.' Miss Headworth felt as if she had
fired a cannon and looked to see the effect.

'Ah, if we could have stayed at Dieppe!' said Mrs. Egremont. 'But we
did write back to say where we could be heard of.'

'That was of no use. Mark found no traces of us when he went thither.'

'Did he send Mark?'

'No. My dear Alice, I must not conceal from you that this is all Mr.
Mark Egremont's doing. He seems to have been helping his uncle with
his papers when he came on the evidence of your marriage, and,
remembering you as he does, he forced the confession of it from the
captain, and of his own accord set forth to discover what had become of
you and to see justice done to you.'

'Dear little Mark!' said she; 'he always was such an affectionate
little boy.'

'And now, my dear, you must consider how you will receive any advances
on his part.'

'Oh, Aunt Ursel, don't! I can't talk now. Please let me go to bed.
Nuttie, dear, you need not come yet.'

The desire for solitude, in which to realise what she had heard, was
overpowering, and she fled away in the summer twilight, leaving Nuttie
with wide open eyes, looking after her vanished hero and desert island.

'My poor Alice!' sighed the old lady.

'Aunt Ursel!' exclaimed Nuttie, 'was--I mean--is my father a good or a
bad man?'

'My dear, should a daughter ask such a question?'

'Aunt Ursel, I can't help it. I think I ought to know all about it,'
said Nuttie gravely, putting away her childishness and sitting down by
her aunt. 'I did not think so much of it when mother told me they
eloped, because, though I know it was very wrong, people do do odd
things sometimes when they are very much in love (she said it in a
superior patronising tone that would have amused Miss Headworth very
much at any other time); and it has not spoilt mother for being the
dearest, sweetest, best thing in the world, and, besides, they had
neither of them any fathers or mothers to disobey. But, then, when I
found he was so old, and that he kept it a secret, and must have told
stories only for the sake of money (uttered with extreme contempt), I
didn't like it. And if he left her as Theseus left Ariadne, or Sir
Lancelot left Elaine, I--I don't think it is nice. Do you think he
only pretended to be lost in the Ninon to get rid of her, or that he
could not find her?'

'The Ninon was really reported lost with all on board,' said Miss
Headworth. 'That was ascertained. He was saved by a Chil