We arrived only ten minutes before him. For my part, I admired _her_ more than I ever did before, when the truth about her came out. I considered her to be a pink-and-white nonentity, without an idea beyond a neat adjustment of pearl-powder, and then found that she possessed brains enough to outwit two minds of no mean calibre, namely, yours, Middleton, and my own. Evelyn was the only person who had the slightest suspicion of her, and that hardly amounted to more than an instinct, for she owned that she had no reason to show for it." "I wonder Lady Mary was so completely taken in by her to start with," I said. "I don't," replied Charles. "I have even heard of elderly men being taken in by young ones. Besides, suspicious people are always liable to distrust their own nearest relatives, especially their prepossessing nephews, and then lay themselves open to be taken in by entire strangers. She wanted to get Ralph married, and she took a fancy to this girl, who was laying herself out to be taken a fancy to. In short, she trusted to her own judgment, and it failed her, as usual. I wrote very kindly to her from abroad, telling her how sincerely I sympathized with her in her distress at finding how entirely her judgment had been at fault, how lamentably she had been deceived from first to last, and how much trouble she had been the innocent means of bringing on the family. I have had no reply. Dear Aunt Mary! That reminds me that she is in London now; and I think a call from me, and a personal expression of sympathy, might give her pleasure." And he rose to take his leave. I had let Charles go without contradicting a word he had said, because, unfortunately, I was not in a position to do so. As I have said before, I am not given to suspecting a friend, even though appearances may be against him; and I still believed in Carr's innocence, though I must own that I was sorry that he never answered any of the numerous letters I wrote to him, or ever came to see me in London, as I had particularly asked him to do. Of course I did not believe that he was married to Aurelia, for it was only on the word of a stranger and a police-inspector, while I knew from his own lips that he was engaged to a countrywoman of his own. However, be that how it may, my own rooted conviction at the time, which has remained unshaken ever since, is that in some way he became aware that he was unjustly suspected, and being, like all Americans, of a sensitive nature, he retired to his native land. Anyhow, I have never seen or heard anything of him since. I am aware that Jane holds a different opinion, but then Charles had prejudiced her against him--so much so that it has ended by becoming a subject on which we do not converse together. * * * * *