"Miss Seaham," he exclaimed; and in accents scarce less earnest in its emotion, Mary's trembling lips faltered Mr. Temple's name. Yes, it was indeed Edward Temple, upon whom she gazed with ill-defined ideas--and feelings of bewilderment and perplexity--her high-wrought expectations unable all at once to sink themselves to the level of natural composure--pale, agitated, and trembling, without further greeting or explanation, "She showed the ring." "I found it," she said with almost hysterical incoherency, "and thought perhaps--but your's it cannot be--and yet it is strange--the initials are the same--but--can it really be, that your crest--your arms also are similar?" For all reply he gently took the ring from her outstretched hand, and in silence seemed to examine it. Then without looking up, and in a low, calm voice he said: "You expected I conclude, to find the owner had been Eugene Trevor?" "No, not Eugene," Mary quietly replied, restored to greater self-possession, "but perhaps, I thought--it was a random idea--that perhaps it might have been his brother Eustace." The ring dropped suddenly from her listener's fingers, as she uttered these last words. "And what," he murmured, having stooped to raise it from the ground, "and what interest can Miss Seaham take in that ill-starred, that unhappy man; that outcast, alien brother, that her mistake should cause disappointment, such as I so plainly perceive it to have occasioned her?" Mary probably attributed to wounded feeling the trembling pathos of the speaker's voice, for with all the simple earnestness of her kindly nature, she hastened in gentle soothing accents to reply: "Mr. Temple--if disappointment was the first impulse of my feelings--believe me, when I say, there is scarcely any one else," with a weary sigh, the tears gathering in her eyes, "with whom a meeting so unexpected, could just now have afforded me such unmixed pleasure." For one short moment her hand was retained by the so-called Mr. Temple in a trembling pressure, which appeared to speak all his heart's grateful acknowledgement, whilst those dark eyes fixed themselves upon her face with mournful earnestness of expression. But the next moment, with a low-breathed sigh, which might have seemed the echo of her own, he released her hand, and turned away his head. "You are kind to say this," he murmured, "for myself, I can only declare this meeting to be a happiness such as I had hardly expected ever to taste again in this world. But," he anxiously inquired, "will you again permit me to inquire the reason of the more than common--nay even, taking into consideration his relationship--more than natural interest, it would appear you feel in the unfortunate Eustace Trevor." The earnest melancholy of his tone thrilled on Mary's heart.