woman, you may depend on it, who is bent on preventing you from tracing
her. I confess I wish we had somebody we could trust lounging about
where those two roads branch off from the road that leads to the
railway. I must go in another direction; _I_ can't do it."

"Arnold can do it!"

Sir Patrick looked a little doubtful. "Arnold is an excellent fellow,"
he said. "But can we trust to his discretion?"

"He is, next to you, the most perfectly discreet person I know,"
rejoined Blanche, in a very positive manner; "and, what is more, I have
told him every thing about Anne, except what has happened to-day. I am
afraid I shall tell him _that,_ when I feel lonely and miserable,
after you have gone. There is something in Arnold--I don't know what
it is--that comforts me. Besides, do you think he would betray a secret
that I gave him to keep? You don't know how devoted he is to me!"

"My dear Blanche, I am not the cherished object of his devotion; of
course I don't know! You are the only authority on that point. I stand
corrected. Let us have Arnold, by all means. Caution him to be careful;
and send him out by himself, where the roads meet. We have now only one
other place left in which there is a chance of finding a trace of her. I
undertake to make the necessary investigation at the Craig Fernie inn."

"The Craig Fernie inn? Uncle! you have forgotten what I told you."

"Wait a little, my dear. Miss Silvester herself has left the inn, I
grant you. But (if we should unhappily fail in finding her by any other
means) Miss Silvester has left a trace to guide us at Craig Fernie. That