"Hope! oh, no, not of hope! My destiny has already been fulfilled!" she replied, with a strong bitterness of manner; "so hope has done with me."
"Pardon me; but may I ask your name—I told you mine," said I, laying my hand on hers.
She coloured deeply, almost painfully. It was but the hectic flush of a moment, and when it passed away she became pale as marble.
"Captain Norcliff, I think you said?"
"Yes; Newton Calderwood Norcliff—and yours?"
"Agnes Auriol."
"Good heavens!" I almost exclaimed, as the whole mystery of her life and manner burst with a new light upon me.
So my mysterious incognita was that poor girl of whom the mess had whispered. Berkeley's mistress—Agnes Auriol—the girl whose letter—a heart-breaking one, likely—he had dropped at Calderwood, and which he had burned so carefully when I restored it to him. So his were the initials that were on the gold locket at her neck, and his were the forage cap and cigar which had attracted my attention on first entering the cottage parlour.
It was certainly an awkward situation for me, this self-introduction and visit. If discovered there, I knew not how far it might compromise me with him, and still more with others whose opinion I valued.
And as thoughts of the Chillinghams and of the mess flashed upon me, I felt that I would gladly have changed places with Sinbad on the whale's back, or Daniel in the lion's den.