"I cannot tell," replied Miriam, her voice beginning to shake; "but I thought and I thought over it, and it is so wrong, so unfair, so wicked, and I know the poor man so well. Why should they do anything to him?" She would have proceeded in the same strain, and would have compared the iniquity of arson with that of fraudulent contractors and the brutal Scrutton, but she checked herself. "He is not guilty," she added. Mr. Mortimer was perplexed. He was accustomed in his profession to all kinds of concealment of motives, and he conjectured that there must be some secret of which he was unaware. "Are you any relation?" "No." "Have you ever visited at his house, or has he been in the habit of calling at yours?" "No." He was still more perplexed. He could not comprehend, and might very well be excused for not comprehending, why the daughter of a respectable tradesman in Cowfold should walk six miles on behalf of a stranger, and be so anxious about him. "One more question. You have had nothing whatever to do with Mr. Cutts, except by going to his shop, and by talking to him now and then as a neighbour?" "Nothing;" and Miriam said it in such a manner, that the most hardened sceptic must have believed her. "The fire broke out at a quarter to eight. Had you seen Cutts about that time?" "I had met him in the street that evening as I came home." "Where had you been?" "Practising in the church." "What time was it when you met him? Be careful." Miriam now realised the importance of her answer. The exact truth was that she had reached home at half-past seven, and had seen Cutts going into his house then. It must be remembered that although, as before observed, she was naturally truthful, she was so because she was fearless, and had the instinctive tendency to directness possessed by all forceful characters. Her veracity rested on no principle. She was not like Jeanie Deans, that triumph of culture, in whom a generalisation had so far prevailed that it was able to overcome the strongest of passions and prevent a lie even to save a sister's life. Miriam had been brought up in no such divine school. She had heard that lying was wrong, but she had no religion, although she listened to a sermon once every Sunday, and consequently the relation in which the several duties and impulses stood to one another was totally different from that which was established in Sir Walter's heroine. By some strange chance, too, tradition, which often takes the place of religion, had no power over her; and although hatred of oppression and of harsh dealing is a very estimable quality, and one which will go a long way towards constructing an ethical system for us, it will not do everything.