to fear you will be, you will have yourself to blame. It would have been better to confess altogether, than to confess as much as you have done, and then deny the rest." "I have confessed the exact truth," replied Joost Avelingh. The other shrugged his shoulders. "That is often the unwisest thing of all," he said. cere. And now in the quiet of this little cell the accused again told himself that he had done right. Self-deception there may have been in his conclusions, but they were undoubtedly sinNo man need incriminate himself, he reasoned, but no man may tell a lie. I have answered each question put to me according to my inmost conviction; I need not answer questions they do not put. The charge against me is utterly and irremediably false, and I plead 'Not guilty' with all my heart and soul." But now, while waiting there in the interval of his trial, he first began to realize what condemnation might mean! He shuddered at the idea, and once more his mind reverted to Agatha. He knelt down on the stone floor and prayed God to have pity upon her. And then the blue-coated officials came with their bunches of keys and led him forth again. As soon as the advocate general had got through the opening sentences of his address to the judges, it became apparent to all present that he was exceptionally hostile to the prisoner. Joost Avelingh himself felt that with growing conviction, and bent forward in an attitude of anxious inquiry. It was terrible to think what opinion this man must have formed of him. Was it but the expression of the thoughts of all around? . . . "My client has declared his innocence," said the counsel, "and the law has not succeeded in establishing his guilt. If he sinned, he sinned alone in the darkness, and in the darkness his deed has remained. And sin, ere the law can touch it, must lie red and glaring, an offense to all who tread the highway, in the resistless light of day!" A voice from the gallery called out "Jan Lorentz ! " in allusion to the words, "alone in the darkness." There was another burst of approval. Joost Avelingh, for the first time during the long trial, hid his face in his hands. It was growing dark when the court rose. The black van again rumbled under an archway, amid the disappointed hootings of the roughs. The prisoner got into it. He was less calm and firm now, it was said, than at the beginning of the trial. His courage seemed to be giving way. He had asked, immediately on coming out, to be allowed to see his wife. The verdict would be given, as usual, after an interval of a week. "Silence!" cried the usher, settling his broad orange scarf as he spoke. The presiding judge took up one of the documents lying before him. A nervous thrill of expectation ran through the vast concourse. The prisoner knitted his eyebrows slightly. It was noted with some surprise that Kees Hessel was not present, as he had been all through the day of the trial. The judge began to read the verdict in a shrill voice full of abortive attempts at impressiveness. It was a long document, comprising several folio pages, and giving first an accurate summary of the facts of the case, and then a full exposition of the legal consequences the deed must involve. Seven minutes were spent over the descriptions in the first part; the president cleared his throat and coughed solemnly as he turned over page after page. At last, however, long after every one was tired of hearing facts enumerated which most men by this time had unwillingly learned by heart-at last the legal part of the document was reached. Much of what the president read was a repetition of the address of the advocate general on the day of the trial. The same charges of ingratitude and avarice were brought against Joost. Full attention was accorded to the testimony of Jan Lorentz, the principal witness. It was supplemented by that of the notary and the doctor. And taking all things into consideration, and reckoning that the motives for the deed and the circumstances immediately connected with it, everything, in fact, but the actual commission of the crime, had been confessed by the prisoner, the judges came to the conclusion that they were justified in declaring that the necessary legal evidence had been supplied, and on the ground of that evidence, and all that had come to their knowledge in connection with it, they found the prisoner "Guilty of Murder.” THE CLOSE OF A RAINY DAY.1 BY NATHAN HASKELL DOLE. [1852-.] THE sky was dark and gloomy; We heard the sound of rain The clouds hung low o'er the ocean, Where one lone sail before the gale The screaming sea fowl hovered And flapped wide wings in narrowing rings, The sky grew wilder and darker, Then lo! from the western heaven It changed the wave-beat islands 1 By permission of T. Y. Crowell & Co. THE AMERICAN BUSINESS MAN AND THE BY FRANCES C. BAYLOR. (From “On Both Sides.") [FRANCES COURTENAY BAYLOR (Mrs. Frances Courtenay Baylor Barnum), an American author, was born in Fayetteville, Ark., January 20, 1848, and is now living in Savannah, Ga. She has traveled extensively both at home and abroad, and during the years 1865-1867 and 1873-1884 resided in England. She has written much for periodicals, and is the author of "On Both Sides," an international novel; "Behind the Blue Ridge"; "Juan and Juanita," a juvenile tale; and "Claudia Hyde."] A LARGE party assembled on the day chosen, a fine, mild day, full of suggestions of spring, and as well adapted for the expedition as though it had been ordered on purpose. A long string of carriages went rattling out of the town into the lovely country beyond, past Cranham Wood to Witcomb, where it had been agreed that the remains of a Roman villa should be visited. Arrived at the spot, the party came to a halt, and, after endless chatter and delay, dismounted and formed into a. straggling procession, which struck into a footpath that led through a farmyard full of comfortable-looking animals, hayricks, and poultry into a succession of fields, and brought up. at two small stone thatched huts near the border of the wood.. Entering the largest of these in detachments, all the ladies fell. into the regulation fit of rapture over what remained of the. remains, and gazed with enthusiasm at certain spots in the tessellated mosaic pavement which, with the aid of a vivid imagination and the eye of faith, could be made out to have been intended for fishes. Most of the guests felt but a languid interest in this piscatorial display; but Mr. Ketchum got out a foot rule and went to poking and peeping and measuring with much zeal and intelligence. He discovered that the lintels of the doorway leading into the next room were of massive stone and more than six feet high; that the floor of the room rested on pillars three feet high, and each about one foot square, set sufficiently far apart to permit combustibles to be thrust in between them and the whole room heated. He tipped the guide and got two bits of the tessera and dug up a 1 Copyright, 1885, by Francis C. Baylor. Used by permission. bit of the cement. "Hang it! I must find out how those old scalawags did this! They beat the world at it!" said he, as he tied the relics up in a corner of his handkerchief. He stared for ten minutes at the hypocaust under the flooring, calculated the amount of wood and coal it would take to "run" it, and declined to leave, though Kate assured him the others were getting restless, until he had satisfied himself as to what became of the ashes, and wondered what people in Tecumseh would say if he bought it and transported it bodily there. The interest he exhibited in this antiquarian research surprised his relatives, who could not understand the attraction it had for his practical mind. At last he consented to move, and, taking carriages, they drove rapidly to Birdlip and up to the door of "The Black Horse" Inn, where everything wore an extremely festive air and a small army of servants was drawn up to meet them. Entered from the street, the house was in no way remarkable, but it must have been artfully contrived to heighten the effect produced on the mind when, walking straight through a long, narrow, dark passage, they came out suddenly upon a lovely garden laid out on the very verge of a cliff which sloped almost perpendicularly several hundred feet to the valley of the Severn and commanded one of the most extended, varied, and beautiful views in all England. The Americans were especially enraptured by it, and, long after the other ladies had gone in to lay aside their wraps, Jenny and Kate and Lucy and Mrs. Fletcher stood in a group on the terrace, picking out and admiring in detail the white Roman road stretching straight across the valley, the Severn winding through it, the towns of Gloucester and Worcester with their spires and cathedrals dotting it, the abbey tower of Tewkesbury rising out of the woods in its center, the beautiful Malvern and Shropshire hills that encircled it, and a thousand features besides of this most charming landscape. By this time the party had assembled in a closed pavilion, which, thanks to the upholsterer and the florist, had been completely transformed. The dull gray light of an English winter's day had been shut out; it was brilliantly lit, and the long, bare, dismal room was gay with bunting and mirrors and flowers, and at the upper end an orchestra was playing delightfully. Mr. Ketchum had kept his preparations a secret even from his relatives, and, like his other guests, they found this |