"In this instance, I do not see how you could have come to the conclusion that I had touched the bonds. Where did you think I was likely to move them to?"

George could not tell--and said so. It was not impossible, but Thomas might have sent them to town--or have handed them back to Lord Averil, he continued to murmur, in a somewhat confused manner. Thomas looked at him: he could scarcely make him out, but supposed the loss had affected his equanimity.

"Had you regarded it dispa.s.sionately, George, I think you would have seen it in a more serious light. I should not be likely to move the bonds to a different place of keeping, without your cognizance: and as to returning them to Lord Averil, the transaction would have appeared in the books."

"I am sorry I forgot to mention it to you," said George.

"That you could have forgotten it, and continued to forget it until now, pa.s.ses all belief. Has there never been a moment at any time, George, in this last month that it has recurred to your memory?"

"Well, perhaps there may have been; just a casual thought," acknowledged George. "I can't be sure."

"And yet you did not speak to me?"

"In your present state of health, I was willing to spare you unnecessary anxiety----"

"Stay, George. If you really a.s.sumed that I had moved the deeds, asking me the question could not have been productive of anxiety. If any fear, such as that the deeds were missing without my agency, only crossed your mind as a suggestion, it was your bounden duty to acquaint me with it."

"I wish I could have dealt with the matter now without acquainting you,"

returned George. "Did not the London doctors warn you that repose of mind was essential to you?"

"George," was the impressive answer, and Thomas had his hand upon his brother's arm as he spoke it, "so long as I pretend to transact business, to come to this Bank, and sit here, its master, so long do I desire and request to be considered equal to discharging its duties efficiently. When I can no longer do that, I will withdraw from it.

Never again suffer my state of health to be a plea for keeping matters from me, however annoying or complicated they may be."

Thomas G.o.dolphin spent half that day in looking into other strong boxes, lest perchance the missing deeds should have got into any--though he did not see how that could be. They could not be found; but, neither did any other paper of consequence, so far as could be discovered, appear to have gone. Thomas could not account for the loss in any way, or conjecture why it should have occurred, or who had taken the bonds. It was made known in the Bank that a packet of deeds was missing; but full particulars were not given.

There was no certain data to go upon, as to the time of the loss. George G.o.dolphin stated that he had missed them a month ago; Thomas, when visiting Lord Averil's box for some purpose about four months ago, had seen the deeds there, secure. They must have disappeared between those periods. The mystery was--how? The clerks could not get to the strong-room and to the safes and cases in it, unless by some strange accident; by some most unaccountable neglect. Very great neglect it would have been, to allow them the opportunity of getting to one key; but to obtain three or four, as was necessary before those deeds could have been taken, and to obtain them undiscovered, was next door to an impossibility. The internal arrangements in the house of G.o.dolphin, Crosse, and G.o.dolphin were of a stringent nature; Sir George G.o.dolphin had been a most particular man in business. Conjecture upon conjecture was hazarded: theory after theory discussed. When Mr. Hurde found the deeds were really gone, his amazement was excessive, his trouble great.

George, as soon as he could, stole away from the discussion. He had got over his part, better perhaps than he had expected: all that remained now, was to make the best of the loss--and to inst.i.tute a search for the deeds.

"I can't call to mind a single one of them who would do it, or be likely to do it," remarked Mr. Hurde to his master.

"Of whom?"

"Of the clerks in the house, sir. But, one of them, it must have been."

"A stranger it could not have been," replied Thomas G.o.dolphin. "Had a midnight plunderer got into the Bank, he would not have contented himself with one packet of deeds."

"Whoever took them, sir, took them to make money upon them. There's not a doubt of that. I wonder--I wonder----"

"What?" asked Mr. G.o.dolphin.

"I wonder--I have often wondered, sir--whether Layton does not live above his income. If so----"

"Hurde," said Thomas G.o.dolphin gravely, "I believe Layton to be as honest as you or I."

"Well--I have always thought him so, or I should pretty soon have spoken. But, sir, the deeds must have gone somehow, by somebody's hands: and Layton is the least _un_likely of all. I see him on a Sunday driving his new wife out in a gig. She plays the piano, too!"

How these items in the domestic economy of the clerk, Layton, could bear upon the loss of the deeds, especially the latter item, Mr. Hurde did not further explain. He was of the old school, seeing no good in gigs, still less in pianos; and he determined to look a little after Mr.

Layton.

Thomas G.o.dolphin, straightforward and honourable, imparted to Lord Averil the fact of the deeds being missing. Whether he would have revealed it to a less intimate client at this early stage of the affair, might be a matter of speculation. The house would not yet call them lost, he said to Lord Averil: it trusted, by some fortunate accident, to put its hands upon them, in some remote pigeon-hole. Lord Averil received the communication with courteous friendliness: he thought it must prove that they had only been mislaid, and he hoped they would be found. Both gentlemen hoped that sincerely. The value of the deeds was about sixteen thousand pounds: too much for either of them to lose with equanimity.

"George must have known of this when I asked him for the deeds a month ago," observed Lord Averil.

"I think not," replied Thomas G.o.dolphin. "It was your asking for the deeds which caused him to search the box for them, and he then found they were gone."

"Perhaps you are right. But I remember thinking his manner peculiar."

"How 'peculiar'?" inquired Thomas.

"Hesitating: uncertain. He appeared, at first, not to know what I meant in asking for the deeds. Since you spoke to me of the loss, it struck me as accounting for George's manner--that he did not like to tell me of it."

"He could not have known of it then," repeated Thomas G.o.dolphin.

As this concluding part of the conversation took place, they were coming out of the room. Isaac Hastings was pa.s.sing along the pa.s.sage, and heard a portion of it.

"Are they deeds of Lord Averil's that are missing?" he inquired confidentially of Mr. Hurde, later in the day.

The old clerk nodded an affirmative. "But you need not proclaim it there," he added, by way of caution, glancing sideways at the clerks.

"Do you suppose I should do so?" returned Isaac Hastings.

CHAPTER XIII.

A RED-LETTER DAY FOR MRS. BOND.

The scent of the new-mown hay was in the atmosphere around Prior's Ash.

A backward spring it had been until the middle of April, and wiseacres said the crops would be late. But then the weather had suddenly burst into the warmth of summer, vegetation came on all the more rapidly for its previous tardiness, and the crops turned out to be early, instead of late.

Never a more lovely day gladdened the world than that particular day in June. Maria G.o.dolphin, holding Miss Meta by the hand, walked along under the shady field-hedge, all glorious with its cl.u.s.ters of wild roses. The field was covered with hay, now being piled into c.o.c.ks by the haymakers, and Meta darted ever and anon from her mother's side, to afford the valuable aid of her tiny hands. Meta would have enjoyed a roll on the hay with the most intense delight; but unfortunately Meta was in the full grandeur of visiting attire; not in simple haymaking undress. Had you asked Meta, she would have told you she had on her "best things."

Things too good to be allowed to come to grief in the hay. Maria soothed the disappointment by a promise for the morrow. Meta should come in her brown holland dress with Margery, and roll about as much as she pleased.

Children are easily satisfied, and Meta paced on soberly under the promise, only giving covetous glances at the hay. With all her impulsive gaiety, her laughter and defiance of Margery, she was by nature a most gentle child, easily led.

Maria was on her way to call at Lady G.o.dolphin's Folly; and thence at Ashlydyat. Maria was not given to making morning calls: she deemed it a very unsatisfactory waste of time. Very pleasant no doubt for gossips, but a hindrance to the serious business of life. She made them now and then; just enough to save her credit, and that was all. Mrs. Pain had honoured Maria with about fifteen visits, and Maria was now going to return them all in one. No one could say Charlotte went in for ceremony; she would run in and out of people's houses, as the whim took her, every day in the week sometimes, and of Maria's amidst the rest. Of late, she had called more frequently on Maria than usual: and Maria, her conscience weighty with the obligation, at last set out to return it.

But she had not dressed for it--as some people would consider dress; Charlotte herself, for instance; Charlotte would arrive, splendid as the sun; not a colour of the rainbow came amiss to her; a green dress one day, a violet another, a crimson a third, and so on. Dresses with flounces and furbelows; jackets interlaced with gold and silver; brimless hats surmounted by upright plumes. All that Charlotte wore was _good_, as far as cost went: as far as taste went, opinions differed.

Maria had inherited the taste of her mother: she could not have been _fine_ had you bribed her with gold. She wore to-day a pale dress of watered silk; a beautiful Cashmere shawl of thin texture, and a white bonnet, all plain and quiet, as befitted a lady. The charming day had induced her to walk; and the faint perfume of the hay, wafting through Prior's Ash, had caused her to choose the field way. The longest way, but infinitely the pleasantest.

It took her past those tenements familiarly called the Pollard cottages: in one of which lived troublesome Mrs. Bond. All the inmates of these cottages were well known to Maria: had been known to her from childhood: the Rector of All Souls' was wont to say that he had more trouble with the Pollard cottages than with all the rest of his parish. For one thing, sickness was often prevalent in them; sometimes death; and sickness and death give trouble and anxiety to a conscientious pastor.

"Mamma, you going to see old Susan to-day?" chattered Miss Meta, as they approached the cottages.

"Not to-day, Meta. I am going straight on to Mrs. Pain's."

Meta, who was troubled with no qualms on the score of ceremony herself, perceiving one of the doors open, darted suddenly into it. Meta was rather in the habit of darting into any open door that it took her fancy so to do. Maria walked on a few steps, and then turned and waited: but the little truant did not appear to be in a hurry to come out, and she went back and followed her in.