find, from what you can tell me, that
Mrs St. Felix is the real Mrs Fitzgerald, I will produce that friend
and her husband. Now are you satisfied?"

"I am," replied I, "and I will now tell you everything." I then entered
into a detail from the time that Mrs St. Felix gave me the spy-glass,
and erased the name, until the death of Spicer. "I have now done, sir,"
replied I, "and you must draw your own conclusions."

"I thank you, sir," replied he; "allow me now to ask you one or two
other questions. How does Mrs St. Felix gain her livelihood, and what
character does she bear?"

I replied to the former by stating that she kept a tobacconist's shop;
and to the latter by saying that she was a person of most unimpeachable
character, and highly respected.

Sir James O'Connor filled a tumbler of wine for me, and then his own.
As soon as he had drunk his own off, he said, "Mr Saunders, you don't
know how you have obliged me. I am excessively anxious about this
matter, and I wish, if you are not obliged to go back to Deal
immediately, that you would undertake for me a commission to Greenwich.
Any trouble or expense--"

"I will do anything for Mrs St. Felix, Sir James; and I shall not
consider trouble or expense," replied I.

"Will you then oblige me by taking a letter to Greenwich immediately? I
cannot leave my ship at present--it is impossible."

"Certainly I will, Sir James."

"And will you bring her down here?"

"If she will come. The letter I presume will explain everything, and
prevent any too sudden shock."

"You are right, Mr Saunders; and indeed I am wrong not to confide in
you more. You have kept her secret so well that, trusting to your
honour, you shall now have mine."

"I pledge my honour, Sir James."

"Then, Mr Saunders, I spoke of a dear friend, but the truth is, _I_ am
the owner of that spy-glass. When I returned to Ireland, and found that
she had, as I supposed, made away with herself, as soon as my grief had
a little subsided, I did perceive that, although her apparel remained,
all her other articles of any value had disappeared; but I concluded
that they had been pillaged by her relations, or other people. I then
entered on board of a man-of-war, under the name of O'Connor, was put on
the quarter-deck, and by great good fortune have risen to the station in
which I now am. That is my secret--not that I care about its being
divulged, now that I have found my wife. I did nothing to disgrac