“Well, I rather enjoyed this island life, but she was awfully melancholy; so I hit upon a plan for getting away.  I went to the shore and collected a lot of the deals that I mentioned, and made a very decent sort of raft.  I found a pole to guide it with, cut a lot of brush for Ethel, and then we started, and floated down the river.  We didn’t have any accidents.  The only bother was that she was too confoundedly anxious about me, and wouldn’t let me work.  We went ashore every evening.  We caught fish enough to eat.  We were afloat three days, and, naturally enough, became very well acquainted.”

Hawbury stopped, and sighed.

“I tell you what it is, Dacres,” said he, “there never lived a nobler, more generous, and at the same time a braver soul than Ethel Orne.  She never said a word about gratitude and all that, but there was a certain quiet look of devotion about her that gives me a deuced queer feeling now when I think of it all.”

“And I dare say—­But no matter.”

“What?”

“Well, I was only going to remark that, under the circumstances, there might have been a good deal of quiet devotion about you.”

Hawbury made no reply, but sat silent for a time.

“Well, go on, man; don’t keep me in suspense.”

“Let me see—­where was I?  Oh! floating on the raft.  Well, we floated that way, as I said, for three days, and at the end of that time we reached a settlement.  Here we found a steamer, and went on further, and finally reached Ottawa.  Here she went to the house of a friend.  I called on her as soon as possible, and found her in fearful anxiety.  She had learned that her father had gone up with a Mr. Willoughby, and neither had been heard from.

“Startled at this intelligence, I instituted a search myself.  I could not find out any thing, but only that there was good reason to believe that both of the unhappy gentlemen had perished.  On returning to the house to call on Ethel, about a week after, I found that she had received full confirmation of this dreadful intelligence, and had gone to Montreal.  It seems that Willoughby’s wife was a relative of Ethel’s, and she had gone to stay with her.  I longed to see her, but of course I could not intrude upon her in her grief; and so I wrote to her, expressing all the condolence I could.  I told her that I was going to Europe, but would return in the following year.  I couldn’t say any more than that, you know.  It wasn’t a time for sentiment, of course.

“Well, I received a short note in reply.  She said she would look forward to seeing me again with pleasure, and all that; and that she could never forget the days we had spent together.

“So off I went, and in the following year I returned.  But on reaching Montreal, what was my disgust, on calling at Mrs. Willoughby’s, to find that she had given up her house, sold her furniture, and left the city.  No one knew any thing about her, and they said that she had only come to the city a few months before her bereavement, and after that had never made any acquaintances.  Some said she had gone to the United States; others thought she had gone to Quebec; others to England; but no one knew any thing more.”