The next, and that was the fourth day of our acquaintance, we met in the same spot, but early in the morning, with much familiarity and yet much timidity on either side.  While she had once more spoken about my danger—­and that, I understood, was her excuse for coming—­I, who had prepared a great deal of talk during the night, began to tell her how highly I valued her kind interest, and how no one had ever cared to hear about my life, nor had I ever cared to relate it, before yesterday.  Suddenly she interrupted me, saying with vehemence—­

“And yet, if you knew who I was, you would not so much as speak to me!”

I told her such a thought was madness, and, little as we had met, I counted her already a dear friend; but my protestations seemed only to make her more desperate.

“My father is in hiding!” she cried.

“My dear,” I said, forgetting for the first time to add “young lady,” “what do I care?  If I were in hiding twenty times over, would it make one thought of change in you?”

“Ah, but the cause!” she cried, “the cause!  It is”—­she faltered for a second—­“it is disgraceful to us!”

IV

This was my wife’s story, as I drew it from her among tears and sobs.  Her name was Clara Huddlestone:  it sounded very beautiful in my ears; but not so beautiful as that other name of Clara Cassilis, which she wore during the longer and, I thank God, the happier portion of her life.  Her father, Bernard Huddlestone, had been a private banker in a very large way of business.  Many years before, his affairs becoming disordered, he had been led to try dangerous, and at last criminal, expedients to retrieve himself from ruin.  All was in vain; he became more and more cruelly involved, and found his honor lost at the same moment with his fortune.  About this period, Northmour had been courting his daughter with great assiduity, though with small encouragement; and to him, knowing him thus disposed in his favor, Bernard Huddlestone turned for help in his extremity.  It was not merely ruin and dishonor, nor merely a legal condemnation, that the unhappy man had brought upon his head.  It seems he could have gone to prison with a light heart.  What he feared, what kept him awake at night or recalled him from slumber into frenzy, was some secret, sudden, and unlawful attempt upon his life.  Hence, he desired to bury his existence and escape to one of the islands in the South Pacific, and it was in Northmour’s yacht, the “Red Earl,” that he designed to go.  The yacht picked them up clandestinely upon the coast of Wales, and had once more deposited them at Graden, till she could be refitted and provisioned for the longer voyage.  Nor could Clara doubt that her hand had been stipulated as the price of passage.  For, although Northmour was neither unkind, nor even discourteous, he had shown himself in several instances somewhat overbold in speech and manner.