To this a letter came back from Guffanta, saying that he acknowledged the reason of Mr. Stuart's remarks, and that he would waste no more time in Paris but would at once set out for Switzerland. "Only," he wrote, in his usual grave and studied style, "you must pardon me for what I am now going to say, and for what I am going to ask. It is for money. I have exhausted my store, which was not great when I arrived in England, and which has only been increased by a small draft on Don Rodriguez's London banker. I have enough to take me to Switzerland I find, but not enough to carry me into the heart of the country. Will you please send me some to the Poste Restante, at Basle? I will repay it some day, and be sure that I shall eventually gain the object we both desire in our hearts." For answer to this, Stuart put a fifty-pound note in a registered letter, and forwarded it to the address Guffanta had given him. Then, when it had been acknowledged by the latter, he heard no more from him for some time. During this period Lord Penlyn had been absent from town. He had received from Sir Paul Raughton, at the time when the Señor was about to leave London, a letter telling him that Ida was much better, and that he thought that Penlyn might see her if he went down to Belmont. Sir Paul had faithfully delivered the message given him, and to Ida this, he said, had been the best medicine. At first she would scarcely believe it possible that her lover would ever again see her or speak of love to her; but, when she learnt that not only was he anxious to do this, but that it was he himself whom he considered in the wrong, and that, instead of extending his pardon to her, he was anxious to sue for hers, the colour came back to her cheek and the smile to her eyes and lips. "Oh, papa!" she said, as she sat up one day in her boudoir and nestled close to him, "oh, papa, how could I ever think so ill of him, of him who is everything that is good and noble? How wicked I have been! How wicked and unjust!" "Of course!" Sir Paul exclaimed, "that is just the kind of thing a woman always does say. She quarrels with the man she loves, and then, just because he wants to make up the quarrel as much as she does, she thinks she has been in the wrong. And after all, mind you, Ida, although I don't believe that Penlyn had any more to do with the murder than I had----" "No, papa!" speaking firmly. "Still he does not come out of the affair with flying colours. He never moved hand nor foot to find out who really had done it, and he kept the secret of poor Cundall being his brother from me. He oughtn't to have done that!"