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 depend wholly upon myself, and expect no kind of aid, nor even any intelligence again, perhaps for a considerable time!"

"Is that possible?" cried he, "Does no one follow—or is no one to meet you?—Is there no one whose duty it is to guard and protect you? to draw you from a situation thus precarious, thus unfitting, and to which I am convinced you are wholly unaccustomed?"

"It is fatally true, at this moment," answered Ellis, with a sigh, "that no one can follow or support me; yet I am not deserted—I am simply unfortunate. Neither can any one here meet me: the few to whom I have any right to apply,—know not of my arrival—and must not know it!—How I am to exist till I dare make some claim, I cannot yet devise: but, indeed, had it not been under this kind, protecting roof, that I have received such a letter—I think I must have sunk from my own dismay:—but Lady Aurora—" Her voice failed, and she stopt.