had never yet left her once since she could recollect--and thus she
really had a head-ache, and a bad one.

Julian Tracy gave such a start, that he knocked off a cheffonier of
rare china and glass standing at his elbow; and the smash of mandarins
and porcelain gods would have been enough, at any other time, to have
driven his mother crazy.

"Charles alive?" shouted he.

"Yes, Julian--why not? You saw him off, you know: cannot you remember?"

Now to that guilty wretch's mind the fearful notion instantaneously
occurred, that Emily Warren was in some strange, wild way bantering him;
she knew his dreadful secret--"he _had_ seen him off." He trembled like
an aspen as she looked on him.

"Oh yes, he remembered, certainly; but--but where was her letter?"

"Never mind that, Julian; you surely would not read another person's
letters, Monsieur le Chevalier Bayard?"

Emily was as gay at heart that morning as a sky-lark, and her innocent
pleasantry proved her strongest shield. Julian dared not ask to see the
letter--scarcely dared to hope she had one, and yet did not know what to
think. As to any love scene now, it was quite out of the question,
notwithstanding all his mother's hints and management; a new exciting
thought entirely filled him: was he a Cain, a fratricide, or not? was
Charles alive after all? And, for once in his life, Julian had some
repentant feelings; for thrilling hope was nigh to cheer his gloom.