young lady in the
breakfast-room, and had told her of his deeds. "I only left London on
Tuesday night, and I have come here taking Venice on the road."

"Then you have travelled fast," said the young lady.

"I haven't seen a bed, of course," said John.

The young lady immediately afterwards told her father. "I suppose he
must be one of those Foreign Office messengers," said the young lady.

"Anything but that," said the gentleman. "People never talk about
their own trades. He's probably a clerk with a fortnight's leave
of absence, seeing how many towns he can do in the time. It's the
usual way of travelling nowadays. When I was young and there were no
railways, I remember going from Paris to Vienna without sleeping."
Luckily for his present happiness, John did not hear this.

He was still fast asleep when a servant came to him from Mrs. Arabin
to say that she would see him at once. "Yes, yes; I'm quite ready to
go on," said Johnny, jumping up, and thinking of the journey to Rome.
But there was no journey to Rome before him. Mrs. Arabin was almost in
the next room, and there he found her.

The reader will understand that they had never met before, and
hitherto knew nothing of each other. Mrs. Arabin had never heard the
name of John Eames till John's card was put into her hands, and would
not have known his business with her had he not written those few
words upon it. "You have come about Mr. Crawley?" she said to him
eagerly. "I have heard from my father that somebody was coming."

"Yes, Mrs. Arabin; as hard as I could travel. I had expected to find
you at Venice."

"Have you been at Venice?"

"I have just arrived from Venice. They told me at Paris I should find
you there. However, that does not matter, as I have found you here. I
wonder whether you can help us?"

"Do you know Mr. Crawley? Are you a friend of his?"

"I never saw him in my life; but he married my cousin."

"I gave him the cheque, you know," said Mrs. Arabin.

"What!" exclaimed Eames, literally almost knocked backwards by the
easiness of the words which contained a solution for so terrible a
difficulty. The Crawley case had assumed such magnitude, and the
troubles of the Crawley family had been so terrible, that it seemed
to him to be almost sacrilegious that words so simply uttered should
suffice to cure everything. He had hardly hoped,--had at least barely
hoped,--that Mrs. Arabin might be able to suggest something which
would put them a