It was a bright autumnal day as Sir Richard and Mr. Longcluse took the rail to Southampton. Longcluse had his reasons for taking the young baronet with him.
It was near the hour, by the time they got there, when David Arden would arrive from his northern point of departure. Longcluse looked animated—smiling; but a stupendous load lay on his heart. A single clumsy phrase in the letter of that detective scoundrel might be enough to direct the formidable suspicions of that energetic old gentleman upon him. The next hour might throw him altogether upon the defensive, and paralyse his schemes.
Alice Arden, you little dream of the man and the route by which, possibly, deliverance is speeding to you.
Near the steps of the large hotel that looks seaward, Longcluse and Sir Richard lounge, expecting the arrival of David Arden almost momentarily. Up drives a fly, piled with portmanteaus, hat-case, dressing-case, and all the other travelling appurtenances of a comfortable wayfarer. Beside the driver sits a servant. The fly draws up at the door near them.
Mr. Longcluse's seasoned heart throbs once or twice oddly. Out gets Uncle David, looking brown and healthy after his northern excursion. On reaching the top of the steps, he halts, and turns round to look about him. Again Mr. Longcluse feels the same odd sensation.
Uncle David recognises Sir Richard, and smiling greets him. He runs down the steps to meet him. After they have shaken hands, and, a little more coldly, he and Mr. Longcluse, he says,—
“You are not looking yourself, Dick; you ought to have run down to the moors, and got up an appetite. How is Alice?”
“Alice? Oh! Alice is very well, thanks.”
“I should like to run up to Mortlake to see her. She has been complaining, eh?”
“No, no—better,” says Sir Richard.