So in intense anxiety the two waited in Miss Hackett’s parlour, where the good lady left them, as she said, to attend to her accounts, but really with an inkling or more of the state of affairs between them.  Each had heard from New Zealand, and knew that Maurice Mohun was suspending his consent till he had heard farther from home, both as to Gerald’s character and prospects, and there was no such absolute refusal, even in view of his overthrow of the young man’s position, as to make it incumbent on them to break off intercourse.  Colonial habits modified opinion, and to know that the loss was neither the youth’s own fault nor that of his father, would make the acceptance a question of only prudence, provided his personal character were satisfactory.  Thus they felt free to hold themselves engaged, though Gerald had further to tell that his letters from Messina purported that an old priest had been traced out who had married the impresario, Giovanni Benista, a native of Piedmont, to Zoraya Prebel, Hungarian, in the year 1859, when ecclesiastical marriages were still valid without the civil ceremony.

“Another step in my descent,” said Gerald.  “Still, it does not prove whether this first husband was alive.  No; and Piedmont, though a small country, is a wide field in which to seek one who may have cut all connection with it.  However, these undaunted people of mine are resolved to pursue their quest, and, as perhaps you have heard, are invited to stay at Rocca Marina for the purpose.”

“I should think that was a good measure; Mr. White gets quarry-men from all the country round, and would be able to find out about the villages.”

“But how unlikely it is that one of these wanderers would have kept up intercourse with his family!  They may do their best to satisfy the general conscience, but I see no end to it.”

“And a more immediate question—-what are we to do with your sister if she escapes to-night?  Shall I take her to Mrs. Henderson?”

“She would not be safe there.  No, I must carry her straight to America, the only way to choke off pursuit.”

“You!  Your term!”

“Never mind that.  I shall write to the Warden pleading urgent private business.  I have enough in hand for our passage, and the ‘Censor’ will take my articles and give me an introduction.  I shall be able to keep myself and her.  I have a real longing to see Fiddler’s Ranch.”

“But can you rough it?” asked Dolores, anxiously looking at his delicate girlish complexion and slight figure.

“Oh yes!  I was born to it.  I know what it was when Fiddler’s Ranch was far from the civilization of Violinia, as they call it now.  I don’t mean to make a secret of it, and grieve your heart or Cherie’s.  She has had enough of that, but I must make the plunge to save my sister, and if things come round it will be all the better to have some practical knowledge of the masses and the social problems by living among them.”