“Sarah Kimber!” cried Daniel,--“undoubtedly Sarah Kimber, a girl whose father kept a linendraper’s shop, and who went to school with Celia. My poor sister and she were fast friends; but I never could endure her. She was a lank, lantern-jawed, whitey-brown girl, and I always thought her deceitful. Good God! how the old time comes back as you talk to me! I can see the little parlour at Bayham, and those two girls seated side by side on an old-fashioned chintz-covered sofa, with an open window and a green trellis-work of honeysuckle and jasmine behind them. I can see it all, Eustace, as fresh and vivid as a picture at a private view--Celia so bright and lovely; that Kimber girl an unconscious foil to her beauty.” “Do you know if this Miss Kimber is still alive?” “No, lad. Bayham may lie fathoms deep beneath the sea, like the mystic city of Lyonesse, for anything I know. I have never been there since the day of my mother’s funeral.” “I shall try to find Miss Kimber, Uncle Dan. She may be able to tell me a great deal.” “As you will, dear boy. If you took poor old Dan’s advice, you would let the story rest. But youth is fiery and impetuous, and must take its own course. If ever you do find _that man_, Eustace, let me know his name, for he and I have a heavy reckoning to settle.” CHAPTER VI. AT BAYHAM. EUSTACE THORBURN went to Bayham, and took up his quarters at the George Hotel. The Dorsetshire watering-place had once been fashionable; but its fashion had departed, and an atmosphere of decay pervaded the grandeurs of that bygone day. Happily, the departure of fashion, which had never had any hand in the loveliness of the bay and the broad yellow sands, had robbed the Bayham shore of no grace or charm. The changing opal waters retained their brightest hues, though only west-country gentry came to look upon them. The golden sands were golden still, though the crystal chandeliers and sconces which had once adorned the assembly-room had been sold by auction, and the room itself converted into a Baptist chapel. There had been many changes at the George within the last twenty years. That once popular establishment had been superseded by a gigantic, stuccoed railway-hotel--itself a dismal failure--and the last two proprietors had been insolvent. Eustace Thorburn sought in vain for a visitors’ book dated ’43. All such books had been sold for waste paper years ago, and the only creature to be found in the hotel who had belonged to the same establishment in the year ’43 was a semi-idiotic ostler. Eustace abandoned all hope of information in this quarter, and went out into the little seaside town to look for the house in which his mother’s childhood had been spent.