She had hardly glanced at the first words before a cry of alarm escaped her.

"Dreadful news for Miss Westerfield!" she exclaimed.

"Read it, Randal." He read these words: "The week's list of insolvent traders includes an Englishman named James Bellbridge, formerly connected with a disreputable saloon in this city.
Bellbridge is under suspicion of having caused the death of his wife in a fit of delirium tremens.

The unfortunate woman had been married, for the first time, to one of the English aristocracy--the Honorable Roderick Westerfield--whose trial for casting away a ship under his command excited considerable interest in London some years since.
The melancholy circumstances of the case are complicated by the disappearance, on the day of the murder, of the woman's young son by her first husband.

The poor boy is supposed to have run away in terror from his miserable home, and the police are endeavoring to discover some trace of him.