"You may well say so, sir," said Sarah Kane, sadly.
"How is it you had no suspicions, Mistress Kane, and you under the same roof?"
"I only overheard a word now and again, as to a marriage; but I never suspected this horror; I supposed it meant Miss Pearl, and that they were going to bring her back, when of age."
"Nothing can be done for Babbington-Cole; he is tied for life; but how he could ever have fallen into their net, is more than I can imagine," he said, in disgusted tones.
"You know, I told you they took him by surprise, sir; and his father lay ill; and cablegrams came telling him to wed Margaret Villiers, and hasten with her to his bedside; and he was just demented-like, between it all, and brain fever coming on."
"Well, well, it is a bad, very bad business. I confess to the having been so disgusted, on Villiers making Stone guardian to Miss Pearl, until she attained her majority, that I, metaphorically speaking, washed my hands of the whole affair; especially on Miss Pearl herself telling Brookes & Davidson, her mother's lawyers, that she agreed to it; this she said, on their telling her that, as her father had had softening of the brain at the time, nothing he said was worth considering."
"Depend upon it, doctor, Mr. Stone had used coercion to induce Miss Pearl to agree," said Silas Jones.
"Yes, I see, he must have," he answered, thoughtfully.
"And you don't know anything of poor Miss Pearl's whereabouts, do you, sir?" asked Sarah Kane, anxiously.
"Yes, I can give you a clue, for I love her for her own and her mother's sake; and as time went on, and I heard or saw nothing of her, I wrote T. L. Brookes, the senior partner, for I have had nothing to do with the hypocrites at Broadlawns, since Villiers' death; and he sent me an address at New York. Here it is, 'Mrs. Kent, The Maples, Murray Hill;' but, it is only a clue, for I have written, and have not, as yet, received a reply."