“Hopeless,” said Crossley. “Sheer madness,” added Stride. Mrs Leather shook her head and wept gently. Mrs Brooke sighed and cast down her eyes. Miss Molloy—who was of the council, being by that time cognisant of all the family secrets—clasped her hands and looked miserable. Of all that conclave the only one who did not throw cold water on our hero was pretty little brown-eyed May. She cast on him a look of trusting gratitude which blew a long smouldering spark into such a flame that the waters of Niagara in winter would have failed to quench it.
“I can’t tell you yet, friends, what I intend to do,” said Charlie. “All I can say is that I’m off to London. I shall probably be away some time, but will write to mother occasionally. So good-bye.”
He said a good deal more, of course, but that was the gist of it.
May accompanied him to the door.
“Oh! thank you—thank you!” she said, with trembling lip and tearful eyes as she held out her hand, “I feel sure that you will find father.”
“I think I shall, May. Indeed I also feel sure that I shall—God helping me.”
At the ticket office he found that the clerk remembered very little. He knew the old gentleman well by sight, indeed, but was in the habit of selling tickets to so many people that it was impossible for him to remember where they booked to. In fact the only thing that had fixed Mr Leather at all in his memory was the fact that the old man had dropped his ticket, had no money to take another, and had pleaded earnestly to let him have one on trust, a request with which he dared not comply—but fortunately, a porter found and restored the ticket.
“Is the porter you refer to still here?” asked Charlie.
Yes, he was there; and Charlie soon found him. The porter recollected the incident perfectly, for the old gentleman, he said, had made a considerable fuss about the lost ticket.
“And you can’t remember the station he went to?”