"Yes, that was certainly so. I could hear them talking, but I could not make out a word of their conversation. Still it is evident that somebody has been trying to hear. I cannot help thinking that it was that girl, though both Johnstone and his wife spoke very highly of her. Certainly the story she told them was true to a certain extent, for when they sent the box down to Reading I sent a man down there to watch, and she called to fetch it, and my man found out that she labeled it 'Oxford,' and took it away with her on the down train. As he had no directions to follow her farther he came back. After we found the hole I sent him down again; but he never came upon her traces, though he inquired at every village near Oxford."
"She may have been put there as a spy," the other said; "but as it is evident that she couldn't hear through that hole, it is clear that she could not have done them any good. That is, I suppose, why they called her off; so the puzzle still remains how they got on my track at Tilbury. I should like to have a good look at this Covington girl. I can admire a clever wench, even when she is working against me."
"There is 'The Huguenots' at Her Majesty's to-night, the first time this season. She very often goes in Lady Moulton's box, and it is likely enough that she will go to-night. It's the third box from the stage, on the first tier; I will go down to Bond Street and see if I can get hold of a box opposite, on the second or third tier. The money will be well laid out, for I should very much like you to study her face, and I won enough at pool at the club this afternoon to pay for it."
"Very well, then I will come round to your place. I really am curious to see the girl. I only caught a passing glimpse of her in the park that day."
Simcoe was not wrong in his conjecture, for Hilda dined at Lady Moulton's, and they took their places in the latter's box just as the first bar of the overture sounded. She was in half mourning now, and in black lace, with white camellias in her hair and breast, was, as Netta had told her before starting, looking her best.
"That is the girl," Simcoe exclaimed, as she went forward to the front of the box.
"Well, there is no denying that she is good-looking," the other said, as he turned his glasses upon her; "there is not a better-looking woman in the house. Plenty of self-possession too," he added, as Hilda took her seat and at once, in apparent ignorance that any glasses were upon her, took her own lorgnettes from their case and proceeded calmly to scan the stalls and boxes, to see who among her numerous acquaintances were there. As her eyes fell upon the two men sitting nearly opposite to her, her glasses steadied, then after a minute she lowered them.
"Lady Moulton, I regard it as a providence that you brought me here this evening. Do you see those two men there in the box nearly opposite, in the second tier? Well, one of the men is Simcoe, to whom my uncle left all his property if Walter should not live to come of age, and who I am absolutely convinced carried the child away."
"I see them, my dear; they are staring at you. I suppose they are as much interested in you as you in them."
Hilda again put her glasses to her eyes.