"May it prove so, dear lady," said Morley; "I trust it will prove so. You have put your confidence in one, who, though, in some respects, a strange, wayward young man, will try what he can do to merit it. First let me tell you, however," he continued, seeing a slight blush come up in Helen Barham's cheek, at the thought of having put her trust in a strange, wayward young man--"let me tell you what I have done in this business since I saw you yesterday, for you have not been absent from my thoughts. In the first place, the person who brought me the ear-rings saw me again last night, and gave me an intimation that this man Neville must have some extraordinary hold upon your brother, probably by a fault or crime which he has seduced him to commit. He also explained to me partially the conduct and views of your brother towards yourself. For the purpose of aiding you as far as possible, I offered him a sum of money if he would ascertain what was the nature of this man's power over your brother, and he promised me to obtain the information quickly. Considering the matter further, however, I thought that it might be necessary to remove you at once from the influence of one who, however near akin, is most dangerous to you, and to place you under the care of some one who would protect you against Neville and your brother, and at the same time, guard you against all the evils of straitened circumstances."
Helen Barham cast down her look upon the ground, and the red blood crept up into her forehead; she then turned her eyes rapidly to the book of Prayer, and raised them to Morley's countenance with an inquiring glance. He understood it all as well as if she had spoken a volume.
"Nay, my dear Miss Barham," he said; "do not misunderstand me; though passion may often lead me to do what is wrong, I am not the cool, deliberate villain to lay out a regular scheme for the ruin of any one. Your youth, your beauty, your unfriended situation altogether," he continued, while the blush grew deeper and deeper on her cheek, "all made me think that it would be better some man of advanced years and high reputation--some man whose very character would be the noblest shield for yours, should act in this business rather than myself; and one of my visits this morning, ere I received your note, was to the Honourable Mr. Hamilton, the great banker, who was my guardian in times past, and has ever acted as a second father to me. I intended to tell him the whole case, and to beg him to do what I could not, or ought not to do--to remove you from this house altogether, and to use every nerve to deliver your brother, but to put you quite out of his power, both in respect of pecuniary affairs and moral influence. Unfortunately, I found Mr. Hamilton had been seized only last night with a dangerous disease. Mrs. Hamilton, though an excellent person, is very different in heart and mind from her husband; thus the whole scheme is deranged for the present. We must therefore do the best that we can, as no time is to be lost, however painful it may be to you to depend solely upon the assistance and efforts of a young man like myself."
"Oh, no!" she cried, interrupting him eagerly, and laying her hand upon his arm, while she looked up in his face with a bright smile of confidence, that repaid him well for all that he had said and done. "Oh, no!" she cried; "it is not painful to me. I could trust anything to you, after your conduct to-day--my life, my honour, anything! Oh, no! it is not painful to me;" and bending down her face upon her two hands, she wept for a minute, with one of those bursts of emotion in which joy and sorrow are strangely, but perhaps we may say sweetly, blended together. Morley soothed her, but she wiped away the tears in a few moments, and said--"Do not mind, it is only agitation, not grief. What were you going to say?"
"Merely this," replied Morley; "we have but one course to pursue, my dear Miss Barham, for the present. It is this--to discover, if possible, who is the person whose name your brother has thus forged. You must try to wring it from him, and, that being once obtained, I will endeavour, to the utmost of my power, and by all the means at my command, to make the person, whoever it is, abandon the thought of proceeding against him."
"But whoever it is will never consent to save a criminal by paying so large a sum," said Helen Barham.
"I will do that," replied Morley; and before he could prevent her, she caught his hand, and pressed her lips on it.
"God bless you!" she cried, "and return it to you a thousandfold, in treasures uncountable!--But, alas! I fear," she continued, after a thoughtful pause, "I shall never induce William to give me the name."
"Try, at all events," replied Morley. "I will endeavour, through the man who seems his confidant. If we fail by all other means, we must come openly to himself, show him his danger, prove to him that, as your resolution is taken, nothing can save him but confession, and offer to do everything for him if he will but be candid. But, indeed, my dear Miss Barham, before that time, you ought to be removed from him entirely, and put in safety and at ease. You say you have no friends in London; have you any in the country, with whom you could be?"
"But few," she replied, with a sigh. "Who loves to be burdened with the unfortunate? My father's parish was extensive, but poor; containing no gentry of any kind. There were several large and respectable farmers in it, and their wives were, in many cases, excellent women; some of them loved me well enough, I believe; but I could hardly ask any of them to receive me. My father, too, was retired in his habits, and made few acquaintances. There was the wife of a neighbouring clergyman, indeed, who was almost the only person near of the same station as ourselves; he is dead, but she lives in the village still, and, perhaps, might be willing to have me with her; but I could do nothing there to earn my own livelihood, and I would not be a burden to her, or to any one. Besides, I wrote to her a week or two ago, and have not heard from her since."