Drawing me to one side, she whispered, “You think this Mr. Gryce very clever, do you not?”
“Well,” I cautiously replied, “he ought to be to hold the position he does. The authorities evidently repose great confidence in him.”
Stepping from my side as suddenly as she had approached it, she crossed the room and stood before Mr. Gryce.
“Sir,” said she, gazing at him with a glance of entreaty: “I hear you have great talents; that you can ferret out the real criminal from a score of doubtful characters, and that nothing can escape the penetration of your eye. If this is so, have pity on two orphan girls, suddenly bereft of their guardian and protector, and use your acknowledged skill in finding out who has committed this crime. It would be folly in me to endeavor to hide from you that my cousin in her testimony has given cause for suspicion; but I here declare her to be as innocent of wrong as I am; and I am only endeavoring to turn the eye of justice from the guiltless to the guilty when I entreat you to look elsewhere for the culprit who committed this deed.” Pausing, she held her two hands out before him. “It must have been some common burglar or desperado; can you not bring him, then, to justice?”
Her attitude was so touching, her whole appearance so earnest and appealing, that I saw Mr. Gryce’s countenance brim with suppressed emotion, though his eye never left the coffee-urn upon which it had fixed itself at her first approach.
“You must find out—you can!” she went on. “Hannah—the girl who is gone—must know all about it. Search for her, ransack the city, do anything; my property is at your disposal. I will offer a large reward for the detection of the burglar who did this deed!”
Mr. Gryce slowly rose. “Miss Leavenworth,” he began, and stopped; the man was actually agitated. “Miss Leavenworth, I did not need your very touching appeal to incite me to my utmost duty in this case. Personal and professional pride were in themselves sufficient. But, since you have honored me with this expression of your wishes, I will not conceal from you that I shall feel a certain increased interest in the affair from this hour. What mortal man can do, I will do, and if in one month from this day I do not come to you for my reward, Ebenezer Gryce is not the man I have always taken him to be.”
“And Eleanore?”
“We will mention no names,” said he, gently waving his hand to and fro.
A few minutes later, I left the house with Miss Leavenworth, she having expressed a wish to have me accompany her to the home of her friend, Mrs. Gilbert, with whom she had decided to take refuge. As we rolled down the street in the carriage Mr. Gryce had been kind enough to provide for us, I noticed my companion cast a look of regret behind her, as if she could not help feeling some compunctions at this desertion of her cousin.