t speak, and my suspicions affected him in
a most painful manner, I did not throw myself in his way, nor give him
an opportunity of following me up. Besides, he was in a very noisy,
reckless set, and was, I could perceive before I had talked to him ten
minutes, on the way to the utter bad. When I remembered our conversation
about Daker, his light, airy, unconcerned manner, and the consummate
deceit which effectually conveyed to me the idea that he had never heard
the name of Daker, I was inclined to turn upon him, and let him know I
was not altogether in the dark. Again, at the ball, he had carried off
the introduction to Mrs. Trefoil with masterly coolness, making me a
second time his dupe. Had we met much we should have quarrelled
desperately; for I recollected the innocent English face I had first
seen on the Boulogne boat, and the unhappy woman who had implored me
not to speak her name to him. The days follow one another and have no
resemblance, says the proverb. I passed away from Baden, and Bertram
passed out of my mind. I had not seen him again when I spent those
eventful few days at Boulogne with Hanger.

Another year had gone, and I had often thought over the death scene of
Daker, and Sharp's trudges about Paris in search of his niece. I could
not help him, for I was homeward bound at the time, and shortly
afterwards was despatched to St. Petersburg. But I gave him letters.
There was one hope that lingered in the gloom of this miserable story;
perhaps Mrs. Daker had won the love of some honest man, and, emancipated
by Daker's deceit and death, might yet spend some happy days. And then
the figure of Cosmo Bertram would rise before me--and I knew he was not
the man to atone a fault or sin by a sacrifice.

I was in Paris again at the end of 1866. I heard nothing, save that
Sharp had returned home, having tried in vain to find the child to whom
he had been a father since the death of his brother. He had identified
her as Mrs. Trefoil; he had discovered that shame had come upon her and
him; and he had made out the nature of the relations between his niece
and Captain Cosmo Bertram. But Captain Bertram was not in Paris; Mrs.
Trefoil had disappeared and left no sign. So many exciting stories float
about Paris in the course of a season, that such an event as the
appearance of a Kentish farmer in search of Mrs. Daker, afterwards Mrs.
Trefoil, and the connexion of Captain Bertram with her name, is food for
a few days on