ALAN "EVOLVES" A PLAN OF ACTION.
Kind hands brought Leslie back to life, and to a new sense of pain, for
even the hands that love us must sometimes hurt, when they hope to heal.
Every servant of the household loved its fair mistress. And while those
who could, bustled to and fro, commanded by Winnie, each eager to
minister to so kind a mistress, and those who were superfluous went
about with anxious, sympathetic faces, Alan Warburton, the one unpitying
soul in all that household, paced his room restlessly, troubled and
anxious--not because of Leslie's illness, but because of the revelation
just received from her lips.
[Illustration: "I cannot give life to the victim whose death lies at
your door."--page 251.]
Could this thing be true? Had his brother Archibald, a Warburton of the
Warburton's--that family so old, so proud, so pure; that family whose
men had always been gentlemen whom the world had delighted to honor;
whose women had been queens of society, stately, high-bred, above
reproach--_could_ Archibald Warburton have made a _mesalliance_? And
such a _mesalliance_! The daughter of a pair of street mendicants,
social outlaws; an adventuress with no name, no lineage, no heritage
save that of shame.
"Of all the notable things of earth
The queerest one is pride of birth."
For the moment it outweighed his grief for Archibald, his anxiety for
Daisy, his very humanity. Later on, he might be Warburton the friend,
and the truest of friends; Warburton the lover, and the tenderest, the
most chivalrous of lovers; Warburton the champion, as on the night when
he rescued Leslie; but now he is only Warburton the aristocrat; the
aristocrat, insulted, defied, betrayed; brought into contact with
mystery, _intrigue_, base blood, and in his own household. Could he ever
forgive Leslie Warburton? Would he, if he could?
He had accused her as the cause of his brother's death, as the source of
the mystery which overhung the fate of little Daisy; and in his heart of
hearts he believed her guilty. And now, her daring, her cool effrontery,
had made some hitherto mysterious movements plain. Her father and
mother, those wretches who lived in a hovel, and smelled of the gutter!
But she had betrayed herself. These people must be found at whatever
hazard.
Thus meditating, he paced up and down, up and down. And before he
finally ceased his restless journeyings to and fro, he had evolved a
theory and a plan of action. A very natural theory it was, and a very
magnanimous plan.
Having first catalogued Leslie as an adventuress, he endowed her, in his
theory, with all the attributes of the adventuress of the orthodox
school--cunning, crafty, avaricious, scheming for a fortune;
unscrupulous, of course, and only differing from the average adventuress
in that she was the cleverest and the most beautiful, as she had been
the most successful of her kind.
"Granted that these two old wretches are her parents," he reasoned, "the
rest explains itself. They incite her to plot for their mutual welfare.
She marries Archibald, and even I discern that she does not love him;
but he is wealthy, and an invalid. Only one thing stands between her and
an eventual fortune, and that is poor little Daisy. Possibly she may
have still some tenderness of heart, and for a time Daisy is spared. But
after a while, the mysterious goings and comings begin; the arrival of
notes by strange messengers; and a new look dawns upon my
sister-in-law's fair face. Then comes the masquerade. A man is here, in
this house, by appointment with her. He follows her to the abode of the
Francoises and so do I. Who is this man? A gentleman, she tells me. Her
lover, doubtless, and all is explained. With Archibald removed, what
would stand between her lover and herself? With Daisy removed, she would
possess both lover and fortune. And to remove Daisy was to remove
Archibald. The shock would suffice. She planned all this deliberately;
and on the night of the masquerade the Francoises aided her, and Daisy
was stolen."
Thus reasoned Alan. And then he formed his plans. He would spare Leslie
all public disgrace, but she must cease to call herself a Warburton of
the Warburtons. She must give up the family name, and go away from the
city; far away, where no gossiping tongue could guess at her history, or
connect her with the Warburtons. For Daisy's sake, for his brother's
sake, for the honor of the name, she must go. She might take her
fortune, left her by her deceived husband, but she _must_ go.
"I will institute a search for the Francoises," he muttered. "Everything
must be done privately; there must be no scandal. If I require
assistance, I can trust Follingsbee. I will see Leslie again, in the
morning. I will make terms with her, haughty as she is, and--first of
all she _shall_ tell me the truth concerning Daisy."
He was not unmindful of his own peril, not regardless for his own
safety, but he was determined to know the truth concerning the
disappearance of Daisy Warburton, and if need be, to face the attendant
risk.
"I will write to the Chief of Police again," he mused. "I must have
additional help. But first, before writing, I will see _her_ once more."
And then he ceased his promenade for a moment, to strike his hands
together and stare contemptuously at his image reflected from the mirror
directly before him.
"Fool!" he muttered half aloud; "that letter, that scrawl which I gave
back to her so stupidly! It contained their address. It would tell me
where to find them, if I had it; and I will have it."
In the anger and astonishment of the moment, he had returned the
threatening note to Leslie, mechanically and without once glancing at
the directions scrawled at the foot of the sheet.
While Alan paced and pondered, Leslie, having recovered from her swoon,
went weakly and wearily to her own room, tenderly escorted by Winnie and
the good-hearted, blundering Millie.
When she was comfortably established upon a couch, and the too
solicitous Millie had been dismissed, Winnie's indignation burst out in
language exceedingly forcible, and by no means complimentary to Alan
Warburton.
But Leslie stopped the flow of her eloquence by a nervous appealing
gesture.
"Let us not discuss these things now, dear; I think I have been
overtasked. I cannot talk; I must have quiet; I must rest."
And then Winnie--denouncing herself for a selfish, careless creature
with the same unsparing bitterness that, a moment before, she had
lavished upon Alan,--assured herself that the curtains produced the
proper degree of restful shadow, that the pillows were comfortably
adjusted, that all Leslie could require was close at her hand, kissed
her softly on either cheek, and tripped from the room.
Left alone, Leslie lay for many moments moveless and silent, but not
sleeping. The softly-shaded stillness of the room acted upon her
over-wrought nerves like a soothing spell. She had passed the boundaries
of uncertainty. She had writhed, and wept, and shuddered under the
torturing hands of Doubt and Fear, Terror, and Surprise. She had bowed
down before Despair. But all that was past; and now she was calm and
tearless, a brave soul that, having abandoned Hope, stands face to face
with its Fate.
After a time she moved languidly, and then lifted herself slowly from
among the pillows.
"Not to-night," she murmured, lifting her hand to her head with a sigh
of weariness. "I must have rest first."
But she did not return to her pillows. Instead, she arose slowly,
crossed the room, and drawing back the curtains let in, in a glowing
flood, the last brightness of the afternoon sunshine. Then seating
herself at a dainty writing-desk, she penned three notes, with a hand
that moved slowly but with no unsteadiness.
The first was addressed to Mr. Follingsbee; the second to Mrs. French,
the mother of Winnie; and the third to Winnie herself.
When the notes were done, she still sat before the desk, watching the
fading-out of the golden sunlight with a far away look in her eyes. She
sat thus until the last ray had died in the West, and the twilight came
creeping on grey and shadowy.
Some one was knocking at the drawing-room door. She arose slowly to
admit the visitor. It was Alan's valet, with a twisted note in his hand.
Leslie took the note, and bidding the servant wait, she returned to the
inner room.
MADAM:
As you manifested no hesitation in exhibiting to me the note
received by you this morning, you will, I trust, not object to my
giving it a second perusal. Please send it me by bearer of this.
I will return it promptly.
ALAN WARBURTON.
This is what Leslie read, and when she had finished, she took from her
pocket the crumpled note of the Francoises. Over this she bent her head
for a moment, murmured something half aloud, as if to impress it on her
memory, and went back to the dressing-room with the two papers in her
hand.
Going slowly toward the grate, she stirred the smouldering fire until it
sent up a bright blaze, and with another glance at the crumpled note,
she dropped it upon the glowing coals, and watched it crumble to ashes.
Then she turned toward the valet, folding and twisting his master's note
back into its original shape as she advanced.
"Return this to your master," she said, "and tell him that the paper he
asks for has been destroyed."
As the valet turned away, she closed the door and went back to the
grate.
"Alan Warburton has canceled my debt to him with an insult," she
murmured, with a cold smile upon her lips. "From this moment he has no
part in my existence."