O Heavens! what a yell of laughter, of hurrahings, of satisfaction with a denouement, rang through the house, and showed that all was well.  Burrham caught the moment, and started his band, this time successfully,—­I believe with “See the Conquering Hero.”  The doors, of course, had been open long before.  Well-disposed people saw they need stay no longer; ill-disposed people dared not stay; the blue-coated men with buttons sauntered on the stage in groups, and I suppose the worst rowdies disappeared as they saw them.  I had made my single speech, and for the moment I was a hero.

I believe the mayor would have liked to kiss me.  Burrham almost did.  They overwhelmed me with thanks and congratulations.  All these I received as well as I could,—­somehow I did not feel at all surprised,—­everything was as it should be.  I scarcely thought of leaving the stage myself, till, to my surprise, the mayor asked me to go home with him to dinner.

Then I remembered that we were not to spend the rest of our lives in Castle Garden.  I blundered out something about Miss Jones, that she had no escort except me, and pressed into her room to find her.  A group of gentlemen was around her.  Her veil was back now.  She was very pale, but very lovely.  Have I said that she was beautiful as heaven?  She was the queen of the room, modestly and pleasantly receiving their felicitations that the danger was over, and owning that she had been very much frightened.

“Until,” she said, “my friend, Mr. Carter, was fortunate enough to guess that I was here.  How he did it,” she said, turning to me, “is yet an utter mystery to me.”

She did not know till then that it was I who had shared with her the profits of the cyclopaedias.

As soon as we could excuse ourselves, I asked some one to order a carriage.  I sent to the ticket-office for my valise, and we rode to the St. Nicholas.  I fairly laughed as I gave the hackman at the hotel door what would have been my last dollar and a half only two hours before.  I entered Miss Jones’s name and my own.  The clerk looked, and said, inquiringly,—­

“Is it Miss Jones’s trunk which came this afternoon?”

I followed his finger to see the trunk on the marble floor.  Rowdy Rob had deserted it, having seen, perhaps, a detective when he reached Piermont.  The trunk had gone to Albany, had found no owner, and had returned by the day boat of that day.

Fausta went to her room, and I sent her supper after her.  One kiss and “Good night” was all that I got from her then.

“In the morning,” said she, “you shall explain.”

It was not yet seven, I went to my own room and dressed, and tendered myself at the mayor’s just before his gay party sat down to dine.  I met, for the first time in my life, men whose books I had read, and whose speeches I had by heart, and women whom I have since known to honor; and, in the midst of this brilliant group, so excited had Mr. A——­ been in telling the strange story of the day, I was, for the hour, the lion.