She looked at it. In a corner, embroidered, were the initials “H. G.” It was her own, and one of value. She smiled. “Indeed,” she answered, “I ought to know it well, Mr. Vane.” “I found it beneath a tree, there,” he added, pointing to the thicket in which she had parted with Hugh Riversdale. She had, no doubt, dropped it on leaving Hugh the night before. She felt an acute pain run through her brain, as she saw in what direction his finger pointed, and that as he spoke his eyes were absolutely glaring upon her. She detected, in an instant, how much depended upon her answer. Controlling, as before, with a remarkable exertion of self-will, the expression of her features, she assumed an air of indifference, and flinging the handkerchief into the stream, upon the brink of which she was standing, she answered-- “Possibly; it is one I some time since gave to my maid, Chayter.” Lester was unable to utter a word in reply; he was baffled. He watched the handkerchief float away, and he said to himself-- “Yet it was you who stood last night in the thicket along with the fellow who felled me to the earth. Despite this check, I will proye it, and to you.” CHAPTER X.--THE INEXPLICABLE LIBERATION. Alas! he’s mad! ***** This is the very coinage of your brain. This bodiless creation, ecstasy Is very cunning in. --Shakspere. The emotion displayed by old Wilton when Colonel Mires made himself known to him by reference to an incident which had occurred to him at a period now long past, was a mystery to the two persons likely to be best acquainted with its source. Flora, who flew to her father’s aid, marvelled at it, and the Indian colonel wondered no less. Flora knew nothing, however, of the event alluded to, as her father had not suffered mention of it to escape his lips; but Colonel Mires, from whom some emotion might perhaps have been expected while recurring to it, having been a principal actor in a circumstance of a remarkable nature could find in a rapid review of what had then occurred no cause for Wilton to be thus suddenly affected. Wilton had been called upon to render a great, a valuable, and disinterested service, he had performed it nobly, because it then seemed he was in nowise personally interested or affected by the result; why, therefore, he should now appear overcome by his feelings somewhat staggered the Colonel, and set him cogitating. Perhaps, after all, there had been a motive in his generosity; and if so, it certainly behoved him to find it out, and that as soon as possible.