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"You had it from her lips that I had NOT ill-treated her; and at the same time another had it from her lips that I HAD ill-treated her? My ed her opinion every hour without reason How can it be, Venn, that she should have told such different stories in close succession?"

"I cannot say It is certainly odd, when she had forgiven you, and had forgiven your wife, and was going to see ye on purpose toto bewilder ory, if ho remain alive, were only allowed to hold conversation with the dead--just once, a bare h a screen of iron bars, as with persons in prison--ewould hide their heads! And this mystery--I should then be at the bottorave has forever shut her in; and how shall it be found out now?"

No reply was returned by his coiven; and when Venn left, a few minutes later, Clym had passed fro incertitude

He continued in the same state all the afternoon A bed was ht not have to return again the next day; and when he retired to rest in the deserted place it was only to rehts How to discover a solution to this riddle of death seehest proble There was housed in his memory a vivid picture of the face of a little boy as he entered the hovel where Cly voice which enunciated the words, had operated like stilettos on his brain

A visit to the boy suggested itself as a ht be quite unproductive To probe a child's mind after the lapse of six weeks, not for facts which the child had seen and understood, but to get at those which were in their nature beyond him, did not prorope towards the s else left to do; after that he would allow the enigs

It was about daybreak when he had reached this decision, and he at once arose He locked up the house and went out into the green patch which arden-palings the path branched into three like a broad arrow The road to the right led to the Quiet Wohbourhood; the middle track led to Mistover Knap; the left-hand track led over the hill to another part of Mistover, where the child lived On inclining into the latter path Yeobright felt a creeping chilliness, fah toair In after days he thought of it as a thing of singular significance