r Mrs Elsworthy, who had jumped from her
husband's side when he came in. The whole party looked like startled
conspirators to Mr Wentworth's eyes, though he had not the least idea
what they had been doing. "Have you heard anything of Rosa?" he asked
again; and everybody looked at Elsworthy, as if he were the guilty man,
and had suborned the rest; which, indeed, in one sense, was not far from
being the case.

When Elsworthy came to himself, he gave Mr Wentworth a sidelong
dangerous look. "No, sir--nothing," said Rosa's uncle. "Them as has
hidden her has hidden her well. I didn't expect to hear not yet," said
Elsworthy. Though Mr Wentworth did not know what he meant, his little
audience in the shop did, and showed, by the slightest murmur in the
world, their conviction that the arrow had gone home, which naturally
acted like a spur upon the Curate, who was not the wisest man in the
world.

"I am very sorry to see you in so much distress," said the young man,
looking at Mrs Elsworthy's red eyes, "but I trust things will turn out
much better than you imagine. If I can do anything to help you, let
me know," said Mr Wentworth. Perhaps it was foolish to say so much,
knowing what he did, but unfortunately prudence was not the ruling
principle at that moment in the Curate's soul.

"I was a-thinking of letting you know, sir," said the clerk of St
Roque's, with deadly meaning; "leastways not me, but them as has taken
me by the hand. There's every prospect as it'll all be known afore
long," said Elsworthy, pushing his wife aside and following Mr
Wentworth, with a ghastly caricature of his old obsequiousness, to the
door. "There's inquiries a-being made as was never known to fail. For
one thing, I've written to them as knows a deal about the movements of
a party as is suspected--not to say as I've got good friends," said
Rosa's guardian, standing upon the step of his own door, and watching
the Curate out into the darkness. Mr Wentworth could not altogether
restrain a slight thrill of unpleasant emotion, for Elsworthy,
standing at his door with the light gleaming over him from behind, and
his face invisible, had an unpleasant resemblance to a wild beast
waiting for his prey.

"I am glad to think you are likely to be so successful. Send me word
as soon as you know," said the Curate, and he pursued his way home
afterwards, with feelings far from pleasant. He saw something was
about to come of this more than he had thought likely,