“Poor Harpe, he has a very weak brain,” said Captain Reding.
No one else made any comment.
“Reding,” said Dick Hammond, turning to the captain, “I want you to tell me how you discovered the residence of this poor girl at Cedarwood.”
“Why, you see we first saw her with him at the opera. It was quite early in the season, and they were in a private box. Harpe and I were in the orchestra seats. When the curtain fell on the first act we went around there to get a nearer view of the pretty creature, hoping also to get an introduction to her. But Lord bless you, Lyon scowled at us as if he thought we had come to pick his pockets. We wouldn’t take notice of his black looks, but by being perfectly civil and self-possessed ourselves we compelled him to treat us with something like courtesy. But it was only something-like; it wasn’t the genuine article itself; for he wouldn’t ask us to sit down, nor he wouldn’t present us to the pretty girl. And from that day I don’t think he ever brought her into the city again.”
“Then how did you discover her residence and her relations to him?”
“I am going to tell you. Some days after that we met Lyon in the reading-room of the Brown House. We chaffed him about the mysterious little beauty, you may be sure. But he stopped us by telling us that she was the daughter of a clergyman, and was only passing through the city under his escort, and that she had returned to her home in the country.”
“A mere evasion, of course.”
“Yes; but we did not question the fact at the time; although we did wonder how Alick come to be trusted with the escort of a young lady.”
“I should think so. Pray go on.”
“A little later we discovered the truth by chance. I went to spend a few days with an acquaintance I have living about a mile from Cedarwood. And while there, guided by some negroes, I went on a coon-hunt by torch-light. Did you ever see a coon-hunt by torch-light?”