening. I was down at Amherst then, nurse; that was the day I saw my mother last." He sighed, but a smile stole over his face also. A cherished memory of that day abode in his heart. Then Mrs. Brookes questioned George concerning Routh and his wife, and told him of Harriet's visit, and all the emotion and fear which it had caused her. George was touched and grateful. "That was like her," he said; "she is the truest of friends, a treasure among women. I wonder she did not write to me, though, when she sent on Mr. Carruthers's letter." The observation passed unnoticed by Mrs. Brookes. Had she asked when the letter had reached George, a discovery, dangerous to the interests of Harriet and Routh, might have been made; but she had very dim notions of continental places and distances, and the time consumed in postal transmission.