Mark, with furious haste, made his way to the office of Lotte’s brother, and with a kind of incoherent burst of strange remarks, informed him that he had had an interview with his sister. “Did she say she wished to see me?” inquired Charley, with a full certainty of an affirmative reply. “No,” returned Mark, shortly. Charley looked at him with wondering eyes. “Had she a fe--female--a young lady with her?” he inquired, expecting that the presence of Helen Grahame might have been the occasion of her reservation. “No,” returned Mark, in the same voice; “she had a child in her arms.” He strode abruptly away as he concluded. Charley staggered back. A bullet through his body could not have inflicted upon him a greater shock. A thousand conjectures flashed through his mind; and he paced his room in perturbed agony. Who could give him an inkling of her betrayer?--for that she had been basely betrayed he was sure. He could think of no one to aid him but Vivian, and him he knew not where to find. Yet he did meet with him, and that while on his frenzied way to see his sister. In a few hurried, agonized words, he told Hal, who was unacquainted with Lotte’s absence, of his discovery of her abode, of Mark’s visit and its result. “I know Lotte,” said Hal, with marked impressiveness, and a knitted brow. “I know and esteem Mark Wilton also. I have occasion to do so, Charley; but he or any man had better think well ere they utter one sentence or half a word to defame Lotte’s truth or purity in my hearing.” “Do you not think, then----” “For shame, Charley. By Heaven I would stake my life upon her virtue and her innocence!” “But Mark----” “Is hasty, impetuous--forms his conclusions too rashly. You are about to visit her--judge for yourself. There may be some mystery hanging over her movements, but she can, she will explain all. I would hazard all I might ever hope for in this world that you will prove her only like golden ore--the purer for the fiery ordeal she may have had to undergo.” “God bless you, Hal, for those comforting words! they have relieved my heart of much bitter agony,” cried Charley, fervidly. “Ay!” responded Hal, shrugging his shoulders, “but you should have had faith in Lotte. She deserves it if ever one of her sex did. I am on my way to meet Mark Wilton, and it shall go hard but I disabuse his mind of any false notions he may have taken into his head.” Charley wrung his hand. “I heard that you were going abroad, Hal; is this true?” he asked. “It was my intention,” he said, hastily; “it may be necessary yet. A singular event has, however, occurred to detain me for the present in England, and of which I am not at liberty now to speak, but you will, no doubt, some day hear; and if you should not--well my fate will be of little consequence then to anybody--least of all to myself.” He waved his hand hurriedly, and hastened away.