Randal Leslie, on leaving Audley, repaired to Frank's lodgings, and after
being closeted with the young Guardsman an hour or so, took his way to
Limmer's hotel, and asked for Mr. Hazeldean. He was shown into the
coffee-room, while the waiter went up-stairs with his card, to see if the
squire was within, and disengaged. The "Times" newspaper lay sprawling
on one of the tables, and Randal, leaning over it, looked with attention
into the column containing births, deaths, and marriages. But in that
long and miscellaneous list he could not conjecture the name which had so
excited Mr. Egerton's interest.

"Vexatious!" he muttered; "there is no knowledge which has power more
useful than that of the secrets of men."

He turned as the waiter entered and said that Mr. Hazeldean would be glad
to see him.

As Randal entered the drawing-room, the squire, shaking hands with him,
looked towards the door as if expecting some one else; and his honest
face assumed a blank expression of disappointment, when the door closed,
and he found that Randal was unaccompanied.

"Well," said he, bluntly, "I thought your old schoolfellow, Frank, might
have been with you."

Have you not seen him yet, sir?"

"No, I came to town this morning; travelled outside the mail; sent to his
barracks, but the young gentleman does not sleep there, has an apartment
of his own; he never told me that. We are a plain family, the
Hazeldeans, young sir; and I hate being kept in the dark,--by my own son,