ed Captain Monk, rising in
threatening anger, as the fly's inmate called to the driver to stop and
began to get out of it. "Are you not ashamed to show your face to me,
after the evil you have inflicted upon my daughter?"

Philip Hamlyn, smiling kindly and calmly, caught Captain Monk's lifted
hands. "No evil, sir," he said, soothingly. "It was all a mistake. Eliza
is my true and lawful wife."

"Eh? What's that?" said the Captain quite in a whisper, his lips
trembling.

Quietly Philip Hamlyn explained. He had taken the previous day to
investigate the matter, and had followed his wife down by a night train.
His first wife _was_ dead. She had been drowned in the _Clipper of the
Seas_, as was supposed. The child was saved, with his nurse: the only
two passengers who were saved. The nurse made her way to a place in the
south of France, where, as she knew, her late mistress's sister lived,
Mrs. O'Connett, formerly Miss Sophia Pratt. Mrs. O'Connett, a young
widow, had just lost her only child, a boy about the age of the little
one rescued from the cruel seas. She seized on him with feverish
avidity, adopted him as her own, quitted the place for another
Anglo-French town where she was not previously known, taught the child
to call her "Mamma," and had never let it transpire that the boy was not
hers. But now, after the lapse of a few years, Mrs. O'Connett was on the
eve of marriage with an Irish Major. To him she told the truth; and, as
he did not want to marry the child as well as herself, he persuaded her
to return him to his father. Mrs. O'Connett brought the child to London,
ascertained Mr. Hamlyn's address, and all about him, and watched about
to speak to him, alone if possible, unknown to his wife. Remembering
what had been the behaviour of the child's mother, she was by no means
sure of a good reception from Philip himself, or what adverse influence
might be brought to bear by the new ties he had formed. Mrs. O'Connett
had the same remarkable and lovely hair that her sister had had, whom
she very much resembled; she had also a talent for underhand ways.

That was the truth--and I have had to tell it in a nutshell, space
growing limited. Philip Hamlyn had ascertained it all beyond possibility
of dispute, had seen Mrs. O'Connett, and had brought down the good
tidings.

Of all the curious sights this record has afforded, perhaps the most
surprising was to see Captain Monk pass his arm lovingly within that of
Philip Ha