“Not the two together,” said Randolph, explaining how he had shown the paper to Mr. Revelstoke.

But Miss Avondale had recovered herself, and laughed.  “That that bit of paper should have been the means of getting you a situation seems to me the more wonderful occurrence.  Of course it is quite a coincidence that there should be a child’s photograph and a letter signed ‘Bobby’ in the portmanteau.  But”—­she stopped suddenly and fixed her dark eyes on his—­“you have seen Bobby.  Surely you can say if it was his likeness?”

Randolph was embarrassed.  The fact was he had always been so absorbed in her that he had hardly glanced at the child.  He ventured to say this, and added a little awkwardly, and coloring, that he had seen Bobby only twice.

“And you still have this remarkable photograph and letter?” she said, perhaps a little too carelessly.

“Yes.  Would you like to see them?”

“Very much,” she returned quickly; and then added, with a laugh, “you are making me quite curious.”

“If you would allow me to see you home,” said Randolph, “we have to pass the street where my room is, and,” he added timidly, “I could show them to you.”

“Certainly,” she replied, with sublime unconsciousness of the cause of his hesitation; “that will be very nice?”

Randolph was happy, albeit he could not help thinking that she was treating him like the absent Bobby.

“It’s only on Commercial Street, just above Montgomery,” he went on.  “We go straight up from the wharf”—­he stopped short here, for the bulk of a bystander, a roughly clad miner, was pressing him so closely that he was obliged to resist indignantly—­partly from discomfort, and partly from a sense that the man was overhearing him.  The stranger muttered a kind of apology, and moved away.

“He seems to be perpetually in your way,” said Miss Avondale, smiling.  “He was right behind you, and you nearly trod on his toes, when you bolted out of the cabin this morning.”

“Ah, then you did see me!” said Randolph, forgetting all else in his delight at the admission.

But Miss Avondale was not disconcerted.  “Thanks to your collision, I saw you both.”

It was still raining when they disembarked at the wharf, a little behind the other Passengers, who had crowded on the bow of the steamboat.  It was only a block or two beyond the place where Randolph had landed that eventful night.  He had to pass it now; but with Miss Avondale clinging to his arm, with what different feelings!  The rain still fell, the day was fading, but he walked in an enchanted dream, of which the prosaic umbrella was the mystic tent and magic pavilion.  He must needs even stop at the corner of the wharf, and show her the exact spot where his unknown benefactor appeared.

“Coming out of the shadow like that man there,” she added brightly, pointing to a figure just emerging from the obscurity of an overhanging warehouse.  “Why, it’s your friend the miner!”