A sighing morning wind swept round the domains of East Lynne, bending the tall poplar trees in the distance, swaying the oak and elms nearer, rustling the fine old chestnuts in the park, a melancholy, sweeping, fitful wind. The weather had changed from brightness and warmth, and heavy, gathering clouds seemed to be threatening rain; so, at least, deemed one wayfarer, who was journeying on a solitary road that Saturday night.

He was on foot. A man attired in the garb of a sailor, with black, curling ringlets of hair, and black, curling whiskers; a prodigious pair of whiskers, hiding his neck above his blue, turned collar, hiding partially his face. The glazed hat, brought low upon his brows, concealed it still more; and he wore a loose, rough pea-jacket and wide rough trousers hitched up with a belt. Bearing steadily on, he struck into Bean lane, a by-way already mentioned in this history, and from thence, passing through a small, unfrequented gate, he found himself in the grounds of East Lynne.

“Let me see,” mused he as he closed the gate behind him, and slipped the bolt. “The covered walk? That must be near the acacia trees. Then I must wind round to the right. I wonder if either of them will be there, waiting for me?”

Yes. Pacing the covered walk in her bonnet and mantle, as if taking an evening stroll—had any one encountered her, which was very unlikely, seeing that it was the most retired spot in the grounds—was Mrs. Carlyle.

“Oh, Richard! My poor brother!”

Locked in a yearning embrace, emotion overpowered both. Barbara sobbed like a child. A little while, and then he put her from him, to look at her.

“So Barbara, you are a wife now?”

“Oh, the happiest wife! Richard, sometimes I ask myself what I have done that God should have showered down blessings so great upon me. But for the sad trouble when I think of you, my life would be as one long summer’s day. I have the sweetest baby—nearly a year old he is now; I shall have another soon, God willing. And Archibald—oh, I am so happy!”

She broke suddenly off with the name “Archibald;” not even to Richard could she speak of her intense love for, and happiness in her husband.

“How is it at the Grove?” he asked.

“Quite well; quite as usual. Mamma has been in better health lately. She does not know of this visit, but—”

“I must see her,” interrupted Richard. “I did not see her the last time, you remember.”

“All in good time to talk of that. How are you getting on in Liverpool? What are you doing?”

“Don’t inquire too closely, Barbara. I have no regular work, but I get a job at the docks, now and then, and rub on. It is seasonable help, that, which comes to me occasionally from you. Is it from you or Carlyle?”

Barbara laughed. “How are we to distinguish? His money is mine now, and mine is his. We don’t have separate purses, Richard; we send it to you jointly.”

“Sometimes I have fancied it came from my mother.”

Barbara shook her head. “We have never allowed mamma to know that you left London, or that we hold an address where we can write to you. It would not have done.”

“Why have you summoned me here, Barbara? What has turned up?”

“Thorn has—I think. You would know him again Richard?”

“Know him!” passionately echoed Richard Hare.

“Were you aware that a contest for the membership is going on at West Lynne?”

“I saw it in the newspapers. Carlyle against Sir Francis Levison. I say, Barbara, how could he think of coming here to oppose Carlyle after his doing with Lady Isabel?”

“I don’t know,” said Barbara. “I wonder that he should come here for other reasons also. First of all, Richard, tell me how you came to know Sir Francis Levison. You say you did know him, and that you had seen him with Thorn.”

“So I do know him,” answered Richard. “And I saw him with Thorn twice.”

“Know him by sight only, I presume. Let me hear how you came to know him.”

“He was pointed out to me. I saw him walk arm-inarm with a gentleman, and I showed them to the waterman at the cab-stand hard by. ‘Do you know that fellow?’ I asked him, indicating Thorn, for I wanted to come at who he really is—which I didn’t do. ‘I don’t know that one,’ the old chap answered, ‘but the one with him is Levison the baronet. They are often together—a couple of swells they looked.’”

“And that’s how you got to know Levison?”

“That was it,” said Richard Hare.

“Then, Richard, you and the waterman made a mess of it between you. He pointed out the wrong one, or you did not look at the right. Thorn is Sir Francis Levison.”

Richard stared at her with all his eyes.

“Nonsense, Barbara!”

“He is, I have never doubted it since the night you saw him in Bean lane. The action you described, of his pushing back his hair, his white hands, his sparkling diamond ring, could only apply in my mind to one person—Francis Levison. On Thursday I drove by the Raven, when he was speechifying to the people, and I noticed the selfsame action. In the impulse of the moment I wrote off for you, that you might come and set the doubt at rest. I need not have done it, it seems, for when Mr. Carlyle returned home that evening, and I acquainted him with what I had done, he told me that Thorn and Francis Levison are one and the same. Otway Bethel recognized him that same afternoon, and so did Ebenezer James.”

“They’d both know him,” eagerly cried Richard. “James I am positive would, for he was skulking down to Hallijohn’s often then, and saw Thorn a dozen times. Otway Bethel must have seen him also, though he protested he had not. Barbara!”

The name was uttered in affright, and Richard plunged amidst the trees, for somebody was in sight—a tall, dark form advancing from the end of the walk. Barbara smiled. It was only Mr. Carlyle, and Richard emerged again.

“Fears still, Richard,” Mr. Carlyle exclaimed, as he shook Richard cordially by the hand. “So you have changed your travelling toggery.”

“I couldn’t venture here again in the old suit; it had been seen, you said,” returned Richard. “I bought this rig-out yesterday, second-hand. Two pounds for the lot—I think they shaved me.”

“Ringlets and all?” laughed Mr. Carlyle.

“It’s the old hair oiled and curled,” cried Dick. “The barber charged a shilling for doing it, and cut my hair into the bargain. I told him not to spare grease, for I liked the curls to shine—sailors always do. Mr. Carlyle, Barbara says that Levison and that brute Thorn—the one’s as much of a brute as the other, though—have turned out to be the same.”

“They have, Richard, as it appears. Nevertheless, it may be as well for you to take a private view of Levison before anything is done—as you once did by the other Thorn. It would not do to make a stir, and then discover that there was a mistake—that he was not Thorn.”

“When can I see him?” asked Richard, eagerly.

“It must be contrived somehow. Were you to hang about the doors of the Raven—this evening, even—you’d be sure to get the opportunity, for he is always passing in and out. No one will know you, or think of you, either: their heads are turned with the election.”

“I shall look odd to people’s eyes. You don’t get many sailors in West Lynne.”

“Not odd at all. We have a Russian bear here at present, and you’ll be nobody beside him.”

“A Russian bear!” repeated Richard, while Barbara laughed.

“Mr. Otway Bethel has returned in what is popularly supposed to be a bear’s hide; hence the new name he is greeted with. Will it turn out, Richard that he had anything to do with the murder?”

Richard shook his head.

“He couldn’t have, Mr. Carlyle; I have said so all along. But about Levison. If I find him to be the man Thorn, what steps can then be taken?”

“That’s the difficulty,” said Mr. Carlyle.

“Who will set it agoing. Who will move in it?”

“You must, Richard.”

“I!” uttered Richard Hare, in consternation. “I move in it!”

“You, yourself. Who else is there? I have been thinking it well over, and can hit upon no one.”

“Why, won’t you take it upon yourself, Mr. Carlyle?”

“No. Being Levison,” was the answer.

“Curse him!” impetuously retorted Richard. “Curse him doubly if he be the double villain. But why should you scruple Mr. Carlyle? Most men, wronged as you have been, would leap at the opportunity for revenge.”

“For the crime perpetrated upon Hallijohn I would pursue him to the scaffold. For my own wrong, no. But the remaining negative has cost me something. Many a time, since this appearance of his at West Lynne, have I been obliged to lay violent control upon myself, or I should have horsewhipped him within an ace of his life.”

“If you horsewhipped him to death he would only meet his deserts.”

“I leave him to a higher retribution—to One who says, ‘Vengeance is mine.’ I believe him to be guilty of the murder but if the uplifting of my finger would send him to his disgraceful death, I would tie down my hand rather than lift it, for I could not, in my own mind, separate the man from the injury. Though I might ostensibly pursue him as the destroyer of Hallijohn, to me he would appear ever as the destroyer of another, and the world, always charitable, would congratulate Mr. Carlyle upon gratifying his revenge. I stir in it not, Richard.”

“Couldn’t Barbara?” pleaded Richard.

Barbara was standing with her arm entwined within her husband’s, and Mr. Carlyle looked down as he answered,—

“Barbara is my wife.”

It was a sufficient answer.

“Then the thing’s again at an end,” said Richard, gloomily, “and I must give up hope of ever being cleared.”

“By no means,” said Mr. Carlyle. “The one who ought to act in this is your father, Richard; but we know he will not. Your mother cannot. She has neither health nor energy for it; and if she had a full supply of both, she would not dare to brave her husband and use them in the cause. My hands are tied; Barbara’s equally so, as part of me. There only remains yourself.”

“And what can I do?” wailed poor Dick. “If your hands are tied, I’m sure my whole body is, speaking in comparison; hands, and legs, and neck. It’s in jeopardy, that is, every hour.”

“Your acting in this affair need not put it any the more in jeopardy. You must stay in the neighborhood for a few days—”

“I dare not,” interposed Richard, in a fright. “Stay in the neighborhood for a few days! No; that I never may.”

“Listen, Richard. You must put away these timorous fears, or else you must make up your mind to remain under the ban for good; and, remember, your mother’s happiness is at stake equally with yours—I could almost say her life. Do you suppose I would advise you for danger? You used to say there was some place, a mile or two from this, where you could sojourn in safety.”

“So there is. But I always feel safer when I get away from it.”

“There your quarters must be, for two or three days at any rate. I have turned matters over in my own mind, and will tell you what I think should be done, so far as the preliminary step goes, though I do not interfere myself.”

“Only the preliminary step! There must be a pretty many to follow it, sir, if it’s to come to anything. Well, what is it?”

“Apply to Ball & Treadman, and get them to take it.”

They were now slowly pacing the covered walk, Barbara on her husband’s arm, Richard by the side of Mr. Carlyle. Dick stopped when he heard the last words.

“I don’t understand you, Mr. Carlyle. You might as well advise me to go before the bench of magistrates at once. Ball & Treadman would walk me off there as soon as I showed myself.”

“Nothing of the sort, Richard. I do not tell you to go openly to their office, as another client would. What I would advise is this—make a friend of Mr. Ball; he can be a good man and true, if he chooses; tell the whole story to him in a private place and interview, and ask him whether he will carry it through. If he is fully impressed with the conviction that you are innocent, as the facts appear to warrant, he will undertake it. Treadman need know nothing of the affair at first; and when Ball puts things in motion, he need not know that you are here, or where you are to be found.”

“I don’t dislike Ball,” mused Richard, “and if he would only give his word to be true, I know he would be. The difficulty will be, who is to get the promise from him?”

“I will,” said Mr. Carlyle. “I will so far pave the way for you. That done, my interference is over.”

“How will he go about it, think you, if he does take it up?”

“That is his affair. I know how I should.”

“How, sir?”

“You cannot expect me to say, Richard. I might as well act for you.”

“I know. You’d go at it slap-dash, and arrest Levison offhand on the charge.”

A smile parted Mr. Carlyle’s lips, for Dick had just guessed it. But his countenance gave no clue by which anything could be gathered.

A thought flashed across Richard’s mind; a thought which rose up on end even his false hair. “Mr. Carlyle,” he uttered, in an accent of horror, “if Ball should take it up in that way against Levison, he must apply to the bench for a warrant.”

“Well?” quietly returned Mr. Carlyle.

“And they’d send and clap me into prison. You ............