ne asked him,
"Was it you, really?"

"I--or my double?" he asked. "When?"

She told him, and he seemed amazed.

"So you were there? Well, you shall hear. You know how things
stood with me--your mother, my good spirit, dead, my uncle away, my
father bent on driving me to utter desperation, and Martha Browning
laying her great red hands on me--"

"Oh, sir, she really loved you, and is far wiser and more tolerant
than you thought her."

"I know," he smiled grimly. "She buried the huge Scot that was
killed in the great smuggling fray under the Protector, with all
honours, in our family vault, and had a long-winded sermon preached
on my untimely end. Ha! ha!" with his mocking laugh.

"Don't, sir! If you had seen your father then! Why did no one come
forward and explain?"

"Mayhap there were none at hand who knew, or wished to meddle with
the law," he said. "Well, things were beyond all bearing at home,
and you were going away, and would not so much as look at me. Now,
one of the few sports my father did not look askance at was fishing,
and he would endure my being out at night with, as he thought, poor
man, old Pete Perring, who was as stern a Puritan as himself; but I
had livelier friends, and more adventurous. They had connections
with French free-traders for brandy and silks, and when they found I
was one with them, my French tongue was a boon to them, till I came
to have a good many friends among the Norman fishermen, and to know
the snug hiding-places about the coast. So at last I made up my
mind to be off with them, and make my way to my uncle in Muscovy. I
had raised money enough at play and on the jewels one picks up in an
envoy's service, and there was one good angel whom I meant to take
with me if I could secure her and bind her wings. Now you know with
what hopes I saw you gathering flowers alone that morning."

Anne clasped her hands; Charles had truly interfered with good
cause.

"I had all arranged," he continued; "my uncle would have given you a
hearty welcome, and made our peace with my father, or if not, he
would have left us all his goods, and secured my career. What call
had that great lout, with a wife of his own too, to come thrusting
between us? I thought I should make short work of him, and give him
a lesson against meddling--great unlicked cub as he was, while I had
had the best training at Berlin and Paris in fencing; but somehow
those big strong fellows, from their very c