turned hastily to Lord L'Estrange. "You see, you must excuse me
now. To-morrow I must go to Windsor for two days: but we shall meet on
my return."

"It does not matter," answered Harley; "I stand out of the pale of
your advice, O practical man of sense. And if," added Harley, with
affectionate and mournful sweetness,--"if I weary you with complaints
which you cannot understand, it is only because of old schoolboy habits.
I can have no trouble that I do not confide to you."

Egerton's hand trembled as it pressed his friend's, and without a word,
he hurried away abruptly. Harley remained motionless for some seconds,
in deep and quiet revery; then he called to his dog, and turned back
towards Westminster.

He passed the nook in which had sat the still figure of Despondency; but
the figure had now risen, and was leaning against the balustrade. The
dog, who preceded his master, passed by the solitary form and sniffed it
suspiciously.

"Nero, sir, come here," said Harley.

"Nero,"--that was the name by which Helen had said that her father's
friend had called his dog; and the sound startled Leonard as he
leaned, sick at heart, against the stone. He lifted his head and looked
wistfully, eagerly into Harley's face. Those eyes, bright, clear, yet so
strangely deep and absent, which Helen had described, met his own, and
chained them. For L'Estrange halted also; the boy's countenance was not
unfamiliar to him. He returned the inquiring look fixed on his own, and
recognized the student by the bookstall.

"The dog is quite harmless, sir," said L'Estrange, with a smile.

"And you call him 'Nero'?" said Leonard, still gazing on the stranger.

Harley mistook the drift of the question.

"Nero, sir; but he is free from the sanguinary propensities of his Roman
namesake." Harley was about to pass on, when Leonard said falteringly,

"Pardon me, but can it be possible that you are one whom I have sought
in vain on behalf of the child of Captain Digby?"

Harley stopped short. "Digby!" he exclaimed, "where is he? He should
have found me easily. I gave him an address."

"Ah, Heaven be thanked!" cried Leonard. "Helen is saved--she will not
die," and he burst into tears.

A very few moments and a very few words sufficed to explain to Harley
the state of his old fellow-soldier's orphan. And Harley himself soon
stood in the young sufferer's room, supporting her burning temples on
his breast, and whispering into ears that heard him as