you are, to return to that request again and again, in spite of me! No, you would only say I exaggerate everything. If there is one subject I dare not trust myself to talk of just now," he added, both his eyes and voice most earnest, "it is that which fills my thoughts as well as yours. Come, you who have so bravely spent these years of exile and denial, would never show the white feather at the very last-when such a different life is opening-just because we must needs stumble over the threshold. I'm afraid that adroit and patient officer is very tired of keeping his eye upon me. He so thoroughly deserves his reward at last, that I will go and anticipate it for him."

So when, ten minutes afterwards, the man who had waited until this hour to arrest Arthur Poynz, came up to the room to act upon his information, Mark came with him; and the departure of the three seemed quite simple and natural, and altogether unlike a legal arrest.

CHAPTER XIV.

If we are wrong'd, why, we can right ourselves;
If we are plagued and pester'd with a fool
That will not let us be, nor leave us room

To do our will and shape our path in peace,
We can be rid of him.

CLOUGH.

"DOYL

OYLE," whispered Mark, in his leisurely way—the Irish lawyer sat anxiously scrutinising the faces in the police-court while Lord Keston spoke to him-"Dr. Armstrong looks pretty confident of holding the winning card, eh ?"

The laywer nodded without a word, his attention thoughtfully fixed upon Nuel Armstrong while he was sworn. Then he followed every word, as Dr. Armstrong testified to the fact that Arthur Poynz had been suspected of administering poison in the year 1858 to one Catherine

Say, at Heaton Place, in the county of Surrey, and had escaped before the conclusion of the inquest; throwing his hat and cloak into a certain lake of deep water, with intent to elude the law by a supposititious death.

All this Nuel Armstrong was slowly and distinctly making evident in his answers, when the presiding magistrate broke the thread of information with a question which—as far as the listeners could tell-had at that moment struck him.

"Were you sworn upon the Gospels ?"

"I was sworn," returned Nuel, with the air of scornfully dismissing an irrelevant subject, "in the usual way."

"Do you," continued the magistrate, unmoved, "believe in the Gospels ?"

With the calm and supercilious smile which so often stirred his thin lips, Dr. Armstrong glanced into one or two of the faces around him, as he answered.

“I believe in them of course-as men generally believe in them-as detached portions of the history of a certain epoch."

"Do you believe in them?" persisted the magistrate, without the slightest change in the expression either of his face or voice.

"I acknowledge," Nuel answered, still with the smile upon his lips, "just what all sensible and thoughtful men acknowledge—that they are trustworthy records of a particular age. And beyond that, I consider myself bound in honour to speak the truth, and the whole truth, after being sworn upon them."

"There is no need at all for you to enlarge upon the subject," returned the magistrate, briefly. "Your answer can only be a word. Do you believe in the Scriptures-yes or no?" "In a general way, and for this purpose,

"Attend to my question, if you please," interposed the magistrate, with emphasis on the reiterated query. "Do you believe in the inspiration of those Gospels on which you have been sworn? If you do not, your oath cannot be taken."

"I-no man believes in the whole," asserted Nuel, his plausible smile growing an effort to him, as his fury was roused. "But I consider myself bound on my oath to utter only what is the truth."

"Then," observed the magistrate, in a rather raised, quick voice, "you do not believe in a God."

"I do not understand such a question here," returned Dr. Armstrong, his lips tightening more and more, as his eyes fell upon the bent head, and easy, apparently inattentive expression of Mark Poynz.

"It is a simple question. Have the kindness to answer it simply too."

"I do not understand the term."

"I think I may safely say then," remarked the magistrate, pointedly, "that you are the only man present who does not do so."

"There may be a Being of

"No circuit of words, if you please," was the reply, uttered with growing emphasis: "I call upon you to say if you believe that there is a God?"

"I have already answered that question," replied Nuel, his lips growing hard and dry upon his teeth.

"I have already said I believe in portions of the history where that name is mentioned."

"You do not believe then," insisted the magistrate, impatiently at last, "in the Gospels on which you have been sworn?"

"You do not? Stand down, if you please.