"Mr. Brancker, sir," said the fellow, speaking in hoarse, drink-sodden tones, "if such a wretch as I may be allowed to thank heaven for anything, then I thank it that you are once more a free man. You don't remember me, perhaps? I am Richard Varell, your old clerk. Ah, you recollect me now. Changed, ain't I? But no matter about that. From the first I swore that whoever else might be guilty of Mr. Hazeldine's death, you at least were innocent. As for him--curse him!--he hounded me to my ruin, and he deserved his fate. For him no pity is needed. But as for you, sir, I say again, thank heaven you are free!" He threw up one arm as though it were a signal of farewell, and falling back, was lost next moment in the darkness. That night Edward Hazeldine slept a deep, dreamless sleep for the first time since his father's death. CHAPTER XIV. EXIT MISS LETITIA. It is to be hoped that the reader has not quite forgotten Miss Pengarvon and her sister, although we have heard nothing of them since that December night, now many years ago, when poor, unforgiven Isabel was found lying in the snow in front of the great door of Broome. To the two lonely sisters, wearing out their uneventful lives in the gray old house, the changes wrought by time were few indeed. Their dark hair had slowly silvered, their long, thin faces had grown longer and thinner, their tall figures looked a little more gaunt than of yore, but that was all. To them the summer and winter of one year were so like the summer and winter of another, that they almost forgot the passage of time. They worked hard at their embroidery, and sold the proceeds of their labor; they pinched and scraped, and saved in every possible way, growing more miserly with every year. Barney Dale and his wife were still with them. No thought of leaving Broome ever crossed the mind of either. Other servants might come and go, but they stayed on, nor ever dreamed of change.