This was the kind of thing Lawrence Croft would like to do.  For an hour or more he puzzled his brains as to how he should make such a cavalry charge, and at last he came to a determination; he would ask Junius Keswick to assist him.  There was something odd about this plan which pleased Croft.  Keswick was his rival, with the powerful backing of Mr Brandon and a whole tribe of relatives, and it might naturally be supposed that he was the last man in the world of whom he would ask assistance.  But, looking at it from his point of view, Lawrence thought that not only would he be taking no undue advantage of the other in asking him to help him in this matter, but that Keswick ought not and would not object to it.  If Miss March really preferred Croft, Keswick should feel himself bound in honor to do everything he could to let the two settle the affair between themselves.  This was drawing the point very fine, but Lawrence persuaded himself that if the case were reversed he would not marry a girl who had not chosen another man, simply because she had had no opportunity of doing so.  He had a strong belief that Keswick was of his way of thinking, and before he went to bed he wrote his rival a note, asking him to call upon him the following day.

Early the next morning the note was carried over to Midbranch by a messenger, who returned, saying that Mr Keswick had gone away, and that his present address was Howlett’s in the same county.  This piece of information caused Lawrence Croft to open his eyes very wide.  A few days before he had received a letter from Mrs Null, written at Howlett’s, and now Keswick had gone there.  He had been very much surprised when he found that the cashier had so successfully carried on the search for Keswick as to come into the very county in Virginia where he was; and he intended to write to her that he had no further occasion for her services; but he had not done so, and here were the pursuer and the pursued in the same town, or village, or whatever Howlett’s was.  He gave Mrs Null credit for being one of the best detectives he had ever heard of; for, apparently, she had not only been able to successfully track the man she was in search of, but to find out where he was going, and had reached the place in question before he did.  But he also berated her soundly in his mind for her over-officiousness.  He had not wished her to swoop down upon the man, but only to inform him of his whereabouts.  The next thing that would probably happen would be the appearance of Mrs Null at the Green Sulphur Springs, holding Keswick by the collar.  He deeply regretted that he had ever intrusted this young woman with the investigation, not because he had since met Keswick himself, but for the reason that she was entirely too energetic and imprudent.  If Keswick should find out from her that she had been in search of him, and why, it might bring about a very unpleasant state of affairs.