"Miss Rouse, I should say," said Penfold, apologizing. "I beg pardon, but
I thought Mrs. might sound better in a landlady. Please, sir, Mr. Wylie,
the mate of the _Proserpine,_ is her--her--sweetheart."

"Not he. Leastways, he is only on trial, after a manner."

"Of course, sir--only after a manner," added Penfold, sadly perplexed.
"Miss Rouse is incapable of anything else. But, if you please, m'm, I
don't presume to know the exact relation;" and then with great reserve,
"but you know you are anxious about him."

Miss Rouse sniffed, and threw her nose in the air--as if to throw a doubt
even on that view of the matter.

"Well, madam," says Wardlaw, "I am sorry to say I can give you no
information. I share your anxiety, for I have got 160,000 pounds of gold
in the ship. You might inquire at Lloyd's. Direct her there, Mr. Penfold,
and bring me my letters."

With this he entered his inner office, sat down, took out a golden key,
opened the portrait of Helen, gazed at it, kissed it, uttered a deep
sigh, and prepared to face the troubles of the day.

Penfold brought in a leathern case, like an enormous bill-book. It had
thirty vertical compartments; and the names of various cities and
seaports, with which Wardlaw & Son did business, were printed in gold
letters on some of these compartments; on others the names of persons;
and on two compartments the word "Miscellaneous." Michael brought this
machine in, filled with a correspondence enough to break a man's heart to
look at.

This was one of the consequences of Wardlaw's position. He durst not let
his correspondence be read, and filtered, in the outer office. He opened
the whole mass; sent some back into the outer office; then touched a
hand-bell, and a man emerged from the small apartment adjoining his own.
This was Mr. Atkins, his shorthand writer. He dictated to this man some
twenty letters, which were taken down in short-hand; the man retired to
copy them, and write them out in duplicate from his own notes, and this
reduced the number to seven. These Wardlaw sat down to write himself, and
lock up the copies.

While he was writing them, he received a visitor or two, whom he
dispatched as quickly as his letters.

He was writing his last letter, when he heard in the outer office a voice
he thought he knew. He got up and listened. It was so. Of all the voices
in the city, this was the one it most dismayed him to hear in his office
at the present crisis.

He listen