"Next I am in bed, where I am awakened by a kiss on my forehead. I open two sleepy eyes, to see for a moment a tall figure in white stealing from the room with a night-light in her hand. I do not see her face, but something tells me it is one of the two ladies whom I saw in the panelled room, but not the one who ordered me to be taken away.
"Such, dear Clement, are the particulars of three scenes which live more vividly in my memory than any others of a date prior to my passing into the charge of Uncle John and Aunt Charlotte. I fail to see how they can prove of the slightest service to you in the quest you have undertaken for the sake of one who can but wish herself more worthy of so much love and devotion."
Clement Hazeldine to Hermia Rivers.
"You were altogether wrong, dearest, in assuming that the particulars which I received from you three days ago would prove of no service to me, as shall now be demonstrated to you.
"All along--that is to say, from the time I became aware that Mr. Hodgson had been practising in Stavering for considerably more than a quarter of a century--the probability has seemed to me that the person or persons who employed him as their agent in your case would be found, if found at all, no great distance away from this place. In any case, and more especially after the receipt of your letter, I determined to make Stavering the centre of a systematic process of search and inquiry, which I at once proceeded to put in execution. 'But a search for what?' I seem to hear you asking. You shall now be told.
"The first thing I did was to hire a dog-cart, and in addition secure the services of a driver who knew every road and lane for a dozen miles round Stavering. Thus equipped, I began my quest. The object I set before me first of all was to find a pair of old-fashioned lodge gates, one of the pillars of which was surmounted by a griffin rampant, or other heraldic monstrosity, supporting a broken shield, but minus one of its paws. For two days I scoured the country roads and byeways, but to no purpose. Plenty of lodge gates I saw, surmounted, some of them, by one or another design in stone or stucco, but nowhere the particular one I was in search of. This morning, however, I was more fortunate.
"My driver had taken a road which we had not explored before. We had not gone more than three miles when we came to a pair of lodge gates of wrought iron, which drew my attention by their ruinous and neglected condition. The driver stopped at my request and I alighted in order to examine them more closely. The gates themselves, which were of an intricate and finely-wrought pattern, and must at one time have been very beautiful, were now thickly rusted and filthy with the grime of years, and having fallen forward a little, hung loosely together as though they were trying to support each other in their hour of misfortune. The padlock and chain which fastened them seemed to indicate that they were rarely, if ever, opened. Close by, however, there was an arched entrance in the wall, evidently intended for pedestrians, with a rude, unpainted door which formed a fitting complement to the rusted gates. No figure of any kind crowned the square freestone pillars on which the gates were hung, yet they seemed to me to have a bare and unfinished aspect, as though they lacked some crowning adornment.
"Pushing open the rude door, which yielded to my hand, I entered the park. Inside were the remains of what had at one time been a two-storied lodge, which was now little more than the skeleton of a house, with huge gaps in its roof and a great part of its flooring gone, and scarcely a whole pane in its window-frames. Unsightly weeds and great prickly brambles grew all about, and, in short, the whole scene was one of melancholy neglect and decay. Stepping backward a pace or two, while wondering whether it would be worth my while to sketch the ruined lodge and its surroundings, I caught my foot against some hard substance in the rank grass, and with difficulty saved myself from falling. On looking down to ascertain the nature of the obstruction, my eyes caught sight of something which, as the saying goes, brought my heart into my mouth. There, half-buried among the docks and weeds, lay the identical object I had been at such pains to find--your mutilated griffin to wit, with its broken shield. How it had come there mattered nothing, but only that it was there. I drew a long breath, feeling little doubt that I had now in my hands the second link of the chain of which the first had been the tracing of Mr. Hodgson. Where shall I find the third?
"The poor griffin, or whatever it may have been intended to represent, was lying on its side and looking very forlorn and dirty indeed. The first thing I did was to raise it into an upright position, then, with my pocket-knife, I partially cleared a small space around it of weeds and grass, and then I proceeded to make a sketch of it. That sketch I now send you for the purpose of verification. It seems to me most unlikely that there should have been two mutilated griffins and two broken shields; still, that such may have been the case is by no means impossible. But be that as it may, do not fail to drop me a line by return post and let me know whether you recognize the creature as being anything like the one seen by you that day out of the carriage window while waiting for the opening of the park gates.
"As soon as I got back to the dog-cart I began to question the driver, but all I could elicit from him was that the name of the mansion inside the park, of which, however, nothing could be seen from the lodge, is Broome, and that its sole inmate, with the exception of a few domestics, is a certain Miss Pengarvon, a lady well advanced in years, whom the fellow described in terse but caustic terms, as being 'a reg'lar old varmint, and no mistake.'