On the threshold of the inn he turned to the servants. “Are you sure,” he asked for the fourth time, “that that was the house at which you left her?”
“Certain sure, Sir Robert,” Thomas answered earnestly.
“And sure—but, ah!” the baronet broke off abruptly, his tone one of relief. “Here’s Mr. Cooke! Go now, but be within call. Mr. Cooke,”—he stepped, as he spoke, in front of that gentleman, who was about to enter the house—“well met!”
Cooke was hot with haste and ire, but at the unexpected sight of Sir Robert he stood still. “God bless my soul!” he cried. “You here, sir?”
“Yes. And you know Bristol well. You can help me.”
“I wish I could help myself!” Cooke cried, forgetting himself in his excitement.
“My daughter is in Bristol.”
“Indeed?” the angry merchant replied. “Then she could not be in a worse place. That is all I can say.”
“I am inclined to agree with you.”
“This is your Reform!”