And then Francis told Susan of his visit to the registrar’s office. This was the balm which he was able to pour into the deepest wound that ever tortured a woman’s heart. But the identity of the husband who had lied in denouncing himself a liar was entirely unknown to Susan. In all the familiar intercourse of the brief period in which the trusting girl had been a petted and happy wife, Robert Lesley had not let fall one careless word relating in the remotest way to his position in life, his family, or his prospects. When first consulted by Francis upon the contents of the diary, Messrs. Kursdale and Scardon had instituted an inquiry as to whether a Mr. Robert Lesley had been inscribed on the books of St. Boniface any time between 1845 and 1852; and the answer had been in the negative. No person of the name had been a member of that college within the last ten years. Francis could only conclude, therefore, that Mrs. Burfield had been right in her supposition that the man calling himself Robert Lesley had shielded his identity under a false name. “But your husband was visited by his brother, was he not, Susan?” said Mr. Tredethlyn, when this subject was discussed between the cousins. “Yes; but I knew no more of Robert’s brother than of Robert himself. He did not come to us often. I heard that he was a lawyer,--a barrister, I think,--and that he lived in the Temple. I heard even that by accident, and Robert seemed almost vexed that I should know so much.” All these trifling circumstances seemed to point inevitably to one conclusion; Robert Lesley had intended from the first to abandon his wife, whenever his own interests rendered it advisable that he should throw off the tie that bound him to her. Love and selfishness go very badly hand-in-hand together; and love had soon left selfishness sole master of the field. “But this man shall be made to acknowledge his wife,--to give a name to his child,” cried Francis, “if he can be found.” If he could be found: that was the grand question. But Mr. Tredethlyn was quite at a loss with regard to the means by which his cousin’s husband was to be found. In this case even the grand medium by which the lost are restored to the arms of their friends--the second column of the “Times”--could be of no avail; for what is the use of advertising for a man who does not want to reveal himself? “If my husband is alive, Providence may throw him across my path some day,” Susan said, resignedly. “He could not be more dead to me than he is now if he were buried in the deepest grave that ever held the ashes of the lost; but if he gave my boy the name that is his right, I think I could forgive him all the wrong he has done me.” It was quite in vain that Francis Tredethlyn sought to carry his cousin and her son home to his own house. The sorrowful young mother shrank with absolute terror from the idea of encountering strangers, of finding herself in a splendid house amongst happy people.