For years after that I wandered about the face of the earth, in all lands and countries, a solitary man; snatching here and there the solace of congenial companionship for a brief space, but only passing forth again to be forgotten. Murrayshaugh and Lucy I never could discover though I have lingered on the outskirts of many a little French and German town, vainly endeavouring to find some trace of them. Once only have I had any communication with the family, and that was immediately after Hew’s mysterious disappearance, when a few hurried blotted incoherent words came to me from Lucy, bidding me pity her in her misery; she had no one in the wide world, she said, to tell it to but me--and then in her generous gentleness, as if the words of her complaint had burst from her unawares, she essayed to comfort me, and spoke of consolation and hope. Hope and consolation! yes, so wonderful is the fabric of this humanity, that there is no sky too dark for those stars; and our sorrows lie softly on us when they have grown old with us, and become a part of our lives. With Charlie Graeme I had no more intercourse. He took guilt to himself and never attempted to renew our former intimacy--but the sin that he had clogged his course withal, found him out ere it was far spent. He married the daughter of a Glasgow merchant reputed to be rich, whose great pretensions collapsed immediately after Charlie became connected with his family. This wife had the expensive tastes of her class, I have heard, but it happens singularly that all unsuccessful men have wives with extravagant tastes, so I give little credence to that rumour: however it happened, or whatever were the procuring causes, it is certain that Charlie Graeme, with all his gifts, was in a very short time a shipwrecked man. He died young, in poverty, and debt, and discomfort--his helpless wife did not long survive him, and they left one child--a boy--on the world’s hands and mine. This child I left, during his infancy, under the care of a servant of his mother’s, and some ten years ago I had him sent to a school in Aberdeenshire, a private place of respectable standing conducted by a pragmatical Aberdeenish man, called Monikie, who was with us at college. The boy’s name is Halbert, our most famous family name. He must have nearly arrived at man’s estate, but I have never seen him.