"It is a sad, but a wild and uncertain story," remarked Lady Cecil, "and not sufficiently plain, I think, to take you away from us all across the Atlantic."
"A far slighter clew would take me so far," replied Gerard, "as you well know. It is not for a traveller to Egypt to measure miles with such timidity. My dear Sophy, you would indeed think me mad if, after devoting my life to one pursuit, I were now to permit a voyage across the Atlantic to stand between me and the slightest chance of having my doubts cleared up. It is a voyage which thousands take every week for their interest or their pleasure. I do much, I think, in postponing my journey till this man returns to Washington. At first I had thought of taking my passage on the instant, and meeting him on his journey homeward from Mexico; but I might miss him. Yet I long to be on the spot, in America; for, if anything should happen to him; if he should die, and his secret die with him, how for ever after I should be stung by self-reproach!"
"But there seems to me so little foundation," Lady Cecil began. Neville made an impatient gesture, exclaiming, "Are you not unreasonable, Sophy? my father has made a complete convert of you."
Elizabeth interposed, and asked, "You saw this man more than once?"
"Who? Hoskins? Yes, three times, and he always told the same story. He persisted in the main points. That the scene of the carrying off of the lady was his native shore, the coast of Cumberland; that the act immediately preceded Osborne's arrival in America, twelve years ago; and that she died miserably, the victim of her wretched lover. He knew Osborne immediately on his coming to New-York, when he was still suffering from the panic of such a tragedy, dreading the arrival of every vessel from England. At that time he concealed carefully from his new friend what he afterward, in the overflow of his heart, communicated so freely; and, in after times, he reminded him how, when an emissary of the police came from London to seek after some fraudulent defaulter, he, only hearing vaguely that there was search made for a criminal, hid himself for several days. That Osborne was privy to, was participator in a frightful tragedy, which, to my eyes, bears the aspect of murder, seems certain. I do not, I cannot doubt that my mother died then and there. How? the blood curdles to ask; but I would compass the earth to learn, to vindicate her name, to avenge her death."