on indignation to your
aid, Miss Bannerworth."

"Charles--Charles--Charles!" she again exclaimed, as she wrung her hands
despairingly.

"Flora, if anything could add a sting to my already irritated feelings,"
said Henry, "this conduct of yours would."

"Henry--brother, what mean you? Are you mad?"

"Are you, Flora?"

"God, I wish now that I was."

"You have read those letters, and yet you call upon the name of him who
wrote them with frantic tenderness."

"Yes, yes," she cried; "frantic tenderness is the word. It is with
frantic tenderness I call upon his name, and ever will.--Charles!
Charles!--dear Charles!"

"This surpasses all belief," said Marchdale.

"It is the frenzy of grief," added George; "but I did not expect it of
her. Flora--Flora, think again."

"Think--think--the rush of thought distracts. Whence came these
letters?--where did you find these most disgraceful forgeries?"

"Forgeries!" exclaimed Henry; and he staggered back, as if some one bad
struck him a blow.

"Yes, forgeries!" screamed Flora. "What has become of Charles Holland?
Has he been murdered by some secret enemy, and then these most vile
fabrications made up in his name? Oh, Charles, Charles, are you lost to
me for ever?"

"Good God!" said Henry; "I did not think of that"

"Madness!--madness!" cried Marchdale.

"Hold!" shouted the admiral. "Let me speak to her."

He pushed every one aside, and advanced to Flora. He seized both her
hands in his own, and in a tone of voice that was struggling with
feeling, he cried,--

"Look at me, my dear; I'm an old man old enough to be your grandfather,
so you needn't mind looking me steadily in the face. Look at me, I want
to ask you a question."

Flora raised her beautiful eyes, and looked the old weather-beaten
admiral full in the face.

Oh! what a striking contrast did those two persons present to each
other. That young and beautiful girl, with her small, delicate,
childlike hands clasped, and completely hidden in the huge ones of the
old sailor, the white, smooth skin contrasting wonderfully with his
wrinkled, hardened features.

"My dear," he cried, "you have read those--those d----d letters, my
dear?"

"I have, sir."

"And what do you think of them?"

"They were not written by Charles Holland, your nephew."

A choking sensation seemed to come over the old man, and he tried to
speak, but in vain. He shook the hands of the young girl violently,
until he saw that he was hu