"Yes, my dear," said Mr. Tilney, now
grown grave and rational, and really moderate
in his applications to nature's kind restorer,
"yes, it was indeed. A man I had often heard
of—moving in the best—fine estate—money—
everything; but run through it all.  A common
end, indeed. But Dicky Bateman was a true
and noble fellow, and many's the time he's——
He went aside with Millwood, and was away,
I suppose, an hour, and then he came to my
room just as I was turning in. He was full of
excitement, my dear. I remember it all as if
it was only last night. 'We must be ready to
go on in the morning,' he said (we were to have
stopped a couple of days), 'and I have ordered
the chaise for six o'clock.'  'My goodness,'
said I, 'I am dead beat. I thought we were to
lie by here a little.'  'Well,' said he, ' the
fact is, I have promised to see poor Millwood
through—or Alvanly, as he calls himself here.
Fact is, he has got into a row with a young
Englishman, somehow, at the tables at Monaco,
and they have come on here to settle it. He
has been infamously treated—forced into it—
and is as low as if he was going to be hung.  I
shall see him through, Tilney.' Then he told
me a good deal about this poor Millwood, or
Alvanly, as he was called there; that he had
been treated cruelly on all sides, and that he
had not a relation in the wide world to be kind
to him or look after him; that his wife, for
whom he had a deep affection, had died two or
three years before, and with her death he had
thrown off all restraint. But he had with him a
little girl, only a couple of years old, whom he
had been obliged to leave at home with a hired
nurse, and her future was the thing pressing
upon his mind. He told Dicky Bateman that
he had just a couple of thousand left out of all
his fortune, and that he was getting through
that as speedily as he could, and so that
perhaps this interruption was the best thing that
could happen. I never saw any one so affected
as poor Dicky was with the whole business,
and he sat up half the night with his friend
arranging everything, and promised him to look
after the child, and take care of it, and he got
me to promise also to help him. You, my dear,
were that little child, at that time far away in
England."

Mrs. Tillotson listened, with the devotional
eyes bent upon the ground. Then she said,
"Dearest father, why did you not tell me all this
before?"

"Well, I must finish," said Mr. Tilney,
hastily, "for, my dear child, you may guess
what I am coming to, and, indeed, there is no
use dwelling on it, for it has been hinted to
you often before, dear. It was a very sad and
cruel business. I was up the next morning,
and we had the chaise ready, and I waited
in it on the post-road with the trunks ready
on, and the postboys in the saddle.  I remember
it was a lovely bright morning, and the
sea was as blue as a turquoise brooch, and
glistened like silver, and I was looking down at the
coast, when I saw Dicky running to the chaise
for his bare life. He got in. 'Drive on,' said
he,'for your lives. Two crowns each more.
My God,' said Dicky, throwing himself in, 'it's
all over! What a thing to have on one's soul!'
My dear," said Mr.Tilney, with unusual
gentleness and a tenderness that  had nothing to
do with sherry, "now you see why it was as well
I never went into this matter. It was no use.
Now, now. Don't—don't go on so," added he,
soothingly.  "You know yourself you were only
a child in arms at the time."

"But such a cruel, cruel end," sobbed Ada.
"O, my poor, poor father! To think of his
dying in that miserable duel."

There was a silence for a few moments. "It
spoiled our tour," continued Mr. Tilney; "begad
it did; for poor Dicky took it immensely to
heart. We posted on as hard as we could go, and
he told me the whole business as we went along.
Poor Dicky, he felt it very much; for he said
the others were savages, and were determined to
have the man's life, and tried again and again.
Then, when we got home, he made you out, my
dear, and I must say looked after you like a
father until he died, which was in a couple of
years, and then I promised poor Dick Bateman,
on his death, that I would take his place. And
so I did, my dear. And there you have the
whole story. And there, in your hands, are the
last letters he wrote. And there, my dear, is
the little picture. Now, now, don't——"

Ada was weeping convulsively. "My poor,
poor father," she said. "And this was his
wretched end, and I never to know all this time.
Never to have an opportunity of praying God to
execute justice on his murderers."

CHAPTER XXIV. A DISCOVERY.

AT home that day there was, therefore, a
deeper gloom and oppression. The wretched
meal dragged through oppressively.  Mr. Tillotson
scarcely spoke, said he was unwell, and,
when the dinner was over, went to his study.
With a growing sadness, which was tinged with
wonder and wounded pride, Mrs. Tillotson sat
up-stairs alone.

Ever since the visit of Mr.Tilney, the strange
story he had told her had been the subject of all
her reveries, and distracted her from greater
troubles. She could hardly bring herself to
think over those dismal revelations, and yet in
these solitary hours she found herself dwelling
on them with a piteous retrospect and a strange
yearning after the parent whom she had never
known or seen, but whom every hour she was
pining to have known. Often, too, she sat
with a little packet of letters before her which
Mr. Tilney had sent her, but which as yet she
could not bring herself to read. For among
them were those last letters of all written
on that fatal night, and which she now shrank
from. Often and often she had put off this
duty, knowing what pain and sorrow it would
bring her; and she every moment felt  herself
drawn nearer and nearer to it. One idea,
however, began to take firm hold of her mind, and
that was a sort of expiatory and filial pilgrimage