To pursue that strange hint was of course the one impulse. The bell had ceased before Frank had been able to finish dressing, but the house was so far from having wakened to full life, that remembering the lateness of the breakfast hour, he decided on hastening out to lay his anxious, throbbing feelings before his God, if only to join in the prayer that our desires may be granted as may be most expedient for us.
Nor was he without a hope that the girl whom Constance described as so devout and religious might be found there.
And she was; he knew her by sight well enough to accost her when she came out with ‘Miss Rollstone, I believe?’
She bowed, her heart thumping almost as much as the father’s, in the importance of what she had to tell, and the doubt how much she had a right to speak without betrayal.
‘I am told,’ Lord Northmoor said, with a tremble in his voice, ‘that you think you saw my poor little boy.’
‘I am almost sure I did,’ said Rose.
‘And when, may I ask?’
‘On the evening of the Wednesday in Whitsun week,’ said Rose.
‘Just when he was lost—and where?’
‘At the North Station. I had got into the train at the main station. I saw him put into the train at the North one, and taken out at Waterloo.’