“It’s a lie! I beg your pardon, sir,
but whoever told you that, told you a lie. Thorn
had no more to do with it than I had; I’ll swear
it.”
“I tell you, Afy, I believe Thorn to have been
the man. You were not present; you cannot know
who actually did it.”
“Yes, I can, and do know,” said Afy, bursting
into sobs of hysterical passion. “Thorn
was with me when it happened, so it could not have
been Thorn. It was that wicked Richard Hare.
Sir, have I not said that I’ll swear it?”
“Thorn was with you—at the moment
of the murder?” repeated Mr. Carlyle.
“Yes, he was,” shrieked Afy, nearly beside
herself with emotion. “Whoever has been
trying to put it off Richard Hare, and on to him, is
a wicked, false-hearted wretch. It was Richard
Hare, and nobody else, and I hope he’ll be hung
for it yet.”
“You are telling me the truth, Afy?” gravely
spoke Mr. Carlyle.
“Truth!” echoed Afy, flinging up her hands.
“Would I tell a lie over my father’s death?
If Thorn had done it, would I screen him, or shuffle
it off to Richard Hare? Not so.”
Mr. Carlyle felt uncertain and bewildered. That
Afy was sincere in what she said, was but too apparent.
He spoke again but Afy had risen from her chair to
leave.
“Locksley was in the wood that evening.
Otway Bethel was in it. Could either of them
have been the culprit?”
“No, sir,” firmly retorted Afy; “the
culprit was Richard Hare; and I’d say it with
my latest breath—I’d say it because
I know it—though I don’t choose to
say how I know it; time enough when he gets taken.”
She quitted the room, leaving Mr. Carlyle in a state
of puzzled bewilderment. Was he to believe Afy,
or was he to believe the bygone assertion of Richard
Hare?
A NIGHT INVASION OF EAST LYNNE.
In one of the comfortable sitting-rooms of East Lynne
sat Mr. Carlyle and his sister, one inclement January
night. The contrast within and without was great.
The warm, blazing fire, the handsome carpet on which
it flickered, the exceedingly comfortable arrangement
of the furniture, of the room altogether, and the
light of the chandelier, which fell on all, presented
a picture of home peace, though it may not have deserved
the name of luxury. Without, heavy flakes of snow
were falling thickly, flakes as large and nearly as
heavy as a crown piece, rendering the atmosphere so
dense and obscure that a man could not see a yard before
him. Mr. Carlyle had driven home in the pony carriage,
and the snow had so settled upon him that Lucy, who
happened to see him as he entered the hall, screamed
out laughingly that her papa had turned into a white
man. It was now later in the evening; the children
were in bed; the governess was in her own sitting
room—it was not often that Miss Carlyle
invited her to theirs of an evening—and
the house was quite. Mr. Carlyle was deep in
the pages of one of the monthly periodicals, and Miss
Carlyle sat on the other side of the fire, grumbling,
and grunting, and sniffling, and choking.
