“Very well, then, I start for Liverpool at once. I have given orders for the girl’s funeral, and arranged that Miss Warden’s walking dress and diamonds shall be sent back to her parents. I have only kept this, Hill,” and Frank took from his pocketbook a small bow of lace and ribbon. “You see, I remember her wearing it, and if it’s missed, you’ll know I have it,” and he replaced it reverently in his breast-pocket.
“And now, before we part, Mr. Hill,” continued Frank, “I want you honestly and candidly to give me your own private opinion on this matter. How, and in what way, do you consider Lucy Williams to be concerned in Miss Warden’s disappearance?”
“Well, sir, it’s a difficult question to answer,” replied Mr. Hill, looking sideways at Frank. “I only feel sure of one thing in this affair, and that is that Miss Warden is alive and well somewhere. All else must be conjecture. My own impression is that she left her home voluntarily, and that she is staying away voluntarily. In such cases the maid generally possesses, to some extent, the confidence of her mistress, and acts according to some prearranged plan. Even the diamonds for instance—”
“Stop,” shouted Frank, in a voice that made the detective start, “I can’t stand this. Say another word, and I shall knock you down! No power in Heaven or earth shall make me believe such a story as that. No, no, it implies too much! Could a girl with her mouth and eyes have deliberately set herself to deceive her parents and friends? Could she—no, no, I will not hear it. Tell me anything but such a black story as that, Hill.”
“Well, sir, I have no wish to give offence. You asked for my opinion, but it is extremely difficult in such a case as this to have one.” This with a respectful glance at Frank’s Herculean arm and well-developed muscles.
Two hours after this Frank was well on his way to Liverpool. Anxious, worried, disappointed as he was at the unforeseen ending to his journey, he could not help feeling at heart more hopeful than he had hitherto been. “Alive and well somewhere,” he kept repeating to himself over and over again, not as an incentive to his work, for he needed none, but for the ring of comfort the words brought.
“Nothing can ever shake my faith in that girl, nothing can ever make me doubt her truth and purity,” he said, as he entered one or two facts in his notebook for future experience and guidance. “But how the mystery deepens and thickens, supposing her to be alive and well somewhere!”
VI
Shortly after his arrival at Liverpool, Frank received two letters from Harleyford. The first from his mother, ran thus—
“My Dearest Boy—
“We received your telegram, with your address, yesterday, and I need not say how thankful your father and I were to hear that you were safe and well, and that you had some settled place of abode, where a letter could be sent. We had begun to fear that with your usual impetuosity, you would be starting off on some long journey, and it would be weeks or months before there would be any means of communicating with you.
“I know, where a young lady is concerned, it is almost always lost labour to attempt to reason with a young man, so it is with little hope of success that I make one more appeal to your common sense.
“My dearest Frank, can you possibly imagine that you, unversed and inexperienced in such matters, can hope to meet with success where well-trained professional men have failed? Have not the science and ingenuity of first-class London detectives been exhausted in this search, and what can you hope to do? To my mind one of two things is certain; either Miss Warden met with some accident (to us unaccountable) and is long since dead; or else she has contracted some mésalliance, and is remaining voluntarily hidden from her friends. In either case, search for her, as far as you are concerned, is equally fruitless; for dead or living she could never be your wife.
“My son, be reasonable, give up a task for which you are utterly unsuited, and which renders your father and myself equally miserable. We are ‘wearying’ for you, as your old Scotch tutor used to say, and the rectory seems very cheerless with my Frank’s chair so long unoccupied.
“The sculling match will be coming off soon, and I hear that Benson is likely to be the favourite. What do you wish done about Sultana? I know you objected to Robert riding her, but she has grown far too frisky for your father to mount. Let us have a long letter as soon as you possibly can, and thankful, indeed, shall I be if it contains the welcome news that you will soon be amongst us again.
Then there followed a long postscript.
“Do you remember your old playfellow, Mary Burton? I have her staying with me now (she came over from the Denver’s) and she has grown into one of the sweetest, handsomest girls, I have ever seen. She is just twenty-one,
