"Yes. She left a letter for her sister, full of romantic stuff about loving him all the better because people spoke ill of him; regular woman's talk, you know, bless their poor silly hearts!" murmured Mr. Mercer, with tender compassion. "She was going to London to be married to Mr. Kingdon, she wrote. They were to be married at the old church in the city where she had been christened, and she was going to stay with an old friend—a young woman who had once been her brother's sweetheart, and who was married to a butcher in Newgate-market—till the bans were given out, or the license bought. The butcher's wife had a country-house out at Edmonton, and it was there Susan was going to stay."

"All that seemed straightforward enough," said I.

"Yes," replied uncle Joe; "but if Mr. Kingdon had meant fairly by Susan Meynell, it would have been as easy for him to marry her at Barngrave as in London. He was as poor as a church mouse, but he was his own master, and there was no one to prevent him doing just what he pleased. This is about what James Halliday thought, I suppose; for he tore off to London, as fast as post-horses could carry him, in pursuit of his wife's sister and Mr. Kingdon. But though he made inquiries all along the road he could not hear that they had passed before him, and for the best of all reasons. He went to the butcher's house at Edmonton; but there he found no trace of Susan Meynell, except a letter posted in Yorkshire, on the day of the row between James and Mr. Kingdon, telling her intention of visiting her old friend within the next few days, and hinting at an approaching marriage. There was the letter announcing the visit, but the visitor had not come."

"But the existence of that letter bears witness that Miss Meynell believed in the honesty of her lover's intentions."

"To be sure it does, poor lass," answered Mr. Mercer pensively. "She believed in the word of a scoundrel, and she was made to pay dearly for her simplicity. James Halliday did all he could to find her. He searched London through, as far as any man can search such a place as London; but it was no use, and for a very good reason, as I said before. The end of it was, he was obliged to go back to Newhall no wiser than when he started."

"And was nothing further ever discovered?" I asked eagerly, for I felt that this was just one of those family complications from which all manner of legal difficulties might arise.