The apparent resignation of his adversary had thrown him off his guard, and the next moment Harry had sprung at him, and with his whole weight borne him backwards, so that he fell with his head upon the bare patch of the hearthstone. There was the sound of a terrible blow, a faint rustling, and then, as Louise stood there like one in a nightmare, she was roused to action by her brother's words. "Quick!" he whispered, in a hoarse, panting way. "Your hat and mantle. Not a moment to lose!" The nightmare-like sensation was at an end, but it was still all like being in a dream to Louise as, forced against her own will by the effort of one more potent, she ran up to her own room, and catching up a bonnet and a loose cloak, she ran down again. "You have killed him," she whispered. "Pish! stunned. Quick, or I shall be caught." He seized her wrist, and hurried her out of the front door just as Liza went in at the back, after a long whispered quarrel with her mother, who was steadily plodding down towards the town, as brother and sister stepped out. "What's that? some one in front?" whispered Harry, stopping short. "Here, this way." "Harry," moaned his sister, as he drew her sidewise, and began to climb up the rough side of the path so as to reach the rugged land above. "It is the only chance," he said hastily. "Quick!" She followed him, half climbing, half dragged, till she was up on the granite-strewn waste, across which he hurried her, reckless of the jagged masses of rock that were always cropping up in their way, and of the fact that in three places farther along, once fenced in by stones, which had since crumbled down, were, one after the other, the openings to three disused mines, each a terrible yawning chasm, with certain death by drowning for the unfortunate who was plunged into their depths. CHAPTER FORTY NINE. AFTER THE GREAT SORROWS. "No, no, no, Mr Vine--I mean no, no, no, George Vine," sobbed Mrs Van Heldre; "I did, I know, feel bitter and full of hatred against one who could be so base as to raise his hand against my loving, forbearing husband; but that was when I was in misery and despair. Do you think that now God has blessed us by sparing his life and restoring him to us, I could be so thankless, hard and wicked as to bear malice?" "You are very, very good," said Vine sadly. "I wish I was," said Mrs Van Heldre, with a comic look of perplexity on her pretty, elderly countenance, "but I'm not, George, I'm a very curious woman." "You are one of the best and most amiable creatures that ever existed," said Vine, taking her hand and kissing it. "I try to be good-tempered and to do my best," said the little woman with a sigh, "but I'm very weak and stupid; and I know that is the one redeeming point in my character, I can feel what a weak woman I am." "Thank God you are what you are," said Vine reverently. "If I had had such a wife spared to me all these years, that terrible catastrophe would not have occurred."