The Man Cummins
“Oh day and night, but this is wondrous strange.”
“Shut up in measureless content.”
The lights were yet shining in Mr. Stuyvesant’s parlors, though the guests were gone, who but a short time before had assembled there to witness the marriage of Cicely’s dear friend, Paula.
At one end of the room stood Mr. Sylvester and Bertram, the former gazing with the eyes of a bridegroom, at the delicate white-clad figure of Paula, just leaving the apartment with Cicely.
“I have but one cause for regret,” said Mr. Sylvester as the door closed. “I could have wished that you and Cicely had participated in our joy and received the minister’s benediction at the same moment as ourselves.”
“Yes,” said Bertram with a short sigh. “But it will come in time. It cannot be but that our efforts must finally succeed. I have just had a new idea; that of putting the watchman on the hunt for Hopgood. They are old friends, and he ought to know all the other’s haunts and possible hiding-places.”
“If Fanning could have helped us, he would have told us long ago. He knows that Hopgood is missing and that we are ready to pay well for any information concerning him.”
“But they are old cronies, and possibly Fanning is keeping quiet out of consideration for his friend.”
“No; I have had a talk with Fanning, and there was no mistaking his look of surprise when told the other had run away under suspicion of