It was during this illness of Travice Arkell's that a circumstance took place which caused some slight degree of excitement in Westerbury. Edward Blissett Hughes, who had gone away from the town between twenty and thirty years before, and of whom nobody had heard much, if any, tidings of since, suddenly made his appearance in it again. His return might not have given rise to much comment, but for the very prominent manner in which his name had been brought forward in connexion with the assize cause; and perhaps no one was more surprised than Mr. Hughes himself when he found how noted he had become. It matters not to tell how the slim working man of three or four-and-thirty, came back a round, comfortable, portly gentleman of sixty, with a smart, portly wife, and well to do in the world. Well to do?--nay, wealthy. Or how he had but come for a transitory visit to his native place, and would soon be gone again. All that matters not to us; and his return needed not to have been mentioned at all, but that he explained one or two points in the past history, which had never been made quite clear to Westerbury. One of the first persons to go to see him was William Arkell; and it was from that gentleman Mr. Hughes first learnt the details of the dispute and the assize trial. Robert Carr had been more _malin_--as the French would express it--than people gave him credit for. That few hours' journey of his to London, three days previous to the flight, had been taken for one sole purpose--the procuring of a marriage licence. Edward Hughes, vexed at the free tone that the comments of the town were assuming in reference to his young sister, made a tardy interference, and gave Robert Carr his choice--the breaking off the acquaintance, or a marriage. Robert Carr chose the latter alternative, stipulating that it should be kept a close secret; and he ran up to town for the licence. Whether he really meant to use it, or whether he only bought it to appease in a degree the aroused precautions of the brother, cannot be told. That he certainly did not intend to make use of it so soon, Edward Hughes freely acknowledged now. The hasty marriage, the flight following upon it, grew out of that last quarrel with his father. From the dispute at dinner-time, Robert went straight to the Hughes's house, saw Martha Ann, got her consent, and then sought the brother at his workshop, as Edward Hughes still phrased it, and arranged the plans with him for the following morning. Sophia Hughes was of necessity made a party to the scheme, but she was not told of it until night; and Mary they did not tell at all, not daring to trust her. Brother and sister bound themselves to secrecy, for the sake of the fortune that Robert Carr would assuredly lose if the marriage became known; and they suffered the taint to fall on their sister's name, content to know that it was undeserved, and to look forward to the time when all should be cleared