“Mr. Nowell and his daughter, Mrs. Holbrook?”

“Yes, sir, that was the lady’s name.”

“It’s impossible,” cried Gilbert; “utterly impossible that Mrs. Holbrook would go to America!  She has ties that would keep her in England; a husband whom she would never abandon in that manner.  There must be some mistake here.”

“O no, indeed, sir, there’s no mistake.  I saw all the luggage labelled with my own eyes, and the direction was New York by steam-packet Oronoco; and Mrs. Holbrook had lots of dresses made, and all sorts of things.  And as to her husband, sir, her father told me that he’d treated her very badly, and that she never meant to go back to him again to be made unhappy by him.  She was going to New York to live with Mr. Nowell all the rest of her life.”

“There must have been some treachery, some underhand work, to bring this about.  Did she go of her own free will?”

“O, dear me, yes, sir.  Mr. Nowell was kindness itself to her, and she was very fond of him, and pleased to go to America, as far as I could make out.”

“And she never seemed depressed or unhappy?”

“I never noticed her being so, sir.  They were out a good deal, you see; for Mr. Nowell was a gay gentleman, very fond of pleasure, and he would have Mrs. Holbrook always with him.  They were away in Paris ever so long, in January and the beginning of February, but kept on the lodgings all the same.  They were very good lodgers.”

“Had they many visitors?”

“No, sir; scarcely any one except a gentleman who used to come sometimes of an evening, and sit drinking spirits-and-water with Mr. Nowell; he was his lawyer, I believe, but I never heard his name.”

“Did no one come here yesterday to inquire for Mrs. Holbrook towards evening?”

“Yes, sir; there was a gentleman came in a cab.  He looked very ill, as pale as death, and was in a dreadful way when he found they were gone.  He asked me a great many questions, the same as you’ve asked me, and I think I never saw any one so cut-up as he seemed.  He didn’t say much about that either, but it was easy to see it in his face.  He wanted to look at the apartments, to see whether he could find anything, an old letter or such-like, that might be a help to him in going after his friends, and mother took him upstairs.”

“Did he find anything?”

“No, sir; Mr. Nowell hadn’t left so much as a scrap of paper about the place.  So the gentleman thanked mother, and went away in the same cab as had brought him.”

“Do you know where he was going?”

“I fancy he was going to Liverpool after Mr. Nowell and his daughter.  He seemed all in a fever, like a person that’s ready to do anything desperate.  But I heard him tell the cabman Cavendish-square.”

“Cavendish-square!  Yes, I can guess where he was going.  But what could he want there?” Gilbert said to himself, while the girl stared at him wonderingly, thinking that he, as well as the other gentleman, had gone distraught on account of Mr. Nowell’s daughter.