force for criminals like him. I should probably have handed the traitor
over to his fate; but, ere I had time to do so, he held out to my
cupidity a bribe so tempting that I forgot the deservings of my knavish
guest in the eagerness with which I bartered his freedom as the price of
its possession.

"He freely emptied his pockets at my bidding, and restored to me the
gold, for the loss of which I never should have repined. As the base
metal rolled at my feet, there glittered among the coins a jewel as
truly _mine_ as any of the rest, but which, as it met my sight, filled
me with greater surprise than if it had been a new-fallen star.

"It was a ring of peculiar design and workmanship, which had once been
the property of my father, and after his death had been worn by my
mother until the time of her marriage with Mr. Graham, when it was
transferred to myself. I had ever prized it as a precious heirloom, and
it was one of the few valuables which I took with me when I fled from my
step-father's house. This ring, with a watch and some other trinkets,
had been left in the possession of Lucy when I parted with her at Rio,
and the sight of it once more seemed to me like a voice from the grave.
I eagerly sought to learn from my prisoner the source whence it had been
obtained, but he maintained an obstinate silence. It was now my turn to
plead; and at length the promise of instant permission to depart,
'unwhipped by justice,' at the conclusion of his tale, wrung from him a
secret fraught to me with vital interest.

"This man was Stephen Grant, the son of my old friend Ben. He had heard
from his father's lips the story of your mother's misfortunes; and the
circumstance of a violent quarrel which arose between Ben and his vixen
wife at the young stranger's introduction to their household impressed
the tale upon his recollection. From his account it appeared that my
long-continued absence from Lucy, during the time of my illness, was
construed by her honest but distrustful counsellor and friend into cruel
desertion. The poor girl, to whom my early life was all a mystery which
she had never shared, and to whom much of my character and conduct was
inexplicable, began soon to feel convinced of the correctness of the old
sailor's suspicions and fears. She had already applied to my employer
for information concerning me; but he, who had heard of the pestilence
to which I was exposed, and fully believed me to be among the dead,
forbore