Miss Halliday's eyes were undimmed by tears when she went back to the gothic villa; but she had a feeling that some great sorrow had come upon her--a vague idea that the last lingering warmth and brightness of summer had faded all in a moment, and that chill gray winter had closed in upon Bayswater without any autumnal interval. What was it that she had lost? Only the occasional society of a young man with a handsome pale face, a little haggard and wan from the effect of dissipated habits and a previous acquaintance with care and difficulty--only the society of a penniless Bohemian who had a certain disreputable cleverness and a dash of gloomy sentimentality, which the schoolgirl mistook for genius. But then he was the first man whose eyes had ever softened with a mysterious tenderness as they looked at her--the first whose voice had grown faintly tremulous when it syllabled her name. There was some allusion to Mr. Hawkehurst's departure in the course of dinner, and Philip Sheldon expressed some surprise. "Going to leave town?" he said. "Yes, papa," Charlotte answered; "he is going a long way into the country,--a hundred and fifty miles, he said." "Did he tell you where he was going?" "No; he seemed unwilling to mention the place. He only said something about a hundred and fifty miles." CHAPTER IX. MR. SHELDON ON THE WATCH. Mr. Sheldon had occasion to see Captain Paget early the following day, and questioned him closely about his _protege's_ movements. He had found Valentine a very useful tool in sundry intricate transactions of the commercial kind, and he expected his tools to be ready for his service. He was therefore considerably annoyed by Valentine's abrupt departure. "I think young Hawkehurst might have told me he was going out of town," he said. "What the deuce has taken him off in such a hurry?" "He is going to see some mysterious old aunt at Dorking, from whom he seems to expect money," the Captain answered carelessly. "I daresay I can do what you want, Sheldon." "Very likely. But how comes that young fellow to have an aunt at Dorking? I fancy I've heard him say he was without a relative or a friend in the world--always excepting yourself." "The aunt may be another exception; some poor old soul that he's half ashamed to own, I daresay--the inmate of an almshouse, perhaps. Val's expectations may be limited to a few pounds hoarded in a china teapot." "I should have thought Hawkehurst the last man in the world to care about looking after that sort of thing. I could have given him plenty to do if he had stopped in town. He and my brother George are uncommonly intimate, by the bye," added Mr. Sheldon meditatively. It was his habit to be rather distrustful of his brother and of all his brother's acquaintance. "I suppose you can give me Hawkehurst's address, in case I should want to write to him?" he said.