hat no one of the
name was now resident in the city. Next day he went to Cologne, hunted
up the former tenants of the house, and found that they remembered
quite distinctly the Werner family, and the death of the father and
only breadwinner. It had left the mother and daughter quite without
resources, as Randall had known must probably have been the case. His
informants had heard that they had gone to Dusseldorf.

His search had become a fever. After waiting seven years, a delay of
ten minutes was unendurable. The trains seemed to creep. And yet, on
reaching Diisseldorf, he did not at once go about his search, but said
to himself:--

"Let me not risk the killing of my last hope till I have warmed myself
with it one more night, for to-morrow there may be no more warmth in it."

He went to a hotel, ordered a room and a bottle of wine, and sat over it
all night, indulging the belief that he would find her the next day. He
denied his imagination nothing, but conjured up before his mind's eye
the lovely vision of her fairest hour, complete even to the turn of
the neck, the ribbon in the hair, and the light in the blue eyes. So he
would turn into the street. Yes, here was the number. Then he rings the
bell. She comes to the door. She regards him a moment indifferently.
Then amazed recognition, love, happiness, transfigure her face. "Ida!"
"Karl!" and he clasps her sobbing to his bosom, from which she shall
never be sundered again.

The result of his search next day was the discovery that mother and
daughter had been at Diisseldorf until about four years previous,
where the mother had died of consumption, and the daughter had removed,
leaving no address. The lodgings occupied by them were of a wretched
character, showing that their circumstances must have been very much
reduced.

There was now no further clue to guide his search. It was destined that
the last he was to know of her should be that she was thrown on the
tender mercies of the world,--her last friend gone, her last penny
expended. She was buried out of his sight, not in the peaceful grave,
with its tender associations, but buried alive in the living world;
hopelessly hid in the huge, writhing confusion of humanity. He lingered
in the folly of despair about those sordid lodgings in Diisseldorf, as
one might circle vainly about the spot in the ocean where some pearl of
great price had fallen overboard.

After a while he roused again, and began putting advertis