Meantime enquiries were set on foot on all sides as to the girl Williams. Frank Varley had ascertained from the station master at Dunwich, that a young girl, veiled and exceedingly well dressed, had left by the first train on that morning— “I should not have noticed any number of ladies at any other time, sir,” said the man, “but it is quite the exception for any but work people or business men to travel up by the 5.9 a.m. train.” Varley had farther ascertained from the guard, that the lady had travelled first class, and had seemed very faint and tired. Arriving at the Midland Station, his work suddenly and unexpectedly became very easy to him. The officials there at once informed him of a lady having been taken alarmingly ill on alighting from the early morning train. The porter who told him, said that he himself had fetched a cab for her, and, scarcely conscious, she had given some address at Hackney, where she wished to be driven, but the name of the street had entirely slipped his memory. Frank did not waste time in further enquiries. He at once telegraphed to Detective Hill fullest particulars of Lucy’s flight, and where he expected to find her, requesting him to follow him there as soon as possible. Then he sprang into a cab, and gave the man orders to drive to Gresham Street, Hackney. An hour’s drive brought him to the farther side of that northern suburb—a _terra incognita_ to Frank, whose knowledge of London was limited to the club quarters, and west-end-squares and parks. Two or three busy roads were crossed, with flaring gas jets and goods very freely distributed on the pavement in front of the comparatively empty shops. Then a sudden turn brought him into a quiet street of some twenty or thirty two-storied houses, inhabited mostly by dressmakers, machinists, and journeymen of all kinds. Although poor, there was an air of quiet industry about the place, which gave Frank the hope that Lucy Williams’s friends might prove respectable, honest people. Dismissing his cab, he knocked at the door of No. 15; a few minutes elapsed, and it was opened by a tall, thin, pale woman of about thirty years of age, very neatly dressed, and with a look of settled anxiety and grief upon a face plain, but still frank and honest. “Ah! I expected you, sir,” she said, quietly, “or at least some one in pursuit to-night. If you have come in search of Lucy Williams, I beseech you take these, and let the girl die in peace.” She opened her hand, and held out something glittering; there was no light in the narrow doorway, but the glimmer of a gas-lamp lower down the street fell upon a small heap of splendidly cut diamonds, and was flashed back in a thousand brilliant hues. These Frank readily identified as the brooch and earrings Miss Warden had worn at the county ball the last night he had seen her. He took them from the woman’s hand—