"INFORMATION RECEIVED."
When George Dallas knew that his meeting with Clare Carruthers was
imminent, he told his uncle one of the two circumstances of his life
which he had hitherto concealed from him. As George expected, Mr.
Felton received the communication with some seriousness. "A little
while ago, George," he said, "this might have upset the new and good
understanding happily established between Mr. Carruthers and yourself,
but I am in hopes it will not do so now. I think the old gentleman's
nature is fine and forgiving, when one gets beneath the crust, and I
am not afraid now. The chance of seeing the young lady, not in his
presence, for the first time--that would have been awkward and
dangerous indeed--is most fortunate. You must make your peace with her
in the first instance."
Enough of the old habit of trick and expedient still adhered to
George, in his improved moral condition, to induce him to entertain a
passing thought that perhaps the necessity for Mr. Carruthers knowing
he had had any previous acquaintance with Clare, might never arise; if
she did not see that he must be told, George need not feel himself
bound to tell him. But he rejected the impulse after a very little
while, and was ashamed of it. When, therefore, Mr. Felton had left
George alone at Sir Thomas Boldero's house, he had done so with
intention, and without any purpose of returning.
"Meet me at my rooms afterwards," he had said to George. "And tell
Miss Carruthers I will take leave to call on her at Mrs. Stanhope's
this afternoon." George agreed, premising that he must look in at the
_Mercury_ office first, but would then be at his uncle's service. Left
alone, he had applied himself, in a condition of extreme mental
discomposure, to thinking of what he should say to Clare, and how he
should say it. He had almost arranged a satisfactory programme before
she came; after--well, after, he did not speak or look in the least
like what he had intended, and if any one had asked him for an account
of their interview (which no one did, it was destined to be utterly
forgotten and overwhelmed in the tide of events), he would have been
quite incapable of satisfying the demand.
The interview lasted long, and when, at its close, George Dallas put
Clare Carruthers into her cousin's carriage, her face was closely
veiled, and the little hand which lingered in his had not yet done
trembling. As he stood on the door-step and watched the carriage out
of sight, the young man's face was pale and agitated, but full of deep
and sacred happiness too. An expression of resolve and hope, of
courage and power, was upon his features, such as they had never
before worn. Had he recalled the resolution he had taken for the time
when Clare Carruthers should know Paul Ward as George Dallas, and had
he renewed it, with fresh heart and energy, not unaided now by
circumstances, not frowned upon by fate, no longer friendless? However
that may have been, he carried a humbled and grateful heart with him,
and felt himself a widely different man as he entered the dingy
precincts of the _Mercury_ office, from what he had been the last time
he had crossed that threshold.
Mr. Cunningham was "in," and not only could see George, but was
particularly anxious to see him.
"I was just writing to you, old fellow," he said, leaving off shaking
hands with George, and beginning to tear up a brief and scrawly
manuscript on flimsy which lay before him. "You have come in time to
save me trouble and fourpence sterling."
"Anything about the business I wrote to you about?" asked George.
"Just that, sir. Of course I attended to it at once, and put Tatlow on
to it on your account. They're said to be cautious chaps, the
detectives, and of course it wouldn't pay for them to be said to be
anything else; but I'm hanged if I ever believed it before. You may
talk of depth, but Tatlow's unfathomable. Has the job from yon, sir,
per medium of your humble servant, and flatly declines to report
progress to me; goes in for doing business only with the principal,
and when he comes to me not a word can I get out of him, except that
he must know the address of a certain individual named Paul Ward."
"Paul Ward?" exclaimed George.
"Yes, Paul Ward! Great, fun, isn't it, George? And I really could not
resist the joke of quizzing the detective a little bit. I was
immensely tickled at the idea of your employing the man, and his
looking after you. So I told him I knew Mr. Dallas was acquainted with
a gentleman of that name, and could give him all the information he
required."
George could not laugh, but he tried to smile. Nothing could lend the
subject of his uncle's suspense and anxiety even a collaterally
amusing effect for him, and this statement puzzled him.
"What on earth can I have to do with the matter?" he said. "The man
must be travelling very far indeed out of the right tracks. No one in
the world, as it is pretty plain, can be more ignorant of Felton's
affairs than I am. He must be on a totally wrong scent; and if he has
blundered in this way, it is only waste of time and money to employ
him."
"Well," said Cunningham, a little disappointed that George did not
enjoy the keenness of the capital joke as much as he did, "you must
settle all that with him yourself, and find out from him, if you
can--and, by Jove, I doubt it--how Paul Ward has got mixed up in your
cousin's affairs (if he has got mixed up in them--and, mind, I don't
feel sure even of that--he certainly did not say so) without your
being a party to the transaction. I just gave Tatlow your address in
Piccadilly, and told him you'd be there in a day or two."
"What did he say?" asked George, whose sense of mystification was
increasing.
"Said he should call every day until you arrived,--no doubt he has
been there to-day, or you'll find him there when you get home,--and
disappeared, having got all the information I chose to give him, but
not what he wanted; which is, I take it, the correct thing to do to a
detective who observes the laws of discretion too absolutely."
Cunningham was laughing his jolly laugh, and George was wondering what
Tatlow meant, when the entrance of a third individual on office
business interrupted the friends' talk. George took leave, and went
down-stairs. Arrived at the door, he stopped, ran up the first flight
of dirty stairs again, and turned into a small room, dimly lighted by
a dirty skylight, to the right of the first landing. In this
sanctuary, strong smelling of dust, size, and printer's ink, lay
files, bound and unbound, of the _Mercury_. A heavy volume was open on
the clumsy thick-legged table which filled up the centre of the room.
It contained the files of the newspaper for the first half of the
current year.
"Let me see," said George, "she was not quite sure about the 22nd; but
it must have been about that date."
Then he turned the leaves, and scanned the columns of advertisements,
until he found in one the warning which Clare Carruthers had sent to
Paul Ward. His eyes filled with tears as he read it. He called up one
of the office people, and had a copy of the paper of that date looked
for, out of which he carefully cut the advertisement, and consigned it
to the keeping of the pocketbook which he always carried about him. He
placed the little slip of printed paper in the same compartment in
which Clare Carruthers's unconscious gift had so long lain hidden. As
George threw open the doors of the hansom in which he had been driven
from the _Mercury_ office to Piccadilly, Jim Swain came to the wheel,
and, touching his tousled head, asked if he might speak to him.
"Certainly," said George, getting out; "any message from Mr. Routh?"
"No, sir," said Jim, "it's not; it's somethin' very partic'lar,
as I as 'ad to say to you this long time. It ain't rightly about
myself--and--"
"Never mind, Jim; you can tell me all about it in the house," said
George cheerily. "Come along." He opened the door with his key, and
let himself and Jim into the hall. But there Mr. Felton met him, his
face grave and care-worn, and, as George saw in a minute, with some
additional lines of trouble in it.
"I'm so glad you have come, George. I found letters here when I got
back."
"Letters from New York?"
"Yes."
George left Jim standing on the mat, going with his uncle into the
room he had just left.
Mr. James Swain, who was accustomed to pass a good deal of his life in
waiting about on steps, in passages, at horses' heads, and
occasionally in kitchens, and to whom the comfortable hall of the
house in Piccadilly presented itself as an agreeable temporary abode,
considered it advisable to sit down and attend the leisure of Mr.
Dallas. He had been for some minutes engaged partly in thinking what
he should say to Mr. Dallas, partly in counting the squares in the
tiles which floored the hall, hearing all the while a subdued sound of
voices from the adjoining room, when a strange sort of cry reached his
ears. He started up, and listened intently. The cry was not repeated;
but in a few moments Mr. Felton came into the hall, looking
frightened, and called loudly down the lower staircase for assistance.
Two servants, a man and a woman, came quickly, and in the mean time
Jim looked in at the open door. In another minute they were all in the
dining-room in a confused group, gathered round an arm-chair, in which
was lying the insensible death-like figure of George Dallas, his
collar and necktie torn off, his waistcoat open, several letters on
the table before him, and a card on the floor at his feet.
It was a very complete and dead swoon, and there was no explanation of
it; none to be given to the servants, at least. Jim Swain did not
touch George--he only looked on; and as, at the suggestion of the
woman, they opened the window, and pushed the chair on which George
was lying within the current of air, he picked up the card, over which
one of the castors had passed. It was a small photographic portrait.
The boy looked at it, and recognized, with surprise, that it was the
likeness of Mr. Deane--that it was a fac-simile of a portrait he had
looked at and handled a very little while ago. He put it down upon the
table, and made to Mr. Felton the business-like suggestion that a
doctor had better be sent for, and he had better be sent to fetch him,
which was immediately acceded to.
When Jim returned, bringing with him a general practitioner, he was
told that Mr. Dallas had "come to," but was "uncommon weak and
confused, and crying like a child when he wasn't shivering," so that
Jim felt his chances of an interview were small indeed.
"I can't see him, of course, and I wanted to, most partic'lar. He
brought me in, hisself."
"Yes, yes, I know," said the male domestic, with importance; "but you
can't see him, and there's no good in your waiting about here. Look
round at eleven to-morrow, and I'll see what can be done for you."
Jim had nothing for it but to go disconsolately away. So he went.
While George Dallas and Clare Carruthers were talking together at Sir
Thomas Boldero's house in Chesham-place, while the hours--never to be
forgotten by either--were passing over them, the same hours were
witnessing an interview not less-momentous for Harriet Routh and her
beautiful foe.
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge was ready to receive her visitor; and as her
coquetry and vanity were omnivorous, much as she despised women, and
sincerely as she enjoyed the knowledge of her power to make most of
them envious and miserable, she had dressed herself very carefully.
She was just a little bored by her present mode of existence. Routh
could not be much with her; and though she had brought herself to
believe that she really did feel an absorbing passion for him,
somehow or other it left a good deal of her thoughts and her time
unabsorbed, and she did not exactly know how to dispose of either. The
romance of this kind of incognito life was all very well in its way,
which was a pleasant way, and as far as it went, which certainly was
very far, but not quite far enough. And she did get horribly bored,
there was no denying it. When Routh's daily letter had been read--for
she exacted that of him, of him who hated letter-writing, and whose
hard actuality of nature needed all the incitement of her beauty, her
coquetry, and her artfulness to rouse him to sentiment and give his
language the eloquence of love--she had nothing but novels to fall
back upon, and the vague prospect of a supplementary note or two, or
trying on a new dress, or thinking what theatre she would go to, or
what direction her afternoon drive should take. She was glad of the
chance of seeing a new face, though it was only a woman's; and then
the reason for receiving her was so sound, it was impossible Routh
could object. Indeed, she could not see the force of his objections to
her going out more, and seeing people in general; it could not matter
now, and would sound better hereafter than this hidden residence in
London; however, it could not last long, and it was very romantic,
very. She had not had much chance in all her previous prosperous life
of playing at romance, and she liked it; she would not like it, if it
continued to mean boredom, much longer, but there was no danger of
that.
No. 4 Hollington-square was one of those London houses which every one
knows, furnished for people who take houses for the season, prettily,
flimsily, sparingly; a house which tenants with money and taste could
make very striking and attractive, which tenants without money and
without taste would find very tolerable in its original condition.
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge possessed both; and as she made it a rule to
have every advantage procurable by the use of either, the drawing-room
in which she awaited the coming of her visitor was as pretty and
coquettish a room as could easily have been seen. She had chosen a
becoming costume, and an equally becoming attitude; and she looked
beautiful indeed, in her rich morning dress of black silk, faced with
rose-coloured satin and costly lace. The masses of her dark hair were
coiled smoothly round her head, her white arms were without a jewel to
turn the eye from their shapely beauty. She glanced at one of the many
mirrors in the room as the page announced "a lady," and felt perfectly
satisfied.
The room was long and narrow, though not large; and as Harriet walked
from the door to the hearth-rug on which Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge
stood, having gracefully risen in an attitude especially intended for
her visitor's admiration, that lady had time to observe her
appearance, and to experience a certain vague sense of discomfort not
altogether unlike alarm. She saw a face which she remembered, but with
which she could not connect any distinct recollection; a pale, fair,
determined face with smooth light-brown hair framing a broad low brow,
with keen piercing blue eyes, which looked steadily at her, and never
dropped their fine-fringed lids, blue eyes in which power, will, and
knowledge dwelt, as the shallow-souled woman they looked at, and
through, felt, but did not understand. A face, so fixed in its
expression of irremediable woe, a face so lost with all its
self-possession, so full of despair with all its might of will, that
a duller intellect than that of a meagre-brained woman must have
recognized a story in it such as happily few human beings have to tell
or to conceal. Harriet did not speak, or make any sign of salutation;
but when she had quite reached her, Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge recovered
herself, and said, with all her accustomed grace:
"I am so much obliged to you for calling. Pray take a seat. I think I
know to what I am indebted for the pleasure of your visit;" and then
she sank gracefully back into her low chair, and smiled her very best
smile. The very best of those suited to the feminine capacity, of
course. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge had quite a different set of smiles
for men.
"I am quite sure you do not," said Harriet, in a low firm voice, and
without availing herself of the invitation to be seated. "I am quite
sure you have no notion of my business here. You shall know it; it is
important, but brief."
"Madam," said the other, sitting upright, and turning slightly pale.
Harriet extended her hand with a gesture habitual to her, and said:
"Stay. You must hear me for your own sake. You will do well to hear me
quietly, and to give me your very best attention. If I do not make the
impression on you which I desire and intend to make, there is one
other person beside myself who will suffer by my failure, and that
person is you."
She dropped her hand and drew her breath. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge
looked at her with frightened distended eyes, speechless.
"You think I have come on a false pretext, and I have done so, to a
certain extent. You lost an article of ornament or dress at Homburg?"
"I did--a locket," said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, a little relieved,
and glancing unconsciously towards her silver purse, which was at
hand, and through whose meshes gold shone.
"I know, but I have not brought you your locket. You lost something
else at Homburg, and I have brought it, to prove that you had better
hear me, and that you must." And then Harriet laid upon the table,
near by the side of the silver purse, a crushed and faded flower,
whose rich luscious blossom had been of the deepest crimson in the
time of its bloom, when it had nestled against a woman's silken hair.
"What is it? What do you mean? Good God, who are you?" said Mrs.
Ireton P. Bembridge, shrinking back as Harriet made the one step
necessary to enable her to reach the table.
"I am Stewart Routh's wife," she replied, slowly, and without changing
her tone, or releasing the other woman from her steady gaze.
This time Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge sprang to her feet, with a face as
white as death.
"Don't be frightened," said Harriet, with the faintest glimmer of a
contemptuous smile, which was the last expression having relation to
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge personally, that showed itself in her face,
until the end. "I did not come here to inspire you with any fear of
me; I did not come here on your account at all, or on mine; but for
another motive."
"What, what is it?" said her hearer, nervously reseating herself.
"My husband's safety," said Harriet; and as she spoke the words, Mrs.
Ireton P. Bembridge felt that an illusion was rolled away from her for
ever. He belonged to this pale stern woman, whose unsparing eyes were
fixed upon her, whose unfaltering voice had not a tone of doubt or
weakness in it. In every line of her countenance was the assertion of
her right, against which the other felt powerless, and in whose
presence her self-confidence was utterly subdued.
Calm and still, Harriet Routh stood before her, her head bent forward,
her hands clasped and pressed steadily against her waist.
"I have no time to lose," she said, "and the briefest explanation
will, in this case, be the best. When that flower fell from your hair
over the balcony at the Kursaal at Homburg, it fell at my feet. I was
on the terrace beneath. If once, during the time you and he stood
there, my husband had looked away from you and over the rail, he would
have seen me. But he did not. I had come to that particular spot
accidentally, though I was there that night because I suspected,
because I knew, that he was there with you, and I would not condemn
him unseen, unconvicted."
Cowering before her, her pale face in her shaking hands, the other
woman listened.
"I heard all he said to you. Don't start; it was very pretty. I know
it all, by heart; every intonation, every hesitation--all the lying
gamut from end to end. I heard all the story he told you of his
marriage: every incident, every declaration, every sentiment, was a
lie! He told you he had married a poor, passionate, silly girl, who
had compromised herself through her undisciplined and unreturned love
for him, for pity--for a man's pity for a woman! A lie. He told you
his wife was an oddity, a nervous recluse, oblivious of all but her
health and her valetudinarian fancies; that she had no love for him,
or any one; no mind, no tastes, no individuality; that his life was a
dreary one, and the oscillation of a heart which had never been hers
towards so irresistible a woman as you (and he was right, so far; you
are very, very beautiful--I saw that, and granted it to myself, at
once) was no sin, no dishonesty, against her. All a lie. Look at me,
if you have the little courage needed for looking at me, and tell me
if it could be true!"
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge looked at her, but only to drop her head into
her hands, and moan in the presence of the white face and the steady
sparkling blue eyes.
"This was the lie he told you concerning me. The lie he told you about
himself was more important in its results; and as it flattered you, of
course you gave it ready credence. No doubt you believe it still,
though you must know him better now. He told you a story of his
misunderstood, undervalued life; of family pride, and grandeur, and
wealth--of family ties severed in consequence of the charitable,
chivalrous, self-sacrificing marriage he had made; of obscurity nobly
borne and toil willingly encountered, of talents unremittingly
exercised without fame or reward, of high aspirations and future
possibilities, if only the agency of wealth and the incentive of
_love_ might be his. And this flimsy tale caught your fancy and your
faith. It was so charming to fill the vacant place in the
misunderstood man's life, so delightful to be at once queen and
'consoler, to supply all the deficiencies of this deplorable wife. It
was just the programme to catch the fancy of a woman like you,
beautiful, vain, and empty."
There was neither scorn nor anger in Harriet's voice; there was merely
a dash of reflection, as if she had strayed for a moment from the
track of her discourse.
"But it was all a lie," she went on. "His story of me, and his story
of himself, were both equally false. Into the truth, as regards
myself, I do not choose to enter. It is needless, and you are as
incapable of understanding as you are indifferent to it. The truth
about him I mean to tell you for his sake."
"Why?" stammered the listener.
"Because he is in danger, and I want to save him, because I love
him---_him_, mind you, not the man you have fancied him, not the
persuasive bland lover you have found him, no doubt; for I conclude he
has not changed the character he assumed that night upon the balcony;
but the hard, the cruel, the desperate man he _is_. I tell you"--she
drew a little nearer, and again Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge shrank from
her--"he is a swindler, a liar, and a thief; he has lived by such
means for years, was living by them when he married me. They are
failing him now, and he feels the game is up here. What his exact plan
is, of course I do not know; but that it includes getting you and your
fortune into his power I have no doubt."
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge shivered now under the unsparing gaze. If
only this woman would turn her eyes away from her, she thought, in the
midst of her fear and amazement--the eyes that pierced her, that
suffocated her, like the gripe of a fierce hand upon her throat. She
did not know his plan. No; but who could look at her and doubt that,
if she chose to know it, she could force the information from her
hearer? Who could listen to her cold even tones, and dream of
resisting their implacable power?
"Whatever his plan may be," Harriet continued, "he is entirely
absorbed in it, and he is indifferent to all beside. Mind, I don't say
you count for nothing in this: you are too vain to believe, I am too
wise to say, anything of the kind. But your beauty, which he likes,
would never have tempted him to an insane disregard of his safety,
would never have kept him here when the merest prudence should have
driven him far away. He wants you, but he wants your money more
urgently and desperately. He needs time to win you and it, no matter
how he means to do it, and time is what he has not to give, time is
the one stake it is ruin to him to risk in this game. Do you hear me?
Do you understand me?"
The blank white face feebly looked a negative.
"No. Then I will put it more plainly. My husband, your lover, the man
who is trying to ruin you in reputation, that he may have the power to
ruin you in fortune, is in imminent danger. Flight, and flight alone,
could save him; but he refuses to fly, because he will not leave
_you_."
"What--what has he done?"
"He has been concerned in a robbery," said Harriet with perfect
composure, "and I know the police are on the right track, and will
soon come up with him. But he is desperate, and refuses to go. I did
not know why until yesterday, when I found you had followed him from
Homburg--by arrangement, of course. Tush, woman! don't try to deny it.
What does it matter to me? A lie more or less, a villany more or less,
makes no difference in him for me; but I knew then why he was
obstinately bent on waiting for his fate."
"I--I don't believe you," said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge; and she half
rose from her chair, and stretched her hand towards the bell. But
Harriet stopped her by the lifting of a finger.
"O yes, you do," she said; "you believe me implicitly. You have been
afraid of this man--even when he has flattered you, and won upon you
most; you have never felt sure of him, and you know I am telling you
the truth. But you are weak, and you would like to think you had not
been quite so egregiously deceived. I cannot, for his sake, leave you
this comfort. You lost a locket at Homburg--a golden egg-shaped
toy--with two portraits in it, one of yourself, the other of a young
man, a countryman of yours, an admirer. You prized the thing, you
showed it to my husband, you talked of its value--is this true?"
"Yes, yes, it is true--what then?"
"This then: he stole that locket from you, as he sat by you, in your
carriage, and talked sentiment and compliment to you. He stole the
locket--it does not sound nice or heroic; he stole it, I tell you."
"Impossible--impossible."
"Am I in the confidence of your mind? Do I know the contents of your
jewel-case? But this is folly, this is pretence; you know in your soul
that I am telling you the truth. And now for the reason of my telling
it. If you think I am a jealous woman, come here to expose my husband
to my rival, and take him from her by even such desperate means, you
make my task harder, by giving me blind folly to deal with. I came
with no thought of myself or you: though I do, indeed, save you by
coming, I have no care, no wish to do so; you are nothing to me, but a
danger in his path. That his safety will be yours too, is your
fortune, not my doing. I care not; it might be your destruction, and
it would be all one to me. I am not jealous _of you_; you are nothing
to me, and he has long been lost to me. But he must not be lost to
himself too, and for that I am here. I can do nothing with or for him
more, but you can: he loves you, after his fashion, and you can save
him."
"I--I save him--from what? how? what do you mean? If you have told me
the truth, why should I, if I could?"
Calmly and contemplatively Harriet looked at her; calmly she said, as
if to herself:
"And I am sure he thinks you love him! Wonderful, very wonderful;
but," she went on with quicker utterance, "that does not matter. You
can save him. I will answer your last question first: to convince you
that this _must_ be done, for your own sake, will save time. You did
not know his character until now, but I think you know something of
his temper; I think you understand that he is a desperate man. Suppose
you break with him now--and your mind has been made up to do that for
several minutes--suppose you determine to save yourself from this
swindler, this liar, this thief, to keep your character, and your
money, and your beauty for a different fate, do you think he will let
you go? How do you propose to escape him? You don't know. You are
terribly frightened at the idea. I have come to tell you."
"You are a dreadful woman--you are a wicked, dreadful woman," said
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge with a moan.
"Yes," said Harriet, "I am a wicked, dreadful woman, but you need not
fear me, though you have done me some wrong too, even according to
your code, I think. Rouse yourself, and listen to me while I tell you
what you must do."
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge tried to obey her; she shook back the hair
which had fallen over her face, and looked up with eyes less scared,
and more intelligent.
"If my husband has not left England by to-morrow," said Harriet with
clear, distinct emphasis, "it will be too late to save him from the
clutches of the law. Nothing will induce him to leave England while
you remain here. What!" she said, with a sudden rush of burning
red into her face and an indescribable fierce change of tone and
manner. "What! You were going, were you--and together? Tell me
instantly--instantly, I say--what is this I see in your face?"
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge caught at Harriet's gown, and stammered:
"Don't, don't; I'll tell you!"
"Do you think I am going to strike you or kill you; do you think I
would touch you with one finger?" said Harriet, in her former tone,
and drawing her dress from the woman's grasp with a quiet determined
movement. "Tell me instantly, and don't fear. You were going away--and
together? Where were you going, and when?"
"To New York--on Saturday."
Harriet Routh turned abruptly from her, and for one minute's duration
of awful silence her face was hidden. Then, with a sound like a sigh
and a sob, but such a sound as the listener had never heard before,
she resumed her former position. The other dared not look at her for
many minutes. When she did, Harriet's face fixed itself for ever on
her memory as the ideal of the face of one who had died of sheer pain.
"Thank you. The acknowledgment at least is brave and true, and makes
the rest easy. Am I to conclude you do not wish now to carry out this
arrangement?"
"Oh no, no. For God's sake, save me!"
"In saving him. Yes. You must leave England to-night, and he must
follow you to-morrow. Don't be frightened; I said follow, not meet
you. You must really go. No pretence will avail. He could not be
deceived in this. You must cross the Channel to-night, and telegraph
to him to-morrow from some French town, which you can leave upon the
instant, if you choose. That is your own affair. You may return to
England to-morrow night, if you please, and reach Liverpool in time to
sail for New York on Saturday. Thus you will escape him, and be free.
He will not follow you against your will to New York, where you are
protected by your friends and your position. You have but to write and
forbid his doing so."
"I think--I think I understand," said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, in a
voice full of submission and entreaty; "but how am I to account for
going away?"
"At what hour do you expect him here to-day?" asked Harriet, in a
business-like tone, without noticing the question.
"At nine in the evening."
"It is now nearly three. The tidal train for Folkestone starts at six.
Your arrangements for next Saturday are all made, of course?"
"They are." Wonder and fear and a strange sense of dependence on this
dreadful woman were growing on Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge with every
moment.
"Then all is easy--if you can trust your maid."
"I can, implicitly; but what must she do?"
"Settle everything here, and take your luggage to Liverpool. You will
not be able to make an hour's delay on your return; you must go
straight through. You must travel without a servant for once--no--take
your page; he is better out of the way--"
"I will do as you tell me; but you have not said how I am to account
for going."
"No," said Harriet, absently; "but that will be easy. He will
think you a fool, and easily frightened, but your vanity must bear
that--it's not a heavy price to pay for safety."
There was a pretty writing-table in the room, covered with elegant
trifles. Harriet approached it, and opened a blotting-book. Some
sheets of thick perfumed paper, with dainty monogram and motto, lay
within it. On one of them she wrote as follows:
"All is discovered. Your wife has been here, and has terrified me by
her threats. Our scheme must be abandoned. I cannot stay an hour here,
not even to consult you; I am in fear of my life. Come to me at once,
to Amiens. I leave to-night, and will telegraph from thence. If you do
not join me on Saturday morning, I shall conclude you have given me
up."
She rose, and desired Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge to take her place.
"Copy that," she said, briefly; but before the other took up the pen,
she read the lines and exclaimed:
"I dare not--I dare not; he will kill you."
"That is _my_ business," said Harriet fiercely. "Write!"
She copied the letter slowly, and trembling as she wrote, folded,
sealed, and directed it.
"When is it to be sent?"
"When I have seen you off. I will take care he receives it," said
Harriet, as she put it in her pocket. "Now go and give your
directions, and make your preparations."
They looked at each other for a moment, and Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge
left the room without another word. When she was alone, Harriet sat
down by the table wearily, and covered her face with her hands. Time
went on, but she did not move. Servants came in and went out of the
room, but she took no notice. At length Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge
entered in travelling dress, and with a paler face than any mirror she
had ever looked into had ever reflected. At the same moment a carriage
came to the door.
"You are quite ready?"
"I am."
"It is time to go."
"Let us go. One minute. Mrs. Routh, I--I don't think I quite knew what
I was doing. Can you forgive me?" She half extended her hand, then
drew it back, as she looked into Harriet's marble face.
"Forgive you! What do you mean? You are nothing to me, woman; or, if
anything, only the executioner of a sentence independent of you."
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge did not attempt to speak again. As they went
out of the door, a telegram was handed to her. It was from Routh.
"Impossible to see you to-night. Letter by post."
She handed the paper silently to Harriet, who read it, and said
nothing until they were seated in the carriage.
"Does that make any difference?" then asked Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge
timidly.
"To _you_, none. Possibly it may to me; he need not know so soon."
Not another word was spoken between them. Harriet stood on the
platform at the railway station until the train moved off, and as Mrs.
Ireton P. Bembridge caught the last glimpse of her stern white face,
she threw herself back in the carriage, in which she was fortunately
alone, in an hysterical agony of tears.
Routh did not come home that night; he sent a message that business
detained him in the City, and that he wished his letters and some
clothes sent to him in the morning.
"This is well," said Harriet; "he is making his preparations, and he
does not wish to see me before he must. The night can hardly pass
without my hearing or seeing George."
Late that evening Harriet posted the letter which Mrs. Ireton P.
Bembridge had written. But the evening and the night passed, and
George Dallas did not come or send. The hours were full of the agony
of suspense for Harriet. They brought another kind of suffering to Mr.
Felton and his nephew.
At eight o'clock that evening George Dallas, alias Paul Ward, as the
police phrase had it, was arrested at Mr. Felton's lodgings, charged
with the murder of Mr. Felton's son. George's agent had done his work
well, and the notes changed at Amsterdam, which the old bookseller's
death had released from their hiding-place and put in circulation, had
furnished the clue to Mr. Tatlow's dexterous fingers. The notes bore
Arthur Felton's initials; they had been paid to him by the Liverpool
Bank; they were indorsed in full, with date too, by Paul Ward.
"And a case," said Mr. Tatlow, who had a turn for quotation, "neater,
completer, in every feater, I don't think I ever was in."