And yet she had faith in me.  She had told Fanny Meyrick we were engaged. Had she not?

My work in London was more tedious and engrossing than I had expected.  Even a New York lawyer has much to learn of the law’s delay in those pompous old offices amid the fog.  Had I been working for myself, I should have thrown up the case in despair, but advices from our office said “Stick to it,” and I stayed.

Eating out my own heart with anxiety whenever I thought of my home affair, perhaps it was well for me that I had the monotonous, musty work that required little thought, but only a persistent plodding and a patient holding of my end of the clue.

In all these weeks I had nothing from Bessie save that first cruel envelope.  Letter after letter went to her, but no response came.  I wrote to Mrs. Sloman too, but no answer.  Then I bethought me of Judge Hubbard, but received in reply a note from one of his sons, stating that his father was in Florida—­that he had communicated with him, but regretted that he was unable to give me Miss Stewart’s present address.

Why did I not seek Fanny Meyrick?  She must have come to London long since, and surely the girls were in correspondence.  I was too proud.  She knew of our relations:  Bessie had told her.  I could not bring myself to reveal to her how tangled and gloomy a mystery was between us.  I could explain nothing without letting her see that she was the unconscious cause.

At last, when one wretched week after another had gone by, and we were in the new year, I could bear it no longer.  “Come what will, I must know if Bessie writes to her.”

I went to Clarges street.  My card was carried into the Meyricks’ parlor, and I followed close upon it.  Fanny was sitting alone, reading by a table.  She looked up in surprise as I stood in the doorway.  A little coldly, I thought, she came forward to meet me, but her manner changed as she took my hand.

“I was going to scold you, Charlie, for avoiding us, for staying away so long, but that is accounted for now.  Why didn’t you send us word that you were ill?  Papa is a capital nurse.”

“But I have not been ill,” I said, bewildered, “only very busy and very anxious.”

“I should think so,” still holding my hand, and looking into my face with an expression of deep concern.  “Poor fellow!  You do look worn.  Come right here to this chair by the fire, and let me take care of you.  You need rest.”

And she rang the bell.  I suffered myself to be installed in the soft crimson chair by the fire.  It was such a comfort to hear a friendly voice after all those lonely weeks!  When the servant entered with a tray, I watched her movements over the tea-cups with a delicious sense of the womanly presence and the home-feeling stealing over me.

“I can’t imagine what keeps papa,” she said, chatting away with woman’s tact:  “he always smokes after dinner, and comes up to me for his cup of tea afterward.”