-
letter office. This decided him at once. He applied for leave and it
was refused. He then threw up his commission, and at once proceeded to
England; the fearful conviction growing upon him that something dreadful
had happened. He stopped at Quebec for a fortnight on his way home,
making inquiry at all the ship-owners' and brokers' offices in the
place, endeavouring to learn the name of the ship in which his wife had
been a passenger; but, strange to say, he could gain no trace of them.
Whether it was that the people of whom he inquired were careless and
indifferent, or whether it was that passenger-lists were not at that
time regularly kept as they now are, it is of course impossible to say,
but it is a fact that he was compelled to leave America without the
smallest scrap of information respecting his dear ones beyond that
contained in the blood-stained letter.

"On his arrival in England he proceeded direct to his mother-in-law's
former residence, to find it, as he feared, in the possession of
strangers. He then, with considerable difficulty, hunted up the lawyer
who had managed Mrs Percival's (his mother-in-law's) money matters, and
learned from him that the old lady had died some seven months before.
And in reply to his further inquiries he was informed that his wife and
child had never reached Mrs Percival's home. The old lady had
certainly expected them, the lawyer said, but she had never received
more than one letter which my uncle had hurriedly written mentioning the
fact of their departure for England.

"Poor uncle Dick now found himself completely at a loss; so, as the best
plan he could think of, he put the affair into his lawyer's hands,
handing him also the blood-stained letter. This letter was soon
afterwards intrusted to a chemist, who, in attempting to cleanse it,
destroyed it altogether, and thus passed away the only clue which my
uncle possessed. It is now rather more than sixteen years since my aunt
sailed from Quebec, and poor uncle Dick has never succeeded in gaining a
trace of her fate to this day."

"Poor fellow!" ejaculated Lance, in an absent sort of way. "I'm sure I
sincerely pity and sympathise with him. What! going below already?
Then allow me to conduct you as far as the companion."

Blanche bade Lance good-night at the head of the saloon staircase; he
raised his smoking-cap, and then returning sauntered up and down the
poop for over an hour, with his hands behind him, and hi