in arms could not have protected
you so well as this one heart, clad in the triple steel of its
affections, could have shielded you from evil."

"Ay, Charles; and then I was the bane of your existence, because I
filled you with apprehension?"

"For a time, dearest; and then came the antidote; for when exhausted
alike in mind and body--when lying helpless, with chains upon my
limbs--when expecting death at every visit of those who had dragged me
from light and from liberty, and from love; it was but the thought of
thy beauty and thy affection that nerved me, and gave me a hope even
amidst the cruellest disaster."

"And then--and then, Charles?"

"You were my blessing, as you have ever been--as you are, and as you
will ever be--my own Flora, my beautiful--my true!"

We won't go so far as to say it is the fact; but, from a series of
singular sounds which reached even to the passage of the cottage, we
have our own private opinion to the effect, that Charles began kissing
Flora at the top of her forehead, and never stopped, somehow or another,
till he got down to her chin--no, not her chin--her sweet lips--he could
not get past them. Perhaps it was wrong; but we can't help it--we are
faithful chroniclers. Reader, if you be of the sterner sex, what would
you have done?--if of the gentler, what would you have permitted?

CHAPTER LXXV.

MUTUAL EXPLANATIONS, AND THE VISIT TO THE RUINS.

[Illustration]

During the next hour, Charles informed Flora of the whole particulars of
his forcible abduction; and to his surprise he heard, of course, for the
first time, of those letters, purporting to be written by him, which
endeavoured to give so bad an aspect to the fact of his sudden
disappearance from Bannerworth Hall.

Flora would insist upon the admiral, Henry, and the rest of the family,
hearing all that Charles had to relate concerning Mr. Marchdale; for
well she knew that her mother, from early associations, was so far
impressed in the favour of that hypocritical personage, that nothing but
damning facts, much to his prejudice, would suffice to convince her of
the character he really was.

But she was open to conviction, and when she really found what a villain
she had cherished and given her confidence to, she shed abundance of
tears, and blamed herself exceedingly as the cause of some of the
misfortunes which had fallen upon her children.

"Very good," said the admiral; "I ain't surprised a bit. I knew he