fate of his betters, and was made a bonfire of
by the Huguenots, when the cathedral fell
into their hands.

NORTH AND SOUTH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF MARY BARTON.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FOURTH.

THE "bearing up better than likely" was a
terrible strain upon Margaret. Sometimes she
thought she must give way, and cry out with
her pain, as the sudden sharp thought came
across her, even during her apparently cheerful
conversations with her father, that she had no
longer a mother. About Frederick, too,
there was great uneasiness. The Sunday
post intervened, and interfered with their
London letters; and on Tuesday Margaret
was surprised and disheartened to find that
there was still no letter. She was quite in
the dark as to his plans, and her father was
miserable at all this uncertainty. It broke
in upon his lately acquired habit of sitting
still in one easy chair for half a day together.
He kept pacing up and down the room; then
out of it; and she heard him upon the landing
opening and shutting the bedroom doors,
without any apparent object. She tried to
tranquillise him by reading aloud; but it
was evident he could not listen for long
together. How thankful she was then that
she had kept to herself the additional cause
for anxiety produced by their encounter
with Leonards. She was thankful to hear
Mr. Thornton announced. His visit would
force her father's thoughts into another
channel.

He came up straight to her father, whose
hands he took and wrung without a word --
holding them in his for a minute or two,
during which time his face, his eyes, his look,
told of more sympathy than could be put
into words. Then he turned to Margaret.
Not "better than likely" did she look. Her
stately beauty was dimmed with much
watching and with many tears. The expression
on her countenance was of gentle
patient sadness—nay of positive present
suffering. He had not meant to greet her
otherwise than with his late studied coldness
of demeanour; but he could not help going
up to her, as she stood a little aside, rendered
timid by the uncertainty of his manner of
late, and saying the few necessary commonplace
words in so tender a tone of voice that
her eyes filled with tears, and she turned
away to hide her emotion. She took her
work and sate down very quiet and silent.
Mr. Thornton's heart beat quick and strong,
and for the time he utterly forgot the Outwood
lane. He tried to talk to Mr. Hale;
and—his presence always a certain kind of
pleasure to Mr. Hale, as his power and decision
made him, and his opinions, a safe sure
port—was unusually agreeable to her father,
as Margaret saw.

Presently Dixon came to the door and
said, "Miss Hale, you are wanted."

Dixon's manner was so flurried that Margaret
turned sick at heart. Something had
happened to Fred. She had no doubt of
that. It was well that her father and Mr.
Thornton were so much occupied by their
conversation.

"What is it, Dixon?" asked Margaret,
the moment she had shut the drawing room
door.

"Come this way, miss," said Dixon, opening
the door of what had been Mrs. Hale's bed
chamber, now Margaret's, for her father
refused to sleep there again after his wife's
death. "It's nothing, miss," said Dixon,
choking a little. "Only a police-inspector.
He wants to see you, miss. But I dare say, it's
about nothing at all."

"Did he name—" asked Margaret, almost
inaudibly.

"No, miss; he named nothing. He only
asked if you lived here, and if he could
speak to you. Martha went to the door, and
let him in; she has shown him into master's
study. I went to him myself, to try if that
would do; but no—it's you, miss, he wants."

Margaret did not speak again till her hand
was on the lock of the study door. Here she
turned round and said, "Take care papa does
not come down. Mr. Thornton is with him
now."

The inspector was almost daunted by the
haughtiness of her manner as she entered.
There was something of indignation expressed
in her countenance, but so kept down aud
controlled that it gave her a superb air of
disdain. There was no surprise, no curiosity.
She stood awaiting the opening of his business
there. Not a question did she ask.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am, but my duty
obliges me to ask you a few plain questions.
A man has died in the Infirmary in consequence
of a fall, received at Outwood station,
between the hours of five and six on Thursday
evening, the twenty-sixth instant. At the
time, this fall did not seem of much consequence;
but it was rendered fatal, the doctors
say, by the presence of some internal
complaint, and the man's own habit of drinking."

The large dark eyes, gazing straight into
the inspector's face, dilated a little. Otherwise
there was no motion perceptible to his
experienced observation. Her lips swelled
out into a richer curve than ordinary, owing
to the enforced tension of the muscles, but
he did not know what was their usual
appearance, so as to recognise the unwonted
sullen defiance of the firm sweeping lines.
She never blenched or trembled. She fixed
him with her eye. Now—as he paused before
going on, she said, almost as if she would encourage
him in telling his tale—"Well—
go on!"

"It is supposed that an inquest will have