This, however, proved to be wasted advice.  Mr. Bast was impervious.  He undertook to forward a letter to Mr. O’Leary, but would not tell where, nor whether wife and daughter were with him.  The letter was written, and in due time was answered, but with an intimation that the information desired could only be given upon the terms already mentioned; and refusing all transactions respecting the young lady mentioned, who was with her natural guardians and in no need of intervention.

They were baffled at all points, and the lawyer did not encourage any idea of holding out a lure for information, which might easily be trumped up.  Since Lancelot had discovered so much as that the first marriage had taken place at Messina, and the desertion at Trieste, as well as that the husband was said to have been a native of Piedmont, he much recommended personal investigation at all these points, especially as Mr. Underwood could obtain the assistance and interest of consuls.  It was likely that if neither uncle nor nephew made further demonstration, the O’Learys would attempt further communication, which he and Lance could follow up.  This might be a clue to finding “the young lady"—-to him a secondary matter, to Gerald a vital one, but for the present nothing could be done for her, poor child.

So they could only return to Rockquay to make immediate preparations for the journey.  Matters were simplified by Miss Mohun, who, hearing that Clement’s doctors ordered him abroad for the winter, came to the rescue, saying that she should miss Fergus and his lessons greatly, and she thought it would be a pity for Mrs. Edgar to lose their little baronet, just after having given offence to certain inhabitants by a modified expulsion of Campbell and Horner, and therefore volunteering to take Adrian for a few terms, look after his health, his morals, and his lessons, and treat him in fact like a nephew, “to keep her hand in,” she said, “till the infants began to appear from India.”

This was gratefully accepted, and Alda liked the plan better than placing him at Bexley, which she continued to regard as an unwholesome place.  The proposal to take Franceska was likewise welcome, and the damsel herself was in transports of delight.  Various arrangements had to be made, and it was far on in August that the farewells were exchanged with Clipstone and Beechcroft Cottage, where each member of the party felt that a real friend had been acquired.  The elders, ladies who had grown up in an enthusiastic age, were even more devoted to one another than were Anna and Mysie.  Gillian stood a little aloof, resolved against “foolish” confidences, and devoting herself to studies for college life, in which she tried to swallow up all the feelings excited by those ship letters.

Dolores had her secret, which was to be no longer a secret when she had heard from her father, and in the meantime, with Gerald’s full concurrence, she was about to work hard to qualify herself for lecturing or giving lessons on physical science.  She could not enter the college that she wished for till the winter term, and meant to spend the autumn in severe study.