"And you were n't able to trace the mother's movements before she came to Ullbrig?"
"No further than Hunmouth." His Reverence tried the edge of the Spawer's interest with a keen eye through drawn lashes, as though it were a razor he was stropping. "Following up a theory of mine, we traced her as far as Hunmouth. But for that, if we 'd taken friend Morland's advice, we should have lost her altogether. As I predicted, we found she 'd been living for some time in small lodgings there.... There was some question of music teaching, I believe."
"Music teaching?" The Spawer leaned on the interrogative with all the weight of commiserative despair.
"I rather gathered so. She gave lessons to the landlady's daughter, I fancy, in return for the use of the piano, and she had a blind boy studying with her for a while. His family thought of making him a church organist, but unfortunately for all parties concerned, the boy's father failed. Yes, failed rather suddenly, poor man, and cast quite a gloom over the musical outlook. Then Pamela seems to have acquired diphtheria from a sewer opening directly under the bedroom window, and had a narrow squeak for it; and after that her terrified mother fled the town with her, and brought her into the country. There 's no danger of sewers in the country, you see. We have n't such things; we know better."
"And that's what brought them to Ullbrig?" asked the Spawer.
"That's what brought them to Ullbrig. What brought them to Hunmouth is still a matter for conjecture. I called upon the doctor subsequently who attended Pam there, but he could give me no information about them, beyond the fact that his bill had been paid before they left."
"I should have thought, though," said the Spawer, tipping his lips with golden Benedictine, and sending the bouquet reflectively through his nostrils, "that she would have left letters—or something of the sort—behind her, which might have been followed up."
"One would have thought so, naturally. But no; not a single piece of manuscript among all her possessions."
"That," said the Spawer, "looks awfully much as though they 'd been purposely destroyed."
Father Mostyn's lips tightened significantly, and he nodded his head with sagacious indulgence for the tolerable work of a novice.