“And then we should lose him.”

“That is exactly what I wish to avoid.  I want to bring up my forces at once, and have him laid hold of at once for the forgery of those letters of Edward’s.  How long would it take to hear from Ekaterinburg?  I suppose Edward could travel as fast as a letter.”

Alison fairly sprang to her feet.

“O, Colin, Colin! you do not think that Edward would be here by the next sessions.”

“He ought,” said Colin.  “I hope to induce Dr. Long and Harry to write him such letters as to bring him home at once.”

Self-restrained Alison was fairly overcome.  She stretched out both hands, pressed Colin’s convulsively, then turned away her face, and, bursting into tears, ran out of the room.

“Poor dear Ailie,” said Ermine; “she has suffered terribly.  Her heart is full of Edward.  Oh, I hope he will come.”

“He must.  He cannot be so senseless as to stay away.”

“There is that unfortunate promise to his wife; and I fear that he is become so much estranged from English ways that he will hardly care to set himself straight here, after the pain that the universal suspicion gave him.”

“He cannot but care.  For the sake of all he must care,” vehemently repeated Colin, with the punctilious honour of the nobly-born soldier.  “For his child’s sake, this would be enough to bring him from his grave.  If he refused to return to the investigation, it would be almost enough to make me doubt him.”

“I am glad you said almost,” said Ermine, trying to smile; but he had absolutely brought tears into her eyes.

“Dear Ermine,” he said, gently, “you need not fear my not trusting him to the utmost.  I know that he has been too much crushed to revive easily, and that it may not be easy to make him appreciate our hopes from such a distance; but I think such a summons as this must bring him.”

“I hope it will,” said Ermine.  “Otherwise we should not deserve that you should have any more to do with us.”

“Ermine, Ermine, do you not know that nothing can make any difference between us?”

Ermine had collected herself while he spoke.

“I know,” she said, “that all you are doing makes me thank and bless you—­oh! more than I can speak.”

He looked wistfully at her, but, tearful as were her eyes, there was a resolution, about her face that impressed upon him that she trusted to his promise of recurring no more within the year to the subject so near his heart; and he could say no more than, “You forgive me, Ermine, you know I trust him as you do.”

“I look to your setting him above being only trusted,” said Ermine, trying to smile.  “Oh! if you knew what this ray of hope is in the dreary darkness that has lasted so long!”