Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by the Internet Web Archive A SECRET OF THE SEA. Transcriber's Notes (Volume 1): 1. Page scan source: Web Archive https://archive.org/details/secretofseanovel01spei (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) A SECRET OF THE SEA. A Novel. By T. W. SPEIGHT, AUTHOR OF "IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT," "UNDER LOCK AND KEY," ETC., ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON. 1876. (_All Rights Reserved_.) CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTER I. IN THE LAWYER'S OFFICE. II. MISS BELLAMY. III. THE STORY OF THE MURDER. IV. A BROKEN LIFE. V. GERALD AT PEMBRIDGE. VI. "THAT'S THE MAN!" VII. MISS DEANE FINDS A NEW HOME. VIII. GERALD AT STAMMARS. IX. FOUND. X. IN HARLEY STREET. XI. IN KENSINGTON GARDENS. XII. THE FACE IN THE GLASS. A SECRET OF THE SEA. CHAPTER I. IN THE LAWYER'S OFFICE. It was a December morning, clear and frosty. The timepiece in the office of Matthew Kelvin, attorney-at-law, Pembridge, Hertfordshire, racing noisily after the grave old Abbey clock which had just done chiming, pointed to the hour of ten. With his back to the welcome fire, and turning over yesterday's _Times_ with an air of contemptuous indifference, stood Mr. Podley Piper--whose baptismal name was universally shortened into "Pod"--a short, thickset young gentleman of the mature age of sixteen. His nose was a pure specimen of a pug, and his short scrubby hair was of a colour sufficiently pronounced to earn him the nickname of "Carotty Pod" from sundry irreverent small boys of his acquaintance. His nose and his hair notwithstanding, Pod was a keen, bright-looking lad, with an air of shrewdness and decision about him by no means common in one of his age. "Awfully dry reading--the _Times_," muttered Pod, tossing the paper on Mr. Kelvin's desk. "Only one suicide, and not a single murder in it. It's not worth buying. And yet there must be something in it, or so many people wouldn't read it. I suppose that by the time I'm fifty, and wear creaky shoes and carry a big gold watch in my fob, and have to count my hairs every morning to see that I haven't lost one overnight,--I suppose, when that time comes, I shall think as much of the _Times_ as Sir Thomas Dudgeon does. But just at present I'd rather read the 'Bounding Wolf of the Prairies.'"