though she may have just been released from some lunatic asylum."

Wiggins made no immediate reply, and sat for a few moments in thought.
Then he looked at Leon and said:

"Well, you have got hold of a part of the truth--just enough to mislead
you. It is true that I have been in Australia, though why you should
suppose that I was a convict I do not know. More: I went out there on
account of Dalton, and for no other reason. While there I saw much of
him, and gained his whole confidence. He told me his whole story
unreservedly. He believed me to be his friend. He confided every thing
to me. You must have heard of his trial, and his strange persistence in
refusing to say who the guilty party was."

"Oh yes," said Leon, with a laugh. "A good idea that, when the guilty
party was himself."

"It was not himself," said Wiggins, "and before long the world shall
know who it was, for that is the one business of my life since my
return, to which I have sacrificed all other concerns. In my attention
to this I have even neglected Miss Dalton."

"She does not appear to think that you have neglected her," said Leon,
with a sneer.

To this Wiggins paid no attention.

"Dalton," said he, "told me all before he died. He thought of his
daughter, and though he had suffered himself, yet he thought on his
death-bed that it would be a sin to leave to her such a legacy of shame.