er. She blushed, and said: "Yes, I am getting suspicious,
ever since I found I was followed and watched. Excuse me a moment." She
went to the window and peered through the curtains. She saw a man walking
slowly by; he quickened his pace the moment she opened the curtain.

"Yes," said she, "it was intercepted, and I am watched wherever I go."

Before she could say any more a bustle was heard on the stairs, and in
bounced Nancy Rouse, talking as she came. "Excuse me, Mr. Penfolds, but I
can't wait no longer with my heart a bursting; it _is!_ it _is!_ Oh, my
dear, sweet young lady; the Lord be praised! You really are here alive
and well. Kiss you I must and shall; come back from the dead;
there--there--there!"

"Nancy! my good, kind Nancy," cried Helen, and returned her embrace
warmly.

Then followed a burst of broken explanations; and at last Helen made out
that Nancy was the landlady, and had left Lambeth long ago.

"But, dear heart!" said she, "Mr. Penfolds, I'm properly jealous of you.
To think of her coming here to see you, and not me!"

"But I didn't know you were here, Nancy." Then followed a stream of
inquiries, and such warm-hearted sympathy with all her dangers and
troubles, that Helen was led into revealing the cause of it all.

"Nancy," said she, solemnly, "the ship was willfully cast away; there was
a villain on board that made holes in her on purpose, and sunk her."

Nancy lifted up her hands in astonishment. But Mr. Penfold was far more
surprised and agitated.

"For Heaven's sake, don't say that!" he cried.

"Why not, sir?" said Helen; "it is the truth; and I have got the
testimony of dying men to prove it."

"I am sorry for it. Pray don't let anybody know. Why, Wardlaws would lose
the insurance of 160,000 pounds."

"Arthur Wardlaw knows it. My father told him."

"And he never told me," said Penfold, with growing surprise.

"Goodness me! what a world it is!" cried Nancy. "Why, that was murder,
and no less. It is a wonder she wasn't drownded, and another friend into
the bargain that I had in that very ship. Oh, I wish I had the villain
here that done it, I'd tear his eyes out."

Here the mite of a servant bounded in, radiant and giggling, gave Nancy a
triumphant glance, and popped out again, holding the door open, through
which in slouched a seafaring man, drawn by Penfold's advertisement, and
decoyed into Nancy's presence by the imp of a girl, who thought to please
her mistress.

Nancy, wh