family place, and is living there.' Miss Headworth felt as if she
had fired a cannon and looked to see the effect.

'Ah, if we could have stayed at Dieppe!' said Mrs. Egremont. 'But we
did write back to say where we could be heard of.'

'That was of no use. Mark found no traces of us when he went
thither.'

'Did he send Mark?'

'No. My dear Alice, I must not conceal from you that this is all Mr.
Mark Egremont's doing. He seems to have been helping his uncle with
his papers when he came on the evidence of your marriage, and,
remembering you as he does, he forced the confession of it from the
captain, and of his own accord set forth to discover what had become
of you and to see justice done to you.'

'Dear little Mark!' said she; 'he always was such an affectionate
little boy.'

'And now, my dear, you must consider how you will receive any
advances on his part.'

'Oh, Aunt Ursel, don't! I can't talk now. Please let me go to bed.
Nuttie, dear, you need not come yet.'

The desire for solitude, in which to realise what she had heard, was
overpowering, and she fled away in the summer twilight, leaving
Nuttie with wide open eyes, looking after her vanished hero and