The Master of Silence | Page 5

That is to say, I would like you to leave this place at once, go with me to a hotel, and sail by the first steamer that leaves for New York."
Ever since that strange and silent messenger had come to me with my uncle's letter I had been haunted by a desire to go in quest of him. Now that it was possible, I hesitated. What would Hester say on hearing that I had gone to America? It would be very grand to write her from New York that I had been suddenly called abroad on important business. Would she care? Of course she would care, and I was willing to wager a sixpence with myself that she would cry bitterly, too, on receiving the letter. Ah, what a punishment that would be for her coldness and indifference!
Yes, I would go. I began picking up my things and packing them into my box.
"I conclude that you have decided to go," he said.
"Yes, sir. I shall be ready in a moment," I replied.
We were soon rattling over the pavements in a cab that had been waiting at the door.
On arriving at the Northwestern Hotel we were informed that a steamer would leave for New York at five in the morning. We drove at once to the dock and having succeeded in making comfortable arrangements for my passage Mr. Earl went aboard the steamer with me. In a retired corner of the great cabin I confessed to him that there was a girl in Liverpool for whom I had a feeling of extraordinary tenderness.
He laughed heartily and insisted that I should tell him all the particulars.
"You are rather young yet to entertain so serious a passion," said he, as he held my hand for a moment before going ashore. "You will get over it as easily as you got into it."
I sat down, unable to reply or to restrain the tears that came to my eyes as he left me alone. I went to my stateroom at once and to bed. What thoughts came to me as I lay there inviting sleep to turn them into dreams, while the great ship waited for the tide! I tossed about my berth; I prayed; I listened. At length I thought I heard my father's voice mingled with others, and a sound of casting off--but I heard no more.
CHAPTER III
One morning in early October, nearly two years after I left Liverpool that memorable night, I found myself in the little city of Ogdensburg, N. Y., past which the majestic St. Lawrence flows with a sleepy movement quite in harmony with the spirit of the old town on its southern shore. All this time I had been vainly beating about the Western Hemisphere in quest of my uncle. He had left Detroit many years before, but I chanced to meet a number of men there who had known him well. Although he had enjoyed a very large practice and a wide reputation for skill, he had made no friends that I could find. He was a man of few words, they told me, and was never seen about the city except in the discharge of his professional duties. Various and conflicting opinions were expressed as to whither he had gone, in testing which I had visited no less than twenty cities, making careful inquiries, especially among medical men. Occasionally I struck what seemed to be a promising clew, which only increased my confusion and left me more hopelessly in the dark. I had reported my movements to Mr. Earl as often as once a week and I received letters from him frequently, encouraging me to continue the search and enclosing money with which to do so. But although I had written often to Hester Chaffin no word from her ever reached me. I was tired of this fruitless quest among strangers, so far from the little that I held dear, and I was on the point of giving up when this paragraph fell under my eye in a Montreal newspaper:
A MYSTERIOUS CHARACTER.
"One who has ever passed the city of Ogdensburg by steamer will no doubt recall a large gambrel-roofed house standing near the water's edge, just out of the town, surrounded by towering trees and enclosed on all sides by a wall nearly as high as the eaves of the building. The wall suggests an asylum, a house of detention or some like place set apart for the unfortunate members of society. In reality, however, it is the residence of a mysterious recluse of the name of Lane, who shut himself up there nearly eighteen years ago and has since been rarely seen. It was built after his own plans, they say, when he came to Ogdensburg with his wife, who died soon afterward. Nobody knows