"It just beats the d—l!" said John Crawford, who must be excused for using such words in the presence of a lady,—because he was only a rough soldier. "And that is all you know, is it, sister?"
"No," answered Bell Crawford. "I know a good deal more, and it is all worse and worse. I got the chambermaid to enquire, and she found that a tall man came with a close carriage—"
"A tall man? a close carriage?" almost gasped Tom Leslie, though he only spoke to Walter Harding. "Do you hear what she says? This was a Virginian girl—he is a Virginian—his being here this morning—over the Suspension Bridge—those trunks on the rack—by George, Harding—don't you see?"
"But what could he have been to her?" asked Harding, who did not yet see it in the same clear light.
Bell Crawford had meanwhile gone on with her story.—"That the tall man went up-stairs, asking one of the waiters for number Fifteen, and that five minutes afterwards he came down with a very small lady, dressed for travelling, ordered down the baggage from that room, put her into the carriage and got in himself after throwing a dollar to the waiter who brought down the trunks; and that then the carriage drove rapidly away towards the Bridge."
"By George, I knew it!" said Tom Leslie, this time so loudly that all could hear him. All turned to him in surprise.
"What do you mean?" asked Richard Crawford.
"That I believe I know the man who has taken away this girl!" answered Tom Leslie.
"And I believe that I do, now," said Walter Harding, at last fairly convinced.
"Stop," said Bell. "There was one thing I forgot to tell you. She had evidently left in great haste, and two or three little things were left scattered around the room. Here are two of them, that I picked up and put in my pocket—one of her tiny little shoes, and this locket. The locket I have before seen in her possession. She seemed to be sorry that I had seen it, as I accidentally did, and said that it was the portrait of a dear friend of her family." She took out a little slipper, scarcely too large for an ordinary child of ten years, yet retaining the mould of the graceful atom of foot that had rested warm within it; and with it she took out the enamelled locket we have before seen, and handed it to the gentlemen. Tom Leslie grasped it with an almost frantic haste and threw it open.