"Luck enough for a parlor and bed-room in the best uptown hotel for a week or so," he muttered; "pah! how I loathe this hole!"
North threw off his dressing-gown, bathed his face in cold water, arranged his dress a little, and went down stairs in search of his morning meal.
Elizabeth Mellen hurried through the narrow street in which the hotel stood, as if trying to walk herself into calmness. Once she murmured:
"Five days more--five! If I can live through them and keep the tempest back I may be safe. If I can! Such a dread at my heart--worse as the time shortens--oh heavens, if discovery should come now when the haven is so near!"
Weeks had glided along. It was now late autumn; the gorgeous leaves lay strewn along the ground, and the wind sighed up from the ocean chill and bleak, scattering thoughts of decay with each gust. With that gathering desolation, the coldness and the shadows had crept deeper and deeper into Grantley Mellen's life.
He had accompanied Elizabeth to the city, one of these chilly autumn days, and put her in a carriage at the ferry, that she might attend to the purchases and calls which was her ostensible errand to town, while he went about the business on hand, with an arrangement that they were to meet in time for the afternoon boat.
Elsie had chosen to pass the day at home; indeed, the light-hearted girl and Elizabeth were never together now when it could possibly be avoided. Elsie seemed determined to keep aloof from the mystery of the unhappy woman's life, lest its gloominess should cast some shadow over the brightness of her own path.
While Elizabeth was absent on her mysterious visit, Mellen occupied himself with a matter which would have added another trouble to the anxiety of that bitter day, had she dreamed of it. From the first he had determined that the disappearance of that gauntlet bracelet should be in some way explained, if it lay in human power to discover the mystery. What his precise motive was he could hardly have told. The trinket might have been picked up by some vagabond who had wandered into the grounds; if so there was little hope of ever gaining any tidings concerning it, but Mellen could not satisfy himself that such was the case; he believed the jewel would yet be found.