Three days later, when Hilda returned from a drive, she found that Dr. Leeds was in the drawing room with Miss Purcell and Netta, whose face at once told what had happened.  
"I have asked the question at last, Miss Covington," Dr. Leeds said, coming forward to shake hands, "and Netta has consented to be my wife."
 
"I am heartily glad. That you would ask her I knew from what you told me; and although I knew nothing of her thoughts in the matter, I felt sure that she would hardly say no. Netta, darling, I am glad. Long ago I thought and hoped that this would come about. It seemed to me that it would be such a happy thing."
 
"Auntie said just the same thing," Netta said, smiling through her tears, as Hilda embraced her. "As you both knew, you ought to have given me some little hint; then I should not have been taken quite by surprise. I might have pretended that I did not quite know my own mind, and ask for time to think it over, instead of surrendering at once."
 
"But you did make a condition, Netta," Dr. Leeds laughed.
 
"Not a condition—a request, if you like, but certainly not a condition."
 
"Netta said that her heart was greatly set on the work she had always looked forward to, and she hoped that I should let her do something in that way still. Of course I have heard you both talk over that institute a score of times, and I was as much impressed as yourselves with the enormous boon that it would be. I should be sorry indeed that the plan should be given[Pg 330] up. I need hardly say that in the half hour we have had together we did not go deeply into it, but we will have a general council about it, as soon as we can get down to plain matter of fact. Netta can talk it over with you, and I can talk it over with her; and then we can hold a meeting, with Miss Purcell as president of the committee."
 
But matters were not finally settled until the ladies were established at Holmwood with Walter, and Dr. Leeds came down for a short holiday of two or three days. Then the arrangements were made to the satisfaction of all parties. A large house, standing in grounds of considerable extent, was to be taken in the suburbs of London, Netta was to be lady superintendent, her aunt assisting in the domestic arrangements. Miss Purcell insisted that her savings should be used for furnishing the house. Hilda was to put in as a loan, for the others would receive it in no other way, five thousand pounds for working capital. She determined to take a house near the institute, so that she could run in and out and assist Netta in teaching. Dr. Leeds was to drive up every morning to Harley Street, where his work was over by two o'clock, except when he had to attend consultations. No arrangements would be necessary about the house, as this was the residence of his partner, and he only had his own set of rooms there. He was steadily making his way, and to his surprise already found that the report in the papers of his successful diagnosis of the cause of General Mathieson's death had resulted in a considerable addition to his practice, as a number of people consulted him on obscure, and in many cases fanciful, maladies, in which they had come to entertain the idea that they were suffering from the effects of poison.
 
Now that she was going to assist at the institution and had no intention of entering society again in London, Hilda had no longer any objection to the power she had acquired being known, and, when questioned on the subject of the trial, made no secret of the manner in which[Pg 331] she had made the discovery at the opera, and mentioned that she was going to assist in an institution that was about to be established for teaching the system by which she had benefited to deaf children.
 
The matter excited considerable interest in medical circles, and by the time that the institution was ready the number of applicants was greater than could be entertained. By this time Dr. Leeds and Netta were married. The engagement was a short one, and the wedding took place within two months of their going down into the country with Hilda. Being anxious that as many as possible should participate in the benefits of the system, the doors of the institute were at once opened to outdoor pupils, who were boarded in the neighborhood. Six of Netta's pupils in Hanover were brought over as teachers, and a few weeks from its being opened the institution was in full swing. As Dr. Leeds wished that no profit whatever be made by the undertaking, in which desire he was cordially joined by his wife and Hilda, the charges were extremely low, except in the case of children of wealthy parents, the surplus in their case being devoted to taking in, free of payment, children of the poor.
 
Before Netta's marriage the interest in the Mathieson case was revived by the appearance of a letter in the principal London papers. All search for the man who had assisted Sanderson in the abduction of the child had been fruitless. He had probably taken steps to receive information of how matters were going on in court, and long before an officer arrived at Rose Cottage with a warrant for his arrest he had left, and the police had failed to find any trace of his subsequent movements. The letter bore the simple heading, "United States," and ran as follows:
 
"To the Editor.
 
"Sir: I scarcely know why I write this letter, but I suppose even an habitual criminal does not care to remain under an unjust suspicion. I acknowledge that I[Pg 332] come under that category, and that my life has been spent in crime, although never once has suspicion attached to me, until I became mixed up in the Simcoe-Mathieson affair. I wish to state solemnly that I was absolutely ignorant that the name John Simcoe was an assumed one. That was the name he gave me when I first knew him, and I believed that he was, as he represented, the man who had saved General Mathieson's life from a tiger. That he h............