Mr. de Burgh was in the north of England when he received news of the destruction of Montrevor, by means both of the public papers and a few hurried lines from his wife.

He had been contemplating at the time a speedy return; but this dreadful intelligence hastened his movements, and three days after the fire he arrived at Silverton.

Mr. de Burgh did not see Mary at first. The unrest and agitation of mind under which for some time she had been suffering, brought to a climax by the shock this last dire event had occasioned, produced its physical effect, a kind of low nervous fever, now confined her to her bed.

Her cousin Louis was surprised to hear of Mary's being at Silverton, Mrs. de Burgh having slightly mentioned the fact in her hurried letter to him; nor did she consider it at all necessary to enlighten her husband as to the cause and circumstances of her visit when on the night of his return, Mr. de Burgh commented somewhat sarcastically on the subject.

"Yes, Mary was very kind to come to me, when I told her of my accident and loneliness—indeed I do not see in the least why she should not have come," Mrs. de Burgh remarked.

"Nor I either, if she likes it," he answered drily—"at any rate this fire will bring matters to a crisis both as regards her affair with Eugene Trevor, as it will also a few others."

"Of course you will go and see after poor Eugene to-morrow, and try and persuade him to come here."

"Of course—but as to coming to stay here, I am pretty well persuaded that Eugene Trevor will have too much on his mind just now to think of visiting any where. I shall be curious to know how things will turn out."

"Oh, of course my poor uncle left Eugene all the money," Mrs. de Burgh said.

"Most probably, all his immense savings, but you know the estates are strictly entailed."

"Yes ...," was the answer, with some hesitation; "but if Eustace Trevor does not make his appearance."

"That will not alter the entail whilst he is alive, and every exertion will be made which can lead to his discovery, if his father's death does not, indeed, as there is every likelihood, make him come forward of himself."

"But if he is mad?"

"Pshaw!" was the only reply deigned by Mr. de Burgh, with the expression of indignant incredulity, which any such allusion always excited in him.

Mrs. de Burgh was silent for a few moments, but there was a very significant display of intelligence visible on her countenance.

The fact was, that she was inwardly struggling between a very womanly desire to let out the secret of which she was in possession, and the unwillingness she felt to gratify her husband by the communication of Eugene's rejection by Mary—also she felt some hesitating repugnance to relate the particulars concerning the identity of the lost Eustace Trevor with Mr. Temple, the esteemed and beloved friend of all the Seaham family. But then her silence would but for a few hours postpone the intelligence—the truth would be revealed by Mary on the first opportunity, if it transpired not through other means. So at length, after keeping it fluttering for some time on the tip of her undecided tongue, the final plunge was taken, some mysteriously oracular words were spoken, which excited Mr. de Burgh's curiosity, and led to the full and final developement of the whole story of "Mr. Temple," and every particular relating to him as received from Mary. The surprise and interest of Mr. de Burgh at this communication, was of course extreme. He was much excited, walking about the room and questioning his wife over and over again on the subject, whilst she having once broken the ice scrupled not to afford him every satisfaction in her power—nay, taxing her imagination and ingenuity to make the romantic story even more extraordinary than it really was.

The following morning Mr. de Burgh rode off immediately after breakfast for the town of ——, and on his return late that afternoon desired to see Mary, and though Mrs. de Burgh objected that she was not fit for any exciting conversation—that she was very weak and ill, so much so, that she was going to write to Arthur Seaham to come to Silverton as soon as it was possible—Mr. de Burgh persisted on its being a matter of importance, the more so when he heard, that, on that very morning Mary had received a foreign letter, which Mrs. de Burgh supposed was from her friend the clergyman, the companion of Eustace Trevor, though she had not as yet alluded to its contents, which seemed nevertheless to have considerably affected Mary.

Mr. de Burgh was, therefore, in the course of the evening, taken to Mary's room, where she was lying on the sofa ready to receive her cousin, for whose visit she had been previously prepared.

The interview lasted some time—when Mr. de Burgh left the room, he immediately sat down and wrote a note, which he dispatched without delay. It was, he afterwards told Mrs. de Burgh, when she could induce him to satisfy her curiosity, to the lawyer concerned in the management of the Trevor affairs, whom he had seen that day. He had just written to inform him where Eustace Trevor was to be found, it being proposed to send a special messenger abroad to summon him to England, in order to take possession of his inheritance.

"No will of any kind having been found in existence, Eustace Trevor comes of course into undisputed possession of the property and estates, both entailed and unentailed, that is to say," added Mr. de Burgh, with something of sarcastic triumph in his tone, "if he is found in a fit state of mind to enter upon his rights."

"And poor Eugene," demanded Mrs. de Burgh, bitterly.

"Eugene, I did not see," answered her husband; "a hurt he received the night of the fire, it seems, was inclining to inflammation, and he was ordered to keep quiet; at least, he would not see me when I called at the inn. The lawyer tells me he seems suffering much anxiety and distress of mind; no wonder, for from what I hear, it will go hard with him, if he finds not a generous and forgiving brother in Eustace Trevor; his ten thousand pounds, the portion secured by the marriage settlement to the younger children, will be but a poor set off against the immense expectations on which he had speculated so securely."

"You are very ungenerous and unkind to speak in that way of a fallen man; I hope Mary does not enter into your sentiments, I am sure I shall always stand up for Eugene."

"Oh, no doubt, through thick and thin," was the rather sneering reply, "unkind indeed, I should say, it was cruel kindness 'that the wrong from right defends;' as for Mary, I am glad to find that she has for some time not been quite the blindly obstinate and deluded person I had began regretfully to esteem her, that her infatuation has long since been giving way before the evidences of truth and reason—yes, her charity in the point in question is rather more honourable to her character than that which you profess; there being an old proverb I have somewhere read, which says: 'Charity is an angel when it rejoices in the truth; but (something with a very different name) when it embraces that, which it should only pity and weep over.'"

Tears, indeed; the tears of many mingled and conflicting feelings were trickling through the pale fingers clasped over Mary's aching eyes when left alone by her cousin. The letter that morning received from Mr. Wynne, the superscription of which had been noted down by Mr. de Burgh, held tight in her other hand; that letter, which indeed contained such fearful testimony to the truth of Jane Marryott's story, and all she had heard assigned against him, whom she had once so blindly and ignorantly worshipped. Mr. Wynne related succinctly the whole story of Eustace Trevor's wrongs, as confided by his own lips on his first arrival in Wales. This Mr. Wynne had taken on himself to do unauthorized by his friend; it was all, indeed, which Mary's letter seemed purposed to effect—her own communication of having entirely broken off her engagement with Eugene Trevor, only rendering more wholly out of the question the execution of the step she had so urged upon Eugene's brother.

For her own sake, for her preservation from a fate he so deprecated on her account—he had promised to sacrifice his own interest—to take no step likely to lead to the well-merited discomfiture and disturbance of his brother, or an exposure of the past. The point on which the agreement turned had now been established. He would not too closely inquire by what means, and in what manner; but the promise he must still consider binding on his part, a promise but too much in unison with the solemn determination of his aggrieved and wounded spirit when last he quitted his father's house, never again to seek a son or brother's place within those dishonoured walls. This had been the substance of Mr. Wynne's letter. How changed the aspect of affairs since the period when it had been penned. How mighty the hand, and by what terrible means had been effected, that which her weak influence had attempted to achieve!

It might, indeed, be called an instance in which the still small voice must fail, but the power of the all mighty one be heard in the fire.

And now, all the past—the strange position in which she stood—the circumstances in which she had become involved, passed before Mary's mind's eye as in a bewildering dream—confused and conflicting feelings she could scarcely divide from one another, troubling her enfeebled spirits; till, at length, those relieving drops had flowed, and prayers mingled with those tears to the all wise and the all merciful disposer of events, in whom she trusted.

It must not be supposed that Eustace Trevor had been unmoved by the urgent appeal conveyed in Mary's letter; that the words she had written, the argument she had used, had unimpressed him with their justice and their truth. They brought to his recollection the words of the psalm sung that afternoon in the little church of Ll—— by the simple village choir, when first the fair face of Mary Seaham had cast its softening spell upon his frowning destiny—those words which had even then struck upon his fancy as strikingly applicable to his own strange case, and which from Mary's low sweet voice had thrilled like an angel's soft rebuke upon his ear.

But erroneous as might have been the cause of action, crooked the path he had been morbidly driven to pursue; innumerable causes seemed now to oppose the conduct that angel-like minister with unworldly and too prevailing voice now urged him to pursue. No, for the present let it suffice that she was saved from a fate, which apart from all selfish feelings, he feared for her worse than death; for the rest, matters must take their natural course, work out their own intended end, swayed by the hand which ruleth the universe—much more the affairs of the sons of men; for neither to blind chance, or what men call fate, did Eustace Trevor commit his ways.