"I assure you I never saw that girl here," I replied, evasively. "What inquiries have you made after her?"
"I've inquired here, and there, and everywhere," she said. "I've done nothing else ever since I came. It is of great importance to her, as well as to me, that I should find her. It's a very anxious thing when a girl like that disappears and is never heard of again, all because she has a little difference with her friends. If you could help me to find her you would do her family a very great service."
"Why do you fix upon me?" I inquired. "Why did you not send for one of the resident doctors? I left Guernsey some time ago."
"You were here last winter," she said; "and you're a young man, and would notice her more."
"There are other young doctors in Guernsey," I remarked.
"Ah! but you've been in London," she answered, "and I know something of Dr. Senior. When you are in a strange place you catch at any chance of an acquaintance."
"Come, be candid with me," I said. "Did not Messrs. Scott and Brown send you here?"
The suddenness of my question took her off her guard and startled her. She hesitated, stammered, and finally denied it with more than natural emphasis.
"I could take my oath I don't know any such persons," she answered. "I don't know whom you mean, or what you mean. All I want is quite honest. There is a fortune waiting for that poor girl, and I want to take her back to those who love her, and are ready to forgive and forget every thing. I feel sure you know something of her. But no body except me and her other friends have any thing to do with it."
"Well," I said, rising to take my leave, "all the information I can give you is, that I never saw such a person here, either last winter or since. It is quite possible she went on to Jersey, or to Granville, when the storm was over. That she did not stay in Guernsey, I am quite sure."