They found the old woman in the outer room of the cottage, anxiously expecting their arrival. She received Mrs. Courland with a curtsey, saying,--
"It is well, madam; you have been prompt in attending to my request. Had you delayed your coming but a few hours, you would have been too late."
"Too late!" said Mrs. Courland; "what do you mean? Has the poor afflicted girl met with an accident, or what has happened to her?"
Instead of replying, the old woman led the way into the interior of the house and beckoned her two visitors to follow her. They passed through two or three rooms, some furnished as sitting-rooms and some as sleeping-apartments; at last they came to an empty, unfurnished room, where the old woman desired them to wait while she prepared the invalid for their reception. In a few minutes she opened the door, and asked them to walk in.
It was a comfortable and well-furnished bedroom; but instead of finding Flora there, as Mrs. Courland expected, the bed was occupied by an elderly woman, who appeared very ill, and was sitting up in the bed supported by pillows. She motioned her visitors to be seated, and then said in a feeble voice,--
"You do not recognise me, Mrs. Courland: illness makes great changes in the human frame. The name you first knew me by was Fisher; I then changed it more than once, for reasons you shall know presently."
"I remember you, now," said Mrs. Courland involuntarily, shrinking further from the bed, as if still afraid of the poor helpless creature before her.
"I am not long for this world," said the invalid; "and before I die I wish to make some amends for the misdeeds I have done during my life, and they have been many. I have requested Mr. Frederick Morley to attend with you, for a part of the revelations I am about to make concerns him also."
"Do you know anything," exclaimed Frederick, "of the wretches who----?"
"Don't interrupt me, if you can possibly help it," she said; "for I feel my strength failing me, and I don't know if I shall be spared even long enough to finish my recital. My father was not a poor fisherman, as you supposed when you and your mother came to lodge with us. He was pursuing a lawless employment,--sometimes bringing in great earnings, and sometimes nothing. He had seen better days. In his youth he was captain of a large trading vessel, and my brother and myself received a good education. My father amassed considerable property,--more than he could possibly have done by legitimate trading; and he was suspected, and watched, and found out. He had turned his vessel into a smuggler, and, under cover of fair trading, clandestinely carried on a lucrative trade in all sorts of contraband goods. He was convicted, and fined heavily, and, in fact, ruined.