For one thing, I am occasionally rather ashamed of my conduct. It is not that the impression produced by my dream is _effaced_, but that absence and distance from the scene and the persons of it have produced their natural weakening effect. Once or twice during the voyage, when writhing in laughable torments in the ladies’ cabin of the steamboat, I said to myself, “Most likely you are a fool!” I therefore continually ward off the cross-questionings of my family with what defensive armour of silence and evasion I may. “I feel convinced it was the husband,” says one of my sisters, after a long catechism, which, as usual, has resulted in nothing. “You are too loyal to your friend to own it, but I always felt sure that any man who could take compassion on that poor peevish old Jane must be some wonderful freak of nature. Come, confess. Is not he a cross between an ourang-outang and a Methodist parson?” “He is nothing of the kind,” reply I, in some heat, recalling the libelled Robin’s clean fresh-coloured _human_ face. “You will be very lucky if you ever secure any one half so kind, pleasant, and gentleman-like.” Three days after my return, I receive a letter from Jane: “Weston House, Caulfield. “MY DEAR DINAH,--I hope you are safe home again, and that you have made up your mind that two crossings of St. George’s Channel within forty-eight hours are almost as bad as having your throat cut, according to the programme you laid out for _us_. I have good news for you. Our murderer elect is _gone_. After hearing of the connection that there was to be between us, Robin naturally was rather interested in him, and found out his name, which is the melodious one of Watty Doolan. After asking his name he asked other things about him, and finding that he never did a stroke of work and was inclined to be tipsy and quarrelsome, he paid and packed him off at once. He is now, I hope, on his way back to his native shores, and if he murder anybody it will be _you_, my dear. Good-bye, Dinah. Hardly yet have I forgiven you for the way in which you frightened me with your graphic description of poor Robin and me, with our heads loose and waggling. “Ever yours affectionately, “JANE WATSON.”