he and
his wife were so busy with preparations for the voyage that Sally had all
the privacy she needed, and all the chance to cry that was good for her.
Then the old pair left for New York--and England.

Sally had also had a chance to do another thing. That was, to make up
her mind that life was not worth living upon the present terms. If she
must give up her impostor and die; doubtless she must submit; but might
she not lay her whole case before some disinterested person, first, and
see if there wasn't perhaps some saving way out of the matter? She
turned this idea over in her mind a good deal. In her first visit with
Hawkins after her parents were gone, the talk fell upon Tracy, and she
was impelled to set her case before the statesman and take his counsel.
So she poured out her heart, and he listened with painful solicitude.
She concluded, pleadingly, with--

"Don't tell me he is an impostor. I suppose he is, but doesn't it look
to you as if he isn't? You are cool, you know, and outside; and so,
maybe it can look to you as if he isn't one, when it can't to me.
Doesn't it look to you as if he isn't? Couldn't you--can't it look to
you that way--for--for my sake?"

The poor man was troubled, but he felt obliged to keep in the
neighborhood of the truth. He fought around the present detail a little
while, then gave it up and said he couldn't really see his way to
clearing Tracy.

"No," he said, "the truth is, he's an impostor."

"That is, you--you feel a little certain, but not entirely--oh, not
entirely, Mr. Hawkins!"

"It's a pity to have to say it--I do hate to say it, but I don't think
anything about it, I know he's an impostor."

"Oh, now, Mr. Hawkins, you can't go that far. A body can't really know
it, you know. It isn't proved that he's not what he says he is."

Should he come out and make a clean breast of the whole wretched
business? Yes--at least the most of it--it ought to be done. So he set
his teeth and went at the matter with determination, but purposing to
spare the girl one pain--that of knowing that Tracy was a criminal.

"Now I am going to tell you a plain tale; one not pleasant for me to tell
or for you to hear, but we've got to stand it. I know all about that
fellow; and I know he is no earl's son."

The girl's eyes flashed, and she said:

"I don't care a snap for that--go on!"

This was so wholly unexpected that it at once obstructed the narrative;
Hawkins was not even su