All being well seems to the young to mean always to be well; as it did to George Castlemaine: his mind was at rest, and for several months there ensued a gap of silence. It is true he wrote home; but, as to tidings from home reaching him in return, he did not afford a chance for it. He crossed to Sicily, to Corsica; he went to the Ionian Isles: it is hard to say where he did not go. When tidings from home at length reached him, he found that his family, whom he had been picturing as unchanged and happy, was totally dispersed. His father was dead. Anthony had gone over to England to see after his patrimony; and, not returning as he ought to have done, his wife and child had followed him. Emma de Rhone, who conveyed all this in writing, to her brother, confessed she did not understand what could have become of Anthony; but that she did not think he could have lost himself, though of course England was a large place, and he, being strange, might have a difficulty in making his way about it. To this portion of the letter George gave no heed; at a happier time he would have laughed at the notion of Anthony's being lost; his whole heart was absorbed in the grief for his father and in self-reproach for his own supine carelessness. He did not hurry home: there was nothing to go for now: and it was summer weather when George once more re-entered Gap. To his intense astonishment, his concern, his perplexity, he found that Anthony really was lost: at least, that his wife seemed nimble to discover traces of him. Emma de Rhone handed him a thick letter of several sheets, which had come enclosed to her for him from Charlotte many weeks before, and had been waiting for him. When George Castlemaine broke the seal, he found it to contain a detailed account of Anthony's disappearance and the circumstances connected with it, together with her suspicions of James Castlemaine, and her residence in that gentleman's house. In short, she told him all; and she begged him to come over and see into it for himself; but to come as a stranger, en cachette, and not to declare himself to be connected with her, or as a Castlemaine. She also warned him not to tell Emma or M. de Rhone of her worst fears about Anthony, lest they should be undertaking the investigation themselves: which might ruin all hopes of discovery, for Mr. Castlemaine was not one to be approached in that way. And the result of this was that George Castlemaine was now here as George North. He had deemed it well to obey Charlotte's behest, and come; at the same time he did not put great faith in the tale. It puzzled him extremely: and he could but recall that his brother's wife was given to be a little fanciful--romantic, in short.