This pleased Mr. Lyttleton, who was intensely relieved to see that the face of his confidential clerk was beginning to lose its tense look of pain, and that, when he came to his work in the morning, he no longer appeared jaded and haggard, as if he had spent the whole night in grieving.
Thus time passed, and it was nearly the first of October when, one day, Mr. Lyttleton announced that, for the fourth time, the long-contested case had been put off until another term; and accordingly they would return to New York at the end of another week.
“Then, Richard, I am going with you,” suddenly exclaimed Lady Bromley, as she shot a wistful look at Gerald, who had grown very pale at the thought of going home, where the loss of Allison would seem like a fresh grief to him. “I will leave all business matters in the hands of Mr. Cram, the steward, and make a little visit to my native land, where I will stay until this dreadful lawsuit is called again. I am almost ready to give up the battle. I am tired out with it, and begin to think that the whole Bromley fortune is not worth the wear and tear of all this worry.”
“Nonsense, Mabel!” impatiently returned her brother, a dogged expression settling over his face; “that is just what the other side is working for—they want to tire you out, and I’m not going to give up the fight, by any means. I know that Sir Charles wanted you to be sole mistress of everything. I have often heard him say that you were to have all, in case anything happened to him; and how he ever allowed himself to be so negligent, and leave no will, I cannot understand. I sometimes think he may have made one, and it has slipped away somewhere.”
“I’m afraid not, Richard; I have hunted the house over and over, as you know, and I am sure no such document exists,” said her ladyship, with a sigh. “However, I am going to run away from the whole business, and try to forget it for a while. I’m going home with you and Gerald,” she concluded, smiling.
“Come, and welcome, dear,” said her brother cordially.
The very next morning, as Gerald was walking down the Strand, intent upon a matter of business for Mr. Lyttleton, he was suddenly confronted by a man the sight of whom caused him to grow deathly pale, and his heart to throb suffocatingly, from various emotions.
This man was none other than John Hubbard.
The expert, upon recognizing Gerald, lifted his upper lip, and showed his gleaming teeth in a vicious grin. Then he attempted to pass on without any other sign of recognition. But the young man resolutely placed himself in his path.
“Mr. Hubbard,” he remarked, with cold constraint, “you must excuse me for delaying you, but I want to ask you a few questions. I wish to inquire if any light has been thrown upon Miss Brewster’s fate during the last few weeks?”