Some short time after the lights had been brought, he heard a step approaching his room by the smaller staircase, and the Earl again appeared. The expression of his countenance was agitated and anxious; but he apologised courteously for intruding, and then added, "I thought you might be pleased to learn that the whole of Upwater Mere has been dragged with the greatest care, without anything having been found to confirm my apprehensions in regard to its having been made the receptacle of my poor son's body. It is very foolish, under such circumstances, and with such proofs of his death as we have, to give way to hope; but yet I cannot help yielding a little to your reasoning of this morning." "I hope and trust, my lord," replied Langford, "that reasoning may not prove fallacious. Far be it from me to wish to instil false hopes, but I would certainly, were I you, not give myself up to despair till the truth of the calamity is better ascertained." "I know," replied the Earl, "that coincidences very often happen, giving much unnecessary alarm. Indeed, the story which you told this morning is an extraordinary proof of the fact. I remember having heard it before," he added, in a careless tone, "though I forget where it was. Pray, where did the incident happen?" Langford mused for a single moment, and then looked up with something of a meaning smile. "It occurred, my lord," he replied, "in the Gulf of Florida, many years ago. I therefore do not know it from my own personal knowledge; but I have heard it from one who was present, and who told me the whole particulars of that and many another adventure in those seas." It was now Lord Danemore's turn to muse, and he did so with a cloudy brow, gnawing his nether lip, as if struggling with some powerful emotions. "Pray, do you know the name of the captain of the ship?" he asked, at length, affecting the same careless tone with which he had before spoken. "Yes, my lord," replied Langford; "I know his name and his whole history from that time to the present hour." Lord Danemore turned very pale, and then mused for several minutes in silence. Nor was it unworthy of remark that he did not demand the name of the captain of the vessel, though the moment before he had seemed so much interested in the subject. He remained gloomy and silent, however, as we have said, knitting his brow thoughtfully, and his first words were--though in so low a tone that Langford did not hear them--"People may know too much."