country. But the woman with Losely, he had not heard
her described; his guesses did not turn towards Mrs. Crane: the woman
was evidently hostile to him; it was the woman who had spoken against
him,--not Losely; the woman whose tongue had poisoned Hartopp's mind,
and turned into scorn all that admiring respect which had before greeted
the great Comedian. Why was that woman his enemy? Who could she be? What
had she to do with Sophy? He was half beside himself with terror. It was
to save her less even from Losely than from such direful women as
Losely made his confidants and associates that Waife had taken Sophy to
himself. As for Mrs. Crane, she had never seemed a foe to him; she had
ceded the child to him willingly: he had no reason to believe, from the
way in which she had spoken of Losely when he last saw her, that she
could henceforth aid the interests or share the schemes of the man whose
perfidies she then denounced; and as to Rugge, he had not appeared at
Gatesboro'. Mrs. Crane had prudently suggested that his presence would
not be propitiatory or discreet, and that all reference to him, or
to the contract with him, should be suppressed. Thus Waife was wholly
without one guiding evidence, one groundwork for conjecture, that might
enable him to track the lost; all he knew was, that she had been given
up to a man whose whereabouts it was difficult to discover,--a vagrant,
of life darker and more hidden than his own.

But how had the hunters discovered the place where he had treasured up
his Sophy? how dogged that retreat? Perhaps from the village in which we
first saw him. Ay, doubtless, learned from Mrs. Saunders of the dog he
had purchased, and the dog would have served to direct them on his path.
At that thought he pushed away Sir Isaac, who had been resting his head
on the old man's knee,--pushed him away angrily; the poor dog slunk off
in sorrowful surprise, and whined.

"Ungrateful wretch that I am!" cried Waife, and he opened his arms to
the brute, who bounded forgivingly to his breast.

"Come, come, we will go back to the village in Surrey. Tramp, tramp!"
said the cripple, rousing himself. And at that moment, just as he gained
his feet, a friendly hand was laid on his shoulder, and a friendly voice
said,

"I have found you! the crystal said so! Marbellous!"

"Merle," faltered out the vagrant, "Merle, you here! Oh, perhaps you
come to tell me good news: you have seen Sophy; you know where she is!"

The