Society was out of town, but Lady
Teasdale, with a house full of friends about her down in Hampshire, did not
forget her _protege_; she waited with pleasant expectation for the young
man's release from poverty.
It came in a day or two. Dr. Shergold was dead, and an enterprising
newspaper announced simultaneously that the bulk of his estate would pass
to Mr. Henry Shergold, a gentleman at present studying for his uncle's
profession. This paragraph caught the eye of Harvey Munden, who sent a line
to his friend, to ask if it was true. In reply he received a mere postcard:
'Yes. Will see you before long.' But Harvey wanted to be off to Como, and
as business took him into the city, he crossed the river and sought Maze
Pond. Again the door was opened to him by the landlady's daughter; she
stood looking keenly in his face, her eyes smiling and yet suspicious.
'Mr. Shergold in?' he asked carelessly.
'No, he isn't.' There was a strange bluntness about this answer. The girl
stood forward, as if to bar the entrance, and kept searching his face.
'When is he likely to be?'
'I don't know. He didn't say when he went out.'
A woman's figure appeared in the background. The girl turned and said
sharply, 'All right, mother, it's only somebody for Mr.
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