Filing out of the room in groups, came the crowd who had filled it. The day had changed. The brightness of the morning was replaced by a wintry afternoon of grey sky; the air blew keen; snow began to fall. The eager spectators put up their umbrellas, if they happened to possess any, and stood to talk in excited whispers.

Crossing to the waste land, the roundabout road she chose to take on her way home, was Anna Chester. Sarah had gone striding up the nearest way; Captain Copp had been laid hold of by Supervisor Kyne, whose grievance on the score of the smugglers was sore; and Anna was alone. Her veil drawn over her white face, her eyes wearing a depth of trouble never yet seen in their sweetness, went she, looking neither to the right nor left, until she was overtaken by Miss Thornycroft.

"Anna!"

"Mary Anne!"

For a full minute they stood, looking into each other\'s faces of fear and pain. And then the latter spoke, a rising sob of emotion catching her breath.

"Thank you for what you have done this day, Anna! I was in doubt before; I did not know how much you had seen that night; whether you had not mercifully been spared all by the fainting fit. But now that you have given your evidence, I see how much I have to thank you for. Thank you truly. We have both forsworn ourselves: you less than I; but surely Heaven will forgive us in such a cause."

"Let us never speak of it again," murmured Anna. "I don\'t think I can bear it."

"Just a word first--to set my mind at rest," returned Miss Thornycroft, as she stood grasping Anna\'s hand in hers. "How much did you see? Did you see the pistol fired?"

"I saw only that. It was at the moment I looked out round the wall. The flash drove me back again. That and the cry that broke from Robert Hunter: upon which I fainted for the first time in my life."

"And you--recognised him--him who fired the pistol?" whispered Miss Thornycroft, glancing cautiously round as the words issued from her bloodless lips.

"Yes, I fear so."

It was quite enough. Qualified though the avowal was, Mary Anne saw that she could have spoken decisively. The two unhappy girls, burdened with their miserable secret, looked into each other\'s faces that sickness and terror had rendered white. Anna, as if in desperation to have her fears confirmed where no confirmation was needed, broke the silence.

"It--was--your--brother."

"Yes."

"Isaac."

Miss Thornycroft opened her lips to speak, and closed them again. She turned her head away.

"You will not betray him--and us, Anna? You will ever be cautious--silent?"

"I will be cautious and silent always; I will guard the secret jealously."

A sharp pressure of the hand in ratification of the bargain, and they parted, Anna going on her solitary way.

"Will I guard the secret! Heaven alone knows how much heavier lies the obligation on me to do so than on others," wailed Anna. "May God help me to bear it!"

Quick steps behind her, and she turned, for they had a ring that she knew too well. Pressing onwards through the flakes of snow came Isaac Thornycroft. Anna set off to run; it was in the lonely spot by the churchyard.

"Anna! Anna! Don\'t you know me?"

Not a word of answer. She only ran the faster--as if she could hope to outstep him! Isaac, with his long, fleet strides, overtook her with ease, and laid his hand upon her shoulder.

Like a stag brought to bay, she turned upon him, with her terror-stricken face, more ghastly, more trembling than it had yet been; and by a dexterous movement freed herself.

"Why, Anna, what is the matter? Why do you run from me?"

"There\'s my uncle," she panted. "Don\'t speak to me--don\'t come after me."

And sure enough, as Isaac turned, he distinguished Captain Copp at a distance. Anna had set off to run again like a wild hare, and was half-way across the heath. Isaac turned slowly back, passed the captain with a nod, and went on, wondering. What had come to Anna? Why did she fly from him?

He might have wondered still more had he been near her in her flight. Groans of pain were breaking from her; soft low moans of anguish; sighs, and horribly perplexing thoughts; driving her to a state of utter despair.

For, according to the testimony of her own eyes that ill-fated night, Anna, you see, believed the murderer to be her husband Miss Thornycroft had now confirmed it. And, not to keep you in more suspense than can be helped, we must return to that night for a few brief moments.

When Richard Thornycroft darted into the subterranean passage with the intention of warning his brother Isaac, before he reached its end the question naturally occurred to him, Why stop the boats, now Hunter is off? and he turned back again. So much has been already said. But half-way down the passage he again vacillated--a most uncommon thing in Richard Thornycroft, but the episode with Hunter had well-nigh scared his senses away. Turning about again, he retraced his steps and called to Isaac.

A private conference ensued. Richard told all without reserve, down to the point where he had watched Hunter away, under the surveillance of Cyril. "Will it be better to stop the boats or not?" he asked.

"There is not the slightest cause for stopping them, that I see," returned Isaac, who had listened attentively. "Certainly not. Hunter is gone; and if he were not, I do not think, by what you say, that he would attempt to interfere further; he\'d rather turn his back a mile the other way."

"Let them come on then," decided Richard.

"They are already, I expect, putting off from the ship."

Isaac Thornycroft remained at his work; Richard went back again up the passage. Not quickly; some latent doubt, whence arising he could not see or trace, lingered on his mind still--his better angel perhaps urging him from the road he was going. Certain it was: he remembered it afterwards even more vividly than he felt it then: that a strong inclination lay upon him to stop the work for that night. But it appeared not to hold reason, and was disregarded.

He emerged from the subterranean passage, lightly shut the trap-door--which could be opened from the inside at will, when not fastened down--and took his way to the plateau to watch against intruders. This would bring it to about the time that the two young ladies had gone there, and Sarah, her apron over her head, had taken her place on the low red stone. In her evidence the woman had said it might be a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes since she met Robert Hunter starting on his journey; it had taken Richard about that time to do since what he had done; and it might have taken Robert Hunter about the same space (or rather less) to walk quickly to the wherry, and come back again. And come back again! Richard Thornycroft could have staked his life, had the question occurred to him, that Hunter would not come back: he never supposed any living man, calling himself a gentleman, could be guilty of so great treachery. But the doubt never presented itself to him for a moment.

What then was his astonishment, as he ran swiftly and stealthily (escaping the sight of Sarah Ford, owing, no doubt, to her crouching posture on the stone, and the black apron on her head) up the plateau, to see Robert Hunter? He was at its edge, at the corner farthest from the village; was looking out steadily over the sea, as if watching for the boats and their prey. Richard verily thought he must be in a dream: he stood still and strained his eyes, wondering if they deceived him; and then as ugly a word broke from him as ever escaped the lips of man.

Thunderstruck with indignation, with dismay, half mad at the fellow\'s despicable conduct, believing that if any in the world ever merited shooting, he did; nay, believing that the fool must court death to be there after his, Richard\'s, warning promise; overpowered with fury, with passion, Richard Thornycroft stood in the shade of the Round Tower, his eyes glaring, his white teeth showing themselves from between the drawn lips. At that same moment Robert Hunter, after stooping to look over the precipice, turned round; the ugly fur on the breast of his coat very conspicuous. May Richard Thornycroft be forgiven! With a second hissing oath, he drew the pistol from his breast-pocket, pointed it with his unerring hand, and fired; and the ill-fated man fell over the cliff with a yelling cry. Another shriek, more shrill, arose at Richard\'s elbow from the shade of the Round Tower.

"So ye cursed sea-bird," he muttered. "He has got his deserts. I would be served so myself, if I could thus have turned traitor!"

But what was it seized Richard\'s arm? Not a seabird. It was his sister Mary Anne. "You here!" he cried, with increased passion. "What the fury!--have you all turned mad to-night?"

"You have murdered him!" she cried, in a dread whisper--for how could she know that Anna Chester had fallen senseless and could not hear her?--"you have murdered Robert Hunter!"

"I have," he answered. "He is dead, and more than dead. If the shot did not take effect, the fall would kill him."

"Oh, Richard, say it was an accident!" she moaned, very nearly bereft of reason in her shock of horror. "What madness came over you?"

"He earned it of his own accord; earned it deliberately. I held my pistol to his head before, this night, and I spared him. I had him on his knees to me, and he took an oath to be away from this place instantly, and to be silent. I told him if he broke it, if he lingered here but for a moment, I would put the bullet into him. I saw him off; I send Cyril with him to speed him on his road; and--see!--the fool came back again. I was right to do it."

"I will denounce you!" she fiercely uttered, anger getting the better of other feelings. "Ay, though you are my brother, Richard Thornycroft! I will raise the hue and cry upon you."

"You had better think twice of that," he answered, shaking her arm in his passion. "If you do, you must raise it against your father and your father\'s house!"

"What do you mean?" she asked, quailing, for there was a savage earnestness in his words which told of startling truth.

"Girl! see you no mystery? can\'t you fathom it? You would have aided Hunter in discovering the smugglers: see you not that we are the smugglers? We are running a cargo now--now"--and his voice rose to a hoarse shriek as he pointed to the Half-moon, "and he would have turned Judas to us! He was............