‘But oh, Louis,’ said she, as if it were almost a pledge of reality to recollect a vexation, ’I must tell you first, for it will grieve you, and we did not take pains enough to keep him out of temptation.  That unhappy runaway clerk—­’

‘Is safe at Callao,’ said Louis, ’and is to help me to release you from the meshes they have woven round you.  Save for the warning he sent home, I could never have shown cause for coming to you, Mary, while you would not summon me.  That was too bad, you know, since you had the consent.’

‘That was only just at last,’ faltered Mary.  ’It was so kind of him, for I had disappointed him so much!’

’What?  I know, Mary; his letters kept me in a perpetual fright for the last year; and not one did you write to poor little Clara to comfort us.’

‘It was not right in me,’ said Mary; ’but I thought it might be so much better for you if you were never put in mind of me.  I beg your pardon, Louis.’

’We should have trusted each other better, if people would have let us alone,’ said Louis.  ’In fact, it was trust after all.  It always came back again, if it were scared away for a moment.’

‘Till I began to doubt if I were doing what was kind by you,’ said Mary.  ’Oh, that was the most distressing time of all; I thought if I were out of the way, you might begin to be happy, and I tried to leave off thinking about you.’

‘Am I to thank you?’

‘I could not,—­that is the truth of it,’ said Mary.  ’I was able to keep you out of my mind enough, I hope, for it not to be wrong; but as to putting any one else there—­I was forced at last to tell poor papa so, when he wanted to send for Mr. Ward; and then—­he said that if you had been as constant, he supposed it must be, and he hoped we should be happy; and he said you had been a pet of my mother, and that Lord Ormersfield had been a real friend to her.  It was so kind of him, for I know it would have been the greatest relief to his mind to leave things in Mr. Ward’s charge.’

Mary had been so much obliged to be continually mentioning her father, that, though the loss was still very recent, she was habituated to speak of him with firmness; and it was an extreme satisfaction to tell all her sorrows, and all the little softening incidents, to Louis.  Mr. Ponsonby had shown much affection and gratitude to her during the few closing days of his illness, and had manifested some tokens of repentance for his past life; but there had been so much pain and torpor, that there had been little space for reflection, and the long previous decline had not been accepted as a warning.  Perhaps the intensity of Mary’s prayers had been returned into her bosom, in the strong blindness of filial love; for as she dwelt fondly on the few signs of better things, the narration fell mournfully on Louis’s ears, as that of an unhopeful deathbed.