‘Here is my kindest friend,’ she said, as she conducted him to Louis, and they shook hands in the very manner she wished to see, learning mutual esteem from her tone and each other’s aspect.

‘I am sorry to have intruded,’ said Mr. Ward.  ’I came in the hope that you might find some means of making me of use to you; and, perhaps, I may yet be of some assistance to Lord Fitzjocelyn.’

He enforced the proposal with so much cordiality, and showed so plainly that it would be his chief pleasure and consolation to do anything for Miss Ponsonby, that they did not scruple to take him into their counsels; and Mary looked on with exulting wonder at the ability and readiness displayed by Louis in the discussion of business details, even with a man whose profession they were.  In remote space, almost beyond memory, save to enhance the present joy of full reliance, was the old uncomfortable sense of his leaning too much upon her.  To have him acting and thinking for her, and with one touch carrying off her whole burthen of care, was comfort and gladness beyond what she had even devised in imagination.  The only drawback, besides compassion for Mr. Ward, was the shock of hearing of the extent of the treachery of Robson, in whom her father had trusted so implicitly, and to whom he had shown so much favour.

They agreed that they would go to the Consul, and concert measures; Mary only begging that Robson might not be hardly dealt with, and they went away, leaving her to her overwhelming happiness, which began to become incredible as soon as Louis was out of sight.

By-and-by, he came back to the evening meal, when Rosita appeared, with her uncovered hair in two long, unadorned tresses, plaited, and hanging down on each shoulder, and arrayed in black robes, which, by their weight and coarseness, recalled Eastern fashions of mourning, which Spain derived from the Moors.  She attempted a little Spanish talk with El Visconde, much to his inconvenience, though he was too joyous not to be doubly good-natured, especially as he pitied her, and regarded her as a very perplexing charge newly laid on him.

He had time to tell Mary that he was to sleep at the Consul’s, whence he had sent a note and a messenger to fetch Tom Madison, since it appeared that the prosecution, the rumour of which had frightened the poor fellow away, had not been actually set on foot before he decamped; and even if it had been, there were many under worse imputations at large in the Peruvian Republic.

Fitzjocelyn had appointed that Robson should call on him early in the morning, and, if he failed to detect him, intended to confront him with Madison before the Consul, when there could be little doubt that his guilt would be brought home to him.  He found that the Consul and Mr. Ward had both conceived a bad opinion of Robson, and had wondered at the amount of confidence reposed in him; whereas Madison had been remarked as a young man of more than average intelligence