arrangement of circumstances, unnecessary to be recounted, which made it possible nay, as men look at these things, probable, or even certain — that old Jaffrey Pyncheon came to a violent death, and by Clifford’s hands.”

“Whence came those circumstances?” exclaimed Phoebe.

“He being innocent, as we know him to be!”

“They were arranged,” said Holgrave, — ”at least such has long been my conviction, — they were arranged after the uncle’s death, and before it was made public, by the man who sits in yonder parlor. His own death, so like that former one, yet attended by none of those suspicious circumstances, seems the stroke of God upon him, at once a punishment for his wickedness, and making plain the innocence of Clifford, But this flight, —