It was near the hour, by the time they got there, when David Arden would arrive from his northern point of departure. Longcluse looked animated--smiling; but a stupendous load lay on his heart. A single clumsy phrase in the letter of that detective scoundrel might be enough to direct the formidable suspicions of that energetic old gentleman upon him. The next hour might throw him altogether upon the defensive, and paralyse his schemes. Alice Arden, you little dream of the man and the route by which, possibly, deliverance is speeding to you. Near the steps of the large hotel that looks seaward, Longcluse and Sir Richard lounge, expecting the arrival of David Arden almost momentarily. Up drives a fly, piled with portmanteaus, hat-case, dressing-case, and all the other travelling appurtenances of a comfortable wayfarer. Beside the driver sits a servant. The fly draws up at the door near them. Mr. Longcluse's seasoned heart throbs once or twice oddly. Out gets Uncle David, looking brown and healthy after his northern excursion. On reaching the top of the steps, he halts, and turns round to look about him. Again Mr. Longcluse feels the same odd sensation. Uncle David recognises Sir Richard, and smiling greets him. He runs down the steps to meet him. After they have shaken hands, and, a little more coldly, he and Mr. Longcluse, he says,-- "You are not looking yourself, Dick; you ought to have run down to the moors, and got up an appetite. How is Alice?" "Alice? Oh! Alice is very well, thanks." "I should like to run up to Mortlake to see her. She has been complaining, eh?" "No, no--better," says Sir Richard. "And you forget to tell your uncle what you told me," interposes Mr. Longcluse, "that Miss Arden left Mortlake for Yorkshire yesterday." "Oh!" said Uncle David, turning to Richard again. "And the servants went before--two or three days ago," said Sir Richard, looking down for a moment, and hastening, under that clear eye, to speak a little truth. "Well, I wish she had come with us," said David Arden; "but as she could not be persuaded, I'm glad she is making a little change of air and scene, in any direction. By-the-bye, Mr. Longcluse, you had a letter, had not you, from our friend, Paul Davies?" "Yes; he seemed to think he had found a clue--from Paris it was--and I wrote to tell him to spare no expense in pushing his inquiries and to draw upon me." "Well, I have some news to tell you. His exploring voyage will come to nothing; you did not hear?" "No." "Why, the poor fellow's dead. I got a letter--it reached me, forwarded from my house in town, yesterday, from the person who hires the lodgings--to say he had died of scarlatina very suddenly, and sending an inventory of the things he left. It is a pity, for he seemed a smart fellow, and sanguine about getting to the bottom of it."