herb-doctor and his
little boy who had watched Davy; and he had now almost completed an
outline of evidence which, grounded on that of Rose, might be used
against Mrs. Catanach at any moment. He had also set inquiries on foot
in the track of Caley's antecedents, and had discovered more than the
acquaintance between her and Mrs. Catanach. Also he had arranged that
Hodges, the man who had lost his leg through his cruelty to Kelpie,
should leave for Duff Harbor as soon as possible after his discharge
from the hospital. He was determined to crush the evil powers which had
been ravaging his little world.

CHAPTER LX.

AN OFFERING.

Clementina was always ready to accord any reasonable request Florimel
could make of her; but her letter lifted such a weight from her heart
and life that she would now have done whatever she desired, reasonable
or unreasonable, provided only it was honest. She had no difficulty in
accepting Florimel's explanation that her sudden disappearance was but a
breaking of the social jail, the flight of the weary bird from its
foreign cage back to the country of its nest; and that same morning she
called upon Demon. The hound, feared and neglected, was rejoiced to see
her, came when she called him, and received her caresses: there was no
ground for dreading his company. It was a long journey, but if it had
been across a desert instead of through her own country, the hope that
lay at the end of it would have made it more than pleasant. She, as well
as Lady Bellair, had friends upon the way, but no desire either to
lengthen the journey or shorten its tedium by visiting them.

The letter would have found her at Wastbeach instead of London had not
the society and instructions of the schoolmaster detained her a willing
prisoner to its heat and glare and dust. Him only in all London must she
see to bid good-bye. To Camden Town therefore she went that same
evening, when his work would be over for the day. As usual now, she was
shown into his room--his only one. As usual also, she found him poring
over his Greek Testament. The gracious, graceful woman looked lovelily
strange in that mean chamber--like an opal in a brass ring. There was no
such contrast between the room and its occupant. His bodily presence was
too weak to "stick fiery off" from its surroundings, and to the eye that
saw through the bodily presence to the inherent grandeur, that grandeur
suggested no discrepancy, being of the kind that lifts e