do, the talk lagged
more and more, and grew duller and duller. Valentine was evidently
out of spirits, and the Hercules of the evening had stolidly abandoned
himself to the most inveterate silence. At length Zack gave up all
further effort to be sociable, and left the painting-room to go up
stairs and visit the ladies. Mat looked after him as he quitted the
studio, and seemed about to speak--then glancing aside at the bureau,
checked himself suddenly, and did not utter a word.

Mr. Blyth's present depression of spirits was not entirely attributable
to a certain ominous reluctance to leave home, which he had been vainly
trying to shake off since the morning. He had a secret reason for his
uneasiness which happened to be intimately connected with the model,
whose Herculean chest and arms he was now busily engaged in drawing.

The plain fact was, that Mr. Blyth's tender conscience smote him
sorely, when he remembered the trust Mrs. Thorpe placed in his promised
supervision over her son, and when he afterwards reflected that he still
knew as little of Zack's strange companion, as Zack did himself. His
visit to Kirk Street, undertaken for the express purpose of guarding the
lad's best interests by definitely ascertaining who Mr. Mathew Marksman
really was, had ended in--what he was now ashamed to dwell over, or even
to call to mind. "Dear, dear me!" thought Mr. Blyth, while he worked
away silently at the outline of his drawing, "I ought to find out
whether this very friendly, good-natured, and useful man is fit to be
trusted with Zack; and now the lad is out of the room, I might very well
do it. Might? I will!" And, acting immediately on this conscientious
resolve, simple-hearted Mr. Blyth actually set himself to ask Mat the
important question of who he really was!

Mat was candor itself in answering all inquiries that related to his
wanderings over the American Continent. He confessed with the utmost
frankness that he had been sent to sea, as a wild boy whom it was
impossible to keep steady at home; and he quite readily admitted that
he had not introduced himself to Zack under his real name. But at this
point his communicativeness stopped. He did not quibble, or prevaricate;
he just bluntly and simply declared that he would tell nothing more than
he had told already.

"I said to the young 'un," concluded Mat, "when we first come together,
'I haven't heard the sound of my own name for better than twenty year
past; and I