take a glass or so,
Sir."

"And you must then have heard the conversations that took place between
Houseman and him? Did Mr. Clarke, ever, in those conversations, intimate
an intention of leaving the town soon? and where, if so, did he talk of
going?"

"Oh! first to London. I have often heard him talk of going to London,
and then taking a trip to see some relations of his in a distant part of
the country. I remember his caressing a little boy of my brother's; you
know Jack, Sir, not a little boy now, almost as tall as this gentleman.
'Ah,' said he with a sort of sigh, 'ah! I have a boy at home about this
age,--when shall I see him again?'"

"When indeed!" thought Walter, turning away his face at this anecdote,
to him so naturally affecting.

"And the night that Clarke left you, were you aware of his absence?"

"No! he went to his room at his usual hour, which was late, and the
next morning I found his bed had not been slept in, and that he was
gone--gone with all his jewels, money, and valuables; heavy luggage he
had none. He was a cunning gentleman; he never loved paying a bill. He
was greatly in debt in different parts of the town, though he had not
been here long. He ordered everything and paid for nothing."

Walter groaned. It was his father's character exactly; partly it might
be from dishonest principles superadded to the earlier feelings of
his nature; but partly also from that temperament at once careless and
procrastinating, which, more often than vice, loses men the advantage of
reputation.

"Then in your own mind, and from your knowledge of him," renewed the
Curate, "you would suppose that Clarke's disappearance was intentional;
that though nothing has since been heard of him, none of the blacker
rumours afloat were well founded?"

"I confess, Sir, begging this gentleman's pardon who you say is a
relation, I confess I see no reason to think otherwise."

"Was Mr. Aram, Eugene Aram, ever a guest of Clarke's? Did you ever see
them together?"

"Never at this house. I fancy Houseman once presented Mr. Aram to
Clarke; and that they may have met and conversed some two or three
times, not more, I believe; they were scarcely congenial spirits, Sir."

Walter having now recovered his self-possession, entered into the
conversation; and endeavoured by as minute an examination as his
ingenuity could suggest, to obtain some additional light upon the
mysterious subject so deeply at his heart. Nothing, however,