ht be required, Cashel obtained permission for Lord Charles
Frobisher to go free; and then hurrying outside, communicated the
tidings to her who stood trembling with fear and anxiety.

With tearful eyes, and in a voice broken by sobs, she was uttering her
thanks as Lord Charles joined them.

"This, then, was _your_ doing?" said he, staring coldly at her.

"Say, rather, it was your own, my Lord," said Cashel, sternly.

"Oh, Charles! thank him--thank him," cried she, hysterically. "Friends
have not been so plenty with us, that we can treat them thus!"

"Lady Charles is most grateful, sir," said Frobisher, with a cold
sneer. "I am sure the show of feeling she evinces must repay all your
generosity." And, with, this base speech, he drew her arm within his,
and moved hastily away. One look towards Cashel, as she turned to go,
told more forcibly than words the agony of her broken heart.

And this was the once gay, light-hearted girl,--the wild and daring
romp, whose buoyant spirit seemed above every reverse of fortune. Poor
Jemima Meek! she had run away from her father's home to link her lot
with a gambler! Some play transaction, in which his name was involved,
compelled him to quit the service, and at last the country. Now
depending for support upon his family, now hazarding his miserable means
at play, he had lived a life of recklessness and privation,--nothing
left to him of his former condition save the name that he had brought
down to infamy!

CHAPTER XXXVII. ALL MYSTERY CEASES--MARRIAGE AND GENERAL JOY

"The end of all."

What a contrast did Roland Cashel's life now present to the purposeless
vacuity of his late existence! Every hour was occupied; even to a late
period of each night was he engaged by cares which seemed to thicken
around him as he advanced.

We should but weary our reader were we to follow him in the ceaseless
round of duties which hard necessity imposed. Each morning his first
visit was to the hospital of St. Louis, where Keane still lay, weakly
struggling against a malady whose fatal termination was beyond a doubt;
and although Roland could not wish for the prolongation of a life which
the law would demand in expiation, he felt a craving desire that the
testimony of the dying man should be full and explicit on every point,
and that every dubious circumstance should be explained ere the grave
closed over him.

To seek for Maritana, to endeavor to recover this poor forlorn girl,