osed to stop and nurse
me through the effects of it. But when he had once learned the facts of
the case he took up my business with an almost romantic fervor.

"You lay your life, sir," said Hinge, "I'll find her. There's no
go-betweens as 'll get any letter for the young lady out o' my hands.
All right, sir; you write the letter, and you trust me to see as it gets
to the proper quarter."

Hinge's devotion and loyalty did me good, and when I had struggled
through with the letter and had confided it to his care, I felt easier
and more hopeful. Hinge's first movement was up to London, and thence
he returned to me within half a dozen hours with the dispiriting
intelligence that Lady Rollinson and Violet had left town together
an hour before his arrival without leaving any instructions as to the
forwarding of letters. Hinge, in his occasional visits to the house, had
contrived to get on very excellent terms with a pretty parlor-maid, who
had given him voluntarily all the information she had at her command.
The only definite bit of news he brought was that the ladies had driven
to Euston Station; and though that fact opened up, then, a vista of
inquiry far less wide than it would to-day, it was still possible to
go to so many places, and I had so little to guide me as to their
intentions, that the news left me in a perfect fog of despair, However,
Hinge, in obedience to my instructions, went to Euston, and attempted
there to find out for what place tickets had been taken; but he came
back next morning to report his complete non-success, and was evidently
a good deal dashed and dispirited by his own failure.

"Never you mind, sir," said Hinge, with outside stoutness, "we'll find
'em yet."

The poor fellow did his best to keep me cheerful, but between bodily
pain and suspense, and the sense of my own helplessness, I am afraid he
found me rather difficult to manage.

A week had gone by, and I was so far recovered that I could limp about
the room. The doctor had found it necessary to warn me more than once
that I was retarding my recovery by my own eagerness, and that unless
I would consent to absolute repose I might not improbably do myself a
life-long injury; but I could feel the injured ankle growing firmer, and
I was resolute to try the search next day myself.

Since the complete failure of his enterprise, Hinge had devoted himself
entirely to nursing me; and he had been so assiduous in his attentions
that I was surpr