n to London.

The unfortunate guardian of Margaret Shields was now obliged to start
for Taunton, and thence pursue his way, and his inquiries, as far as
Paddington. The position was extremely irksome to Maitland. Although, in
novels, gentlemen often assume the _role_ of the detective with apparent
relish, Maitland was not cast by Nature for the part. He was too
scrupulous and too shy. He detested asking guards, and porters, and
station-masters, and people in refreshment-rooms if they remembered
having seen, yesterday, a gentleman in a fur coat travelling with a
young lady, of whom he felt that he had to offer only a too suggestive
description. The philanthropist could not but see that everyone properly
constructed, in imagination, a satisfactory little myth to account for
all the circumstances--a myth in which Maitland played the unpopular
part of the Avenging Brother or Injured Husband.

What other path, indeed, was open to conjecture? A gentleman in a fur
coat, and a young lady of prepossessing appearance, are travelling alone
together, one day, in a carriage marked "Engaged." Next day, another
gentleman (not prepossessing, and very nervous) appears on the same
route, asking anxious questions about the wayfarer in the notable coat
(bearskin, it seemed to have been) and about the interesting young lady.
Clearly, the pair were the fond fugitives of Love; while the pursuer
represented the less engaging interests of Property, of Law, and of the
Family. All the romance and all the popular interest were manifestly
on the other side, not on Maitland's side. Even his tips were received
without enthusiasm.

Maitland felt these disadvantages keenly; and yet he had neither the
time nor the power to explain matters. Even if he had told everyone he
met that he was really the young lady's guardian, and that the gentleman
in the fur coat was (he had every reason to believe) a forger and a
miscreant, he would not have been believed. His opinion would, not
unjustly, have been looked on as distorted by what Mr. Herbert Spencer
calls "the personal bias." He had therefore to put up with general
distrust and brief discourteous replies.

There are many young ladies in the refreshment-bar at Swindon. There
they gather, numerous and fair as the sea-nymphs--Doto, Proto, Doris,
and Panope, and beautiful Galatea. Of them Maitland sought to be
instructed. But the young ladies were arch and uncommunicative,
pretending that their attention was