"Nay, my dear Miss Barham," he said; "do not misunderstand me; though passion may often lead me to do what is wrong, I am not the cool, deliberate villain to lay out a regular scheme for the ruin of any one. Your youth, your beauty, your unfriended situation altogether," he continued, while the blush grew deeper and deeper on her cheek, "all made me think that it would be better some man of advanced years and high reputation--some man whose very character would be the noblest shield for yours, should act in this business rather than myself; and one of my visits this morning, ere I received your note, was to the Honourable Mr. Hamilton, the great banker, who was my guardian in times past, and has ever acted as a second father to me. I intended to tell him the whole case, and to beg him to do what I could not, or ought not to do--to remove you from this house altogether, and to use every nerve to deliver your brother, but to put you quite out of his power, both in respect of pecuniary affairs and moral influence. Unfortunately, I found Mr. Hamilton had been seized only last night with a dangerous disease. Mrs. Hamilton, though an excellent person, is very different in heart and mind from her husband; thus the whole scheme is deranged for the present. We must therefore do the best that we can, as no time is to be lost, however painful it may be to you to depend solely upon the assistance and efforts of a young man like myself." "Oh, no!" she cried, interrupting him eagerly, and laying her hand upon his arm, while she looked up in his face with a bright smile of confidence, that repaid him well for all that he had said and done. "Oh, no!" she cried; "it is not painful to me. I could trust anything to you, after your conduct to-day--my life, my honour, anything! Oh, no! it is not painful to me;" and bending down her face upon her two hands, she wept for a minute, with one of those bursts of emotion in which joy and sorrow are strangely, but perhaps we may say sweetly, blended together. Morley soothed her, but she wiped away the tears in a few moments, and said--"Do not mind, it is only agitation, not grief. What were you going to say?" "Merely this," replied Morley; "we have but one course to pursue, my dear Miss Barham, for the present. It is this--to discover, if possible, who is the person whose name your brother has thus forged. You must try to wring it from him, and, that being once obtained, I will endeavour, to the utmost of my power, and by all the means at my command, to make the person, whoever it is, abandon the thought of proceeding against him." "But whoever it is will never consent to save a criminal by paying so large a sum," said Helen Barham. "I will do that," replied Morley; and before he could prevent her, she caught his hand, and pressed her lips on it.