those incorrigible madmen who risk their lives in Arctic
exploration. In case of the worst, therefore, I shall leave the
interests of my contemplated Home in your honest and capable
hands. For the present good-by, and a prosperous voyage outward
bound."



So the letter ended.

Sydney dwelt with reluctant attention on the latter half of it.
The story of the unhappy favorite of the family had its own
melancholy and sinister interest for her. She felt the foreboding
that it might, in some of its circumstances, be her story
too--without the peaceful end. Into what community of merciful
women could _she_ be received, in her sorest need? What religious
consolations would encourage her penitence? What prayers, what
hopes, would reconcile her, on her death-bed, to the common doom?

She sighed as she folded up Captain Bennydeck's letter and put it
in her bosom, to be read again. "If my lot had fallen among good
people," she thought, "perhaps I might have belonged to the
Church which took care of that poor girl."

Her mind was still pursuing its own sad course of inquiry; she
was wondering in what part of England Sandyseal might be; she was
asking herself if the Nuns at the old moated house ever opened
their doors to women, whose one claim on their common
Christianity was the claim to be pitied--when she heard Linley's
footsteps approaching the door.