During his stroll, and while thinking fondly of the bright girl, he had unconsciously strayed into the very avenue where Star had stopped to rest. Wrapped in her heavy shawl, and with head bowed upon her hands, he had not recognized her, but thought it might be one of the servants, perhaps, who had got into some trouble. Always ready to relieve suffering of whatever nature, he stepped up to the sobbing girl and gently laid his hand upon her shoulder to attract her attention, and when the tear-stained, suffering face of his own love was lifted to his, his astonishment rendered him speechless for the moment. But it was a fact, nevertheless, that he had appeared in different places in different characters—he was at once Archibald Sherbrooke and Lord Carrol, of Carrolton; how, we must let his own words explain. “Poor child! it is very awkward, and I never dreamed of any such denouement; but I cannot blame her. If she would but have given me one moment in which to tell her how it is; but she was wild with pain,” he said, with a troubled face, as he slowly went back to the house. It is doubtless now made plain to the reader how he had happened to recognize the cameo ring upon Josephine’s hand at Long Branch, and knew at once that it was the very stone which he had given Star at parting on shipboard. He did not like to question Miss Richards about it, but he was deeply hurt when she told him that it had been given her by a relative, for he felt sure that he could not be mistaken in the stone—there _could_ not be another like it, for he had designed the figure upon it himself. Yet, to be quite positive about it, he had told her that it had belonged to a gentleman named Archibald Sherbrooke; and then when he saw her start, and the color flame into her face, he knew that Star had parted with it for some reason or other. It had caused him a pang to know that she should have prized it so lightly as to give it away, while he had treasured that lock of gold as one of the most precious things in his possession, and had learned to love the face which he had painted as he never expected to love any object on earth. Then he had met Star, and she had told him—not that she had given his gift away, but that she had “lost” it. The two stories did not agree, but looking into her glorious, truthful eyes, he had believed her, and felt that some time she would make the mystery plain. He had told her, on parting from her Saturday evening, that he should come to her Monday or Tuesday, and he had really intended doing so, and was deeply disappointed at not being able to keep his promise.