Mr. Lane, the New York detective, who had so ignobly failed in the
search for Aline Rodney, did not easily recover from that unprecedented
defeat.
He was acute, wary, and intelligent, with a boundless stock of patience
and persistence, and these qualities had always insured him success in
all his undertakings. Failure was a new experience with him. He chafed
under it. He could not understand it.
If pressing business matters had not recalled him to New York, he would
have persevered indefatigably for months in the effort to find the
missing girl. It was not in his nature to give up a quest easily. Only
the stress of circumstances had induced him to give up this one. When
he had thrown it over and returned to New York, it weighed on his mind.
He hated to own himself conquered. Amid the stress of other pursuits,
he often recalled the case in which he had been defeated. He would
shut his eyes amid the din and noise of the city, and recall the quiet
country town that had been the scene of such an unfathomable mystery.
He did not like to think that he, who had worked up the most difficult
cases in the great cities, had been completely baffled by a simple slip
of a girl in a country town that, with all its pretentiousness and its
exclusive society, was scarcely better than a village.
Although he had ridiculed Dr. Anthony’s story of his beautiful,
mysterious patient, it had made an impression on him that was not
easily shaken off. He often asked himself in the easy, slangy language
of the day, whether there could be anything in it.
He thought sometimes that he had been too hasty and incredulous in
condemning the story because all his efforts to find the mysterious,
hidden maiden had failed. Dr. Anthony was certainly a man to be
trusted, being frank, reliable, and most intelligent. And he had not
taken umbrage at Mr. Lane’s credulity. He had been frankly amused at
it. When Mr. Lane had quoted, for his benefit,
“Keep probability in view,
Lest folks believe your tale untrue.”
He frankly admitted that his story had an air of romance.
“Notwithstanding which,” he gravely added, “it’s an o’er true tale.”
Spite of this little chaffing, the two men having been frequently
thrown together grew to like each other. There were attractive
qualities in each one that pleased the other. They became quite social
and friendly. When the detective returned to his city home he found it
a pleasure sometimes to pause in the whirl of this strange life and
drop a few genial lines to the Maywood physician. Dr. Anthony, in his
turn, found it pleasant to reply.
So that even before the gossipy newspapers chronicled the fact of Aline
Rodney’s return to her home, Mr. Lane was made cognizant of it through
the medium of the young physician’s letters.
He was amazed and rather indignant. It was bad enough that she had so
cleverly covered up her traces and stayed away as long at it pleased
her, but that she should come home and keep her secret still was far
worse. He had no vulgar curiosity over the girl, but he had a strong
professional interest. She had baffled him and damaged his reputation
as an invariably successful man. He was distinctly conscious of an
inward pique.
“I should like to shake the naughty little runaway! What business has
she to outwit me?” he said to himself.
Sometimes he almost made up his mind to run down to Chester and have
a look at this girl who could keep a secret so well. She would be
well worth looking at, he fancied, from Dr. Anthony’s enthusiastic
description of her beauty. Then, too, she must have brains and will
besides her beauty, or she could not have kept her secret against the
odds that had been brought to bear against her. Decidedly he meant to
see her.
But steady business kept him rather against his will in New York. He
put off his trip from time to time waiting for a convenient season.
So the autumn months waned and winter was upon him before he had
given himself the promised visit. At Christmas he received one of Dr.
Anthony’s pleasant, friendly letters. It contained among its closing
messages an invitation to Mr. Lane to be present at his friend’s
marriage on the 1st of January in the pretty little Gothic church the
Rodneys attended in Chester.