And before Laura had been long enough in the house to decide whether it would not be better to leave it and go and live by herself in a boarding-house, an event happened which settled the question for her. The Patent Match-box Company, whose shares she had bought on her lawyer’s advice at twenty per cent. premium, went into liquidation; and after a miserable period of anxiety Laura found that only nine hundred pounds of her money could be saved out of the wreck. She was thankful to remain with Mrs. Crosby as nursery-governess. It was a hard, dull life; but the very hardness and dulness of it did the girl good. She was forced to think of other things than her own amusement and her own pleasure. Almost insensibly she grew less self-indulgent, more considerate for others, more simple and straightforward. One day, about six months after Laura had first come to Brighton, she was returning home, late in the afternoon, when she was stopped by a man whom she took for a beggar. As she was searching her pocket for a copper, he spoke to her. ‘Laura--Miss Mowbray, don’t you know me?’ It was James Semple! The girl was shocked beyond the power of speech. She stood, exactly as she had been standing when he spoke her name, and stared at him. His dress was that of a labourer, except for his coat--an old black overcoat, torn, and indescribably dirty, which had the effect of making him look a thousand times more disreputable than he would have been without it. On his head was a battered felt hat, gray with old age. His face was thin and unshaven, his eyes hungry and wolfish. ‘Well! you needn’t stare at me like that!’ he exclaimed. But Laura did not hear him. She had burst into tears. She hardly could have told why she wept; for certainly the man deserved his evil fortune. Yet it seemed too horrible that a man whom she had lived with on terms of familiarity should be reduced to this--to actual squalor and hunger. ‘You’re sorry for me, I see. You’ve a good heart, Laura. But you won’t care to be seen speaking to me,’ he added, throwing a furtive glance around him. ‘There’s a policeman coming up the street. Let’s turn down here,’ and he led the way into a side-alley. Half reluctantly the girl followed him. ‘I say, do you know if there’s a warrant out against me?’ he whispered, stretching his unsightly face nearer to her. ‘No; I think not. I never heard of anything of that kind.’ ‘Because I’ve been afraid, you know--horribly afraid. I haven’t been able to sleep at night. I couldn’t go to prison, Laura. Not for long, you know. It would kill me.’ ‘Where have you been? And how did you know I was here?’ ‘I’ve been in Spain. I worked my passage from Lisbon. And I went to the house in Claremont Gardens one night, after dark, and the old woman who is keeping the place told me where you had gone. I’ve tramped from London.’ ‘And how have you lived, all this time?’