"I don't know anything about that, except that the fly came to the
cottage for her and her luggage. I wanted to go to the station with her,
to see her off, but she wouldn't let me."

"Did she mention me during the time that followed Captain Sedgewick's
death?"

"Only when I spoke about you, sir. I used to try to comfort her, telling
her she had you still left to care for her, and to make up for him she'd
lost. But she used to look at me in a strange pitiful sort of way, and
shake her head. 'I am very miserable, Sarah,' she would say to me; 'I am
quite alone in the world now my dear uncle is gone, and I don't know what
to do.' I told her she ought to look forward to the time when she would
be married, and would have a happy home of her own; but I could never get
her to talk of that."

"Can you tell me the name and address of her friends in London--the young
ladies with whom she went to school?"

"The name is Bruce, sir; and they live, or they used to live at that
time, in St. John's-wood. I have heard Miss Nowell say that, but I don't
know the name of the street or number of the house."

"I daresay I shall be able to find them. It is a strange business, Sarah.
It is most unaccountable that my dearest girl should have left Lidford
without writing me word of her removal and her intentions with regard to
the future--that she should have sent me no announcement of her uncle's
death, although she must have known how well I loved him, I am going to
ask you a question that is very painful to me, but which must be asked