This occurrence, as may readily be supposed, was kept a profound secret. They both saw that it might be the forerunner of divine means to bring their evil deeds to light; and, under this apprehension, their taciturnity and mutual discontent, if not growing hatred, continued, broken only by occasional growls and curses, and the ejaculations forced out by the inevitable circumstances of their connection. The effect of the morning visit was meanwhile most apparent upon the man who committed the terrible act. He could not remain in the house, which, even in their happiest condition, was slovenly kept, showing everywhere the want of the skilled hands of that queen of housewives, Mrs. Janet Dodds--so ill-requited for her devotion to her husband. Nay, he felt all this as a reproof to him, and sorely and bitterly lamented the fatal act whereby he had deprived of life the best of wives, and the most honest and peaceful of womankind. Then the awe of divine vengeance deepened these shadows of the soul till he became moody and melancholy, walking hither and thither without an object, and in secluded places, looking fearfully around him as if he expected every moment the spectre visitor of the morning to appear before him. Nor was he less miserable at home, where the growing hatred made matters worse and worse every hour, and where, when the grey dawn came, he expected another visit and another scene of the same description as the last. Nearly a week had thus passed, and it was Sabbath morning. The tinsmiths' hammers were silent, the noisy games of the urchins were hushed, the street of the Bow resounded only occasionally to the sound of a foot--all Edinburgh was, in short, under the solemnity enjoined by the Calvinism so much beloved by the people; and surely the day might have been supposed to be held in such veneration by ministering spirits, sent down to earth to execute the purposes of Heaven, that no visit of the feared shadow would disturb even the broken rest of the wicked. So perhaps thought our couple; but their thoughts belied them, for just again, as the dawn broke over the tops of the high houses, the well-known tirl was heard at the door. Who was to open it? For days the mind of the wife had been made up. She would not face that figure again; no, if all the powers of the world were there to compel her; and as for Thomas, conscience had reduced the firmness of a man who once upon a time could kill to a condition of fear and trembling. Yet terrified as he was, he considered that he was here under the obligation to obey powers even higher than his conscience, and disobedience might bring upon him some evil greater than that under which he groaned. So up he got, trembling in every limb, and proceeding to the door, opened the same. What he saw may be surmised, but what he felt no one ever knew, for the one reason that he had never the courage to tell it, and for the other that no man or woman was ever placed in circumstances from which