'No misunderstanding, my Lord. I saw, as plain as I see you, her name and her writing in the book that she gave to Ford--her copying out of his love-poems, my Lord, in the blank pages,--if I had wanted any proof of what he alleged.' And he had nearly thrown the letter into the Pacific; but Louis caught his arm. 'Did you ever read Cymbeline, Tom?' 'Yes, to be sure I have,' growled Tom, in surprise. 'Then remember Iachimo, and spare that letter. What did he tell you?' With some difficulty Fitzjocelyn drew from Madison that he had for some time been surprised at Ford's knowledge of Northwold and the neighbourhood; but had indulged in no suspicions till about the epoch of Robson's return from Guayaquil. Chancing to be waiting in his fellow-clerk's room, he had looked at his books, and, always attracted by poetry as the rough fellow was, had lighted on a crimson watered-silk volume, in the first page of which he had, to his horror, found the name of Charlotte Arnold borne aloft by the two doves, and in the blank leaves several extremely flowery poems in her own handwriting. With ill-suppressed rage he had demanded an explanation, and had been met with provokingly indifferent inuendoes. The book was the gift of a young lady with whom Ford had the pleasure to be acquainted; the little effusions were trifles of his own, inscribed by her own fair hands. Oh, yes! he knew Miss Arnold very well--very pretty, very complaisant! Ah! he was afraid there were some broken hearts at home! Poor little thing! he should never forget how she took leave of him, after forcing upon him her little savings! He was sorry for her, too; but a man cannot have compassion on all the pretty girls he sees. 'And you could be deceived by such shallow coxcombry as this!' said Louis. 'I tell you there was the book,' returned Tom. 'Well, Tom, if Mr. Ford prove to be the Ford I take him to be, I'll undertake that you shall see through him, and be heartily ashamed of yourself. Give me back the letter,--you do not deserve to have it.' 'I don't want it,' said Tom, moodily; 'she has not been as true to me as I've been to her, and if she isn't what I took her for, I do not care to hear of her again. I used to look at the mountain-tops, and think she was as pure as they; and that she should have been making herself the talk of a fellow like that, and writing so sweet to me all the time!--No, my Lord, there's no excusing it; and 'twas her being gone after the rest that made it so bitter hard to me! If she had been true, I would have gone through fire and water to be an honest man worthy of her; but when I found how she had deceived me, it went hard with me to cut myself off from the wild mountain life that I'd got to love, and my poor niggers, that will hardly have so kind a master set over them.' 'You have stood the fiery ordeal well,' said Louis; 'and I verily believe that you will soon find that it was only an ordeal.'