Men know men. No doubt Herbert and her father knew more than they cared to say of the strained relations between husband and wife, and of the causes that had produced this bitter state of affairs. Well, at least Charlie was left. Poor little Charlie, whose short, stiff, pot-hook letters, written with such laborious effort, expressed nothing but that the child was executing a wearisome task, and whose solitary sentence, "Farther cent a good big Kake; The fellers ett it," was his sole allusion to him. Poor little Charlie! Through tears evoked by the vision of a little, lonely, curly-headed boy bending with inky fingers and knitted brows over toilsome letters, all the bright and sunny beauty and the great peace of the vast sea-plains darkening and glowing on that solid blue horizon rim seemed full of rebuke and chiding. Snowy sails, flitting bird-like on the deep-blue splendour, and black hulls, trailing their smoke pennons above it, reproached her, and the quivering cypress-spires on the monastery height condemned her. For what? Then the shining lemon-foliage took up the tale, and rustled disapproval among the gleaming yellow fruit, and the voices and low laughter of people sitting in the sun vaguely excluded her, making her a thing apart from general sympathy. But why? There was nobody to consult or confide in; even the woman of mystery, who, for all her presumable sins, was at least sincerely attached to her, was absent, probably on some errand of dubious integrity. Not that such sorrow as this could be confided to anybody except by vague hints, though it might in some measure be divined by sympathy. Best to go home. She had been growing more and more home-sick of late, especially since that last and worst afternoon at the tables. Presently the thin man emerged from the lemon-foliage, and, seeing her, raised his hat and passed on with friendly smile and halting step. He had been a father to her, but for this emergency was probably supplied with no paternal counsels. Pacing the walk on the monastery ridge under the cypresses, the spare figure of Mr. Mosson, the philanthropist, was visible. That benefactor to his species appeared to be absorbed as usual in his morning devotions, intently perusing the red book that Mr. Welbourne had pronounced to be no Book of Hours or Breviary, as she had rashly conjectured. Should she throw herself upon his charity, and seek balm of him for at least one of her troubles? That something must be done before long to this effect was absolutely certain. The eighteen-guinea serge gown could not well be pawned, besides having lost some of its pristine freshness in excursions on the Azure Shore, and the jewel-box was perilously near emptiness.