"In England—in London?" cried Clarissa, making a little movement as if she would have gone that moment to find him.
"No, not in England. Pray take things quietly, my dear Mrs. Granger. I have a good deal to tell you, if you will only listen calmly."
"Tell me first that my brother is well—and happy, and then I will listen patiently to everything."
"I think I may venture to say that he is tolerably well; but his happiness is a fact I cannot vouch for. If he does find himself in a condition so unusual to mankind, he is a very lucky fellow. I never met a man yet who owned to being happy; and my own experience of life has afforded me only some few brief hours of perfect happiness."
He looked at her with a smile that said as plainly as the plainest words,
"And those were when I was with you, Clarissa."
She noticed neither the look nor the words that went before it. She was thinking of her brother, and of him only.
"But you have seen him," she said. "If he is not in England, he must be very near—in Paris perhaps. I heard you were in Paris."
"Yes; it was in Paris that I saw him."
"So near! O, thank God, I shall see my brother again! Tell me everything about him, Mr. Fairfax—everything."
"I will. It is best you should have a plain unvarnished account. You remember the promise I made you at Hale? Well, I tried my utmost to keep that promise. I hunted up the man I spoke of—a man who had been an associate of your brother's; but unluckily, there had been no correspondence between them after Mr. Lovel went abroad; in short, he could tell me nothing—not even where your brother went. He had only a vague idea that it was somewhere in Australia. So, you see, I was quite at a standstill here. I made several attempts in other directions, but all with the same result; and at last I gave up all hope of ever being of any use to you in this business."