“Is yonder Hargrave? No, it is almost like my father!” exclaimed Sir Amyas, in amazement, as the coach lumbered slowly up the approach, and a very remarkable figure was before them. The long white beard was gone, the hair was brushed back, tied up, and the ends disposed of in a square black silk bag, hanging down behind; and the dark grey coat, with collar and deep cuffs of black velvet, was such as would be the ordinary wear of an elderly man of good position; but the face, a fine aquiline one, as to feature, was of perfectly absolute whiteness, scarcely relieved by the thin pale lips, or the eyes, which, naturally of a light-grey, had become almost as colourless as the rest of the face, and Betty felt a shock as if she had seen a marble statue clothed and animated, bowing and speaking. The anxious inquiry and the mournful negative had been mutually exchanged before the carriage door was opened, and all were standing together in the avenue. “I have, however, found a clue, or what may so prove,” said Mr. Belamour, when the greetings had passed. “I have discovered how our fugitive passed the early part of the Sunday;” and he related how he had elicited from the Mistresses Treforth that they had seen her and driven her away with contumely. Sir Amyas and the Major were not sparing of interjections, and the former hoped that his uncle had told them what they deserved. “Thereby only incurring the more compassion,” said Mr. Belamour, dryly, and going on to say that he had extended his inquires to Sedhurst, and had heard of her visit to Dame Wheatfield; also, that the good woman, going to seek her at the church, had found only the basket with the guineas in the paper. She had regarded this merely as a wrapper, and, being unable to read, had never noticed the writing, but she had fortunately preserved it, and Mr. Belamour thus learnt Aurelia’s intention of throwing herself on Lady Belamour’s mercy. “My mother utterly denied all knowledge of her, when I cried out in anguish when she came to see me!” said Sir Amyas. “So she does to Hargrave, whom she sent off to interrogate Mrs. Arden,” said Mr. Belamour. “Have you any reason to think the child could have reached my Lady?” inquired Betty, seeing that none of the gentlemen regarded my Lady’s denials as making any difference to their belief, though not one of them chose to say so. “Merely negative evidence,” said Mr. Belamour. “I find that no one in the house actually beheld the departure of my Lady on that Sunday afternoon. The little girls had been found troublesome, and sent out into the park with Molly, and my nephew was giving full employment to Jumbo and Mrs. Aylward in my room. The groom, who was at the horses’ heads, once averred that he saw two women get into the carriage besides her ladyship; but he is such a sodden confused fellow, and so contradicts himself, that I can make nothing of him.” “He would surely know his young mistress,” said Sir Amyas.