While Mark was yet looking about in quest of the entrance to the building, he saw a man approach, with whose features he was well acquainted. This was no other than Sam. Wylie, the sub-agent, the same he had treated so roughly when last they met. The fellow seemed to know that, though in certain respects the tables were now turned, yet, that with such a foe as Mark O'Donoghue, any exhibition of triumph might be an unsafe game; so he touched his hat, and was about to move past in silence, when Mark cried out—
“I want to speak with your master—can I see him?”
“Master!” said Wylie, and his sallow face grew sallower and sicklier. “If ye mean Mr. Hemsworth, sir——”
“Of course I do. If I spoke of Sir Marmaduke Travers, I should mean his master. Is he at home?”
“No, sir; he has left 'the Lodge.'”
“Left it!—since when? I saw him last night at ten o'clock.”
“He left here before eleven,” was Wylie's answer.
“When is he expected back?”
“Not for a week, at soonest, sir. It may be even longer, if, as he said, it were necessary for him to go to England.”
“To England!” exclaimed Mark, in bitter disappointment, for in the distance the hope of speedy vengeance seemed all but annihilated. “What is his address in Dublin?” said he, recovering himself.