Page:Once a Week Dec 1860 to June 61.pdf/320

 16, 1861.] THE SILVER CORD.

was rarely that Mr. Hawkesley, after he had entered his sanctum and sealed it against the world, for whose improvement he declared himself to be labouring, was intruded upon by visitors during the hours he set apart for the discharge of that elevated duty, and his wife was much too sensible a woman to exercise her own right of entrée, except upon emergency. So, when Beatrice Hawkesley hurried into the room without the faintest extenuating pretext, and suddenly recalled the author from fiction to reality, he dropped his pen with becoming marital submission.

“Charles, that woman will be here presently.”

“That woman?”

“From Lipthwaite, with whom Clara was left.”

“Mrs. Berry—what makes you say that?”

“Poor Price is here—she has hurried over as fast as she could come to warn us.”

“But why did she think we wanted warning?—Is the woman coming to claim the child?”

“I should like to hear her ask for Clara.”

“You do not purpose to give her up then, apparently?”

“What!—give her up to a creature that maligns her mother, and frightens the child with evil spirits? I will send for a policeman if she dares even to hint at such a thing.”

“You will send for me, my dear, which will answer your purpose far better. However, it is natural that she should make every search for a girl who was confided to her, and who departed without her leave or knowledge.knowledge.” [sic]

“Yes, and I suppose that she is in a state of terror lest Clara should tell how abominably she has been treated?”

“Possibly. But you don’t tell me why Price thought it needful to warn us.”

“It was quite right in her. The woman went to Gurdon Terrace, and spoke in a way which seems to have enraged Price beyond all measure. She said that there was no probability of Laura’s returning, and—”