nd gave some order, his forehead netted the while with the
swelling veins, and his face now pale and flushed by the passion that
agitated his breast.

He seemed to quite ignore the presence of Brace, and before the young
man could recover from his astonishment, father and daughter were
hurriedly walking away.

"Is there anything wrong?--is--that is, can I be of no assistance?"
stammered Brace, as he ran after and overtook them--speaking to the
father, but gazing the while in the daughter's pale and frightened face,
as if his eyes were riveted there; but only to meet with a strange,
imploring look, half horror--half dread.

The stranger tried to speak, as he raised one trembling hand, pointing
towards the carriage, but no words passed his lips; and motioning the
young man fiercely, he hurriedly led his trembling charge away.

"Is he mad?" said Brace to himself. "And to drag that poor girl away
like that! What more can I do?" he muttered, as the post-boy drew up
alongside of where he stood.

"I've put the portmanty back in the front, sor, as them two ain't
agoing."

But Brace Norton did not seem to hear him, as, seeking for some clue to
this strange alteration in the old man's behaviour, his eyes fell upon
the seat of the chaise the travellers had so lately occupied, where,
forgotten for the time, lay his travelling writing-case, with its
brass-plate bearing his name and that of his ship.

Well, yes, he had forgotten that, but what was there in his name to make
the old man leap from the chaise as if half mad, unless--

There was a faint suspicion in his mind--a dim and confused mingling of
fragments of old stories that had never made any impression upon him
before; but now he struggled hard to recall in their entirety these
shadowy memories of the past. In vain, though; he only grew more
mystified than ever. The strangers were already at a turn of the road,
and it was in his mind to run after them and ask for some explanation,
when his eyes fell upon the handkerchief that the gentleman had placed
within his hands--a handkerchief that now for the first time he saw was
not the one he had applied to the injured temple, and his heart throbbed
as he thought that it was his that she now held; but the next instant a
feeling of trouble and pleasure mingled, as it were, came upon him, and
he looked eagerly in the corner of the piece of cambric, to find there,
in faint but still legible characters, the two words, "Isa