before you go that
length, you had better hear the whole story."

"Sir," said Robert Penfold, quietly, "I will go back to prison this
minute, if she wishes it."

"How dare you interrupt papa," said Helen, haughtily, but with a great
sob.

"Come, come," said the general, "be quiet, both of you, and let me say my
say." (To Robert.) "You had better turn your head away, for I am a
straightforward man, and I'm going to show her you are not a villain, but
a madman. This Robert Penfold wrote me a letter, imploring me to find him
some honest employment, however menial. That looked well, and I made him
my gardener. He was a capital gardener; but one fine day he caught sight
of you. _You_ are a very lovely girl, though you don't seem to know it;
and _he_ is a madman; and he fell in love with you." Helen uttered an
ejaculation of great surprise. The general resumed: "He can only have
seen you at a distance, or you would recognize him; but (really it is
laughable) he saw you somehow, though you did not see him, and-- Well,
his insanity hurt himself, and did not hurt you. You remember how he
suspected burglars, and watched night after night under your window. That
was out of love for you. His insanity took the form of fidelity and
humble devotion. He got a wound for his pains, poor fellow! and you made
Arthur Wardlaw get him a clerk's place."

"Arthur Wardlaw!" cried Seaton. "Was it to him I owed it?" and he groaned
aloud.

Said Helen: "He hates poor Arthur, his benefactor." Then to Penfold: "If
you are that James Seaton, you received a letter from me."

"I did," said Penfold; and, putting his hand in his bosom, he drew out a
letter and showed it her.

"Let me see it," said Helen.

"Oh, no! don't take this from me, too," said he, piteously.

General Rolleston continued. "The day you sailed he disappeared; and I am
afraid not without some wild idea of being in the same ship with you.
This was very reprehensible. Do you hear, young man? But what is the
consequence? You get shipwrecked together, and the young madman takes
such care of you that I find you well and hearty, and calling him your
guardian angel. And--another thing to his credit--he has set his wits to
work to restore you to the world. These ducks, one of which brings me
here? Of course it was he who contrived that, not you. Young man, you
must learn to look things in the face; this young lady is not of your
sphere, to begin; and, in the next place, she is engaged