“I will go into the Earl of Sunbury’s, on that side of the square,” replied Wilton, “where you see the two lights.  There is nobody in it but the old housekeeper, but she knows me and will admit me.”

“She knows me, too,” replied Green, drily; “and I will join you there in ten minutes with any intelligence I may gain.”

Green left him at once, with that peculiar sharpness and rapidity of movement which Wilton had always remarked in him from their first meeting.  The young gentleman, on his part, went over to the house of the Earl of Sunbury, and telling the old housekeeper, and the girl who opened the door to him, that a gentleman would soon be there to speak with him on business, he went up to the saloon, and as soon as he was alone, raised the light that was left with him, to gaze upon the picture which we have mentioned more than once, and to compare it by the aid of memory with the lady whom he had seen but a few days before.  The likeness was very strong, the height was the same, the features, examined strictly one by one, presented exactly the same lines.  The complexion, indeed, in the picture, was more brilliant; and it was that, perhaps, as well as a certain roundness, which marked a difference of age; but then the expression was precisely the same—­a depth, a tenderness even approaching to melancholy—­in the picture, as in her whom he had seen; and though he gazed, and wondered, and wearied imagination for probabilities, he found none, but could only end by believing that, in the facts connected with that picture, lay the mystery of his fate, and of the link between him and the Earl of Sunbury.

He was still gazing, when Green was ushered into the room, and setting down the light, Wilton turned to meet him.  There was a dark and heavy frown upon the countenance of him whom we have so often heard called the Colonel, as he entered:  an expression of bitterness mingled with sadness; but, nevertheless, he took up the light, and walking up to the picture, gazed upon it for a minute or two, as Wilton had done.

“It is wonderfully like,” he said, after pausing for a moment or two—­“how beautiful she was!  However, I have no time to think of such things now.  I have here tidings for you, Wilton.  I know not yet rightly what they are, for I caught but a glance of them; and had other things to think of bitter enough, and requiring instant attention.  Here, let us look what this epistle says.”

Setting down the lamp upon the table, he opened the letter and held it to the light, reading it attentively, while Wilton, who stood beside him did the same.  It was written in fine small hand, and in French; but the page at which Green had opened the sheet, after a few words connected with a sentence that had gone before, went on as follows:—­“I should not have sent this till we were safe across, but that circumstances have induced us to delay our departure; and you would scarcely think that it is I who have