Chapter VII: The Search Renewed (1)

Everybody was late next day at the Court; everybody except Clide de Winton, whose waking dreams being brighter than any that his pillow could suggest, had deserted it at a comparatively early hour, and had been for a stroll in the park before breakfast. He re-entered the house whistling an air from _Don Giovanni_, and went into the library, where he expected to find Sir Simon. The baronet generally came in there to read his letters when there were people staying in the house. The library was a noble room with its six high pointed windows set in deep mullions, and its walls wainscoted with books on the east and west--rich-clad volumes of crimson and brown, with the gold letters of their names relieving the sombre hues like thin streaks of light, while at intervals great old florentines in folios “garmented in white” made a break in the general solemnity. The end opposite the windows was left clear for a group of family portraits; and beneath these, as Clide burst into the room, there stood a living group, conversing together in low tones, and with anxious, harassed faces. Mrs. de Winton, contrary to her custom, had on a gray cashmere dressing-gown, whose soft, clinging drapery gave her tall figure some resemblance to a classical statue; she was leaning her arm on the high mantel-piece, with an open letter in her hand, which she was apparently discussing with deep annoyance, and with a cloud of incredulity on her handsome, cold features; the admiral was striking the marble with his clenched hand, and looking steadily at the bronze clock, as if vehemently remonstrating with it for marking ten minutes to eleven; Sir Simon was standing with his hands in his pockets, his back against the base of Cicero’s bust, very nearly as white as the Roman orator himself.

The three figures started when Clide opened the door. He felt instantaneously that something was amiss, but there was a momentary pause before he said:

“Has anything happened?”

Mrs. de Winton, seeing that no one else spoke, came forward: “Nothing that we are certain of; but your uncle has received a letter that has shocked and startled us a good deal, although it seems on the face of it quite impossible that the thing can be true. But you will be brave, Clide, and meet it as becomes a Christian.” She spoke calmly, but her voice trembled a little.

“For heaven’s sake what is it?” said Clide, a horrible thought darting through him like a sting. Why did his uncle keep looking away from him? “Uncle, what is it?”

“It is a letter from Ralph Cromer--you remember your uncle’s old valet?--he is in London now; he was at Glanworth on that dreadful night.… My dear boy,” laying her hand kindly on his arm, “it may be a mere fancy of his; in fact, it seems impossible for a moment to admit of its being anything else; but Cromer says he has seen her.…”

“Seen whom? My dead wife … Isabel! The man is mad!”

“It must be a delusion; we are certain it is; but still it has given us a shock,” said his stepmother.

“What does the man say? Show me his letter!”

She handed it to him.

“HONORED MASTER: I am hard set to believe it; but if it an’t
her, it’s her ghost as I seen this mornin’ comin’ out of a
house in Wimpole Street, and though I ran after her as hard as
my bad leg ’ud let me, she jumped into a cab and was off before
I could get another look of her. It was the young missis,
Master Clide’s wife, as you buried eight year ago, Sir, as I’m
a live man; unless I went blind of a sudden and saw wrong,
which an’t likely, as you know to the last my eyes was strong
and far-seein’. I went back to the house, but the man could
tell me nothin’ except as all sorts of people keep comin’ and
goin’ with the toothache, in and out, his employer bein’ a
dentist, and too busy to be disturbed with questions as didn’t
pay. I lose no time in acquaintin’ you of, honored master, and
remain yours dutifully to command,

RALPH CROMER.”

There was a dead silence in the room while Clide read the letter. Every one of the six eyes was fixed on him eagerly. He crushed the paper in his hand, and sat down without uttering a word.

“Don’t let yourself be scared too quickly, De Winton,” said Sir Simon; “it is perfectly clear to my mind that the thing is a mere imagination of Cromer’s; he’s nearly in his dotage; he sees somebody who bears a strong likeness to a person he knew nearly eight years ago, and he jumps at the conclusion that it is that person.”

Clide made no answer to this, but turned round and faced his uncle, who still stood with his hand clenched stolidly on the mantel-piece.

“Uncle, what do you think of it?” he said hoarsely.

The admiral walked deliberately towards the sofa and sat down beside his nephew. Before he spoke he held out his horny palm, and grasped Clide’s hand tightly. The action was too significant not to convey to Clide all it was meant--perhaps unconsciously--to express.

The admiral did not believe the story to be the phantom of dotage; he believed Cromer had seen Isabel.

“My boy,” he said, speaking in a harsh, abrupt tone, as if the words were being dragged out of him, “I can say nothing until we have investigated the matter. An hour ago I would have sworn it was absurd, impossible. I would have said, with an oath, it cannot be true. I saw her laid in her coffin and buried at St. Valéry. But I might have sworn falsely. Several days had elapsed between the death and the burial; the features were swollen, scarcely recognizable. I took it perhaps too readily for granted that they were hers; I ought to have looked closer and longer; but I shrank from looking at all; I only glanced; they showed me the hair; it was the same length and apparently the same color, deep jet black; the height too corresponded. This, as well as all the collateral evidence, satisfied me at once as to the identity. It may be that I was too rash, too anxious to be convinced.”

Clide was silent for a few moments. Then he said:

“Where did the dentist live that gave us the clew before?”

“In Wimpole Street.”

Clide drew away his hand quickly from his uncle’s with a visible shudder. The coincidence had done its work with the others before he came in. An inarticulate exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some sort, broke from him.

“Come, come,” said Sir Simon, striding towards the window, “it’s sheer nonsense to take for granted that the house is burnt down because there’s a smell of fire. The coincidences are strange, very singular certainly; but such things happen every day. I stick to my first impression that it’s nothing but a delusion of Cromer’s in the first instance, to which the chance similarity of the dentist’s address gives a color of reality too faint to be worth more than it actually is. You must go up to town at once, and clear away the mistake; it’s too monstrous to be anything else.”

He spoke in a very determined manner, as if he were too thoroughly convinced himself to doubt of convincing others. Clide made a resolute effort to be convinced.

“Yes, you say truly; it’s unreasonable to accept the story without further evidence. I will go in search of it without an hour’s delay. Uncle, you will come with me?”

“Yes, my boy, yes; we will go together; we must start in about an hour from this”--pulling out his watch--“meantime, come in and have your breakfast; it wont help matters to travel on an empty stomach.”

Mrs. de Vinton left the room hurriedly; the others were following; but Clide had weightier things on his mind than breakfast; he closed the door after his uncle and turned round, facing Sir Simon.

The latter was the first to speak.

“Has anything definite passed between you and Franceline?”

It was precisely to speak about this that he had detained Sir Simon, yet when the baronet broached the subject in this frank, straight-to-the-point way, he answered him almost savagely: “What’s the use of reminding me of her now! As if the thought were not already driving me mad!”

“I must speak of it. Whatever misery may be in store for the rest of us, I am responsible for her share in it. I insist upon knowing how far things have gone between you. Have you distinctly committed yourself?”

“If following a woman like her shadow, and hanging on every word she says, and telling her by every look and tone that he worships the ground she walks on--if you call that distinctly committing myself, I shouldn’t think you needed to ask.”

“Have you asked her to be your wife?”

“Not in so many words.”

“Does she care for you? De Winton, be honest with me. This is no time for squeamishness. Speak out to me as man to man. I feel towards this young girl as if she were my own child. I have known all along how it was with you. But how about her? Have I guessed right--does she love you?”

“God help me! God help us both!” And with this passionate cry Clide turned away and, hiding his face in his hands, let himself fall into a chair.

“God help you, my poor lad! And God forgive me!” muttered Sir Simon.

The accent of self-reproach in which the prayer was uttered smote Clide to the heart; it stirred all that was noble and unselfish within him, and in the midst of his overwhelming anguish bade him forget himself to comfort his friend.

“You have nothing to reproach yourself with; you acted like a true friend, like a father to me. You meant to make me the happiest of men, to give me a treasure that I never could be worthy of. God bless you for it!” He held out his hand, and grasped Sir Simon’s. “No, nobody is to blame; it is my own destiny that pursues me. I thought I had lived it down; but I was mistaken. I am never to live it down. I could bear it if it fell upon myself alone. I had grown used to it. But that it should fall upon her! What has she done to deserve it?… What do I not deserve for bringing this curse upon her?” He rose up with flashing eye, his whole frame quivering with passion--he struck out against the air with both arms, as if striving to burst some invisible, unendurable bond.

Sir Simon started back affrighted. Kind-hearted, easy-going Sir Simon had never experienced the overmastering force of passion, whether of anger or grief, love or joy; his was one of those natures that when the storm comes lie down and let it sweep over them. He was brought now for the first time in his life in contact with the spectacle of one who did not bend under the tempest, but rose up in frantic defiance, breasting and resisting it. He quailed before the sight; he could not make a sign or find a word to say. But the transient paroxysm of madness spent itself, and after a few minutes Clide said, hopelessly yet fiercely:

“Speak to me, why don’t you, Harness?” Emotion swept away his habitual tone of respect towards the man who might have been his father. “Help me to help her! What can I do to stand between her and this misery? I must see her before I go, and what in Heaven’s name shall I say to her?”

“You shall not see her,” said Sir Simon; “you would not think of such a thing if you were in your right mind; but you are mad, De Winton. Say to her, indeed! That you find you are a married man--I don’t believe it, mind--but what else could you say if you were to see her? While there is the shadow of a doubt on this head you must not see her, must not directly or indirectly hold any communication with her.”

“And I am to sneak off without a word of explanation, and leave her to think of me as a heartless, dishonorable scoundrel!”

“A bitter alternative; but it is better to seem a scoundrel than to be one,” answered Sir Simon. “What could you say to her if you saw her?”

“I would tell her the truth and ask her to forgive me,” said the young man, his face kindling with tenderness and passion of a softer kind than that which had just convulsed its fine lineaments. “I would bless her for what the memory of her love must be to me while I live. Harness, if it is only to say ‘God bless you and forgive me!’ I must see her.”

“I’ll shoot you first!” said the baronet, clutching his arm and arresting his steps toward the door. “You call that love? I call it the basest selfishness. You would see the woman who loves you for the sole purpose of planting yourself so firmly in the ruins of her broken heart that nothing could ever uproot it; but then she would worship you as a victim--a victim of her own making, and this would be compensation to you for a great deal. I thought better of you, De Winton, than to suppose you capable of such heartless foppery.”

It was Clide’s turn to quail. But he answered quickly:

“You are right. It would be selfish and cruel. I was mad to think of it.”

“Of course you were. I knew you would see it in a moment.”

“But there is no reason why I should not see her father,” said Clide; “it is only fit that I should speak to him. Shall I go there, or will you bring him up here?”

“You shall not see him, here or anywhere else,” was the peremptory reply. “Have you spoken to him already?”

“No. I went down this morning for the purpose, but he was not up.”

“That was providential. And about Franceline, am I to understand there is a distinct engagement between you?”

“As distinct as need be for a man of honor.”

“Since when?”

“Last night.”

Sir Simon winced. This at any rate was his doing. He had taken every pains to precipitate what now he would have given almost anything he possessed to undo.

“I’ll tell you what it is, you must leave the matter in my hands. I will see the count as soon as you are gone. I will tell him that your uncle has been called off suddenly on important business that required your presence, and that you have gone with him. For the present it is not necessary to say more; it would be cruel to do so.”

“I will abide by your advice,” said Clide submissively; “but afterwards--what if this terrible news turns out to be true?”

“It has yet to be proved.”

“If it is proved it will kill her!” exclaimed Clide, speaking rather to himself than to his companion.

“Pooh! nonsense! All fancy that. Lovers’ dead are easily buried,” said Sir Simon, affecting a cheerfulness he was very far from feeling. He knew better than Clide how ill-fitted Franceline was, both by the sensitive delicacy of her own nature and the inherited delicacy of a consumptive mother, to bear up against such a blow as that which threatened her; but he would not lacerate the poor fellow’s heart by letting him share these gloomy forebodings that were based on surer ground than the sentimental fears of a lover. Perhaps the expression of his undisciplined features--the brow that could frown but knew not how to dissemble; the lip that could smile so kindly, or curl in contempt, but knew not how to lie; the eye that was the faithful, even when the unconscious, interpreter of the mind--may have said more to Clide than was intended.

“I trust you to watch over her,” he said; and then added in a tone that went to Sir Simon’s very heart, “don’t spare me if it can help you to spare her. Tell her I am a blackguard--it’s true by comparison; compared to her snow-white purity and angelic innocence of heart, I am no better than a false and selfish brute. Blacken me as much as you like--make her hate me--anything rather than that she should suffer, or guess what I am suffering. God knows I would bear it and ten times worse to shield her from one pang!”

“That is spoken like yourself,” said the baronet. “I recognize your father’s son now.”

They grasped each other’s hands in silence. Clide was opening the door when suddenly he turned round and said with a smile of touching pathos:

“You will not begin the blackening process at once? You will wait till we know if it is necessary?”

“All right--you may trust me,” was the rejoinder, and they went together into the breakfast-room.

* * * * *

They had the carriage to themselves. Clide was glad of it. It was a strange fatality that drew these two men, alike only in name, so closely together in the most trying crises of the younger man’s life. He spoke of it gratefully, but bitterly.

“Yes, your support is the one drop of comfort granted me in this trouble, as it was in the other,” he said, as the train carried them through the green fields and past many a spot made dear and beautiful by memory; “it is abominably selfish of me to use it as I do, but where should I be without it! I should have been in a mad-house before this if it were not for you, uncle, hunted as I am like a mad-dog. What have I done so much worse than other men to be cursed like this!”

The admiral had hitherto been as gentle towards his nephew as a fond but awkward nurse handling a sick child; but he turned on him now with a severe countenance.

“What right have you to turn round on your Maker and upbraid him for the consequences of your own folly? You talk of being cursed; we make our own curses. We commit follies and sins, and we have to pay for it, and then we call it destiny! It is your own misdoing that is hunting you. You thought to make life into a holiday; to shirk every duty, everything that was the least irksome or distasteful; you flew in the face of common-sense, and family dignity, and all the responsibilities of life in your marriage; you rushed into the most solemn act of a man’s life with about as much decency and reverence as a masquerader at a fancy ball. Instead of acting openly in the matter and taking counsel with your relatives, you fall in love with a pretty face and marry it without even as much prudence as a man exercises in hiring a groom. You pay the penalty of this, and then, forsooth, you turn round on Providence and complain of being cursed! I don’t want to be hard on you, and I’m not fond of playing Job’s comforter; but I can’t sit here and listen to you blaspheming without protesting against it.”

When the admiral had finished this harangue, the longest he ever made in his life, he took out his snuff-box and gave it a sharp tap preparatory to taking a pinch.

“You are quite right, sir; you are perfectly right,” said Clide; “I have no one to blame but myself for that misfortune.”

“Well, if you see it and own it like a man that’s a great point,” said the admiral, mollified at once. “The first step towards getting on the right tack is to see that we have been going on the wrong one.”

“I was very young too,” pleaded Clide; “barely of age. That ought to count for something in my favor.”

“So it does; of course it does, my boy,” assented his uncle warmly.

“I came to see the folly and the sinfulness of it all--of shirking my duties, as you say--and I was resolved to turn over a new leaf and make up for what I had left undone too long. M. de la Bourbonais said to me, ‘We most of us are asleep until the sting of sorrow wakes us up.’ It had taken a long time to do it, but it did wake me up at last; and just as I was thoroughly stung into activity, into a desire to be of use to somebody, to make my life what it ought to be, there comes down this thunderclap upon me, and dashes it all to pieces again. That is what I complain of. That is what is hard. This has been no doing of mine.”

“Whose doing is it? It is the old mistake sticking to you still. It is the day of reckoning that comes sooner or later after every man’s guilt or folly. We bury it out of sight, but it rises up like a day of judgment on us when we least expect it.”

“I was not kept long waiting for the day of reckoning to my first folly--call it sin, if you like--” said Clide bitterly. “I should have thought it was expiated by this. Eight of the best years of my life wasted in wretchedness.”

“You wasted them because you liked it; because it was pleasanter to you to go mooning about the world than to come back to your post at home, and do your duty to God and yourself and your fellow-men,” retorted the admiral gruffly. “If we swallow poison, are its gripings to be reckoned merit to us? You spent eight years eating the fruit of your own act, and you expect the bitterness to count as an atonement. My boy, I have no right to preach to you, or to any one; I have too many holes in my own coat; but I have this advantage over you--that I see where the holes are and what made them. We need never expect things to go right with us unless we do the right thing; and if we do right and things seem to go wrong, they are sure to be right all the same, though we can’t see it. It is not all over here; the real reckoning is on the other side. But we have not come to that yet,” he added, in an encouraging tone; “this threat may turn out to be a vain one, and if so you will be none the worse for it--probably all the better. We want to be reminded every now and then that we don’t command either waves or wind; that when we are brought through smooth seas safe into port, a Hand mightier than ours has been guiding the helm for us. We are not quite such independent, fine fellows as we like to think. But come what may, fine weather or foul, you will meet it like a Christian, you will bow your head and submit.”

The admiral tapped his snuff-box again at this climax, took another pinch, and then fell back on the cushions and opened his paper.

Clide was glad to be left to himself, although his thoughts were not cheerful.

Sir Simon had said truly, he was or ought to have been a Catholic. At almost the very outset of his acquaintance with Franceline, he had intimated this fact to her, and though she did not inform her father of it, the knowledge undoubtedly went far in attracting her towards the young man and inspiring the confidence that she yielded to him so quickly and unquestioningly.

Mrs. de Winton, Clide’s mother, had been a sincere Catholic, although her heart had beguiled her into the treacherous error of marrying a man who was not of her faith. She had stipulated unconditionally that her children should be brought up Catholics; and on her death-bed demanded a renewal of the promise--then, as formerly, freely given--that Clide, their only child, should be carefully educated in his mother’s religion. But these things can never safely be entrusted to the good-will of any human being. The mother compromised--if she did not betray--her solemn trust, and her child paid the penalty. Mr. de Winton kept his promise as far as he could. He had no prejudices against the old religion--he was too indifferent to religion in the main for that--the antiquity and noble traditions of the Catholic Church claimed his intellectual sympathies, while its spirit and teaching, as exemplified in the life of her whom he revered as the model of all the virtues, inclined him to look on the doctrines of Catholicity with an indulgence leaning to reverence, even where he felt them most antagonistic.

Clide had a Catholic nurse to wash and scold him in his infantine days, and when, too soon after his father’s second marriage, the boy became an orphan and was left to the care of a stepmother, that cold but conscientious lady carried out her husband’s dying injunctions by engaging a Catholic governess to teach him his letters. Conscience, however, gave other promptings which Mrs. de Winton found it hard to reconcile with the faithful discharge of her late husband’s wishes. She maintained the Catholic influence at home, but she would not prolong the evil day an hour more than was absolutely necessary. She felt justified, therefore, in precipitating Clide’s entrance at Eton at an age when many children were still in the nursery. The Catholic catechism was not on the list of Etonian school-books, and he would be otherwise safe from the corroding influence which as yet could scarcely have penetrated below the surface of his mind. It was reasonably to be hoped that in course of time the false tenets he had imbibed would fade out of his mind altogether, and that when he was of an age to choose for himself the boy would elect the more respectable and rational creed of the De Wintons. His stepmother carried her conscientious scruples so far in this respect, however, as to inform the dame who was charged with the care of Clide’s linen, and the tutor who was to train his mind, that the boy was a Catholic and that his religion was to be respected. This injunction was, after a certain fashion, strictly obeyed. The subject of religion was carefully avoided, never mentioned to Clide directly or indirectly; and he was left to grow up with about as much spiritual culture as the laborer bestows on the flowers of the field. The seeds sown by his mother’s hand were quickly carried away by the winds that blow from the four points of the compass in those early, youthful days. If some sunk deeper and remained, they had not sun or dew enough to blossom forth and fructify. Perhaps, nevertheless, they did their work, and acted as an antidote in the virgin, untilled soil, and preserved the young infidel from the vicious vapors that tainted the air around him. It is certain that Clide left the immoral atmosphere of the great public school quite uncorrupted, guileless and upright, and still calling himself a Catholic, although he had practically broken off from all communion with the church of his childhood. He was more to be pitied than blamed. He was thinking so now as he lay back in the railway carriage, while the admiral sat beside him grunting complacently over the leading article, and mentally prognosticating that the country was going to the dogs, thanks to those blundering, unpatriotic Whigs. Yes, Clide pitied himself as he surveyed the past, and saw how his young life had been wasted and shipwrecked. If he felt that he had been too severely punished for follies that he had never been warned against, you must make allowance for him. His face wore a very sad, subdued look as he gazed out vacantly at the quiet fields and villages and steeples flying past. Why does he suddenly make that almost imperceptible movement, starting as if a voice had sounded close to his side? Was it fancy, or did he really hear a voice, low and soft, like faint, distant music that stirred his soul, making it vibrate to some dimly remembered melody? Could it be his mother’s voice echoing through the far-off years when he was a little child and knelt with his small hands clasped upon her knee, and lisped out some forgotten words that she dictated? Was it a trick of his imagination, or did some one stand at his side, gently touching his right hand and constraining him to lift it to his forehead, while his tongue mechanically accompanied the movement with some once familiar, long disused formula? There was in truth a presence near him, and a voice sounding from afar, murmuring those notes of memory which are the mother-tongue of the soul, subtle, persuasive, irresistible; accents that live when we have forgotten languages acquired with mature choice and arduous study; a presence that clings to us through life, and reveals itself when we have the will and the gift to see and to recognize it. That power is mostly the purchase of a great pain; the answer to our soul’s cry in the hour of its deepest need.

It flashed suddenly upon Clide, as that sweet and solemn influence pervaded and uplifted him, that here lay the unexpected solution of the problem--the missing key of life. He had fancied for a moment that he had found it in M. de la Bourbonais’ serene theories and practical philosophy. These had done much for him, it is true; but they had fallen away; they failed like a broken sword in the hour of trial; they did well enough for peaceful times, but they could not help and rescue him when all the forces of the enemy were let loose. Yet they seemed to have sufficed for Raymond.

Clide did not know that the calm philosophy was grafted on a root of faith in the French gentleman’s mind; his faith was not dead; far from it, and its vital heat had fed the strength which philosophy alone could never have supplied. Poor Clide! If any one had been at hand to interpret to him the message of that voice from his childhood, the whole aspect of life might there and then have changed for him. But no spiritual guide, no gentle monitor was there to tell him what it meant. The music died away; the presence was clouded over and ceased to be felt. When the train entered the station the passing emotion had disappeared, drowned without by the roar of the great city; within, by the agitation of the present which other thoughts had for a moment lulled to sleep.

The travellers drove straight from the railway station to Wimpole Street. Mr. Peckett, the dentist, was at home. They were admitted at once, and a few minutes’ conversation sufficed to confirm their worst forebodings. There could be no doubt but that the person whom Cromer had recognized in that transitory glimpse the day before was the beautiful and mysterious creature, Clide’s wife.

The dentist had very little definite information to give concerning her. He could only certify that she was the same who had come to him nearly ten years ago to have a silver tooth made. It was a fantastic idea of her own, and in spite of all his remonstrances she insisted on having it carried out; it had seriously injured the neighboring tooth--nearly eaten it away. This was what Mr. Peckett had foretold. He was launching out into a rather excited denunciation of the thing, an absurdity against all the laws of dentistry, when the admiral called him back to the point. Did this tooth still exist? Yes; and if it was of no other use, it would serve to identify the wearer. She had been to have it arranged about four years ago, and again within the last few days. Mr. Peckett said she was very little changed in appearance; as beautiful as ever, and considerably developed in figure; but in manner she was greatly altered. Her former childlike gayety was quite gone; she sat demure and silent, and when she spoke it was with a sort of frightened restraint; if a door opened, or if he asked a question abruptly, she started as if in terror. It was not the ordinary starting of a nervous person; there was something in the expression of the face, in the quivering of the mouth and the wavering glance of the eyes, that had on one occasion especially suggested to him the idea of a person whose mental faculties had suffered some derangement. She gave him the impression, in fact, of one who either had been or might on slight provocation become mad. She never gave any name or address, but had always been accompanied by either the man whom she called “uncle,” or an elderly woman with the manner of a well-to-do shopkeeper; and she seemed in great awe of both of them. Yesterday was the first time she had ever come by herself, and Mr. Peckett thought that very likely either of these persons was waiting for her in the cab into which she had jumped so quickly when Cromer was trying to come up with her. She had left no clew as to her residence or projected movements; only once, in reply to some question about a recipe which her uncle wanted the dentist to see, she said that it had been forgotten in St. Petersburg. His answer seemed to imply that they meant to return there. Mr. Peckett was quite sure she sang in public, but whether on the stage or only in concerts he could not say.

This was all he had to tell about his mysterious patient. He was very frank, and appeared anxious to give any assistance in his power, and promised to let Admiral de Winton know if she came to him again. But he thought this was not likely for some time, at any rate. He had finished with her on the last visit, and there was no reason that he foresaw for her coming back at present.

There was not a shadow of doubt on Clide’s mind but that the person in question was his lost Isabel. The admiral, however, stoutly continued to pooh-pooh the idea as absurd and impossible. He was determined, at any rate, not to give in to it until he had been to St. Valéry, and investigated the question of the dead Isabel whom he had seen buried there. So he left Clide to open communications once more with Scotland Yard, and set the police in motion amongst the managers of theatres and other agents of the musical world, while he went on board the steamer to Dieppe. He was not long searching for the link he dreaded to find. The young woman whom he had so hastily concluded to be his nephew’s missing wife had been proved to be the daughter of a Spanish merchant, whose ship had foundered on the Normandy coast in the gales that had done so much damage during that eventful week. He himself had been saved almost miraculously, and after many weeks of agonized suspense as to the fate of his child, he heard of a body having been washed ashore at St. Valéry, and buried after waiting several days for recognition. He hastened to the spot, and, in spite of the swift ravages of death, recognized it beyond a doubt as that of his child. The English milord who had paid for all the expenses of the little grave, and manifested such emotion on beholding the body, turning away without another glance when he saw the long hair sweeping over it like a veil, had left no address, so the authorities had no means of communicating with him.

This was the intelligence which Clide received two days after his interview with the dentist. It only confirmed his previous conviction. He was as satisfied that his wife was alive as if he had seen and spoken to her. About an hour after his uncle’s return there came a note from Mr. Peckett saying that “the person in question” was on her way to Berlin, if she had not already arrived there. The landlady of the house where she had been lodging, under the name of Mme. Villar, had called at Wimpole Street for a pocket-book which her late tenant believed she must have dropped there. While she was inquiring about it of the servant, Mr. Peckett came out; he inquired after his patient; the landlady was glad to say she was well, and sorry to say she was gone; she had left the day before for Berlin, going _via_ Paris.

“Now, uncle, we must part,” said Clide; “I can’t drag you about on this miserable business any more. I must do what remains to be done myself. I will start at once for Berlin, and once there, à la grace de Dieu! you will hear from me when I have anything to say.”

“I shall hear from you as soon as you arrive; you must write to me without waiting for news,” said the admiral. “You will take Stanton with you?”

“I suppose I had better; he knows everything, so there is no need to shirk him, and he’s a discreet fellow, as well as intelligent and good-natured. He may be of use to me.”

“Then God be with you both, my boy. Bear up, and keep a stout heart whatever comes,” said the admiral, wringing his hand.

“You will write to Harness for me,” said Clide; “tell him I can’t write myself; and say I trust to his doing whatever is best for me.…”

He turned away abruptly; and so they parted.

No incident broke the monotony of the road until Clide reached Cologne. There, as he was crossing the platform, a lady passed him; she looked at him, and started, or he fancied she did, and instead of getting into the carriage that they were both evidently making for, she hurried on to the one higher up. He drew his hand across his forehead, and stood for a moment trying to remember where he had seen the face, but his memory failed him. His curiosity was roused, however, and he was in that frame of mind when every insignificant trifle comes to us pregnant with unlooked-for possibilities. He went on to the carriage the lady had entered. There was only another occupant beside herself, an elderly German, with a beery countenance and brick-red whiskers. Clide got in and seated himself opposite the lady, who was at the other end of the compartment, and steadily looking out of the window. He felt sure she had seen him come up to the door, but she did not turn round when he opened it and closed it again with a bang. They had five minutes to wait before the train started. Clide employed them in getting out a book and making himself comfortable for the long ride in prospect. The lady was still absorbed in the landscape. The German made his preparations by taking a clay pipe from his pocket, filling it as full as it would hold with tobacco, and then striking a light. Clide had started bolt upright, and was watching in amazement. The lady was in front of him. Did the brute mean to puff his disgusting weed into her face? He was making a chimney of his hand to let the match light thoroughly. Perhaps Clide’s vehement look of indignation touched him mesmerically, for before applying it to the pipe he looked round at him and said in very intelligible English:

“I hope you don’t object to smoking?”

“I can’t say I much relish tobacco, but I sha’n’t interfere with you if this lady does not object.”

Mein herr asked her if she did. She was compelled to turn round at the question.

“I am sorry to say I do, sir; the smell of tobacco makes me quite sick.”

Hem! She is not a lady, at any rate, thought Clide.

“Oh! I am sorry for that,” said the German; “for you’ll have the trouble of getting out.”

Before Clide could recover sufficient presence of mind to collar the man and pitch him headforemost out of the window, the lady had grasped her bag, rug, and umbrella, and was standing on the platform. The impending ejectment was clearly a most welcome release; nothing but the utmost goodwill could have enabled her to effect such a rapid exit. Clide was so struck by it that he forgot to collar the German, who had begun with equal alacrity to puff away at his pipe, and the train moved on.

The first thing Clide saw on alighting at the next station was his recent _vis-à-vis_ marshalling an array of luggage that struck even his inexperienced eye as somewhat out of keeping with a person who said “sir” and travelled without a servant. What could one lone woman want with such a lot of boxes, and such big ones? She waylaid a porter, who proceeded to pile them on a truck while she stood mounting guard over them.

“Follow that man and see where he is taking that luggage to,” Clide whispered to Stanton, and the latter, leaving his master to look after their respective portmanteaux, hurried on in the direction indicated.

“They are going to the Hotel of the Great Frederick, sir,” he said, returning in a few minutes.

“Then call a cab and let us drive there.”

The Hotel of the Great Frederick was not one of the fashionable caravansaries of the place; it was a large, old-fashioned kind of hostelry, chiefly frequented by business people, travelling clerks, dress-makers, etc.; and its customers were numerous enough to make it often difficult to secure accommodation there on short notice. This was a busy season; everybody was flitting to and from the watering-places, where the invalids and gamblers of Europe were ruining or repairing their fortunes and their constitutions, so that Mr. de Winton was obliged to content himself with two small rooms in the third story for the night; to-morrow many travellers would be moving on, and he could have more convenient quarters.

“Stanton, keep a lookout after that person. I am in a mood for suspecting everything and everybody; but I don’t think it’s all fancy in this case. I believe the woman is trying to avoid me; and if so, she must have a motive for it. Ask for the visitors’ book, and bring it to me at once.”

Stanton brought the book, and while his master was running his eye searchingly over the roll of names, hoping and dreading to see Mme. Villar among the number, he set off to look after the woman with the multitude of boxes. She was lodging on the first floor, and had been expected by a lady and gentleman who had taken rooms in the house the day before. This much Stanton learned from a _Kellner_,[148] whom he met coming out of the said rooms with a tray in his hands.

“I think I know her,” said Stanton. “What is her name?”

But before the _Kellner_ could answer the door opened, and the lady herself stood face to face with Mr. de Winton’s valet. Their eyes met with a sudden flash of recognition; Stanton turned away with an almost inaudible whistle, and was vaulting up to the third story in the twinkling of an eye.

“I’ve seen her, sir, and I can tell you who she is. She is the dressmaker that made Mrs. de Winton’s gowns before you brought her to Glanworth. I remembered her the moment I saw her without a bonnet. I had been twice to her place in Brook Street, with messages and a band-box from Mrs. de Winton.”

Clide had started up with an exclamation of anger and triumph. Here, then, was a clew. Evidently the woman held communication or was in some way connected with Isabel, else why should she have shrunk from meeting him? It was clear as daylight now that she did shrink.

“Tell the landlord I wish to speak to him,” said Clide.

He was walking up and down the room, his hands in his pockets, and his head tossed back like an impatient horse, when the owner of the Great Frederick came in.

“I want to have a word of conversation with you; sit down, pray,” said Clide; but he continued walking, as we are apt to do when agitation is too vehement to bear immobility, and must have an outlet in motion. The landlord had taken a chair as desired, but rose again on seeing that his guest did not sit down; the hotel-keeper was a well-mannered man. There was a lapse of two or three moments while Clide considered what he should say. It was impossible to acknowledge the real motive of his curiosity about the occupants of the first-floor rooms, and how otherwise could he justify any inquiries about them and their movements? He recoiled from the odious necessity that drove him to pry into people’s affairs, to ask questions and set watches like a police agent; but this was the mere husk of the bitter kernel he had to eat. It may have been the extraordinary agitation visible in the young man’s face and gait and manner that aroused the hotel-keeper’s suspicions and put him on the defensive, or it may have been that some one had been beforehand with Clide, and cut the ground from under his feet by warning the landlord not to give any information; but at any rate the latter acted with a circumspection that was remarkable in a person so unskilled in the science of diplomacy. These first-floor people were good customers; this was the third time they had stopped at the Great Frederick, and it was not likely to be the last, unless, indeed, the house should be made objectionable to them in some way; and no landlord who knew his duty to his customers could be a party to such a proceeding.

“Mme. Brack is a most excellent customer, but no dressmaker--that I can assure milord of; she has many boxes because she goes to spend many months at Vienna; that is her custom, as also that of the friends she travels with--M. Roncemar and his daughter, people of quality like milord, and large fortune. Unfortunately they do not tarry long at the Great Frederick, only remaining three days to rest themselves; their rooms are already bespoke from Friday morning, when they start by the midday train. But why should not milord go himself and ask of M. Roncemar any information he desires? M. Roncemar is a most polite gentleman, and would no doubt be happy to see a compatriot.”

This was all that Clide could extract from the wily master of the Great Frederick. If he had been more outspoken, he might have been more successful; but he could not bring himself to this; he spoke so vaguely that his motives might have borne the most opposite constructions. The landlord’s private opinion was that there was a money-claim in the way, and that he was on the track of some fugitive, perhaps fraudulent, debtor; it was no part of a landlord’s business to pry into matters of this sort, or bring a customer into trouble.

“Well, sir?” said Stanton, coming in when he saw the landlord come out.

“I did not make much out of him; the fellow either knows more than he cares to tell, or we are on the wrong scent. You must lose no time in finding out from the waiters whether these names are the real ones; whether, at least, they are the same the people have borne here before, and also if it is true that the rooms are taken till Friday next; if so, it gives me time to go to the consul and take proper legal steps for their arrest. But it may be a dodge of his; if the woman recognized us both, as I am strongly inclined to believe, they have put the landlord up to telling me this, just to prevent my entrapping them, and so as to give them time to escape. The people whom he calls Roncemar have been here at any rate before the alarm came, and it will be known most likely whether they are on their way to Vienna or not. Be cautious, Stanton; don’t rouse suspicion by asking too pointed questions, because you see it may be that as yet there is no suspicion, it may be my fancy about the man’s throwing me off the scent. He urged me to go and see M. Roncemar myself, which was either a proof that he suspects nothing, or that he is the cleverest knave who ever outwitted another. Be off and see what you can learn. I will dine at the _table d’hôte_.”

The few details that Stanton gleaned from the _kellner_ attached to the first floor corroborated all that the landlord had said: the party were to remain until Friday--in fact they were not quite decided about going so soon; the younger lady was in delicate health, and greatly fatigued by the journey; it was possible they might remain until the Monday. “So if you are counting on the rooms you may be disappointed,” he added, winking at Stanton as he whipped up a tray and darted up the stairs like a monkey, three steps at a time.

So far, then, Clide was sure of his course. He walked about after dinner--supper, as it was called there--and called at the consulate; but the consul had been out of town for the last week, and was not expected home until the next day.

“And he is sure to be here to-morrow?” inquired the visitor.

“Yes, sir; he has an appointment of great importance at one o’clock. We expect him home at twelve.”

“Then I will call at two. You will not neglect to give him this card?” He wrote a line in pencil on it announcing his visit at two next day, and returned to the hotel. As he was crossing the hall he heard the heavy tramp of hobnailed shoes on the stairs, and a noise as of men toiling under a weight. It was a piano. Clide walked slowly up after the carriers, saw them halt at the rooms on the first floor, saw the doors thrown open and the instrument carried in; there was no mistake about it; the occupants meant to remain there for some few days at least.

He sat down and wrote a long letter to the admiral, lit a cigar, and killed time as best he could with the newspapers until, physically worn out, he lay down in hopes of catching a few hours’ sleep. Stanton, satisfied with the information he already possessed, felt it might be unwise to ask further questions, and contented himself with hanging about the corridors in the neighborhood of Mrs. Brack’s rooms, in hopes of seeing her coming in or out, and catching a glimpse, perhaps, of another inmate who interested him more closely. It may seem irrational in him, and especially in his master, to have jumped at a positive conclusion as to the identity of that inmate on such a flimsy tissue of evidence; but when our minds are entirely possessed by an idea, we magnify trifles into important facts, and see all things colored by the medium of our prepossessions, and go on hooking link after link in the chain of witnesses till we have completed it, and made our internal evidence do the work of substantial testimony.

It was a glorious day, and when Clide had breakfasted he was glad to go out and reconnoitre the town instead of sitting in his dingy room, or lounging about the reading-room. He was a trained walker, thanks to his years of travel, and once set going he would go on for hours, oblivious of time, and quite unconscious of fatigue as long as the landscape offered him beauty or novelty enough to interest him. It was about half-past ten when he left the house, and he tramped on far beyond the town, and walked for nearly two hours, when the chimes of a village Angelus bell reminded him that time was marching too, and that he had better be retracing his steps. It was close upon two o’clock when he appeared at the consul’s door. On entering the hall, the first person he saw was Stanton.