to speak--then
checked himself, and remained silent. The information which he had just
received had recalled to him a certain object that he had seen in the
drawer of Mr. Blyth's bureau; and the resemblance between the two had
at once flashed upon him. The importance which this discovery assumed
in his eyes, in connection with what he had already heard, may be easily
estimated, when it is remembered that his barbarian life had kept him
totally ignorant that a Hair Bracelet is in England one of the commonest
ornaments of woman's wear.

"Are we going to stop here all day?" asked Zack. "If you're turning from
sulky to sentimental again, I shall go back to Blyth's, and pave the
way for you with Madonna, old boy!" He turned gaily in the direction of
Valentine's house, as he said those words.

Mat did not offer to detain him; did not say a word at parting. He
passed his hand wearily over his eyes as Zack left him. "I'm sober,"
he said vacantly to himself; "I'm not dreaming; I'm not light-headed,
though I feel a'most like it. I saw that young woman as plain as I
see them houses in front of me now; and by God, if she had been Mary's
ghost, she couldn't have been more like her!"

He stopped. His hand fell to his side; then fastened mechanically on
the railings of a house near him. His rough, misshapen fingers trembled
round the iron. Recollections that had slumbered for years and years
past, were awakening again awfully to life within him. Through the
obscurity and oblivion of long absence, through the changeless darkness
of the tomb, there was shining out now, vivid and solemn on his memory,
the image--as she had been in her youth-time--of the dead woman whose
name was "Mary." And it was only the sight of that young girl, of that
poor, shy, gentle, deaf and dumb creature, that had wrought the miracle!

He tried to shake himself clear of the influences which were now at work
on him. He moved forward a step or two, and looked up. Zack?--where was
Zack?

Away, at the other end of the solitary suburban street, just visible
sauntering along and swinging his stick in his hand.

Without knowing why he did so, Mat turned instantly and walked after
him, calling to him to come back. The third summons reached him: he
stopped, hesitated, made comic gesticulations with his stick in the
air--then began to retrace his steps.

The effort of walking and calling after him, had turned Mat's thoughts
in another direction. They now occupied