A Terrible Secret - May Agnes Fleming (best ebook reader txt) 📗

had not exaggerated. He was worn to a shadow; his fair hair was streaked with gray; his lips were set in a tense expression of suffering--either physical or mental--perhaps both. His blue eyes looked sunken and lustreless. It was scarcely to be believed that ten short months could have wrought such wreck. He talked little--his responses to their questions were monosyllabic. His eyes constantly wandered away from their faces to the passers-by. He had the look of a man ever on the alert, ever on the watch--waiting and watching for some one he could not see. Miss Howard had never seen him before, but from the depths of her heart she pitied him. Sorrow, such as rarely falls to the lot of man, had fallen to this man, she knew.

He was discouragingly absent and _distrait_. It came out by chance that the chief part of the past ten months had been spent by him in America.

In America! The sisters exchanged glances. _She_ was there, no doubt. Had they met? was the thought of both. They reached the fashionable modiste's.

"You will come in with us, Sir Victor," Lady Portia commanded gayly. "We all have business here, but we will only detain you a moment."

He gave her his arm to the shop. It was large and elegant, and three or four deferential shop-women came forward to wait upon them and place seats. The victimized baronet, still listless and bored, sat down to wait and escort them back to the carriage before taking his departure. To be exhibited in the park was the farthest possible from his intention.

Lady Portia's, dress was displayed--a rose velvet, with point-lace trimmings--and found fault with, of course. Lady Gwendoline and the Hon. Mary transacted their affairs at a little distance. For her elder ladyship the train did not suit her, the bodice did not please her; she gave her orders for altering sharply and concisely. The deferential shop-girl listened and wrote the directions down on a card. When her patroness had finished she carried robe and card down the long room and called:

"Miss Stuart!"

A voice answered--only one word, "Yes," softly spoken, but Sir Victor Catheron started as if he had been shot. The long show-room lay in semi-twilight--the gas not yet lit. In this twilight another girl advanced, took the rose-velvet robe and written card. The light flashed upon her figure and hair for one instant--then she disappeared.

And Sir Victor?

He sat like a man suddenly aroused from a deep, long sleep. He had not seen the face; he had caught but a glimpse of the figure and head; he had heard the voice speak but one little word, "Yes;" _but_--

Was he asleep or awake? Was it only a delusion, as so many other fancied resemblances had been, or was it after all--after all--

He rose to his feet, that dazed look of a sleep-walker, suddenly aroused, on his face.

"Now, then, Sir Victor," the sharp, clear voice of Lady Portia said, at his side, "your martyrdom is ended. We are ready to go."

He led her to the carriage, assisted her and the young ladies in. How he excused himself--what incoherent words he said--he never knew. He was only conscious after a minute that the carriage had rolled away, and that he was still standing, hat in hand, on the sidewalk in front of Madame Mirebeau's; that the passers-by were staring at him, and that he was alone.

"Mad!" Lady Portia said, shrugging her shoulders and touching her forehead. "Mad as a March hare!"

"Mad?" Miss Howard repeated softly. "No, I don't think so. Not mad, only very--very miserable."

He replaced his hat and walked back to the shop-door. There reason, memory returned. What was he going in for? What should he say? He stood still suddenly, as though gazing at the wax women in elegant ball costume, swinging slowly and smirkingly round and round. He had heard a voice--he had seen a shapely head crowned with dark, silken hair--a tall, slender girl's figure--that was all. He had seen and heard such a hundred times since that fatal wedding evening, and when he had hunted them down, the illusion had vanished, and his lost love was as lost as ever. His lost Edith--his bride, his darling, the wife he had loved and left--for whom all those weary, endless months he had been searching and searching in vain. Was she living or dead? Was she in London--in England--_where_? He did not know--no one knew. Since that dark, cold autumn morning when she had fled from Powyss Place she had never been seen or heard of. She had kept her word--she had taken nothing that was his--not a farthing. Wherever she was, she might be starving to-day. He clenched his hands and teeth as he thought of it.

"Oh!" his passionate, despairing heart cried, "let me find her--let me save her, and--let me die!"

He had searched for her everywhere, by night and by day. Money flowed like water--all in vain. He went to New York--he found the people there he had once known, but none of them could tell him anything of her or the Stuarts. The Stuarts had failed, were utterly ruined--it was understood that Mr. Stuart was dead--of the others they knew nothing. He went to Sandypoint in search of her father. Mr. Darrell and his family had months ago sold out and gone West. He could find none of them; he gave it up at length and returned to England. Ten months had passed; many resemblances had beguiled him, but to-day Edith was as far off, as lost as ever.

The voice he had heard, the likeness he had seen, would they prove false and empty too, and leave his heart more bitter than ever? What he would do _when_ he found her he did not consider. He only wanted to find her. His whole heart, and life, and soul were bound up in that.

He paced up and down in front of the shop; the day's work would be over presently and the work-women would come forth. Then he would see again this particular work-woman who had set his heart beating with a hope that turned him dizzy and sick. Six o'clock! seven o'clock! Would they never come? Yes; even as he thought it, half mad with impatience, the door opened, and nearly a dozen girls filed forth. He drew his hat over his eyes, he kept a little in the shadow and watched them one by one with wildly eager eyes as they appeared. Four, five, six, seven--she came at last, the eighth. The tall, slender figure, the waving, dark hair, he knew them at once. The gaslight fell full upon her as she drew her veil over her face and walked rapidly away. Not before he had seen it, not before he had recognized it--no shadow, no myth, no illusion this time. His wife--Edith.

He caught the wall for support. For a moment the pavement beneath his feet heaved, the starry sky spun round. Then he started up, steadied himself by a mighty effort, and hurried in pursuit.

She had gained upon him over thirty yards. She was always a rapid walker, and he was ailing and weak. His heart throbbed now, so thick and fast, that every breath was a pain. He did not gain upon her, he only kept her in sight. He would have known that quick, decided walk, the poise of the head and shoulders, anywhere. He followed her as fast as his strength and the throng of passers-by would let him, yet doing no more than keeping her well in sight.

Where Oxford Street nears Tottenham Court Road she suddenly diverged and crossed over, turning into the latter crowded thoroughfare. Still he followed. The throng was even more dense here than in Oxford Street, to keep her in sight more difficult. For nearly ten minutes he did it, then suddenly all strength left him. For a minute or two he felt as though he must fall. There was a spasm of the heart that was like a knife-thrust. He caught at a lamp-post. He beckoned a passing hansom by a sort of expiring effort. The cab whirled up beside him; he got in somehow, and fell back, blinded and dizzy, in the seat.

"Where to, sir?" Cabby called twice before he received an answer; then "Fenton's Hotel" came faintly to him from his ghostly looking fare. The little aperture at the top was slammed down and the hansom rattled off.

"Blessed if I don't think the young swell's drunk, or 'aving a fit," thought the Cad, as he speeded his horse down Tottenham Court Road.

To look for her further in his present state, Sir Victor felt would be useless. He must get to his lodgings, get some brandy, and half-an-hour's time to think what to do next. He had found her; she was alive, she was well, thank Heaven! thank Heaven for that! To-morrow would find her again at Madame Mirebeau's at work with the rest.

At work--her daily toil! He covered his wasted face with his wasted hands, and tears that were like a woman's fell from him. He had been weak and worn out for a long time--he gave way utterly, body and mind, now.

"My darling," he sobbed; "my darling whom I would die to make happy--whose life I have so utterly ruined. To think that while I spend wealth like water, _you_ should toil for a crust of bread--alone, poor, friendless, in this great city. How will I answer to God and man for what I have done?"


CHAPTER II.

EDITH.

The last light of the July day had faded out, and a hot, murky night settled down over London. The air was stifling in the city; out in the suburbs you still caught a breath, fresh and sweet scented, from the fragrant fields.

At Poplar Lodge, St. John's Wood, this murky, summer night all the windows stood wide. In the drawing-room two women sat together. The elder reading aloud, the younger busy over some feminine handicraft. A cluster of waxlights burned above them, shining full on two pale, worn faces--the faces of women to whom suffering and sorrow have long been household words. Both wore deepest mourning--the elder a widow's weeds, the hair of the younger thickly streaked with gray. Now and then both raised their eyes from a book and needlework, and glanced expectantly at the clock on the mantel. Evidently they waited for some one who did not come. They were Lady Helena Powyss and Inez Catheron, of course.

"Eight," the elder woman said, laying down her book with a sigh as the clock struck. "If he were coming to-night he would be here before now."

"I don't give him up even yet," Inez answered cheerfully. "Young men are not to be depended on, and he has often come out much later than this. We are but dull company for him, poor boy--all the world are but dull company for him at present, since _she_ is not of them. Poor boy! poor Victor! it is very hard on him."

"I begin to think Edith will never be found," said Lady Helena with a sigh.

"My dear aunt, I don't. No one is ever lost, utterly, in these days. She will be found, believe me, unless--"

"Well?"

"Unless she is dead."

"She is not dead," affirmed Lady Helena; "of that I am sure. You didn't know her, Inez, or you wouldn't think it; the most superb specimen of youth and strength and handsome health I ever saw in my life. She told me once she never remembered a sick