time, was the best and safest course for the future. How could I

expect her to put all her trust in me if I began by deceiving
her--if I fell into prevarications and excuses at the very outset

of our renewal of intercourse? I went on desperately to the end,
taking a hopeful view of the most hopeless circumstances, and

making my narrative as mercifully short as possible.
When I had done, the poor girl, in the extremity of her

forlornness and distress, forgot all the little maidenly
conventionalities and young-lady-like restraints of everyday

life--and, in a burst of natural grief and honest confiding
helplessness, hid her face on my bosom, and cried there as if she

were a child again, and I was the mother to whom she had been
used to look for comfort.

I made no attempt to stop her tears--they were the safest and
best vent for the violentagitation under which she was

suffering. I said nothing; words, at such a ti me as that, would
only have aggravated her distress. All the questions I had to

ask; all the proposals I had to make, must, I felt, be put
off--no matter at what risk--until some later and clamer hour.

There we sat together, with one long unsnuffed candle lighting us
smokily; with the discordantly-grotesque sound of the

housekeeper's snoring in the front room, mingling with the sobs
of the weeping girl on my bosom. No other noise, great or small,

inside the house or out of it, was audible. The summer night
looked black and cloudy through the little back window.

I was not much easier in my mind, now that the trial of breaking
my bad news to Alicia was over. That stranger who had called at

the house an hour before me, weighed on my spirits. It could not
have been Doctor Dulcifer. He would have gained admission. Could

it be the Bow Street runner, or Screw? I had lost sight of them,
it is true; but had they lost sight of me?

Alicia's grief gradually exhausted itself. She feebly raised her
head, and, turning it away from me, hid her face. I saw that she

was not fit for talking yet, and begged her to go upstairs to the
drawing-room and lie down a little. She looked apprehensively

toward the folding-doors that shut us off from the front parlor.
"Leave Mrs. Baggs to me," I said. "I want to have a few words

with her; and, as soon as you are gone, I'll make noise enough
here to wake her."

Alicia looked at me inquiringly and amazedly. I did not speak
again. Time was now of terrible importance to us--I gently led

her to the door.
CHAPTER XIV.

As soon as I was alone, I took from my pocket one of the
handbills which my excitable fellow-traveler had presented to me,

so as to have it ready for Mrs. Baggs the moment we stood face to
face. Armed with this ominous letter of introduction, I kicked a

chair down against the folding-doors, by way of giving a
preliminary knock to arouse the housekeeper's attention. The plan

was immediately successful. Mrs. Baggs opened the doors of
communication violently. A slight smell of spirits entered the

room, and was followed close by the housekeeper herself, with an
indignant face and a disordered head-dress.

"What do you mean, sir? How dare you--" she began; then stopped
aghast, looking at me in speechless astonishment.

"I have been obliged to make a slight alteration in my personal
appearance, ma'am," I said. "But I am still Frank Softly."

"Don't talk to me about personal appearances, sir," cried Mrs.
Baggs recovering. "What do you mean by being here? Leave the

house immediately. I shall write to the doctor, Mr. Softly, this
very night."

"He has no address you can direct to," I rejoined. "If you don't
believe me, read that." I gave her the handbill without another

word of preface.
Mrs. Baggs looked at it--lost in an instant some of the fine

color plentifully diffused over her face by sleep and
spirits--sat down in the nearest chair with a thump that seemed

to threaten the very foundations of Number Two, Zion Place--and
stared me hard in the face; the most speechless and helpless

elderly female I ever beheld.
"Take plenty of time to compose yourself ma'am," I said. "If you

don't see the doctor again soon, under the gallows, you will
probably not have the pleasure of meeting with him for some

considerable time."
Mrs. Baggs smote both her hands distractedly on her knees, and

whispered a devout ejaculation to herself softly.
"Allow me to deal with you, ma'am, as a woman of the world," I

went on. "If you will give me half-an-hour's hearing, I will
explain to you how I come to know what I do; how I got here; and

what I have to propose to Miss Alicia and to you."
"If you have the feelings of a man, sir," said Mrs. Baggs,

shaking her head and raising her eyes to heaven, "you will
remember that I have nerves, and will not presume upon them."

As the old lady uttered the last words, I thought I saw her eyes
turn from heaven, and take the earthly direction of the sofa in

the front parlor. It struck me also that her lips looked rather
dry. Upon these two hints I spoke.

"Might I suggest some little stimulant?" I asked, with respectful
earnestness. "I have heard my grandmother (Lady Malkinshaw) say

that, 'a drop in time saves nine.' "
"You will find it under the sofa pillow," said Mrs. Baggs, with

sudden briskness. " 'A drop in time saves nine'--my sentiments,
if I may put myself on a par with her ladyship. The

liqueur-glass, Mr. Softly, is in the backgammon-board. I hope her
ladyship was well the last time you heard from her? Suffers from

her nerves, does she? Like me, again. In the backgammon-board.
Oh, this news, this awful news!"

I found the bottle of brandy in the place indicated, but no
liqueur-glass in the backgammon-board. There was, however, a

wine-glass, accidentally left on a chair by the sofa. Mrs. Baggs
did not seem to notice the difference when I brought it into the

back room and filled it with brandy.
"Take a toothful yourself," said Mrs. Baggs, lightly tossing off

the dram in a moment. " 'A drop in time'--I can't help repeating
it, it's so nicely expressed. Still, with submission to her

ladyship's better judgment, Mr. Softly, the question seems now to
arise, whether, if one drop in time saves nine, two drops in time

may not save eighteen." Here Mrs. Baggs forgot her nerves and
winked. I returned the wink and filled the glass a second time.

"Oh, this news, this awful news!" said Mrs. Baggs, remembering
her nerves again.

Just then I thought I heard footsteps in front of the house, but,
listening more attentively, found that it had begun to rain, and

that I had been deceived by the pattering of the first heavy
drops against the windows. However, the bare suspicion that the

same stranger who had called already might be watching the house
now, was enough to startle me very seriously, and to suggest the

absolute necessity of occupying no more precious time in paying
attention to the vagaries of Mrs. Baggs' nerves. It was also of

some importance that I should speak to her while she was sober
enough to understand what I meant in a general way.

Feeling convinced that she was in imminent danger of becoming
downright drunk if I gave her another glass, I kept my hand on

the bottle, and forthwith told my story over again in a very
abridged and unceremonious form, and without allowing her one

moment of leisure for comment on my narrative, whether it might
be of the weeping, winking, drinking, groaning, or ejaculating

kind. As I had anticipated, when I came to a conclusion, and
consequently allowed her an opportunity of saying a few words,

she affected to be extremely shocked and surprised at hearing of