answer."

Pinned fast to the end of Fanny's letter, so that by no chance should
I read it first, were these words in my darling's hand:

"Got your pilot-letter. Aunt is much better. We shall be
traveling about so much that you need not write me the
progress of your romance, but believe me I shall be most
interested in its conclusion. BESSIE S."

It was all explained now. My darling, so sensitive and spirited, had
given her leave "to try."




CHAPTER IX.


But was that all? Was she wearing away the slow months in passionate
unbelief of me? I could not tell. But before I slept that night I had
taken my resolve. I would sail for home by the next steamer. The case
would suffer, perhaps, by the delay and the change of hands: D----
must come out to attend to it himself, then, but I would suffer no
longer.

No use to write to Bessie. I had exhausted every means to reach her
save that of the detectives. "I'll go to the office, file my papers
till the next man comes over, see Fanny Meyrick, and be off."