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68 did not omit to mention Mabel's disappearance, and his conviction that the persons he had traced on the road were Andrew and her.

This circumstance, together with the letter found in the young man's room, and the mysterious passage in the one he had written to his sister, combined with his evasion, seemed to point him out so decidedly as the criminal, that even Susan herself could not be surprised at the verdict which was brought in of "wilful murder against Andrew Hopley;" more especially, as the messenger that had been sent to Qakfield returned without any tidings of the dairymaid.

A considerable reward was then offered to any one that would give such information as would lead to the detection of the delinquent, or of that of his accomplices, as from the letter addressed to A. B. it was concluded he had some; and handbills were printed and distributed over the country with a description of his person, and that of Mabel. But little or nothing was elicited by these proceedings. A coachman who drove one of the London coaches, came forward to say that on the morning after the murder, a man wearing a drab coat and mounted on a bright chestnut horse, had passed him soon