“I am much interested in all of you,” said Miss Dove, “and should like to know the history of your troubles.”
“Then I will tell you frankly, Miss Dove, and will begin by saying, no matter what your religious views may be, that I believe we were wafted this way for some wise and useful object.”
“I join cordially in that sentiment, and whatever your history may be, I do believe that you have been hardly dealt with.”
“My name is Chain, and my mother and I retired to Boulogne after the death of my father, because our small fortune, saved by teaching and thrift, was only just sufficient to keep us comfortably. In an evil hour, a fine financier made our acquaintance under the pretence of paying his addresses to me. He ultimately induced us to trust him with all we possessed for re-investment in a new enterprise, as he said that it was one which would pay a much higher rate of interest.”
“Miss Chain!” exclaimed her interrogator, with no small agitation, “you are not only enlisting my sympathy for yourself and your mother, but you are, without knowing it, suggesting that my dear father may have been similarly entrapped, and by the same man, possibly; but pray go on, I may profit immensely by what you are telling me.”
“Then, in an unfortunate hour, Miss Dove, we handed over all that we had in the bank, when the villain absconded with this, together with my father’s watch and chain, which, from their peculiar construction, I feel sure I have seen him wearing at Sydenham; and the photo in your dining-room represents the same man with the identical cable-laid watch chain conspicuously portrayed.”
“What astonishing coincidences and villainy you are bringing to light, Miss Chain; but I will not stop you in case Mr Falcon should come before I can warn my father that it is too late.”
“I must further tell you that, owing to our state of poverty, we started off to London to earn our daily bread. There we made the acquaintance of Trigger, Lucy’s sweetheart, and he and your maid introduced us to the aeronaut, who most kindly engaged us to do needlework for him.”
“Yes? and where, please?” asked the squire’s daughter, with an excited look in her eyes, which quite astonished Miss Chain.
“It was at the Crystal Palace that he saved us from starvation,” replied Miss Chain; but she was sorry to see that Miss Dove was so much moved by her story that she was crying and much upset.