talking in a very unguarded manner; and desired Zack, as bluntly as
usual, to repeat to him all that he had let out while the liquor was in
his head. After this request had been complied with, he volunteered no
additional confidences. He simply said that what had slipped from his
tongue was no more than the truth; but that he could add nothing to
it, and explain nothing about it, until he had first discovered whether
"Arthur Carr" were alive or dead. On being asked how, and when, he
intended to discover this, he answered that he was going into the
country to make the attempt that very morning; and that, if he
succeeded, he would, on his return, tell his fellow-lodger unreservedly
all that the latter might wish to know. Favored with this additional
promise, Zack was left alone in Kirk Street, to quiet his curiosity as
well as he could, with the reflection that he might hear something
more about his friend's secrets, when Mat returned from his trip to the
country.

In order to collect a little more information on the subject of these
secrets than was at present possessed by Zack, it will be necessary to
return for a moment to the lodgings in Kirk Street, at that particular
period of the night when Mr. Marksman was sitting alone in the front
room, and was holding the Hair Bracelet crumpled up tight in one of his
hands.

His first glance at the letters engraved on the clasp not only showed
him to whom the Bracelet had once belonged, but set at rest in his mind
all further doubt as to the identity of the young woman, whose face
had so startled and impressed him in Mr. Blyth's studio. He was neither
logical enough nor legal enough in his mode of reasoning, to see, that,
although he had found his sister's bracelet in Valentine's bureau,
it did not actually follow as a matter of proof--though it might as
a matter of suspicion--that he had also found his sister's child in
Valentine's house. No such objection as this occurred to him. He was
now perfectly satisfied that Madonna was what he had suspected her to be
from the first--Mary's child.

But to the next questions that he asked himself, concerning the girl's
unknown father, the answers were not so easy to be found:--Who was
Arthur Carr? Where was he? Was he still alive?

His first hasty suspicion that Valentine might have assumed the name
of Arthur Carr, and might therefore be the man himself, was set at rest
immediately by another look at the Bracelet. He knew that the l