“It isn’t that we think it; at best ’tis but a doubt,” was the reply.  “One of our own ships, getting in last month from Madras, had a sailor on board who chanced to remark to me, when he was up here getting his pay, that it was not the first time he had served in our employ:  he had been in that ship that was lost, the Clipper of the Seas.  And he went on to say, in answer to a remark of mine about all the passengers having been lost, that that was not quite correct, for that one of them had certainly been saved—­a lady or a nurse, he didn’t know which, and also a little child that she was in charge of.  He was positive about it, he added, upon my expressing my doubts, for they got to shore in the same small boat that he did.”

“Is it true, think you?” gasped Mr. Hamlyn.

“Sir, we are inclined to think it is not true,” emphatically spoke the old gentleman.  “Upon inquiring about this man’s character, we found that he is given to drinking, so that what he says cannot always be relied upon.  Again, it seems next to an impossibility that if any passenger were saved we should not have heard of it.  Altogether we feel inclined to judge that the man, though evidently believing he spoke truth, was but labouring under an hallucination.”

“Can you tell me where I can find the man?” asked Mr. Hamlyn, after a pause.

“Not anywhere at present, sir.  He has sailed again.”

So that ended it for the day.  Philip Hamlyn went home and sat down to dinner with his wife, as already spoken of.  And when she told him that the mysterious lady waiting outside must be waiting for him—­probably some acquaintance of his of the years gone by—­it set his brain working and his pulses throbbing, for he suddenly connected her with what he had that day heard.  No wonder his head ached!

To-day, after seeing his wife off by train, he went to find Major Pratt.  The Major was better, and could talk, swearing a great deal over the gout, and the letter.

“It was from Caroline,” he said, alluding to his sister, Miss Pratt, who had been with him in India.  “She lives in Essex, you know, Philip.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” answered Philip Hamlyn.  “But what is it that Caroline says in her letter?”

“You shall hear,” said the Major, producing his sister’s letter and opening it.  “Listen.  Here it is.  ’The strangest thing has happened, brother!  Susan went to London yesterday to get my fronts recurled at the hairdresser’s, and she was waiting in the shop, when a lady came out of the back room, having been in there to get a little boy’s hair cut.  Susan was quite struck dumb when she saw her:  She thinks it was poor erring Dolly; never saw such a likeness before, she says; could almost swear to her by the lovely pale gold hair.  The lady pulled her veil over her face when she saw Susan staring at her, and went away with great speed.  Susan asked the hairdresser’s people if they knew the lady’s name, or who