orders to the maids?"

No one answered, but she lost no time in hurrying from the room, and as
the door closed behind her, the Captain came slowly across the room,
staring at Bridgie's white face.

"_Miss O'Shaughnessy_! She called you `_Miss O'Shaughnessy_'!"

She shrank before him, scared by his strange, excited manner.

"Yes, it is my name. I am Bridgie O'Shaughnessy. Don't you remember
me?"

"Remember you!" he repeated with an emphasis which was more eloquent
than a hundred protestations. He seized her hands in a painful
pressure. "You are not married, then? It was not true! You did not
marry him as they told me?"

"I? You thought I was married! Oh, what put such an idea into your
head?"

"I heard it eighteen months ago--shortly after your last letter arrived,
telling me about your father, and hinting at other changes which might
follow. My friend wrote that Miss O'Shaughnessy was engaged to a fellow
with a lot of money--Hilliard--that they were going to be married almost
at once. Was it all an invention? Was there no truth in it at all?"

"It was quite true--quite, but it was Esmeralda, not me! She married
him over a year ago."

"Esmeralda! your sister--but he said the eldest daughter, and you are
the eldest. I knew I was not mistaken about that, for I remember every
word you had told me."

Bridgie smiled faintly; the colour was coming back into her cheeks, and
the grey eyes met his with shy, incredulous happiness.

"But most people give her the credit for it, all the same. There's so
much more of her, you see. You never wrote to--to ask if it were true?"

"I was too proud and hurt, badly hurt, Bridgie--mortally badly! And you
never wrote to ask why I was silent. Were you proud too, or
contemptuous--which was it? Did you think I was nothing but a flirt,
and a heartless one at that?"

"I never thought unkindly of you, but I suppose I was proud, for I
couldn't write when all the money was gone, and I was so poor. I
thought you had forgotten, or met someone else! I hoped you were very
happy, only I--wasn't!" faltered Bridgie, with a little break in her
voice as she spoke that last word, which brought the tears to the
Captain's eyes. He bent his head over the clasped hands, and kissed
them a dozen times over.

"Bridgie, Bridgie!" he cried brokenly. "Is it true? Have I found you
again after all these years? Can you forgive me for this wretched
blunder which has brought such un