In the hope of hearing of him, if she could not hear from him, she wrote and ordered the principal daily papers from all the great cities in the north. And huge was the bundle that Leo brought every day from the news agent in Washington.
And when she was disappointed in getting a letter, as she was always sure to be, she would, with a morbid eagerness, carefully con over the names in the list of arrivals at the various hotels in all the cities, in the faint hope of seeing his name in some one of them.
But this was worse than “hunting for a needle in a haystack,” for it was hunting for what was lost somewhere else.
Sometimes in fear and trembling she would even look over the deaths and the casualties, in the dread of seeing his name among the victims. But she never saw it anywhere. We could have told her, “Naught is never in danger.” If she did not see the name of her truant husband, she saw something else that startled her, and it was this:
Next of Kin.—If the heirs of the late Reverend Malcomb Sterling should see this advertisement they will please to communicate immediately with the undersigned, from whom they will hear something to their advantage.
Kent & Heneage,
Solicitors, 33 Bar street, Baltimore.
Drusilla stared at this notice in astonishment. And then she read it over again two or three times. She was the only living representative of the late Malcomb Sterling. Her father’s last pastoral charge had been in Baltimore. This advertisement appeared in a Baltimore paper, and the firm to be communicated with were Baltimore lawyers. Clearly the notice originated with some one who had taken pains to trace her poor father’s last abiding place, in order to advertise there for his heirs. It must, therefore, be of considerable importance.
Her first impulse was to cut out the piece and enclose it in a letter to her husband, that he might deal with it as he should deem proper. But then she instantly recollected that she was ignorant of Mr. Lyon’s address.
After a little reflection she concluded that it was her own duty to communicate with the advertising parties.