“I beg your pardon, ma’am! I beg a thousand pardons, sir! I find I’ve made a great mistake! I’ve behaved shameful rude to you and the young lady; but I hope you’ll forgive me. I was only doing my dooty to my master. I’m sorrier than I can say for my mistake!” Both father and daughter were too thankful to be rid of him to withhold their free and unconditional pardon. They even went the length of regretting that he had had so much trouble and such an unpleasant adventure all to no purpose, and cordially wished him better success next time, as he withdrew, profusely apologizing.
“Papa, he must be an escaped lunatic!” cried the young lady, as the hall-door closed on Stanton.
“I dare say they took me for a maniac, and indeed no wonder!” was Stanton’s reflection, as he heard a peal of laughter through the window.
The adventure left, nevertheless, an uneasy feeling on his mind, and the next day he called on Mr. Peckitt, the dentist, and related it. Mr. Peckitt had not seen the wearer of the silver tooth since the time he had attended her before her departure for Berlin; but he had seen her uncle, and made an entire set of false teeth for him. He took the liberty on first seeing him of inquiring for the young lady; but her uncle answered curtly that she was in no need of dental services at present, and turned off the subject by some irrelevant remark. Mr. Peckitt, of course, took the hint, and never reverted to it. This was all he had to tell Stanton; but he did not confirm the valet’s certainty as to the non-identity of Miss Honey on the grounds of the absence of the silver tooth. It was, he thought, improbable that his patient should have parted with that odd appendage, and that, if so, she should have gone to a strange dentist to have it replaced by an ordinary tooth; but either of these alternatives was possible.
This was all the information that Stanton had for his master when the latter returned from his bootless search in Scotland.
On the following day Sir Simon Harness came to London and heard of the strange adventure. He was inclined to attach more importance to it than Clide apparently did.
“Suppose this so-called Eliza Jane Honey should not have been Isabel,” he said, “but some one like her—the same whom you saw at Dieppe?” Clide shook his head.
“Impossible! I could not be deceived, though Stanton might. This Miss Honey, too, was fuller in the face, and altogether a more robust person, than Isabel, as Stanton remembers her. Now, after the terrible attack that she has suffered lately, it is much more likely that she is worn and thin, poor child!”
“That is true. Still, there remains the coincidence of the splendid voice and of her being an artist. If I were you, I would not rest till I saw her myself.”
“It would only make assurance doubly sure. Stanton has startled me over and over again for nothing. Every pair of black eyes and bright complexion that he sees gives him a turn, as he says, and sets him off on the chase. No; the woman I saw at Dieppe was my wife—I am as sure of that as of my own identity. I did not get near enough to her to say, ‘Are you my wife?’ but I am as certain of it as if I had.” He promised, however, to satisfy Sir Simon, that he would go to Tottenham Court and see Miss Honey.