engaged in their hospitable duties.
Soup it was their business to minister to travellers, not private
information. They _had_ seen the gentleman and lady. Very attentive to
her he seemed. Yes, they were on the best terms: "very sweet on each
other," one young lady averred, and then secured her retreat and
concealed her blushes by ministering to the wants of a hungry and
hurried public. All this was horribly disagreeable to Maitland.

Maitland finally reached Paddington, still asking questions. He had
telegraphed the night before to inquire whether two persons answering
to the oft-repeated description had been noticed at the terminus. He had
received a reply in the negative before leaving Tiverton. Here, then,
was a check. If the ticket-collector was to be credited, the objects
of his search had reached Westbourne Park, where their tickets had
been taken. There, however, all the evidence proved that they had not
descended. Nobody had seen them alight Yet, not a trace was to be
found at Paddington of a gentleman in a fur coat, nor of any gentleman
travelling alone with a young lady.

It was nearly nine o'clock when Maitland, puzzled, worn out, and
disgusted, arrived in town. He did what he could in the way of
interrogating the porters--all to no purpose. In the crowd and bustle of
passengers, who skirmish for their luggage under inadequate lights,
no one remembered having seen either of the persons whom Maitland
described. There remained the chance of finding out and cross-examining
all the cab-drivers who had taken up passengers by the late trains the
night before. But that business could not be transacted at the moment,
nor perhaps by an amateur.

Maitland's time was limited indeed. He had been obliged to get out at
Westbourne Park and prosecute his inquisition there. Thence he drove to
Paddington, and, with brief enough space for investigations that yielded
nothing, he took his ticket by the 9.15 evening train for Oxford. His
whole soul was set on consulting Bielby of St. Gatien's, whom, in his
heart, Maitland could not but accuse of being at the bottom of all these
unprecedented troubles. If Bielby had not driven him, as it were, out of
Oxford, by urging him to acquire a wider knowledge of humanity, and to
expand his character by intercourse with every variety of our fallen
species, Maitland felt that he might now be vegetating in an existence
peaceful, if not well satisfied. "Adventures are to the adventurous." It