A client has recommended you to me. Leave by earliest train for Portsmouth and call at offices of (a named firm of solicitors) for instructions. I forward herewith fifty pounds for preliminary expenses. HENRY VAN HUPFELDT. The fifty pounds which he thus telegraphed to Dibbin were notes which he had brought for the gamekeeper; so this payment was deferred, at the least. Then he sent word to the Portsmouth firm that Dibbin was to be dispatched on a secret estate-hunting quest in Devonshire, at any terms he chose to demand. His next telegram was to Mrs. Carter at Pangley: Take baby at once by train to Station Hotel, New-street, Birmingham. Leave word with neighbors and at station to say where you have gone. I will write you at Birmingham and send money to-night. Finally to David he wired: I now know everything. Mrs. Carter is about to take my sister's child away from Pangley. Please go there at once, find out where she has gone, and follow her. Wire me to-morrow, or next day, what you have discovered. Forgive yesterday's silence; it was unavoidable. VIOLET. That was all he could devise in the present chaos of his mind. But it would serve, he thought, to give a few hours' breathing-space. He was hard pressed, but far from beaten yet. And now that Violet and her mother were away from Dale Manor, he would take care that they did not return to the house until Violet was his wife. Perhaps even in this desperate hour things had happened for the best. CHAPTER XX DAVID HAS ONE VISITOR, AND EXPECTS OTHERS David had to rise pretty early to admit his charwoman. Behind her, in the outer lobby, he saw the scared face of the hall-porter, who remembered that a certain loud knocking and difficulty of gaining access to that flat on one other occasion had been the prelude to a tragic discovery, though he, not being in the building at the time, had heard of the affair only from his mates. David smiled reassurance at him, and went back to his bed-room to dress. He placed the portrait and the letter in an inner pocket of his waistcoat provided for paper money, and, the hour being in advance of breakfast-time, went out for a stroll. Regent's Park was delightful that morning. Not spring, but summer, was in the air. Nature, to compel man to admire her dainty contrivances, was shutting in the vistas. Already trees and hedge-rows flung their leafy screens across the landscape. So David wandered on, promising himself many such mornings with Violet; for it passed his wit to see how Van Hupfeldt could wriggle out of the testimony of his own picture and his own handwriting. Hence, instead of being earlier he was somewhat later than usual in sitting down to breakfast, and he was a surprised young man when, his charwoman having gone to answer a ring at the door, the announcement came of: "A lady to see you, sir."