Francis Eversleigh returned to the office in Lincoln's Inn next day, and strove to take up his work again, but with indifferent success; the shadow of his impending ruin never lifted itself from his mind. On the other hand, Cooper Silwood, having determined to act alone, began to make preparations for carrying out his scheme.
All that day Silwood was incessantly occupied with the ordinary business of that department of the office which was his special care. No man could have told from his aspect, or from the manner in which he did his business, that anything pressed heavily upon him; he seemed in no way different from the imperturbable, shrewd, capable lawyer people believed him always to be. But what he purposed doing was never absent from his thoughts.
According to custom, at six o'clock Williamson brought him the letters for signature. This signing of the letters served as a sort of signal, for shortly afterwards the clerks left and the office was closed, though it was not an uncommon thing for Silwood to stay on by himself for another hour or two. The Eversleighs went earlier in order to catch the fast five-o'clock suburban train.
At six o'clock Williamson went into Silwood's room with the letters; he placed them silently before his master, who read them over rapidly, and then affixed the firm's signature in his careful, small handwriting. Williamson stood waiting, while he tried to read his master's face, but Silwood's air was perfectly inscrutable.
"I shall not go at once," said Silwood. "I have not quite finished; but there is no need for any one to stay."
He gathered the letters together in a bunch, and passed them on to Williamson.
"By the way," he asked, looking at the clerk with a sharp glance, "how does Mr. Eversleigh strike you? I'm afraid he's not very well."
"I thought he seemed poorly—very poorly," replied Williamson. "I felt very sorry for him, and I ventured to suggest—having been with the firm so many years, sir—to him that he needed a holiday."
"You did! That was good. It's my own idea, too. And what did he say?"
"He said he was all right, or soon would be; there was nothing much the matter with him. Said it was the heat."
"But about taking a holiday?"
"He said it was not at all necessary."
"Well, I agree with you, Mr. Williamson. It seems to me that he does need a change. I told him that also. I urged him to take a month off, but he won't hear of it. He keeps on saying he is not ill really—only a bit out of sorts owing to the hot weather. And it is hot, isn't it? I must confess I feel this frightful heat very much; the office is horribly close. Unless the weather becomes cooler, I declare I shall require a holiday myself. And if Mr. Eversleigh still persists in refusing a holiday—well, I believe I shall take one. I haven't had a real vacation for a very long time. But I had much rather he went."
"You certainly have had no holiday, Mr. Silwood, for a long time—three or four years, it must be," said Williamson, immensely surprised at the turn the conversation had taken. "When would you think of going, sir?"
"Oh, I haven't thought much about it all," replied Silwood; "my taking a holiday is only a possibility. Still, if this heat does not moderate, I should not wonder if I did go. But it's not settled."
"I understand, sir," said Williamson, who, as a matter of fact, was completely mystified. "What's up now?" he asked himself. Still, on reflection, he had to admit there was no reason why Silwood should not take a holiday if he wished to do so.
"That's all, I think," said Silwood; and with a nod he dismissed the head-clerk.
Silwood waited for half an hour, so as to allow plenty of time for all the clerks to have left the office, and then he took a look into the various rooms to see if there was any one still there; but they were all empty. Satisfied on this point, he returned to his own room and shut himself in.
Next he went to the large japanned box in the corner, touched the concealed spring, and laid open the secret chamber, from which he took a number of papers, including the sheet of figures against which were placed initials. He pored over these papers, studying them with the intentness of one who is committing a subject to memory. He made two or three alterations in the figures, and then put all the documents back in their hiding-place. He tried to close up the chamber, but the spring would not work properly. He tried again and again, but he did not succeed.
With each failure his manner showed a rapidly rising agitation, an increasing apprehension, his usual impassivity dropping away from him completely. He examined the mechanism of the arrangement, but he could find nothing wrong with it; so far as he could see, it appeared to be in perfect order. As he struggled with it, his pale face became extraordinarily livid, his lips twitched convulsively, the perspiration stood in beads on his forehead. For he knew that if the box would not shut, then his scheme would tumble to pieces.
He had almost given it up in despair when the accidental pressure of his knee against one of the sides of the box caused the spring to act, and the opening suddenly closed up of itself.
Trembling and gasping, Silwood sat down and looked at the box as if it were some hateful living thing.
"It ought to be seen to," he said to himself, "but I cannot permit any one to touch it. No one but myself must know of the secret chamber—that is vital. And yet—no, I must run the risk."
He went on looking darkly at the box.
"Oh, what a fright you gave me!" he said aloud to it, and then glanced about fearfully at the sound of his own voice. "How absurd!" he said to himself, reassuringly. "I must not let the thing get on my nerves like this."
It was now not far from eight o'clock, which was the hour for Silwood's dinner. In a few minutes more, therefore, he betook himself to the restaurant in Holborn which he was in the habit of patronizing. A little after nine he walked back to Lincoln's Inn, which he entered by the small door at the side of the fine gateway opening into Lincoln's Inn Fields. He spoke to the porter for some seconds, and then went on to his private chambers in Stone Buildings, his rooms being on the top floor of the north-east corner building overlooking Chancery Lane. He had lived here for several years.
After he had let himself in he locked the door, filled a black clay pipe and lit it, took an armchair and sat down. And there he sat for a long while very still and quiet, save for the puff—puff—puffing of the smoke from his lips. The pipe burnt itself out, and he looked at his watch.
"It is too soon," he said to himself; and he filled a second black clay pipe. And this too he smoked out.
With a leisurely movement he at length rose and went to the window, threw up the sash, and peered out into the half-darkness of the street. He ran his eye up and down Chancery Lane, and noted that all the lights except the street-lamps were out, and that the pavements were bare of human forms, save for one or two dark-flitting, shadowy beings.
"It will soon be time," he thought; and he closed the window.
He sat down again, and proceeded to smoke a third pipe. All the while he had been going over the details of his scheme; now he was thinking whether he had not been too abrupt in making the suggestion that he might take a holiday to Williamson.
"What does it matter?" he concluded; "he knows nothing."
He smoked on until twelve boomed through the air—the strokes came in a great volume of sound from the clocks in the Strand and from far and near. When it had died away, he put down his pipe, and walked into his bedroom.
But it was not to go to bed.
For, a few minutes later, a figure emerged from Cooper Silwood's bedroom—the figure of a man of the height and general build of Cooper Silwood, but otherwise not like him in the least. Yet it was he, though changed beyond recognition.
His mien was that of a respectable workman in his everyday clothes. They were such clothes as might be worn by men of half a dozen different trades with equal appropriateness, so little distinctive of any one trade were they, and yet they stamped themselves unmistakably as a workman's clothes. Silwood wore them like one who was thoroughly at home in them; he moved at ease in them. To all appearance he was a workman, and from his bearing it might be guessed that the part he was playing was no new one. To be in this disguise was no novelty to him.
That it was no newrôlefor him to assume was also manifest from the skill and success with which his face was made up. To begin with, the heavy brown wig he usually had on his head had disappeared, and he was now quite bald, with the exception of a narrow fringe of dark-grey hair round the base of the skull. He was no longer clean-shaven; an untidy blackish moustache covered his upper lip. A dark line had been pencilled on either side of his nose, these lines alone imparting to the face a marvellous change in its expression. Besides, the skin of the face had been slightly stained, as had also been that of the hands.
His disguise was absolute. His own mother, as the phrase goes, would not have known him. He looked to the life the part he was playing. Mr. Cooper Silwood, the eminent solicitor, had disappeared, and a sober, respectable workman had taken his place.
Could Francis Eversleigh now have seen this partner of his he would have had much food for thought; if he could have followed him he would have had much more.
The night was now very still—the roar of London was hushed. Silwood opened his door gently, and listened. The stairs were lit, but no sound came from any of the chambers. Locking his door softly, he stole down into the court of Stone Buildings; they, too, were wrapped in silence. For a moment he stood still and strained his ears to catch the slightest noise, but there was not a breath. Taking from his pocket a key, he unlocked a small iron gate at the north-east corner of the court, and passed through it and went along a short narrow footway closed on the Chancery Lane side by another iron gate, which he opened, and so reached Chancery Lane. All this he did without hurry or confusion. It was plain that he had got out of Lincoln's Inn by this footway many times before. Yet it was believed to be shut up every evening by the porter, who was supposed to be the only person possessing the keys of the gates.
From this footway—which is not much used even in the day-time, and is hardly to be noticed at all in the night-time—to Holborn is but a step. Silwood found Chancery Lane deserted; no one saw him emerge from the Inn. He was quickly in Holborn, and set out eastwards at a rapid pace. And on he went, mile after mile, stepping out briskly, through the city proper, and on, on beyond it until he reached one of the great districts of East-End London, where in small humble houses, huddled together in a wilderness of mean streets, thousands upon thousands live out their obscure and uneventful lives.
Silwood went on like a man who knows his way well. Never once did he pause until he reached the end of his journey. He halted at a door in Douglas Street, Stepney, and knocked a peculiar knock. Two or three minutes passed, and then a light was shown at the window, whereupon Silwood knocked in the same way a second time.
"Is it you, James?" asked a woman's voice, as the door was partially opened.
"Yes, Meg; let me in," said Silwood.
"I did not expect you," she said, while Silwood embraced her affectionately. "Is anything the matter?"
The woman who put the question was a plump, personable woman of about forty, with kindly brown eyes and a tender mouth. She loved but was rather afraid of this man, who yet was always good and kind to her. But he had told her very little about himself. She knew he was engaged in some mysterious business which necessitated long absences from her, and the wearing of a disguise; she had tried to guess the nature of his business, and had come to the conclusion that it was some kind of secret police work.
Any romance there was in Silwood's life was connected with this woman, of whom he was sincerely fond, though he was still fonder of their child. Some years before, an accident one evening in the street led to his meeting her, and he took a fancy to her. The thing jumping well with other things he followed her up and married her, though he was careful not to let her know who he was.
When with her and the child Silwood was another man; he seemed to have shed like a skin the cold formality which characterized him in Lincoln's Inn; his very nature appeared changed.
"Is anything the matter?" she asked.
"No, Meg, though there's news. But how is Davy?"
"Poor lamb! He's as usual. He's asleep just now."
"Let me see him," said Silwood.
They went into a bedroom, and in a cot was their child. The boy was a cripple—he had been born a cripple, and the parents were all the more attached to him on that account. There is no explaining the workings of human nature; Silwood, who had confessed himself a criminal to his partner, Eversleigh, was deeply attached to the boy. He now gazed at the sleeping child, and the love that shone in his eyes was as pure as an angel's.
"Poor lad! dear lad!" he said, and there were tears in his voice.
Then the father and mother tip-toed out of the room.
"You said there was news, James," suggested the wife.
"Yes, I think you won't live here much longer. My business will take me abroad, and I dare say I will by-and-by—it may be very soon—send for you. I may be away from England for a long time."
"Away from England!" she murmured. "Oh, James! Where is it you are going?"
"I don't know," he answered; "I am not quite sure yet. I'll let you know in a few days, and meanwhile I want you to get ready, so that you can travel at a minute's notice."
"Yes, James; it's rather sudden, but I'll do what you tell me."
"Now I must leave you," he said.
She was accustomed to these abrupt partings, but as he was going she hung upon his neck while he kissed her repeatedly.
The following day he was at his office at half-past ten, looking as if it were impossible for such a man as he to lead a double life.
The day on which Harry Bennet wired that he had drawn on Eversleigh, Silwood and Eversleigh, for two thousand pounds, was the first day of the Goodwood meeting.
Bennet was a man who lost and won large sums on the turf, and it was not in the least unusual for him to wager several thousands on a single event, especially if it were one of the greater races. With him betting was a disease, a mania, so strong and uncontrolled ran the gambling fever in his blood.
His love for Kitty Thornton was genuine, but it had to take a second place to this appalling madness.
When he saw her and Helen and Gilbert Eversleigh in the punt on the river, he told himself as he rowed up-stream that he must lose no time in declaring himself to the girl. He cursed Gilbert in his thoughts, but believed his chance was at least as good as his rival's. And if it had not been for some racing business he was compelled to attend to that evening, he would have gone to Ivydene. If he had, the probability is that Kitty and Gilbert would not have been left alone that night under the white magic of the moon, and their engagement would not have taken place—at least, not at that particular time.
If he had gone to Ivydene that evening it is more than possible that the life-current of their lives would have changed its course.
In any case, that evening of fate passed, and next day, being the opening at Goodwood, saw Harry on the course plunging wildly and losing heavily. Nor had he any luck that afternoon—hence the draft for two thousand on the solicitors, after he had exhausted his ready money.
The second day at Goodwood brought him a little better fortune, and he came out of it without positive disaster. It was not necessary to call for more funds.
In the first race on the third day his own horse, Go Nap, ran. It was known that the animal had done fairly well in its trials, and there was a good deal of outside money on it. Harry, of course, backed it. Go Nap won handsomely, and from that moment Harry's luck changed. Plunging more recklessly than ever, he more than succeeded in recovering himself. At the end of the day he was a heavy winner.
He made his biggest coup on a horse which lost. Harry had laid against it, although it was a hot favourite. It should have won on its form quite easily, everybody said, and there were rumours of foul play. An investigation was talked of and eventually was held, but nothing came of it. The impression, however, was that there had been some "crooked work" in the matter. None was more forward in denying it than Bennet. Fortunately for him, it was not known that he had won a large sum, or there might have been suspicions of his good faith. And presently the disputings, the angry arguments, the murmurings, the bickerings, died away, but what had happened was not forgotten.
On the fourth day of the meeting Bennet was again a winner, though the total of his gains was not so great as that of the day before. Taken altogether, however, it had been an excellent Goodwood for him, and he was correspondingly elated.
His home was at Hampton Court, and he returned to it in high feather. The first thing he did next morning was to go to Ivydene. He had made up his mind to speak to Kitty of his passion, and to ask her to be his wife. Being away at the races he had not heard of her engagement, and intoxicated with his success at Goodwood he felt himself a conquering hero, who had only to come, and be seen, to triumph instantly.
He found Kitty at home and alone, nor did the maiden seem displeased to see him. She had no suspicion, however, of the nature of his errand.
He was so full of his good fortune at the races, that, as soon as the customary greetings were over, he forthwith launched out into the story of his four days' campaign. Kitty had a pretty natural gift of listening sympathetically, and the young man was greatly pleased with the interest she manifested in his narrative—so much so that his spirit glowed within him. And, of course, Kitty congratulated him on the victory of his horse, Go Nap, and on his other successes.
As he looked at the beautiful girl, a strong desire came upon him to speak to her at once of his passion, but a certain novel bashfulness, arising from the very reality of the love he felt for her, restrained him at the moment. Instead of going to the point at once, he began by asking in the most banal fashion if she had any news.
Now, Kitty had two great pieces of news—one of them a very great piece of news indeed; one was the coming of her father, the other her engagement to Gilbert Eversleigh. It was of the first she chose to speak.
"News? Yes," said Kitty, eagerly, "great news. Have you heard that my father is expected here from Canada next week?—but, perhaps, you have heard of it."
"No, I have not heard of it. Rather sudden, is it not?" asked Bennet. "You did not know of it, I think, Miss Kitty, when I saw you some days ago."
"I had a letter from my father the very next morning."
"He arrives next week, you say? On what day do you look for him?"
"That I can't tell you, for he has not mentioned any fixed day; but he will be here very soon. And, oh! I shall be glad to see him!"
"Yes. It will be a great pleasure to you to see him again."
"It will make me very happy," said Kitty, simply, who was now counting the days and finding them somewhat long.
While the girl was speaking, Bennet was thinking that it would be better for him to declare himself before the arrival of her father. Did he put it off till afterwards, it was probable that Morris Thornton would make some inquiries about him—in which case his infatuation for betting and horse-racing would be bound to come out, and Thornton might take a severe view of his conduct. But the matter would appear in a different light if he were engaged to Kitty before her father's appearance on the scene.
They had been sitting in the drawing-room of Ivydene quite near each other. Suddenly, to Kitty's surprise, Bennet rose, and with outstretched hands stood in front of her. He gave her no time to check him—his words flowed like a torrent.
"Miss Kitty, your father will make you happy; will you not make me happy too? You can make me the happiest of men. I love you, you darling Kitty! Tell me that you do not regard me with indifference! Tell me that you will not refuse my love, Kitty! Do not send me away from your sweet presence. I love you, I adore you for your beauty, for your sweetness, for yourself. Kitty, do you love me? I will do anything and everything a man can to show you I love you. Kitty, dearest, tell me——"
Springing a step forward, he tried to clasp her in his arms, but she retreated and then waved him back.
Bennet had spoken well, and with a rough sincerity which the girl could not but feel. She tried to stop him, but he would not be stopped. As he had gone on, her face had paled and her eyes had grown full of trouble and distress. She now blamed herself for not putting her second piece of news before the other. Trouble and distress also showed themselves in the agitation with which she replied to him.
"Harry, I'm so sorry. What you ask is impossible!"
"Impossible! You don't mean it, Kitty, surely," exclaimed Bennet. "Oh, say you don't mean it!"
He was so cocksure of himself and of her that he could not believe she was in earnest. His self-confidence was so great that it blinded him, otherwise he must have seen that she had no such answer to give him as he wished.
"Yes, it is impossible," she said, quietly and firmly. "I am very sorry to pain you, Harry, very sorry indeed; you may be quite sure of that."
The young man's eyes filled with an angry light while the hot colour flushed his cheeks.
"It is your love I want, not your sorrow," he said roughly.
"That I cannot give you," said Kitty. "Wait a moment, Harry. A few minutes ago you asked me if I had any news. Well, I did not tell you all the news. There was one piece of news I felt a certain reticence about. I wish now I had mentioned it to you. For, if I had done so you would not have said—what you have said. It is that I am engaged to be married."
"Oh, Kitty!" cried Bennet, in a voice that seemed to ask her how she dared become engaged to any one but himself. "You are engaged! This is news indeed ... I wish I had known ... engaged!" And Bennet, who was not able to contain his rage and mortification, glowered at the girl, as these words came brokenly from him. Then he looked at her for some seconds in silence, and his look was not pleasant.
"I am sorry," said Kitty once more, but her accent was cold. She thought he was not behaving prettily, and that it was time for him to go.
"May I ask who is the lucky man?" he inquired, his face dark with wrath; but in his heart he had already guessed that Gilbert Eversleigh was his successful rival.
"I do not know that you have any right to address me as you are doing," said Kitty with dignity. "You asked a question and you have had your answer." But as she looked at Bennet she relented a little. "I am sorry to disappoint you, Harry," she went on, "but there is nothing more to be said."
"I suppose it is Gilbert," said Bennet.
Kitty nodded assent.
Bennet gazed at her gloomily; there was something threatening in the black gleams he shot at her.
"Have you no good wishes for me?" she asked, making an effort to remind him that he should at least try to play the part of a gentleman.
But Bennet only glared at her speechlessly.
At length, muttering some words so incoherently that the girl could not catch them, he turned and left the room abruptly.
And he kept muttering the same words over and over again as he returned to his home; they made an infernal chorus in his thoughts, the burden of which was, "She shall never marry you, Master Gilbert, never, never, if I can prevent her. She shall marry me, me, me, nobody but me." And yet, even while he kept on saying this to himself, he could not conceal from his innermost soul that he was powerless. Kitty and Gilbert were engaged; there was the bitter fact. Still, he whispered in his heart, they were not married, and until Kitty was actually united to Gilbert there was always room for a little hope.
Of Gilbert Eversleigh he thought with burning hatred, and longed for an opportunity of doing him an injury. In his first rage he had an idea that he would withdraw all his business from Eversleigh, Silwood and Eversleigh, but after he had somewhat cooled he came to the conclusion not to do so. The firm, he argued, was far too big and well-established and wealthy to be hurt much by the loss of a single client like him. Bennet's opinion of the standing of the firm was the same as that held by everybody else. Besides, there was another reason for continuing with the Lincoln's Inn solicitors. He told himself that if he placed his affairs in the hands of other lawyers, Francis Eversleigh would inevitably be displeased, and this would lead to a coolness between them which would make it impossible for him to visit at Ivydene. But while Kitty remained beneath the roof of Francis Eversleigh, Bennet had no desire to cut himself off from seeing her there. And he meant to go on seeing her. For, so long as she was unmarried he did not altogether despair. He said to himself that he would wait and see if chance did not throw something in his way.
As for Kitty, she thought it best to say not a word to Gilbert of Harry Bennet's proposal, but she took an opportunity of cautioning her lover to beware of him.
To say that Kitty was amazed and dismayed at the presumptuousness, the boorishness, the bad manners Bennet had exhibited, would give but a faint indication of what she felt. She considered his behaviour, with its unconcealed menace, little short of an outrage. Yet, at the same time, an alarmed instinct in her apprised her that the man was dangerous, and that vigilance was necessary in dealing with him.
Gilbert was rather inclined gently to laugh down the warning Kitty gave him; in his abounding happiness he smiled at her fears, but she insisted none the less that Bennet was a man to be watched.
"You must always be on your guard with him," she said.
"What can he do, my darling?" asked Gilbert. "Nothing," he said, with reassuring caresses.
It was now approaching the end of the week, and still there was no sign of Morris Thornton, to the intense disappointment of his daughter Kitty, who was all impatience to see him.
As each day in that week of terror to Francis Eversleigh went past, he sank further and further into a slough of despond, and became a prey to deep melancholy. The routine of his office work, with its appeal to long-established habit, and the pressure to keep up appearances so far as it was possible, helped him a little during the day; but in the evenings, when his family were around him, and in the long, broken nights, when his wife lay asleep by his side, he abandoned himself to the deepest dejection.
Going to his office each morning, he speculated drearily, with aching heart, whether this day or the next would see Morris Thornton walk in, bringing ruin with him. "How am I to meet him?" Eversleigh asked himself over and over again, but saw no answer.
Silwood had not spoken to him again except on such items of business as had to be discussed by them together. These consultations would have had something farcical in them for him if the situation had not been so wholly tragical. He marvelled at the matter-of-fact way Silwood went about these and other affairs.
Very quietly and methodically Silwood went on maturing his plans, nor did he refer to them any more when talking to Eversleigh; but he had paid another visit in disguise to Douglas Street, Stepney, and had warned his wife to be ready to move when he gave the word. He had also intimated, but more plainly, to Williamson, that he would take a holiday very soon—his reason, he alleged for taking it, being the great heat which still continued. Never had there been known so hot a July. Williamson admitted in his thoughts that the reason was an excellent one, but wondered why Mr. Eversleigh, who continued to look very ill, did not talk of taking a vacation instead of his partner, who seemed to be very much in his usual health.
On the Saturday of that week, Cooper Silwood, whose punctuality had hitherto been invariable, did not appear at the office when half-past ten came round, and Williamson waited for him in vain for some time. A little after eleven, however, the head-clerk received a note from him, saying that he had gone to the Continent, and intended making for the north of Italy, where he had been some years before. He went on to say he was not certain how long he would be away, but it would be for two or three weeks, perhaps a month.
Carefully as Silwood had prepared the way, Williamson could not but be surprised at the suddenness with which, in the end, his principal had departed, and naturally his suspicions of there being something wrong were increased; but they remained indefinite and vague, for he could fasten on nothing tangible.
In the course of the morning, Francis Eversleigh, for the purpose of asking Silwood a question, went into the latter's room, and found it empty. It was evident, too, from the state in which it was, that Silwood had not been there that day. He at once leapt to the conclusion that Silwood had gone away—in plain terms, had absconded—an eventuality for which he was not altogether unprepared, as it had been part of the scheme Silwood had mooted to him after the confession of the defalcations, and also on the occasion of their interview at Ivydene.
Still, this might not be the explanation, and Eversleigh, after a few seconds' thought, put on his hat and walked up to Silwood's private chambers in Stone Buildings. Here he found the door locked, and a sheet of paper pinned to it, on which was written, "Out of Town."
His conjecture thus confirmed, it was none the less a terrible shock to Francis Eversleigh; even though he had anticipated it, it was nevertheless hard to bear.
"He has left me to stand it all alone," he thought, but even as he said this to himself, his common sense reasserted itself. "But what will his flight benefit him? Ultimately he will be hunted down; he cannot escape the law; no one can."
Then, hardly knowing what he was doing, he tried the door again, pulling at the handle with all his might, but it was to no purpose. He stood gazing gloomily at the closed door.
"I have a great mind to have it broken open," he muttered. "I can easily frame some excuse for doing so—say he has forgotten something. But if I did have the door opened, what would be the use? What good would it do? It would not bring him back; it would not bring the money back. No, best leave it alone."
Moving with slow, halting steps down the stairs, he kept asking himself the question, "What am I to do now?" His agony of mind was almost beyond human endurance as this question incessantly hammered on his brain, obscuring and dulling his powers. Then, in a muddled sort of way, he began to reason.
First, he might go to the authorities and incriminate himself; but no one, he told himself, was required to do that; it was too much to expect any one to do.
Second, he might destroy himself, and so make an end. Was this not the best course to pursue? With this idea in his mind, he remembered a shop in the Strand, in the window of which he had seen revolvers for sale. Why not buy one and be done with it all? "Why not?" he asked himself, and turned his face towards the Strand. But he had only gone a few paces when the thought of his wife and children was too poignant to allow him to proceed further with his desperate purpose, and so he faced about and returned to New Square, thinking, thinking of what he was to do.
There was only one thing to do, he concluded, and that was to continue doing his work at the office as best he could till the crash came. It could not be long in coming, he reflected with indescribable bitterness, for was not Morris Thornton already overdue?
He had scarcely got seated in his own room when his son Ernest came in, and remarked that Mr. Silwood had gone for a holiday.
"I had not heard that he intended going," he went on; "in fact, I was astonished to hear of his taking a holiday just now. Mr. Williamson tells me he has left for the Continent."
"Yes," said Francis Eversleigh, somewhat vacantly, "he has gone for a holiday. I suppose I have forgotten to mention to you that he was going abroad for a while," he continued, pulling himself together. "He has not had a holiday for some years."
"I see. By-the-way," said Ernest, "who in his absence is to look after his department?"
"I'll do so myself," observed the other, quietly.
"But, father," objected Ernest, "you are not well enough——"
"Oh, yes, I am," protested Eversleigh. "I'll attend to it myself, my boy."
"Why not let me do it?"
"I had rather not," answered his father, sharply; "I prefer to do it myself."
Eversleigh knew very well that it would never do to let any one but himself look after Silwood's department.
The day of Silwood's disappearance wore to its end; the next day, Sunday, passed. It saw the lovers at Ivydene much engrossed with themselves, but not to such an extent as to prevent many comments on the delay in Morris Thornton's coming, and some surmises as to its cause, the chief of which was that he was carrying out his idea of giving Kitty a "surprise"—carrying it a little further than she had expected. Though she was disappointed, she was not alarmed.
On the Monday of that week, Francis Eversleigh, looking more haggard and wretched than before, was again at 176, New Square.
"Will Thornton come to-day?" he asked himself, despairingly.
He strove to keep calm and hide his sufferings from the world, but every moment was torture. Yet Monday went the way of all former Mondays, and still Morris Thornton did not come. And so it was with Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday; the week was gone, and Thornton had not appeared!
Pondering this fact, Eversleigh, who remembered what Thornton had said about his ill-health, was inclined to the conclusion that somewhere on the road his old friend had had an attack, and had broken down. But, if this were the case, why had he not sent, or caused to be sent, a message to the firm or to his daughter? Eversleigh knew she had not heard anything further from her father, nor had the firm heard from Thornton.
In one sense, the non-appearance of Thornton was a relief to Francis Eversleigh—it put the day of judgment off; but in another, the prolonging of the suspense intensified his mental agony.
Thornton's silence was as terrible as it was really inexplicable.
Kitty, who was not aware of her father's serious condition, and hence could not frame from that circumstance a possible explanation of his not coming, was greatly perplexed.
At first she felt no fear, and kept saying to herself and to Gilbert—to whom, of course, she talked of all that was in her heart—that she would see her father to-morrow or next day; but to-morrow became to-day, and next day to-morrow, and yet he did not appear. And there was nothing from him—not a single line!
Gilbert, lover-like, did his utmost to cheer her, saying what was obviously probable—her father had been unexpectedly delayed, but would be here very soon, and so on—and he spoke with such cheeriness that she gained some confidence from his. But as the days sped by, and Morris Thornton came not nor sent word, her apprehensions increased, and all Gilbert's loving speeches could not allay them. Gilbert, too, began to wonder not a little what it all meant.
It at length became evident to him that there was something peculiarly significant in the non-appearance and silence of Morris Thornton. He spoke what was in his mind to his father, who, in reply, told him the only hypothesis he could form was that Thornton had fallen ill at some point in the course of the journey, though that did not account for nothing being heard of him. Gilbert now learned for the first time of the precarious state of Thornton's health. He agreed with his father that nothing should be said about it to Kitty, as it could not but add to her anxiety.
But what Gilbert had heard made him comply all the more eagerly with a suggestion Kitty offered on the next Sunday, when they were talking on this subject, which temporarily had assumed more importance almost than their love.
This was that a cablegram should be sent to Vancouver to Morris Thornton, asking when she was to expect to see him in London.
Gilbert despatched the cablegram for her from the Central Telegraph Office in the Strand, on his return to town late that evening.
No answer was received by the girl till far on in the afternoon of Monday.
The first thing she noticed on looking at the reply message was that it was not signed by her father, but by his local agent.
Then she read the whole cablegram, which ran—
"Your father sailed from New York for Southampton bySt. Louis, July 21. No further advices. Wallace."
"July 21," said Kitty to herself. "Why, he ought to have been here a week ago at least."
For it was now Monday, August 9th!
Eighteen days had elapsed since the sailing of theSt. Louisfrom New York, on July 21st!
What was the explanation? Kitty wondered, much perplexed.
Her father had left Vancouver and had gone to New York—so she gathered from the cablegram. And as he had not been to see her she concluded that he could not be in England, and that meant in the circumstances that he had not sailed from New York on the 21st of July as he had intended. Gilbert had suggested to her that her father had been unexpectedly detained, and at first, as this seemed a probable solution of the problem, she was inclined to think this was what had occurred.
But, as she reflected further, it did not seem so likely. For supposing he had been forced to delay his journey for a whole week, and had exchanged his berth on theSt. Louisfor one on the boat of the same line sailing a week later, that is, on the 28th, there would still have been plenty of time for him to have arrived in England and to have seen her, as he would have reached Southampton by the 3rd of August, or by the 4th at latest. And it was now the 9th!
As Kitty tried to puzzle the matter out, her fears, vague, but none the less distressing, were greatly increased, and she began to suspect that something, she knew not what, had happened to her father.
Gilbert, now as anxious as Kitty was, was at Surbiton in the evening to hear what news she had received from Vancouver, and he was as much bewildered as she by the cablegram from Wallace, Morris Thornton's agent. All he could do was to remind her, as he had done before, that the delay in her father's coming, as well as his silence, might all be part of his scheme to "surprise" her. But Kitty replied that this made her father out as unkind in the extreme; she was sure he would never willingly put such a strain upon her affection.
"I can't make it out at all," she said, wrinkling her pretty brows. "It seems very singular that he does not write."
Then an idea struck her. It was that there might be, on a careful re-reading of the letter she had received from her father, in which he had said he was returning to England, some words which would afford a clue.
"I shall look at his letter again," she said to Gilbert, and went up to her room to fetch it.
"He writes," remarked the girl, when she had brought it down, "quite positively 'I will come in a few days after you receive this.' 'A few days,' he says. If he had sailed on the 21st of July and came here to-morrow—why, it would be nearly three weeks, and you can't call that a few days."
"No," assented Gilbert; "but, Kitty, it's hardly three weeks. If he had sailed on the 21st he would have been here about the 28th or the 29th. You see what's left is more like ten days than three weeks. But what is the date of your father's letter?"
"July 11th."
"And when did you get it, dear?"
"Oh, Gilbert, don't you know, don't you remember?" asked Kitty, with some reproach in her voice. "Surely, you cannot have forgotten that I got it on the very day you told me that you loved me!"
"Ah, sweetheart," quickly replied Gilbert, taking her hand and pressing it tenderly, "I've been so happy that I have lost all count of time—I forget everything but you, my darling!"
"A pretty speech," exclaimed Kitty, smiling upon him while her hand returned the pressure of his, "and I suppose I must forgive you, Gilbert. But about this letter of father's. Well, it came just sixteen days ago to-day. Now, sixteen days are not exactly a few days, are they?" she asked, sticking to her point.
"It was on the 24th that his letter came," said Gilbert.
"So you have remembered the date, sir?" cried Kitty.
"I had not really forgotten, dear; but thinking about your father had, for the moment, put it out of mind."
"Oh, yes, I know, Gilbert," she said, a little absently.
He devoured her with eyes of love, but he noticed that her thoughts were not with him. They had reverted to her father.
"I think I see how it all fits in," she said, after a long pause, "for his sailing on the 21st. He wrote me on the 11th; that gave him ten days to wind up his business in Vancouver, so far as he could wind it up, and to get to New York in—five days in Vancouver, and five days for the journey to New York. If he had sailed on the 21st, as he said to his agent he would, he would have been here on the 28th or 29th, that is, in three or four days after his letter. Now three, four, or even let us say five days, would be a few days—just as he says in his letter. I can see he had planned it all out, so as to fit everything in. Don't you see that, Gilbert?"
"It certainly looks like it, dear."
"Yes, it does. It is very strange that he did not carry out his intention. I cannot understand it. There is some mystery about it I cannot fathom."
"It seems singular," observed Gilbert; "but I dare say that, if we knew all the circumstances, there would be a perfectly natural explanation, sweetheart. Pray do not give way, my darling," he besought her, but his own manner was not reassuring.
"I cannot help being anxious," replied Kitty. Then she looked again at the cablegram from Wallace, and said, "The agent wires, 'Your father sailed from New York bySt. Louison 21st.' That is quite definite, is it not? And he adds, 'No further advices.' Does that mean that father had advised Mr. Wallace that he had sailed? Oh, Gilbert, I am afraid, I am afraid! We imagine that the agent knew only of father's intention—an intention, we suppose, he was prevented from carrying out. But think what it means if we are wrong in imagining this altogether! Suppose that father did sail on the 21st! Gilbert, I am afraid," said Kitty, in a low tone; "I am afraid," she repeated, and the girl's voice suddenly fell into a whisper. She shivered slightly, and the tears stood in her eyes as she clung to her lover.
Gilbert took her in his arms, soothed and caressed her. In the course of their conversation he had tried to put the best construction on Morris Thornton's non-appearance, but at heart he felt, like Kitty, that there was good ground for misgiving. And to have told the girl what he knew, but she did not know, of the serious condition of her father, would be only to add to her trouble. As for himself, that knowledge made him appreciate the gravity of the matter even more than she did. He resolved, therefore, to set inquiries on foot at once, and furthermore to set to work vigorously himself to probe the thing to the bottom.
Next morning, accordingly, he went to the office of the American Line in London—the line of steamships to which theSt. Louisbelonged—and asked the clerk who waited on him for a list of the passengers who had sailed from New York by that vessel, on July 21st.
The list was handed to him immediately. A cursory glance showed him that the name of Morris Thornton was on it.
Dumfounded, he stared at the list, saying nothing. His surprise was so marked that the clerk could not help noticing it, and was surprised in his turn.
"It does not mean," said Gilbert at length, "at least, always, I suppose, that because an individual's name is on the steamer list he must necessarily have sailed, does it? I mean that he might be detained at the last moment."
"That, of course, is possible," replied the clerk. "The list is printed some little while before the ship sails. But I can tell you if there was any one on the list who in the end did not sail, if that is what you wish to know."
"That is very kind of you," said Gilbert, but he paused, reflecting that a question of this kind was a somewhat delicate one. And he was aware that the clerk was eyeing him curiously, almost suspiciously.
"Perhaps," said the clerk, "it would be simpler and better if you told me about whom you desire to ask. Is there any name on the list in which you are particularly interested?"
Gilbert noticed that the clerk was studying his face with marked intentness, and he wondered why; he understood later.
"I see on the list," said Gilbert at length, "the name of Mr. Morris Thornton."
"Mr. Morris Thornton!" exclaimed the clerk, whose tone was such as showed there was something out of the common attaching to the name.
"Yes, Mr. Thornton," Gilbert went on. "Can you tell me if he sailed by theSt. Louison the 21st?"
"Are you a friend of Mr. Thornton's?" inquired the clerk, in an eager voice.
"In a sense, yes," replied Gilbert. "But you have not answered my question."
"In a sense," said the clerk, repeating Gilbert's first words; then he continued, "I have a most special reason for asking if you are a friend of his. What do you mean, sir, by saying that you are a friend of his in a sense?"
"Well, I am engaged to his daughter. She expected to see her father some days ago, but he has not arrived. She knew he intended sailing from New York on the 21st, though she only knew of it yesterday. She became alarmed on not seeing him or hearing from him, and she cabled to his agent in Vancouver, and in that way learned that her father was to have sailed on the 21st. She asked me to make inquiries. I shall be glad if you can help me. Can you tell me if Mr. Thornton sailed on theSt. Louisor not?"
"Mr. Thornton," answered the clerk, in a queer, half-frightened voice, "did sail by theSt. Louis!"
"What! Are you sure of that?"
"Absolutely."
Gilbert had a staggering sense that he was on the edge of some extraordinary affair, and he gazed earnestly at the clerk, who looked at him with corresponding intentness.
"Have you anything more to tell me?" asked Gilbert.
"I think it would be better if you spoke to the manager," said the clerk. "Would you mind coming in to see him?"
"Not at all; but why?"
"Well, you are not the only one who has been making inquiries about Mr. Thornton—I may tell you that; but, please come into the manager's room."
Gilbert saw the manager, and explained his errand.
"I am afraid," said the manager, speaking in an impressive voice, "that something may have happened to Mr. Thornton; indeed, I have very little doubt of it."
"Why?"
"Mr. Thornton did sail from New York as he intended; not only so, he landed at Southampton in due course, and came on to London on the 29th of last month. On that day he took a room at the Law Courts Hotel in Holborn. These are the facts."
"How do you know he went to the Law Courts Hotel, may I ask?"
"I have it from the hotel people themselves, and why they told me of it you will presently understand. It appears that Mr. Thornton was a good deal of an invalid; at any rate, shortly after he got to his hotel he was taken very seriously ill—he had a violent heart-attack of the most alarming character. He fell down in the hall of the hotel and became unconscious. He was immediately conveyed to his bed and a doctor was summoned."
"Ah," said Gilbert, interrupting him, "I knew that he had a weak heart. But, pardon me, pray continue."
"Mr. Thornton was successfully treated by the doctor, and after some hours recovered, but he remained in bed for the rest of that day and most of the next."
"He got better," said Gilbert, beginning to breathe more freely. "That is good news."
"Oh, but wait," said the manager. "I have not finished yet. He stopped in bed at his hotel most of the next day, as I have already told you—that was the 30th, you will remember. He improved so much that he told the attendant who had been detailed to look after his comfort, that he felt quite equal to getting up, and though the attendant remonstrated with him he persisted and did get up. You follow me, Mr. Eversleigh?"
"Perfectly," replied Gilbert, who saw that something very unusual was coming, and was most eager to hear the end of the story.
"Mr. Thornton had dinner at thetable d'hôte—he was as well as that, you understand. After dinner he sat for quite a time chatting with two or three of the other guests, and, rather late in the evening, he announced his intention of going out for a short stroll; he said the fresh air would do him good. And he did go out."
The manager paused, and looked at Gilbert significantly.
"He went out," he resumed, "but he has never returned."
"What?" cried Gilbert; he felt as if some one had struck him a sudden blow.
"He has never returned to the hotel," said the manager, very seriously.
"Ah! to the hotel, but where——" Gilbert stopped without completing the question, while excitement struggled with anxiety within his breast. He gazed imploringly at the other.
"He did not return to the Law Courts Hotel that evening," the manager went on, "and nothing has been seen or heard of him since."
Gilbert smothered an ejaculation. What a thing, he thought, to have to tell Kitty!
"That was the state of the case up to yesterday," continued the manager. "I have had no communication on the subject this morning, but if you like, I will ring up the hotel on the 'phone—there may be fresh news."
"Thanks; but one moment, please. You had what you have just told me from the hotel people?"
"Yes, and also from the police who are now moving in the matter, though I am not aware of their having found out anything."
"The police!" exclaimed Gilbert, almost protestingly, but even as he spoke he knew it was a fit and proper case for the police to take up. "Please go on," he said.
"Of course," resumed the manager, "the police had to be called in. Between ourselves I think they should have been called in sooner than they were, but at the same time it must be acknowledged that the hotel authorities were in a difficult position; people in their business are always anxious not to interfere with the freedom of their guests, so they make allowance for eccentricities and what might be considered rather erratic movements."
"I understand," said Gilbert. "Perhaps you will now tell me just what action the hotel people took—you can ring them up later."
"Very well. Mr. Thornton went out from the hotel late that Friday night—the 30th of July was a Friday—and on his way out he spoke to the porter, saying he would go along Holborn and take a turn, it might be, up and down Chancery Lane, if it was pretty quiet."
"The porter remembered that distinctly, I presume?"
"Yes, perfectly. He did not see Mr. Thornton return, but he thought nothing of this, imagining that Mr. Thornton had gone back into the hotel when he, the porter, happened to be away for a minute from the door."
"I must see that porter," Gilbert broke in. Was he, he wondered, the last man to see Thornton alive? For, already, a conviction was springing up within him that Thornton was no more, and that this was the mournful intelligence he would have to carry to Kitty.
"Certainly you must," assented the manager.
"Well, next day a chambermaid, on going into Mr. Thornton's room, found that his bed had not been slept in; she reported it, but nothing beyond taking a note of the circumstance was done at the moment by the hotel people. They supposed, naturally enough, that Mr. Thornton would turn up in the course of the day."
"But surely," said Gilbert, "they should have felt some alarm seeing that they knew how frightfully ill he had been two days before, don't you think?"
"You must bear in mind, in fairness to them, that they do not care to appear to limit in any way the liberty of their guests—and also, Mr. Eversleigh, that they never suspected anything was wrong; it is easy to be wise after the event."
"Yes, yes," Gilbert agreed, but he spoke with some impatience.
"At first," the manager went on, "they were under no apprehension as to his safety, but when he did not return that day at all, nor the next, they began to think it a little strange; they thought it very singular, too, that they did not hear from him. They waited, however, till the Tuesday, and then they communicated with the police, and the affair is now in the latter's hands. A detective-inspector came to see if I could throw any light on the mystery. Of course, I was greatly interested, as you may imagine, but I could tell him nothing. I went round to the hotel in Holborn, and there learned what I have told you. I am afraid there is nothing more known at present."
"But have the police discovered no trace of him?"
"I don't think they have. I believe they are completely baffled—at their wits' end. They have no clue, none at all, so far as I can hear. No; the fact is that Mr. Thornton has vanished, you might say, from off the face of the earth. It is as if he had never been!"
"What a terrible thing!" said Gilbert, in a voice of gloom. "Is there really nothing more?"
"I fear there is absolutely nothing more."
"Have you made any guess as to what has happened?" asked Gilbert.
"No. You will see the police, Mr. Eversleigh?"
"At once. But perhaps you will ring up the Law Courts Hotel; there's just a chance they may have something fresh."
The manager immediately telephoned, and was told there were no further developments to be reported; Mr. Thornton was still missing, and nothing had been heard of him.
Gilbert thanked the manager for the information he had given, and with a heavy heart went off to Scotland Yard. He thought of the loving girl who had looked forward with such keen pleasure to the coming of her father, and who was now so anxious about him. How was he to tell her what he had heard? And he feared that the worst had happened to Morris Thornton; he felt his conviction growing that the man was dead. Still, he must not say so to Kitty, so long as there was any uncertainty.
Gilbert was seen at the "Yard" by Detective-inspector Gale, an officer of great experience, and a man of considerable ability. In introducing himself Gilbert mentioned that he was the son of Francis Eversleigh, of the firm of Eversleigh, Silwood, and Eversleigh, thinking that they must be known to Gale, who bowed respectfully as he listened. Coming to the matter of the disappearance of Morris Thornton, he also said that the firm were the solicitors of the missing man. Then he explained how it was he himself came into the case.
"Mr. Thornton has a daughter here?" said Gale, making notes. "I did not know that. Indeed, I know very little about Mr. Thornton. I shall be glad if you will tell me all you know of him."
And Gilbert did so.
The detective-inspector asked several questions about the letter Thornton had addressed to his daughter, and dwelt upon the sentence in it which spoke of Thornton's intention to "surprise" Kitty.
"I should like to see that letter," he said.
"Certainly. You think it important?"
"It may be—one can never tell," said the officer, diplomatically, "but the word 'surprise'—the idea—seems to suggest a certain whimsicalness on the part of Mr. Thornton."
"It was merely his humour, I imagine," remarked Gilbert; "but I can't for an instant suppose that Mr. Thornton carried his whimsicalness, as you term it, or his humour to such a prodigious degree as to disappear from his hotel in the way he did."
Gale nodded. Then he shut his note-book.
"You would think so, Mr. Eversleigh," he observed, referring to Gilbert's last sentences; "but you would be surprised how often men disappear intentionally."
"One hears of such things, but not frequently."
"These disappearances are much more common than the public have any notion of, I can assure you. I am speaking now of what I have called intentional disappearances, and I don't mean what you might term criminal disappearances either. Men make up their minds to cut away completely from their surroundings, to begin a new life, to turn over a fresh leaf, and so on; do you see?"
"Yes; but there could be nothing of the kind in the case of Mr. Thornton."
"I do not say there was," said Gale, but his voice was non-committal.
"May I ask if you have formed any theory regarding Mr. Thornton's disappearance?"
"I have not; the facts are too few."
"Have you any hope?"
"Do you mean hope of finding where he is gone or what has become of him?"
"Yes. And do you think he is alive? I have a haunting dread that he is dead."
"Dead? Perhaps so; I cannot say, but I think it is too soon to come to that conclusion. Hundreds, yes thousands of people, disappear in London every year, and many of them are never heard of again. But you cannot say that of the majority. I would not be surprised to discover that Mr. Thornton is alive, and I would be as little surprised to find out that he is dead."
"It has occurred to me," said Gilbert, who felt that the officer took up a safe but scarcely a sympathetic position, "that it is possible Mr. Thornton had another sudden heart-attack, and was taken into a house near at hand by some kind person——"
"But suppose he had an attack and had been taken in as you suggest," interrupted Gale; "surely it is impossible to suppose that such a circumstance would not be reported somewhere? Mr. Thornton would have sent word to the hotel sooner or later, don't you think?"
"Yes; that is reasonable."
"I had thought of that idea myself, but, on consideration I dismissed it as quite untenable. Mr. Thornton, I have come to the conclusion, has either disappeared intentionally, or he is dead. Now I can see nothing to indicate an intentional disappearance: the state of his health would seem absolutely to forbid it."
"Then you think he is dead?" asked Gilbert, as Gale paused.
"I can't say, please remember, but it looks rather like it."
"But what about the body?"
"Oh, bodies can be made to disappear."
"Do you mean that you think he has been murdered?"
"I won't go so far," said Gale, cautiously, "but Mr. Thornton was a rich man, and probably had valuables about him; he was in a weak, feeble state, and so would fall an easy victim. And it was late in the evening when he went out. I am afraid it is possible—I will not say probable, for there is no evidence—that he was murdered the night he left the hotel."
"Is it not dreadful? I've been thinking much the same. But how did you know he was rich?"
"We took possession of what property he had at the hotel. It was not much, but what there was hinted pretty plainly at wealth. There was one extraordinary thing—we could not find his address, I mean the address of the place he lived in."
"That was odd, and I cannot explain it," said Gilbert. "You know now he lived in Vancouver?"
"Yes, you have told me so, but I did not know it before. We made inquiries by cable in New York—the label on his luggage showed he had come from that city—but he was unknown to the police there, nor could they find out anything about him. Now we shall make inquiries in Vancouver."
"I hope you will let me know if you hear of anything," said Gilbert, rising to leave, after thanking the inspector for his courtesy. "Miss Thornton is very anxious about her father, and she will be more anxious than ever after she has heard what I have to tell her."
"Certainly."
Gilbert was just about leaving, when it struck him as very desirable that the officer should communicate with his father, Francis Eversleigh. He had already told Mr. Gale that his father's firm were Morris Thornton's solicitors, and now he suggested to the inspector-detective to accompany him, if he had the time, to see his father, and tell him exactly how the case stood.
Gale thought for a moment, and then said that if he would wait for a short while until he had finished a memorandum he had been engaged on when Gilbert had been shown in, he would go with him to his father.
"I really ought to see him in the circumstances," said Gale. "He may be able to give us some clue."
But when Gale and Gilbert put the facts before Francis Eversleigh, he had no suggestion to make. Indeed, the solicitor was perfectly thunderstruck by the intelligence they brought him, and acted in such an extraordinary way as to cause Gilbert to fear that the news had affected his brain. Eversleigh, in fact, could hardly believe it; but when he did, it, too, seemed part and parcel of that hideous waking nightmare in which he now lived. Yet, somewhere in the darkening depths of his mind, there shot up a tiny ray of hope. For if Morris Thornton were dead, or if it were only that he had disappeared, was not that to postpone the day of reckoning?
Gilbert's most difficult and painful task was to disclose to the girl he loved all he had come to know that day. With infinite gentleness and delicacy he told her the truth, and wound up by declaring she must not lose hope of seeing her father again; it was far too soon, he urged, and the circumstances were far too obscure to admit of any definite conclusion being arrived at.
But Kitty, crying and sobbing bitterly in her lover's arms, would say nothing. Gilbert knew, however, from her passion of weeping, that she already mourned her father as dead. Very tenderly he sought to console her, but at first her grief would have its way, albeit she clung to him as if she would never let him go.