"Have you any idea where he went when he left here?"

"No, sir; he did not come back after he got his dismissal. He sent a man
in a buggy with a note to me, asking me to send all his things over to
Richmond. I expect he was afraid the news might get here as soon as he
did, and that the hands would give him an unpleasant reception, as
indeed I expect they would have done."

"You don't know whether he has any friends anywhere in the Confederacy
to whom he would be likely to go?"

"I don't know about friends, sir; but I know he has told me he was
overseer, or partner, or something of that sort, in a small station down
in the swamps of South Carolina. I should think, from things he has let
drop, that the slaves must have had a bad time of it. I rather fancy he
made the place too hot for him, and had to leave; but that was only my
impression."

"In that case he may possibly have made his way back there," Vincent
said. "I have particular reasons for wishing to find out. You don't know
anything about the name of the place?" The man shook his head.

"He never mentioned the name in my hearing."

"Well, I must try to find out; but I don't quite see how to set about
it," Vincent said. "By the way, do you know where his clothes were sent
to?"

"Yes; the man said that he was to take them to Harker's Hotel. It's a
second-rate hotel not far from the railway station."

"Thank you; that will help me. I know the house. It was formerly used by
Northern drummers and people of that sort."

After riding back to Richmond and putting up his horse, Vincent went to
the hotel there. Although but a second-rate hotel it was well filled,
for people from all parts of the Confederacy resorted to Richmond, and
however much trade suffered, the hotels of the town did a good business.
He first went up to the clerk in a little office at the entrance.

"You had a man named Pearson," he said, "staying here a month ago. Will
you please tell me on what day he left?"

The clerk turned to the register, and said, after a minute's
examination:

"He came on the 14th of November, and he left on the 20th."

This was two days after the date on which Dinah had been carried off.

In American hotels the halls are large and provided with seats, and are
usually used as smoking and reading rooms by the male visitors to the
hotel. At Harker's Hotel there was a small bar at the end of the hall,
and a black waiter supplied the wants of the guests seated at