"Do you think it has not been left with Mrs. George G.o.dolphin?"

"I'll ask her," replied Isaac, getting off his stool. "I don't think it has: or she would have given it to me when she informed me of Mr. George G.o.dolphin's absence."

He went into the dining-room: that pleasant room, which it was almost a shame to designate by the name. Maria was listlessly standing against the window-frame, plucking mechanically the fading blossoms of a geranium. She turned her head at the opening of the door, and saw her brother.

"Isaac, what time does the first train come in?"

"From what place?" inquired Isaac.

"Oh--from the Portsmouth direction. It was Portsmouth that Captain St.

Aubyn was to embark from, was it not?"

"I don't know anything about it," replied Isaac. "Neither can I tell at what hours trains arrive from that direction. Maria, has Mr. George G.o.dolphin left the key of the book-safe with you?"

"No," was Maria's answer. "I suppose he must have forgotten to do so. He has left it with me when he has gone away unexpectedly before, after banking-hours."

Isaac returned to the rest of the clerks. The key was wanted badly, and it was decided that he should go up to Ashlydyat for Mr. G.o.dolphin's.

He took the nearest road to it. Down Crosse Street, and through the Ash-tree Walk. It was a place, as you have heard, especially shunned at night: it was not much frequented by day. Therefore, it was no surprise to Isaac Hastings that he did not, all through it, meet a single thing, either man or ghost. At the very end, however, on that same broken bench where Thomas G.o.dolphin and his bodily agony had come to an anchor the previous night, sat Charlotte Pain.

She was in deep thought: deep perplexity; there was no mistaking that her countenance betrayed both: some might have fancied in deep pain, either bodily or mental. Pale she was not. Charlotte's complexion was made up too fashionably for either red or white, born of emotion, to affect it, unless it might be emotion of a most extraordinary nature.

Hands clenched, brow knit, lips drawn from her teeth, eyes staring on vacancy--Isaac Hastings could not avoid reading the signs, and he read them with surprise.

"Good morning, Mrs. Pain!"

Charlotte started from the seat with a half scream. "What's the use of startling one like that!" she fiercely exclaimed.

"I did not startle you intentionally," replied Isaac. "You might have heard my footsteps had you not been so preoccupied. Did you think it was the ghost arriving?" he added, jestingly.

"Of course I did," returned Charlotte, laughing, as she made an effort, and a successful one, to recover herself. "What do you do here this morning? Did you come to look after the ghost, or after me?"

"After neither," replied Isaac, with more truth than gallantry. "Mr.

George G.o.dolphin has sent me up here."

Now, in saying this, what Isaac meant to express was nothing more than that his coming up was _caused_ by George G.o.dolphin. Alluding of course to George's forgetfulness in carrying off the key. Charlotte, however, took the words literally, and her eyes opened.

"Did George G.o.dolphin not go last night?"

"Yes, he went. He forgot----"

"Then what can have brought him back so soon?" was her vehement interruption, not allowing Isaac time to conclude. "There's no day train in from London yet."

"Is there not?" was Isaac's rejoinder, looking keenly at her.

"Why, of course there's not: as you know, or ought to know. Besides, he could not get through the business he has gone upon and be back yet, unless he came by telegraph. He intended to leave by the eleven o'clock train from Paddington."

She spoke rapidly, thoughtlessly, in her surprise. Her inward thought was, that to have gone to London, and returned again since the hour at which she parted from him the previous night, one way, at least, must have been accomplished on the telegraph wires. Had she taken a moment for reflection, she would not have so spoken. However familiar she might be with the affairs of Mr. George G.o.dolphin, so much the more reason was there for her shunning open allusion to them.

"Who told you Mr. George G.o.dolphin had gone to London, Mrs. Pain?" asked Isaac, after a pause.

"Do you think I did not know it? Better than you, Mr. Isaac, clever and wise as you deem yourself."

"I pretend to be neither one nor the other with regard to the movements of Mr. George G.o.dolphin," was the reply of Isaac. "It is not my place to be so. I heard he had only gone a stage or two towards Portsmouth with a sick friend. Of course if you know he has gone to London, that is a different matter. I can't stay now, Mrs. Pain: I have a message for Mr.

G.o.dolphin."

"Then he is not back again?" cried Charlotte, as Isaac was going through the turnstile.

"Not yet."

Charlotte looked after him as he went out of sight, and bit her lips. A doubt was flashing over her--called up by Isaac's last observation--as to whether she had done right to allude to London. When George had been with her, discussing it, he had wondered what excuse he should invent for taking the journey, and Charlotte never supposed but that it would be known. The bright idea of starting on a benevolent excursion towards Portsmouth, had been an after-thought of Mr. George's as he journeyed home.

"If I have done mischief," Charlotte was beginning slowly to murmur. But she threw back her head defiantly. "Oh, nonsense about mischief! What does it matter? George can battle it out."

Thomas G.o.dolphin was at breakfast in his own room, his face, pale and worn, bearing traces of suffering. Isaac Hastings was admitted, and explained the cause of his appearance. Thomas received the news of George's absence with considerable surprise.

"He left me late last night--_in_ the night, I may say--to return home.

He said nothing then of his intention to be absent. Where do you say he has gone to?"

"Maria delivered a message to me, sir, from him, to the effect that he had accompanied a sick friend, Captain St. Aubyn, a few miles on the Portsmouth line," replied Isaac. "But Mrs. Pain, whom I have just met, says it is to London that he has gone: she says she knows it."

Thomas G.o.dolphin made no further comment. It may not have pleased him to remark upon any information touching his brother furnished by Mrs.

Charlotte Pain. He handed the key to Isaac, and said he should speedily follow him to the Bank. It had not been Thomas G.o.dolphin's intention to go to the Bank that day, but hearing of George's absence caused him to proceed thither. He ordered his carriage, and got there almost as soon as Isaac, bearing an invitation to Maria from Janet.

A quarter of an hour given to business in the manager's room, George's, and then Thomas G.o.dolphin went to Maria. She was seated now near the window, in her pretty morning dress, engaged in some sort of fancy work.

In her gentle face, her soft sweet eyes, Thomas would sometimes fancy he read a resemblance to his lost Ethel. Thomas greatly loved and esteemed Maria.

She rose to receive him, holding out her hand that he might take it as she quietly but earnestly made inquiries about his state of health. Not so well as he was yesterday, Thomas answered. He supposed George had given her the account of their meeting the previous night, under the ash-trees, and of his, Thomas's illness.

Maria had not heard it. "How could George have been near the ash-trees last night?" she, wondering, inquired. "Do you mean _last_ night, Thomas?"

"Yes, last night, after I left you. I was taken ill in going home----"

Miss Meta, who had been fluttering about the terrace, fluttered in to see who might be talking to her mamma, and interrupted the conclusion of the sentence. "Uncle Thomas! Uncle Thomas!" cried she, joyously. They were great friends.

Her entrance diverted the channel of their conversation. Thomas took the child on his knee, fondly stroking her golden curls. Thomas remembered to have stroked just such golden curls on the head of his brother George, when he, George, was a little fellow of Meta's age.

"Janet bade me ask if you would go to Ashlydyat for the day, Maria,"

said he. "She----"

"Meta go too," put in the little quick tongue. "Meta go too, Uncle Thomas."

"Will Meta be good?--and not run away from Aunt Janet, and lose herself in the pa.s.sages, as she did last time?" said Thomas, with a smile.

"Meta very good," was the answer, given with an oracular nod of promise.

Thomas turned to Maria.

"Where is it that George has gone?" he asked. "With St. Aubyn? or to London?"