"You may, indeed you may," she exclaimed, turning on him an April-day face in which smiles and tears were exquisitely blended. "I have succeeded beyond my wildest hopes. I have much, very much to tell you--a surprise in store for you all such as none of you dreams of. But Uncle John and Aunt Charlotte must be there when I relate my adventures, such as they are, because, you see, dear, what I have to tell concerns them equally with yourself, and I want one telling to be enough for everybody. So, not a word more about it till evening." They parted at the gate of Nairn Cottage. Clem, who was in a state of utter mystification, was to return at half-past seven. At that hour they were all assembled--John, his sister, Hermia, and Clement, in the little sitting-room at the Cottage. There to her wondering listeners did Hermia her tale unfold. Over the congratulations and felicitations that were exchanged between one and another of them, when at length she had come to the end of her recital, it needs not that we should linger. The dark cloud, in the shadow of which they had dwelt for so long a time, had lifted at last and vanished into thinnest air. Their mood, however, was less one of jubilation than of reverent thankfulness. If Hermia had not been dear to Clement before, that night would not have failed to make her so. But, indeed, it was not possible for him to love her more than he did already. "It seems a thousand pities," said John Brancker, who for some minutes had been lost in thought, "that Richard Varrel should have gone to his grave without having had his mind disabused of the belief that he owed it to Mr. Hazeldine, and not to Mr. Avison himself, that he was brought to trial and the charge against him pressed sternly home. In point of fact, Mr. Hazeldine did everything that lay in his power with the view of extenuating Varrel's crime; but Mr. Avison's orders in the matter were imperative, and he had no option but to carry them out. Had Varrel but known this at the time many things might perhaps have fallen out differently; but of course it was nobody's business to enlighten him, and to his hand was due the death of the man who had done his utmost to befriend him." "There are two points," said Clem, presently, "which I should certainly like to be enlightened upon. In the first place, I should like to know the sum total pocketed by Varrel as the proceeds of his crime; and, in the second, what his object was in entrusting the parcel of notes to his mother's keeping.