"Remember?" he exclaimed--"remember what? A ship ploughing the Gulf--" He stopped, pressed his hands madly to his forehead. "Down, down, demon pain!" Then the words came pouring out like a torrent: "Light breaks through the night. A ship crosses the Gulf: a woman begs me, for the sake of her I love, to go with her--to save her father. He is in prison, he has murdered a man, but he is old: she loves him--she kneels to me. I promised to help him escape: I did my best. I said Florine could wait. I left my trunk in an old man's counting-room. We laid our plans, but we failed in all. The father was shot like a dog; I was captured; I was sent up the country for trial. Months in prison: free at last to fly to Florine, to find my bride. Now, now, now, it comes to me. I was too late: Florine had been murdered by the Indians!" He flung his arms above his head and fell to the floor. We were in a state of the wildest excitement. "Oh, he is saved! I am sure of it!" cried Vera. "Go now, dear young ladies: he must not see you when he comes to himself. Ze carriage is waiting. I will see you again." "But we leave New Orleans to-morrow," said Lilly. "I will write to you. You are my friends for life." Lilly hastily scribbled an address on a card. "Here is my address," she said: "you will surely write?" "Yes, yes! Heaven bless you!" She seized Lilly's hand and kissed it. "You shall hear from me: you shall find that Vera Gardine is not ungrateful." She hurried us out, closing the door behind us. The way was clear: we ran lightly through the halls, hardly daring to breathe until we were safely out of the house and in the carriage. "Drive to the Catholic cathedral," said Lilly. The carriage-door was shut, and then we could give vent to our emotions. Lilly was half wild: she laughed and cried together. "Do you think he will get well?" she said: "_do_ you think so?" "How can I tell, Lilly? The buttons seemed to give him enough of a shock." "Wasn't it wonderful? Oh, Stella, what a romance! It is all perfectly clear to me now." "It's far from being clear to me." "Why, don't you see: he met this woman on the boat and engaged with her in some desperate enterprise to save her father. He left the trunk at Uncle David's--" "Yes, but why didn't he give a name or an address with the trunk?" "I suppose he was so beside himself that he hardly knew what he was doing. You can see that he is of a very excitable temperament. Then the rest of it is easy to imagine. Poor, poor fellow! how he must have suffered! Didn't you think him very handsome, Stella?" "Yes, very: he looked like the Corsair." "Do you suppose he will ever get over it?" "Get over what?" "Poor Florine's death." "Oh, never!" said I emphatically. Lilly sighed a little, and said that she thought Vera ought never to marry, but to devote her life to consoling Clement for all he had suffered.