DUFFEL--THE SECRET CAVE AND CLAN.


For the first few days of her illness, Duffel came to inquire after
Eveline. Finding that she was likely to remain sick for a length of time,
if she ever recovered, he excused himself from further attentions by
pleading the necessity of a previous engagement, which would probably
require his absence for a week or possibly a fortnight. With apparently the
deepest solicitude for the recovery of Eveline and of sympathy for Mr.
Mandeville, he took his leave.

When a little way from the house, he muttered to himself:

"Well, I am free from the necessity of keeping up appearances here any
longer. Now for the _cave_!"

In a short time, he was threading his way through the forest, mounted on a
fine animal. A narrow path lay before him, which he followed for some
miles, and then turned into the untrodden wilderness and wound his way
through its trackless wastes. There were no signs indicating that the foot
of man or domesticated beast had ever pressed the earth in those solitary
wilds; yet Duffel seemed familiar with the place, as was evident from his
unhesitating choice of ways and careless ease. He knew by marks, to others
unseen, or, if seen, their significance unknown, that he was moving in the
right direction. Having traveled several miles in this way, he at length
came to a beaten path, at right-angles with the course he had been going,
into which he guided his noble beast. After pursuing this latter course at
a rapid rate for more than an hour, he again turned off into the woods,
and, guided by the same mystic signs as before, shaped his course with