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306 advantage of his recovered liberty, and go back to his old love. Hilda had dwelt in her letter upon Lady Valeria's grace and distinction, her fortune, and the position to which she could raise her husband. Edward Heathcote did not give Bothwell credit for the strength of mind which could resist such temptations. A weak, yielding nature, a man open to the nearest influence. That was how he judged Bothwell Grahame.

He remembered the young man's conduct at the inquest, his resolute refusal to say what he had done with his time in Plymouth, rather than bring Lady Valeria's name before the public. That dogged loyalty had argued a guilty love; and could Heathcote doubt that when called upon to choose between the old love, and all its surrounding advantages, and the new love, with its very modest expectations, Bothwell would gladly return to his first allegiance?

Assured of this, Heathcote was content that his sister should live down her sorrow after her own fashion. Better, he thought, that she should take her own way of bearing her trouble; just as he himself had done in the days long gone, when the light of his life had been suddenly extinguished. It was not in sluggish repose that he had sought the cure for his grief, but in work, and in movement from place to place. He remembered Hilda's often-expressed desire to study at one of the great musical academies of the Continent; and he thought it very likely she had gone to Florence or Milan. He had seen Mdlle. Duprez and Hilda putting their heads together, had heard the little woman protest that such a voice as Hilda's ought to be trained under an Italian sky. He could read some such purpose as this between the lines of his sister's letter. This being so, he was content to let things take their course; more especially as his own mind was full of another subject, and his own life was devoted to another purpose than running after a fugitive sister. He wrote a reassuring letter to poor Miss Meyerstein, and he waited patiently for further tidings from Hilda.

His first business after his return to Paris was to find Eugène Tillet, the portrait-painter. He had noticed the signature of Tillet on some of the illustrations in the Petit Journal, and he inquired at the office of that paper for the artist's address, and for other information respecting him. He was told that M. Tillet lived in the Rue du Bac, with his father and mother, and that he was one of a numerous family, all artistic. His father was Eugène Tillet, who had once been a fashionable painter, but who had dropped out of the race, and was now almost entirely dependent on the industry of his sons and daughters.

This made things easy enough, it would seem: but Heathcote remembered his failure with Sigismond Trottier, and he feared that in Eugène Tillet he might perhaps encounter the same loyal regard for an unfortunate friend. Again, Tillet might have been warned by Trottier, and might be on his guard