“And yet last night he was off somewhere, and she sat up for him till a quarter before two o’clock,” Mrs. Ferrier said, looking after them. “I looked to see what time it was when I heard him come in. It is wearing her out. I shall not allow her to do it again.” It was easier for Mrs. Ferrier to say what should not be than to find herself obeyed, for the next night her daughter again kept vigil. “All I ask of you, mamma, is to let me attend to my own business,” she said decidedly. So “mamma” toiled up‐stairs to bed, and the daughter lowered the lights, took out her rosary, and began her nightly task of fighting away thought, and trying to fix her mind on the future. After an hour or two, John, the footman, put his head in at the door. “You’d a great deal better go to bed, ma’am, and leave me to let Mr. Gerald in,” he said. “I’ve something that will keep me up to‐night, and it’s a pity two should lose their rest. It is past twelve now.” She felt faint and weary, and sleep was beginning to steal over her. “I believe I will go, then,” she said. “I have not slept for three nights.” She went, with a dragging step, over the bright carpet roses. “What would become of him if I were to break up?” she thought. When she had gone, the man put out the hall gas, opened the doors of the vestibule, and set himself to wait. He meant to have speech of Mr. Gerald that night without Mr. Gerald’s wife for a witness or any likelihood of other interruption. About one o’clock he heard unsteady steps on the sidewalk, and, as he went to the door, Lawrence Gerald came reeling up the steps, and almost fell into his arms. “Come into the sitting‐room, sir, and lie down on the sofa. It will be easier than going up‐stairs,” he said. When he had been drinking, the young man was easy to lead, and he now submitted readily, and was in a few minutes in a deep sleep. John locked the street‐door, shut the door of the sitting‐room behind him, and, seating himself, waited for the sleeper to wake. A nervous man might have grown uneasy during that watch. There is something not always pleasant in hearing one’s own breathing, and the faint occasional sounds in floor and wall, and at one’s elbow, even, which, in the stillness of night, seem like the movements of unseen beings drawing near. Besides, there is a terror in the thought that we are going to terrify another. But this man was not nervous. He was made of wholesome though rough material, and he had a strong will. He had been waiting for others to act, and had waited in vain, and now he had made up his mind that it was for him to act. Justice was strong in him, where he had the ability to perceive what was just, and he would no longer see the innocent suffer for the guilty. Besides, he reflected, there was no one else who could speak. Self‐defence, or the defence of one dearly loved, or a yet more sacred motive, sealed the lips of all who knew. His lips were not sealed, and justice commanded him to speak.