This last assertion Mr. Burton doubted, for he knew that the remorse of a guilty conscience stung the possessor into a restlessness which made any unexpected event a matter of suspicion. As the door closed upon him in the large, airy chamber into which he was ushered, he sunk, for a few moments, into a chair, and something like a tremor shook his usually steady nerves. He stood so close upon the probable accomplishment of the object he had kept in view for two years, that, for an instant, excitement overcame him. He soon rallied, however, and at the end of fifteen minutes, when the _peon_ came in again to announce supper, he had toned up his courage with a plentiful dash of cold water, and was never more his own peculiar self, than when he set foot in the supper-room. A glance told him that the absent member of the family had not yet returned; only two persons were present, his host, and the beautiful woman whom he introduced as his daughter, Mrs. Seltzer. The three sat down to the table, which was covered with an elegant repast, the first dish of which was a fine-flavored roast wild-turkey. There was a plentiful supply of porcelain and silver-ware; it did not take five seconds for the guest to decide that the quondam druggist of Blankville--if this were indeed the person, as he assumed with such certainty--had gotten himself into enviable quarters. As his penetrating glance rested on the exquisite face which confronted him across the "pale specter of the salt," he kept asking himself, with inward anguish, why it was that he had not circumvented this adventurer sooner, before the young, girlish creature he saw before him had involved her fate with that of the guilty. Beautiful as our dreamiest fancies of Spanish women she was, according to the report of Mr. Burton, and he was no enthusiast. He saw that she was as uneasy as a bird which misses its mate, her black eyes constantly wandering to the door, and her ear so preoccupied with listening for the expected step as scarcely to take note of the remarks made to her by the stranger. Once she asked him, with much interest, if he had known Dr. Seltzer in New York, but upon his answering in the negative, he could guess that he had fallen in her esteem, for she immediately withdrew her attention from him.