She had taken up the same pen, and laid it down again fifty times, and had considered and reconsidered the first line of her letter without writing the first word, when Oliver, who had been walking in the streets, with Mr. Giles for a bodyguard, entered the room in such breathless haste and violent agitation, as seemed to betoken some new cause of alarm.

“What makes you look so flurried?” asked Rose, advancing to meet him.

“I hardly know how; I feel as if I should be choked,” replied the boy. “Oh dear! To think that I should see him at last, and you should be able to know that I have told you the truth!”

“I never thought you had told us anything but the truth,” said Rose, soothing him. “But what is this?⁠—of whom do you speak?”