"Privately, you know, Delves," said he, winking at the sergeant, whom he held by the shoulder. "There's no doubt, in my opinion, that the cheque was changed that same night—probably at a public-house. Go to work sub rosâ—you understand; and any information you may obtain bring quietly to me. Don't take it to Mr. Ashley."
"I understand," replied Sergeant Delves, a portly man with a padded breast and a red face, who, in his official costume, always looked as if he were choking. "I'll see to it."
And he did so; and very effectively.
CHAPTER XVII.
TAKING AN ITALIAN LESSON.
But the evening is not yet over at Pomeranian Knoll.
The dinner-table had broken up. Anthony Dare left the house soon after his father. Mrs. Dare turned to the fire for her after-dinner nap: the young ladies, Adelaide excepted, proceeded to the drawing-room. Adelaide Dare was thinner than formerly; and there was a worn, restless look upon her face, that told of care or of disappointment. She remained in her seat at the dessert-table, and, fencing herself round with a newspaper, lest Mrs. Dare's eyes should open, took a letter from her pocket and spread it on the table.
Viscount Hawkesley had never come forward to make her the Viscountess; but he had not given up his visits to Pomeranian Knoll, and Adelaide had never ceased hoping. It was one of his letters that she was poring over now. Two or three years ago she might have married well. A clergyman had desired to make her his wife. Adelaide declined. She had possibly her own private reasons for believing in the good faith of Lord Hawkesley. Adelaide Dare was not the first who has thrown away the substance to grasp the shadow.
Mademoiselle Varsini, on leaving the dinner-table, had gone up to the school-room. There she stirred the fire into a blaze, sat down in a chair, and bent her head in what seemed to be an attitude of listening.