"Nay, Miss Oakley, do not forget one thing, and that is, that neither you nor any one else have as yet identified this Mr. Thornhill as Mr. Ingestrie."
"No, not positively; but my heart tells me—"
"Ah, Miss Oakley, the heart is the slave of the feelings and of the imagination. You must not always trust to its testimony or emotions upon cold fact."
"There is yet hope, then, Johanna," said Arabella. "A bright hope for you to cling to, for, as this gentleman says, there is nothing positive to prove that Mr. Thornhill was Mark Ingestrie. I would not, were I you, abandon that hope on any account, while I lived, and could still clutch it. Would it not be a great thing, sir, if any papers or documents which this Thornhill might have had about him, could be recovered?"
"It would indeed."
Arabella at first seemed upon the point of saying something contingent upon this remark of the colonel's, or rather this acquiescence of his in her remark, but she thought better of it, and was silent, upon which Johanna spoke, saying—
"And that is really all, sir?"
"It is, Miss Oakley."
"But will nothing be done? Will no steps be taken to bring this man, Todd to justice?"
"Yes, everything will be done; and indeed, anything that can be done consistently with sound policy is actually now. Sir Richard Blunt, one of the most acute, active, and personally daring of the magistrates of London, has the affair in hand, and you may be quite assured that he will pursue it with zeal."