rom it. I glanced
again at the fragments of paper on Benjamin's table, with an interest in
them which I had not felt yet.

"Has anything been found at Gleninch?" I asked.

"No," said Benjamin. "I have only been trying experiments with a letter
of my own, before I wrote to Mr. Playmore."

"Oh, you have torn up the letter yourself, then?"

"Yes. And, to make it all the more difficult to put them together again,
I shook up the pieces in a basket. It's a childish thing to do, my dear,
at my age--"

He stopped, looking very much ashamed of himself.

"Well," I went on; "and have you succeeded in putting your letter
together again?"

"It's not very easy, Valeria. But I have made a beginning. It's the
same principle as the principle in the 'Puzzles' which we used to put
together when I was a boy. Only get one central bit of it right, and the
rest of the Puzzle falls into its place in a longer or a shorter time.
Please don't tell anybody, my dear. People might say I was in my dotage.
To think of that gibberish in my note-book having a meaning in it, after
all! I only got Mr. Playmore's letter this morning; and--I am really
almost ashamed to mention it--I have been trying experiments on torn
letters, off and on, ever since. You won't tell upon me, will you?"

I answered the dear old man by a hearty embrace. Now that he had lost
his steady moral balance, and had caught the infection of my enthusiasm,
I loved him better than ever.

But I was not quite happy, though I tried to appear so. Struggle against
it as I might, I felt a little mortified when I remembered that I had
resigned all further connection with the search for the letter at such
a time as this. My one comfort was to think of Eustace. My one
encouragement was to keep my mind fixed as constantly as possible on the
bright change for the better that now appeared in the domestic prospect.
Here, at least, there was no disaster to fear; here I could honestly
feel that I had triumphed. My husband had come back to me of his own
free will; he had not given way, under the hard weight of evidence--he
had yielded to the nobler influences of his gratitude and his love. And
I had taken him to my heart again--not because I had made discoveries
which left him no other alternative than to live with me, but because I
believed in the better mind that had come to him, and loved and trusted
him without reserve. Was it not worth some sacrifice to have arrived at
this result! True-