Rosa went on. "I was walking down by the river--with Tom, you know--when I thought it must be getting late, and you might want me, and so I took the short cut through the larches. And who should I see standing there but Mr. Arling, and your father coming to meet him! So I slipped back behind the trees, meaning to come round the other way; but I caught a few words, and then I listened;--I couldn't help it, Miss Carice, if I'd died for it. For Mr. Arling began to beg and plead that your father wouldn't let your wedding go on, if he cared anything about your happiness. He said there was something dreadful against Doctor Remy,--oh! Miss Carice, I don't like to say it, but I think you ought to know,--he said he was a"--sinking her voice almost to a whisper--"a murderer." Carice's eyes dilated with horror. "A murderer!" she gasped,--"oh! no, no, Rosa; you could not have heard him right!" "Indeed I did," rejoined Rosa, firmly. "That's the very word he used,--more than once, too. At least, he said there was great reason to believe so; and he begged your father to wait until he could make sure about it. Oh! Miss Carice, I never did like Doctor Remy, but I always liked Mr. Arling, and I don't believe he'd say a word that wasn't true. Do pray wait, as he said, until you can find out the whole truth, before you have anything more to say to the doctor. Lock your door, and say you're sick--I'm sure you look as if you might be--and I'll promise to keep him out, if he were ten Doctor Remys." And Rosa set her teeth and clenched her hands, in a way that promised much for her valor in the cause of her young mistress. Carice put her hand to her brow, and tried to think, but merely succeeded in bewildering herself with images of horror. That frightful word, murderer, continually sounded in her ears, to the effectual hindrance of anything like connected thought. Only one idea presented itself to her confused brain with even tolerable distinctness,--Bergan was near, Bergan was in possession of knowledge that might yet relieve her, to some extent, from a burden too heavy to be borne,--a burden which she ought never to have consented to take upon herself, nor ever would have done, had she not first been bound fast with a torpor that benumbed both feeling and will. Still, having so consented, she would have tried, but for Rosa's terrible revelation, to endure it patiently. Now, it seemed to her, this was no longer possible. Again she fixed her eyes upon the gleaming light from the old Hall; the only star of hope or suggestion that had yet risen upon her darkness. What could she do, in her mortal terror and bewilderment, but follow it? "Rosa," she said, suddenly, "I am going to the Hall. I must see Bergan, and hear what he has to say; then I can decide what it is right to do."