proceeded to read the morning papers.

CHAPTER LIII. A RAINY NIGHT AT SEA.

The absurd demand preferred by Lady Augusta in her letter to Marion was
a step taken without any authority from Pra-contal, and actually without
his knowledge. On the discovery of the adhering pages of the journal,
and their long consideration of the singular memorandum that they found
within, Pracontal carried away the book to Longworth to show him the
passage and ask what importance he might attach to its contents.

Longworth was certainly struck by the minute particularity with which
an exact place was indicated. There was a rough pen sketch of the Flora,
and a spot marked by a cross at the base of the pedestal, with the
words, "Here will be found the books." Lower down on the same page was
written, "These volumes, which I did not obtain without difficulty, and
which were too cumbrous to carry away, I have deposited in this safe
place, and the time may come when they will be of value.--G. L."

"Now," said Longworth, after some minutes of deep thought, "Lami was
a man engaged in every imaginable conspiracy. There was not a state in
Europe, apparently, where he was not, to some extent, compromised. These
books he refers to may be the records of some secret society, and he
may have stored them there as a security against the lukewarmness or the
treachery of men whose fate might be imperilled by certain documents.
Looking to the character of Lami, his intense devotion to these schemes,
and his crafty nature and the Italian forethought which seems always to
have marked whatever he did, I half incline to this impression. Then,
on the other hand, you remember, Pracontal, when we went over to
Portshandon to inquire about the registry books, we heard that they had
all been stolen or destroyed by the rebels in '98?"

"Yes. I remember that well. I had not attached any importance to the
fact; but I remember how much Kelson was disconcerted and put out by
the intelligence, and how he continually repeated, 'This is no accident;
this is no accident.'"

"It would be a rare piece of fortune if they were the church books, and
that they contained a formal registry of the marriage."

"But who doubts it?"

"Say rather, my dear friend, why should any one believe it? Just think
for one moment who Montague Bramleigh was, what was his station and
his fortune, and then remember the interval that separated him from the
Italian painter--a man of a certain