She held out her hand to me with such a
significant air of approval, and smiled so
good-naturedly, that I could not help pressing it to
my lips, and kissing it rapturously.

Taking a seat at my side, and with a voice
meant to recal me to a quiet and business-like
demeanour, she asked me to read over Miss
Crofton's letter. I told her that I knew every
line of it by heart, and, more still, I knew the
whole story to which it related. It was a topic
that required the nicest delicacy to touch on,
but with a frankness that charmed me, she said,

"You have had the candour to tell me freely
your story; let me imitate you, and reveal mine.

"You know who we are, and whence we have
sprung: that my father was a simple labourer on
a line of railroad, and by dint of zeal and
intelligence, and an energy that would not be balked
or impeded, that he raised himself to station
and affluence. You have heard of his connexion
with Sir Elkanah Crofton, and how unfortunately
it was broken off; but you cannot know the
rest; that is, you cannot know what we alone
know, and what is not so much as suspected by
others; and of this I can scarcely dare to speak,
since it is essentially the secret of mv family."

I guessed at once to what she alluded; her
troubled manner, her swimming eyes, and her
quavering voice, all betrayed that she referred
to the mystery of her father's fate: while I
doubted within myself whether it were right and
fitting for me to acknowledge that I knew the
secret source of her anxiety. She relieved me
from my embarrassment by continuing thus:

"Your kind and generous friends have not
suffered themselves to be discouraged by defeat.
They have again and again renewed their
proposals to my mother, only varying the mode, in
the hope that by some stratagem they might
overcome her reasons for refusal. Now, though
this rejection, so persistent as it is, may seem
ungracious, it is not without a sufficient and
substantial cause."

Again she faltered, and grew confused, and
now I saw how she struggled between a natural
reserve and an impulse to confide the sorrow
that oppressed her to one who might befriend
her.

"You may speak freely to me," said I, at
last. " I am not ignorant of the mystery you
hint at. Crofton has told me what many
surmise and some freely believe in."

"But we know it, know it for a certainty,"
cried she, clasping my hand in her eagerness.
"It is no longer a surmise or a suspicion. It
is a certainty—a fact! Two letters in his
handwriting have reached my mother; one from St.
Louis in America, where he had gone first; the
second from an Alpine village, where he was
laid up in sickness. He had had a terrible encounter
with a man who had done him some gross
wrong, and he was wounded in the shoulder.
After which he had to cross the Rhine, wading
or swimming, and travel many miles ere he
could find shelter. When he wrote, however,
he was rapidly recovering, and as quickly
regaining all his old courage and daring."

"And from that time forward have you had
no tidings of him?"

"Nothing but a cheque on a Russian banker
in London to pay to my mother's order a sum
of money, a considerable one too; and although
she hoped to gain some clue to him through
this, she could not succeed, nor have we now
any trace of him whatever. I ought to
mention," said she, as if catching up a forgotten
thread in her narrative, " that in his last letter
he enjoined my mother not to receive any
payment from the assurance company, nor enter
into compromise with them; and, above all, to
live in the hope that we should meet again and
be happy."

"And are you still ignorant of where he
now is?"

"We only know that a cousin of mine, an
officer of engineers at Aden, heard of an Englishman
being engaged by the Shah of Persia to
report on certain silver mines at Kashan, and
from all he could learn the description would
apply to him. My cousin had obtained leave of
absence expressly to trace him, and promised in
his last letter to bring me himself any tidings
he might procure here to Malta. Indeed, when
I learned that a stranger had asked to see me, I
was full sure it was my cousin Harry."

Was it that her eyes grew darker in colour
as this name escaped her—was it that a certain
tremor shook her voice—or was it the anxiety
of my own jealous humour, that made me
wretched as I heard of that cousin Harry, now
mentioned for the first time?

"What reparation can I make you for so
blank a disappointment?" said I, with a sad
half-bitter tone.

"Be the same kind friend that he would have
proved himself if it had been his fortune to
come first," said she; and though she spoke
calmly, she blushed deeply. "Here," said she,
hurriedly, taking a small printed paragraph
from a letter, and eagerly, as it seemed, trying
to recover her former manner— " here is a slip
I have cut out of the Levant Herald. I found
it about two months since. It ran thus: ' The
person who had contracted for the works at
Pera, and who now turns out to be an Englishman,
is reported to have had a violent altercation
yesterday with Musted Pasha, in consequence
of which he has thrown up his contract and
demanded his passport for Russia. It is rumoured
here that the Russian ambassador is no stranger
to this rupture.' Vague as this is, I feel persuaded
that he is the person alluded to, and that
it is from Constantinople we must trace him."

"Well," cried I, "I am ready. I will set
out at once."

"Oh! can I believe you will do us this great
service?" cried she, with swimming eyes and
clasped hands.

"This time you will find me faithful," said I,
gravely. " He who has said and done so many
foolish things as I have, must, by one good
action, give bail for his future character."

You are a true friend, and you have all my
confidence."