"Casting a shadow o'er hill and
dale," I repeated quietly, leading him up the subject, "like--
Come, now."
"Ah!" he said, pressing my hand tremulously, "you know it?"
"I do. Why is it like--the--eh--the commodious mansion on the
Limehouse Road?"
A blank stare only followed. He shook his head sadly. "Like the
young men wanted for a light, genteel employment?"
He wagged his feeble old head cunningly.
"Or, Mr. Ward," I said, with bold confidence, "like the mysterious
disappearance from the Kent Road?"
The moment was full of suspense. He did not seem to hear me.
Suddenly he turned.
"Ha!"
I darted forward. But he had vanished in the darkness.
CHAPTER III.
NO. 27 LIMEHOUSE ROAD.
It was a hot midsummer evening. Limehouse Road was deserted save
by dust and a few rattling butchers' carts, and the bell of the
muffin and crumpet man. A commodious mansion, which stood on the
right of the road as you enter Pultneyville, surrounded by stately
poplars and a high fence surmounted by a chevaux de frise of broken
glass, looked to the passing and footsore pedestrian like the
genius of seclusion and solitude. A bill announcing in the usual
terms that the house was to let, hung from the bell at the
servants' entrance.
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