“What do you mean?” cried Albert.
“Why, she’s gone, to be sure. They didn’t know I was listening on the stairs. Ho! Ho! Ho!—They’re off, and the furniture’s all mine. Take another bottle.”
“From the ravings of this drunkard,” said Mr. Seyton, “we may gather what has happened, Albert. Jacob Gray, on some pretence, having his suspicions awakened, has induced Ada to leave this place with him.”
“I fear it is so, father,” said Albert; “but here I vow to Heaven that I will not know more rest than is needful to my health and strength till I have found where this bad man has hidden the fairest, best—”
“Control your feelings, Albert,” said his father. “God knows how willingly I would have taken this persecuted young girl to my home, and done a parent’s duty by her; but Heaven has decreed it otherwise.”
With a saddened and dejected air Albert again searched the house. He found no vestige of Ada, save her male attire and the dead dog. An open book was upon the table of her room. That he placed next his heart, with the fond thought that she might have owned and prized it.
“Let us leave this place,” said his father, “and the more quickly the better, I will employ someone to watch the house for some days in case Gray should return, and in the meantime, we will ourselves make every inquiry, and use our utmost endeavours to discover his retreat.”
With a heavy heart Albert left the house; he lingered long at the door and in the street, and it was only his father’s arguments that induced him at length to quit the spot.
“Father,” said Albert, “I will make an application to Sir Francis Hartleton!”
“You forget,” replied Mr. Seyton, “that Sir Francis Hartleton is a magistrate and has a public duty to perform, from which he is not the man to flinch. We wish to temporise with this man Gray, and not drive him to extremities. The more heartily Sir Francis might enter into this business, the more misery we might be laying up for the persecuted girl it is our wish to rescue. Recollect, Albert, there still lives the awful doubt that Jacob Gray may still be the father of Ada.”