In two minutes Mowbray turned round to speak to his companion: he was no where to be seen. The friend with whom he had been conversing had observed nothing, and suggested that Mr. Hoffland must have gone on.
No; he had, however, gone to his room probably. And ascending the stairs, Mowbray knocked at the door. No voice replied.
"Strange boy!" he murmured; "he cannot be here, however—and yet that singular objection he seemed to have to my visiting him—singular!"
And Mowbray, finding himself no nearer a conclusion than at first, descended, and slowly passed on toward the college.
No sooner had he disappeared within its walls than a slight noise at Hoffland's window proved that he had been watching Mowbray. All then became silent. In an hour, however, the door was cautiously opened, and the boy issued forth. He carefully closed the door, re-locked it, put the key in his pocket, descended, and commenced walking rapidly toward the southern portion of the town, depositing as he went by a letter in the post.
He passed through the suburbs, continued his way over the open road leading toward Jamestown, and in half an hour arrived at a little roadside ordinary—one of those houses of private entertainment which are wholly different from the great public taverns.
Fifty paces beyond this ordinary a chariot with four horses was waiting in a glade of the forest, and on catching sight of it Hoffland hastened his steps, and almost ran.
He reached the chariot breathless from his long walk and the rapidity with which he had passed over the distance between the ordinary and the vehicle; threw open the door before the coachman knew he was near; entered, said in a low voice, "Home!" and sank back exhausted.
As though only waiting for this single word, the chariot began to move, and the horses, drawing the heavy vehicle, disappeared at a gallop.[(Back to Table of Content.)]