“And you forget to tell your uncle what you told me,” interposes Mr. Longcluse, “that Miss Arden left Mortlake for Yorkshire yesterday.”
“Oh!” said Uncle David, turning to Richard again.
“And the servants went before—two or three days ago,” said Sir Richard, looking down for a moment, and hastening, under that clear eye, to speak a little truth.
“Well, I wish she had come with us,” said David Arden; “but as she could not be persuaded, I'm glad she is making a little change of air and scene, in any direction. By-the-bye, Mr. Longcluse, you had a letter, had not you, from our friend, Paul Davies?”
“Yes; he seemed to think he had found a clue—from Paris it was—and I wrote to tell him to spare no expense in pushing his inquiries and to draw upon me.”
“Well, I have some news to tell you. His exploring voyage will come to nothing; you did not hear?”
“No.”
“Why, the poor fellow's dead. I got a letter—it reached me, forwarded from my house in town, yesterday, from the person who hires the lodgings—to say he had died of scarlatina very suddenly, and sending an inventory of the things he left. It is a pity, for he seemed a smart fellow, and sanguine about getting to the bottom of it.”
“An awful pity!” exclaimed Longcluse, who felt as if a mountain were lifted from his heart, and the entire firmament had lighted up; “an awful pity! Are you quite sure?”
“There can't be a doubt, I'm sorry to say. Then, as Alice has taken wing, I'll pursue my first plan, and cross by the next mail.”