“By going at once, I should advise, to his house, and asking the first one of his domestics you may happen to see.” “I will go over,” cried George; “on such occasions as these one cannot act upon ceremony.” He seized his hat, and without waiting for a word from any one approving or condemning his going, off he went. “If,” said Henry, “we find that Varney has nothing to do with the matter, we are completely at fault.” “Completely,” echoed Marchdale. “In that case, admiral, I think we ought to defer to your feelings upon the subject, and do whatever you suggest should be done.” “I shall offer a hundred pounds reward to any one who can and will bring any news of Charles.” “A hundred pounds is too much,” said Marchdale. “Not at all; and while I am about it, since the amount is made a subject of discussion, I shall make it two hundred, and that may benefit some rascal who is not so well paid for keeping the secret as I will pay him for disclosing it.” “Perhaps you are right,” said Marchdale. “I know I am, as I always am.” Marchdale could not forbear a smile at the opinionated old man, who thought no one’s opinion upon any subject at all equal to his own; but he made no remark, and only waited, as did Henry, with evident anxiety for the return of George. The distance was not great, and George certainly performed his errand quickly, for he was back in less time than they had thought he could return in. The moment he came into the room, he said, without waiting for any inquiry to be made of him,— “We are at fault again. I am assured that Sir Francis Varney never stirred from home after eight o’clock last evening.” “D—n it, then,” said the admiral, “let us give the devil his due. He could not have had any hand in this business.” “Certainly not.” “From whom, George, did you get your information?” asked Henry, in a desponding tone. “From, first of all, one of his servants, whom I met away from the house, and then from one whom I saw at the house.” “There can be no mistake, then?” “Certainly none. The servants answered me at once, and so frankly that I cannot doubt it.” The door of the room was slowly opened, and Flora came in. She looked almost the shadow of what she had been but a few weeks before. She was beautiful, but she almost realised the poet’s description of one who had suffered much, and was sinking into an early grave, the victim of a broken heart:— “She was more beautiful than death, And yet as sad to look upon.” Her face was of a marble paleness, and as she clasped her hands, and glanced from face to face, to see if she could gather hope and consolation from the expression of any one, she might have been taken for some exquisite statue of despair. “Have you found him?” she said. “Have you found Charles?” “Flora, Flora,” said Henry, as he approached her. “Nay, answer me; have you found him? You went to seek him. Dead or alive, have you found him?” “We have not, Flora.”