“Good-morning, Captain Fyffe,” she said, holding out her hand. I rose and took it in my own, and found that it burned like fire. Her eyelids were red and heavy, but her cheeks were almost colorless. She told me long afterwards that the pity she saw in my looks almost broke her down, and, indeed, I remember well how I felt when I saw her beautiful mouth trembling with the pain and sorrow which lay at her heart. She kept her self-possession, however, but by a sort of feminine instinct, I suppose, she sat down with her face away from the light, and when she spoke again no one who had not known the condition of affairs would have guessed, from the firm and even tones of her voice, that she suffered as she did. I think very highly of courage, whether in a man or in a woman, and I have no words to say how I admired her self-control. “My aunt has been telling you of my dreadful news,” she began, and I answered with a mere nod. Her next words almost took my breath away. “I am glad that you have called, and if you had not done so, I should have taken the liberty to send for you. You are a man of courage and experience, Captain Fyffe, and I wish to ask your advice and help.” I answered that I should be glad to render any service in my power, but I was afraid to show how eager I was to be of use to her, and I thought that my answer sounded grudging and reluctant. “Thank you,” she said, simply. I could see her great eyes shining from the dusk in which she sat, and they seemed never to leave my face for a moment. “I heard you say just now that Mr. Brunow had told you the story. Did he show you this?” She drew a scrap of paper from the bosom of her dress, and I took it from her hand. I told her I had seen it before, and returned it to her. “Without this,” she went on, “I should have had no faith in Mr. Brunow's statement; but I have compared it with old letters of my father's, and I have no doubt that it was written by his hand. Now, Captain Fyffe”--she did her hardest to be business-like and commonplace in manner through all this interview, and my honor and esteem rose higher every moment--“now, Captain Fyffe, I want to ask you if in your judgment there is anything which can be done. I come to you--I tell you frankly--because you have already done my family one incalculable service. It is a poor way of offering thanks to burden you with a new trouble.” “If I have done anything to save you from grief or trouble, Miss Rossano,” I replied, “I can ask for no better reward than to be allowed to repeat my service.” If she had been anybody but the woman she was she might have accepted my words, which I knew were spoken with coldness and restraint, as a mere surface compliment of no value. But I never knew her yet mistaken' in respect of that one virtue of sincerity. It is especially her own, and it is the touchstone by which a true heart tests all others. “Thank you,” she answered, simply.