Away went Bridget, in her warm Scotch plaid shawl and black coal-scuttle bonnet. Mr. Tiplady was standing at the office-door, looking up and down the street. Bridget delivered to him her lady's message. "Lady Cleeve sent you to me to inquire about the movements of Mr. Philip," cried the architect, after listening. "I was just going to send to ask Lady Cleeve the same question." This famous architect, renowned in more counties than one, was a kindly, unpretending man, small and slight, and chary of speech in general. He took off his hat to push back the few scanty grey hairs left on his head, as he looked at the servant. "My lady thought, sir, that you must know what was keeping Mr. Philip so long in London." "I know nothing about it, Bridget. I don't know why he went. His absence is causing us some inconvenience." Bridget, who was much in her mistress's confidence, could not make this out. "He went upon business for you, sir, did he not?" "Not at all. Mr. Best here got a note from him on Wednesday morning, saying he had to run up to town on a little business, but should be back the following day. We have heard nothing of him since. Make my compliments to your lady, and tell her this." Lady Cleeve became actively alarmed now. All sorts of dire forebodings filled the mother's heart. London was a place beset with dangers in many ways: she had heard, and fully believed, that hardly a day passed but somebody or other was lost in it, and that they were never heard of again. Sending out to order a fly, she was set down at the office. Mr. Tiplady was in his private room then, and handed her to a seat. "I would be only too glad to tell you what is detaining him, if I knew," said the little man kindly, in answer to her somewhat impassioned appeal. "We supposed he had gone up upon some matter for yourself. Lost?--lost? no, no, dear Lady Cleeve; don't imagine anything so improbable as that. Philip is quite old enough to take care of himself." "But what can he have gone to London for? And why should he have made a mystery of it?" "Well, to say the truth, that's what I cannot quite understand. Best said a word to me this morning--he got it from young Plympton, I fancy--that Philip had been embarking money in some speculation, and---- Do you know anything about it?" "Nothing," said Lady Cleeve, whose face was growing more anxious with every moment. "I'll call Best in," said the architect. But upon going into an adjoining room he found that Mr. Best had stepped out. So he brought in Richard Plympton. This young man, who had been placed in the architect's office as an "improver," was brother to Mr. Kettle's curate, and was a great friend of Philip. Young Plympton, after shaking hands with Lady Cleeve, told what he knew, thinking it right under present circumstances to do so: that Philip had bought some shares in a rich silver-mining company, the Hermandad, and that he had gone up to town to see if he could not sell out again.