Lucy Graham went slowly up the stairs to her little room at the top of
the house. She placed her dim candle on the chest of drawers, and seated
herself on the edge of the white bed, still and white as the draperies
hanging around her.

"No more dependence, no more drudgery, no more humiliations," she said;
"every trace of the old life melted away--every clew to identity buried
and forgotten--except these, except these."

She had never taken her left hand from the black ribbon at her throat.
She drew it from her bosom, as she spoke, and looked at the object
attached to it.

It was neither a locket, a miniature, nor a cross; it was a ring wrapped
in an oblong piece of paper--the paper partly written, partly printed,
yellow with age, and crumpled with much folding.




CHAPTER II.

ON BOARD THE ARGUS.


He threw the end of his cigar into the water, and leaning his elbows
upon the bulwarks, stared meditatively at the waves.

"How wearisome they are," he said; "blue and green, and opal; opal, and