longer than was absolutely necessary. Of late, however, he had been
living here for some months, and it was believed that he intended to
stay here the greater part of his time.

This was all that Miss Plympton was able to learn about Wiggins.

* * * * *




CHAPTER IX.


SIR LIONEL DUDLEIGH.

Although Miss Plympton had indulged the hope that Wiggins might relent,
the time passed without bringing any message from him, and every hour as
it passed made a more pressing necessity for her to decide on some plan.
The more she thought over the matter, the more she thought that her best
plan of action lay in that very threat which she had made to Wiggins.
True, it had been made as a mere threat, but on thinking it over it
seemed the best policy.

The only other course lay in action of her own. She might find some
lawyer and get him to interpose. But this involved a responsibility on
her part from which she shrank so long as there was any other who had a
better right to incur such responsibility. Now Sir Lionel was Edith's
uncle by marriage; and though there had been trouble between husband and
wife, she yet felt sure that one in Edith's position would excite the,