Next to her anxiety about Ellinor, Miss Monro liked to dilate on the mystery connected with Mr. Dunster’s flight; for that was the word she employed without hesitation, as she gave him the account of the event universally received and believed in by the people of Hamley.  How Mr. Dunster had never been liked by any one; how everybody remembered that he could never look them straight in the face; how he always seemed to be hiding something that he did not want to have known; how he had drawn a large sum (exact quantity unknown) out of the county bank only the day before he left Hamley, doubtless in preparation for his escape; how some one had told Mr. Wilkins he had seen a man just like Dunster lurking about the docks at Liverpool, about two days after he had left his lodgings, but that this some one, being in a hurry, had not cared to stop and speak to the man; how that the affairs in the office were discovered to be in such a sad state that it was no wonder that Mr. Dunster had absconded—­he that had been so trusted by poor dear Mr. Wilkins.  Money gone no one knew how or where.

“But has he no friends who can explain his proceedings, and account for the missing money, in some way?” asked Mr. Corbet.

“No, none.  Mr. Wilkins has written everywhere, right and left, I believe.  I know he had a letter from Mr. Dunster’s nearest relation—­a tradesman in the City—­a cousin, I think, and he could give no information in any way.  He knew that about ten years ago Mr. Dunster had had a great fancy for going to America, and had read a great many travels—­all just what a man would do before going off to a country.”

“Ten years is a long time beforehand,” said Mr. Corbet, half smiling; “shows malice prepense with a vengeance.”  But then, turning grave, he said:  “Did he leave Hamley in debt?”

“No; I never heard of that,” said Miss Monro, rather unwillingly, for she considered it as a piece of loyalty to the Wilkinses, whom Mr. Dunster had injured (as she thought) to blacken his character as much as was consistent with any degree of truth.

“It is a strange story,” said Mr. Corbet, musing.

“Not at all,” she replied, quickly; “I am sure, if you had seen the man, with one or two side-locks of hair combed over his baldness, as if he were ashamed of it, and his eyes that never looked at you, and his way of eating with his knife when he thought he was not observed—­oh, and numbers of things!—­you would not think it strange.”

Mr. Corbet smiled.

“I only meant that he seems to have had no extravagant or vicious habits which would account for his embezzlement of the money that is missing—­but, to be sure, money in itself is a temptation—­only he, being a partner, was in a fair way of making it without risk to himself.  Has Mr. Wilkins taken any steps to have him arrested in America?  He might easily do that.”

“Oh, my dear Mr. Ralph, you don’t know our good Mr. Wilkins!  He would rather bear the loss, I am sure, and all this trouble and care which it has brought upon him, than be revenged upon Mr. Dunster.”