Julian Tracy gave such a start, that he knocked off a cheffonier of rare china and glass standing at his elbow; and the smash of mandarins and porcelain gods would have been enough, at any other time, to have driven his mother crazy.

“Charles alive?” shouted he.

“Yes, Julian—­why not?  You saw him off, you know:  cannot you remember?”

Now to that guilty wretch’s mind the fearful notion instantaneously occurred, that Emily Warren was in some strange, wild way bantering him; she knew his dreadful secret—­“he had seen him off.”  He trembled like an aspen as she looked on him.

“Oh yes, he remembered, certainly; but—­but where was her letter?”

“Never mind that, Julian; you surely would not read another person’s letters, Monsieur le Chevalier Bayard?”

Emily was as gay at heart that morning as a sky-lark, and her innocent pleasantry proved her strongest shield.  Julian dared not ask to see the letter—­scarcely dared to hope she had one, and yet did not know what to think.  As to any love scene now, it was quite out of the question, notwithstanding all his mother’s hints and management; a new exciting thought entirely filled him:  was he a Cain, a fratricide, or not? was Charles alive after all?  And, for once in his life, Julian had some repentant feelings; for thrilling hope was nigh to cheer his gloom.

It really seemed as if Emily, sweet innocent, could read his inmost thoughts.  “At any rate,” observed she, playfully, “Bayard may take the postman’s privilege, and see the outside.”

With that, she produced the ship-letter that had put her in such spirits, legibly dated some twenty-two days ago.  Yes, Charles’s hand, sure enough!  Julian could swear to it among a thousand.  And he fainted dead away.

What an astonishing event! how Mrs. Tracy praised her noble-spirited boy!  How the bells rang! and hot water, and cold water, and salts, and rubbings, and eau de Cologne, and all manner of delicate attentions, long sustained, at length contributed to Julian’s restoration.  Moreover, even Emily was agreeably surprised; she had never seen him in so amiable a light before; this was all feeling, all affection for his brother—­her dear—­dear Charles.  And when Mrs. Tracy heard what Emily said of Julian’s feeling heart, she became positively triumphant; not half so much at Charles’s safety, and all that, as at Julian’s burst of feeling.  She was quite right, after all; he was worthy to be her favourite, and she felt both flattered and obliged to him for fainting dead away.  “Yes—­yes, my dear Miss Warren, depend upon it Julian has fine feelings, and a good heart.”  And Emily began to condemn both Charles and herself for lack of charity, and to think so too.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE TETE-A-TETE.