er so. She paid every sixpence that was owing, and gave
me a handsome present over and above my wages; though I didn't want to
take anything from her, poor dear young lady, knowing that there was very
little left after the Captain's death, except the furniture, which wasn't
likely to bring much. And so she went away about two days after she first
mentioned that she was going to leave Lidford. It was all very sudden,
and I don't think she bade good-bye to any one in the place. She seemed
quite broken down with grief in those two last days. I shall never forget
her poor pale face when she got into the fly."

"How did she go? From the station here?"

"I don't know anything about that, except that the fly came to the
cottage for her and her luggage. I wanted to go to the station with her,
to see her off, but she wouldn't let me."

"Did she mention me during the time that followed Captain Sedgewick's
death?"

"Only when I spoke about you, sir. I used to try to comfort her, telling
her she had you still left to care for her, and to make up for him she'd
lost. But she used to look at me in a strange pitiful sort of way, and
shake her head. 'I am very miserable, Sarah,' she would say to me; 'I am
quite alone in the world now my dear uncle is gone, and I don't know what
to do.' I told her she ought to look forward to the time when she would
be married, and would have a happy home of her own; but I could never get
her to talk of that."

"Can you tell me the name and address of her friends in London--the young
ladies with whom she went to school?"

"The name is Bruce, sir; and they live, or they used to live at that
time, in St. John's-wood. I have heard Miss Nowell say that, but I don't
know the name of the street or number of the house."

"I daresay I shall be able to find them. It is a strange business, Sarah.
It is most unaccountable that my dearest girl should have left Lidford
without writing me word of her removal and her intentions with regard to
the future--that she should have sent me no announcement of her uncle's
death, although she must have known how well I loved him, I am going to
ask you a question that is very painful to me, but which must be asked
sooner or later. Do you know of any one else whom she may have liked
better than me--any one whose influence may have governed her at the time
she left Lidford?"

"No, indeed, sir," replied the woman, promptly. "Who else was there? Miss
Nowell knew so few gentl