From the moment Hugh had taken her away to the hour that she recovered sufficient strength to be conveyed to one of the mildest parts of Devonshire, she had not once recognised him, nor uttered a sentence by which he could form a clue to her object in leaving home, or the evidently delicate state of health in which he found her. He was pained, saddened, almost broken-hearted, on finding that at the moment the cup of bliss was unexpectedly raised to his lips, it was likely to be dashed from them, either by the continuance of her aberration of intellect, or by her early death. There were faint hopes that, by the recovery of her health, her mind might be restored, but those hopes were faint indeed; and, under advice, he determined to try the effect of the soft air of Madeira. So he left England with her. It can now be understood why she did not return to Lotte to claim her child. In the meanwhile, explanations, secret and confidential, had taken place between Lotte and her brother. The former, though she religiously preserved Helen Grahame’s secret, quite gave her brother to understand that she was able to meet him without a blush upon her cheek, raised there by any sense of a blot upon her fair fame; and he was content to believe this, without pressing upon her any prying questions which would have embarrassed her to answer. She learned from him, however, that he had seen Evangeline Grahame several times. He was, therefore, able to inform her of Helen’s sudden appearance at her father’s house, of her subsequent disappearance with some strange man, who, having felled Lester Vane to the ground, when he endeavoured to intercept their flight, had borne her away. In spite of all attempts to discover them, they had not been heard of since. Lotte, despite the aspect that Helen’s conduct wore, had faith in her still. She had many opportunities of judging her nature during the time that they had lived together; and though she could not help observing many defects in her composition, she was able to detect that they were more the result of a fostered pride and false education than any real failing or flaw in a true nobility of spirit. Of course, she was unable to fathom the cause for her absence and her silence, but she was convinced that she should see her again, and that, too, at the earliest moment the mother could command the opportunity to rejoin her child. So she continued carefully to tend it, to cherish and fondle it, as though it were her own. What rosy cheeks she had! what a soft, beaming expression lighted up her humid eyes! and what a pretty smile curled her small lips, as she thought, when pressing this little creature to her bosom, during the first period of its charge, that some day she might have as pretty a treasure to hold up to the fond kiss of the man she loved! But since her last interview with Mark Wilton, that thought, if it presented itself, was hastily dismissed with a tearful sigh.