"Nancy! my good, kind Nancy," cried Helen, and returned her embrace warmly.
Then followed a burst of broken explanations; and at last Helen made out that Nancy was the landlady, and had left Lambeth long ago.
"But, dear heart!" said she, "Mr. Penfolds, I'm properly jealous of you. To think of her coming here to see you, and not me!"
"But I didn't know you were here, Nancy." Then followed a stream of inquiries, and such warm-hearted sympathy with all her dangers and troubles, that Helen was led into revealing the cause of it all.
"Nancy," said she, solemnly, "the ship was willfully cast away; there was a villain on board that made holes in her on purpose, and sunk her."
Nancy lifted up her hands in astonishment. But Mr. Penfold was far more surprised and agitated.
"For Heaven's sake, don't say that!" he cried.
"Why not, sir?" said Helen; "it is the truth; and I have got the testimony of dying men to prove it."
"I am sorry for it. Pray don't let anybody know. Why, Wardlaws would lose the insurance of 160,000 pounds."
"Arthur Wardlaw knows it. My father told him."