How her heart beat as she began to read!
| Cr. | |
| To Thomas Molyneux Esq., (B. I. I.) official authentication of signature of Felipe Gazza | $1.25 |
| Same, authentication of signature of Jose B. Du Camara | 1.25 |
| Same, authentication of signature of Jacob H. Cole | 1.25 |
And this was all! Poor Matty copied it all, but all the time she begged Mrs. Gilbert to tell her if there was not some note-book or journal that would tell more. And kind Mrs. Gilbert looked eagerly for what she called the “Diry.” At the proper dates on the cash-book, at intervals of a week or two, Matty found similar entries—the names of the two Spaniards appearing in all these—but other names in place of Cole’s just as Tom had told her already. By the time she had copied all of these, Mrs. Gilbert had found the “Diry.” Eager, and yet heart-sick, Matty turned it over with her old friend.
This was all:—
“Mr. Molyneux here. Very private. Papers in R. G. E.” And then followed a little burst of unintelligible short-hand.
Poor Matty! She could not but feel that here would not be evidence good for anything, even in a novel. But she copied every word carefully, as a chief clerk’s daughter should do. She thanked the kind old lady, and even kissed her. She looked at her watch. Heavens! how fast time had gone! and the afternoons were so short!
“Yes, my dear Miss Molyneux; but they have turned, my dear, the day is a little longer and a little lighter.”
Did the old lady mean it for an omen, or was it only one of those chattering remarks on meteors and weather change of which old age is so fond? Matty wondered, but did not know. Fast as she could, she tripped bravely on to the avenue for her street car.
“The day is longer and lighter.”
Meanwhile Tom was following his clue in the public rooms at Willard’s, to which, as he prophesied, Mr. Greenhithe had returned after the unusual variation in his life of a morning spent in the sanctuary. Tom bought a copy of the Baltimore “The Sun,” and went into one of the larger rooms resorted to by travellers and loafers, and sat down. But Mr. Greenhithe did not appear there. Tom walked up and down through the passages a little uneasily, for he was sure the ex-clerk had come into the hotel. He went up and looked in at the ladies’ sitting-rooms, to see if perhaps some Duchess of Devonshire, of high political circles, had found it worth while to drag Mr. Greenhithe up there by a single hair. No Mr. Greenhithe! Tom was forced to go down and drink a glass of beer to see if Mr. Greenhithe was not thirsty. But at that moment, though Mr. Greenhithe was generally thirsty in the middle of the day, and although many men were thirsty at the time Tom hung over his glass of lager, Mr. Greenhithe was not thirsty there. It was only as Tom passed the billiard-room that he saw Mr. Greenhithe was playing a game of billiards, by way of celebrating the new birth of a regenerated world.