"And really _I_ think," muttered the captain, as we moved into the hall, "that he takes it very coolly. Upon my word, I didn't think he was the man to let such a thing as this be passed over in such an indifferent way." "God bless him for it!" I thought in my heart. "Stephen is waiting at the door to speak with you, sir," said Thomas to his master. Stephen's face expressed such a volume of alarm and importance, that we involuntarily stopped in the hall, as he answered Mr. Rutledge's inquiry as to his errand. "The body of a man, sir, has just been found in the lake. It has evidently been there a day or more. The men are down there, sir; I came immediately up to let you know." Mr. Rutledge gave a hurried glance at me, as he said quickly: "Possibly one of the laborers. I will go down with you at once." Capt. McGuffy, with an I-told-you-so nod to Phil, snatched his hat, and, followed by the other gentlemen, hurried with Stephen toward the lake. The ladies, in a frightened group, clustered together on the lawn and watched them from a distance. How well I could have told them who it was, and how long the bloated, disfigured corpse had lain floating among the reeds and alder-bushes at the head of the lake! How their ears, indeed, would tingle, if they should know the quarter part of what I knew. How sleepless and terrified Josephine's nights might well be, if she knew that a single foot of brick and mortar was all that separated her from the execrated murderer, with the horror of whose crime the country rang. How doubly aghast she would be, if she knew that the murderer was none other than the guest she had herself invited to Rutledge--the brilliant and clever man whose admiration she had vainly striven to obtain--the affianced husband of her cousin! What if they knew all this? What if my brain should give way under the pressure of this dreadful secret, and I should betray all! Sometimes I really thought I was losing my reason; the knowledge that I held the life of another in my own weak hands, made them tremble more; the keeping of the secret was wearing my very life away; sleepless nights and wretched days were doing their sure work with me, and the terrible excitement within, shone out in my eyes and burned in a crimson spot on each white cheek, throbbed in my quick pulse and sapped the strength and vigor of my being. I could have wrestled with and overcome fear and timidity, if they had been all; I could have been brave and strong, if I had had but his sin to cover, his crime to hide; if I had been true, if my own heart had been pure of sin, I could have borne it. But it was the weight of remorse, added to all the rest, that crushed me to the dust. It was remembering how great a part I had had in Victor's sin, that took all courage out of my heart. If I had not deceived him, and allowed him to believe I loved him--would he not now have been safe? From those first beginnings of pride and resentment, I traced my sin in regard to him.