The North Cumberland Reformer. — 1895-05-25 (Carlisle, Cumbria, England)

ALL RIGHTS RESERVRD.]  CHAPTER VII. • TANGLED WEB. HYTTIZ Devrox and Brunton Rivers called the evening at the house where the unlucky musician lodged, only to be told that he was gone, no one kne... Whither. Mrs. Trenchard had nothing to reveal, and was just a little short in her answers. The excitement of what had happened was passing over, and leaving her feeling cross and aggrieved. Mr. Eames certainly owed her nothing, but she felt that she had been badly treated inhis suddendeparture. He might have had confidence in her, she thought; she would noti have betrayed anything that he wished kept se secret. She said so to herself, but if she had known where! her late lodger was gone, she would not have kept it! to herself a minute after she was asked for the; address. She had no idea that Jenny was hoaxing' her when she said she might have been mistaken, or she would have sent the young men straight to Del Montfort-street, and put them in the way of unearth.' jag more than Clarence Eames. "It is odd," Hythe Dalton said to his friend; "there is more in it than appears on the surface." "Do you think he has made away with himself? For all we know and think, it would not be tin, likely." "No, he would not be the first, but I do not think it has come to that yet. The woman says he has sent for his things, and he would not have so much fore. thouelit if he was going to commit suicide. I think he has gone a little wrong in his head, and is hiding himself, poor fellow." "Poor fellow, indeed!" " Ah, you understand now, Rivers, do you not ?" "I think I do. I can understand the marvellous witchery that your cousinexercises; it is almost more than natural. I could not know her for long and not fall under the spell; she would draw me to her against the strongest will that I could exercise if she choose to do it." "Then for heaven's sake keep out of her way." "I will, unless you are with me. You seem to have a wholesome influence over her, or me, I don't know which." "Over both, I hope and trust," the young man said, half seriously, half jestingly. "I would not nave you lose yourself for her for alll possess. I have a theory of my own about my fair cousin; time will show whether I am right." "Do you think she is an impostor—that she is keep* lag you out of your inheritance ?'' -Dalton laughed, and looked at his friend in amaze merit. "Whatever put such an idea as that into your head ?" he said. "No, there is no such notion in my nead. She is the legal heiress of that most unpleasant old man; there cannot be the shadow of doubt on that score—it is quite a different matter. I shall go to the Granee. Will you come with me ?" " If Miss Glyndon will not object." "I shall not ask Miss Glyndon. We are going to see if she or any one there can throw any light on this mysterious disappearance.; the woman of the house is not disposed to be communicative." " She has nothing to tell; that is the reason of her grimness. She would be voluble enough if she bad." Mr. Rivers had measured Mrs. Trenchard pretty accurately. She was disgusted that she knew nothing. She looked upon Miss Jenny's information as apocryphal altogether, caused by an imaginary likeness, and she said nothing about it. "It was a dreadful worry," she declared to her next-door neighbour during their morning gossip over the wall that divided theirbaek premises; "it was had enough to have young fellows fussing about and giving themselves all sorts of airs and asking questions about things that don't concern them." "Perhaps they were relations of Mr. Eames." "so, they weren't. They said when they called the night lie came home bad that they did not know him ; they had only met him at the party. It is quite enough I say to have to answer them. without having impertinent fellows in livery knocking at one's doors, as if they were dukes, enquiring after Mr. Eames, and looking at me as if I was dirt." "I hate livery servants," said the neighbour, seenvathisingly ; "they always do give themselves airs.' "This one did, any way, and he wasn't satisfied with being rude to me, but he must go fooling with Mary Ann, as if she wasn't flighty and giddy enough already." "Girls are a plague," the other woman remarked; "the very sight of a man seems to turn some of their heads. Mr. Eames must have had fine friends for them to send livery servants after him." "He went to a lot of good houses I know," Mrs. Trenchard said. "But this one came from the house where he Ives taken ill. He was very pert to me, had seemed to think I ought to know where the gentleman was gone to, as if I troubled about my odgers when they pay up and go respectably like." "But Mr. Eames went very oddly.'  next'  hadl