She was not startled; she was not irritated; she showed no disposition to cast herself on his mercy, and to seek his advice.

She looked him steadily in the face; and all she said, when he had neatly rounded his last sentence, was--"Go on." "Go on ?" repeated the captain.

"Shocked to disappoint you, I am sure; but the fact is, I have done." "No, you have not," she rejoined; "you have left out the end of your story.

The end of it is, you came here to look for me; and you mean to earn the fifty pounds reward." Those plain words so completely staggered Captain Wragge that for the moment he stood speechless.

But he had faced awkward truths of all sorts far too often to be permanently disconcerted by them.