"It was a narrow escape for you, Claude," he said, and his voice trembled and his limbs shook. "My thanks are due to Heaven," said the young man, reverently. "Humanly speaking, I owe my life to that brave girl who has risked everything to save me. Oh, uncle, where is she? We are talking idly here when I owe my life to her; and I know all she has suffered and lost to save me." They went back hurriedly to the court, but there was no trace of Hyacinth. People stood in little groups in the street, and of every group she was the subject of conversation. "I shall never forget her," said one woman, "if I live to be a hundred years old. They may talk of heroines if they like, but I never heard of one braver than she has been." "Did you hear that, uncle?" cried Claude. "How they admire her! She is noble, good, and true. I know what it has cost her to come forward; I know what a home she has had--her people all so rigid, so cold, so formal. How am I to thank her?" "Marry her at once, Claude," said Colonel Lennox. "She would not have me. You do not know her, uncle; she is truth itself. How many girls do you think would have had the resolution to turn back on such a journey as she had begun? She does not love me, I am sure; but after what has happened to-day, I would die for her. Where is she? My mother must take her home at once." They made inquiries, but there was no trace of her. In the general confusion that ensued, amid the crowding of friends to congratulate Claude, and the hurrying of witnesses, no one had noticed her. She had been the centre of observation for a brief interval, and then she had disappeared, and no one had noticed which way she went. Colonel Lennox and Claude were both deeply grieved; they sought Hyacinth everywhere, they sent messengers all over the town, but no trace of her could be found. Claude was almost desperate; he had made every arrangement--his mother was to take her back to Belgrave Square, and he himself was to go at once to Bergheim to win Hyacinth's pardon from her relatives there. "There is nothing," he said to himself, over and over again, "that I would not do for her." He was bitterly disappointed; he would not leave Loadstone until every instruction had been given for communication with him or with Colonel Lennox, if any news should be heard of her. When this was done, he complied with his mother's anxious entreaty and returned with her to London. "It has been a narrow escape," she said, with a shudder, "and a terrible disgrace. I cannot bear to think of it. You, with your unblemished name, your high position and prospects in life, to be accused of wilful murder! I do not believe you will ever live it down, Claude!" "Yes, he will," cried the colonel, heartily; "whoever remembers his disgrace, as you term it, will remember also that he was saved by the truth and bravery of the finest and noblest girl in England."