I put the pictures together with a shudder and a face contorted by the pain and imaginations of the sight, and in silence handed them to Mr. Hoskins. Both men waited for me to speak. I stopped to fetch a few breaths, then said: 'This poor girl is not Miss Otway.' 'She is my daughter!' exclaimed the old man, again holding up the pictures to view them. 'Oh, my poor child!' The canary began to sing loudly; the silencing of it enabled Captain Strutt to turn his back upon us. It was indeed moving to see that old man with his wet cheeks and talking inarticulate underlip, looking at the two portraits. He placed them in his pocket after a minute or two, then, pulling off his glasses, smiled faintly at me and said: 'The grief is mine, you see, sir.' 'And still mine, Mr. Hoskins,' I replied. 'Since that is your child you certainly know where she is, and therefore what has become of her; but what can any man tell of Miss Otway? She was dear to me, aye, even as _she_ was to you,' said I, pointing to the breast of his coat where the pictures lay. 'We were to have been married--oh, pray think, sir! the news they brought home, the last news of her, told me of her as abandoned with two companions in a dismasted hull in the wildest ocean in the world--amongst the ice--heavenly God!' I cried, springing to my feet, am I to believe her as that poor girl is--but never to know--never to be sure that it was so--that it is so?' And now I know that the sight of those portraits had wrenched me to the very soul, by speaking of Marie as she _might_ be. This, with the reaction; for it was not my sweetheart who lay at Cape Town. I had felt an instant's joy on the discovery; that was past and it was as before--black uncertainty troubled and thick with a hundred shapeless fears and fancies. 'It's a great pity,' said Captain Strutt bluntly, 'that you didn't know Mr. Hoskins had those pictures. You could have gone ashore at Madeira and got home some time before we arrive at the Cape.' 'Pray what may have convinced you that my poor girl, as described in the papers, was Miss Otway?' said Mr. Hoskins. I gave him all the reasons: the description, tallying feature by feature, point by point in hair, stature, refinement of features and the like; the letter O on the garment; the serge dress and fur-trimmed jacket. The old gentleman lifted his hands and his gaze with one of his patient gestures and look, now of surprise. 'It is more than remarkable,' he cried; 'it exceeds belief.' 'Your daughter was married and therefore wore a wedding ring,' said Captain Strutt. 'That ring's commonly a tight fit.' 'It was no doubt as Captain Goldsmith wrote,' said Mr. Hoskins, 'the water shrivelled the fingers and the ring slipped off.' 'Miss Otway wore rings,' said I; 'the lady had none. Therefore its having no rings proves nothing. Plunge your warm living hand into ice-cold water, and your tightest ring will wonderfully slacken.'