“I can’t say I do,” Prescott said to himself, as after examining a “Bradshaw” he again got into bed. “It seems that it is all coming right at last; but why, or how, or who Walker is, or what Fred Bingham has got to do with it, or what the mistake was, I have not the least conception. At any rate my course is to go up to the office to inquire whether the ship will put into Plymouth, to telegraph to Captain Bradshaw, and to go down to Plymouth by the eleven o’clock train. I wonder whether Alice Heathcote will be there; he says yes.” And, wondering upon this point, Prescott fell asleep again. Captain Bradshaw arrived with Alice Heathcote at the Royal Hotel, Plymouth, at eleven in the morning. They had telegraphed, before starting from Torquay, to order rooms at the Royal. It had hardly been a pleasant journey for Alice, for she would like to have sat quiet without talking. She was anxious about the question of catching the emigrant vessel, but even this was a matter of minor importance to her. Her one great emotion was joy that Frank was worthy of her esteem and love, that she could think of him again as her girlhood’s trusty friend, as her brother. That it might be a year before they met again, was as nothing now; even had she known she would never meet him again, it would have been scarce a drawback to her pleasure. The only cloud on her sunshine was the feeling of self-reproach for having doubted him. Still, severe upon herself as she was disposed to be for this reason, she could not but allow that under the circumstances she could hardly have thought otherwise, and she consoled herself, that even against the apparently crushing evidence, she had always uttered a sort of protest of disbelief. With this feeling then of happiness and confidence, she would have liked to lie back in her corner of the railway-carriage, and to enjoy her thoughts, but her uncle was in a most excitable mood. He was as glad as Alice was that his favourite was innocent of the fault which had so long been laid against him, and he was far more anxious than she was, as to the chance of arresting his journey. His gladness and anxiety were both alternated with bursts of reproach against himself for having been so hasty in believing Frank to have been guilty, and in fits of furious anger against Fred Bingham, against whom he fulminated threats of all kinds, mingled with little outbursts of petulance against Alice herself for her indifference. Upon driving up to the door of the Royal, Captain Bradshaw leaped hastily out of the carriage with the agility of a man of thirty. “Any telegram for me? Captain Bradshaw.” “Yes, sir; I believe there is, up in your room.”