"I can't go on with you. I am going.Toni."
"I can't go on with you. I am going.Toni."
She had no time for more. Every second was precious; and even now she doubted whether she were in time to make her escape.
She opened the door and listened. Nothing was heard but the mutter of voices in the bar downstairs; and there was no one in sight. A moment she stood, her heart in her throat, driven nearly distracted between impatience and terror. Then she turned back into the room, snatched up her gloves and purse from the table and ran down the broad stairs and across the square hall with frenzied haste.
A sound of footsteps in a passage close at hand made her start nervously. Without delaying a second she opened the great door, letting in a rush of cold, raw air, and, not venturing to look round, lest even now she should be intercepted in her flight, she slipped through the aperture and fled into the night.
At nine o'clock that same evening Jim Herrick, alone in his shabby yet delightful little sitting-room, was roused from his contemplation of an etching he had picked up in town that day by a deep-throated bark from Olga. She had been lying in the hall; and doubtless her sharp ears had heard some approaching footstep which to his duller human hearing was inaudible.
Eva was upstairs, trying on some finery she had purchased in London; and after waiting a moment Herrick went into the hall to investigate.
Someone was knocking now on the door, thereby rousing Olga's wrath; and Herrick held her firmly by the collar as he went to answer the summons.
On the doorstep, an indistinct figure in the fog, stood a young man, and on seeing Herrick he began at once to unfold his errand.
"Mr. Herrick, beg pardon, sir; master's sent me over to ask if Mrs. Rose is here."
"Mrs. Rose? Are you from Greenriver?"
"Yes, sir. I'm Andrews, sir, and we're all a bit anxious about the mistress. She wasn't at home for dinner, and no one saw her go out."
"Comes inside a minute." The man obeying, Herrick closed the door and, still holding Olga's collar, led the way to the sitting-room.
"Now, tell me, as shortly as possible, why you thought Mrs. Rose might be here?"
"It was Kate's idea, sir—the parlourmaid. When Mrs. Ross didn't come down to dinner she thought as perhaps she'd come over here. I thought it weren't likely on account of the fog, but we couldn't think of anywhere else for Mrs. Rose to be."
"Your master is at home?"
"Yes, sir, got in about seven. He was shut up in his room—the lib'ry—till nearly dinner-time, and then he waited and waited for the mistress to come down—and when she didn't come he got fidgety and sent Kate upstairs."
"And Kate found no one?"
"No, sir. Only the dog—Jock—lying curled up in the very middle of the bed—a thing he's never been known to do before, sir."
"Mrs. Rose has not been here," said Herrick. "But just wait a moment. I will ask my wife if she expected Mrs. Rose."
He went out of the room, and found Eva coming down the short flight of stairs from the upper floor.
"What's the matter, Jim? Who is the man in there?"
"It is the man-servant from Greenriver asking if Mrs. Rose has been here. You did not expect her, did you, Eva?"
"Oh, no." She spoke calmly. "We were to meet to-morrow morning, but we had no appointment for to-night."
"I see. Odd where she can have got to." Herrick frowned thoughtfully. "You can't give me any clue to her movements, Eva? You don't remember hearing her say anything about to-night?"
"I haven't the slightest idea," said Eva, with apparent sincerity, and Herrick turned away without asking any other question.
Re-entering the room he quietly told the waiting Andrews that nothing had been seen of Mrs. Rose, nor had she been expected on that particular evening; and the young man thanked him dejectedly and moved to the door.
"It's a wretched night," said Herrick. "Won't you have a glass of something before you go?"
Andrews thanked him, but declined; and seeing he was anxious to be gone, Herrick did not press him, but let him depart without more ado.
He turned again into the sitting-room, meditating on this extraordinary disappearance; and a minute later his wife joined him, eager to hear the reason of Andrews' quest.
She came into the room wearing a satin kimono she had bought that day, her curly golden hair bound with a broad pink ribbon, her small, narrow foot thrust into satin slippers of the same hue.
At first sight it might have been a schoolgirl who stood there in the doorway. A second glance would have shown, to an acute observer, faint lines on brow and cheek, an indefinable hardness and sharpness of outline which destroyed the semblance of youth; and in its place gave an air of cynical maturity, which, reckoning by actual length of years, was as deceptive as the former illusion.
"Well?" She came further into the room and spoke interrogatively.
"Well?" Herrick turned to face her. "Mrs. Rose's disappearance is rather remarkable, don't you think?"
"Very." For the life of him Herrick could not fathom her tone. "But since Toni is a free agent and not a slave, I expect she's gone out on business of her own."
"Queer time for business—nine o'clock on a foggy night," Herrick reminded her quietly.
"Well, I daresay she got fed up with the house—and the weather—and went off to London for a spree." Eva laughed rather hardly. "A theatre would be a blessed relief after the dulness of this place."
"She would not be likely to go alone."
"Oh, I daresay she would pick up some man to go with."
"Don't speak like that, Eva, please. Mrs. Rose is not the sort of girl to 'pick up' anybody."
"Oh, isn't she?" Eva laughed again. "Your precious Toni isn't a saint, you know. Because her husband is a fool and neglects her, that doesn't say Toni is too meek and mild to have friends of her own."
Herrick turned to her angrily.
"Look here, Eva, I won't have you insinuating such things. Mrs. Rose may not be a saint—I never met one, by the way—but she is a thoroughly straight girl; and any friends she might make would be lucky fellows, I can tell you."
Eva smiled rather scornfully.
"Even you are taken in by her big eyes and her quiet ways. Well, you'll all of you get a surprise one of these days, when you find that Toni is as wide-awake as anybody else, and knows a thing or two you don't suspect her of."
"Eva, you are talking nonsense, and you know it." Herrick was seriously annoyed. "I imagined—foolishly—that you were a friend of Toni Rose; and it never entered my head you would say spiteful things of this sort about her."
He broke off.
"Unless——" He hesitated, his eyes full of a vague trouble.
"Well? Unless—what?"
"Oh, but that's absurd." He pulled himself together and spoke decisively. "I was going to say, unless you had some reason for speaking so; unless you knew something we don't know—and of course you don't."
"Of course not." This time the mockery in her tone was perceptible; and Herrick questioned her hastily.
"Eva, what do you mean? Do you know anything which would throw a light on Mrs. Rose's disappearance?"
But Eva had turned sulky and would say nothing more. After one or two vain attempts to induce her to speak, therefore, Herrick abandoned the idea; and Eva withdrew with a malicious little smile on her lips which rendered her husband still more uneasy.
He wandered restlessly about his small domain, puzzling his head as to what could have happened to Toni. He had not seen her often of late. Indeed, he had fancied once or twice that she was avoiding him; and he was sorry, for the girl had made an instant claim upon his sympathies, and he had often meditated over her chances of turning her marriage into a success.
Somehow he had a presentiment of evil. Something seemed to tell him that Toni's flight was premeditated, that she had fled from her home secretly, with the intention of leaving her husband for ever; and although he told himself that the idea was monstrous, grotesque, he could not shake it off.
Doubtless there were a dozen explanations. Perhaps she had gone for a little stroll, and had lost her way in the fog. She might have dropped in at some house in the neighbourhood, and, talking, let the hours slip by. Ten chances to one, she was even now safe at home; and it was absurd to worry about her. And yet——
And yet therewereother possibilities. In the fog it would be easy indeed to miss one's road—with tragic results. One false step off the towing-path, for instance, and the river, dark and silent, would flow on its way, carrying with it a burden hardly more animated, yet a hundred times more precious, than the sticks and leaves which floated down with the current....
Suddenly Herrick sprang up, unable to bear this haunted solitude any longer. He felt as though he must go forth to make inquiries for himself, to ascertain whether Toni had returned or no, whether all possible measures had been taken for her safety.
Surely the people at Greenriver would not take his visit amiss? Seeing that his wife and Mrs. Rose were known to be friends, it was only natural that Mrs. Herrick should be anxious; and in any case he could bear this inaction no longer.
Going into the hall he selected an overcoat and cap, and then, going to the foot of the stairs, called out to his wife.
"Well?" She came to the head of the stairs, and stood looking at him over the banisters. She had a lighted candle in her hand; and somehow the wavering flame seemed to cast a sinister shadow over her face.
"I am going to Greenriver, Eva, to see if Mrs. Rose has returned."
"Oh." For a moment she hesitated, opened her mouth as though about to speak and then yawned instead. "Very well. Don't be long. My head aches and I want to get to sleep."
"I will be as quick as possible," he said. "I am sorry your head aches. Try to get to sleep before I return."
He turned away, leaving her staring after him; and her grey eyes were full of a cruel maliciousness. Eva guessed pretty well how the land lay. Although she had not expected Toni to give in to the young dentist's entreaties so soon, she never doubted that the girl had gone away with him; and she laughed as she remembered how quietly the whole affair had been conducted.
Except on the occasion of Dowson's loan of magazines, Eva did not believe his name had ever been mentioned between the Roses; and certainly it would never enter Owen's head that his wife would go off, leave him, and leave all the glories of Greenriver, to share the lot of the inferior and unattractive Mr. Dowson.
Eva had not the slightest feeling of compassion for the unhappy young wife driven to this step, partly by her own childish folly, but partly, also, by the evil counsel of the woman she called her friend. Eva know very well, had known all along, that there could be no happiness for Toni in such a step; and she fully believed that the girl would come to hate and fear the life in front of her. But Eva never for one moment experienced a thrill of pity for the misguided Toni. Rather the thought of the certain misery which faced her filled Eva's perverted mind with a wretched triumph; and her only strong emotion at this juncture was a passionate hope that Owen would not learn the truth in time to save his wife from the worst consequence of her ill-considered action.
Meanwhile all was confusion at Greenriver. At first Owen had been merely a little perplexed, not uneasy, at Toni's absence from the dinner-table; but when it became apparent that she was nowhere in the house he grew alarmed.
Calling Andrews and Fletcher to him, he bade them get lanterns and institute a thorough search in the grounds; and the three of them searched thoroughly—as thoroughly, at least, as was possible in the clammy fog.
Up and down they went, lanterns swinging, in and out of trees and shrubs; and into the various summer-houses and garden sheds; but there was no sign of Toni.
Back into the house—where once again Owen summoned the servants to a conference—and once again was forced to consider himself baffled.
Kate had seen her mistress last when she carried in the tea. Asked if Mrs. Rose had said anything about going out, she answered in the negative; and neither cook nor Maggie had sat eyes upon her since lunch.
Andrews had been out that afternoon, and knew nothing; and Mrs. Blades, when interrogated, merely sniffed and said Mrs. Rose did not often honour the housekeeper's room with her presence.
It was at this juncture that Andrews was despatched to Herrick's bungalow; and in his absence Owen rang up on the telephone all the people who seemed in the least likely to have seen his wife, but without result.
A little later he rang up other places—the station, the police station, even the little Cottage Hospital; but no one had heard or seen anything of Mrs. Rose; and Owen was forced to wait for Andrews' return.
When the man came, bearing no tidings, Owen understood that the matter was serious. Toni had gone, left her home in the dusk, departed no one knew whither. The whole thing was so unexpected, so incredible, that it was small wonder Owen was completely at sea.
Suddenly a welcome thought flashed into his head. It was possible Toni had gone to town on the spur of the moment to visit her relations in Brixton; and the next minute Owen was turning over the leaves of the telephone directory hurriedly in an endeavour to find the number of the house in Winter Gardens. Luckily the house boasted a telephone, installed for the convenience of one of the boys who was connected with an insurance agency which had its headquarters there; and in a very short space of time Owen was asking the worthy Mrs. Gibbs over the wire for news of the missing Toni. But disappointment awaited him. Nothing had been heard of Toni for three weeks; and she had most certainly not visited them that day. Mrs. Gibbs, at the other end of the wire, sounded apprehensive, but Owen had no time to consider her feelings, and rang off abruptly when he found she had nothing to tell him.
Just as he was turning away from the instrument the door bell rang quietly; and with a quick movement Owen crossed the hall and threw the door widely open.
It was not Toni who stood there, however; and seeing the blank look on Owen's face, Herrick hurried to explain his errand as one merely of inquiry.
"Come in," said Owen mechanically, drawing his visitor inside the house. "It's awfully decent of you, Herrick. You have heard of my wife's—disappearance?"
"Yes. I suppose you have no idea what can have taken her away?"
"Not the slightest. The maids say—now—that her thick motor coat and cap are gone, and her purse—with a few pounds in, I don't know how much—is missing from her drawer. But where she has gone is a complete mystery."
"She gave you no hint of her departure?"
"Not the faintest." Owen became suddenly aware that his visitor's coat was damp with the wetting mist; and his hospitable instincts awoke. "I say, come into the library and have a drink. You're pretty well soaked."
He led the way to the library, regardless of Herrick's disclaimers; and the other man thought it best to follow him, first asking permission to bring Olga inside the house—a permission readily granted. Once inside the warm, tranquil room, Owen insisted upon Herrick shedding his coat and accepting a whisky and soda; but though he pressed Herrick to sit down and even took a cigarette himself, it was evident that Owen was all on thorns with anxiety and apprehension.
"You haven't heard your wife say she wanted a change? You know women are restless beings."
"Not Toni. She was always happy here. I'd promised to take her to Switzerland for Christmas, and that pleased her; but she was never keen about going away."
"I see. She was happy here. Well"—his gaze wandered dreamily round the lamp-lit room, with its mullioned windows and well-filled shelves—"I don't wonder at that. Anyone might be happy in such a home as this."
"Yes, she always loved Greenriver." Unconsciously both men used the past tense. "Ever since I brought her here as my wife she loved the old house."
"She was happy, you say?" Herrick felt a sudden desire to probe beneath the surface. "You never—forgive me—you never found her depressed—or—or unsettled—in low spirits?"
"No. She was sometimes a little—well, what shall we call it?—not bad-tempered, but well, a trifle jumpy; but she seemed to be in good spirits as a rule."
"You never—I suppose"—he laughed, trying to make the question sound casual—"you never had any disagreements—any little fallings-out? Oh, don't think me impertinent—I was only wondering whether perhaps Mrs. Rose had taken offence at some little thing—and had gone off for a short visit somewhere to—well, to punish you."
He had half expected Owen to resent the implication; but Owen took it quietly.
"We never exactly quarrelled," he said. "At least, that isn't quite true. We did disagree, more than once, on one particular subject; and last night we certainly had a few words. We both lost our tempers—I confess I lost mine—and I said one or two things I'd have given the world to recall afterwards."
"I see." Herrick spoke gravely. "Well, no doubt Mrs. Rose knows you did not mean anything unkind——"
"I hope so. By God, I hope so." Owen's voice was hoarse. "If I thought Toni had taken my words seriously I—why, I said things I didn't mean in the very least, and I never for one instant dreamed she would take them as spoken in earnest."
"I see." Herrick repeated the words. "You will pardon me for saying that Mrs. Rose always struck me as being more sensitive than the majority of women."
"Did she?" Owen stared at him, struck suddenly by the significance of his manner. "By Jove, Herrick, I never suspected my wife of any undue sensitiveness. She always seemed to me too young, too immature and undeveloped to take things much to heart. Her youth was one of the greatest charms about her to me. It never struck me she was a woman, capable of a woman's sufferings——"
He broke off suddenly.
"Stay, though. Once I thought—she looked at me and I thought her eyes looked different—not like the eyes of a child. I wondered then ... but ... oh, no, she couldn't think I meant the things I said. Once or twice I have felt exasperated at what I thought was her childishness, her ignorance of the world, and I've said things now and again, unkind things, even cruel things sometimes ... but I've been secure all the time in the thought that she didn't understand...."
"You wouldn't have hurt her—wilfully?"
"Hurt her?" Owen stared at him. "Good God, man, what do you take me for? A man doesn't wilfully hurt his wife—the woman he loves. And to hurt Toni would be like hurting a child."
"Mr. Rose"—Herrick took a resolution to speak plainly—"are you sure you did not treat your wife rather too much as a child? Are you sure you didn't deny her the right of a woman, the right to share your life, your work, your aims? Are you quite sure you never made her feel her inferiority to you in different ways, never let her see that in some matters she was perhaps hardly your equal? Oh, I know you are exceptionally clever, brilliant, and she is only a simple girl; but still she was not a child; and it may have been rather galling to her to be treated as one."
For a moment Owen sat motionless, his eyes fixed on the other man's face with a stare whose earnestness was its justification.
Then—
"Look here, Herrick," he said, "I believe you are trying to tell me something—something about my wife which I don't know. Well, what is it? I think, as her husband, I have a right to ask you to share your knowledge with me. What do you say?"
"I think you have every right," Herrick answered quietly, "and I ask nothing better than to tell you all I know."
Without further preliminaries he repeated to Owen the conversation he had had with Toni on the day of the Vicarage Bazaar; and a sudden light broke over Owen as he listened.
"You are alluding to the occasion when Lady Martin and the Vicar's wife called her ignorant, frivolous, empty-headed."
"She told you?" Herrick was surprised.
"Yes—long afterwards. But I laughed at her and told her it was nonsense—jealousy, or something like that. I never dreamed she had taken it to heart."
"She took it so much to heart that she began to wonder how much was true, and how she could best rise above the defects with which they endowed her. She honoured me by asking my advice; and I was only too glad to help her. She called herself ignorant, and I endeavoured to show her how, by study and application, she might repair that ignorance. I recommended her books, mapped her out a course of reading—oh, it's no use going over it all now; only just what seems important to me is this. What had specially wounded her was the fact that they had evidently denied her the possession of a soul." He smiled rather tenderly. "And it was her passionate desire to show that shehada soul which drove her to all those desperate expedients of study and the like."
He paused, but Owen did not speak.
"I wonder if the process of making one's soul is a painful one, after all? Like most new-born creatures, I expect it's a delicate, sensitive thing at first, easily wounded by a word, a glance.... I don't suppose it has a very joyful time in the beginning, struggling towards the fuller light like a weak, fragile little flower opening its petals one by one to the sun. But luckily a soul is a very vital thing. It can stand a good deal in the way of unkindness or neglect without shrivelling up. And I daresay a few kindly words, a sympathetic thought, are like water to a dying plant—or as the Bible has it 'as the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.'"
As he finished his speech Owen broke in impetuously:
"Don't say any more, Herrick. My God, what a fool I've been! To think that all this was taking place beneath my eyes and I was too blind, too self-absorbed to see."
"Well, everyone is blind, at times," said Herrick gently. "I'm not trying to make you unhappy, Rose—the whole affair is no business of mine, and you may well resent my interference."
"No, no," said Owen hastily. "God knows your interference is only too justifiable. But——"
"Perhaps I am to blame, after all, for trying to engineer so delicate a situation. The fact is, I felt a great pity for Mrs. Rose. She was only a girl after all, and girlhood is a lively, careless, light-hearted period. But although her soul appeared—then—to be unawakened, I knew it was there all the time; and I confess I hoped that when she came into full possession of it you would draw nearer to one another, and a better understanding would ensue. But——"
He paused.
"Well? Your plan hasn't worked?"
"I don't know. The thing is, not so muchwherehas Mrs. Rose gone, butwhydid she go? Look here, Rose. I'm perfectly certain that her one thought all through has been for your welfare; and though on the face of it it seems peculiar that she should take this means of proving her love for you, I'm quite convinced she is acting on your behalf in this odd disappearance of hers."
"But how could I benefit by her disappearance?"
"I don't know. But I am quite sure——"
He broke off suddenly, and the next instant the two men started to their feet as the hoot of a motor-horn sounded loudly outside the house.
"God, Herrick—here's Toni." Owen dashed out of the room followed by Herrick, and the two reached the front door at the same moment.
Andrews, who had come running from the kitchen regions at the sound of the horn, flung open the door, and disclosed the big car with its flaring head-lamps, throbbing itself to a standstill at the foot of the steps.
A young man jumped out—a man whom neither Rose nor Herrick had ever seen before—and, rushing up the steps, looked wildly round him.
"Where is she?" he demanded loudly. "Where is she?"
"To whom do you allude?" asked Owen coldly, his fastidious soul revolted by the spectacle which the young man presented. Dowson was hatless, dishevelled. In his agony of mind at Toni's departure he had torn his collar apart, feeling himself choking, and during the drive to Greenriver he had rumpled his hair so wildly that it stood up in mad disorder over his head. His face was dusty, the mist had soaked his clothes till they clung tightly to his narrow frame, and about his whole figure there was an air of unkempt desolation which was unattractive in the extreme.
"I allude to Toni—your wife, if you like to call her that." The unfortunate young man was distraught between disappointment and anxiety. "Where is she? Has she come home after all?"
"My wife?" Owen raised his eyebrows superciliously. "My good man, what are you talking about? If you know anything about Mrs. Rose be kind enough to tell us at once what it is, but please remember she is not Toni—to you."
"Oh, isn't she?" Beneath the weight of conflicting emotions Mr. Dowson was losing his head. "Well, she was going to be, that's all. She came away with me to-night of her own free will ... and we wore going to cross to Paris, and then ... oh, I don't know what then, but anyway she was going to stay with me, and when you had divorced her——"
"Divorced her?" Owen uttered the words in so ferocious a tone that the young man fell back a pace. "What the devil do you mean by making a suggestion of that sort? And why in God's name should I divorce my wife—for you?"
The scorn with which he spoke the last two words drove Leonard Dowson to frenzy.
"Why? Why not? You never loved her—you never knew how to treat her. You made her miserable, you let her see you thought her inferior to you, not good enough for you ... you wouldn't dismiss that woman you had to help you though you knew To—your wife hated her...."
He was lashing himself to greater and greater fury at the thought of Toni's sufferings.
"Even when you'd made her so wretched that she was ready to die, she still thought of you. She knew I loved her as she deserved to be loved, and she was coming away with me, not because she loved me, but because she thought by leaving you she'd set you free—free to divorce her, to cast her off, to marry someone else, for all I know—some lady whom you'd perhaps be pleased to call your equal."
Beneath his savage indictment even Owen stood dumb. There is always something electrifying about absolute sincerity, and no one, listening, could possibly doubt that the man was speaking from the very depth of his soul.
As he stood panting, glaring at Owen with hatred in his eyes, Herrick stepped forward with a question.
"Excuse me, sir"—neither of them knew, as yet, the name of the visitor—"may I ask how you became possessed of all this information? I am perfectly sure that Mrs. Rose herself has not been your informant, but I fail to see——in the first place, may we ask your name?"
"My name is Dowson, Leonard Dowson." He spoke defiantly. "And as to who told me, well, it doesn't much matter, that I can see, but it was a friend of—of Mrs. Rose." He dared not again call her "Toni."
"A friend?" In one sickening flash of intuition, Herrick knew who had been Toni's evil genius. He stopped short, physically incapable of questioning further; but Owen had no such scruples.
"Who is this—friend?" He could not help the sneer; and Herrick paled in the lamplight, fearing yet powerless to avert the answer.
"I don't suppose it matters telling you." Dowson paused. "It was Mrs. Herrick—Mrs. Rose's best friend—who told me; and she swore that every word was true."
There was a short, tense silence; and Andrews, who had been hovering unnoticed in the background, suddenly dived through the baize door and disappeared, as one who feels his presence an intrusion.
"So it was Mrs. Herrick who gave you this precious information." Owen, very pale, turned to Herrick. "Herrick, I won't insult your wife by asking if this is true. It's a lie, of course. Mrs. Herrick is a friend of my wife's. She would never play such a treacherous, underhand part——"
"I ... I don't know what to say...."
"No, I should think you don't." Dowson spoke vehemently. "You know it was she who put me up to it all along. She said Mrs. Rose had owned to being—well, fond of me in her way, though of course she put her husband first. But she told me I had a chance, that if I'd offer to take Mrs. Rose away she'd come ... oh, she convinced me fast enough. I daresay I was a fool, but I couldn't bear to stand by and say nothing when by taking her away——"
He stopped suddenly. Owen had made a threatening step forward.
"Look here"—Owen's voice was choked with rage—"stop talking all that rot, and tell me what you've done with my wife. First, of all, where is she?"
"How can I tell you when I don't know?" retorted the young man almost rudely. "She came away with me right enough, and then we had an accident to the car—a tyre burst—and we went into a hotel at Stratton to wait for it to be repaired. I went to the post-office to send a telegram, and when I came back she'd gone."
"Gone—where?"
"Oh, aren't I telling you I don't know?" In his excitement the young dentist's refinement fell away from him, showing the rough human man beneath. "She slipped out soon's my back was turned—left a scrap of paper saying she couldn't go on with me—and that's all I know."
"But she must have left some traces."
"She left her dressing-bag, if that's anything," said Dowson gloomily. "It's in the car outside. I thought at least she'd have come back here, and I had to come on to make sure. I"—for a second his rough voice softened—"I had to be certain she was safe."
"Well, she isn't here." Owen spoke harshly. "You were very ready to take her away, with your damned philanderings and what not, but you might at least have looked after her. Where is she? Good God, man, you're not only a blackguard and a thief—you're a damned fool as well!"
"I may be a fool, but I'm not a blackguard!" Mr. Dowson's eyes blazed in his pallid face. "Ididn't marry the girl and then neglect her—Ididn't win her love and then throw it aside as of no importance—Ididn't break her heart with my sneers and coldness, as you did. You may be her husband and I'm only a man who loves her, but I'll guarantee I'd have known how to treat her a million times better than you ever did."
The two men glared at one another furiously; and for a moment Herrick feared Owen was about to strike the man who defied him. Owen's face was convulsed with rage, his eyes looked almost black, and a vein in his temple hammered madly.
Herrick stepped forward hastily.
"I say, excuse me reminding you that this is not the time for recriminations. Mrs. Rose has not returned, and the thing to do now is to set all possible inquiries on foot. You agree with me, Rose?"
Owen turned to him, the passion dying out of his face, leaving only a great weariness and a great dread.
"You are right. We must find Toni. But how?"
"Well, we'd better make inquiries at Stratton first. You are on the 'phone? Good. Well, we will ring up the railway station, and the hotels. Mrs. Rose may have gone to one of them for the night. And we could try the garages. Possibly she will hire a car to bring her home."
"Yes. And I'll order out the car and try the roads myself." Owen looked suddenly alert. "If she should be attempting to walk home, or anything of that sort, I should pick her up."
"Yes. And I should give orders to the servants to have everything ready for Mrs. Rose—food, and fires, and things, when she returns. She'll be chilled to the bone with this mist."
"Yes. I'll do it at once. I'll go and get on the 'phone, if you'll be so good as to ring for the servants. I'll order a fire in her room, and a little supper."
He turned away, full of hope now that there was something to be done; and Herrick was following him, when Dowson, who had been temporarily forgotten, asserted his presence.
"And what am I to do while you're searching for her?" His rage had died away, and he looked the picture of dejection. "Can't I do anything? I—you know I'd die for Toni—for Mrs. Rose. Can't you suggest something for me to be doing?"
Owen turned on him fiercely.
"You?You've done enough harm for one night. Suppose you take yourself off—we've seen all we want of you, I assure you."
"But——"
"Don't stand arguing there," said Owen in a voice whose fury made the young man wince. "We've had more than enough of you. Be so good as to take yourself off before I kick you out of the house."
Leonard Dowson gave one last look at the other man's face as though to see whether this threat was meant to be taken literally. What he read there apparently decided him; for with a hoarse sigh he turned away in the direction of the front door.
Without waiting to see if he were obeyed or not, Owen hastened away to the telephone; and it was Herrick who opened the door and watched the young man enter the car.
A second later he dismounted again, this time bearing Toni's dressing-bag, which in her hurry she had left behind; and carrying it up the steps he put it down, almost tenderly, inside the hall.
"Thank you. That will do." Herrick watched him as he hesitated, uncertainly. "Don't let me detain you." He held the door widely open. "Good-night."
Thus dismissed, the young man had no option. He went out into the chilly, misty night, and mounted the car, which moved swiftly away down the gloomy drive.
When Herrick had closed the door he paused a moment, wondering if he had not better follow the late visitor's example and vanish quietly into the night.
But he heard Owen's voice calling him as he stood hesitating, and found that, in spite of his wife's treachery, he himself was not debarred from giving help.
He attempted, awkwardly, to take his leave; but Owen was in no mood to let him go. Whatever Mrs. Herrick's part in the tragedy, it was evident that her husband was to be exonerated; and although his heart was sick within him at the thought of Eva's wickedness, Herrick was wise enough to see that to implicate himself would be to make matters worse than they were already.
But although the two men made all possible inquiries, they could hear nothing of the missing Toni. No one had seen her, no one heard of her; and as the hours wore on it seemed as though the mist had indeed swallowed her up so completely that all trace of her was lost.
After nearly an hour's futile telephoning Owen set off in the waiting car to scour the countryside; while at his urgent request Herrick stayed behind at Greenriver, in case Toni should arrive in her husband's absence and find no one to welcome her. Herrick agreed to stay at once, though he knew his prolonged absence would annoy and possibly upset his wife. She deserved no consideration, he told himself sternly. It was largely through her machinations that this thing had come to pass; and a few hours' anxiety would be a small enough price to pay for her treachery.
It was nearly four o'clock in the morning when Owen returned, tired out, despondent, and with no slightest scrap of news. He came into the library looking ready to drop with fatigue, and found Herrick sitting over the fire apparently lost in thought. Olga and Jock, who had long since fraternized, lay side by side on the hearthrug; and all was quiet and peaceful. But when Herrick sprang up, hearing Owen's step, it was easy to see that for him, too, the night had worn away in keenest suspense.
"Well? Any news?"
"No. None." Owen slipped off his thick coat and sank down, wearily, into a chair. "No one has seen anything of her. The hotel people didn't hear her go, and no one has the faintest notion where she went."
He shivered, holding out his hands to the blaze.
"Herrick, where can she be? My God, I'd give ten years of my life now to know she was safe. But to think of her wandering about in the fog—not daring—not even wanting—to come home ... thinking always of me as the selfish brute who neglected her and laughed aside her wishes...."
He paused a moment, then began again.
"It wouldn't be so bad if she'd been in love with that fool who was here to-night. I could have understood her going off with him then. But it was me she loved all along—she was thinking of me when she went out into the cruel night to join him.... I'm very certain she shrank from the step ... well, events prove it, don't they? ... but she was thinking only of my good and so she nerved herself to do it...."
"Yes." Herrick spoke quietly. "There's no doubt, I think, that your wife loved you as very few men are loved. It seems—forgive me—a cruel jest of Fate that you couldn't return her love...."
"But Idid—anddo!" Owen's voice rang out with all its old force. "Before God, man, I do love Toni ... oh, I didn't at first. I confess I married her without caring for her as a man should care for the woman he makes his wife. But I've grown fonder of her ever since. Oh, I know it's all true, what that fellow said—I've been thoughtless, unkind, I did neglect her, did let her see how I despised her help, but you don't know what it is to a man to find his work spoilt for the lack of a little intelligent sympathy.... Oh, I'm not excusing myself—I had no right to put my work before everything else—even before Toni—and I did. But God knows I'm punished for it now."
Again he broke off abruptly, only to go on again hastily.
"I own I was mistaken in my reading of Toni's character. I had no idea she was capable of this sort of sacrifice."
"You never saw into the depths of her soul. If you had——"
"I should have realized what she was. Oh, I know," said Owen, with humility, "I know now that Toni is a woman, and I pray to God with all my soul that my knowledge has not come too late."
"You think if you got her back now you might be happy together?"
"Happy? If I could make Toni happy, she would be happy indeed." His tone was still tinged with that new humility, and in that dreary hour Herrick began to understand him better than he had ever dreamed of doing.
When at last the grey dawn crept through the large windows Herrick rose to go.
"I'll get off home for an hour or two. You'd better try to have a sleep, Rose. We can't do anything more just yet; and it's no use wasting one's strength."
"Very well." Owen rose and stretched himself, yawning. "I won't go to bed—I'll sleep on the couch here. You see she might come at any moment."
Herrick saw it was of no use attempting to urge him to go to bed; so agreed, at once, that such a return was possible, and two minutes later he and Olga were outside the house in the chilly silver dawn.
The fog had lifted in the night, and for that Herrick was thankful; but the air was biting, and as he walked briskly along, Olga trotting alertly beside him, he owned to himself that a cup of hot coffee, followed by a sleep, would be welcome indeed.
He let himself softly into the house and proceeded to make some coffee with the aid of the gas-ring. He was gulping it down, feeling the liquid driving the cold out of his bones, when Olga growled faintly; and looking up, he saw his wife standing in the doorway surveying him maliciously.
"Well? Has the lost lamb been found and returned to the fold?" Her tone was mockery itself.
"No." For an instant he wondered whether he should accuse her of her treachery; but suddenly he resolved to wait till he was more normal, after a rest.
"Really? Well, I don't think she will return just yet. I expect the next time her loving husband meets our dear Toni, the Divorce Court will be their meeting-place."
A wave of anger swept over Herrick.
"So that man was right—it was your doing." He put down his cup and looked steadily at her. "It was through your—your advice that that unfortunate girl left her home and wont off with Dowson."
"It wasn't through my advice," she said. "As a matter of fact I didn't know they had fixed it up so quickly. Three days ago it was only a vague notion—quite in the air, I assure you. I had no idea it had actually come off."
"You knew, then, that it was a possibility, at least?"
"Yes." Suddenly she stopped and stared at him. "But how do you know? She didn't leave any message, I suppose?"
"I know because Mrs. Rose's heart failed her when she had taken the first step. She gave this man Dowson the slip at Stratton and he immediately returned to Greenriver to ask if she had come back."
"And she hadn't?"
"Of course not." He spoke sternly. "Between you, you have made it almost impossible for that poor child to return unless her husband fetches her. Why you should have sought to ruin their homes I confess I fail to understand. Neither Rose nor his wife had done you any harm."
"No." She stared sombrely at him. "That's true, I suppose. But—oh, you can't understand, of course."
"Understand what, Eva?" He tried to speak gently, aware through all her mockery of something piteous, tragic in her attitude.
"You can't understand how I hate to see happiness." She threw back her head and beneath her white wrapper he saw her breast heave stormily. "I was happy once, before those men sent me to prison. I used to sing and laugh—as Toni did—I used to enjoy every moment of my life ... and then I liked to see people all round me being happy too... But I was taken away from it all, from the sunshine, the gay, happy people, the shops, the theatres, taken away and shut up like a wild animal in a cell ... oh ..." She shivered, and all at once his heart melted towards her.
"Don't think of that now, dear." He put his hand with real kindness on her shoulder. "It's all over and done with, and there are better things in store."
"Not for me." Her tone was unutterably forlorn. "My life is spoilt, broken—and now"—all at once her expression changed and she spoke vindictively—"now all I can do is to break other lives!"
"Hush, Eva." He removed his hand from her arm. "Don't talk so. And remember, if Mrs. Rose comes home safely, you must leave her alone for the future."
For a moment she said nothing, biting her lip as though in thought. Then suddenly she shrugged her shoulders and moved away without a word.
When daylight came Owen and Herrick resumed their search for the missing girl, calling to their aid every device which the wit of man could suggest.
They left no stone unturned; and though Owen shrank from the necessary publicity Scotland Yard was informed, and a huge reward offered for information about the vanished Toni.
But the days passed, glided into weeks, which in their turn grew into months; and Toni was not found.
On a sunny afternoon in March of the following year, Toni Rose sat alone on the slope of an Italian hill-side overlooking the blue Mediterranean, which lay stretched beneath her like a sheet of living turquoise.
The air was delightfully warm and still, and scented with the fresh breath of myriads of violets which dotted the short, soft turf here and there like a multitude of tiny purple stars. Everywhere the almond blossom was in its full beauty of rose and cream, and the sight of an orchard away on the hill-side, with the faint blue sky above the pink-and-white branches, and the bluer sea behind, gave to the beholder the effect of a delicate Japanese water-colour painting.
The Bay of Naples fully deserved its world-wide reputation for beauty on this bright spring afternoon. Across its waters rose hill upon hill, the sombre giant Vesuvius brooding like some dark monster over the ruined countryside at its base, the lovelier, more hopeful snow-crowned peaks behind rising like a fairy army beneath whose beneficent gaze the ogre was—for the time—vanquished and impotent.
The bay was full of craft, as usual. Big liners, tramp steamers, a grey battleship or two, looked scornfully down on the little Italian boats, some piled high with yellow fruit, others less imposing, little pleasure craft manned by youthful boatmen with swarthy brown faces and ears ornamented with huge golden rings.
Land and sea alike smiled in the glorious sunshine. It was a day on which life seemed a very sweet and desirable opportunity; but in Toni's face there was no hint of gladness, none of her former almost pagan delight in the beautiful out-of-door world around her.
Although her skin was delicately warmed and coloured by the genial Southern sun, the becoming tan could not hide the thinness of the once rounded cheeks, nor disguise the hopeless droop of the lips which had been used to smile so readily. Toni looked, indeed, the ghost of her former self as she sat gazing out over the Mediterranean; and it was very evident that whatever had been the result of her flight to those she had left behind, her own happiness had suffered a disastrous eclipse.
After all, her disappearance had been easily arranged. On that foggy night when she had fled from Leonard Dowson, terrified by the spectre of a future life which his words had evoked, she had run, without in the least realizing her direction, straight to the railway station; and the idea of London had at once presented itself to her mind. A train was just starting, and Toni hastily took a ticket and jumped into a carriage without giving herself time to think.
Arriving at the terminus she had a momentary indecision as to her next step. As she stood on the platform she felt herself to be desperately, hopelessly alone; and for one wild moment she wondered how Owen would receive her if she went back and flung herself on his mercy.
But something in her, perhaps the sturdy, independent blood of her Yorkshire ancestors, seemed to forbid such a course. She could not return, creep back to the shelter of the home she had abandoned; and even Toni's youthful optimism could not promise her a very hearty welcome when the truth of her flight should be known.
If only she had gone alone ... if there had been no man in the case to complicate matters and compromise the situation—in that first moment of despair Toni hated Leonard Dowson, loathed herself for imagining it would be possible to go away with him; and at the same time realized that whatever happened she would find it almost impossible to explain the man's introduction into the affair in any way save that which, were the story known, would be taken, perhaps naturally, for granted.
Suddenly the thought of Italy flashed into her brain, and with the thought came instant resolution.
She had still twelve pounds in her purse—more than enough to take her to Naples; and once there she could surely discover some friend of the bygone days to whom she might apply for advice as to her future maintenance.
In Italy she could live frugally, as the peasants lived; and all at once Toni felt a great nostalgia for the glowing South, with its sunshine and hot blue skies, its orange-groves, its languorous noons and warm, scented nights.
The Italian blood in her—the blood transmitted to her by her mother, spoke in its turn; and suddenly Toni felt that in that land of warmth and colour she could find the rest and peace for which her sorely-driven soul cried out....
And then the miracle happened.
Later that evening she was standing on the platform of another great station, waiting her turn to approach the booking-office where she might obtain her ticket to Italy—and home—when a wail in a thin foreign voice fell upon her ear, and she turned round to face a dark and agitated-looking young woman, neatly dressed, who was bewailing herself in the fluent Italian of the lower classes.
"What is it? Can I help you?"
Toni spoke impulsively, sorry for the young woman even in the midst of her own numbing grief; and the other turned round in astonishment at hearing her own tongue.
"Oh, Signorina!" She evidently took Toni for a compatriot. "Such a misfortune has overcome me—I do not know what is to be done. I am here with my charges"—two sleepy-looking English children stood yawning beside her—"on the way to Naples, and behold, the English Signora—the governess, you understand—who was to have come with us to deliver the children safely to their parents is at the last moment unable to come."
"But why can't she come?"
"Non lo so!" The woman shrugged her shoulders. "She sends me but a telegram to the waiting-room—an accident, illness—I know not—but she does not come, and I must go alone with the two little ones, who are both delicate and will be ill the whole journey through!"
A wild inspiration flashed into Toni's mind.
"You go to Naples?" she said. "I too wish to go, but hardly care to undertake the journey alone. May I then come with you and help you with the little ones?"
The Italian's quick mind grasped the idea at once; and she foresaw with delighted gratitude that the journey might be shorn of half its terrors if the plan were carried out.
She poured forth a stream of voluble explanations. She had already taken the tickets for the party; and she was certain that her employer, a wealthy English lady, would be only too grateful if the Signorina would accept the fare in return for her help in the matter. A carriage had been reserved for the party, and the whole journey might be taken in complete comfort and security, since this so fortunate meeting with a compatriot.
To Toni the idea came as a veritable boon. In her turn, she saw all the personal benefits of the plan; and, after all, since she could be of real, practical assistance, she saw no reason why she should scruple to avail herself of the Italian nurse's offer.
Five minutes later the affair was arranged. The foreigner, Luisa by name, was at first incredulous on hearing of her new comrade's mixed nationality, but she readily accepted such explanations as Toni gave her, and was quick to recognize the value of Toni's perfect English at the present juncture.
Toni's lack of luggage puzzled her a little, but Toni murmured something about a lost dressing-bag which satisfied the other woman; and when the long train steamed out of the station at last Toni was comfortably ensconced in a reserved first-class compartment, making friends with the two little girls with whom she was to travel.
This fact explains the non-success of all inquiries at the railway stations, or, later, on the boat. The authorities were on the look-out for a young Englishwoman journeying alone; and never associated the young Italian lady travelling, apparently, with her two children and a nurse, with the solitary girl for whom they searched.
Toni's fur coat was by no means a unique garment. There were plenty to be seen at this time of year; and in any case the girl, protected by her unassailable bodyguard, was able to pass under the eyes of the very men who were anxiously on the look-out for her.
The journey to which Luisa had looked forward with such apprehension passed off well enough. Toni was obliged to rouse herself from her own dejection to look after the children, who were both delicate and spoilt; but luckily they took an instant fancy to the travelling companion so strangely provided, and behaved with commendable good-temper throughout.
When at length the train ran into the railway station at Naples, Toni suddenly found herself faced with another problem. The nurse had taken her on trust, so to speak, and had been too grateful for her help to seek to probe into her private affairs; but now that she must face the mother of the pretty children, to whom she had become quite attached, Toni realized that she would have to give some more plausible explanation of her situation than that which had contented the impetuous Luisa.
She got out of the carriage at last, her arms full of the children's wraps and toys, with knees which shook under her at the thought of the ordeal to come; but one quick look into Mrs. Moody's frank and kindly face reassured her a little.
She soon found, moreover, that the lady was as ready to take her on trust as the maid had been. When she had heard Luisa's voluble explanation of the part Toni had played during the long and wearying journey, Mrs. Moody turned to Toni with an expression of real gratitude on her still pretty face.
"I really don't know how to thank you, Miss ... er ..." She hesitated, and Toni quickly supplied her with the first name she could think of, the name of her Italian mother's race. "Oh, but surely you are English?"
In her agitation Toni murmured something about an Italian father, not meaning to deceive, but too tired out and confused to pay much heed to her words; and Mrs. Moody put her hand kindly on the girl's arm.
"Well, English or not, you've been a god-send to Luisa and the chicks; so if you have no friends waiting for you at this moment, you must come home with me and let my husband thank you properly."
Somehow Toni found herself stepping into the beautifully-appointed motor-car which waited outside the station; and ten minutes later she was helped out of the motor and taken up a broad and palatial-looking staircase to the large and lofty flat inhabited by her new friends.
Friends indeed they proved to be. Without the slightest hesitation they accepted Toni's rather faltering story of an engagement in England which had proved unsatisfactory; and on learning that her intention in returning to Italy had been to look for another post, they looked at one another in a meaning silence which was explained later, when Mrs. Moody asked her quietly if she would care to undertake the post of governess-companion to the two small children with whom she was already on terms of friendship.
For a moment Toni hesitated. To stay on here, deceiving her employers, representing herself, falsely, as an unmarried woman, would be a poor return for their kindness and generosity; but to tell the truth was surely impossible. Yet she could not bring herself to shut the door which would open to her a new and honourable life in which she might find, if not happiness, at least content; and poor Toni was torn between conflicting emotions as she stood listening to her new friend's proposals.
Mrs. Moody, reading her indecision in her face, bade her think the matter over for a week while she remained with them as an honoured guest; and Toni did so, coming at last to the conclusion that, much as she longed to accept the post, to do so would not be fair to her prospective employers.
She refused, therefore, but with so genuine a regret that the refusal could not give offence. The Moodys, however, while recognizing the girl's claim to independence of judgment, in their turn asserted their claim to befriend her, and Toni was only too ready to accept their advice and assistance.
Hearing that it was of importance that she should set about making some money without delay, Mr. Moody secured for her a post as assistant-librarian and secretary in a big library belonging to an Italian friend of his own.
It was something of an irony that Toni's work should take her into an atmosphere that could not fail to remind her of her husband and his literary aspirations; and her heart used to contract pitifully within her sometimes when she entered the big, lofty, book-lined room, which was not unlike the stately library in the beautiful old house by the river where her married life had come to so tragic a close.
She owed the post to her proficiency in Italian and English rather than to any scholarly ability. To the end of her life Toni would never be bookish. She would always prefer living to reading about life; and it was fortunate that her work in this new library consisted largely of translating, roughly, from books in Italian and English, or in typing, from dictation, in either language.
She grew to like her employment in the quiet, mediæval-looking room. Her employer, a gentle, sad-eyed elderly man with an invalid daughter, treated her with the utmost kindness; and if it had not been that every fibre in her being cried out incessantly for Owen, she might in time have been content.
Her first friends, the Moodys, had settled her in rooms with an old servant of their own who had married a little Italian bookseller, and were unremitting in their kindness to her; but Toni desired only to be alone in her leisure hours and refused many of the invitations which Mrs. Moody sent her from time to time.
So the days passed, quietly and tranquilly enough; and though to Toni it seemed that all the joy, all the happiness had fled from life, that the "sweet things" had lost their sweetness, the sunshine its glory, the flowers their perfume, she was not ungrateful for the peace which had come to her so unexpectedly.
Of her husband, of Greenriver, she never dared to think. She guessed, drearily, that Owen would feel bound, in humanity, to institute a search for his missing wife; but by a fortunate chance she had been able to cover her tracks and disappear effectually; and as the weeks glided by, and discovery was apparently as far off as ever, she began to feel, with a miserable certainty, that in time her husband would relinquish the search, and settle down to forget the frivolous, uneducated girl who had not known how to appreciate the honour he had done her in making her his wife.
To-day, this glorious spring day when the violet-scented air held a hint of summer's warmth in its breath, Toni was making holiday.
Her employer was from home, called to London by the hint of a wonderful book sale to be held there the following week; and Toni's time was her own for nearly eight days.
She had started early that morning on a pilgrimage to the little village where, long ago, she had passed the first happy years of her life; and had arrived, before noon, to find, as she had half-expected, that none of her old friends remained to give her welcome.
Old Fiammetta was dead, as was, of course, the kindly Padre who had befriended Roger Gibbs when the young widower had decided to stay on, with his little daughter, in the home which his Antonia had made so joyous. A few of the children with whom she had played lived here still, but they had grown into sturdy, swarthy young men and women who had long since forgotten the dark-eyed child whose Italian had been as fluent as their own; and though she wandered disconsolately through the straggling little village, she met with no single glance of recognition.
She did not know that some months previously urgent inquiries had been made at the tiny post-office as to whether a young lady had arrived in the village unexpectedly. It had struck Owen as possible that, in her madness, Toni might have returned to her childhood's home; but although, had she not met Luisa, Toni would probably have done so, that chance meeting at the station had turned her feet into another path, and naturally no one here knew anything of her whereabouts.
She had intended spending the whole of her holiday in the village; but the absence of any welcome depressed her sensitive spirit, and she decided to return to Naples in the evening and spend the days of her freedom in exploring more thoroughly the fascinating streets and byways of the picturesque and romantic town.
It was late when she arrived home, carrying her little valise; and old Janet, who in spite of her long residence in Italy was still uncompromisingly British, was surprised to see her lodger returning.
"I thought you were going to stay a few days," she said quite reproachfully. "Now a real good change would have been the very best thing for you, miss, and I'm right sorry to see you back."
"You're not very kind, Janet!" Toni smiled rather wearily, "I couldn't stay ... all my friends were dead and gone ... there were only ghosts left to welcome me, and I couldn't bear it!"
The old woman read the disappointment in the girl's tone and was sorry for her.
"Well, come along in, miss, and I'll bring you some supper right away. There's an omelette, and some lovely risotto I'm making for Pietro, and a glass or two of Chianti will soon hearten you up—though for my part I think a bottle of good English stout is worth all the thin wines in Italy!"
When, later, she bustled in again with some excellent coffee, the old woman brought a bundle of papers which had been left by Mrs. Moody earlier in the day. There were various English and American magazines, and a few weekly papers; and had doubtless been intended to lighten the loneliness of Toni's holiday.
She sat sipping her coffee and turning the pages rather listlessly. Somehow reading appealed to her less than ever nowadays. She was always so fully occupied with her own miserable thoughts, that the imaginative writings of other people could claim small share of her interest; but she dipped into the magazines as she sat alone, and tried to forget herself for an hour in the perusal of their pages.
Among the papers was a copy of theDaily Telegraph, sent to Mrs. Moody occasionally by a sister in London; and Toni was idly turning the clumsy sheets when a name she knew attracted her attention.
She scanned the paragraph hurriedly a little pulse beating in her temple as she read.