Words of indignation and of tender sympathy poured in from friends all around, and assurances of any aid that could in any way be given in defence against such a charge. Sir Henry Clavering came in haste to express his unbounded grief and resentment of such an impossible and unsupportable accusation. But instant steps, he said, must be taken to change the current of public opinion. He was on his way to secure an able refutation of the article in the paper of opposite politics. This article appeared the following week, and denounced so abominable a libel on the character of a man of the highest and most unimpeachable reputation for all that was good and kind, and against whom there was not a particle of evidence to support such a foul charge. Words of petty difference of opinion between gentlemen might, and did, frequently arise, but none but fools, considering the character of the speaker, would attach any serious import to them. Sir Henry did not wait for the issue of the paper, but that very day had the walls of the town placarded by bills, expressing the same energetic sentiments in different words. But the intention sufficiently manifested in the “Chronicle” article, was, notwithstanding, carried out, and in a few days afterwards a couple of constables presented themselves at Woodburn Grange, with a mission no less astounding than that of the apprehension of Mr. Leonard Woodburn, on a suspicion of murder; and amid a scene of distress only to be imagined, he was conveyed in his own carriage to the county court justice-room in Castleborough, to answer under warrant to this charge. CHAPTER II. WHO DID IT? If, on that memorable occasion at the hayfield fête, when Mrs. Heritage was impressed with a sense of impending calamities, she had gone a little further and asserted that within three years Sir Emanuel Clavering, then in full health and spirits, should be gathered to his fathers; that a severe dispensation should fall on the family at Fair Manor; that Dr. Leroy should suddenly abandon his practice and his native place, and go to the far East; that Thorsby should alternately turn reprobate, preacher, and again reprobate; that he should marry Letty Woodburn, doat on her and leave her; that one of the friends of the Woodburns should be killed in a most mysterious manner at Wink’s Ferry; and that, as the climax of all, Mr. Leonard Woodburn should be charged with a wilful murder, and be put in jeopardy of a public and ignominious death,—the effect of her vaticinations would have been lost, and she would have been pronounced extravagantly insane. But now, as all these things had taken place, there was scarcely a person who was present on that occasion, who did not recall the fact with astonishment.