hat Mrs. Askerton's
name was also Mary.

"Jack Berdmore married Mary."

"Well now, Joe, you must find out for me what became of her. Was she
with her husband when he died?"

"Nobody was with him. Phil told me so. No one, that is, but a young
lieutenant and his own servant. It was very sad. He had D.T., and all
that sort of thing."

"And where was she?"

"At Jericho, for anything that I know."

"Will you find out?" Then Mr. Joseph Green thought for a moment of
his capabilities in that line, and having made an engagement to dine
with his friend at his club on the evening before Will left London,
said at last that he thought he could find out through certain mutual
friends who had known the Berdmores in the old days. "But the fact
is," said the lawyer, "that the world is so good-natured,--instead of
being ill-natured, as people say,--that it always forgets those who
want to be forgotten."

We must now go back for a few moments to Captain Aylmer and his
affairs. Having given a full month to the consideration of his
position as regarded Miss Amedroz, he made up his mind to two things.
In the first place, he would at once pay over to her the money
which was to be hers as her aunt's legacy, and then he would renew
his offer. To that latter determination he was guided by mixed
motives,--by motives which, when joined together, rarely fail to be
operative. His conscience told him that he ought to do so,--and then
the fact of her having, as it were, taken herself away from him, made
him again wish to possess her. And there was another cause which,
perhaps, operated in the same direction. He had consulted his mother,
and she had strongly advised him to have nothing further to do with
Miss Amedroz. Lady Aylmer abused her dead sister heartily for having
interfered in the matter, and endeavoured to prove to her son that
he was released from his promise by having in fact performed it. But
on this point his conscience interfered,--backed by his wishes,--and
he made his resolve as has been above stated. On leaving Mr. Green's
chambers he went to his own lodgings, and wrote his letter, as
follows:--

Mount Street, December, 186--.

DEAREST CLARA,

When you parted from me at Perivale you said certain
things about our engagement which I have come to
understand better since then, than I did at the time.
It escaped from me that my dear aunt and I had had some
conversation about you, and that I had told h