"
Mr. Walraven smiled grimly.
"That's as it should be. Apart, they are harmless; together, they are
the devil's own. And now, how's the mother, and how's Mollie?"
"Your mother is as well as usual, I believe. As to Miss Dane," lifting
his eyebrows in surprise, "have you not heard?"
"Heard what?"
"Why, that she has gone."
"Gone!" cried Carl Walraven, "gone again? What the foul fiend does the
girl mean? Has she been carried off a third time?"
"Oh, dear, no! nothing of that sort. Miss Dane and Mr. Ingelow departed
together late in the afternoon of the same day you left, and neither has
since been heard of."
Mr. Sardonyx made this extraordinary statement with a queer smile just
hovering about the corners of his legal mouth. His employer looked at
him sternly.
"See here, Sardonyx," he said; "none of your insinuations. Miss Dane is
my ward, remember. You are her jilted lover, I remember. Therefore, I
can make allowances. But no insinuations. If Miss Dane and Mr. Ingelow
left together, you know as well as I do there was no impropriety in
their doing so.
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