"Ay, ay," said the old woman with a malignant smile, "doubtless he knows. Does he ever mention the name of the person he murdered, in his sleep?"
"Constantly. Did you ever, Mrs. Martin, hear of a person of the name of Carlos?"
But the old woman did not answer. A change had passed over her face, as with a cry of triumph she sprang from her seat and clapped her hands in an ecstasy of joy—it might rather be termed, of gratified revenge. "Ay! 'tis out at last! 'tis out at last! My God, I thank thee! I thank thee! Yes, yes, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord!' My Bill! my brave Bill! and thee hadst to die for this man's crime! but God has righted thee at last—at last, in spite of this villain's evidence, who swore that thy knife did the deed, when he plunged it himself into the rich man's heart. Ha, ha! I shall live to be revenged upon him—I shall, I shall!"
"What have I done!" shrieked the unhappy wife. "I have betrayed my husband into the hands of his enemies!" and she sunk down at the old woman's feet like one dead. Gloating over her anticipated revenge, Mrs. Martin spurned the prostrate form with her foot, as she scornfully commanded her more humane daughter "to see after Noah Cotton's dainty wife, while she went to the magistrates to make a deposition of what she had heard."
Shocked beyond measure at what she had heard and seen, ashamed of her mother's violence, and sorry for Sophia's unhappy disclosure, as she well knew that, whether the actual murderer of Squire Carlos, or only an accomplice, her brother was a bad man, who deserved his fate, Sarah tenderly raised the fainting Sophy from the ground, and placed her on her own bed. Long before the miserable young woman returned to a consciousness of the result of her own imprudence, her husband, who had returned from —— without her sister or mother, was on his way to the County Gaol.
CHAPTER XII.
THE NIGHT ALONE.
Sophy returned to her desolate home, the moment she recovered her senses; for the sight of the Martins filled her mind with inexpressible anguish. On entering the little keeping-room, she shut the door, and covering her head with her apron, sat down in Noah's chair by the old oak table, on which she buried her face in her hands, and remained silent and astonished during the rest of the day.
"Shall I sleep with you to-night, Mrs. Cotton?" said Sarah Martin, in a kind, soft voice; as towards the close of that long, blank day, she opened the door, and looked in upon