"I came here to consult you, Miss Marlett, about what is to become
of the poor girl; but I do not see how the parents of the other young
ladies are concerned. Death is common to all; and Margaret's father,
though his life was exposed to criticism, cannot be fairly censured
because he has left it And what do you mean, please, by receiving _both_
my telegrams? I only #sent _one_, to the effect that I would leave town
by the 10.30 train, and come straight to you. There must be some mistake
somewhere. Can I see Miss Shields?"

"See Miss Shields! Why, she's _gone!_ She left this morning with your
friend," said Miss Marlett, raising a face at once mournful and alarmed,
and looking straight at her visitor.

"She's _gone!_ She left this morning with my friend!" repeated Maitland.
He felt like a man in a dream.

"You said in your first telegram that you would come for her yourself,
and in your second that you were detained, and that your friend and her
father's friend, Mr. Lithgow, would call for her by the early train; so
she went with _him_."

"My friend, Mr. Lithgow! I have no friend, Mr. lithgow," cried Maitland;
"and I sent no second telegram."

"Then who _did_ send it, sir, if you please? For I will show you both
telegrams," cried Miss Marlett, now on her defence; and rising, she left
the room.

While Miss Marlett was absent, in search of the telegrams, Maitland had
time to reflect on the unaccountable change in the situation. What had
become of Margaret? Who had any conceivable interest in removing her
from school at the very moment of her father's accidental death? And by
what possible circumstances of accident or fraud could two messages from
himself have arrived, when he was certain that he had only sent one?
The records of somnambulism contain no story of a person who despatched
telegrams while walking in his sleep. Then the notion occurred to
Maitland that his original despatch, as he wrote it, might have been
mislaid in the office, and that the imaginative clerk who lost it might
have filled it up from memory, and, like the examinees in the poem,
might

"Have wrote it all by rote,
And never wrote it right."

But the fluttering approach of such an hypothesis was dispersed by the
recollection that Margaret had actually departed, and (what was worse)
had gone off with "his friend, Mr. Lithgow." Clearly, no amount of
accident or mistake would account for the appearance of Mr. Lithgow, and
the dis