YES OR NO. CHAPTER I. "By the fireside tragedies are acted, And above them God, the sole spectator." -LONGFELLOW. HE summer assizes were being held in the Courthouse of the pleasant little town of Lallerton, one afternoon, some years ago, and in readiness for the next case, which was exciting a strong local interest, the building happened to be crowded with indifferent or curious spectators during the trial of one Henry Green, a confidential clerk in the employ of Messrs. Gibson Bros., a well-known manufacturing firm. It was just a too common story of embezzlement; a few shillings taken in the first instance to meet some pressing need, an entry falsified, then a larger sum abstracted, then another, and finally the utterance of the forged cheque, with the profits of which the offender had hoped to get away and place himself beyond the reach of justice. There, in the dock he stood, a miserable and crushed old man, bowed down with shame, and dread, and sorrow, as he heard his doom pronounced of five years penal servitude; yet even (214) * A he had not expected a more lenient sentence, and there was no sign of any feeling against it among the lookers-on. "Well, poor fellow, he deserves it, I suppose," was the comment of a few; and though such of his acquaintance as were present felt a passing ray of pity for him and for the wife and children to whom he had often not been over-kind, but whose patience and affection he was now regretfully remembering, he was not a man who inspired warm attachment, and he had no friend out of his household to whom his fate would be an overwhelming grief. Why, then, was there in Court one marked exception to the general apathy, in the person of a handsome and welldressed young fellow of seven or eight and twenty, who, before the beginning of the trial, had obtained a first-rate seat for sight and hearing, and followed each detail of the evidence with interest so intense as to seem painful? And what could there be in common between Edmond Haines, the popular and prosperous cashier in Grove & Storey's warehouse, and that unhappy culprit, with whom he was brought only by business matters into contact, for a few minutes twice or thrice a year? He must, indeed, be of a sympathetic nature if the affliction of a fellow-creature, whom he knew so slightly, could thus stir it to its depths. Haines got up and went away, feeling as a man might feel who, walking rapidly and heedlessly along an easy downward path, sees some one but a step or two in front of him fall over the edge of a sheer precipice, cautioning him by that example to pull up sharply, lest he also should be dashed in pieces. No wonder if he grew dizzy and bewildered, seeing the way behind difficult and toilsome to retrace, and nothing before but that terrible abyss, from the dangers of which he had not yet escaped. If not too late, he would accept the awful warning, and try that very moment to begin his hard ascent; and, at any rate, even if the worst came to the worst, he stood alone, and there was no one to be dragged down in his ruin. That thought recalled him from his own position to consider those whom Green had most likely left in poverty and want; and being generous and kind-hearted, at the first opportunity he sought out the poor wife and daughters in their wretched little dwelling, not only giving them the money of which they stood much in need, but speaking to them with a respectful gentleness that seemed to their sore hearts the greater kindness of the two. For hitherto a tone of disparagement in the mention of the author of their misery, had taken away their pleasure in the few offers of help which they received. "That's what I call a gentleman, God bless him!" said Mrs. Green of Edmond as he left their house. "Instead of insinuating cruel things of father like some other folks have. done, he spoke as if he knew right well what the temptation must have been before even he laid a finger on what was not his own." Know, ah! indeed he did know the force of that temptation, though the fact that he himself had yielded to it was still a secret from every one on earth. He had been early thrown upon his own resources, for both his parents died before he was thirteen, leaving him to the care of a guardian, with whom, unfortunately, he did not get on very well, and as soon as he was old enough, it was a mutual pleasure to shake off all connection, and Edmond came to Lallerton, where, in time, his good abilities and industry enabled him to work his way up to his present post. Probably if there had been any one to influence him for whom he really cared, he would have managed to keep straight, but, as it was, he fell in with a set of wild young fellows out of office hours, and joined with them in various follies and more than once, after an unsuccessful night at cards, he met his heavy |