“Why, to be sure-but let us talk on less painful matters.” “In one moment, sir: but first tell me—where did she die, and when?” For my heart stood still, and I was fain to clutch the table between us to keep me from falling. I think this did not escape him, for he gave me a sharp look, and then spoke very quiet and hush’d, “She was cruelly kill’d by highwaymen, at the ‘Three Cups’ inn, some miles out of Hungerford. The date given me is the 3d of December last.” With this a great rush of joy came over me, and I blurted out, delighted— “There, sir, you are wrong! Her father was kill’d on the night of which you speak—cruelly enough, as you say: but Mistress Delia Killigrew escaped, and after the most incredible adventures—” I was expecting him to start up with joy at my announcement; but instead of this, he gaz’d at me very sorrowfully and shook his head; which brought me to a stand. “Sir,” I said, changing my tone, “I speak but what I know: for ’twas I had the happy fortune to help her to escape, and, under God’s hand, to bring her safe to Cornwall.” “Then, where is she now?” Now this was just what I could not tell. So, standing before him, I gave him my name and a history of all my adventures in my dear comrade’s company, from the hour when I saw her first in the inn at Hungerford. Still keeping his finger on the page, he heard me to the end attentively, but with a curling of the lips toward the close, such as I did not like. And when I had done, to my amaze he spoke out sharply, and as if to a whipp’d schoolboy. “’Tis a cock-and-bull story, sir, of which I could hope to make you ashamed. Six weeks in your company? and in boy’s habit? Surely ’twas enough the pure unhappy maid should be dead—without such vile slander on her fame, and from you, that were known, sir, to have been at that inn, and on that night, with her murderers. Boy, I have evidence that, taken with your confession, would weave you a halter; and am a Justice of the Peace. Be thankful, then, that I am a merciful man; yet be abash’d.” Abash’d, indeed, I was; or at least taken aback, to see his holy indignation and the flush on his waxen cheek. Like a fool I stood staggered, and wondered dimly where I had heard that thin voice before. In the confusion of my senses I heard it say solemnly— “The sins of her fathers have overtaken her, as the Book of Exodus proclaim’d: therefore is her inheritance wasted, and given to the satyr and the wild ass.” [Illustration: “What did you in Oxford last November?”—Page 219.] “And which of the twain be you, sir?” I cannot tell what forced this violent rudeness from me, for he seem’d an honest, good man; but my heart was boiling that any should put so ill a construction on my Delia. As for him, he had risen, and was moving with dignity to the door—to show me out, as I guess. When suddenly I, that had been staring stupidly, leap’d upon him and hurled him back into his chair.