'I am sorry you think so, but----' 'Good heavens, you may have parted me and Bevil for ever!' she exclaimed, in a voice of intense pathos and sorrow. 'Not so, my darling--I am here!' said Bevil Goring, who had entered unannounced by the boarding-house servant, and in a moment his arms were round her and her head upon his breast. The darkest hour is always that before the dawn, it is said, even as clouds are a prelude to sunshine. It is chiefly in novels and on the stage, but seldom in real life, that people start and scream, or faint and fall; so Alison, on finding herself suddenly face to face with the object of all her dearest and tenderest thoughts, felt only her colour change and her heart give a kind of leap within her breast; while power so completely seemed to leave her limbs for some moments that she would have slid on the carpet but for the support of Bevil's caressing arms, and for more than a minute neither spoke, for great emotion induces silence. So she remained folded in his close embrace--content, safe in the shelter of his arms, with her white face nestling on his breast, while he showered kisses upon it and her hair. 'Captain Goring,' said the vicar, 'how did you discover that she was here--with me?' 'She wrote to her old servant whither she had gone, and he informed me without delay at my club. He did not distrust me, as you, sir, did.' 'I trust, Captain Goring, you will pardon that now, "as all is well that ends well," replied the vicar, with a smile, and thinking, wisely, that he might be rather _de trop_ just then, he withdrew to another apartment. Goring now then held her at arm's length to survey her face, it was so long since he had last looked upon it, and then drew her close again to his breast. After a time, he asked, 'What is all this that I have been told about your being a governess--Alison, love, tell me?' 'I am one now--at least, I was one, in a house in Pembridge Square.' 'With a family called De Jobbyns--absurd name!' 'Yes.' 'Is this a riddle--a joke, or what?' said he, giving his moustache an almost angry twitch. 'No riddle or joke,' replied Alison, sweetly. 'I seemed to have no friend in the world to aid me, and I had my bread to earn.' 'My poor darling!' 'Yes--poor indeed.' 'And you have left that woman?' 'No.' 'How?' 'She dismissed me bluntly and coarsely.' 'Why?' asked Goring, striking the floor with his spurred heel. 'I was dismissed with a month's salary, because I had been detected wearing your likeness--here, in my locket.' A smile that rippled into a laugh spread over the face of Goring, who, recalling the mode in which he had been hunted by mother and daughter, took in the whole situation. Calm speech and connected utterance came now to both, and many mutual explanations were made, and mutual tender assurances given more than once; for both had much to relate and to hear; nor with both--Alison especially--without false impressions that required removal.