Fair, pure creature! thou hast often dropped a shilling in that beggar’s hand, and pitied that poor maimed soldier; once, too, a huge gipsy woman would have had thee step aside, and hear thy fortunes.  Heaven guarded thee then, sweet Emily; for both girl and lover though thou art, thou would’st not listen to the serpent’s voice, however fair might be the promises.  And Heaven guarded thee ever, bidding some one pass along the path just as the ruffian might have gagged thy smiling mouth, and hurried thee away amongst his fellows; and more than once, especially, those school children, bursting out of Charles’s school at dusk, have unconsciously escorted thee in safety from the perils of that tiger on thy track.

CHAPTER XX.

ENLIGHTENMENT.

THE general could not now be kept in ignorance of Charles’s expedition; in fact, he had found his heart, and began resolutely to use it.  So, the very day on which he had lost Julian, he intended very eagerly to seek out Charles; for the Oxford search had failed, and no wonder.  Now, though Emily had told, as we well know, to both mother and son her secret, the father was not likely to be any the wiser; for he now never spoke to his wife, and could not well speak to his son.  However, one day, an hour after an overland letter, a very exhilarating one, dated Madras, whereof we shall hear anon, fair Emily, in the fullness of her heart, could not help saying,

“Dearest sir, you are often thinking of poor lost Charles, I know; and you are very anxious about him too, though nobody but myself, who am always with you, can perceive it:  what if you heard he was safe and well?”

“Have you heard any tidings of my poor boy, Emmy?”

She looked up archly, and said, “Why not?” her beautiful eyes adding, as plainly as eyes could speak, “I love him, and you know it; of course I have heard frequently from dear, dear Charles.”

But the guardian met her looks with a keen and chilling answer:  “Why not! why not!  Does he dare to write to you, and you to love him?  Oh, that I had told them both a year ago!  But where is he now, child?  Don’t cry, I will not speak so angrily again, my Emmy.”

“I hardly dare to tell you, dearest sir:  you have always been as a father to me, and I never knew any other; but there are things I cannot explain to myself, and I was very wretched; and so, kind guardian, Charles—­Charles was so good—­”

“What has he done?—­where has he gone?” hastily asked his father.

“Oh, don’t, don’t be angry with us; in a word, he is gone to Madras, to find out Nurse Mackie, and to tell me who I am.”

The poor old man, who had treasured up so long some mystery, probably a very diaphanous one, for Emily’s own dear sake in the world’s esteem, and from the long bad habit of reserve, fell back into his chair as if he had been shot; but he did not faint, nor gasp, nor utter a sound; he only looked at her so long and sorrowfully, that she ran to him, and covered his pale face with her own brown curls, kissing him, and wiping from his cheek her starting tears.