melius, if you
_should_ meet with her, won't you?"

The implied confession of her own intractable character, without
religious faith to ennoble it, without even imagination to refine
it--the unconscious disclosure of the one tender and loving instinct in
her nature still piteously struggling for existence, with no sympathy to
sustain it, with no light to guide it--would have touched the heart of
any man not incurably depraved. Amelius spoke with the fervour of his
young enthusiasm. "I would go to the uttermost ends of the earth, if I
thought I could do you any good. But, oh, it sounds so hopeless!"

She shook her head, and smiled faintly.

"Don't say that! You are free, you have money, you will travel about
in the world and amuse yourself. In a week you will see more than
stay-at-home people see in a year. How do we know what the future has
in store for us? I have my own idea. She may be lost in the labyrinth
of London, or she may be hundreds of thousands of miles away. Amuse
yourself, Amelius--amuse yourself. Tomorrow or ten years hence, you
might meet with her!"

In sheer mercy to the poor creature, Amelius refused to encourage her
delusion. "Even supposing such a thing could happen," he objected, "how
am I to know the lost girl? You can't describe her to me; you have not
seen her since she was a child. Do you know anything of what happened at
the time--I mean at the time when she was lost?"

"I know nothing."

"Absolutely nothing?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Have you never felt a suspicion of how it happened?"

Her face changed: she frowned as she looked at him. "Not till weeks and
months had passed," she said, "not till it was too late. I was ill
at the time. When my mind got clear again, I began to suspect one
particular person--little by little, you know; noticing trifles, and
thinking about them afterwards." She stopped, evidently restraining
herself on the point of saying more.

Amelius tried to lead her on. "Did you suspect the person--?" he began.

"I suspected him of casting the child helpless on the world!" Mrs.
Farnaby interposed, with a sudden burst of fury. "Don't ask me any more
about it, or I shall break out and shock you!" She clenched her fists as
she said the words. "It's well for that man," she muttered between her
teeth, "that I have never got beyond suspecting, and never found out the
truth! Why did you turn my mind that way? You shouldn't have done it.
Help me back again to what we we