She lost the key from her watch-chain,
one night, and I found it. The book is probably destroyed now, but if it
existed, I should need no other proof of what I know to be true!"

"Indeed," said the General, prolonging the word, thoughtfully, "Indeed!"

"Are you going?" exclaimed the woman, as he arose from the divan.

"Yes, Zillah, I have left some important papers in my library that may
be disturbed. In a few days I will see you again."

Zillah smiled a soft, exulting smile, but she did not allow it to
brighten her whole face till General Harrington had left the room.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE BOAT-HOUSE.

Down upon the shore, so built as to form a picturesque feature in the
landscape, stood an old boat-house, in which Ben Benson made his home
when out of active service at the Mansion. Here the stout old seaman
kept his fishing-tackle, his rifle, and a thousand miscellaneous things
that appertained to his various avocations, for Ben was not only a
naturalist and philosopher at large, but a mechanic of no ordinary
skill. He not only devised his own fishing-flies, wove his own
shad-nets, and game-baskets, but performed the duties of a
ship-carpenter whenever his boats got out of order, or a new one was
wanted for the river.

On the day of Lina's great sorrow, Ben was standing in front of the
boat-house, superintending a kettle of pitch that was boiling over a
fire of dried logs and bark. The boat which had been almost torn to
pieces on the night when Mabel Harrington so narrowly escaped a terrible
death, was now turned upside down, and Ben was preparing to calk the
bottom and repair the injuries it had received.

Lina saw him as she came down the avenue, and her pace quickened. The
thin shawl she had flung about her was fluttering in the wind, but there
was a fever in heart and brain, which rendered her insensible to the
blast which swept the curls back from her burning forehead, and rustled
through her light garments. The little Italian grey-hound, which had
been for months her special pet, had followed her, unperceived, striving
in vain to win some sign of attention from the distracted girl.

Lina flew down the bank, and Ben looked up as the sound of her footsteps
warned him who it was that approached.

"I knowed that it was you, Miss Lina," he said, while every feature in
his rough face softened, as he looked toward her. "Sakes alive! what
brought ye out here such a day as this--this wind is enough to s