“Yes, he must have borne the brunt of what had been done in his name, I know; that would have been bad enough, but in a court of justice, his whole character would have been shown, and besides, a prosecution for forgery of his receipt would have shown what Maddox was, sufficiently to exculpate him.”

“And you say the losers by the deception would not believe in it?”

“No, they only shook their heads at our weak sisterly affection.”

“I wish I could see one of those letters.  Where is Maddox now?”

“I cannot tell.  He certainly did not go away immediately after the settlement of accounts, but it has not been possible to us to keep up a knowledge of his movements, or something might have turned up to justify Edward.  Oh, what it is to be helpless women!  You are the very first person, Colin, who has not looked at me pityingly, like a creature to be forborne with an undeniable delusion!”

“They must be very insolent people, then, to look at that brow and eyes, and think even sisterly love could blind them,” he said.  “Yes, Ermine, I was certain that unless Edward were more changed than I could believe, there must be some such explanation.  You have never seen him since?”

“No, he was too utterly broken by the loss of his wife to feel anything else.  For a long time we heard nothing, and that was the most dreadful time of all!  Then he wrote from a little German town, where he was getting his bread as a photographer’s assistant.  And since that he has cast about the world, till just now he has some rather interesting employment at the mines in the Oural Mountains, the first thing he has really seemed to like or care for.”

“The Oural Mountains! that is out of reach.  I wish I could see him.  One might find some means of clearing him.  What directed your suspicion to Maddox?”

“Chiefly that the letters professed to have been sent in a parcel to him to be posted from the office.  If it had been so, Edward and Lucy would certainly have written to us at the same time.  I could have shown, too, that Maddox had written to me the day before to ascertain where Edward was, so as to be sure of the date.  It was a little country village, and I made a blunder in copying the spelling from Lucy’s writing.  Ailie found that very blunder repeated in Dr. Long’s letter, and we showed him that Edward did not write it so.  Besides, before going abroad, Edward had lost the seal-ring with his crest, which you gave him.  You remember the Saxon’s head?”

“I remember!  You all took it much to heart that the engraver had made it a Saracen’s head, and not a long-haired Saxon.”

“Well, Edward had renewed the ring, and taken care to make it a Saxon.  Now Ailie could get no one to believe her, but she is certain that the letter was sealed with the old Saracen not the new Saxon.  But—­but—­if you had but been there—­”

“Tell me you wished for me, Ermine.”