“Eight or nine and twenty. It is difficult to guess a woman’s age within two or three years, and this woman’s face is evidently aged by trouble; but I don’t think she can be thirty.” “There is only one person I can think of who would in any manner answer your description,” said Juanita, thoughtfully. “Who is that?” “Mercy Porter. You must have heard about Mercy Porter, the daughter of the woman at the West Lodge.” “Yes, yes, I remember. She ran away with a middle-aged man—an army man—one of your father’s visitors.” “I was a child at the time, and of course I heard very little about it. I only knew that Mercy Porter who used to come to tea with mother, and who played the piano better than my governess, suddenly vanished out of our lives, and that I never saw her again. My mother was quite fond of her, and I remember hearing of her beauty, though I was too young myself to know what beauty meant. I could not think any one pretty who wore such plain frocks, and such stout useful boots as Mercy wore. Her mother certainly did nothing to set off her good looks, or to instil vanity. Years after, my mother told me how the girl disappeared one summer evening, and how Mrs. Porter came distracted to the house, and saw my father, and stormed and raved at him in her agony, saying it was _his_ friend who had blighted her daughter’s youth—_his_ work that she had gone to her ruin. He was very patient and forbearing with her, my mother said, for he pitied her despair, and he felt that he was in some wise to blame for having brought such an unprincipled man as Colonel Tremaine to Cheriton, a man who had carried ruin into many homes. Mercy had been seen to leave Wareham Station with him by the night mail. He had a yacht at Weymouth. She wrote to her mother from London a fortnight afterwards, and Mrs. Porter brought the letter to my mother and father one morning, as they sat at breakfast. It was a heart-broken letter—the letter of a poor foolish girl who flings away her good name and her hope of Heaven, with her eyes open, and knows the cost of her sacrifice, and yet can’t help making it. I was engaged to Godfrey when I first heard Mercy’s story, and I felt so sorry for her, so sorry, in the midst of my happy love. What had I done to deserve happiness more than she, that life should be so bright for me and so dark for her. I did not know that my day of agony was to come.” “Did you ever hear how Colonel Tremaine treated her?” “No; I believe my father wrote him a very severe letter, and called upon him to repair the wrong he had done; but I don’t think he even took so much trouble as to answer that letter. His regiment was ordered off to India two or three years afterwards, and he was killed in Afghanistan about six years ago.” “And has nothing been heard of Mercy since her flight?” “Nothing.” “I wonder her mother has sat at home quietly all these years instead of making strenuous efforts to find her lost lamb,” said Theodore.