“And somebody else's,” interrupted the captain with a sneer.
“Yes; for your sister Letty's, Walter; I frankly own that. Come, give us your hand, man.—Well, another time, then, when you are more like yourself.—But before I go, I want to find this man Derrick, for I have a letter for him of importance from Mistress Forest.”
“You had better ask as you go down stairs, Mr Haldane; I know nothing about him.” And with that, Captain Walter Lisgard deliberately turned his back upon his visitor, and looked gloomily out of the window; while his white hand stroked his silken moustaches as though it were a pumice-stone, and it was his intention to stroke them off.
Arthur made his inquiry of the servant who opened the hall-door to let him out.
“Mr Derrick—if that was the gentleman with the large beard—had come and gone within the last quarter of an hour, while he (Haldane) had been talking with the other gentleman up stairs. He had called for his bill, and paid it, and packed his portmanteau, and there it was in the passage at the present moment.”
“Then he must come back for that,” exclaimed Arthur eagerly.
“No. He had left directions that it was to be sent on to him in a week or so to some place in the South. He had said that he should be walking, and therefore would not be there himself for several days. He had taken a knapsack with him as for a regular tour. He was a strange gentleman altogether.”
Arthur Haldane stooped down, and read the address on the portmanteau—Mr R. Derrick, Coveton; then stepped very thoughtfully into the roaring street. “I don't know exactly why, and I certainly have no desire to know,” muttered the young barrister to himself; “but of all the bad news I have learned to-night, I fear ma mère will consider this the worst. Why the deuce should this fellow be going to Coveton, of all places least calculated to attract such a scampish vagabond? Coveton, Coveton—yes, that is the place where my Lady came ashore from the wreck of the North Star.”