“Well?”
“Well?” repeated the artful “Jim.”
“Did you find her?” was the question that now broke from all lips, in a gamut of increasing impatience.
“I told you a story, as we agreed,” [pg 457] he answered; “but, if I tell you the dénoûment, we shall fall into what we wish to avoid—the commonplace.”
“Never mind, go on,” was shouted on all sides. Miss Houghton was silent, but she seemed to hang on his words. He had calculated on this emotion, the wretch, and was making the most of his points!
At last he resumed in a slow, absent way:
“Yes, I accepted the search; I made it; I did all I could think of—but I failed.”
The bomb had burst, but we all felt disappointed. This was not commonplace, not even enough to our minds. “He had cheated us,” we cried.
“I can only tell you the truth; remember this was all real, no got-up Christmas tale, to end in a wedding, bell-ringing, and carol-singing. Hark! do you hear the carollers outside?”
No one spoke, and he went on, still meditatively: “I do not mean to give it up, though.”