The exclamation of the criminal on discharging his pistol was accounted for by his having formerly been a clerk in the employment of Mr. Howard, who had turned him off on suspicion of a robbery of which he averred he was innocent. But the imputation could not be shaken off, and he was eventually driven in reality to crime. On thus suddenly discovering his old master, he had yielded to a long-cherished thirst for revenge, and murdered him in the impulse of the moment.

“All this will be clear,” said the judge, “if you produce the real criminal. I cannot suffer the jury again to retire until you have thus corroborated your story.”

“Let your honor send a couple of officers to my house. Nat Powers, whom every one knows, is the man.”

In less than a minute a posse had set forth, every one wondering that suspicion had passed ever the most notorious character in the neighborhood, and who had not left the penitentiary a twelvemonth. Before an hour the guilty man was produced in court. He maintained his dare-devil expression of countenance until he saw by whom he was accused, when he turned pale as death, and muttered a curse on her treachery.

The real murderer was subsequently tried, found guilty, and hung. The disclosures he made after sentence led to the arrest of one of the mail robbers, who suffered also. Yet no one would ever have suspected them, if the murderer’s leman had kept silence. Thus closely allied in appearance are often innocence and guilt.

Need I say that a verdict was returned unanimously acquitting the prisoner—or that the joy of that sweet wife was past utterance? Stanhope, who had stood all till now, wept like a child. God knows their after felicity was dearly purchased by the agony of that day.

I CLING TO THEE.

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