"What date was it, sir?" she asked, opening a ledger that lay on a desk on the counter.
"Nearly three years ago," he replied, "as near as I can guess. A young lady took my orders; perhaps she may remember the date."
His voice trembled somewhat, but Rachel Goldsmith did not notice it. Her hands were shaking so much she could hardly turn over the leaves.
"Is she at home? Cannot you ask her?" he inquired; and his pulse seemed to stand still as he waited for her reply.
"Sir," she said, closing the ledger, "we have lost my niece."
"Lost her!" he repeated, and the blood bounded through his veins again, and the color came back to his pallid face. Sophy, then, was not here!
"Yes," she said, with quivering lips, "but not by death. I could bear that and be thankful. But when those you love disappear, oh! nobody knows what the misery is. We do not know if she is dead or alive. I loved her as if she had been my own child; but she did not feel as if she owed me the duty of a child; and, when I thwarted her, she went away, and left a letter saying she was gone to London. We have never, never heard of her since, and it is now over a year ago. She is lost in London."
Rachel Goldsmith's voice was broken with sobs. But before Sidney spoke again, for he was slow in answering, she went on, with a glimmer of a smile at herself.
"You'll excuse me, sir," she said. "I tell everybody, for when you have lost anything no one knows who may come across it, or hear of it. Not that a young gentleman like you could have any chance; and my trouble cannot interest you."
"Oh! I am more interested than you think," he answered; "I cannot say how much."