"Have you a brother or a husband to help you in these investigations and
searches?" asked Lawrence.

"No," said the cashier with a smile. "Sometimes I send our boy, and as
to boarding houses, I can go to them myself after we shut up here."

"I wish," said Lawrence, "that you were married, and that you had a
husband who would not interfere in this matter at all, but who would go
about with you, and so enable you to follow up your clew thoroughly. You
take up the business in the right spirit, and I believe you would
succeed in finding Mr Keswick, but I don't like the idea of sending you
about by yourself."

"I won't deny," said the cashier, "that since I have begun this affair I
would like very much to carry it out; so, if you don't object, I won't
give it up just yet, and as soon as anything happens I'll let you know."




CHAPTER III.


Autumn in Virginia, especially if one is not too near the mountains, is
a season in which greenness sails very close to Christmas, although
generally veering away in time to prevent its verdant hues from tingeing
that happy day with the gloomy influence of the prophetic proverb about
churchyards. Long after the time when the people of the regions watered
by the Hudson and the Merrimac are beginning to button up their
overcoats, and to think of weather strips for their window-sashes, the