"I know nothing about it, Bridget. I don't know why he went. His absence is causing us some inconvenience."
Bridget, who was much in her mistress's confidence, could not make this out.
"He went upon business for you, sir, did he not?"
"Not at all. Mr. Best here got a note from him on Wednesday morning, saying he had to run up to town on a little business, but should be back the following day. We have heard nothing of him since. Make my compliments to your lady, and tell her this."
Lady Cleeve became actively alarmed now. All sorts of dire forebodings filled the mother's heart. London was a place beset with dangers in many ways: she had heard, and fully believed, that hardly a day passed but somebody or other was lost in it, and that they were never heard of again.
Sending out to order a fly, she was set down at the office. Mr. Tiplady was in his private room then, and handed her to a seat.
"I would be only too glad to tell you what is detaining him, if I knew," said the little man kindly, in answer to her somewhat impassioned appeal. "We supposed he had gone up upon some matter for yourself. Lost?--lost? no, no, dear Lady Cleeve; don't imagine anything so improbable as that. Philip is quite old enough to take care of himself."
"But what can he have gone to London for? And why should he have made a mystery of it?"
"Well, to say the truth, that's what I cannot quite understand. Best said a word to me this morning--he got it from young Plympton, I fancy--that Philip had been embarking money in some speculation, and---- Do you know anything about it?"
"Nothing," said Lady Cleeve, whose face was growing more anxious with every moment.