“Thank you, Captain Kellett,--thank you,” cried the other, hurriedly, and wiped his brow, like one vainly endeavoring to follow out a chain of thought collectedly. “Who is this told me that you had another daughter?” “No,” said Kellett; “I have a son.” “Ay, to be sure! so it was a son, they said, and a fine strapping young fellow too. Where is he?” “He 's with his regiment, the Rifles, in the Crimea.” “Dear me, now, to think of that,--fighting the French, just the way his father did.” “No,” said Kellett, smiling, “it 's the Russians he 's fighting, and the French are helping him to do it.” “That's better any day,” said Driscoll; “two to one is a pleasanter match. And so he's in the Rifles?” And here he laid his head on his hand and seemed lost in thought. “Is he a captain?” asked he, after a long pause. “No, not yet,” said Kellett, while his cheek flushed at the evasion he was practising. “Well, maybe he will soon,” resumed the other, relapsing once more into deep thought. “There was a young fellow joined them in Cork just before they sailed, and I lent him thirty shillings, and he never paid me. I wonder what became of him? Maybe he's killed.” “Just as likely,” said Kellett, carelessly. “Now, would your son be able to make him out for me?--not for the sake of the money, for I would n't speak of it, but out of regard for him, for I took a liking to him; he was a fine, handsome fellow, and bold as a lion.” “He mightn't be in Jack's battalion, or he might, and Jack not know him. What was his name?” said Kellett, in some confusion. “I 'll tell you if you 'll pledge your word you 'll never say a syllable about the money, for I can't think but he forgot it.” “I 'll never breathe a word about it.” “And will you ask your son all about him,--if he likes the sarvice, or if he 'd rather be at home, and how it agrees with him?” “And the name?” “The name?--I wrote it down on a bit of paper just for my own memory's sake, for I forget everything; the name is Conway,--Charles Conway.” “Why, that's the very--” When he got so far, a warning look from Bella arrested Kellett's voice, and he ceased speaking, looking eagerly at his daughter for some explanation. Had he not been so anxious for some clew to her meaning, he could scarcely have failed to be struck by the intense keenness of the glance Driscoll turned from the countenance of the father to that of the daughter. She, however, marked it, and with such significance that a deathlike sickness crept suddenly over her, and she sank slowly down into a seat. “You ware saying, 'That's the very--'” said Driscoll, repeating the words, and waiting for the conclusion. “The very name we read in a newspaper,” said Bella, who, with a sort of vague instinct of some necessity for concealment, at once gave this evasive reply. “He volunteered for somewhere, or was first inside a battery, or did something or other very courageous.” “It was n't killed he was?” said Driscoll, in his habitual tone.