"Of course she will!" said Olly, archly. "It was right smart in you to get acquainted with Gabe and set him up to writing that, though it's just like him. He's that soft that anybody could get round him. But there she is now, Mr. Hamlin; that's her step on the stairs. And I don't suppose you two hez any need of me now."
And she slipped out of the room, as demurely as she had entered, at the same moment that a tall, slim, and somewhat sensational young lady in blue came flying in.
I can, in justice to Mr. Hamlin, whose secrets have been perhaps needlessly violated in the progress of this story, do no less than pass over as sacred, and perhaps wholly irrelevant to the issue, the interview that took place between himself and Miss Sophy. That he succeeded in convincing that young woman of his unaltered loyalty, that he explained his long silence as the result of a torturing doubt of the permanence of her own affection, that his presence at that moment was the successful culmination of a long-matured and desperate plan to see her once more and learn the truth from her own lips, I am sure that no member of my own disgraceful sex will question, and I trust no member of a too fond and confiding sex will doubt. That some bitterness was felt by Mr. Hamlin, who was conscious of certain irregularities during this long interval, and some tears shed by Miss Sophy, who was equally conscious of more or less aberration of her own magnetic instincts during his absence, I think will be self-evident to the largely comprehending reader. Howbeit, at the end of ten tender yet tranquillising minutes Mr. Hamlin remarked, in low thrilling tones—
"By the aid of a few confiding friends, and playin' it rather low on them, I got that note to the Conroy girl, but the game's up, and we might as well pass in our checks now, if she goes back on us, and passes out, which I reckon's her little game. If what you say is true, Sophy, and you do sometimes look back to the past, and things is generally on the square, you'll go for that Olly and fetch her, for if I go back without that child, and throw up my hand, it's just tampering with the holiest affections and playing it mighty rough on as white a man as ever you saw, Sophy, to say nothing of your reputation, and everybody ready to buck agin us who has ten cents to chip in on. You must make her go back with me and put things on a specie basis."
In spite of the mixed character of Mr. Hamlin's metaphor, his eloquence was so convincing and effective that Miss Sophy at once proceeded with considerable indignation to insist upon Olly's withdrawing her refusal.
"If this is the way you are going to act, you horrid little thing! after all that me and him's trusted you, I'd like to see the girl in school that will ever tell you anything again, that's all!" a threat so appalling that Olly, who did not stop to consider that this confidence was very recent and had been forced upon her, assented without further delay, exhibited Gabriel's letter to Madame Eclair, and having received that lady's gracious permission to visit her brother, was in half an hour in company with Mr. Hamlin on the road.
CHAPTER V.
THE THREE VOICES.
Once free from the trammelling fascinations of Sophy and the more dangerous espionage of Madame Eclair, and with the object of his mission accomplished, Mr. Hamlin recovered his natural spirits, and became so hilarious that Olly, who attributed this exaltation to his interview with Sophy, felt constrained to make some disparaging remarks about that young lady, partly by way of getting even with her for her recent interference, and partly in obedience to some well known but unexplained law of the sex. To her great surprise, however, Mr. Hamlin's spirits were in no way damped, nor did he make any attempt to defend his Lalage. Nevertheless, he listened attentively, and when she had concluded he looked suddenly down upon her chip hat and thick yellow tresses, and said—