"He hasn't gone back to London?"
"I don't know where he has gone. He slept in Alresford last night, but I know nothing of him since."
"He sent his bag by the boy at the inn down to the railway station when he came up here. I found his bag there, but heard nothing of him. They told me at the inn that he was to come up here, and I thought I should either find him here or meet him on the road."
"Do you want to find him especially?"
"Well, yes."
"Do you know Mr Gordon?"
"Well, yes; I do. That is to say, he dined with me last night. We were at Oxford together, and yesterday evening we got talking about our adventures since."
"He told you that he had been at the diamond-fields?"
"Oh, yes; I know all about the diamond-fields. But Mr Hall particularly wants to see him up at the Park." (Mr Hall was the squire with four daughters who lived at Little Alresford.) "Mr Hall says that he knew his father many years ago, and sent me out to look for him. I shall be wretched if he goes away without coming to Little Alresford House. He can't go back to London before four o'clock, because there is no train. You know nothing about his movements?"
"Nothing at all. For some years past Mr Gordon has been altogether a stranger to me." Mr Blake looked into her face, and was aware that there was something to distress her. He at once gathered from her countenance that Mr Whittlestaff had been like the dog that stuck to his bone, and that John Gordon was like the other dog—the disappointed one—and had been turned out from the neighbourhood of the kennel. "I should imagine that Mr Gordon has gone away, if not to London, then in some other direction." It was clear that the young lady intended him to understand that she could say nothing and knew nothing as to Mr Gordon's movements.