“You will be very glad to hear that I am engaged to Mr. Brandon, who has taken all the trouble about this affair, and I think elicited all that Mrs. Peck knows.  It is most unfortunate that she is so little to be believed, and that she wanted to get money for her information, as well as revenge on you for not answering her letter or letters.  I believe I am going to be very happy, and I only wish I could make everybody as happy as myself.  Give my love to Peggy when you see her, and say that I should have liked to have been married from her house rather than from any other, but I do not think Mr. Brandon will let me wait so long.  Jane will be writing you all the Wiriwilta news, and about Miss Phillips and Dr. Grant.  Mrs. Phillips has been very kind to me, kinder than ever she was before; and as for Mr. Phillips, you know how good he has always been to both Jane and myself.  We both like Australia, even more than we expected, and I am going to try to make a good bush wife to one who loves me very much.  He desires me to send his kindest regards to you; and believe me

“Always, your very affectionate friend,

“Elsie Melville.”

“Well,” said Francis, “here is one person who cares about my happiness.  If I cannot prove that Jane is not my cousin, I can at least give up the property, which never would have been left to me unless Henry Hogarth had believed me to be his son.  Jane must love me—­her sister must know it, or she would never have written to me thus.  I will have her after a time.  If I can combine the public duty and the career I have entered on with happiness, so much the better; if not, farewell ambition!  She cannot blame me for such a course.  Henry Hogarth wronged his nieces to enrich me, supposing me to be his son:  he must have supposed it, or he would not have forbidden our marriage on account of the cousinship.  If I can restore it to Jane by marriage, well and good; but otherwise I cannot keep it.  To-morrow for inquiries.  First a file of the times for 18-; the police reports, the coroner’s inquests, the passenger-list of the Sydney ship and of the American ship, inquiries at the lodging-house near the wharf—­then to Edinburgh to inquire at the house in New Street, and consult with MacFarlane and Sinclair.  I surely can work through it—­at least I will try.”

Chapter XII.

What Can Be Made Of It?

Early on the following morning Francis began his researches; but the times and other journals of the date Mrs. Peck mentioned, which he searched through, proved quite barren of intelligence.  The passenger-lists he could not find complete anywhere; the newspapers more especially devoted to these matters contained the passenger-list of the ‘Lysander’ bound for Sydney, for the first and second cabin, and in the latter the names of Mrs. Ormistown and Miss E. Ormistown were mentioned; but for the American ship,