"Yes," said I; "the lock of the gun is broken, and I fancy that saved him; but he would have had little chance from a second: that shot came just in time." "I covered the man from the moment he first raised the bar: your head was in a line with him, or I should have fired sooner. I hardly thought you would have escaped some part of the charge as it was. Well, if poor Harry lives, perhaps it is well as it is, if not"-- "You have but spared the hangman some trouble," said I. "Come, man, don't give way to this morbid feeling. I don't say but what it does you credit, Brown, to regret the necessity for taking a man's life, even to save your friend's; but, depend upon it, your conduct to-night is justifiable before a far higher inquest than the coroner's. Do you think if I had been in your place I should have hesitated one instant? No! nor have been half as scrupulous afterwards, I fear." "You have not blood upon your hand," said Brown gloomily. "And remember, if we had taken poor Chesterton's advice, and frightened them off at first, all this might have been spared; it was my folly in determining to take upon myself the office of thief-taker--cursed folly it was!" The impression which the events of the last hour had left upon my own mind was any thing but a pleasant one; but I was obliged to assume an indifference which I did not feel, and use a lighter tone than I should willingly have done in speaking of the death of a fellow-creature, however unavoidable, in order to keep up Brown's spirits, and prevent him from dwelling upon his share in the catastrophe with that morbid degree of sensitiveness, of the effects of which I began to be really apprehensive. He wanted me to lie down and try to sleep, saying that he would watch with Chesterton; but this I was in no mood to agree to, even had I not been unwilling to leave him to his present reflections; so we drew a small table close to the fire in the sitting-room, leaving the door open that we might hear any movement of the patient, and waited for daybreak with feelings to which perhaps we had been too little accustomed. They were doubtless wholesome for us in after life; but at the time those hours of watching were painful indeed. It was a night which, then and since, I wished could be blotted from my page of life, and be as if it had never been. I have grown older and sadder, if not wiser, since, and feel now that there are recollections in which I then took delight which I could far more safely part with.