that night he was very drunk, and the next day he went wandering on,
God only knows where.

But Nelly and Melissa both had heard a strange noise in the kitchen,
as if some one had fallen, and had found that Miss Horatia had fainted
dead away. It was partly the heat, she said, when she saw their
anxious faces as she came to herself; she had had a little headache
all the morning; it was very hot and close in the kitchen, and the
faintness had come upon her suddenly. They helped her walk into the
cool parlor presently, and Melissa brought her a glass of wine, and
Nelly sat beside her on a footstool as she lay on the sofa, and fanned
her. Once she held her cheek against Miss Horatia's hand for a minute,
and she will never know as long as she lives what a comfort she was
that day.

Every one but Miss Dane forgot the old sailor-tramp in this excitement
that followed his visit. Do you guess already who he was? But the
certainty could not come to you with the chill and horror it did to
Miss Dane. There had been something familiar in his look and voice
from the first, and then she had suddenly known him, her lost lover.
It was an awful change that the years had made in him. He had truly
called himself a wreck: he was like some dreary wreck in its decay and
utter ruin, its miserable ugliness and worthlessness, falling to
pieces in the slow tides of a lifeless southern sea.

And he had once been her lover, Miss Dane thought many times in the
days that came after. Not that there was ever any thing asked or
promised between them, but they had liked each other dearly, and had
parted with deep sorrow. She had thought of him all these years so
tenderly; she had believed always that his love had been greater than
her own, and never once had doubted that the missing ship Chevalier
had carried with it down into the sea a heart that was true to her.

By little and little this all grew familiar, and she accustomed
herself to the knowledge of her new secret. She shuddered at the
thought of the misery of a life with him, and she thanked God for
sparing her such shame and despair. The distance between them seemed
immense. She had been a person of so much consequence among her
friends, and so dutiful and irreproachable a woman. She had not begun
to understand what dishonor is in the world; her life had been shut in
by safe and orderly surroundings. It was a strange chance that had
brought this wanderer to her door. She remembered his wret