"English or foreign?" he was asked; to which he replied that she was English--or, at least, English by birth, although her late father was a German. He had become naturalized before his death, and was wholly in sympathy with the country of his adoption. He did not die in it, however. Circumstances had caused him to visit the United States, and he had been killed in one of the horrible railway disasters for which that country was famous. It was because the daughter was thus left orphaned, and was so soon to become the wife of their son, that he and Mrs. Beachman had taken her into their home in advance of the marriage. They did not think it right that she should be left to live alone and unprotected, considering what she was so soon to become to them; so they had taken her into the home, and their son had arranged to sleep at an hotel in Portsmouth pending the date of the wedding. The lady's name was Hilmann--Miss Greta Hilmann. She was of extremely good family, and quite well-to-do in her own right. She had never been to Germany since the date of the engagement. She had relatives there, however; one in particular--a Baron von Ziegelmundt and his son Axel. The son had visited England twice--once many months back, and the last time some seven or eight weeks ago. They liked him very much--the bridegroom-elect especially so. They had become very great friends indeed. No, Axel von Ziegelmundt was no longer in England. He had left it something like a month ago. He was on a pleasure trip round the world, he had heard, but had no idea where he had gone when he left Portsmouth. Two hours after this statement was made, if the populace could have got hold of young Harry Beachman it would have torn him to pieces; for it was then discovered that the drowned man was no less a person than this Herr Axel von Ziegelmundt, and that they had not only spent the greater part of that particular day shut up in the former's room in the Portsmouth hotel, but had been together up to the very moment when the excursion steamer had started on its moonlight trip to Alum Bay and to the bringing about of that providential accident which had prevented the State affairs of an unsuspecting nation from being betrayed to a secret foe.