"Then, my lady, I very much fear that it will be difficult or impossible to recover the money. However, I will send for a detective, and we will make an effort."

"Do, sir, if you please."

The clerk retired.

In a few moments Detective Ogilvie waited on Lady Vincent, and received her statement in regard to the robbery, promised to take prompt measures for the discovery of the thief, and retired.

Then suddenly Claudia remembered her letter to her father It was now near the close of the short winter day. Her interview with the detective had occupied her so long that she had barely time to scribble and send off the few urgent lines with which the reader is already acquainted. Then she dined and resigned herself to repose for the remainder of the evening.

While she sat in her easy-chair luxuriating in indolence and solitude before the glowing fire, the thought suddenly occurred to her that she was not really so badly off as the loss of her purse had first led her to suppose. She recollected that she had several costly rings upon her fingers; diamonds, rubies, and emeralds--the least valuable of which was worth more than the purse of money which had been stolen from her; and if she should be driven to extremity she could part with one of these rings; but then, on calm consideration of the subject, she had really no fears of being driven to extremity. She was Lady Vincent, and her credit was as yet intact before the world. This was a first-class hotel, and would supply her with all that she might require for the month that must intervene before her father's arrival.

She would spend this interval in seeing Edinboro' and its environs, and when her father should come she would persuade him to take her to the Continent, and afterwards carry her back to her native country, and to her childhood's home, to pass the remainder of her life in peace and quietness.

Dreaming over this humble prospect for the future, Claudia retired to bed, and slept well.

The next morning, as soon as she had breakfasted, she ordered a carriage from the stables connected with the hotel and drove to Edinboro' Castle, where she spent two or three hours among its royal halls and bowers, dreaming over the monuments of the past.

She lingered in the little cell-like stone chamber where Queen Mary had given birth to her son, afterwards James VI. She read the pathetic prayer carved on the stone tablet above the bedstead, and said to have been composed by the unhappy queen in behalf of her newborn infant.

In the great hall of the castle she paused long before a beautiful portrait of Mary Stuart, that was brought from Paris, where it had been painted, and which represented the young queen in her earliest womanhood, when she was the Dauphiness of France. And Claudia thought that this portrait was the only one, among all that she had ever seen of Mary Stuart, which came up to her ideal of that royal beauty, who was even more a queen of hearts than of kingdoms.

At length, weary of sight-seeing, she re-entered her carriage and returned home. While she was in her bedchamber taking off her bonnet, a card was brought to her.

"This must be a mistake--this cannot be for me; I have no acquaintances in the town," she said, without taking the trouble to glance at the card.

"I beg your ladyship's pardon, but the countess inquired particularly for Lady Vincent," replied the waiter who had brought the card.

"The countess?" repeated Claudia, and she took it up and read the lightly penciled name:

"Berenice, Countess of Hurstmonceux."

"Say to Lady Hurstmonceux that I will be with her in a few minutes,"

said Claudia.

"'Berenice, Countess of Hurstmonceux,'" she repeated when the man had retired; "that is the widow of the late earl, and the forsaken wife of Herman Brudenell. What on earth brings her here? And how did she know of my presence in the city, and even in this house?

However, I shall know soon, I suppose."

And so saying, Claudia made a few changes in her toilet, and went into the parlor.

Standing, looking from the window, was a lady dressed in a black velvet bonnet and plumes, a black silk gown, and a large sable cloak and muff.

As Claudia entered, this lady turned around and lifted her veil, revealing a beautiful, pale face, with large, deep-fringed, mournful dark eyes, and soft, rippling, jet-black hair. At the first glance Claudia was touched by the pensive beauty of that lovely face.

Yes! at the age of forty-five the Countess of Hurstmonceux was still beautiful. She had passed a serene life, free alike from carking cares and fashionable excesses, and so her beauty had been well preserved. It would have taken a keen observer to have detected the few wrinkles that had gathered in the corners of her fine eyes and plump lips, or to have found out the still fewer silver threads that lay hidden here and there among her dark tresses.

Claudia advanced to greet her, holding out her hand, and saying:

"The Countess of Hurstmonceux, I presume?"

"Yes," replied the visitor, with a sweet smile.

"I am Lady Vincent; and very happy to see you. Pray be seated," said Claudia, drawing forward a chair for her visitor.

"My dear Lady Vincent, I only learned this morning of your arrival in town, and presuming upon my slight connection with the family of the present Earl of Hurstmonceux, I have ventured to call on you and claim a sort of relationship," said Berenice kindly.

"Your ladyship is very good, and I am very glad to see you," said Claudia cordially. Then suddenly recollecting her own cruel position, and feeling too proud as well as too honest to appear under false colors, she blushed, and said:

"I cannot think how your ladyship could know that I was here; but I am sure that when you did me this honor of calling, you did not know the circumstances under which I left Castle Cragg."

A tide of crimson swept over the pale face of Berenice; it arose for Claudia, not for herself, and she replied:

"My dear, wronged lady, I know it all."

"You know all--all that they allege against me, and you call me wronged?" exclaimed Claudia, in pleased surprise.

"I know all that they allege against you, and I believe you to be wronged. Therefore, my dear, I have come to-day to offer you all the service in my power," said Berenice sweetly.

Claudia suddenly caught her hand and clasped it fervently.

"And now, my dear Lady Vincent, will you permit me to explain myself and inform you how I became acquainted with the circumstances of your departure from Castle Cragg, and your arrival at this house?"

inquired Berenice.

"Oh, do! do!" replied Claudia.

"You must know, then, that a few of my old domestics, who served the late earl and myself while we lived at Castle Cragg, still remain there in the service of the present earl's family, which is always represented at the castle by Lord Vincent. Among them there are two who, it appears, became very much attached to your ladyship. I allude to the housekeeper, Jean Murdock, and the major-domo, Cuthbert Allan."

"Yes, they were very kind; but, after all, it was old Cuthbert who sent that note to Lord Vincent, which brought him from the play at midnight to burst into my room and find his wretched valet hidden there," replied Claudia gravely.

"Yes; Cuthbert saw the valet steal into your room and sent word to his master, as in duty bound. But, after witnessing the scene of his discovery, Cuthbert's mind instantly cleared your ladyship of suspicion and rushed to the conclusion that the miserable valet concealed himself in your boudoir unknown to you and for the purpose of robbery. I, for my part, believe he was placed there with the connivance of Lord Vincent, and that old Cuthbert was made to play a blind part in that conspiracy."

"I knew, of course, that it was a conspiracy, but really wondered to find the honest old man in it."

"He was a blind tool in their hands. But I was about to tell you how the facts of your departure from the castle and your arrival in this hotel came to my knowledge. In brief, I received a letter from old Cuthbert this morning, in which he related the whole history of the affair, as it was known to him. He expressed great sorrow for the part he had been obliged to bear in the business, and the most respectful sympathy for your ladyship. He said his 'heart was sair for the bonnie leddy sae far frae a' her friends and living her lane in Edinboro' toun.' And he begged me to find you out and protect you. To this letter was added a postscript by Jean Murdock. It was a warm, humble, respectful encomium upon your ladyship, in which she joined her prayers to those of Cuthbert that I would seek you out and succor you."

As Berenice spoke, blushes dyed the cheeks of Claudia, and tears dropped from her eyes. She was softened by the kindness of those two old people, and their patronage humiliated her.

Something of the nature of her emotions the countess must have divined, for she took the hand of Claudia and said:

"Believe me, dear Lady Vincent, I did not need urging to come to you. I needed only to know that you were in town and alone. As soon as I read the letters I sent for the morning paper to look for the arrivals at the various hotels, to see if I could find your name among them. I could not, and so I was about to lay aside the paper and send for the one of the day before, when my eye happened to light on a paragraph in which I found your name. It was the robbery of your purse at Holyrood Palace. There I learned your address. And I came away here immediately."

Claudia's fingers tightened on the hand of the countess which she still retained in hers.

"How much I thank you, Lady Hurstmonceux, you can never know; because you have never felt what it is to be a stranger in a foreign country, with your fame traduced and not one friend to stand by your side and sustain you," she said.

Again that crimson tide swept over the pale face of Berenice; but this time it was for herself, and she answered:

"Oh, yes, yes! I have known just that. Ten years in a foreign country, forsaken, shunned, traduced, without one friend to speak comfort to an almost breaking heart--It is past. I have overlived it. The God of my fathers has sustained me. Let us speak no more of it." And crimson as she had been for a moment she was as pale as marble now.