“You never saw Britton?”
“Never.”
“Now tell me as nearly as you can the age of this young girl you call Ada?”
“She cannot now be above seventeen,” said Albert.
“Seventeen?”
The magistrate took a scrap of paper, and made some slight calculations in figures upon it—then he said,—
“During all this business, did you never hear another name mentioned as a prime mover or important personage, connected with it?”
“No,” said Albert, “those were all.”
“Well, gentlemen,” remarked Sir Frederick; “you have said enough to interest me. Pray come here again this day next week, if I should not send to you; for which purpose be so good as to leave your address. You may depend upon my utmost exertions to solve the mystery in which this affair is at present so strangely enveloped.”
Albert and his father returned their warm acknowledgments to the magistrate; and, leaving their address, they were escorted through the same door they had entered from the private room of the magistrate.