his visitor; and I could hear two voices,
one of which I felt sure was that of his
father.

So now I was sure that all my long
suspicion of Garnett's rivalry was but a bad
dream. A great load was off my heart; but
something of it still remained. Why had
Alice looked confused at the mention of his
name? Why was she silent when I talked
of him? Why did her face flush crimson
when I asked her to bear testimony to his
goodness? This, indeed, was no dream; and
the truth to which it pointed was scarcely
less fatal to my hope. But even this
suspicion was happily soon ended. I spoke
boldly to Alice's father, and to Alice herself;
and the last remnant of my foolish doubts,
with all of fanciful or real that had stood
between me and my happiness, vanished in a
moment.

The truth was simple. I learnt it from
something that I heard from Alice's father,
some hints accidentally let fall by his Dutch
correspondent, who was then in London, and
often dined with them; and finally I learned
the truth from Alice's own lips. It was this.
On the very afternoon of the day when I was
first startled by Alice's confusion, Garnett's
father had been with them. He was more
than usually garrulous, and seemed elated by
some success, or the hope of some success.
He talked of his son's prospects, and in his
foolish way, said he deserved to marry Alice,
and he was sure he loved her, and should
marry her one day. Few persons now
heeded what poor old Garnett said. But
Alice could not forget it. It grieved her;
and was the cause of her trouble and
confusion when I spoke of him, and when she
met him. That was all.

It was exactly one week after my visit to
my old friend that I had this last conversation
with Alice. On that very night, or
before then, Garnett had said that I should
know what was the meaning of his recent
change of manner; but my own happiness
was so great that I had no foreboding. I
hastened to his chambers soon after dusk,
the hour at which I had gone before. As I
came down the passage, I saw that the room
in which he usually sat was dark. The
whole house, indeed, seemed empty and
deserted, with nothing but blank windows
all the way up; for the merchants and
business men having chambers there lived
elsewhere, and were gone at that time. The
iron knocker fell with a dull dead sound,
which made the silence when I waited
for an answer to my summons still
more oppressive. An old woman who
was the housekeeper came at last, and
told me Garnett had gone away with his
father early that morning, and had left a
letter for me, which she gave me.

I took the letter, and bade her good night,
and she closed the door. Then I read it,
tremblingly, by the light of a street-lamp.
It told me that Garnett had fled; that his
affairs were in so great an embarrassment,
that he dared not stay; that he had taken
his father with him; that he could never
hope to see me again, or make clear to me
how he fell into this trouble. He bade me
do him, in my thoughts, what justice I
could, when all should become known;
spoke of my father's suretyship, and of his
hope, one day, if life and health should last,
to regain something of his lost name; and
ended with the simple word, Farewell.

O, what an end to all our years of friendship!
Bitter fruit of such a life of promise!
But the worst of all was still to come. His
flight was known by the morrow, and terrible
rumours were abroad. It was said that
there were not simple debts only, but
forgeries— acceptances in fictitious names,
negotiated by him; by Garnett, my old
schoolfellow and friend, whose name to me
was honour itself. A crime was charged
against him for which, in those days, men
had again and again been given to the hangman.
Even my father, whose loss by his
flight was considerable, shook his head, and
said there could be no doubt. A reward
was offered for his apprehension, and the
walls placarded with his name. Nobody
doubted of his guilt.

Save one. My friendship had been tried
before, and proved, and now could not be
shaken. Some mystery there was, beyond
my power to guess, but my faith was not the
less. I knew him best: admired him, loved
him, still. Not all the proofs that would
have taken his life could change my thoughts
of him. Show me a man, I thought, who, from
such a height of purity and worth, fell without
a warning, thus. Others, seeing his
flight, might have laid their crimes to him;
but he had no hand in them. My sorrow
for him was great; but it was sorrow only.
Many a night I thought of him in his exile;
but I did him no wrong, thank heaven! even
in a thought.

Nor did Alice. Month after month, till
several years were past, we looked for his
return as a joyful event, that must happen
one day; when all this mystery would be
cleared up; but the time was long. My
father died. Alice (now my wife) and I,
with our little children, lived in his old
house; but we often passed to and fro,
dining in the old Dutch merchant's mansion,
where her aunt, so long my father's
housekeeper, had taken Alice's place. And still
there were no tidings of my poor friend
Garnett. Attempts had been made to trace
his flight; and it was believed, from some
circumstances, that he had fled to Holland.
Had we dared to speak of him, the Vanderlinden
connections in Amsterdam might have
helped us to discover him; but, in the
world's eyes, he was still a forger. At
length, however, something like a trace of
him was revealed. The clerk of their house