The Master of Silence | Page 5

opportunity. If you don't like it, come back, but, if
you can content yourself there for awhile, you had better do so."
"But, sir, I have no money."
"You are going for me; I shall, therefore, insist upon paying the bills. In
the success of the undertaking I have, perhaps, as great an interest as
you."
"When do you wish me to start?" I asked.
"To-night. 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