nhappily, I was not. I was away from London--away from England at
the time. If Mr. Vanstone had been able to communicate with me when the
letter from America announced the death of his wife, the fortunes of his
daughters would not have been now at stake."

He paused, and, before proceeding further, looked once more at the
letters which he had consulted at an earlier period of the interview. He
took one letter from the rest, and put it on the table by his side.

"At the beginning of the present year," he resumed, "a very serious
business necessity, in connection with some West Indian property
possessed by an old client and friend of mine, required the presence
either of myself, or of one of my two partners, in Jamaica. One of the
two could not be spared; the other was not in health to undertake
the voyage. There was no choice left but for me to go. I wrote to
Mr. Vanstone, telling him that I should leave England at the end
of February, and that the nature of the business which took me away
afforded little hope of my getting back from the West Indies before
June. My letter was not written with any special motive. I merely
thought it right--seeing that my partners were not admitted to my
knowledge of Mr. Vanstone's private affairs--to warn him of my absence,
as a measure of formal precaution which it was right to take. At the end
of February I left England, without having heard from him. I was on
the sea when the news of his wife's death reached him, on the fourth of
March: and I did not return until the middle of last June."

"You warned him of your departure," interposed Miss Garth. "Did you not
warn him of your return?"

"Not personally. My head-clerk sent him one of the circulars which were
dispatched from my office, in various directions, to announce my return.
It was the first substitute I thought of for the personal letter which
the pressure of innumerable occupations, all crowding on me together
after my long absence, did not allow me leisure to write. Barely a month
later, the first information of his marriage reached me in a letter from
himself, written on the day of the fatal accident. The circumstances
which induced him to write arose out of an event in which you must have
taken some interest--I mean the attachment between Mr. Clare's son and
Mr. Vanstone's youngest daughter."

"I cannot say that I was favorably disposed toward that attachment
at the time," replied Miss Garth. "I was ignorant then of the fa