"Thank you for your kind offer of a home at Milnehill; and with love to Susan, believe me in haste, "Your dutiful nephew, "HORACE SCARSDALE." This letter was closed and thrown aside before Horace perceived the other one which lay on the table before him. He turned it over half suspiciously. In a female handwriting, and sent evidently by some private messenger, the look of it puzzled him who had no correspondents. Then the signature threw him into a flush of eager anxiety. What could induce Amelia Stenhouse to write to _him?_ But, after all, the contents were commonplace enough. It was a very brief note, dated from her father's house the morning of this same day:-- "DEAR SIR--Papa is suddenly taken ill. The doctors fear it looks like cholera, and he is rather alarmed himself. He wishes to see you immediately, if you can come. I hope this may reach you soon, and that you will be able to return directly, for he seems anxious to see you, as if he had something to say. "Yours sincerely, "AMELIA STENHOUSE." It was some little time before Horace understood distinctly the contents of this note; for he was a lover, unlovely though his love was, and the first communication moved him into a momentary tumult, in which the words lost their due meaning. When he turned over to the address, however, and the "to be forwarded immediately" caught his eye, he began to rouse himself to a consciousness of the urgent circumstances. Mr. Stenhouse was ill, and wanted to see him. Twenty-four hours ago Horace would have supposed that his employer knew something of his father's secret. Now he was somewhat indifferent as to any communication which Mr. Stenhouse might have to make. But he was Amelia's father, and she was likely to be there. He got up accordingly, in the haste which was congenial to his agitated condition, and made his toilette rapidly, but with unusual care. He was pale, and his passion of evil thoughts had left traces upon his face; but the very excitement of those murderous fancies lighted an unusual fire in his eye, and animated the countenance, which, in common times, was not a remarkable face. As he went out he took up the letter he had written to his uncle, and tossed it carelessly into the post as he passed, thinking, with a momentary contemptuous wonder as he did so, of the simple old man who had opened his arms and heart to Susan, and who held open for Horace himself that warm domestic shelter, the home of which the young man felt no need. The contrast was wonderful enough--Uncle Edward and his Susan in their bright, peaceful room at Milnehill, in the evening calm and sweet comfort of that home life; and this young solitary, hurrying by himself through the dark streets of Harliflax, the wind flaring the street-lamps overhead, and a crowd of hurrying phantoms rushing through the darkness of his mind, where the air was wild with the excitement of a storm, and lightning gleams of evil intention threw a fitful illumination. He went