"I met him a short while ago, when I was in London. He came to my aunt's, Mrs. Carlyon. I took a great fancy to him."
Mr. Charles Plackett smiled. "And he took a fancy to a certain young lady--if I may say as much. He called at our office the next day, before returning to Nunham Priors. What do you think he said, Miss Winter?--that he did not so much regret the loss of Heron Dyke now, when he saw what charming hands held it."
Ella rather shrank from the compliment. "I and my interests are as nothing, Mr. Plackett, in comparison with arriving at the truth. If fraud and deception have been at work, it is to the advantage of everyone that they should be exposed and frustrated."
Mr. Plackett gazed on her glowing face admiringly. "If everyone thought and acted like you, my dear young lady," he said, "I am afraid that the occupation of us poor lawyers would soon become a thing of the past."
"That would be a catastrophe indeed," responded Ella, with a laugh.
A little more conversation ensued. One word leading to another, Ella confided to him what the servant Eliza had told her--that she had penetrated beyond the green baize doors, on one lucky occasion when they were left unguarded, and had found the Squire's rooms empty: Mr. Denison was nowhere to be seen in them. Nay, more; the rooms and the bed appeared to be unoccupied.
Mr. Plackett, though evidently much surprised, could still make nothing of it. He sat fingering his grey hair--a habit of his when in thought. Ella finished by inquiring what more she could do.
"I really fail to see at present that there is anything more you can do," he answered. "And I am quite sure that not one person in a thousand would do as much as you have already done."
"Are you sure it was my uncle you saw," she inquired, speaking on the moment's impulse, "when you were here two days after his birthday?"
Mr. Charles Plackett paused, revolving the question. "I thought I was sure," he said. "Although I had only seen Mr. Denison twice before, and that some years previously, he certainly seemed to me to be the same individual, naturally much wasted and changed by illness. One thing I perfectly remembered: the beautiful cat's-eye ring he wore. Yes, I think it could have been no other than Mr. Denison--and no other temper than his. You heard, probably, of the passion he went into?"