"I have nothing to do with it," said Mr. Scriven. "It is the law will punish him, and that soon, I hope, else there will not be a clerk in all London who will not be forging his master's name, and then pleading his youth."
"Then I trust, with all my heart, the law won't catch him," said Lady Fleetwood. "What are a thousand pounds to you, Henry? It would have been much kinder of you to have paid the money and said nothing about it."
Mr. Scriven gave her a look of unutterable scorn, and buttoning up his coat to keep out such ridiculous notions, quitted the house.
He was a good deal surprised, however, to find that even his clearer-sighted sister, Lady Monkton, in some degree shared the views of Lady Fleetwood. She expressed herself somewhat more cautiously, perhaps, but not less firmly, and gave him to understand that, judging from long observation of Henry's character, nothing would persuade her that he had been guilty of the act imputed to him.
"Then pray who was it, Lady Monkton?" asked Mr. Scriven sharply.
"That is quite another question, and one that I will not take upon me to answer," replied Isabella; "but let us drop the subject, for it is a very, very painful one. We all loved him as if he had been one of our own relations; and he could not have made himself so loved by people who saw his whole conduct, if there had been anything dishonourable or disingenuous in his nature."
"Your love blinds you," replied Mr. Scriven; and Maria Monkton, who had been drawing at the other end of the room, rose with tears in her eyes, and went out.
Those who did love the poor lad--and they were many--had soon fresh cause for grief.
Six weeks passed without anything being heard of the officer who had gone to seek for the young fugitive. Not a doubt existed in his mind that the Henry Calvert of the Dutch passport-office was identical with the Henry Hayley of Bow Street; and, having got a full account of his person and general appearance, this conviction was strengthened at Rotterdam, where he traced him to the Bath-house Inn. He thence pursued him up the Rhine to Cologne, where for two days he could discover no further track, from his assumed name having been terribly mutilated in the books.
Stage by stage he pursued him still; sometimes, indeed, almost giving up the undertaking in despair, but always, by perseverance, gaining some new clue. Thus, to Munich, Innspruck, Trieste, and Venice, he was lured on; and there for five days remained baffled, till it struck the consul that it might be as well to inquire of a celebrated vetturino at Mestre. When they went over, the man was absent with his horses, and the officer had to wait another day for his return. The subsequent morning, however, he was more fortunate.