At first I read nothing but amazement in this announcement, but in another moment I felt how completely I was relieved; and showing, I believe, my intense satisfaction in my countenance—­for the young lady eyed me with considerable surprise and curiosity—­I said—­

’This is extremely important.  You must see Mr. Silas Ruthyn this moment.  I am certain he knows nothing of it.  I will conduct you to him.’

‘No more he does—­I know that myself,’ she replied, following me with a self-asserting swagger, and a great rustling of cheap silk.

As we entered, Uncle Silas looked up from his sofa, and closed his Revue des Deux Mondes.

‘What is all this?’ he enquired, drily.

’This lady has brought with her a newspaper containing an extraordinary statement which affects our family,’ I answered.

Uncle Silas raised himself, and looked with a hard, narrow scrutiny at the unknown young lady.

‘A libel, I suppose, in the paper?’ he said, extending his hand for it.

‘No, uncle—­no; only a marriage,’ I answered.

‘Not Monica?’ he said, as he took it.  ’Pah, it smells all over of tobacco and beer,’ he added, throwing a little eau de Cologne over it.

He raised it with a mixture of curiosity and disgust, saying again ‘pah,’ as he did so.

He read the paragraph, and as he did his face changed from white, all over, to lead colour.  He raised his eyes, and looked steadily for some seconds at the young lady, who seemed a little awed by his strange presence.

’And you are, I suppose, the young lady, Sarah Matilda nee Mangles, mentioned in this little paragraph?’ he said, in a tone you would have called a sneer, were it not that it trembled.

Sarah Matilda assented.

’My son is, I dare say, within reach.  It so happens that I wrote to arrest his journey, and summon him here, some days since—­some days since—­some days since,’ he repeated slowly, like a person whose mind has wandered far away from the theme on which he is speaking.

He had rung his bell, and old Wyat, always hovering about his rooms, entered.

’I want my son, immediately.  If not in the house, send Harry to the stables; if not there, let him be followed, instantly.  Brice is an active fellow, and will know where to find him.  If he is in Feltram, or at a distance, let Brice take a horse, and Master Dudley can ride it back.  He must be here without the loss of one moment.’

There intervened nearly a quarter of an hour, during which whenever he recollected her, Uncle Silas treated the young lady with a hyper-refined and ceremonious politeness, which appeared to make her uneasy, and even a little shy, and certainly prevented a renewal of those lamentations and invectives which he had heard faintly from the stair-head.

But for the most part Uncle Silas seemed to forget us and his book, and all that surrounded him, lying back in the corner of his sofa, his chin upon his breast, and such a fearful shade and carving on his features as made me prefer looking in any direction but his.