self) is that curious old creature whom I men- | business over first and coming back to dinner? tioned to you in my first letter. Ever since Shall we say, in that case, half past seven? that time he has been perpetually hanging about here for a look at me. I am not sure whether I frighten him or fascinate him-perhaps I do both together. All you need care to know is, that I can trust him with my trifling errands, and possibly, as time goes on, with something more. L. G."

Meanwhile the train had started from the Thorpe-Ambrose station, and the squire and his traveling companion were on their way to London.

William, half past seven. Not the least need to order any thing, Mr. Armadale. The headwaiter has only to give my compliments to the cook and the best dinner in London will be sent up, punctual to the minute, as a necessary consequence. Say Mr. Pedgift, junior, if you please, William-otherwise, Sir, we might get my grandfather's dinner or my father's dinner, and they might turn out a little too heavy and old-fashioned in their way of feeding for you and me. As to the wine, William. At dinner, my Champagne, and the sherry that my father thinks nasty. After dinner, the claret with the blue seal the wine my innocent

Some men, finding themselves in Allan's company under present circumstances, might have felt curious to know the nature of his busi-grandfather said wasn't worth sixpence a bottle. ness in the metropolis. Young Pedgift's un- Ha! ha! poor old boy! You will send up the erring instinct as a man of the world penetrated evening papers and the play-bills, just as usual, the secret without the slightest difficulty. "The and that will do, I think, William, for the old story," thought this wary old head, wagging present. An invaluable servant, Mr. Armaprivately on its lusty young shoulders. "There's dale; they're all invaluable servants in this a woman in the case, as usual. Any other busi-house. We may not be fashionable here, Sir, ness would have been turned over to me.' Per- but by the Lord Harry we are snug! A cab? fectly satisfied with this conclusion, Mr. Ped-you would like a cab? Don't stir! I've rung gift the younger proceeded, with an eye to his the bell twice-that means Cab wanted in a professional interest, to make himself as agreea- | hurry. Might I ask, Mr. Armadale, which ble to his client as usual. He seized on the way your business takes you? Toward Bayswhole administrative business of the journey to Would you mind dropping me in the London as he had seized on the whole adminIt's a habit of mine when I'm in Lonistrative business of the picnic at the Broads. don to air myself among the aristocracy. Yours On reaching the terminus, Allan was ready to truly, Sir, has an eye for a fine woman and a go to any hotel that might be recommended. fine horse; and when he's in Hyde Park he's His invaluable solicitor straightway drove him quite in his native element." Thus the all-acto a hotel at which the Pedgift family had been complished Pedgift ran on; and by these little accustomed to put up for three generations. arts did he recommend himself to the good opinion of his client.

water?
Park?

When the dinner-hour united the traveling companions again in their sitting-room at the hotel, a far less acute observer than young Pedgift must have noticed the marked change that appeared in Allan's manner. He looked vexed and puzzled, and sat drumming with his fingers on the dining-table without uttering a word.

"I'm afraid something has happened to annoy you, Sir, since we parted company in the Park?" said Pedgift Junior. "Excuse the question—I only ask it in case I can be of any use."

"You don't object to vegetables, Sir?" said the cheerful Pedgift, as the cab stopped at a hotel in Covent Garden Market. "Very good, you may leave the rest to my grandfather, my father, and me. I don't know which of the three is most beloved and respected in this house. How-d'ye-do, William (our head-waiter, Mr. Armadale). Is your wife's rheumatism better, and does the little boy get on nicely at school? Your master's out, is he? Never mind, you'll do. This, William, is Mr. Armadale of Thorpe-Ambrose. I have prevailed on Mr. Armadale to try our house. Have you got the bedroom I wrote for? Very good. Let "Something that I never expected has hapMr. Armadale have it instead of me (my grand-pened," returned Allan; "I don't know what father's favorite bedroom, Sir; number five, on to make of it. I should like to have your opinthe second-floor); pray take it-I can sleep any ion," he added, after a little hesitation; "that where. Will you have the mattress on the top is to say, if you will excuse my not entering of the feather-bed? You hear, William ? Tell into any particulars?" Matilda, the mattress on the top of the featherbed. How is Matilda? Has she got the toothache as usual? The head-chambermaid, Mr. Armadale, and a most extraordinary woman; she will not part with a hollow tooth in her lower jaw. My grandfather says, 'have it out' —my father says, 'have it out'—I say, 'have it out,' and Matilda turns a deaf ear to all three of us. Yes, William, yes; if Mr. Armadale

"Certainly!" assented young Pedgift. "Sketch it in outline, Sir. The merest hint will do; I wasn't born yesterday. (Oh, these women!" thought the youthful philosopher, in parenthesis.)

"Well," began Allan, "you know what I said when we got to this hotel; I said I had a place to go to in Bayswater” (Pedgift mentally checked off the first point-Case in the suburbs,

approves, this sitting - room will do. About Bayswater); "and a person-that is to say-no dinner, Sir? You would prefer getting your -as I said before, a person to inquire after."

morrow morning. In the mean time here's the soup. The case now before the court is-Pleasure versus Business. I don't know what you say, Sir; I say, without a moment's hesitation, Verdict for the plaintiff. Let us gather our

(Pedgift checked off the next point: Person in the case. She-person, or he-person? She-person unquestionably!) "Well, I went to the house, and when I asked for her-I mean the person-she-that is to say, the person-oh, confound it!" cried Allan, "I shall drive my-rose-buds while we may. Excuse my high spirself mad, and you too, if I try to tell my story in this roundabout way. Here it is in two words. I went to number eighteen Kingsdown Crescent, to see a lady named Mandeville; and when I asked for her, the servant said Mrs. Mandeville had gone away, without telling any body where, and without even leaving an address at which letters could be sent to her. There! it's out at last, and what do you think of it now?"

"Tell me first, Sir," said the wary Pedgift, "what inquiries you made when you found this lady had vanished?"

"Inquiries?" repeated Allan, "I was utterly staggered; I didn't say any thing. What inquiries ought I to have made?"

Pedgift Junior cleared his throat, and crossed his legs in a strictly professional manner.

"I have no wish, Mr. Armadale," he began, "to inquire into your business with Mrs. Mandeville-"

"No," interposed Allan, bluntly, "I hope you won't inquire into that. My business with Mrs. Mandeville must remain a secret."

its, Mr. Armadale. Though buried in the country, I was made for a London life; the very air of the metropolis intoxicates me.' With that avowal the irresistible Pedgift placed a chair for his patron, and issued his orders cheerfully to his viceroy, the head-waiter. "Iced punch, William, after the soup. I answer for the punch, Mr. Armadale-it's made after a receipt of my great uncle's. He kept a tavern, and founded the fortunes of the family. I don't mind telling you the Pedgifts have had a publican among them; there's no false pride about 'Worth makes the man (as Pope says), and want of it the fellow; the rest is all but leather and prunella.' I cultivate poetry as well as music, Sir, in my leisure hours; in fact, I'm more or less on familiar terms with the whole of the nine Muses. Aha! here's the punch! The memory of my great uncle, the publican, Mr. Armadale—drunk in solemn silence!"

me.

Allan tried hard to emulate his companion's gayety and good-humor, but with very indifferent success. His visit to Kingsdown Crescent recurred ominously again and again to his mem"But," pursued Pedgift, laying down the ory, all through the dinner, and all through the law with the forefinger of one hand on the out- public amusements to which he and his legal stretched palm of the other, "I may, perhaps, adviser repaired at a later hour of the evening. be allowed to ask generally, whether your busi- When Pedgift Junior put out his candle that ness with Mrs. Mandeville is of a nature to in-night he shook his wary head, and regretfully terest you in tracing her from Kingsdown Cres- apostrophized "the women" for the second cent to her present residence?"

"Certainly!" said Allan. "I have a very particular reason for wishing to see her."

"In that case, Sir," returned Pedgift Junior, "there were two obvious questions which you ought to have asked, to begin with—namely, on what date Mrs. Mandeville left, and how she left. Having discovered this, you should have ascertained next under what domestic circumstances she went away-whether there was a misunderstanding with any body; say a difficulty about money-matters. Also, whether she went away alone, or with somebody else. Also, whether the house was her own, or whether she only lodged in it. Also, in the latter event-" "Stop! stop! you're making my head swim," cried Allan. "I don't understand all these ins and outs-I'm not used to this sort of thing."

"I've been used to it myself from my childhood upward, Sir," remarked Pedgift. "And if I can be of any assistance, say the word."

time.

To

By ten o'clock the next morning the indefatigable Pedgift was on the scene of action. Allan's great relief he proposed making the necessary inquiries at Kingsdown Crescent in his own person, while his patron waited near at hand in the cab which had brought them from the hotel. After a delay of little more than five minutes, he reappeared, in full possession of all attainable particulars. His first proceeding was to request Allan to step out of the cab and to pay the driver. Next, he politely offered his arm, and led the way round the corner of the crescent, across a square, and into a by-street, which was rendered exceptionally lively by the presence of the local cab-stand. Here he stopped, and asked jocosely, whether Mr. Armadale saw his way now, or whether it would be necessary to test his patience by making an explanation.

"See my way?" repeated Allan, in bewilderment. "I see nothing but a cab-stand." Pedgift Junior smiled compassionately, and

"You're very kind," returned Allan. "If you could only help me to find Mrs. Mandeville; and if you wouldn't mind leaving the thing after-entered on his explanation. It was a lodgingward entirely in my hands-?"

house at Kingsdown Crescent, he begged to "I'll leave it in your hands, Sir, with all the state, to begin with. He had insisted on seepleasure in life," said Pedgift Junior. ("And ing the landlady. A very nice person, with all I'll lay five to one," he added, mentally, "when the remains of having been a fine girl about the time comes, you'll leave it in mine!") "We'll fifty years ago; quite in Pedgift's style--if he go to Bayswater together, Mr. Armadale, to- had only been alive at the beginning of the pres

shut, and the front blinds were all drawn down. It looked no larger than the other houses in the street, seen in front; but it ran back deceitfully, and gained its greater accommodation by means of its greater depth. It affected to be a

ent century-quite in Pedgift's style. But perhaps Mr. Armadale would prefer hearing about Mrs. Mandeville? Unfortunately there was nothing to tell. There had been no quarreling, and not a farthing left unpaid: the lodger had gone, and there wasn't an explanatory circum-shop on the ground-floor; but it exhibited abstance to lay hold of any where. It was either Mrs. Mandeville's way to vanish, or there was something under the rose, quite undiscoverable so far. Pedgift had got the date on which she left, and the time of day at which she left, and the means by which she left. The means might help to trace her. She had gone away in a cab, which the servant had fetched from the nearest stand. The stand was now before their eyes; and the waterman was the first person to apply to-going to the waterman for information being clearly (if Mr. Armadale would excuse the joke) going to the fountain-head. Treating the subject in this airy manner, and telling Allan that he would be back in a moment, Pedgift Junior sauntered down the street and beckoned the waterman confidentially into the nearest public house.

In a little while the two reappeared; the waterman taking Pedgift in succession to the first, third, fourth, and sixth of the cabmen whose vehicles were on the stand. The longest conference was held with the sixth man; and it ended in the sudden approach of the sixth cab to the part of the street where Allan was waiting.

solutely nothing in the space that intervened between the window and an inner row of red curtains which hid the interior entirely from view. At one side was the shop-door, having more red curtains behind the glazed part of it, and bearing a brass plate on the wooden part of it, inscribed with the name of "Oldershaw." On the other side was the private door, with a bell marked Professional; and another brass plate indicating a medical occupant on this side of the house, for the name on it was "Doctor Downward." If ever brick and mortar spoke yet, the brick and mortar here said plainly, "We have got our secrets inside, and we mean to keep them."

"This can't be the place," said Allan; "there must be some mistake."

"You know best, Sir," remarked Pedgift Junior, with his sardonic gravity. "You know Mrs. Mandeville's habits."

"I" exclaimed Allan. "You may be surprised to hear it, but Mrs. Mandeville is a total stranger to me."

"I'm not in the least surprised to hear it, Sir; the landlady at Kingsdown Crescent informed me that Mrs. Mandeville was an old woman. Suppose we inquire ?" added the impenetrable Pedgift, looking at the red curtains in the shop-window with a strong suspicion that Mrs. Mandeville's grand-daughter might possi

They tried the shop-door first. It was locked. They rang. A lean and yellow young woman, with a tattered French novel in her hand, opened it.

"Get in, Sir," said Pedgift, opening the door, "I've found the man. He remembers the lady; and, though he has forgotten the name of the street, he believes he can find the place he drove her to when he once gets back into the neigh-bly be behind them. borhood. I am charmed to inform you, Mr. Armadale, that we are in luck's way so far. I asked the waterman to show me the regular men on the stand-and it turns out that one of the regular men drove Mrs. Mandeville. The waterman vouches for him; he's quite an anomalya respectable cabman; drives his own horse, and has never been in any trouble. These are the sort of men, Sir, who sustain one's belief in human nature. I've had a look at our friend, and I agree with the waterman-I think we can depend on him."

The investigation required some exercise of patience at the outset. It was not till the cab had traversed the distance between Bayswater and Pimlico that the driver began to slacken his pace and look about him. After once or twice retracing its course, the vehicle entered a quiet by-street, ending in a dead wall with a door in it; and stopped at the last house on the lefthand side, the house next to the wall.

"Good-morning, miss!" said Pedgift. “Is Mrs. Mandeville at home?"

The yellow young woman stared at him in astonishment. "No person of that name is known here," she answered, sharply, in a foreign accent.

"Perhaps they know her at the private door?" suggested Pedgift Junior.

"Perhaps they do?" said the yellow young woman, and shut the door in his face.

"Rather a quick-tempered young person that, Sir," said Pedgift. "I congratulate Mrs. Mandeville on not being acquainted with her." He led the way as he spoke to Doctor Downward's side of the premises, and rang the bell.

The door was opened this time by a man in a shabby livery. He too stared when Mrs. Man"Here it is, gentlemen," said the man, open- deville's name was mentioned; and he too knew ing the cab-door. of no such person in the house.

Allan and Allan's adviser both got out and both looked at the house with the same feeling of instinctive distrust. Buildings have their physiognomy-especially buildings in great citiesand the face of this house was essentially furtive in its expression. The front windows were all

"Very odd," said Pedgift, appealing to Allan.

"What is odd ?" asked a softly-stepping, softly-speaking gentleman in black, suddenly appearing on the threshold of the parlor-door.

Pedgift Junior politely explained the circum

"Mr. Armadale," said Pedgift, "I don't know cious in itself-had produced no great impression how you feel-I feel puzzled."

The cabman proved to be immovable. He, too, spoke more seriously than usual; Charged with mistaking the place, he pointed he, too, was beginning to feel an all-mastering to the empty shop-window. "I don't know curiosity to know more. Some vague connecwhat you may have seen, gentleman," he re- tion, not to be distinctly realized or traced out, marked; "but there's the only shop-window I began to establish itself in his mind between the ever saw with nothing at all inside it. That difficulty of approaching Miss Gwilt's family eirfixed the place in my mind at the time, and I cumstances and the difficulty of approaching know it again when I see it." Charged with Miss Gwilt's reference. "I'll get down and

walk, and leave you to go on to your business," | questions," he resumed. "I'm a bad hand at

he said. "I want to consider a little about
this; and a walk and a cigar will help me.”
"My business will be done, Sir, between one
and two," said Pedgift, when the cab had been
stopped, and Allan had got out.
"Shall we
meet again at two o'clock at the hotel?"
Allan nodded, and the cab drove off.

CHAPTER IV.

ALLAN AT BAY.

defending myself against a sharp fellow like you; and I'm bound in honor toward other people to keep the particulars of this business to myself."

Pedgift Junior had apparently heard enough for his purpose. He drew his chair, in his turn, nearer to Allan. He was evidently anxious and embarrassed-but his professional manner began to show itself again from sheer force of habit.

"I've done with my questions, Sir," he said; "and I have something to say now on my side. In my father's absence perhaps you may be kindly disposed to consider me as your legal adviser. If you will take my advice you will not stir another step in this inquiry."

"What do you mean?" interposed Allan.
"It is just possible, Mr. Armadale, that the

Two o'clock came; and Pedgift Junior, punctual to his time, came with it. His vivacity of the morning had all sparkled out; he greeted Allan with his customary politeness, but without his customary smile; and when the headwaiter came in for orders his dismissal was in-cabman, positive as he is, may have been misstantly pronounced in words never yet heard to issue from the lips of Pedgift in that hotel: "Nothing at present."

"You seem to be in low spirits," said Allan. "Can't we get our information? Can nobody tell you any thing about the house in Pimlico ?"

"Three different people have told me about it, Mr. Armadale; and they have all three said the same thing."

Allan eagerly drew his chair nearer to the place occupied by his traveling companion. His reflections in the interval since they had last seen each other had not tended to compose him. That strange connection, so easy to feel, so hard to trace, between the difficulty of approaching Miss Gwilt's family circumstances and the difficulty of approaching Miss Gwilt's reference, which had already established itself in his thoughts, had by this time stealthily taken a firmer and firmer hold on his mind. Doubts troubled him which he could neither understand nor express. Curiosity filled him, which he half-longed and half-dreaded to satisfy.

taken. I strongly recommend you to take it for granted that he is mistaken-and to drop it there."

The caution was kindly intended; but it came too late. Allan did what ninety-nine men out of a hundred in his position would have done--he declined to take his lawyer's advice.

"Very well, Sir," said Pedgift Junior; "if you will have it, you must have it."

He leaned forward close to Allan's ear, and whispered what he had heard of the house in Pimlico, and of the people who occupied it.

"Don't blame me, Mr. Armadale," he added, when the irrevocable words had been spoken. "I tried to spare you."

Allan suffered the shock, as all great shocks are suffered, in silence. His first impulse would have driven him headlong for refuge to that very view of the cabman's assertion which had just been recommended to him, but for one damning circumstance which placed itself inexorably in his way. Miss Gwilt's marked reluctance to approach the story of her past life rose irrepressibly on his memory, in indirect but horrible con“I am afraid I must trouble you with a ques-firmation of the evidence which connected Miss tion or two, Sir, before I can come to the point," said Pedgift Junior. "I don't want to force myself into your confidence; I only want to see my way in what looks to me like a very awkward business. Do you mind telling me whether others besides yourself are interested in this inquiry of ours?"

"Other people are interested in it," replied Allan. "There's no objection to telling you that."

"Is there any other person who is the object of the inquiry besides Mrs. Mandeville herself?" pursued Pedgift, winding his way a little deeper into the secret.

Gwilt's reference with the house in Pimlico. One conclusion, and one only-the conclusion which any man must have drawn, hearing what he had just heard, and knowing no more than he knew-forced itself into his mind. A miserable, fallen woman, who had abandoned herself in her extremity to the help of wretches skilled in criminal concealment-who had stolen her way back to decent society and a reputable employment by means of a false character

and whose position now imposed on her the dreadful necessity of perpetual secrecy and perpetual deceit in relation to her past life-such was the aspect in which the beautiful govern"Yes; there is another person," said Allan, ess at Thorpe-Ambrose now stood revealed to answering rather unwillingly.

"Is the person a young woman, Mr. Armadale ?"

Allan started. "How do you come to guess that?" he began-then checked himself when it was too late. "Don't ask me any more

Allan's eyes!

Falsely revealed or truly revealed? Had she stolen her way back to decent society and a reputable employment by means of a false character? She had. Did her position impose on her the dreadful necessity of perpetual secrecy