if I would honour him by consenting to a
personal interview.

I made another unprofessional sacrifice to
mere curiosity. I honoured him by making an
appointment at my office, for the next day.

Mr. Luker was, in every respect, such an
inferior creature to the Indian—he was so vulgar,
so ugly, so cringing, and so prosy—that he is
quite unworthy of being reported, at any length,
in these pages. The substance of what he had
to tell me may be fairly stated as follows:

The day before I had received the visit
of the Indian, Mr. Luker had been favoured
with a call from that accomplished gentleman.
In spite of his European disguise, Mr. Luker
had instantly identified his visitor with the
chief of the three Indians, who had formerly
annoyed him by loitering about his house, and
who had left him no alternative but to consult
a magistrate. From this startling discovery he
had rushed to the conclusion (naturally enough
I own) that he must certainly be in the
company of one of the three men, who had
blindfolded him, gagged him, and robbed him of his
banker's receipt. The result was that he
became quite paralysed with terror, and that he
firmly believed his last hour had come.

On his side, the Indian preserved the character
of a perfect stranger. He produced the
little casket, and made exactly the same
application which he had afterwards made to me.
As the speediest way of getting rid of him, Mr.
Luker had at once declared that he had no
money. The Indian had thereupon asked to
be informed of the best and safest person
to apply to for the loan he wanted. Mr.
Luker had answered that the best and safest
person, in such cases, was usually a respectable
solicitor. Asked to name some individual
of that character and profession, Mr. Luker
had mentioned me—for the one simple reason
that, in the extremity of his terror, mine was
the first name which occurred to him. "The
perspiration was pouring off me like rain, sir,"
the wretched creature concluded. " I didn't
know what I was talking about. And I hope
you'll look over it, Mr. Bruff, sir, in consideration
of my having been really and truly
frightened out of my wits."

I excused the fellow graciously enough. It
was the readiest way of releasing myself from
the sight of him. Before he left me, I detained
him to make one inquiry. Had the Indian said
anything noticeable, at the moment of quitting
Mr. Luker's house?

Yes! The Indian had put precisely the
same question to Mr. Luker, at parting, which
he had put to me; receiving, of course, the
same answer as the answer which I had given
to him.

What did it mean? Mr. Luker's explanation
gave me no assistance towards solving the
problem. My own unaided ingenuity, consulted
next, proved quite unequal to grapple with the
difficulty. I had a dinner engagement that
evening; and I went up-stairs, in no very
genial frame of mind, little suspecting that
the way to my dressing-room, and the way
to discovery, meant, on this particular occasion,
one and the same tiling.

              WERE THEY GUILTY?

       DERIVED FROM A FRENCH TRIAL.
                          

                             I.

THE Velay is a volcanic district, contiguous
to Auvergne, in quite the southern part of the
central region of France. It is wild and
picturesque, bearing unmistakable marks of the
fires that raged there at no distant period,
geologically speaking. Its climate enables it to
produce all the comforts and many of the
luxuries of life, making it a phenomenon of good
living and cheapness. Its inhabitants are careful,
cautious, and prudent, not to say parsimonious
and cunning; still, with a good conscience
and a contented mind, a man might take up his
residence in worse places than this.

One of its oldest and wealthiest families was
represented, in 1835, by Monsieur and Madame
the Comte and Comtesse de la Roche-Négly
de Chamblas—the French noblesse are fond of
affixing the title of one property to that of
another, so as to make quite a string of titles—
who had an only child, Théodora. Mademoiselle
Théodora, past the bloom of youth and
unendowed with the graces of her sex, was an
excellent match nevertheless. Consequently,
on the 1st of July of that year, she was married
to M. Louis Vilhardin de Marcellange, who
belonged to an honourable and numerous family
of Moulins. The alliance, at first sight,
appeared to be suitable in respect to birth,
fortune, and education, if not as to age and mutual
affection, and at the outset promised happily.

One cause of this was the constant friendship
which M. de Chamblas testified for his son-
in-law; for, with both the contracting parties,
the marriage had been mainly a matter of
business. Théodora, as well as her future
husband, had coolly calculated everything relating
to the budget. M. de Marcellange was young
and industrious; his expectations were good;
but all he brought was an estate worth one
hundred and twenty thousand francs, with fifteen
thousand francs' worth of debts incurred to
meet the wedding expenses. Mademoiselle de
Chamblas, as an only daughter, would one day
have a considerable fortune; but for the present
her circumstances were not more independent
than her husband's. They therefore agreed to
beg her father to grant them a lease of the
Chamblas estate at a moderate rent. It would
afford them the means of paying off the debts
and increasing their common revenue.

M. de Chamblas readily consented, and the
couple established themselves at Chamblas; but
his death, which happened shortly afterwards,
placed them in a difficult position. Madame de
Chamblas had made over all her property to her
daughter, reserving to herself the usufruct for
life. Her husband's death gave her the right
to claim forty thousand francs in ready money
and an annuity of two thousand four hundred