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diff --git a/18927-8.txt b/18927-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..806b637 --- /dev/null +++ b/18927-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4540 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Uttermost Farthing, by Marie Belloc Lowndes + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Uttermost Farthing + +Author: Marie Belloc Lowndes + +Release Date: July 28, 2006 [EBook #18927] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UTTERMOST FARTHING *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + THE UTTERMOST FARTHING + + BY MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES + + 1910 + + + + +COLLECTION OF BRITISH AUTHORS +_COPYRIGHT EDITION_ +VOL. 4174. +LEIPZIG: BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ. +PARIS: LIBRAIRIE H. GAULON & CIE, 39, RUE MADAME. +PARIS: THE GALIGNANI LIBRARY, 224, RUE DE RIVOLI, AND AT NICE, 8, AVENUE +MASSÉNA. + + + + +"Thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the +uttermost farthing." + + + + +I. + + +Laurence Vanderlyn, unpaid attaché at the American Embassy in Paris, +strode down the long grey platform marked No. 5, of the Gare de Lyon. It +was seven o'clock, the hour at which Paris is dining or is about to +dine, and the huge station was almost deserted. + +The train de luxe had gone more than an hour ago, the Riviera rapide +would not start till ten, but one of those trains bound for the South, +curiously named demi-rapides, was timed to leave in twenty minutes. + +Foreigners, especially Englishmen and Americans, avoid these trains, and +this was why Laurence Vanderlyn had chosen it as the starting point of +what was to be a great adventure, an adventure which must for ever be +concealed, obliterated as much as may be from his own memory--do not men +babble in delirium?--once life had again become the rather grey thing he +had found it to be. + +In the domain of the emotions it is the unexpected which generally +happens, and now it was not only the unexpected but the incredible which +had happened to this American diplomatist. He and Margaret Pargeter, the +Englishwoman whom he had loved with an absorbing, unsatisfied passion, +and an ever-increasing concentration and selfless devotion, for seven +years, were about to do that which each had sworn, together and +separately, should never come to pass,--that is, they were about to +snatch from Fate a few days of such free happiness and communion as +during their long years of intimacy they had never enjoyed. In order to +secure these fleeting moments of joy, she, the woman in the case, was +about to run the greatest risk which can in these days be incurred by +civilised woman. + +Margaret Pargeter was not free as Vanderlyn was free; she was a +wife,--not a happy wife, but one on whose reputation no shadow had ever +rested,--and further, she was the mother of a child, a son, whom she +loved with an anxious tenderness.... It was these two facts which made +what she was going to do a matter of such moment not only to herself, +but to the man to whom she was now about to commit her honour. + +Striding up and down the platform to which he had bought early access by +one of those large fees for which the travelling American of a certain +type is famed, Vanderlyn, with his long lean figure, and stern +pre-occupied face, did not suggest, to the French eyes idly watching +him, a lover,--still less the happy third in one of those conjugal +comedies which play so much greater a part in French literature and in +French drama than they do in French life. He had thrust far back into +his heart the leaping knowledge of what was about to befall him, and he +was bending the whole strength of his mind to avert any possible danger +of ignoble catastrophe to the woman whom he was awaiting, and whose +sudden surrender was becoming more, instead of less, amazing as the long +minutes dragged by. + +Vanderlyn's mind went back to the moment, four short days ago, when this +journey had been suddenly arranged. Mrs. Pargeter had just come back +from England, where she had gone to pay some family visits and to see +her little son, who was at a preparatory school; and the American +diplomatist, as was so often his wont, had come to escort her to one of +those picture club shows in which Parisian society delights. + +Then, after a quarter of an hour spent by them at the exhibition, the +two friends had slipped away, and had done a thing which was perhaps +imprudent. But each longed, with an unspoken eager craving, to be alone +with the other; the beauty of Paris in springtime tempted them, and it +was the woman who had proposed to the man that they should spend a quiet +hour walking through one of those quarters of old Paris unknown to the +travelling foreigner. + +Eagerly Vanderlyn had assented, and so they had driven quickly down the +Rue de Rivoli, right into the heart of that commercial quarter which was +the Paris of Madame de Sévigné, of the bitter witty dwarf, Scarron, of +Ninon de l'Enclos, and, more lately, of Victor Hugo. There, dismissing +their cab, they had turned into that still, stately square, once the old +Place Royale, now the Place des Vosges, of which each arcaded house +garners memories of passionate romance. + +Walking slowly up and down the solitary garden there, the two had +discussed the coming August, and Margaret Pargeter had admitted, with a +rather weary sigh, that she was as yet quite ignorant whether her +husband intended to yacht, to shoot, or to travel,--whether he meant to +take her with him, or to leave her at some seaside place with the boy. + +As she spoke, in the low melodious voice which still had the power to +thrill the man by her side as it had had in the earlier days of their +acquaintance, Mrs. Pargeter said no word that all the world might not +have heard, yet, underlying all she said, his questions and her answers, +was the mute interrogation--which of the alternatives discussed held out +the best chance, to Vanderlyn and herself, of being together? + +At last, quite suddenly, Mrs. Pargeter, turning and looking up into her +companion's face, had said something which Laurence Vanderlyn had felt +to be strangely disconcerting; for a brief moment she lifted the veil +which she had herself so deliberately and for so long thrown over their +ambiguous relation--"Ah! Laurence," she exclaimed with a sigh, "the way +of the transgressor is hard!" + +Then, speaking so quietly that for a moment he did not fully understand +the amazing nature of the proposal she was making to him, she had +deliberately offered to go away with him--for a week. The way in which +this had come about had been strangely simple; looking back, Vanderlyn +could scarcely believe that his memory was playing him true.... + +From the uncertain future they had come back to the immediate present, +and Mrs. Pargeter said something of having promised her only intimate +friend, a Frenchwoman much older than herself, a certain Madame de Léra, +to go and spend a few days in a villa near Paris--"If you do that," he +said, "then I think I may as well go down to Orange and see the house +I've just bought there." + +She had turned on him with a certain excitement in her manner. "You've +bought it? That strange, beautiful place near Orange where you used to +stay when you were studying in Paris? Oh, Laurence, I'd no idea that you +really meant to buy it!" + +A little surprised at the keenness of her interest, he had answered +quietly, "Yes, when the owner was going through Paris last week, I found +he wanted the money, so--so the house is mine, though none of the legal +formalities have yet been complied with. I'm told that the old woman who +was caretaker there can make me comfortable enough for the few days I +can be away." He added in a different, a lower tone, "Ah! Peggy, if only +it were possible for us to go there together--how you would delight in +the place!" + +"Would you like me to come with you? I will if you like, Laurence." She +had asked the question very simply--but Vanderlyn, looking at her +quickly, had seen that her hand was trembling, her eyes brimming with +tears. Then she had spoken gently, deliberately--seeming to plead with +herself, rather than with him, for a few days of such dual loneliness +for which all lovers long and which during their long years of intimacy +they had never once, even innocently, enjoyed. And he had grasped with +exultant gratitude--what man would have done otherwise?--at what she +herself came and offered him. + +Walking up and down the solitary platform, Vanderlyn lived over again +each instant of that strange momentous conversation uttered four days +ago in the stately sunlit square which forms the heart of old Paris. How +the merry ghost of Marion Delorme, peeping out of one of the long narrow +casements of the corner house which was once hers, must have smiled to +hear this virtuous Englishwoman cast virtue to the light Parisian winds! + +Vanderlyn also recalled, with almost the same surprise and discomfort as +he had experienced at the time itself, the way in which Margaret +Pargeter, so refined and so delicately bred, had discussed all the +material details connected with their coming adventure--details from +which the American diplomatist himself had shrunk, and which he would +have done almost anything to spare her. + +"There is one person, and one alone," she had said with some decision, +"who must know. I must tell Adèle de Léra--she must have my address, for +I cannot remain without news of my boy a whole week. As for Tom"--she +had flushed, and then gone on steadily--"Tom will believe that I am +going to stay with Adèle at Marly-le-Roi, and my letters will be sent to +her house. Besides," she had added, "Tom himself is going away, to +England, for a fortnight." + +To the man then walking by her side, and even now, as he was remembering +it all, the discussion was inexpressibly odious. "But do you think," he +had ventured to ask, "that Madame de Léra will consent? Remember, Peggy, +she is Catholic, and what is more, a pious Catholic." + +"Of course she won't like it--of course she won't approve! But I'm +sure--in fact, Laurence, I _know_--that she will consent to forward my +letters. She understands that it would make no difference--that I should +think of some other plan for getting them. Should she refuse at the last +moment--but--but she will not refuse--" and her face--the fair, +delicately-moulded little face Vanderlyn loved--had become flooded with +colour. + +For the first time since he had known her, he had realised that there +was a side to her character of which he was ignorant, and yet?--and yet +Laurence Vanderlyn knew Margaret Pargeter too well, his love of her +implied too intimate a knowledge, for him not to perceive that something +lay behind her secession from an ideal of conduct to which she had clung +so unswervingly and for such long years. + +During the four days which had elapsed between then and now,--days of +agitation, of excitement, and of suspense,--he had more than once asked +himself whether it were possible that certain things which all the world +had long known concerning Tom Pargeter had only just become revealed to +Tom Pargeter's wife. He hoped, he trusted, this was not so; he had no +desire to owe her surrender to any ignoble longing for reprisal. + +The world, especially that corner of Vanity Fair which takes a frankly +materialistic view of life and of life's responsibilities, is shrewder +than we generally credit, and the diplomatist's intimacy with the +Pargeter household had aroused but small comment in the strange polyglot +society in which lived, by choice, Tom Pargeter, the cosmopolitan +millionaire who was far more of a personage in Paris and in the French +sporting world than he could ever have hoped to be in England. + +To all appearance Laurence Vanderlyn was as intimate with the husband as +with the wife, for he had tastes in common with them both, his interest +in sport and in horseflesh being a strong link with Tom Pargeter, while +his love of art, and his dilettante literary tastes, bound him to Peggy. +Also, and perhaps above all, he was an American--and Europeans cherish +strange and sometimes fond illusions as to your American's lack of +capacity for ordinary human emotion. + +He alone knew that his tie with Mrs. Pargeter grew, if not more +passionate, then more absorbing and intimate as time went on, and he was +sometimes, even now, at considerable pains to put the busybodies of +their circle off the scent. + +But indeed it would have required a very sharp, a very keen, human hound +to find the scent of what had been so singular and so innocent a tie. +Each had schooled the other to accept all that she would admit was +possible. True, Vanderlyn saw Margaret Pargeter almost every day, but +more often than not in the presence of acquaintances. She never came to +his rooms, and she had never seemed tempted to do any of the imprudent +things which many a woman, secure of her own virtue, will sometimes do +as if to prove the temper of her honour's blade. + +So it was that Mrs. Pargeter had never fallen into the ranks of those +women who become the occasion for even good-natured gossip. The very way +in which they had, till to-night, conducted what she, the woman, was +pleased to call their friendship, made this which was now happening +seem, even now, to the man who was actually waiting for her to join him, +as unsubstantial, as likely to vanish, mirage-wise, as a dream. + +And yet Vanderlyn passionately loved this woman whom most men would have +thought too cold to love, and who had known how to repress and tutor, +not only her own, but also his emotions. He loved her, too, so foolishly +and fondly that he had fashioned the whole of his life so that it should +be in harmony with hers, making sacrifices of which he had told her +nothing in order that he might surround her--an ill-mated, neglected +wife--with a wordless atmosphere of devotion which had become to her as +vital, as necessary, as is that of domestic peace and happiness to the +average woman. But for Laurence Vanderlyn and his "friendship," Mrs. +Pargeter's existence would have been lacking in all human savour, and +that from ironic circumstance rather than from any fault of her own. + + * * * * * + +Vanderlyn had spent the day in a fever of emotion and suspense, and he +had arrived at the Gare de Lyon a good hour before the time the train +for Orange was due to leave. + +At first he had wandered about the great railway-station aimlessly, +avoiding the platform whence he knew he and his companion were to start. +Then, with relief, he had hailed the moment for securing coming privacy +in the unreserved railway carriage; this had not been quite an easy +matter to compass, for he desired to avoid above all any appearance of +secrecy. + +But he need not have felt any anxiety, for whereas in an English +railway-station his large "tip" to the guard, carrying with it +significant promise of final largesse, would have spelt but one thing, +and that thing love, the French railway employé accepted without +question the information that the lady the foreign gentleman was +expecting was his sister. Such a statement to the English mind would +have suggested the hero of an innocent elopement, but as regards family +relations the French are curiously Eastern, and then it may be said +again that the American's stern, pre-occupied face and cold manner were +not those which to a Parisian could suggest a happy lover. + +As he walked up and down with long, even strides, his arms laden with +papers and novels, it would have been difficult for anyone seeing him +there to suppose that Vanderlyn was starting on anything but a solitary +journey. Indeed, for the moment he felt horribly alone. He began to +experience the need of human companionship. She had said she would be +there at seven; it was now a quarter-past the hour. In ten minutes the +train would be gone---- + +Then came to him a thought which made him unconsciously clench his +hands. Was it not possible, nay, even likely, that Margaret Pargeter, +like many another woman before her, had found her courage fail her at +the last moment--that Heaven, stooping to her feeble virtue, had come to +save her in spite of herself? + +Vanderlyn's steps unconsciously quickened. They bore him on and on, to +the extreme end of the platform. He stood there a moment staring out +into the red-starred darkness: how could he have ever thought that +Margaret Pargeter--his timid, scrupulous little Peggy--would embark on +so high and dangerous an adventure? + +There had been a moment, during that springtime of passion which returns +no more, when Vanderlyn had for a wild instant hoped that he would be +able to take her away from the life in which he had felt her to be +playing the terrible rôle of an innocent and yet degraded victim. + +Even to an old-fashioned American the word divorce does not carry with +it the odious significance it bears to the most careless Englishwoman. +He had envisaged a short scandal, and then his and Peggy's marriage. But +he had been compelled, almost at once, to recognise that with her any +such solution was impossible. + +As to another alternative? True, there are women--he and Margaret +Pargeter had known many such--who regard what they call love as a +legitimate distraction; to them the ignoble, often sordid, shifts +involved in the pursuit of a secret intrigue are as the salt of life; +but this solution of their tragic problem would have been--or so +Vanderlyn would have sworn till four days ago--impossible to the woman +he loved, and this had added one more stone to the pedestal on which she +had been placed by him from the day they had first met. + +And yet? Yet so inconsequent and so illogical is our poor human nature, +that she, the virtuous woman, had completely lacked the courage to break +with the man who loved her, even in those, the early friable days of +their passion. Nay more, whatever Peggy might believe, Vanderlyn was +well aware that the good, knowing all, would have called them wicked, +even if the wicked, equally well-informed, would have sneered at them as +absurdly good. + + * * * * * + +Vanderlyn wheeled abruptly round. He looked at the huge station clock, +and began walking quickly back, down the now peopled platform to the +ticket barrier. As he did so his eyes and mind, trained to note all that +was happening round him, together with an unconscious longing to escape +from the one absorbing thought, made him focus those of his +fellow-travellers who stood about him. They consisted for the most part +of provincial men of business, and of young officers in uniform, each +and all eager to prolong to the uttermost their golden moments in Paris; +more than one was engaged in taking an affectionate, deeply sentimental +farewell from a feminine companion who bore about her those significant +signs--the terribly pathetic, battered air of wear and tear--which set +apart, in our sane workaday world, the human plaything. + +The sight of these leave-takings made the American's face flush darkly; +it was hateful to him to think that Mrs. Pargeter must suffer, even for +a few moments, the proximity of such women--of such men. He felt a +violent shrinking from the thought that any one of these gay, careless +young Frenchmen might conceivably know Peggy--if only by sight--as the +charming, "elegant" wife of Tom Pargeter, the well-known sportsman who +had done France the signal honour of establishing his racing stable at +Chantilly instead of at Newmarket! The thought that such an encounter +was within the bounds of possibility made Vanderlyn for a moment almost +hope that the woman for whom he was waiting would not come after all. + +He cursed himself for a fool. Why had he not thought of driving her out +to one of the smaller stations on the line whence they could have +started, if not unseen, then unobserved? + +But soon the slowly-growing suspicion that she, after all, was perhaps +not coming to-night, brought with it an agonising pang. Very suddenly +there occurred to him the horrible possibility of material accident. +Mrs. Pargeter was not used even to innocent adventure; she lived the +guarded, sheltered existence which belongs of right to those women whose +material good fortune all their less fortunate sisters envy. The dangers +of the Paris streets rose up before Vanderlyn's excited imagination, +hideous, formidable.... + +Then, quite suddenly, Margaret Pargeter herself stood before him, +smiling a little tremulously. + +She was wearing a grey, rather austere tailor-made gown; it gave a +girlish turn to her slender figure, and on her fair hair was poised the +little boat-shaped hat and long silvery gauze veil which have become in +a sense the uniform of a well-dressed Parisienne on her travels. + +As he looked at her, standing there by his side, Vanderlyn realised how +instinctively tender, how passionately protective, was his love for her; +and again there came over him the doubt, the questioning, as to why she +was doing this.... + +"Messieurs, mesdames, en voiture, s'il vous plaît! En voiture, s'il vous +plaît!" + +He put his hand on her shoulder--her head was very little higher than +his heart--and guided her to the railway carriage which had been kept +for them. + + + + +II. + + +And now Laurence Vanderlyn and Margaret Pargeter were speeding through +the night, completely and physically alone as they had never been during +the years of their long acquaintanceship; and, as he sat there, with the +woman he had loved so long and so faithfully wholly in his power, there +came over Vanderlyn a sense of fierce triumph and conquest. + +The train had not started to time. There had come a sound of eager +talking on the platform, and Vanderlyn, filled with a vague +apprehension, had leaned out of the window and with some difficulty +ascertained the cause of the delay. The guard in charge of the train, +the man, that is, whom he had feed so well in order to secure privacy, +had strained his hand in lifting a weight, and another employé had had +to take his place. + +But at last the few moments of waiting--to Vanderlyn they had seemed an +hour--had come to an end. At last the train began to move, that slow and +yet relentless movement which is one of the few things in our modern +world which spell finality. To the man and the woman it was the starting +of the train which indicated to them both that the die was indeed cast. + +Vanderlyn looked at his companion. She was gazing up at him with a +strange expression of gladness, of relief, on her face. The long years +of restraint and measured coldness seemed to have vanished, receded into +nothingness. + +She held out her ringless hand and clasped his, and a moment later they +were sitting hand in hand, like two children, side by side. With a +rather awkward movement he slipped on her finger a thin gold ring--his +dead mother's wedding-ring,--but still she said nothing. Her head was +turned away, and she was staring out of the window, as if fascinated by +the flying lights. He knew rather than saw that her eyes were shining, +her cheeks pink with excitement; then she took off her hat, and he told +himself that her fair hair gleaming against the grey-brown furnishings +of the railway carriage looked like a golden aureole. + +Suddenly Laurence Vanderlyn pressed the hand he was holding to his lips, +dropped it, and then stood up. He pulled the blue silk shade over the +electric light globe which hung in the centre of the carriage; glanced +through one of the two tiny glazed apertures giving a view of the next +compartment; then he sat down by her, and in the half darkness gathered +her into his arms. + +"Dear," he said, in a voice that sounded strange and muffled even to +himself, "do you remember the passage at Bonnington?" + +As he held her, she had been looking up into his face, but now, hearing +his question, she flushed deeply, and her head fell forward on his +breast. Their minds, their hearts, were travelling back to the moment, +to the trifling episode, which had revealed to each the other's love. + +It had happened ten years ago, at a time when Tom Pargeter, desiring to +play the rôle of country gentleman, had taken for awhile a certain +historic country house. There, he and his young wife had brought +together a great Christmas house-party composed of the odd, ill-assorted +social elements which gather at the call of the wealthy host who has +exchanged old friends for new acquaintances. Peggy's own people, +old-fashioned country gentry, were regarded by Pargeter as hopelessly +dowdy and "out of it," so none of them had been invited. With Laurence +Vanderlyn alone had the young mistress of the house had any link of +mutual interests or sympathies; but of flirtation, as that protean word +was understood by those about them, there had been none. + +Then, on Christmas Eve, had come the playing of childish games, though +no children were present, for the two-year-old child of the host and +hostess was safe in bed. It was in the chances of one of these games +that Laurence Vanderlyn had for a moment caught Margaret Pargeter in his +arms---- + +He had released her almost at once, but not before they had exchanged +the long probing look which had told to each their own as well as the +other's secret. Till that moment they had been strangers--from that +moment they were lovers, but lovers allowing themselves none of love's +license, and very soon Vanderlyn had taught himself to be content with +all that Peggy's conscience allowed her to think possible. + +She had never known--how could she have known?--what his acquiescence +had cost him. Now and again, during the long years, they had been +compelled to discuss the abnormal relation which Peggy called their +friendship; together they had trembled at the fragile basis on which +what most human beings would have considered their meagre happiness was +founded. + +More than once she had touched him to the heart by asserting that she +felt sure that the inscrutable Providence in which she had retained an +almost childish faith, could never be so cruel as to deprive her of the +only source of happiness, apart from her little son, which had come her +way; and so, although their intimacy had become closer, the links which +bound them not only remained platonic, but, as is the way with such +links, tended to become more platonic as the time went on. + +Even now, as he sat there with the woman he loved wholly in his power, +lying in his arms with her face pressed to his breast, Vanderlyn's mind +was in a maze of doubt as to what was to be their relationship during +the coming days. Even now he was not sure as to what Peggy had meant +when she had seemed to plead, more with herself than with him, for a +short space of such happiness as during their long intimacy they had +never enjoyed. + +All his acquaintances, including his official chief, would have told you +that Laurence Vanderlyn was an accomplished man of the world, and an +acute student of human nature, but now, to-night, he owned himself at +fault. Only one thing was quite clear; he told himself that the thought +of again taking up the thread of what had been so unnatural an existence +was hateful--impossible. + +Perhaps the woman felt the man's obscure moment of recoil; she gently +withdrew herself from his arms. "I'm tired," she said, rather +plaintively, "the train sways so, Laurence. I wonder if I could lie +down----" + +He heaped up the cushions, spread out the large rug, which he had +purchased that day, and which formed their only luggage, for everything +else, by her wish, had been sent on the day before. + +Very tenderly he wrapped the folds of the rug round her. Then he knelt +by her side; and at once she put out her arms, and pulled his head down +close to hers; a moment later her soft lips were laid against his cheek. +He remembered, with a retrospective pang, the ache at his heart with +which the sight of her caresses to her child had always filled him. + +"Peggy," he whispered, "tell me, my beloved, why are you being so good +to me--now?" + +She made no direct answer to the question. Instead, she moved away a +little, and raised herself on her elbow; her blue eyes, filled with a +strange solemnity, rested on his moved face. + +"Listen," she said, "I want to tell you something, Laurence. I want you +to know that I understand how--how angelic you have been to me all these +years. Ever since we first knew one another, you have given me +everything--everything in exchange for nothing." + +And as he shook his head, she continued, "Yes, for nothing! For a long +time I tried to persuade myself that this was not so--I tried to believe +that you were as contented as I had taught myself to be. I first +realised what a hindrance"--she hesitated for a moment, and then said +the two words--"our friendship--must have proved to you four years +ago,--when you might have gone to St. Petersburg." + +As Vanderlyn allowed an exclamation of surprise to escape him, she went +on, "Yes, Laurence, you have never known that I knew of that chance--of +that offer. Adèle de Léra heard of it, and told me; she begged me then, +oh! so earnestly, to give you up--to let you go." + +"It was no business of hers," he muttered, "I never thought for a moment +of accepting----" + +"--But you would have done so if you had never known me, if we had not +been friends?" She looked up at him, hoping, longing, for a quick word +of denial. + +But Vanderlyn said no such word. Instead, he fell manlike into the trap +she had perhaps unwittingly laid for him. + +"If I had never known you?" he repeated, "why, Peggy--dearest--my whole +life would have been different if I had never known you! Do you really +think that I should have been here in Paris, doing what I am now +doing--or rather doing nothing--if we had never met?" + +The honest, unmeditated answer made her wince, but she went on, as if +she had not heard it-- + +"As you know, I did not take Adèle's advice, but I have never forgotten, +Laurence, some of the things she said." + +A look which crossed his face caused her to redden, and add hastily, +"She's not given to speaking of you--of us; indeed she's not! She never +again alluded to the matter; but the other day when I was persuading +her,--she required a good deal of persuasion, Laurence--to consent to my +plan, I reminded her of all she had said four years ago." + +"And what was it that she did say four years ago?" asked Vanderlyn with +a touch of angry curiosity; "as Madame de Léra is a Frenchwoman, and a +pious Catholic, I presume she tried to make you believe that our +friendship was wrong, and could only lead to one thing----" he stopped +abruptly. + +"No," said Peggy, quietly, "she did not think then that our friendship +would lead to--to this; she thought in some ways better of me than I +deserve. But she did tell me that I was taking a great responsibility +on myself, and that if anything happened--for instance, if I +died----" Vanderlyn again made a restless, almost a contemptuous +movement--"I should have been the cause of your wasting the best years of +your life; I should have broken and spoilt your career, and all--all for +nothing." + +"Nothing?" exclaimed Vanderlyn passionately. "Ah! Peggy, do not say +that. You know, you must know, that our love--I will not call it +friendship," he went on resolutely, "for this one week let no such false +word be uttered between us--you must know, I say, that our love has been +everything to me! Till I met you, my life was empty, miserable; since I +met you it has been filled, satisfied, and that even if I have received +what Madame de Léra dares to call--nothing!" + +He spoke with a fervour, a conviction, which to the woman over whom he +was now leaning brought exquisite solace. At last he was speaking as she +had longed to hear him speak. + +"You don't know," she whispered brokenly, "how happy you make me by +saying this to-night, Laurence. I have sometimes wondered lately if you +cared for me as much as you used to care?" + +Vanderlyn's dark face contracted with pain; he was no Don Juan, learned +in the byways of a woman's heart. Then, almost roughly, he caught her to +him, and she, looking up, saw a strange glowing look come over his +face--a look which was, even to her, an all-sufficing answer, for it +told of the baffled longing, of the abnegation, and, even now, of the +restraint and selflessness, of the man who loved her. + +"Did you really think that, Peggy?" was all he said; then, more slowly, +as the arms about her relaxed their hold, "Why, my dear, you've always +been--you are--my life." + +A sudden sob, a cry of joy broke from her. She sat up, and with a quick +passionate movement flung herself on his breast; slowly she raised her +face to his: "I love you," she whispered, "Laurence, I love you!" + +His lips trembled for a moment on her closed eyelids, then sought and +found her soft, quivering mouth. But even then Vanderlyn's love was +reverent, restrained in its expression, yet none the less, perhaps the +more, a binding sacrament. + +At last, "Why did you subject us," he said, huskily, "to such an ordeal? +What has made you give way--now? How can you dream of going back, after +a week, to our old life?" But even as he asked the searching questions, +he laid her back gently on her improvised couch. + +Woman-like she did not give him a direct response, then, quite suddenly, +she yielded him the key to the mystery. + +"Because, Laurence, the last time I was in England, something happened +which altered my outlook on life." + +She uttered the words with strange solemnity, but Vanderlyn's ears were +holden; true, he heard her answer to his question, but the word conveyed +little or nothing to him. + +He was still riding the whirlwind of his own poignant emotion; he was +telling himself, with voiceless and yet most binding oaths, that never, +never should the woman whose heart had just beaten against his heart, +whose lips had just trembled beneath his lips, go back to act the part +of even the nominal wife to Tom Pargeter. He would consent to any +condition imposed by her, as long as they could be together; surely even +she would understand, if not now, then later, that there are certain +moments which can never be obliterated or treated as if they have not +been.... + +It was with difficulty--with a feeling that he was falling from high +heaven to earth--that he forced himself to listen to her next words. + +"As you know, I stayed, when in England, with Sophy Pargeter----" + +Again she looked up at him, as if hesitating what she should say. + +"Sophy Pargeter?" he repeated the name mechanically, but with a sudden +wincing. + +Vanderlyn had always disliked, with a rather absurd, unreasoning +dislike, Peggy's plain-featured, rough-tongued sister-in-law. To him +Sophy Pargeter had ever been a grotesque example of the deep--they +almost appear racial--differences which may, and so often do, exist +between different members of a family whose material prosperity is due +to successful commerce. + +The vast inherited wealth which had made of Tom Pargeter a selfish, +pleasure-loving, unmoral human being, had transformed his sister Sophy +into a woman oppressed by the belief that it was her duty to spend the +greater part of her considerable income in what she believed to be good +works. She regarded with grim disapproval her brother's way of life, and +she condemned even his innocent pleasures; she had, however, always been +fond of Peggy. Laurence Vanderlyn, himself the outcome and product of an +old Puritan New England and Dutch stock, was well aware of the horror +and amazement with which Miss Pargeter would regard Peggy's present +action. + +"Well, Laurence, the day that I arrived there, I mean at Sophy's +house, I felt very ill. I suppose the journey had tired me, for I +fainted----" Again she hesitated, as if not knowing how to frame her +next sentence. + +"Sophy was horribly frightened. She would send for her doctor, and +though he said there was nothing much the matter with me, he insisted +that I ought to see another man--a specialist." + +Peggy looked up with an anxious expression in her blue eyes--but again +Vanderlyn's ears and eyes were holden. He habitually felt for the +medical profession the unreasoning dislike, almost the contempt, your +perfectly healthy human being, living in an ailing world, often--in fact +almost always--does feel for those who play the rôle of the old augurs +in our modern life. Mrs. Pargeter had never been a strong woman; she was +often ill, often in the doctor's hands. So it was that Vanderlyn did not +realise the deep import of her next words---- + +"Sophy went with me to London--she was really very kind about it all, +and you would have liked her better, Laurence, if you had seen her that +day. The specialist did all the usual things, then he told me to go on +much as I had been doing, and to avoid any sudden shock or +excitement--in fact he said almost exactly what that dear old French +doctor said to me a year ago----" + +She waited a moment: "Then, Laurence, the next day, when Sophy thought I +had got over the journey to London," Peggy smiled at him a little +whimsical smile, "she told me that she thought I ought to know--it was +her duty to tell me--that I had heart disease, and that, though I should +probably live a long time, it was possible I might die at any +moment----" + +A sudden wrath filled the dark, sensitive face of the man bending over +her. + +"What nonsense!" he exclaimed with angry decision. "What will the +doctors say next, I wonder! I wish to God you would make up your mind, +Peggy, once and for all, never to see a doctor again! I beg of you, if +only for my sake, to promise me that you will not go again to any doctor +till I give you permission to do so. You don't know what I went through +five years ago when one of those charlatans declared that he would not +answer for the consequences if you didn't winter South, and--and Tom +would not let you go!" + +He paused, and then added more gently, "And yet nothing happened--you +were none the worse for spending that winter in cold Leicestershire!" + +"Yes, that's true," she answered submissively, "I will make you the +promise you ask, Laurence. I daresay I have been foolish in going so +often to doctors; I don't know that they have ever done me much good." + +His eyes, having now become quite accustomed to the dim light, suddenly +seemed to see in her face a slight change; a look of fatigue and +depression had crept over her mouth. He told himself with a pang that +after all she was a delicate, fragile human being--or was it the blue +shade which threw a strange pallor on the face he was scrutinising with +such deep, wistful tenderness? + +He bent over her and tucked the rug round her feet. + +"Turn round and try to go to sleep," he whispered. "It's a long, long +journey by this train. I'll wake you in good time before we get to +Dorgival." + +She turned, as he told her, obediently, and then, acting on a sudden +impulse, she pulled him down once more to her, and kissed him as a child +might have done. "Good night," he said, "good night, my +love--'enchanting, noble little Peggy!'" + +A smile lit up her face radiantly. It was a long, long time since +Vanderlyn had last uttered the charming lines first quoted by him very +early in their acquaintance, when he had seen her among her own people, +one of a band of joyous English boys and girls celebrating a family +festival--the golden wedding of her grandparents. Peggy had been +delicately, deliciously kind to the shy, proud American youth, whom an +introduction from valued friends had suddenly made free of an English +family clan. + +That had been a year before her marriage to Tom Pargeter, the inheritor +of a patent dye process which had made him master of one of those +fantastic fortunes which impress the imagination of even the +unimaginative. That the young millionaire should deign to throw the +matrimonial handkerchief at their little Peggy had seemed to her family +a piece of magic good fortune. She could bring him good old blood, and +certain great social connections, in exchange for limitless wealth; it +had been regarded as an ideal marriage. + +More than four years went by before Vanderlyn again saw Peggy, and then +he had found her changed--transformed from a merry, light-hearted girl +into a pensive, reserved woman. During the interval he had often thought +of her as one thinks of a delightful playfellow, but he only came to +love her after their second meeting--when he had seen, at first with +honest dismay, and then with shame-faced gladness, how utterly ill-mated +she and Tom Pargeter were the one to the other. + + * * * * * + +Vanderlyn made his way over to the other side of the railway carriage; +there he sat down, and, crossing his arms on his breast, after a very +few moments he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. + + + + +III. + + +Vanderlyn woke with a start. He looked round, bewildered for a moment. +Then his brain cleared, and he felt vexed with himself, a little ashamed +of having slept. It seemed to him that he had been asleep hours. How +odious it would have been if at the first stopping place of the +demi-rapide some stranger had entered the railway carriage! Instead of +sleeping, he ought to have remained watching over that still figure +which lay so quietly resting on the other side of the carriage. + +He stood up. How tired he felt, how strangely depressed and uneasy! But +that, after all, was natural, for his last four nights had been wakeful, +his last four days full of anxiety and suspense. + +He turned and looked out of the window, wondering where they were, how +far they had gone; the train was travelling very quickly, he could see +white tree-trunks rushing past him in the moonlight. + +Then Vanderlyn took out his watch. Surely it must be later than nine +o'clock? He moved from the window and held the dial close under the blue +silk shade of the lamp. Why, it was only three minutes to nine! Then +they hadn't yet passed Dorgival; in fact they wouldn't be there for +another twenty minutes, for this train took two hours to do what the +quick expresses accomplished in an hour and a quarter. + +It was good to know that he had only slept for quite a little while. The +desire for sleep had now left him completely, and he began to feel +excited, restless, and intensely, glowingly alive.... + +The curious depression and unease which had possessed him a few moments +ago lifted from his soul; the future was once more full of infinite +possibilities. + +His darling little Peggy! What strange beings women were! With what +self-contempt, with what scorpions would he have lashed himself, had he +been the one to evolve this plan of this furtive flight, to be followed +at the end of a week by a return to the life to which he now looked back +with shame as well as distaste! And yet she, the woman he loved, had +evolved it, and thought out every detail of the scheme--before telling +him of what was in her mind... + +As to the future? Vanderlyn threw back his head; nay, nay, there could +be no going back to what had been. Even Peggy would see that. She had +herself broken down the barrier erected with such care; and soon, very +soon she would--she must--see that such breaches can never be repaired +or treated as if they had not been made. What had happened, what was +happening, to-night, was, in very truth the beginning, for them both, of +a new life. + +So Laurence Vanderlyn swore to himself, taking many silent vows of +chivalrous devotion to the woman who, for love of him, had broken, not +only with life-long traditions of honour, but also with a conscience he +had known to be so delicately scrupulous. + + * * * * * + +From where he was standing in the middle of the swaying carriage, +something in the way in which his sleeping companion's head was lying +suddenly aroused Vanderlyn's quick, keen attention. Putting out a hand +to steady himself against the back of the compartment, he bent +down--indifferent to the risk of rousing the still figure. + +Then, with a rapid movement, he straightened himself; his face had gone +grey--expressionless. He pushed back the blue shade off the globe of +light, careless of the bright rays which suddenly illumined every corner +of the railway carriage.... + +With an instinctive gesture, Vanderlyn covered his eyes and shut out the +blinding light. He pressed his fingers on his eyeballs; every fibre of +his body, every quivering nerve was in revolt: for he realised, even +then, that there was no room for hope, for doubt,--he knew that what he +had looked upon in the dim light was death. + +With an awful pang he now understood why Peggy had made him that strange +pathetic offer. How blind he had been! The English doctor, the man on +whom he had poured such careless scorn, had been right,--terribly right. + +At last he uncovered his eyes, and forced himself to gaze upon what lay +before him---- + +Margaret Pargeter had died in her sleep. She was lying exactly as +Vanderlyn had left her, still folded closely in the rug he had placed so +tenderly about her. But a terrible change had come over the delicate +features--the sightless eyes were wide open, the lips had fallen apart; +his glance, travelling down, saw that her left hand, the hand where +gleamed his mother's wedding ring, was slightly clenched. + +Again Vanderlyn passed his hand over his eyes. He stared about him with +a touch of helpless bewilderment, but he could do nothing, even if there +had been anything to do; it was she who had insisted that they should be +unencumbered by any luggage. + +He crouched down, and, with an involuntary inward shrinking, took up the +chilly, heavy hand and tried to warm it against his cheek; then he +shivered, his teeth chattered, with a groan of which the sound echoed +strangely in his ears he hid his face in the folds of her grey cloth +gown----For a few moments the extent of his calamity blotted out +everything. + +And then, as Vanderlyn lay there, there suddenly opened before him a way +of escape from his intolerable agony and sense of loss, and he welcomed +it with eager relief. He raised his head, and began to think intently. +How inexplicable that he had not thought of this--the only way--at once! +It was so simple and so easy; he saw himself flinging wide open the +narrow carriage door, and then, with that still figure clasped in his +arms, stepping out into the rushing darkness.... + +His mind was now working with incredible quickness and clearness. How +good it was to know that here, in France, there need be--there would +be--no public scandal! In England or America the supposed suicide of two +such people as were Margaret Pargeter and himself could not hope to be +concealed; not so in France. + +Here, as Vanderlyn knew well, there was every chance that such a love +tragedy as the one of which he and Mrs. Pargeter would be supposed to +have been hero and heroine, would remain hidden--hidden, that is, from +everyone except those closely connected with her and with himself. His +own chief, the American Ambassador, would be informed of what had +happened, but he was a wise old man, there was no fear of indiscretion +in that quarter; but--yes, he, Vanderlyn, must face that fact--Tom +Pargeter would know the truth. + +Vanderlyn's hidden abhorrence of _the other man_,--of the man whose +friend he had perforce compelled himself to be for so long, rose in a +great flood. + +Tom Pargeter? The selfish, mean-souled, dull-witted human being, whose +huge fortune, coupled with the masculine virtues of physical courage and +straightness in matters of sport, made him not only popular but in a +small way a personage! Pargeter, no doubt, would suffer, especially in +his self-esteem; on the other hand, he, the husband, would feel that so +had his own conduct, his coarse infidelity, his careless neglect of his +wife, been fully condoned. + +With a choking feeling of sharp pain, Vanderlyn suddenly remembered that +what Tom Pargeter knew now, poor Peggy's son would some day have to +know. For awhile, no doubt, the boy would be kept in merciful ignorance +of the tragedy, but then, when the lad was growing into manhood, some +blundering fool, or more likely some well-intentioned woman, probably +his aunt, Sophy Pargeter, would feel it her duty to smirch for him his +mother's memory.... + +Nay, that could not, that must never, be! Vanderlyn's head fell forward +on his breast; there came back, wrapping him as in a shroud, the awful +feeling of desolation, of life-long loss,--for he now knew, with +inexorable knowledge, what the future held for him. + +It must be his fate to live, not die; he must live in order to safeguard +the honour of Margaret Pargeter, the beloved woman who had trusted him +wholly, not only in this, which was to have been their supreme +adventure, but during the whole of their long, almost wordless love. It +was for her sake that, she dead, he must go on living; for her sake he +must make what now, at this moment, seemed to be a sacrifice almost +beyond his power, for reason told him that he must leave her, and as +soon as possible, lying there dead--alone. + +With tender, absent fingers he smoothed out the woollen folds to which +his face had been pressed; he slipped from her finger the thin gold +ring, and placed it once more where he had always worn it from the day +of his mother's death till an hour ago. + +Then he stood up, and turned deliberately away. + +There came the loud wailing whistle which told that the train was +nearing a station. He leaned out of the window; the lights of a town +were flashing past, and he grimly told himself that there was no time to +lose. + +Vanderlyn again bent down; the instinctive repugnance of the living for +the dead suddenly left him. His darling little Peggy! How could he bear +to leave her there--alone? If he and she had been what they ought to +have been--husband and wife--even then, he felt that never would he have +left her to the neglect, to the forgetfulness to which other men leave +their beloved dead. There rose before him the memory of one of the most +moving of the world's great pictures, Goya's painting of mad Queen Joan +bearing about with her the unburied body of Philip. + +He turned that which had been Margaret Pargeter so that her face would +be completely hidden from anyone opening the door and looking into the +carriage. + +Yet, even as he was doing this, Vanderlyn kept a sharp watch and ward +over his own nerves. His had now become the mental attitude of a man who +desires to save the living woman whom he loves from some great physical +danger. Blessing his own foresight in providing the large rug which he +had folded about her so tenderly an hour ago, he pulled up a fold of it +till it covered, and completely concealed, her head. Should a traveller +now enter the carriage he would see nothing but a woman apparently +plunged in deep slumber. + +Again Vanderlyn glanced, with far more scrutinising eyes than he had +done when first entering the train, through the two glazed apertures +which commanded a view of the next carriage; it was, as he knew well, +empty. + +He turned once more the silk shade over the lamp, jammed his hat down +over his eyes, set his lips together, and, averting his eyes from what +he was leaving, opened the railway carriage door.... + +The train was slowing down; a few hundred yards ahead lay the station. +Vanderlyn stepped to one side of the footboard, and waited till the door +through which he had just passed swung to; then he turned the handle, +securing it firmly. + +With soft, swift steps, he walked past the window of the now darkened +carriage and slipped into the next empty, brightly-lighted compartment. +There came over him a strong temptation to look through the little +apertures giving into the darkened carriage he had just left, but it was +a temptation which he resisted. Instead, he leant out of the window, as +does a traveller who is nearing his destination. + +Soon there floated up to him the shouting of "Dorgival! Cinq minutes +d'arrêt!" and when the train at last stopped, there arose the joyous +chatter which attends every arrival in a French station. + +Vanderlyn waited for a few moments; then he stepped down from the +carriage, and began walking quietly down the platform. With intense +relief he remembered that the guard of the train whom he had feed so +well, and who must have noticed him with Peggy, had been left behind in +Paris. + +Having passed the end compartment and guard's van he stood for awhile +staring down at the permanent way, counting the rails which gleamed in +the half darkness. He measured with his eyes the distance which +separated the platform on which he was standing from that whence the +next train back to Paris must start. + +There was very little risk either of accident or detection, but it was +his duty to minimise whatever risk there was. He dropped down gently +onto the permanent way, and stood for a moment in the deep shadow cast +by the rear of the train he had just left; then, cautiously advancing, +he looked both up and down the line, and made his way to the other side. + +The platform on which he now found himself was deserted, for the whole +life of the station was still centred round the train which had just +arrived; but as he started across the rails Vanderlyn became possessed +with a feeling of acute, almost intolerable, suspense. He longed with a +feverish longing to see the demi-rapide glide out into the darkness. He +told himself he had been a fool to suppose that anyone could enter the +darkened carriage where the dead woman lay without at once discovering +the truth,--and he began asking himself what he would do were the awful +discovery made, and were the fact that he had been her travelling +companion suddenly revealed or suspected. + +But Laurence Vanderlyn was not subjected to so dread an ordeal; at last +there floated to where he was standing the welcome cry of "En voiture! +En voiture, s'il vous plaît!" The dark serpentine mass on which the +lonely man's eyes were fixed shivered as though it were a sentient being +waking to life, and slowly the train began to move. + +Vanderlyn started walking up the platform, and for awhile he kept in +step with the slowly gliding carriages; then they swept by more quickly, +a swift procession of gleaming lights.... + +As at last the red disc melted into the night, he gave a muffled groan +of anguish, for mingling with his sense of intense relief, came that of +eternal, irreparable loss. + +Ironic fortune was kind to Vanderlyn that night; his return ticket from +far-away Orange, though only issued in Paris some two hours before, was +allowed to pass unchallenged; and a couple of francs bestowed on a +communicative employé drew the welcome news that a southern express +bound for Paris was about to stop at Dorgival. + + + + +IV. + + +It was only eleven o'clock when Vanderlyn found himself once more in the +Gare de Lyon. He walked quickly out of the great station which was +henceforth to hold for him such intimately tender and poignant memories; +and then, instead of taking a cab, he made his way on foot down to the +lonely Seine-side quays. + +There, leaning over and staring down into the swift black waters of the +river, he planned out his drab immediate future. + +In one sense the way was clear before him,--he must of course go on +exactly as before; show himself, that is, in his usual haunts; take the +moderate part he had hitherto taken in what he felt to be the dreary +round of so-called pleasures with which Paris was now seething. That +must be his task--his easy and yet intolerable task--during the next +week or ten days, until the disappearance of Margaret Pargeter became +first suspected, and then discovered. + +But before that was likely to happen many long days would certainly go +by, for,--as is so often the case when a man and woman have become, in +secret, everything to one another, Laurence Vanderlyn and Mrs. Pargeter +had gradually detached themselves from all those whom they had once +called their friends, and even Peggy had had no intimate who would miss +a daily, or even a weekly, letter. + +Indeed, it was just possible, so Vanderlyn, resting his arms on the +stone parapet, now told himself, that the first part of his ordeal might +last as long as a fortnight, that is, till Tom Pargeter came back from +England. + +There was of course yet another possibility; it was conceivable that +everything would not fall out as they, or rather Peggy, had imagined. +Pargeter, for instance, might return sooner; and, if he did so, he would +certainly require his wife's immediate presence in Paris, for the +millionaire was one of those men who hate to be alone even in their +spare moments. Also more than his wife's company, Pargeter valued her +presence as part of what the French so excellently style the _décor_ of +his life; she was his thing, for which he had paid a good price; some of +his friends, the sycophants with which he loved to be surrounded, would +have said that he had paid for her very dearly. + +It was very unlikely, however, that Tom Pargeter would return to Paris +before he was expected to do so. For many years past he had spent the +first fortnight of each May at Newmarket; and, as is the curious custom +of his kind, he seldom varied the order of his rather monotonous +pleasures. + +But stay--Vanderlyn suddenly remembered Madame de Léra, that is the one +human being who had been in Peggy's confidence. She was a real and +terrible point of danger--or rather she might at any moment become so. +It was with her, at the de Léra villa in the little village of +Marly-le-Roi, that Mrs. Pargeter was, even now, supposed to be staying. +This being so, he, Vanderlyn, must make it his business to see Madame de +Léra at the first possible moment. Together they would have to concoct +some kind of possible story--he shuddered with repugnance at the +thought. + +Long before Peggy's confidences in the train, the American diplomatist +had been well aware that Adèle de Léra disapproved of his close +friendship with Mrs. Pargeter; and she had never lent herself to any of +those innocent complicities with which even good women are often so +ready to help those of their friends who are most foolish--whom perhaps +they know to be more tempted--than themselves. + +The one thing of paramount importance, so Vanderlyn suddenly reminded +himself, was that no one--not even Madame de Léra--should ever know that +he and Margaret Pargeter had left Paris that night, together. How could +this fact be best concealed, and concealed for ever? + +To the unspoken question came swift answer. It flashed on the man +lingering on the solitary river-side quay, that even now, to-night, it +was not too late for him to establish the most effectual of alibis. By +taking a fiacre and bribing the man to drive quickly he could be back in +his rooms in the Rue de Rivoli, dressed, and at his club, before +midnight. Fool that he was to have wasted even a quarter of an hour! + +Vanderlyn struck sharply across the dimly-lighted thoroughfare; he +started walking down one of the narrow streets which connect the river +quays with commercial Paris. A few moments later, having picked up a +cab, he was driving rapidly westward, down the broad, still seething +Boulevard du Temple, and, as he suddenly became aware with a sharp pang +at his heart, past the entrance to the quiet mediæval square, where, +only four short days ago, he and Peggy walking side by side, had held +the conversation which was to prove pregnant of so much short-lived joy, +and of such long-lived pain. + +Like so many modern Americans, to whom every material manifestation of +wealth has become distasteful, Laurence Vanderlyn had chosen to pitch +his Paris tent on the top floor of one of those eighteenth-century +houses which, if lacking such conveniences as electric light and lifts, +can command in their place the stately charm and spaciousness of which +the modern Parisian architect seems to have lost the secret. His +_appartement_ consisted of a few large, airy, low-pitched rooms, of +which the stone balconies overlooked the Tuileries gardens, while from a +corner window of his sitting-room Vanderlyn could obtain what was in +very truth a bird's-eye view of the vast Place de la Concorde. + +Very soon after his arrival in Paris the diplomatist had the good +fortune to come across a couple of French servants, a husband and wife, +who exactly suited his simple and yet fastidious requirements. They were +honest, thrifty, clean, and their only fault--that of chattering to one +another like magpies--was to Vanderlyn an agreeable proof that they led +a life quite independent of his own. Never had he been more glad to know +that this was so than to-night, for they greeted his return home with +the easy indifference, and real pleasure, very unlike the surface +respect and ill-concealed resentment with which a master's unexpected +appearance would have been received by a couple of more cosmopolitan +servitors. + +With nerves strung up to their highest tension, forcing himself only to +think of the present, Vanderlyn put on his evening clothes. It was still +wanting some minutes to midnight when he left the Rue de Rivoli for the +Boulevard de la Madeleine. A few moments later he was at the door of the +club where he was sure of finding, even at this time of night, plenty of +friends and acquaintances who would be able to testify, in the very +unlikely event of its being desirable that they should do so, to the +fact that he had been there that evening. + + * * * * * + +L'Union is the most interesting, as it is in a certain sense the most +exclusive, of Paris clubs. Founded in memory of the hospitality shown by +the English gentry to the French émigrées, during the Revolution, this, +the most old-fashioned of Paris clubs, impales the Royal arms of France, +that is, the old fleur-de-lys, with those of England. + +At all times L'Union has been in a special sense a resort of +diplomatists, and Vanderlyn spent there a great deal of his spare time. +The American was popular among his French fellow-members, to whom his +excellent French and his unobtrusive good breeding made him an agreeable +companion. There could have been no greater proof of how he was regarded +there than the fact that, thanks to his efforts, Tom Pargeter had been +elected to the club. True, the millionaire-sportsman did not often +darken the threshold of the stately old club-house, but he was none the +less exceedingly proud of his membership of L'Union, for it gave him an +added standing in the cosmopolitan world in which he had early elected +to spend his life. Perhaps it was fortunate that he had so little use +for a club where gambling games are not allowed to be played--where, +indeed, as the younger members are apt to complain, dominoes take the +place of baccarat! + +The tall Irish footman whose special duty it was to wait on the foreign +members, came forward as Vanderlyn walked into the hall. "Mr. Pargeter +has been asking for you, sir; he's in the card-room." + +Vanderlyn felt a curious sensation sweep over him. That which he had +thought so improbable as to be scarcely worth consideration had come to +pass. Pargeter had not gone to England that night. He was here, in +Paris, at L'Union, asking for him. In a few moments they would be face +to face. + +As Vanderlyn walked up the broad staircase, he asked himself, with a +feeling of agonising uncertainty, whether it was in any way possible +that Peggy's husband had found out, even suspected, anything of their +plan. But no! Reason told him that such a thing was quite inconceivable. +No compromising word had been written by the one to the other, and every +detail had been planned and carried out in such a way as to make +discovery or betrayal impossible. + +But to-night reason had very little to say to Laurence Vanderlyn, and +his strongly drawn face set in hard lines as he sauntered through now +fast thinning rooms, for the habitué of L'Union generally seeks his +quiet home across the Seine about twelve. + +As he returned the various greetings which came to him from right and +left,--for a French club has about it none of the repressive etiquette +which governs similar institutions in England and America,--the +diplomatist felt as doubtless feels any imaginative man who for the +first time goes under fire; what he experienced was not so much dread as +a wonder how he was likely to bear himself during this now imminent +meeting with Peggy's husband. + +Suddenly Vanderlyn caught sight of Pargeter, and that some moments +before he himself was seen by him. The millionaire was standing watching +a game of whist, and he looked as he generally looked when at L'Union, +that is, bored and ill at ease, but otherwise much as usual. + +Tom Pargeter was a short man, and though he was over forty, his fair +hair, fat face, and neat, small features gave him an almost boyish look +of youth. He had one most unusual physical peculiarity, which caused him +to be remembered by strangers: this peculiarity consisted in the fact +that one of his eyes was green and the other blue. His manners were +those of a boy, of a boorish lad, rather than of a man; his vocabulary +was oddly limited, and yet he seldom used the correct word, for he +delighted in verbal aliases. + +Seeing Pargeter there before him, Laurence Vanderlyn, for the first time +in his life, learned what so many men and women learn very early in +their lives,--what it is to be afraid of a person, who, however +despicable, is, or may become, your tyrant. + +Hitherto his relations with Peggy's husband, though nothing to be proud +of, had brought with them nothing of conscious shame. Nay more, Laurence +Vanderlyn, in that long past of which now nothing remained, had tried to +see what was best in a character which, if fashioned meanly, was not +wholly bad. But now, to-night, he felt that he despised, hated, and, +what was to him, far worse, feared the human being towards whom he was +advancing with apparently eager steps. + +Suddenly the eyes of the two men met, but Pargeter was far too +pre-occupied with himself and his own concerns to notice anything +strained or unusual in Vanderlyn's face. All he saw was that here at +last was the man he wanted to see; his sulky face lightened, and he +walked forward with hand outstretched. + +"Hullo! Grid," he cried, "so here you are at last! You see I've not +gone? There came a wire from the boy; he's hurt his knee-cap!" + +Vanderlyn murmured an exclamation of concern; as they met he had wheeled +round, thus avoiding the other's hand. + +"Nothing much," went on Pargeter quickly, "but of course Peggy will be +wild to go to him, so I thought I'd wait and take her to-morrow, eh! +what?" + +Side by side they began walking down the long reception-room. Vanderlyn +was telling himself, with a feeling of sore, dull pain, that this was +the first time, the very first time, that he had ever known Tom Pargeter +show a kindly touch of consideration for his wife. But then this +concerned the boy, of whom the father, in his careless way, was fond and +proud; their child had always remained a link, if a slight link, between +Tom and Peggy. + +"It was just too late to get a wire through to her," went on Pargeter, +fretfully, "I mean to that God-forsaken place where she's staying with +Madame de Léra; but I've arranged for her to be wired to early in the +morning. If I'd been half sharp I'd have sent the trolley for her----" + +"The trolley?" repeated Vanderlyn, mechanically. + +"The motor--the motor, man! But it never occurred to me to do it till it +was too late." + +"Would you like me to go out to-morrow morning and fetch her back?" +asked Vanderlyn slowly. + +"I wish you would!" cried the other eagerly, "then I should be sure of +her coming back in time for us to start by the twelve-twenty train. When +shall I send the trolley for you?" + +"I'll go by train," said Vanderlyn shortly. "Madame de Léra's villa is +at Marly-le-Roi, isn't it?" + +"Yes, haven't you ever been there?" + +Vanderlyn looked at Pargeter. "No," he said very deliberately, "I +scarcely know Madame de Léra." + +"How odd," said Pargeter indifferently. "Peggy's always with her, and +you and Peggy are such pals." + +"One doesn't always care for one's friends' friends," said Vanderlyn +dryly. He longed to shake the other off, but Pargeter clung closely to +his side. Each put on the hat and light coat handed to him; and, when +once out on the boulevard, Pargeter slipped his hand confidingly through +the other's arm. + +His touch burnt Vanderlyn. + +"By the way, Grid, I've forgotten to tell you why I wanted to see you +to-night. I'd be so much obliged if you would go down to Chantilly at +the end of the week and see how that new josser's getting on. You might +drop me a line if everything doesn't seem all right." + +Vanderlyn murmured a word of assent. This, then, was the reason why +Pargeter had come to L'Union that night,--simply in order to ask +Vanderlyn to keep an eye on his new trainer! To save himself, too, the +trouble of writing a letter, for Tom Pargeter was one of those modern +savers--and users--of time who prefer to conduct their correspondence +entirely by telegram. + +They were now close to the Place de l'Opéra. "Let's go on to 'The +Wash,'" said Pargeter suddenly. + +The eyes of the two men became focussed on the long line of brilliantly +lit up windows of a flat overlooking the square. Here were the +headquarters of a Paris club, bearing the name of America's first and +greatest President, which had earned for itself the nickname of "Monaco +Junior." + +Tom Pargeter was no gambler,--your immensely wealthy man rarely is,--but +it gave him pleasure to watch the primitive emotions which gambling +generally brings to the human surface, and so he spent at what he called +"The Wash" a good many of his idle hours. + +"Let's turn in here for a minute," he said, eagerly, "Florac was holding +the bank two hours ago; let's go and see if he's still at it." + +Vanderlyn made a movement of recoil; he murmured something about having +to be up early the next morning, but Pargeter, with the easy selfishness +which so often looks like good-nature, pressed him to go in. "It's quite +early," he urged again, and his companion was in no state of body or +mind to resist even the slight pressure of another's will. + + * * * * * + +The brightly lighted rooms of "Monaco Junior" were full of colour, +sound, and movement; the atmosphere was in almost ludicrous contrast to +that of the decorous Union. The evening was only just beginning, the +rooms were full, and Pargeter was greeted with boisterous warmth; here, +if nowhere else, his money made him king. + +He led the way to the card-room which, with its crowd of men surrounding +each of the tables, was very evidently the heart of the club. "Do look +at Florac!" he murmured to Vanderlyn. "When I left here a couple of +hours ago, he was winning a bit, but I expect he's losing now. I always +like to watch him play--he's such a bad loser!" + +The two men had threaded their way close to the baccarat table, and now +they formed the centre of a group who were throwing furtive glances at +the banker, a pale lean Frenchman of the narrow-jowled, Spanish type so +often repeated in members of the old noblesse. + +The Marquis de Florac was "somebody," to use the expressive French +phrase,--a member of that small Parisian circle of which each individual +is known by reputation to every provincial bourgeois, and to every +foreign reader of French social news. + +There had been a time when de Florac had set the fashion, and that not +only in waistcoats and walking-sticks. He was a fine swordsman, and was +even now in some request as second at fashionable duels. None knew more +certainly than he every punctilio of those unwritten laws which govern +affairs of honour, and, had he been born to even a quarter of the +fortune of Tom Pargeter, his record would probably have remained +unstained. Unfortunately for him this had not been the case; he had soon +run through the moderate fortune left him by his father, and he had +ruined by his own folly, and his one vice of gambling, any chance that +might have remained to him of a good marriage. + +Even in the Faubourg St. Germain,--loyal to its black sheep as are ever +the aristocracies of the old world,--Florac was now looked at askance; +and in the world of the boulevards strange stories were told as to the +expedients by which he now made--it could not be called earned--a +living. The playing of those games which can best be described as +requiring a minimum of judgment and a maximum of luck was apparently the +only occupation remaining to the Marquis de Florac, and when in funds he +was often to be found in the card-rooms of "Monaco Junior." + +"He's losing now," whispered Pargeter. "I should think he's near the end +of his tether, eh? Funny how money goes from hand to hand! I don't +suppose Florac knows that it's _my_ money he's chucking away!" + +"Your money?" repeated Vanderlyn with listless surprise, "d'you mean to +say that you've been lending Florac money?" He looked, with a pity in +which there entered a vague fellow-feeling, at the mask-like face of the +man against whom the luck seemed to be going so dead. + +"I'm not quite a fool!" exclaimed Pargeter, piqued at the suggestion. +"All the same, Grid, it _is_ my money, or a little bit of it at any +rate!" + +An English acquaintance of the two men came up to them. "The French are +a wonderful people," he said rather crossly, "everybody says that Florac +is ruined,--that he's living on ten francs a day allowed him by a kind +grandmother--and yet since I have been standing here he's dropped, at +least so I've calculated, not far short of four hundred pounds!" + +A grin came over Pargeter's small neat face, and lit up his odd, +different-coloured eyes. "'_Cherchez la femme_,'" he observed, affecting +an atrocious English accent; and then he repeated, as if he were himself +the inventor, the patentee, of the admirable aphorism, "'_Cherchez la +femme!_' That's what you have got to do in the case of Florac, and of a +good many other Frenchmen of his kind, I fancy!" + +"I'm going home now, Pargeter," said Vanderlyn with sudden, harsh +decision. "If you really wish me to go out to Marly-le-Roi in one of +your cars to-morrow morning, will you please give orders for it to be +round at my place at nine o'clock?" + + + + +V. + + +From what seemed an infinite distance, Vanderlyn awoke the next morning +to hear the suave voice of his servant, Poulain, murmuring in his ear, +"The automobile is here to take Monsieur for a drive in the country. I +did not wish to wake Monsieur, but the chauffeur declared that Monsieur +desired the automobile to be here at nine." + +Poulain's master sat up in bed and stared at Poulain. Then suddenly he +remembered everything that had happened to him the evening before. In a +flash he even lived once more the wakeful hours of the night which had +had so awful a beginning; only at four o'clock had he found sleep. + +"Yes?" he said. Then again, "Yes, Poulain. I wished to start at nine +o'clock. Say that I shall be down in a quarter of an hour." + +"And then, while Monsieur is dressing, my wife will be preparing his +little breakfast--unless, indeed, Monsieur would rather wait, and have +his little breakfast in bed?" + +"No," said Vanderlyn, quickly, "I shall not have time to wait for +coffee." + + * * * * * + +The keen morning air, the swift easy motion of the large car revived +Vanderlyn and steadied his nerves. He elected to sit in front by the +side of Pargeter's silent English chauffeur. At this early hour the +Paris streets were comparatively clear, and a few moments brought them +to the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. There, half way down was Tom +Pargeter's splendid villa; as they passed it in a flash, Vanderlyn +averted his head. To his morbid fancy it suddenly assumed the aspect of +a great marble tomb. + +The car swung on through the now deserted Bois; soon it was rushing up +the steep countrified streets of St. Cloud, and then, settling down to a +high speed, they found themselves in the broad silent alleys of those +splendid royal woods which form so noble a girdle about western Paris. +They sped through sunlit avenues of fresh green foliage, past old houses +which had seen the splendid pageant of Louis the Fifteenth and his Court +sweep by on their way to Marly-le-Roi, and so till they gained the lofty +ridge which dominates the wide valley of the Seine. + +Suddenly the chauffeur turned to Vanderlyn, and spoke for the first +time: "Would you like to slow down a bit, sir? Mrs. Pargeter generally +stops the car here to have a look at the view." + +"No," said Vanderlyn hoarsely, "we haven't time to-day; we've got to get +back to Paris in time for Mr. and Mrs. Pargeter to catch, if possible, +the twelve-twenty o'clock train." + +He leant back--a feeling of horror and self-contempt possessed him. His +life was now one long lie; even when speaking to a servant, he was +compelled to imply what he knew to be untrue. + +They ran down into the quaint little town which has scarcely altered +since the days when Madame du Barry was dragged hence, screaming and +wringing her hands, to Paris, to prison, and to the guillotine. +Vanderlyn's distraught imagination saw something sinister in the +profound quietude of the place; it was full of shuttered villas, for +through the winter each village in the neighbourhood of Paris +hibernates, those whom the peasants style les bourgeois still regarding +country life as essentially a summer pastime. + +They now came to a high blank wall, broken by an iron gate. "This is the +house, sir," said the chauffeur abruptly. + +Vanderlyn jumped out, and rang a primitive bell; he waited some minutes +and then rang again. At last he heard the sound of steps hurrying along +a gravel path; and the gate was opened by an old woman. + +"You have come to the wrong house," she said curtly, "this is Madame de +Léra's villa." Then, as she caught sight of the Pargeters' chauffeur, a +more amiable look stole over her wizened face,--"Pardon, perhaps +Monsieur has brought a letter from Madame Pargeter?" She wiped her hand +on her apron and held it out. + +Vanderlyn remained silent a moment; he knew that now had come the moment +for him to utter an exclamation of surprise, to explain that he had +thought to find Mrs. Pargeter here,--but his soul revolted from the lie. + +"Yes, I have come to see Madame de Léra," he said in a low voice. +"Kindly give her my card, and ask her if she will be good enough to +receive me?" + +The old woman turned on her heel; she led Vanderlyn into the silent +house, and showed him into a large sitting-room where the furniture was +still swathed in the rough sheeting with which the careful French +housewife drapes her household goods when leaving them for the winter. + +"I will light the fire," said the servant, apologetically; "Madame does +not use this room when we are here alone." + +"I am quite warm," said Vanderlyn quickly. "Besides, I shall only be +here a very few moments." + +The woman gave him a curious, rather suspicious look, and went to find +her mistress. + +Vanderlyn, in spite of the words he had just uttered, suddenly told +himself that, he felt cold--cold and dizzy. He moved over to the window. +It overhung a wooded precipice, below which sparkled the Seine,--that +same river into whose dark depths he had gazed so despairingly the night +before. Here, looking at the sunlit panorama of wood, water, and sky +spread out before him, Peggy must often have stood. For the first time +since the terrible moment when he had watched the train bearing her dead +body disappear into the darkness, Vanderlyn thought of her as living; he +seemed to feel her soft, warm presence in this place which she had +loved, and where she had spent peaceful, happy hours. + +He heard the door open and shut, and, turning round, found himself face +to face with the Frenchwoman whom he knew to have been Margaret +Pargeter's devoted friend. Although he was well aware that Madame de +Léra had never liked or trusted him, he, on his side, had always admired +and appreciated her serenity and simple dignity of demeanour. As she +came forward, clad in the austere dress of a French widow, he noted the +expression of constraint, of surprise, on her worn face. + +"Mr. Vanderlyn?" she said, interrogatively; and, as she waited for an +explanation of the American's presence, surprise gave way to a look of +great sternness and severity, almost of dislike. Nay more, Madame de +Léra's attitude was instinct with protest--the protest of an honest +woman drawn unwillingly into what she feels to be an atmosphere of +untruth and intrigue. She was telling herself that she owed the fact of +Vanderlyn's visit to some slight hitch in the plan in which she had been +persuaded to play the part of an accomplice; she felt that Margaret +Pargeter ought not to have subjected her to an interview with her lover. + +Vanderlyn reddened. He felt suddenly angered. Madame de Léra's manner +was insulting, not only to him, but--but to Mrs. Pargeter, to his poor +dead love. Any thought of telling Madame de Léra the truth, or even part +of the truth, left him. + +"You must forgive my intrusion," he said, coldly; "I have come with a +message from Mr. Pargeter. He believes his wife to be here, and he +wishes her to be informed that her son, little Jasper, has had an +accident. When the news arrived last night, it was too late to +telegraph, and so he asked me to come here this morning in his motor in +order to bring Mrs. Pargeter back to Paris. He proposes that she should +accompany him to England to-day by the twelve o'clock train." + +An expression of deep bewilderment crossed Madame de Léra's face. For +the first time since she had glanced at Vanderlyn, she became aware that +she was in the presence of a man who was suffering under some keen +stress of feeling. She became oppressed with a great misgiving. What did +his presence here this morning, his strange unreal words, signify? What +was the inward meaning of this sinister comedy? It was of course clear +that the secret elopement had not taken place. But then, where _was_ +Mrs. Pargeter? + +She cast a long searching look at Laurence Vanderlyn. The American's +face had become expressionless. He seemed tired, like a man who had not +slept, but the look she thought she had surprised,--that look telling of +the suppression of deep feeling, of hidden anguish,--had gone. The fact +that she did not know how much Vanderlyn knew she knew added to Madame +de Léra's perplexity. She was determined at all costs not to betray her +friend. + +"I regret to inform you," she said, quietly, "that Mrs. Pargeter is not +here. It is true that I was expecting her to come yesterday. But she +disappointed me--she did not come. Does no one know where she is?" She +threw as great an emphasis as was possible in the impassive French +language into her question. + +Vanderlyn avoided her perplexed, questioning glance. "Since yesterday +evening," he answered, "all trace of Margaret Pargeter has been lost. +She seems to have left her house about six o'clock, and then to have +disappeared--utterly. The servants believed," he added, after a pause, +"that she was coming straight to you; she had, it seems, taken some +luggage to the station the day before, and seen personally to its +despatch." + +There was a pause; neither spoke for some moments, and Madame de Léra +noticed that Vanderlyn had not asked her if Peggy's luggage had arrived +at her house. + +"Then, Monsieur, it is surely clear," she exclaimed at last, "that there +has been an accident, a terrible accident to our poor friend! I mean on +her way to--to the station. But doubtless that thought has also occurred +to you--if not to Mr. Pargeter--and you have already made all necessary +enquiries?" + +Vanderlyn, from being pale, flushed deeply. "No," he said, "I am afraid +nothing of the kind has been done--yet. You see, Pargeter believes her +to be here." + +The words "But you--_you_ knew she was not here!" trembled on Madame de +Léra's lips, but she did not utter them. She felt as if she were walking +amid quicksands; she told herself that there was far more danger in +saying a word too much than a word too little. + +"I regret," she said, "that you have made a useless journey, Mr. +Vanderlyn. I must request you to go back and tell Mr. Pargeter that his +wife is not here, and I beg, I entreat, you to inform the police that +she is missing! For all we know,"--she looked at him with indignant +severity,--"she may be lying ill, mortally injured, in one of our +terrible Paris hospitals!" + +As he made no assent to her imploring words, a look of anger came into +Madame de Léra's eyes. + +"I will ask you to allow me to return with you to Paris," she said, +quickly. "I cannot rest inactive here in the face of the possibility, +nay, the probability, I have indicated. If you, Mr. Vanderlyn, do not +feel justified in making the enquiries I have suggested, no such scruple +need restrain _me_." + +She turned away, making no effort to mask her displeasure, almost her +contempt, for the man who seemed to be so little moved by the mysterious +disappearance of the woman he loved. + +A few moments later Madame de Léra came back dressed for the drive. As +they walked through into the hall of the villa, she suddenly turned, and +with a strange gentleness asked her silent companion a question, "Mr. +Vanderlyn, you look very tired; have you had any breakfast?" + +He looked at her without answering, and she repeated her words. + +"Yes," said Vanderlyn,--"that is, no, I have not. I was up late last +night,--there was no time this morning," he spoke hurriedly, confusedly; +the sudden kindness in her tone had brought scalding tears to his eyes, +and he felt a nervous fear that he was about to break down. Madame de +Léra took his arm; she opened a door and pushed him through into the +kitchen, just now the one bright, warm, cheerful room in the house. + +"My good Catherine," she said, "give this gentleman a cup of +coffee--quickly!" + +The presence of the old servant steadied Vanderlyn's nerves; with a +muttered word of thanks he drank what was put before him, and then they +went out, across the dewy lawn, to the gate. + +Vanderlyn placed his companion in the back of the car, and himself took +the vacant seat next to Pargeter's phlegmatic chauffeur, for he wished +to remain silent. Madame de Léra's alteration of manner, her gentleness, +her implied sympathy, frightened him. He would rather have endured her +cold air of protest, of dislike. + +And yet, as they drove swiftly back to Paris, taking, however, rather +longer on the return journey, for the country roads were now full of +animation and movement, Vanderlyn felt himself leaning, as against a +wall, on Madame de Léra's strong upright nature. She might dislike, +disapprove, even despise him,--but in this matter they would be one in +their desire to shield Peggy's fair name. He would have given much to be +able to still her evident anxiety, but that course was, so he felt, +forbidden to him; he had no right to share with another human being the +burden of his knowledge, of his awful grief. With a pang he reminded +himself that even Madame de Léra's state of suspense was preferable to a +knowledge of the truth. + +At last they turned into the Bois de Boulogne, rushing through the leafy +roads at a high speed; a few moments more would see them in the +beautiful avenue where stood, isolated from its neighbours, the Villa +Pargeter, instinct with flamboyant luxury and that perfection only +achieved by the lavish use of money. + +Tom Pargeter had a supreme contempt for the careless way in which the +French millionaires of his acquaintance conducted their lives. He liked +to get the full value of his money, and was proud of boasting to his +intimates that he kept the people who worked for him up to the top mark. +So it was that the sanded garden, even now blazing with flowers, which +surrounded the square marble villa, and separated it from the carriage +road and tan gallop, looked like a set piece, a vivid bit of scene +painting, in the bright morning sunlight. + +When they came within sight of the wrought bronze gates of the villa, +Madame de Léra stood up in the car and leant over the front. She touched +Vanderlyn on the shoulder. "Then if we find that Mr. Pargeter is still +without any knowledge of his wife, I am to say that I know nothing--that +I was expecting her yesterday evening, and that she never arrived?" + +"Yes," he answered, "that is, Madame, what I expect to hear you say. It +will then be for Mr. Pargeter to take what steps he judges proper." + +As the powerful car swung through the gates, Vanderlyn saw that the +front-door was wide open, and that the English butler was waiting to +receive them; when the man saw that his mistress was not in the car, a +look of perplexity came over his impassive face. + +"Mr. Pargeter has been awaiting you, sir, for the last half hour," he +said, "he is very anxious to catch the twelve o'clock express. The +luggage has already gone on to the station. Mr. Pargeter wished the car +to wait,--but--but is it to wait, sir?" he asked, helplessly. + +"Yes," said Vanderlyn, shortly, "the car had better wait. Where is Mr. +Pargeter?" + +"He's not down yet, sir; he is breakfasting in his dressing-room. All +the arrangements were made last night, but I will let him know you have +arrived, sir." He looked doubtfully at Madame de Léra, too well trained +to ask any question, and yet sufficiently human not to be able to +conceal his astonishment at Mrs. Pargeter's non-appearance. Then, +preceding the two visitors upstairs, he led them through the suite of +large reception-rooms into a small octagon boudoir which was habitually +used by Margaret Pargeter as her sitting-room. + +There he left them, and, standing amid surroundings which all spoke to +them, to the woman, of her friend, to the man of his love,--from the +hooded chair where Peggy generally sat to the little writing-table where +she had written so many notes to them both,--Madame de Léra and Laurence +Vanderlyn felt overwhelmed with a common feeling of shame, of guilt. In +silence they waited for Tom Pargeter, avoiding each other's eyes; and +the Frenchwoman's fine austere face grew rigid--this was the first time +in her long life that she had been connected with an intrigue. She felt +humiliated, horrified at the part she now found herself compelled to +play. + +In spite of its costly luxury, and its wonderful beauty of +decoration,--an exquisite Nattier was let into a panel above the +fireplace, and a row of eighteenth-century pastels hung on the light +grey walls,--the octagon apartment lacked the restful charm which +belongs to many a shabby little sitting-room. The architect of the villa +had sacrificed everything to the great reception-rooms, and in the +boudoir were far too many doors. + +One of these, which Vanderlyn had never noticed before, was now suddenly +flung open, and, outlined against a narrow winding staircase, stood a +figure which appeared at once grotesque and menacing to the man and +woman who stood staring at the unexpected apparition. It was Tom +Pargeter, clad in a bright yellow dressing-gown, and holding a fork in +his left hand. + +"I say, Peggy, look sharp,--there's no time to be lost! I told Plimmer +to pack some of your things--not that there's any reason why you should +come if you don't want to--for there's nothing much the matter with the +boy, and he'll probably get well all the quicker if you----" + +The speaker suddenly broke short the quick sentences; he stared round +the little room, and then, catching sight of Madame de Léra who had been +partly concealed by a screen, "Damn!" he said, and turning, scampered +heavily up the staircase, leaving the door behind him open. + +Vanderlyn and his companion looked at each other uncomfortably. Madame +de Léra was not perhaps quite so shocked, either by Pargeter's +appearance or by his one exclamation apparently addressed to herself, as +the punctilious American supposed her to be. She knew no word of the +English language, and in her heart regarded all foreigners as +barbarians. + +They waited,--it seemed a long, long time, but as a matter of fact it +was but a very few minutes after Pargeter's abrupt entrance and exit, +when his short quick steps were heard resounding down the long suite of +reception-rooms. As he walked into the boudoir, the master of the +house--this time dressed in a suit of the large checks he generally +wore--bowed awkwardly to Madame de Léra, and then went over and shut the +door giving access to the winding staircase, that which in his hurry he +had omitted to close behind him. Then, and not till then, he turned to +Laurence Vanderlyn. + +"Well?" he said, "what's happened to Peggy? I'm told she's not here. Is +she ill?" + +"Peggy never arrived at Marly-le-Roi," said Vanderlyn. + +To himself his very voice seemed changed, his words charged with +terrible significance; but to Pargeter, the answer given to his question +sounded disagreeably indifferent and matter-of-fact. + +"Never arrived?" he echoed. "Where is she then? You don't mean to say +she's lost?" + +"Madame de Léra," said Vanderlyn, still in the same quiet, emotionless +voice, "thinks that she's met with an accident,"--he looked imploringly +at the Frenchwoman; surely it was time that she should come to his help. +"I am telling Mr. Pargeter," he said to her in French, "that you fear +she has met with an accident" + +"Yes!" she exclaimed, eagerly turning to Pargeter, "how can it be +otherwise, Monsieur?" She hesitated, looked at Vanderlyn, then quickly +withdrew her eyes from his face. His eyes were full of agony. She felt +as if she had peered through a secret window of another's soul. + +"That is why I have come back to Paris," she went on, addressing Peggy's +husband, "for I feel that not a moment should be lost in making +enquiries. There are certain places where they take those who meet with +accidents in our streets--accidents, alas! more and more frequent every +day. Let us start at once and make enquiries." + +Tom Pargeter heard her out with obvious impatience. But still his +varnish of good breeding so far lasted that he muttered a word or two of +gratitude for the trouble she had taken. Then he turned to Laurence +Vanderlyn. + +"Surely _you_ don't think anything has happened to her, Grid?" he asked, +nervously. "Now I come to think of it, she was a fool not to take one of +the cars. Then we should have had none of this worry. I've always said +the Paris cabs weren't safe. What d'ye think we had better do? We can't +start out and make a round of all the hospitals--the idea's absurd!" +Waiting a moment, he added dismally, "It's clear I can't take that +twelve-twenty train." + +He walked over to one of the windows, and drummed with his fingers on +the pane. + +Although Madame de Léra did not understand a word he said, Pargeter's +attitude was eloquent of how he had taken the astounding news, and she +looked at him with angry perplexity and pain. She said something in a +low voice to Vanderlyn; as a result he walked up to Pargeter and touched +him on the shoulder. + +"Tom," he said, "I'm afraid something ought to be done, and done +quickly. Madame de Léra suggests that we go to the Prefecture of Police; +every serious accident is, of course, always reported there at once." + +The other turned--"All right," he said, sullenly, "just as you like! But +I bet you anything that after we have taken all that trouble, we shall +come back to find Peggy, or news of her, here. You don't know her as +well as I do! I don't believe she's had an accident; I daresay you'll +laugh at me, Grid, but all I can say is that I don't _feel_ she's had an +accident. Take my word for it, old man, there's nothing to be frightened +about. Why, you look quite pale!" + +There came the distant sound of a telephone bell. "There!" he cried, "I +expect that _is_ Peggy, or news of her. What a bore it is having three +telephones in a house!" He left the room, and a moment later they heard +him shouting to his butler. + +Vanderlyn turned to Madame de Léra. "He doesn't believe that Mrs. +Pargeter has had an accident," he said, quietly, "you must not judge him +too harshly." He added, after a moment, "I think you must know, Madame +de Léra, that Mrs. Pargeter's husband has always been lacking in +imagination." + +Her only answer was a shrug of her shoulders. + + + + +VI. + + +Once a year the newspapers of each great capital publish, among other +statistics, a record of the disappearances which have occurred in their +midst during the preceding twelve months. These disappearances are not +counted by tens or by hundreds, but by thousands; and what is true of +every great city is in a very special sense true of Paris, the human +Cloaca Maxima of the world. There, the sudden vanishing, the +obliteration as it were, of a human being--especially of a +foreigner--arouses comparatively little surprise or interest among those +whose weary duty it is to try and find what has become of the lost one. + +To Madame de Léra,--even to Tom Pargeter,--the beginning of what was to +be so singular and perplexing a quest had about it something +awe-inspiring and absorbing. So it was that during the few minutes which +elapsed between their leaving the Avenue du Bois de Bologne and their +reaching the ancient building where the Paris Police still has its +headquarters, not a word was spoken by either of the two ill-assorted +companions who sat together in the rear of the car, for Vanderlyn, the +only one of the three who knew where the Prefecture of Police is +situated, had been placed next to the chauffeur in order that he might +direct him as to the way thither. + +By such men as Tom Pargeter and their like, the possibility of material +misfortune attacking themselves and those who form what may be called +their appanage, is never envisaged; and therefore, when such misfortune +comes to them, as it does sooner or later to all human beings, the grim +guest's presence is never accepted without an amazed sense of struggle +and revolt. + +The news of the accident to his little son had angered Pargeter, and +made him feel ill-used, but that it should have been followed by this +mystery concerning his wife's whereabouts seemed to add insult to +injury. So it was an ill-tempered, rather than an anxious man who joined +Vanderlyn on the worn steps of the huge frowning building wherein is +housed that which remains the most permanent and the most awe-inspiring +of Parisian institutions. + +As they passed through the great portals Tom Pargeter smiled, for the +first time; "We shall soon have news of her, Grid," he murmured, +confidently. + +Vanderlyn winced as he nodded a dubious assent. + +But at first everything went ill with them. Pargeter insisted on sending +for the police interpreter and stating his business in English; then, +irritated at the man's lack of comprehension, he broke out--to +Vanderlyn's surprise--into voluble French. But as the two foreigners +were sent from room to room in the old-fashioned, evil-smelling +building, as endless forms were placed before them to be filled up, it +became increasingly clear that the disappearance of a human being, +especially of an Englishwoman, did not strike the listless employees as +being particularly remarkable. + +The more angry Pargeter grew and the more violent in his language, the +more politely, listlessly, indifferent became those to whom he addressed +his questions and indignant complaints. + +The cosmopolitan millionaire-sportsman, accustomed to receive a constant +stream of adulation and consideration from all those with whom life +brought him in contact, was first amazed, and then angered, by the lack +of interest shown in him and in his affairs at the Prefecture of Police. + +Then, to his surprise and only half-concealed mortification, a reference +made by Laurence Vanderlyn to an incident which had taken place the year +before--that is, to the disappearance of an American citizen--followed +by the production of the diplomatist's card, brought about a magic +change. + +Immediately the two friends were introduced into the presence of an +important official; and a moment later Tom Pargeter's outraged dignity +and sense of importance were soothed by an outpouring of respectful +sympathy, while in an incredibly short time the full particulars of +every accident which had occurred in the streets of Paris during the +last twenty-four hours were laid before the anxious husband. But it soon +became clear that in none of these had Mrs. Pargeter been concerned. + +The official left the room a moment; then he returned with a colleague. + +This man, the chief of the detective force, proceeded with considerable +tact to examine and cross-examine both Pargeter and Vanderlyn concerning +the way in which Mrs. Pargeter had spent the earlier part of the +previous day--that is, the day on which she had disappeared. + +The man's manner--that of scenting a secret, of suspecting that more lay +behind the matter than was admitted by the husband and friend of the +woman they were seeking--produced a disagreeable impression on +Vanderlyn. For the first time he felt himself faced by a vague, but none +the less real, danger, and the feeling braced him. + +"Then Monsieur did not see this lady yesterday at all?" + +"No," said Vanderlyn, shortly; "the last time I saw Mrs. Pargeter in her +house was the day before yesterday, when I called on her about five +o'clock." + +"Monsieur is not related to the lady," asked the detective quietly. + +"No," said Vanderlyn again. "But I am an old friend of both Mr. and Mrs. +Pargeter, and that is why he asked me to accompany him here to-day." + +"Then when and how did you yourself first learn of Madame Pargeter's +disappearance?" asked the other suddenly. + +Vanderlyn hesitated; for a moment his tired brain refused to act--when +was he supposed to have heard of Peggy's disappearance? He looked +helplessly at Pargeter, then said suddenly, "I met my friend at L'Union +last night." + +"Then you already knew of Madame's disappearance last night?" said the +official eagerly. + +"No! no!" exclaimed Pargeter crossly. "Of course we didn't know then! We +didn't know till just now--that is, till this morning, when Mr. +Vanderlyn went out to Madame de Léra's villa to fetch my wife. It was +Madame de Léra who told us that she had never arrived at Marly-le-Roi. +She disappeared yesterday afternoon, but we did not know it till this +morning." + +"May I ask you, gentlemen, to wait for a moment while I make certain +enquiries?" observed the detective politely. "You have not yet been +shown our daily report concerning the stations of Paris--is it not +possible that Madame Pargeter may have met with some accident at the +Gare St. Lazare, if, as I understand, she was going to her friend by +train, and not by automobile?" + +Pargeter seemed struck by the notion. He turned to Vanderlyn. "I can't +make out," he said in a puzzled tone, "why Peggy thought of going to +Marly-le-Roi by train when she might so easily have gone in her new +motor." + +"Peggy gave her man a week's holiday," said Vanderlyn shortly. "You +know, Tom, that he wanted to go to his own home, somewhere in Normandy." + +"Yes, yes. Of course! But still she might have gone out in the big +car--I wasn't using it yesterday." + +The detective came back at the end of what seemed to both Vanderlyn and +Pargeter a very long quarter of an hour. + +"No incident of any sort took place last night at the Gare St. Lazare," +he said briefly. "We shall now institute a thorough enquiry among our +agents; every police-station in Paris shall be notified of the fact that +Madame Pargeter is missing; and I shall almost certainly be able to send +you some kind of news of her by four o'clock this afternoon. In any case +you can trust us to do our best. Will Monsieur be returning to the +Avenue du Bois"--he addressed Vanderlyn, "or is Monsieur going to his +own flat in the Rue de Rivoli?" + +Vanderlyn looked up quickly. His private address was not printed on the +card he had shown; still it was reasonable enough that this man should +have looked up his own as well as Pargeter's address and should have +wished to verify their statements as far as was possible. + +"Of course, Grid, you will come home with me!" exclaimed Pargeter +fretfully. + +"Then, Messieurs, I will send any news I get straight to the Avenue du +Bois de Boulogne." + +As they walked through the long corridors, it became clear that whatever +anxiety Pargeter had suffered had dropped off him, for the moment, like +a cloak. "I shouldn't be surprised if I can get off to-night after all," +he said cheerfully, "you heard what he said? This afternoon we shall +certainly have news of her." + +Then, as they emerged into the hall, and he caught sight of his +motor-car and of its occupant, "For God's sake, Grid," he said frowning, +"let's get rid of that old woman! There she sits, staring like a bird of +prey; it's enough to give one the hump! Ask her if she would like us to +drive her to her Paris house. If she wants to go back to the country, +I'll send her in Peggy's Limousine--oh! I forgot, that's not available, +is it? Never mind, she can go on in this car. Say we'll send her news as +soon as we hear any!" + +But Vanderlyn soon ascertained that Madame de Léra had no wish to go +back to Marly-le-Roi. She accepted his brief account of what had +occurred at the Prefecture of Police without comment, and, refusing +Pargeter's offer to drive her to her house in the Faubourg St. Germain, +asked only to be set down at the nearest telegraph-station. + + * * * * * + +Dreary hours followed--hours later remembered with special horror and +shrinking by Laurence Vanderlyn. They were spent by the two ill-assorted +friends in Tom Pargeter's own room on the ground-floor of the villa. + +It was a long, well-lighted room, lined with the huge, splendidly +decorative posters, signed Chéret and Mucha, which were then just being +collected by those who admired that type of flamboyant art. In this +apartment Peggy, as Vanderlyn was well aware, never put her feet, for it +was there that her husband received his trainer and his sporting +friends. Here also was his own private telephone. + +Lunch was brought to them on a tray, and at two o'clock the butler came +with the information that several police officials were in the house +interrogating the servants. Far from annoying Pargeter, the fact seemed +to afford him some gratification, for it proved that he was after all +quite as important a personage as he believed himself to be. He gave +orders that the men were to be liberally supplied with drink. + +An hour later came a high official from the Préfecture. He was taken +upstairs and shown into the drawing-room, and it was there that Pargeter +joined him, leaving Vanderlyn for the first time alone. + +The American lay back in the rocking-chair in which he had been sitting +forward listening to the other's unconnected talk. What a relief, what +an immense sense of sobbing relief--came over his weary senses, aye, +even his weary limbs! He put away the thought, the anguished query, as +to how long this awful ordeal was likely to endure. For the moment it +was everything to be alone. He closed his smarting eyes. + +Suddenly the telephone bell rang, violently. Vanderlyn got up slowly; +stumblingly he walked across the room and took up the receiver. A +woman's voice asked in French: + +"Has Mr. Pargeter left Paris?" + +"No," said Vanderlyn shortly. "Mr. Pargeter is still in Paris." + +"Is it a friend of Mr. Pargeter who is speaking?" + +There was a long pause,--then, "Yes," said Vanderlyn. + +"Will you, Monsieur, kindly inform your friend," said the voice, shaking +with a ripple of light laughter, "that Mademoiselle de la Tour de Nesle +has something very urgent to say to him?" + +"Mr. Pargeter is engaged, but I will give him any message." + +"May I ask you, Monsieur, to have the gracious amiability to inform Mr. +Pargeter that Mademoiselle de la Tour de Nesle will be expecting him at +five o'clock this afternoon. She understood he was leaving Paris +yesterday, but someone told her that he had been seen driving in his +auto on the grand boulevards this morning." + +A few moments later Pargeter burst into the room. + +"They declare that Peggy must have left Paris!" he exclaimed. "I thought +as much," he went on, angrily. "I felt certain that she was only hiding! +Of course I didn't like to say so--at first," and, as Vanderlyn remained +silent, he came and flung himself in a chair close to the other man. + +"You see, Grid,"--his voice unconsciously lowered,--"she played me that +trick once before--years ago! It was a regular bit of bad luck, the sort +of thing that only seems to happen to me; other men escape. A woman came +to our house,--we were living in London then,--an old friend of mine +with whom I'd stupidly mixed up again; she brought a child with her, a +squalling brat two or three months older than Jasper--Of course the +child had nothing to do with me, but she said he had, and Peggy believed +her!" he looked for sympathy to the silent man opposite to whom he was +now sitting. + +"Did you ever hear of this before?" he asked suspiciously, "did Peggy +ever tell you about it?" + +"No," said Vanderlyn. "This is the first time I have heard anything of +it. How long did she stay away?" he forced himself to add, loathing +himself the while: "Did she disappear like this--I mean, as she has done +this time?" + +"Well, not exactly," said Pargeter reluctantly, "for one thing she took +Jasper and his nurse with her, but not her maid. They went off to her +aunt,--the aunt who brought her up, you know,--but for two days I hadn't +a notion where she was! Then one of her brothers came to see me. It was +all made as damned unpleasant for me as possible, but they were of +course determined that she should come back to me, and so she did--after +about a week. But she was never nice to me again," he added, moodily, +"not that she ever was really nice to me before we married. It was the +aunt who hunted me----" + +"Is there any special reason why Peggy should have thought of going away +like that--now?" asked Vanderlyn in a strained voice. + +"No," exclaimed Pargeter, "of course there isn't! I've always been nice +to her, as you know well, Grid,--much nicer, I mean, than most men would +have been to a wife who was so--so--" he sought intently for a word, "so +superior and--and unsympathetic. But lately I have been specially nice +to her, for my sister, Sophy, you know, had written me a long screed,--I +didn't bother to read it right through, making out that Peggy's heart +was weak, and that I ought to be very careful about her. The very day I +got the letter I went out and bought her that grey Limousine Lady Prynne +was so keen I should take off her hands! Peggy always had everything she +wanted," he repeated; "I didn't have a penny with her, but I've never +grudged her anything. In fact I should be pleased if she spent more on +her clothes than she seems to care to do, for I like to see a woman well +trigged out." + +"Tom, I have a message for you," said Vanderlyn slowly, "a lady +telephoned just now to say she's expecting you at five o'clock." + +"Eh! what?" said Pargeter, his fair face flushing, "a lady? What lady? +Did she give her name?" + +"Mademoiselle de la Tour de Nesle," said Vanderlyn, with curling lip. + +"Oh Lord! What a plague women are!" said the other, crossly. "Sometimes +I think it's a pity God ever made Eve! Such impudence, her ringing up +here! Still, she's an amusing little devil." + +"Are you going to see her?" asked Vanderlyn, "because if so I think I +had better be getting back to my place. You see, I've rather neglected +my work to-day." + +Something in the other's tone impressed Pargeter disagreeably. + +"I say, don't be shirty!" he exclaimed, "I know you've had a lot of +bother, and I'm awfully grateful to you, and so will Peggy be when she +knows. I sha'n't make up my mind about going to see Nelly till the last +minute----" + +"Nelly?" repeated Vanderlyn, puzzled--"Who's Nelly?" + +"You know, Grid,--the--the person who rang me up. I always call her +Nelly. Her name's such a mouthful--still, it's Nelly's Tower, isn't it? +See? Perhaps to-day as there's all this fuss on I'd better not go and +see her, eh, Grid? I wish I was like you," he added, a little +shamefacedly, "you're such a puritan. I suppose that's why Peggy's so +fond of you. Birds of a feather, eh? what?" his manner grew sensibly +more affectionate and confidential. + +The two men smoked on in silence. Vanderlyn was trying to choose a form +of words with which he could bid the other farewell; he longed with a +miserable longing to be alone, but that first day's ordeal was not yet +over. + +"I can't face dinner here," said Pargeter suddenly, "let's go and dine +at that new place, the Coq d'Or." + +Vanderlyn lacked the energy to say him nay, and they went out, leaving +word where they were to be found. + +Le Coq d'Or was a reconstitution of what had been, in a now deserted +suburban resort, a famous restaurant dedicated to the memory and cult of +Rabelais. Vanderlyn had already been there with American friends, but to +Pargeter the big room, with its quaint mediæval furnishings and large +panels embodying adventures of Gargantua, was new, and for a moment +distracted his mind from what was still more of a grievance than an +anxiety. + +But they had not long been seated at one of the narrow oak tables which +were supposed to be exact copies of those used in a mediæval tavern, +when Pargeter began to turn sulky. The maître d'hôtel of the Coq d'Or +was not aware of how important a guest was honouring him that night, and +for a few moments no attention was paid to the two friends. + +"I say, this is no good!" exclaimed Pargeter angrily, "let's go +somewhere else--to the Café de Paris." + +"For God's sake, Tom," exclaimed Vanderlyn harshly, "sit down! Can't you +see I'm tired out? Let's stay where we are." + +"All right. But I can tell you that at this rate we sha'n't get anything +till midnight!" Still Pargeter sat down again, and fortunately there +soon came up a waiter who had known the great sportsman elsewhere; and a +moment later he was absorbed in the amusing occupation of making out a +careful menu from a new bill of fare. + +During the long course of the meal, Vanderlyn listened silently to +Pargeter's conjectures concerning Peggy's disappearance--conjectures +broken by lamentations over the contretemps which had made it impossible +for him to leave Paris that day. Absorbed as he was in himself and his +own grievances, Pargeter was yet keenly aware when his companion's +attention seemed in any way to wander, and at last there came a moment +when, leaving his cup of black coffee half full, he pushed his chair +away with a gesture of ill-temper. + +"I'm afraid, Grid, all this must be an infernal bore for you!" he said; +"after all, Peggy's not your wife--no woman has the right to lead you +such a dance as she has led me to-day. Let's try to forget her for a +bit; let's go along to 'The Wash'?" + +Vanderlyn shook his head; he felt spent, worn out. He muttered that he +had work to do, that it was time for him to turn in. + +Each man paid his portion of the bill, and, as they went through the +glass doors giving onto the Boulevard, Vanderlyn noticed that on each +side of the entrance to the Coq d'Or a man was standing, sentinel-wise, +as if waiting for someone to go in or come out. + +For a moment the two friends stood on the pavement. + +"Let's take a fiacre," said Pargeter suddenly, "and I'll drive you to +your place." The warm spring weather had brought out a number of open +cabs. They hailed one of these, and, as they did so, Vanderlyn noticed +that the two men who had been standing at the door of the restaurant +entered another just behind them. + + * * * * * + +When at last he found himself in his own flat, and at last alone, +Vanderlyn stood for a few moments in his empty sitting-room. Terrible as +had been the companioned hours of the day, he now feared to be alone. It +was too early to go to bed--and he looked back with horror to the +wakeful hours which had been his the night before. So standing there he +told himself that an hour's walk--he had not walked at all that +day--would quiet his nerves, prepare him for the next day's ordeal. + +As he made his way down the broad shallow stairs, his mind seemed to +regain its elasticity. He realised that it must be his business to keep +fit. A greater ordeal than anything which had yet befallen him lay +there--in front of him. Soon, perhaps to-morrow, the Prefecture of +Police would connect the finding of a woman's dead body in the train +which had left Paris for Orange the night before, with Mrs. Pargeter's +disappearance. + +It would be then that he would need all his strength and self-control. +He remembered with a thrill of anger the curious measuring glance the +head of the Paris detective force had cast on him that morning. He +wondered uneasily how far he had betrayed himself. + +Passing through the porte cochère, he noticed that the concierge was +talking to a neat, stout little Frenchman with whose appearance he felt +himself familiar. Vanderlyn looked straight at the man; yes, this was +undoubtedly one of the two watchers who had been standing outside the +door of the Coq d'Or. + +Then he was being followed, tracked? The Paris police evidently already +connected him in some way with the disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter? + +Instead of crossing the road to the deserted pavement which bounds the +gardens of the Tuileries, the American turned to the left, and became +merged in the slowly moving stream of men and women under the arcades of +the Rue de Rivoli. As he walked along he became conscious, and that +without once turning round, that his pursuer was close behind; when he +walked slowly, the other, as far as possible, did the same, and when he +hurried on, he could hear the tap-tap dogging his footsteps through the +crowd. + +At last, finding himself opposite the Hotel Continental, Vanderlyn +stopped and deliberately read over the bill of fare attached to the door +of the restaurant. As he did so, the light of a large réverbère beat +down on his face; from the human current sweeping slowly on behind him a +man quietly detached himself, and, standing for a moment by the side of +the American diplomatist, looked up into his face with a long deliberate +stare. + + + + +VII. + + +The fact that he was being watched had a curious effect on Laurence +Vanderlyn. It roused in him the fighting instinct which he had had to +keep in leash the whole of that terrible first day of repression, save +during the moments when he had been confronted with the head of the +detective department at the Prefecture of Police. + +As at last he walked on, now choosing deliberately quiet and solitary +streets, the footsteps of his unknown companion echoed loudly behind +him, and he allowed himself, for the first time since the night before, +the cruel luxury of recollection. For the first time, also, he forced +himself to face the knowledge that any hour might bring as unexpected a +development as had been the prolonged presence of Pargeter in Paris. He +realised that he must, if possible, be prepared, forearmed, with the +knowledge of what had occurred after he had left the darkened railway +carriage at Dorgival. News travels slowly in provincial France, yet, +even so, the fact that the dead body of a woman had been found in a +first-class carriage of the Paris demi-rapide must soon have become +known, and made its way into the local press. + +Out of the past there came to Vanderlyn the memory of an old-fashioned +reading-room frequented by him long years before when he was studying in +Paris. + +The place had been pointed out to him by one of the professors at the +Sorbonne as being by far the best lending library on the left side of +the Seine; and there, in addition to the ordinary reading-room, was an +inner room, where, by paying a special fee, one could see all the +leading provincial papers. + +In some such sheet,--for in France every little town has its own +newspaper,--would almost certainly appear the first intimation of so +sinister and mysterious a discovery as the finding of a woman's dead +body in the Paris train. + +Vanderlyn wondered if the library--the Bibliothèque Cardinal was its +name--still existed. If yes, there was every chance that he might find +there what was vital to him to know, both in order to rid himself of the +obsessing vision which he saw whenever he shut his tired eyes, and also +that he might be prepared for any information suddenly forwarded to +Pargeter from the Prefecture of Police. + +The next morning Vanderlyn was scarcely surprised to see the man who had +shadowed him the night before lying in wait for him before the house. + +The American measured the other's weary face and stout figure, and then +he began quietly walking up the now deserted arcades of the Rue de +Rivoli; with a certain grim amusement, he gradually increased his pace, +and when at last he turned into the great court of the Louvre, and stood +for a moment at the base of the Gambetta Monument, he assured himself +that he had out-distanced his pursuer. + +Striding quickly across the most historic of Paris bridges, he threaded +the narrow, tortuous thoroughfares dear to every lover of old Paris, +till he reached the Place St. Sulpice. There, forming one of the corners +of the square, was the house wherein was housed the Bibliothèque +Cardinal, looking exactly as Vanderlyn remembered its having looked +twenty years before. Even the huge leather-bound books in the windows +seemed to be the same as in the days when the future American +diplomatist had been, if not a merry-hearted, then a most enthusiastic +student, making eager acquaintance with "The Quarter." + +He walked into the shop, and recognised, in the stout, middle-aged woman +sitting there, the trim young bourgeoise to whom he had often handed a +fifty centime piece in those days which seemed so distant as almost to +belong to another life. + +"Have you still a provincial paper room?" he asked, in a low tone. + +"Yes," said the dame du comptoir, suavely, "but we have to charge a +franc for admission." + +Vanderlyn smiled. "It used to be fifty centimes," he said. + +"Ah! Monsieur, that was long ago! There are ten times as many provincial +papers now as then!" + +He put the piece of silver on the counter. As he did so, he heard the +door of the shop quietly open, and, with a disagreeable feeling of +surprise, he saw the man, the detective he believed he had shaken off, +come up unobtrusively to where he was standing. + +Vanderlyn hesitated----Then he reminded himself that what he was about +to do belonged to the part he had set himself to play: "Well, Madame," +he said, "I will go through into your second reading-room and glance +over the papers;" he forced himself to add, "I am anxious to find news +of a person who has disappeared--who has, I fear, met with an accident." + +The detective asked a question of the woman; he spoke in a low voice, +but Vanderlyn heard what he said--that is, whether there was any other +way out of the two reading-rooms except through the shop. On the woman's +replying in the negative, he settled himself down and opened an +illustrated paper. + +Vanderlyn began systematically going through the provincial papers of +the towns at which he knew the train was to stop after he had left it at +Dorgival; and after the first uneasy quarter of an hour he forgot the +watcher outside, and became absorbed in his task. To his mingled +disappointment and relief, he found nothing. + +It was of course possible that on the discovery of a dead body in a +Paris train, the matter would at once be handed over to the Paris +police; that would mean, in this case, that a body so found would be +conveyed to the Morgue. + +The thought that this might be so made Vanderlyn's heart quail with +anguish and horror, and yet, if such a thing were within the bounds of +possibility, had he not better go to the Morgue alone and now, rather +than later in the company of Tom Pargeter? + +As he passed out of the reading-room into the book-shop, and so into the +square, he understood for the first time, how it was that he had made so +foolish a mistake concerning the detective. The latter at once entered a +fiacre which had evidently been waiting for him, and, as Vanderlyn +plunged into the labyrinth of narrow streets leading from the Place St. +Sulpice to Notre Dame, he could hear the cab crawling slowly behind him. + +Well, what matter? This visit to the Morgue was also in the picture--in +the picture, that is, of Laurence Vanderlyn, the kindly friend of Tom +Pargeter, helping in the perplexing, the now agonising, search for Mrs. +Pargeter. + +But when at last he came in sight of the sinister triangular building +which crouches, toad-like, under the shadow of the great Cathedral, +Vanderlyn's heart failed him for the first time. If Peggy were indeed +lying there exposed to the careless, morbid glances of idle sightseers +to whom the Morgue is one of the sights of Paris, he felt that he could +not trust himself to go in and look at her. + +He stood still for a few moments, and then, as he was about to turn on +his heel, he saw coming towards him from out of the door of the Morgue a +figure which struck a note of tragedy in the bright morning sunshine. It +was Madame de Léra, her eyes full of tears, her heart oppressed by the +sights she had just seen. + +"There are three poor people there," she said, in a low voice, "two men +and a woman, but not, thank God! our friend. I wonder if it is possible +that we are mistaken--that there was no accident, Monsieur Vanderlyn? +But then, if so, where is she--why has she not written to me?" + +He shook his head with a hopeless gesture, afraid to speak lest he +should be tempted to share with her his agony and complicated suspense. + +"If she were a Catholic," added Madame de Léra pitifully, "I should be +inclined to think--to hope--that she had gone to a convent; but--but for +her there was no such place of refuge from temptation----" her voice as +she uttered the last word became almost inaudible; more firmly she +added, "Is it not possible that she may have gone to England, to her +child?" + +"No," said Vanderlyn, dully, "she has not done that." + +He took her to her door, and then, as he had promised Tom Pargeter to +do, went to the Avenue du Bois, there to spend with Margaret Pargeter's +husband another term of weary waiting and suspense. + + * * * * * + +That second day, of which the closing hours were destined to bring to +Laurence Vanderlyn the most dramatic and dangerous moments connected +with the whole tragic episode of Mrs. Pargeter's disappearance, wore +itself slowly, uneventfully away. + +Tom Pargeter, alternating between real anxiety, and an angry suspicion +that his wife was in very truth only hiding from him, poured into the +ears of this man, whom he now regarded rather as his friend than his +wife's, every theory which might conceivably account for Peggy's +disappearance. He took note of every suggestion made to him by the +members of the now intensely excited and anxious household, for Margaret +Pargeter's gentle personality and thoughtful kindness had endeared her +to her servants. + +When Plimmer, her staid maid, evolved the idea that Mrs. Pargeter, on +her way to the station, might have stopped to see some friend, and, +finding that friend ill, have remained to nurse her,--the suggestion so +seized hold of Pargeter's imagination that he insisted on spending the +afternoon in making a tour of his own and his wife's acquaintances. To +Vanderlyn's anger and pain, the only result of this action on his part +was that Mrs. Pargeter's disappearance became known to a large circle, +and that more than one of the evening papers contained a garbled +reference to the matter. + +Meanwhile, or so Pargeter complained, the officials of the Prefecture of +Police remained curiously inactive. They were quite certain, so they +told the anxious husband, of ultimately solving the mystery, but it was +doubtful if any news could be procured before the next day, for they +were now directing their researches to the environs of Paris--a new +theory now evolved being that Mrs. Pargeter, having hired a motor cab to +drive her to Marly-le-Roi, had met with an accident or sinister +misadventure on the way thither. + + + + +VIII. + + +At last the long day wore itself out, and Vanderlyn, in the late +afternoon, found himself once more in his own rooms, alone. He only owed +his escape to-night to the fact that two of Mrs. Pargeter's relations +had arrived from England--one of her many brothers, and a woman cousin +who was fond of her. They, of course, were spending the evening with +Pargeter, and so the American had a respite--till to-morrow. + +Having eaten his solitary dinner with a zest of which he felt ashamed, +he was now in his study leaning back in an easy-chair, with a pile of +unread papers at his side. + +As he sat there, in the quiet, almost shabby room, which was so +curiously different from the splendours of the Pargeter villa, there +came over him a sense of profound and not unpleasing lassitude. + +He looked back to the last forty-eight hours as to a long nightmare, +broken by the few solitary walks he had forced himself to take. But for +these brief periods of self-communing, he felt that his body, as well as +his mind, would and must have given way. Peggy's husband had leant +helplessly on him, and from the first moment he had been--so indifferent +onlookers would have told you--the sympathetic, helpful witness of the +various phases Tom Pargeter had lived through during those long two +days. + +For something like a week Vanderlyn had been living so apart from the +world about him that he had known nothing, cared nothing, about what had +gone on in that world. That very day an allusion had been made in his +presence to some public event of importance of which he was evidently +quite ignorant, and the look of profound astonishment which had crossed +an Embassy colleague's face, warned him that he could not go on as he +had been doing without provoking considerable, and far from pleasant, +comment. + +Putting out his hand, he took up the _New York Herald_--not the Paris +edition, in which there was almost certain to be allusions to that which +he wished for the moment to forget--but the old home paper which had +arrived by that day's mail, and which had been carefully opened and +ironed out by the faithful Poulain. + +The newspaper was a little over a week old; it bore the date, April 28. +What had he been doing on the twenty-eighth of April? and then with a +rush it all came back to him--everything he wished for the moment to +forget. It was on the afternoon of that day, the first warm spring day +of the year, that they had been tempted, he and Peggy, to make their way +down into the heart of Paris, to the solitary Place des Vosges. It was +there, it was then, that they had together planned that which had +brought him to his present dreadful pass. + +Vanderlyn put the paper back on the table, and his face fell forward on +his hands; was he fated never to be allowed to forget--not even for a +moment? + +It was with relief that he welcomed the interruption caused by the +entrance of his servant bearing a card in his hand. "A gentleman has +come and insists on seeing Monsieur." + +Poulain spoke in a mysterious, significant tone, one that jarred on +Vanderlyn's sensitive nerves. The disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter had +become an engrossing, a delightful drama, not only to the members of the +Pargeter household, but also to Poulain and his worthy wife; and it had +been one of the smaller ironical agonies of Vanderlyn's position that he +did not feel himself able to check or discourage their perpetual and +indiscreet enquiries. + +"I have already told you," he said sternly, "that I receive no one +to-night. Even if Mr. Pargeter himself comes, you are to say that I am +out!" + +"I'm afraid Monsieur will have to receive this gentleman." + +"Poulain!" exclaimed Vanderlyn sharply. "This won't do! Go at once and +inform this gentleman, whoever he may be, that I can see no one +to-night." + +"I did say so," observed Poulain, in an injured tone, "I explained to +him that you would see no one. I said you were out--he said that he +would wait. Then, Monsieur, not till then, he handed me his card. If +Monsieur will give himself the trouble of looking at it, I think he will +receive the gentleman." + +Vanderlyn took the card with an impatient movement. He glanced at it. +"Why did you not tell me at once," he said roughly, "who this--this +person was? Of course I must see the Prefect of Police." + +More than once, Vanderlyn had had proof of the amazing perfection and +grip of the great, the mysterious organisation, that oligarchy within a +republic, which has always played a paramount rôle in every section of +Parisian life. The American diplomatist had not lived in France all +these years without unconsciously acquiring an almost superstitious +belief in the omnipotence of the French police. + +He got up and placed himself between the lamp and the door. He knew +slightly the formidable official whose presence here surely indicated +some serious development in what had now become a matter of urgent +interest to many quite outside the Pargeter circle. + +The two or three moments' delay--doubtless the zealous Poulain was +engaged in helping the important visitor off with his coat--were passed +by Vanderlyn in a state of indescribable nervous tension and suspense. +He was glad when they came to an end. + +And yet the Frenchman who came into Vanderlyn's sitting-room, making a +ceremonious bow, would have suggested no formidable or even striking +personality to the eyes of the average Englishman or American. His stout +figure, clad in an ill-cut suit of evening clothes, recalled rather a +Gavarni caricature than a dapper modern official, the more so that his +round, fleshy face was framed in the carefully trimmed mutton-chop +whiskers which remain a distinguishing mark of the more old-fashioned +members of the Parisian Bar. The red button, signifying that its wearer +is an officer of the Legion of Honour, was exceptionally small and +unobtrusive. Vanderlyn was well aware that his visitor was no up-start, +owing promotion to adroit flattery of the Republican powers; the Prefect +of Police came of good bourgeois stock, and was son to a legal luminary +who had played a considerable part in '48. His manner was suave, his +voice almost caressing in its urbanity---- + +"I have the honour, have I not, of speaking to Mr. Laurence Vanderlyn?" + +Vanderlyn bowed; he turned and led the way to the fireplace. "Yes, +Monsieur le Préfet, Laurence Vanderlyn at your service. I think we have +already met, at the Elysée----" he drew forward a second armchair. + +Monsieur le Préfet sat down; and for the first time the American +diplomatist noticed that his visitor held a small, black, battered +portfolio in his right hand. As the Frenchman laid it across his knee, +he gave a scarcely perceptible glance round the room; then, at last, his +gaze concentrated itself on the table where stood the lamp, and the +spread-open newspaper. + +"You probably divine, Monsieur," said the Prefect, after a short pause, +"what has brought me here to-night. I have come to see you--perhaps I +should say to consult you--in connection with the disappearance of Mrs. +Pargeter." + +"Yes?" said Vanderlyn interrogatively, "I am, of course, quite at your +disposal. I have been with Mr. Pargeter all to-day, but so far the +mystery remains as great as ever." He stopped abruptly, feeling it +wisest not to speak, but to listen. + +"That, I repeat, is why I have come here," said Vanderlyn's formidable +visitor. He spoke with a great deliberateness and mildness of manner. "I +cannot help thinking, my dear sir, that with your help we may be, or +rather _I_ may be, on the eve of a discovery." + +Vanderlyn looked surprised; his desolate eyes met the older man's +hesitating glance quite squarely, but this time he remained silent. + +The Prefect went on speaking, and his voice became more and more suave; +he was certainly desirous of saving in every way his host's +susceptibilities. + +"The fact that I have taken the very unusual course of coming myself to +see you, Mr. Vanderlyn, will prove to you the importance I attach to +this interview. Indeed, I wish to be quite frank with you----" + +Vanderlyn bent his head, and then he sat up, listening keenly while the +other continued---- + +"This is not, I am convinced, an ordinary case of disappearance, and it +is to us, and especially to me, disagreeably complicated by the fact +that the lady is an English subject and that her husband is a well-known +and highly thought of member of our English colony. This makes me the +more anxious to avoid"--he hesitated, then firmly uttered the two words, +"any scandal. It was suggested at the Préfecture to-day that it would be +well to make a perquisition, not only in Mrs. Pargeter's own house, but +also in the houses of some of her intimates. Mr. Pargeter, as you know, +gave the police every possible facility. Nothing was found in the Villa +Pargeter which could throw any light on Mrs. Pargeter's disappearance. +Now, Monsieur, before subjecting _you_ to such an unpleasant occurrence, +I decided to approach you myself----" + +Vanderlyn opened his lips, and then closed them again. + +"I have come to ask you, Monsieur, one question, and I give you my word +as an honest man that what you tell me shall be treated as confidential. +I ask you if you know more of this mysterious matter than you are +apparently prepared to divulge? In a word--I beg you to tell me where +Mrs. Pargeter is hiding at the present moment? I have no wish to disturb +her retreat, but I beg you most earnestly to entrust me with the +secret." + +Again the speaker's eyes took a discreet journey round the plain, now +shadow-filled room; his glance rested on the book-shelves which formed +so important a part of its decorations, lingered doubtingly on a carved +walnut chest set between two of the windows, peered through these same +unshuttered windows on to the dark stone balconies, then, baffled, his +eyes came back and fixed themselves on the American diplomatist's face. + +A feeling of indescribable relief stole over Vanderlyn's wearied and yet +alert senses. It was clear that the Prefect of Police knew nothing of +the truth; the directness of his question proved it. Yet, even so, +Vanderlyn felt that he must steer his way very warily. + +"You are in error," he said at last, "for you credit me, Monsieur le +Préfet, with a knowledge I do not possess." + +"Ah!" said the other mildly, "that is most unfortunate!" + +"May I, on my side, put to you a question to which I should be glad of +an honest answer?" said Vanderlyn abruptly. "Are you now engaged in +making a wide-spread enquiry among those who had the honour of this +lady's acquaintance?" + +"No, Monsieur,"--the Prefect's manner showed an eager desire to be quite +frank,--"I am confining my personal enquiries to only two persons; that +is, to a certain Madame de Léra, to whom you will remember Mrs. Pargeter +was about to pay a visit at the moment she disappeared, and to +yourself." + +Vanderlyn made a sudden nervous movement, but he checked the words which +rose to his lips, for the Prefect was again speaking, and this time with +a certain excitement of manner. + +"I am convinced that Mrs. Pargeter never intended to go to Madame de +Léra, and that the proposed visit was a blind! The facts speak for +themselves. Madame de Léra had taken only one servant to the country, +and this servant, an old woman whom she has had with her many years, and +whom she can entirely trust, had no idea that her mistress was expecting +a visitor! I repeat--that no preparations for Mrs. Pargeter's arrival +had been made at Marly-le-Roi. It is my belief--nay, my conviction--that +Madame de Léra knows perfectly well where her friend is now concealed." + +It was then that Vanderlyn committed what was perhaps the only mistake +he was destined to commit during this difficult interview. "Has Madame +de Léra made any such admission?" he asked quickly. + +"No," answered the Prefect, looking at him thoughtfully, "Madame de Léra +has made no admission; but then I have learned, through long experience, +never to believe, where there is a friend in the case, what a lady tells +me. Women of the world, my dear sir, are more loyal the one to the other +than we men may choose to believe!" + +"And men, Monsieur? Are they more disloyal?" Vanderlyn spoke quietly, +indifferently, as if the question was of no moment. + +"Men," said Monsieur le Préfet, dryly, "are as a rule quite as loyal, +especially where they feel their honour is engaged. But with a man it is +possible to reason; a woman, especially a good woman, follows the +dictates of instinct,--in other words, of her heart." + +"I notice, Monsieur le Préfet, that you eliminate the possibility of +material accident having occurred to Mrs. Pargeter?" + +"Let us distinguish!" exclaimed the older man quickly. "If, by accident, +you mean, Mr. Vanderlyn, the type of mishap which might have occurred to +this lady when she was walking or driving in our Paris streets, then I +certainly eliminate the possibility of accident to Mrs. Pargeter. Within +six hours of such a thing having occurred the facts would have been laid +before me, and, as you know, two nights and two days have elapsed since +her disappearance. If, on the other hand, we envisage the possibility of +suicide, then are opened up a new series of possibilities." + +The Prefect gave a piercing look at the American's worn and sorrow-laden +face, but he did not find written there any involuntary answer to his +mute interrogation. + +"Some years ago," went on the great official, "a man well known in Paris +society made up his mind to take his own life. He hired a cellar, locked +the door, and then shot himself. Months went by before his disappearance +was accounted for, and then the body was only discovered by an accident. +If Mrs. Pargeter has committed suicide, and if she, an intelligent +woman, was determined that the fact should never be found out by her +friends, then I admit our task becomes a very difficult one! But I do +not believe," he continued, after a short silence, "that Mrs. Pargeter +did this. I believe she is alive, and well. She was, by each account +that has reached me, young, charming, and wealthy. She had a child whom +she apparently adored. As for her relations with her husband----" the +Prefect shrugged his shoulders, and again looked searchingly at +Vanderlyn. + +"Mr. Thomas Pargeter," he went on, smiling, "is not perhaps the perfect +husband of whom every young girl dreams; but then no one is so foolish +as to search for the perfect husband in the world to which your friend +belongs! He is not exactly a _viveur_,--but he is, to use the slang of +the day, essentially a _jouisseur_. Is not that so?" He added, with a +rather twisted grin, "If every lady whose husband lives to enjoy himself +were to commit suicide, there would be very few women left in our Paris +world." + +"I agree with you, Monsieur le Préfet, in thinking Mrs. Pargeter was the +last woman in the world to commit suicide," said Vanderlyn brusquely, +and then he got up. + +There had come over him during the last few moments an inexplicable, +instinctive feeling of dread,--that panting fear which besets the hunted +creature. He was determined to bring to an end the interview. But the +Prefect of Police had no intention of being disposed of so easily. He +remained sitting where he was; and, placing his two fat hands firmly on +his knees, sat looking at the American's tall figure. Slowly his eyes +travelled up till they rested on his host's haggard face. + +"Then I am to understand, Mr. Vanderlyn, that you are not in a position +to give me any help? That is your last word?" + +Vanderlyn suddenly determined to carry the war into the enemy's country. + +"I can only repeat," he said, harshly, "what I said before, Monsieur le +Préfet--namely, that you credit me with a knowledge which I do not +possess. Further, that while, of course, I appreciate the kindly motive +which has inspired your visit, I think I have a right to resent the +suspicions which that visit indicates, I do not say on your part, but on +that of your subordinates. I will not disguise from you my knowledge +that for the last two days every step I have taken has been dogged; I +suspect also, but of that I have no proof, that my servants, and the +concierge of this house, have been questioned as to my movements, as to +my daily life. I cannot help also suspecting--perhaps in this I am +wrong--that the police are inclined to believe that Mrs. Pargeter--a +woman, let me remind you, Monsieur le Préfet, of the highest and most +unspotted character--is hiding here, in my chambers! You speak of having +saved me from a perquisition,--a perquisition in the rooms of a +diplomatist is a serious matter, Monsieur le Préfet, and I tell you +quite frankly that I should have resisted such an outrage in every way +in my power! But now, in the present very peculiar circumstances, I +request,--nay, I demand,--that you should search my rooms. Every +possible facility shall be afforded you." Vanderlyn's voice was shaking +with undisguised anger,--aye, and disgust. + +The Prefect of Police rose from his chair. + +"I have no wish to subject you to any indignity," he said earnestly, "I +absolutely accept your assurance that Mrs. Pargeter is not in hiding +here. I am aware, Mr. Vanderlyn, that Americans do not lie,"--an ironic +smile wavered for a moment over his large mouth. + +Vanderlyn's face remained impassive. "You, on your side, must forgive my +heat," he said, quietly. Then he suddenly determined to play for a high +stake. "May I ask you to satisfy my curiosity on one point? What made +you first suspect such a thing? What led you to--to suppose----" + +"----That you knew where this lady was; that she might--say, after a +little misunderstanding with her husband--have taken refuge with you? +Well, yes, Mr. Vanderlyn, I admit that you have a right to ask me this, +and it was because I feared you might lack the exquisite courtesy you +have shown me, that I brought with me to-night a document which +contains, in what I trust you will consider a discreet form, an answer +to your delicate question." + +Vanderlyn's visitor again sat down; he laid open on his knee the leather +portfolio, and out of it he took a large sheet of foolscap, which, +unfolding, he handed to Laurence Vanderlyn. + +"This, Monsieur, is your _dossier_. If you can prove to me that it is +incorrect in any particular, I will see that the error is rectified. We +naturally take special care in compiling the _dossiers_ of foreign +diplomatists, for experience has shown that these often become of great +value, even after the gentlemen in question have left Paris for some +other capital." + +Vanderlyn reddened. He glanced over the odd-looking document with eager, +curious eyes. A few words here and there were printed, but the rest of +the _dossier_ was written in the round copying character which must be +mastered by every French Government clerk hoping for promotion. + +First came the American diplomatist's Christian name and surname, his +place of birth, his probable age--right within two years,--a short +epitome of his diplomatic career, a guess at his income, this item +considerably under the right figure, and evidently based on his quiet +way of living. + +Then, under a printed heading "General Remarks," were written a few +phrases in a handwriting very different from the rest--that is, in the +small clear caligraphy of an educated Frenchman. Staring down at these, +Vanderlyn felt shaken with anger and disgust, for these "General +Remarks" concerned that part of his private life which every man +believes to be hidden from his fellows:-- + +"Peu d'intimités d'hommes. Pas de femmes: par contre, une amitié +amoureuse très suivie avec Madame (Marguerite) Pargeter. Voir dossier +Pargeter (Thomas)." + +Amitié amoureuse? Friendship akin to love? The English language, so rich +in synonyms, owns no exact equivalent for this French phrase, expressive +though it be of a phase of human emotion as old as human nature itself. + +Vanderlyn looked up. His eyes met squarely those of the other man. + +"Your staff," he said, very quietly, "have served you well, Monsieur; my +_dossier_ is, on the whole, extraordinarily correct. There is but one +word which I would have altered, and which, indeed, I venture to beg you +to correct without loss of time. The young man--he is evidently a young +man--who wrote the summary to which you have drawn my attention, must +have literary tastes, otherwise there is one word in this document which +would not be there." Vanderlyn put his finger down firmly on the word +"amoureuse." "My relations with Mrs. Pargeter were, it is true, those of +close friendship, but I must ask you to accept my assurance, Monsieur le +Préfet, that they were not what the writer of this passage evidently +believed them to have been." + +"I will make a note of the correction," said the Prefect, gravely, "and +I must offer you my very sincere excuses for having troubled you +to-night." + +As Vanderlyn's late visitor drove home that night, he said to himself, +indeed he said aloud to the walls of the shabby little carriage which +had heard so many important secrets, "He knows whatever there is to be +known--but, then, what is it that is to be known? Of what mystery am I +now seeking the solution?" + + + + +IX. + + +As he heard the door shut on the Prefect of Police, Vanderlyn felt his +nerve give way. There had come a moment during the conversation, when, +as if urged by some malignant power outside himself, he had felt a +sudden craving to take the old official into his confidence, and tell +him the whole truth--so magnetic were the personality, the compelling +will, of the man who had just left him. + +He walked over to the corner window of his sitting-room, and stepped +onto the stone balcony which overlooked the twinkling lights of the +Place de la Concorde. + +Then, flung out, merged in the deep roar below, there broke from +Laurence Vanderlyn a bitter cry; the keen night air had brought with it +a sudden memory of that moment when he had opened the railway carriage +door and stepped out into the rushing wind.... He asked himself why he +had not followed his first impulse, why he had not allowed himself to +die, with Peggy in his arms? Why, above all, had he undertaken a task +which it was becoming beyond his strength to carry through? + +So wondering, so questioning, he leaned over the balustrade dangerously +far; then he drew quickly back, and placing his hands on the parapet, +stood for a moment as if holding at bay an invisible, yet to himself +most tangible, enemy. + +With a sigh which was a groan, he walked back into the room. He had +never yet failed Peggy; he would not fail her now---- + +Vanderlyn sat down; he was determined not to be beaten by his nerves. He +took up the _New York Herald_; but a moment later he had laid the paper +down again on the table. What had been going on in America a week ago +could not compel his attention. He took another paper off the table; it +was the London _Daily Telegraph_, of which one of the most successful +features for many years has been a column entitled "Paris Day by +Day,"--an _olla podrida_ of news, grave and gay, domestic and +sensational, put together with infinite art, and a full understanding of +what is likely to appeal to the British middle-class reader. There, as +Vanderlyn knew well, was certain to be some reference to the +disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter. + +Yes--here it was! + +"No trace of Mrs. Pargeter, the wife of the well-known sportsman and +owner of Absinthe, has yet been found; but the lady's relations think it +possible that she went unexpectedly to stay with some friends, and that +the letter informing her household of her whereabouts has miscarried." + +The Paris correspondent of the great London newspaper had proved himself +very discreet. + +Vanderlyn's eyes glanced idly down the long column of paragraphs which +make up "Paris Day by Day." Again he remembered the look of deep +astonishment which had crossed a colleague's face at his ignorance of +some new sensation of which at that moment all Paris was apparently +talking. So it was that he applied himself to read the trifling items of +news with some care, for here would be found everything likely to keep +him in touch with the gossip of the day. + +At last he came to the final paragraph-- + +"Yet another railway mystery! The dead body of a woman has been found in +a first-class compartment in a train which left Paris at 7 P. M. last +Wednesday. As the discovery was not made till the train reached Orange, +it is, of course, impossible to know where the unfortunate woman, who, +by her dress, belonged to the leisured class, entered the train. Her +hand baggage had disappeared, no doubt stolen at some intervening +station by someone who, having made the gruesome discovery, thought it +wise to make himself scarce. The police do not, however, consider that +they are in the presence of a crime. Dr. Fortoul, the well-known +physician of Orange, has satisfied himself that the lady died of heart +disease." + +Vanderlyn went on staring down at the printed words. They seemed to make +more true, more inevitable, the fact of Margaret Pargeter's death, and +of his own awful loss. + +But with the agony of this thought came infinite relief, for this, or so +he thought, meant that his own personal ordeal was at last drawing to a +close. The fact of so strange and unwonted an occurrence as the finding +of a woman's dead body in a train, would surely be at once connected by +the trained intellects of the Paris Police with the disappearance of +Mrs. Pargeter. + +He let the paper fall to the ground and began to think intently. When +that came to pass, as it certainly must do within the next few hours, it +would become his grim business to persuade Tom Pargeter that the clue +was one worth following. The mystery solved, the question of how +Margaret Pargeter came to be travelling in the demi-rapide would be +comparatively unimportant--at any rate not a point which such a man as +Tom Pargeter would give himself much trouble to clear up. + +Then with some uneasiness he remembered that before such an item of news +could have found its way into an English newspaper, the fact must have +been known to the French police for at least twelve hours. If that were +so, their acumen was not as great as that with which Vanderlyn credited +them. + +But stay! The Prefect of Police was convinced that Mrs. Pargeter was +alive, and that he, Vanderlyn, knew her whereabouts; it was not for +Peggy dead, but for Peggy living, that they were still searching so +eagerly. + +He opened the _Figaro_ and the _Petit Journal_, and ran a shaking finger +down the columns; there, in each paper, hidden away among unimportant +items, and told more briefly and in much balder language, he at last +found the story of the discovery which the _Daily Telegraph_ had served +up as a tit-bit to thrill the readers of its Paris news columns. + +Vanderlyn made up his mind to spend the whole of the next day with +Pargeter; he must be at the villa, ready to put in his word of +advice,--even, if need be, of suggestion,--when the moment came for him +to do so. + +For the first time for many nights Vanderlyn's sleep was unbroken; and +early the next morning he made his way to the Avenue du Bois de +Boulogne. + +As he walked through the hall of the villa, already peopled with a score +of the Pargeters' acquaintances, eager to show their sympathy with the +wealthy sportsman in this most untoward and extraordinary occurrence, +the American was obliged to shake hands with many men whom he had +hitherto only known by sight, and to answer questions some of which +impressed him as strangely indiscreet. More than one of those with whom +he found himself thus face to face looked at him with cruel, inquisitive +eyes, and a scarcely veiled curiosity, for it was of course well known +that Laurence Vanderlyn had been an intimate, not only of the husband, +but also of the wife. + +At last Pargeter's valet threaded his way up to him: "Will you please +come upstairs, sir? Mr. Pargeter told me to say that he would be glad if +you would go to his dressing-room as soon as you arrived." + +"There's no news, Grid,--no news at all! It's getting awful, isn't +it?--quite beyond a joke! You know what I mean--I'm sick of answering +stupid questions. I was waked this morning at seven--had to see a man in +bed! They don't seem to understand that I can tell them nothing beyond +the bare fact that she's vanished; they actually sent two women here +last night----" + +"Two women?" echoed Vanderlyn. "What sort of women?" + +"Ugly old hags," said Pargeter, briefly, "from the Prefecture of Police. +They brought an impudent letter asking me to allow them to turn out +Peggy's room and look over all her things! But I refused----" he looked +at his friend for sympathy--and found it. + +"You were quite right," said Vanderlyn quickly. His face became rigid +with anger and disgust. "Quite right, Tom! Whatever made them think of +suggesting such a thing? Where would be the use of it?" + +"Oh! well, of course they had a reason. The police are particularly keen +that we should look over any old letters of hers; they think that we +might find some kind of clue. But I don't believe she kept her +letters--why should she? I don't keep mine. However, I've promised to do +the job myself----" he looked uncertainly at Vanderlyn. "Would you mind, +Grid, coming with me into Peggy's room? Of course Plimmer, that's her +maid, you know, will help us. She knows where Peggy keeps all her +things." + +"Why not ask Madame de Léra to do it?" said Vanderlyn, in a low voice. + +He turned away and stared at a sporting print which hung just on the +level of his eyes. Had he ever written imprudent letters to Peggy? Not +lately, but in the early days,--in that brief time of uncertain ecstasy, +and, on his part, of passionate expression, which had preceded their +long successful pretence at friendship? He himself had preserved later +letters of hers--not love-letters assuredly, but letters which proved +clearly enough the strange closeness of their intimacy. + +But what was this that Pargeter was saying? "Madame de Léra? Why should +I ask her to interfere? I don't want to mix her up in this business more +than I can help! If it hadn't been for her--and that ridiculous +invitation of hers, Peggy would be here now! Peggy wouldn't mind your +looking over her things, Grid. She's really fond of you--as fond of you +as she can be of anyone, that is." + +He got up, and, preceding Vanderlyn down a connecting passage, flung +open the door giving access to a spacious airy bedchamber of which the +pale mauve and grey furnishings reminded both men of Peggy's favourite +flower and scent. The sun-blinds were down and the maid was standing, as +if waiting for them, by the dressing-table. + +They both instinctively hesitated on the threshold. "Tom," said +Vanderlyn, hoarsely, "I don't think I ought to come in here----" + +"Don't be a fool! I tell you she wouldn't mind a bit. Surely you're not +going to cut--now?" + +Pargeter took a step forward; then he stood for a moment looking round +him, evidently perplexed, and ill at ease at finding himself thus +suddenly introduced into his wife's intimate atmosphere. + +"I don't believe she kept any letters," he repeated, then glanced +uncertainly at the lady's-maid who stood primly by. + +"Mrs. Pargeter kept some letters in that writing-desk over there, +sir,--at least I think she did." + +Close to the small tent-bed stood an old-fashioned rosewood davenport, a +relic of Margaret Pargeter's childhood and girlhood, brought from her +distant English home. + +The maid waited for a moment, and then added, "The desk is locked, sir." + +"Locked? Then did Mrs. Pargeter take her keys with her?" + +"I suppose she did, sir." + +"Then it's no use," said Pargeter, with a certain relief, "I don't want +to force the thing open." + +Vanderlyn looked across, coldly and steadily, at the woman. Her +expression struck him as oddly enigmatical; meeting his glance, Plimmer +reddened, her eyes dropped. "I expect any simple key would open it," he +said, briefly. + +"Well, sir, I did ask the housekeeper to lend me a bunch of keys. Here +they are," she opened one of the dressing-table drawers. "Perhaps one of +the smaller ones would fit the lock." + +It was Vanderlyn who took the keys from her strangely reluctant hand, +and it was he who at last felt the old-fashioned lock yield. + +"Now, Pargeter," he said, sharply, "will you please come over here?" + +The whole of the inside of the desk was filled with neat packets, each +carefully tied up and docketed; on several had been written, "In the +case of my death, to be burnt;" on other packets, "To be returned to +Madame de Léra in case of my death." + +Vanderlyn saw that here at least were none of his letters, and none from +Peggy's child. + +"It's no use bothering about any of these," said Pargeter, crossly, +"they can't tell us anything. Why anyone should trouble to keep old +letters is quite beyond me!" + +"That little knob that you see there, sir," said Plimmer, in her +diffident, well-trained voice, "is the head of a brass pin; if you draw +it out, sir, it releases the side drawer. I think you will find more +letters there,--at least that is where Master Jasper's letters are, I +know." + +She looked furtively at Vanderlyn, and her look said, "If you want to +have the truth you shall have it!" + +"I say, how queer!" exclaimed Pargeter. "A secret drawer! eh, Grid?" + +"All old pieces of furniture have that kind of thing," said Vanderlyn, +"there isn't any secret about it." + +Pargeter fumbled at the brass-headed pin; he pulled it out, and a drawer +which filled up the side of the davenport shot out. Yes, here were more +packets inscribed with the words, "Jasper's letters, written at school," +and then others, "To be returned to Laurence Vanderlyn in case of my +death;" and two or three loose letters. + +"Well, these won't tell us anything, eh, Grid?" Pargeter opened the +first envelope under his hand:-- + + "Dear Mammy," (he read slowly), + + "Please send me ten shillings. I have finished the French + cherry-jam. I should like some more. Also some horses made of + gingerbread. I have laid 3 to 1 on Absinthe. Betting is forbidden, + but as it was Dad's horse I thought I might. My bat is the best in + the school. + + "Your loving + "Jasper." + +"He's a fine little chap, isn't he, Grid?" Pargeter was fingering +absently a yellowing packet of Vanderlyn's letters: "Fancy keeping your +old letters! What a queer thing to do!" + +Vanderlyn said nothing. The maid stared at him stealthily. + +At last Pargeter put the packet down, and deliberately opened yet +another envelope which lay loose. "I suppose this is the last note you +wrote to her?" he said, then, opening it, murmured its contents over to +himself:-- + + "Dear Peggy, + + "I hear the show at the Gardinets is worth seeing. I'll call for + you at two to-morrow. + + Yours sincerely, + "L. V." + +"Well, it's no use our wasting any more time here, is it? We'd better go +downstairs and have a smoke. Why--why, Grid!--what's the matter?" + +"It's nothing," said Vanderlyn, roughly, "I'll be all right in a minute +or two----" + +"I don't wonder you're upset," said the other, moodily. "But just think +what it must be for _me_. I can't stand much more of it. It's been +simply awful since Peggy's brother and that cousin of hers arrived. They +treat me as if I were a murderer! They're at the Prefecture of Police +now, making what they're pleased to call their own enquiries." + +They had left Peggy's room, and as he spoke Pargeter was leading the way +down a staircase which led into his smoking-room. + +Once there, he shut the door and came and stood close by Vanderlyn. + +"Grid," he said, lowering his voice, "I've been wondering--don't you +think it would be a good plan if I were to go and see that +fortune-teller of mine, Madame d'Elphis? I don't mind telling you that +I'd a shot at her yesterday evening, but she was away. She does +sometimes make mistakes, but still, she's a kind of Providence to me. I +never do anything important--I mean at the stables--without consulting +her." + +Vanderlyn looked at the eager face, the odd twinkling green and blue +eyes, with scarcely concealed surprise and contempt. + +"Surely you don't think she could tell you where--what's happened to +Peggy?" he said incredulously. + +"If I could have seen her last night," went on Pargeter, "I'd have got +away to England to-day. There's no object in my staying here; _I_ can't +help them to find Peggy. But La d'Elphis won't see me before to-morrow +morning. If she can't clear up the mystery nobody can. I'm beginning to +think, Grid"--he came close up to the other man,--"that something must +have happened to her. I'm beginning to feel--worried!" + + + + +X. + + +An hour later Vanderlyn had escaped from Pargeter, and was standing +alone in Madame de Léra's drawing-room. + +He was scarcely conscious of how many hours he had spent during the last +terrible three days, with the middle-aged Frenchwoman who had been so +true and sure a friend of Margaret Pargeter. In Madame de Léra's +presence alone was he able, to a certain extent, to drop the mask which +he was compelled to wear in the presence of all others, and especially +in that of the man who, as time went on, seemed more and more to lean on +him and find comfort in his companionship. + +Vanderlyn had walked the considerable distance from the Avenue du Bois +to the quiet street near the Luxembourg where Adèle de Léra lived, and +all the way he had felt as if pursued by a mocking demon. + +How much longer, so he asked himself, was his awful ordeal to endure? +The moments spent by him and Pargeter in Peggy's room had racked heart +and memory. He now fled to Madame de Léra as to a refuge from himself. + +And yet? Yet he never looked round her pretty sitting-room, with its +faded, rather austere furnishings, without being vividly reminded of the +woman he had loved and whom he had now lost, for it was there that Peggy +had spent the most peaceful hours of her life since Pargeter had first +decided that henceforth they should live in Paris. + + * * * * * + +At last Madame de Léra came into the room; she gave her visitor a quick +questioning look. "Have you nothing new to tell?" she asked. + +And, after a moment of scarcely perceptible hesitation, Vanderlyn +answered, "I have nothing new to tell," but as they both sat down, as he +saw how sad and worn the kind face had become in the last three days, +there came over him a strong wish to confide in her--to tell her the +whole truth. He longed, with morbid longing, to share his knowledge. +She, after all, was the only human being who knew the story of his +tragic, incomplete love. It would be an infinite comfort and relief to +tell her, if not everything, then at least of the irony, the +uselessness, of their present search. + +Since last night the secret no longer seemed to be his alone. + +But Vanderlyn resisted the temptation. He had no right to cast even half +his burden on another. Any moment the odious experience which had, it +seemed, already befallen Madame de Léra might be repeated. She might +again be cross-questioned by the police. In that event it was essential +that she should be still able truthfully to declare that she knew +nothing. + +"I have just come from Tom Pargeter," he observed quietly. "I can't help +being sorry for him. The police have been worrying him, and--and at +their suggestion we have been seeking among her things--among her +correspondence--for some clue. But of course we found nothing. Pargeter +is longing to go away--to England. How I wish he would go,--God! how I +wish he would go! After all, as he says himself, he can do no good by +staying here. He would receive any news within an hour." + +Madame de Léra leant forward. "Ah! but if Mr. Pargeter leaves Paris +before--before something is discovered, his conduct would be regarded as +very cruel--very heartless." + +"Did you know," said Vanderlyn, in a low voice, "that Peggy once before +disappeared for three days? Pargeter keeps harking back to that. He +thinks that she found out something which made her leave him again." + +"Yes," said Madame de Léra, "I knew of that episode in their early +married life--but on that occasion, Mr. Vanderlyn, our poor friend +cannot be said to have disappeared--she only returned to her own +family." + +"Why, having once escaped, did she ever go back to him?" asked +Vanderlyn, sombrely. + +"You forget," said Madame de Léra, gently, "that even then there was her +son." + +Her son? Nay, Vanderlyn at no moment ever forgot Peggy's child. To +himself, he seemed to be the only human being who ever thought of the +poor little boy lying ill in far-away England. + +"Well, you need not be afraid," he said quickly, "that Pargeter will go +away to-day. He intends to stay in Paris at least till to-morrow night, +for he is convinced, it seems, that the fortune-teller, Madame +d'Elphis,--the woman who by some incredible stroke of luck stumbled on +the right name of that horse of his which won the Oaks,--will be able to +tell him what has happened to--to Margaret Pargeter." + +And, meeting Madame de Léra's troubled gaze, he added in a low bitter +tone, "How entirely that gives one the measure of the man,--the absurd +notion, I mean, that a fortune-teller can solve the mystery! Fortunately +or unfortunately, this Madame d'Elphis has been away for two or three +days, but she will be back, it seems, in time to give Pargeter, who is a +favoured client, an appointment to-morrow morning." + +Adèle de Léra suddenly rose from her chair; with a nervous movement she +clasped her hands together. + +"Ah, but that must not happen!" she exclaimed. "We must think of a way +by which we can prevent an interview between Mr. Pargeter and La +d'Elphis! Unless," she concluded slowly, "there is no serious reason why +he should not know the truth--now?" + +Vanderlyn also got up. A look of profound astonishment came over his +face. + +"The truth?" he repeated. "But surely, Madame de Léra, it is impossible +that this woman whom Pargeter is going to consult to-morrow morning can +have any clue to the truth! Surely you do not seriously believe----" he +did not conclude his sentence. That this broad-minded and religious +Frenchwoman could possibly cherish any belief in the type of charlatan +to which the American diplomatist supposed the famous Paris +fortune-teller to belong was incredible to him. + +"I beg of you most earnestly," she repeated, in a deeply troubled voice, +"to prevent any meeting between Mr. Pargeter and Madame d'Elphis! +Believe me, I do not speak without reason; I know more of this +soothsayer and her mysterious powers than you can possibly know----" + +"Do you mean me to understand that you yourself would ever consult such +an oracle?" Vanderlyn could not keep a certain contemptuous incredulity +out of his voice. + +"No, indeed! But then I, unlike you, believe this woman's traffic to be +of the devil. Listen, Mr. Vanderlyn, and I will tell you of a case in +which La d'Elphis was closely concerned--a case of which I have absolute +knowledge." + +Madame de Léra went back to her chair; she sank into it, and, with +Vanderlyn standing before her, she told him the story. + +"If you cast back your mind to the time when you were first in Paris, +you will probably recall my husband's niece, a beautiful girl named +Jeanne de Léra?" Vanderlyn bent his head without speaking; nay more, a +look of pain came over his tired face, and sunken eyes, for, strangely +enough, there was a certain sinister parallel between the fate which had +befallen the charming girl whose image was thus suddenly brought up +before him, and that of the beloved woman who seemed to be now even more +present to his emotional memory than she had been in life. + +"As you know, for it was no secret, Jeanne had what English and American +people call 'flirted' with Henri Delavigne, and he had sworn that he +would kill himself on her wedding-day. Well, the poor foolish girl took +this threat very seriously; it shadowed her happy betrothal, and on the +very day before her marriage was to take place, she persuaded her +married sister to go with her to a fortune-teller. It was not her own +future, which stretched cloudless and radiant before her, that tempted +Jeanne to peer into these mysteries; she only wished to be reassured as +to Delavigne and his absurd threat----" + +Madame de Léra stopped speaking a moment, and then she went on-- + +"Madame d'Elphis had just then become the rage, and so Jeanne decided to +consult her, although the woman charged a higher fee than, I understand, +the other fortune-tellers were then doing. When the two sisters found +themselves there, my married niece bargained that the séance should be +half-price, as Jeanne only wished to stay a very few minutes, and to ask +but one question. After the bargain was concluded, Jeanne, it seems, +observed--the story of the interview has been told to me, and before me, +many many times--that she hoped the fortune-teller would take as much +trouble as if she had paid the full fee. On this the woman replied, with +a rather malignant smile, 'I can assure Mademoiselle that she will have +plenty for her money!' + +"Then began the séance. La d'Elphis gave, as those sorts of people +always do, a marvellously accurate account of the poor child's +past,--the simple, virginal past of a very young girl,--but when it came +to the future, she declared that her vision had become blurred, and that +she could see nothing! Nothing! Nothing! Both the sisters pressed her to +say more, to predict something of the future; and at last, speaking very +reluctantly, she admitted that she saw Jeanne, pale, deathly pale, clad +in a wedding-dress, and she also evoked a wonderful vision of white +flowers...." + +Madame de Léra looked up at her visitor, but Vanderlyn made no comment; +and so she went on:-- + +"Then, with some confusion, Jeanne summoned up courage to ask the one +question she had come there to ask. The answer came at once, and was +more than reassuring: 'As to the man concerning whom you are so +anxious,' said Madame d'Elphis, 'you may count on his fidelity. The +years will go on and others who loved you will forget you--but he will +ever remember.' 'Then nothing will happen to him to-morrow?' asked +Jeanne eagerly. 'To-morrow?' replied the woman, mysteriously, 'To-morrow +I see him plunged in deep grief, and yet that which has brought him this +awful sorrow will not perhaps be wholly regretted by him.' + +"My poor little niece, if rather piqued, was yet much relieved, and the +two sisters left the presence of this horrible, sinister creature." + +Madame de Léra passed her hand with a nervous movement over her +mouth--"It was while they were actually driving home from this séance +with La d'Elphis that the terrible accident, which you of course +remember, occurred,--an accident which resulted in the younger sister's +death, while the elder miraculously escaped unhurt. Jeanne was buried in +her wedding-dress--and the flowers--you recall the wonderful flowers? +The woman's predictions as to Delavigne's constancy came strangely true; +who now remembers Jeanne, save her poor mother--and Delavigne?" + +"Yes, it's a very curious, striking story," said Vanderlyn, slowly, +"but--forgive me for saying so--if your niece's marriage had taken place +on the morrow, would anything of all this have been remembered by either +herself or her sister? The predictions of Madame d'Elphis were of a kind +which it would be safe to make of any French girl, belonging to your +world, on the eve of her marriage----" + +He stopped abruptly. In his wearied and yet morbidly active mind, an +idea, a suggestion, of which he was half-ashamed, was beginning to +germinate. + +"I should be grateful," he said, slowly, "if you can tell me something +more about La d'Elphis. I am quite sure that I shall not be able to +prevent an interview between her and Pargeter,--but still something +might be done--Is she respectable? Can she, for example,"--his eyes +dropped,--"be bribed?" + +Madame de Léra looked at Vanderlyn keenly. Perhaps she saw farther into +his mind than an American or an Englishwoman would have done. + +"All these sorts of people can be bribed," she said, quietly. "As to her +private life, I know nothing of it, but either of my nephews would be +able to tell you whatever is known of her, for since that tragic affair +our family have always taken a morbid interest in La d'Elphis. Would you +like to know something about her now, at once? Shall I send for my +nephew?" + +In answer to Vanderlyn's look, rather than to his muttered assent, +Madame de Léra left the room. + +During the few moments of her absence, a plan began to elaborate itself +with insistent clearness in Vanderlyn's mind; he saw, or thought he saw, +that here might be an issue out of his terrible dilemma. And yet, even +while so seeing the way become clear before him, he felt a deep, +instinctive repugnance from the method which would have to be +employed.... + +There came the sound of footsteps, and, turning his back to the window, +he prepared himself for the inevitable question with which, during the +last three days, almost everyone he met had greeted him. + +But the youth who came into the room with Madame de Léra, if a typical +Parisian in the matter of his careful, rather foppish, dress, and in his +bored expression, yet showed that he was possessed of the old-fashioned +good breeding which is still to be found in France, if only in that +peculiar section of French society known collectively as "the faubourg." +Jacques de Léra, alone among the many men whom Vanderlyn had come across +since the disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter had become the talk of the +town, made no allusion to the mystery, and asked no puerile question of +the man who was known to be her friend. + +"Mr. Vanderlyn has been asking me what I knew of the fortune-teller, +Madame d'Elphis. But, beyond the story concerning your poor cousin +Jeanne, I know nothing. You, Jacques, will doubtless be able to tell us +something of her. Is it true, for instance, that she is sometimes +employed by the police? I seem to have heard so--not lately, but long +ago?" + +"They say so," said Jacques de Léra, casting a quick glance at +Vanderlyn. "They say she helped to catch Pranzini. Extraordinary stories +are told of her gifts. But none of us have ever been at all anxious to +consult her--after poor Jeanne's affair. You may have seen her,"--he +turned to Vanderlyn,--"for she's sometimes at first nights and at +private views. She's by way of being artistic and cultivated; and though +she's strikingly handsome, she dresses oddly--poses as a Muse." + +"She must make a great deal of money," said Madame de Léra, +thoughtfully; with a half smile she asked her nephew the question: "Is +there a Monsieur d'Elphis? Are there infant oracles?" + +Jacques burst out laughing, and both Vanderlyn and Madame de Léra +started. It was the first time for many days that they had heard the +sound of simple human laughter. + +"My dear aunt," said the young man, chuckling, "the husband--_qua_ +husband--is, I assure you, an unknown animal in that strange underworld +of which our beautiful city is the chosen Mecca. No, no, Madame d'Elphis +does not waste her time in producing little oracles! If you wish to hear +the truth, I mean the whole truth, I will tell it you." + +And then, as Madame de Léra nodded her head, he added, more seriously, +"La d'Elphis is one of two sisters, the daughters of a very respectable +notary at Orange. Both threw their caps over the windmill, the one to +become an unsuccessful actress, the other a successful soothsayer. La +d'Elphis has one virtue--she is a devoted sister, and lives with the +other's _smalah_. As to her own private life, she has been for many +years the friend of Achille de Florac. She became acquainted with him +not long before his final crash; who knows, perhaps she helped to +precipitate it! It is to be hoped she did, for since then he has +practically lived on her. And so, my dear aunt, she is in a sense our +cousin _de la main gauche_!" + +Vanderlyn looked away from Madame de Léra. He was sorry the young man +had been so frank, for the Marquis de Florac was not only by birth a +member of her circle, but he was, as Jacques rather cruelly pointed out, +a connection of the de Léra family. + +"Poor creature!" exclaimed Adèle de Léra; her voice was filled with +involuntary pity. + +"Yes," continued Jacques, in answer to her look, "you may well say 'poor +creature!' For it's from La d'Elphis that our disreputable cousin draws +the major part of his uncertain revenues. When Paris is credulous, his +credit goes up, and he has plenty of money to play with. I'm told that +the other night he lost ten thousand francs at 'Monaco Junior'!" + +Vanderlyn made a slight movement. "Yes," he said, "that is true,--I was +there." + +"In the lean months," continued Jacques, who did not often find his +conversation listened to with such respect and attention as was now the +case, "I mean, of course, in the summer--poor Florac has to retrench, +but La d'Elphis does not remain idle. She goes to Aix, to Vichy, to +Dieppe for the Grande Semaine,--in fact, wherever rich foreigners +gather; and wherever she goes she finds plenty eager to consult her!" + +"Is that all you wanted to know?" said Madame de Léra to Vanderlyn. + +"Yes," he said, slowly, "that is all. I did not know--I had no +idea--that our poor old world was still so credulous!" + + + + +XI. + + +As Vanderlyn walked away from Madame de Léra's door, the plan, of which +the first outline had come to him while she was telling the strange +story concerning the fortune-teller and her niece, had taken final +shape; and it now impressed itself upon him as the only way out of his +terrible dilemma. + +Vanderlyn was by nature a truthful man, and in spite of the ambiguous +nature of his relations with Margaret Pargeter, he had never been +compelled to lie in defence of their friendship. Even during these last +few days, he had as far as was possible avoided untruth, and only to one +person, that is, to the Prefect of Police, had he lied--lied +desperately, and lied successfully. This was why, even while telling +himself that he had at last found a way in which to convey the truth to +Pargeter, he felt a deep repugnance from the methods which he saw he +would be compelled to employ. + +More than once the American diplomatist had had occasion to take part in +delicate negotiations with one of those nameless, countryless +individuals, whose ideal it is to be in the pay of a foreign Embassy, +and who always set on their ignoble services a far higher value than +those services generally deserve. But Vanderlyn belonged to the type of +man who finds it far easier to fight for others, and especially for his +country, than for himself. Still, in this case, was he not fighting for +Margaret Pargeter? For what he knew she valued far more than life +itself--her honour. What he was about to do was hateful to him--he was +aware how severely he would have judged such conduct in another--but it +seemed the only way, a way made miraculously possible by the +superstitious folly of Tom Pargeter. + +The offer Vanderlyn was about to convey to Madame d'Elphis was quite +simple; in exchange for saying a very few words to Tom Pargeter,--words +which would add greatly to the belief the millionaire already possessed +in what he took to be her extraordinary gifts of divination,--the +soothsayer would receive ten thousand francs. + +There need be no difficulty even as to the words she should use to +reveal the truth; Vanderlyn had cut out from the _Petit Journal_ the +paragraph which told of the strange discovery made three nights before +at Orange. He would inform her that Mr. Pargeter's friends, having +assured themselves that the unknown woman in question was Mrs. Pargeter, +desired to break the sad news through her, instead of in a more +commonplace fashion. + +Vanderlyn knew enough of that curious underworld of Paris which preys on +wealthy foreigners, to feel sure that this would not be the first time +that Madame d'Elphis had been persuaded, in her own interest, to add the +agreeable ingredient of certainty to one of her predictions. The +diplomatist also believed he could carry through the negotiation without +either revealing his identity, or giving the soothsayer any clue to his +reason for making her so strange a proposal. + +Having made his plan, Vanderlyn found it remarkably easy to carry out. + +In London, such a man as himself would have found it difficult to have +ascertained at a moment's notice the address of even a famous palmist or +fortune-teller. But in everything to do with social life Paris is highly +organised, London singularly chaotic. + +On reaching home, he at once discovered, with a certain bitter +amusement, that Madame d'Elphis disdained the artifices with which she +might reasonably have surrounded her mysterious craft. Not only were her +name, address, and even hours of consultation, to be found in the "Tout +Paris," but there also was inscribed her telephone number. + +Vanderlyn hated the telephone. He never used it unless he was compelled +to do so; but now he went through the weary, odious preliminaries with a +certain eagerness--"Alo! Alo! Alo!" + +At last a woman's voice answered, "Yes--yes. Who is it?" + +"Can Madame d'Elphis receive a client this evening?" + +There was a pause. Then he heard a question asked, a murmured answer of +which the sense evaded him, and then a refusal,--not, he fancied, a very +decided refusal,--followed by a discreet attempt to discover his name, +his nationality, his address, with a suggestion that Madame d'Elphis +would be at his disposal the next morning. + +A touch of doubt in the quick, hesitating accents of the unseen woman +emboldened Vanderlyn. He conveyed, civilly and clearly, that he was +quite prepared to offer a very special fee for the favour he was asking; +and he indicated that, though he had been told the usual price of a +séance was fifty francs, he--the mysterious stranger who was speaking to +Madame d'Elphis through the telephone--was so exceedingly anxious to be +received by her that evening that he would pay a fancy fee,--in fact as +much as a thousand francs,--for the privilege of consulting the famous +fortune-teller. + +To Vanderlyn's vexation and surprise, there followed a long pause. + +At last came the answer, the expected assent; but it was couched in +words which surprised and vaguely disquieted him. + +"Very well, sir, my sister will be ready to receive you at eight o'clock +to-night; but she is going out, so she will not be able to give you a +prolonged séance." + +Then he had not been speaking to the soothsayer herself? Vanderlyn felt +vaguely disquieted and discomfited. He had counted on having to take but +one person into his half-confidence; and then--well, he had told himself +while at the telephone that he would not find it difficult to conclude +the bargain he desired to make with the woman whose highly-pitched, +affected voice had given him, or so he had thought, the clue to a venal +personality. + + * * * * * + +It was with a feeling of considerable excitement and curiosity that the +diplomatist, that same evening, walked up the quiet, now deserted, +streets where dwelt the most famous of Parisian fortune-tellers. + +Madame d'Elphis had chosen a prosaic setting for the scene of her +mysteries, for the large white house looked very new, a huge wedge of +modern ugliness in the pretty old street, its ugliness made the more +apparent by its proximity to one of those leafy gardens which form oases +of fragrant stillness in the more ancient quarters of the town. + +A curt answer was given by the concierge in reply to Vanderlyn's enquiry +for Madame d'Elphis. "Walk through the courtyard; the person you seek +occupies the entresol of the house you will see there." + +And then he saw that lying back, quite concealed from the street, was +another and very different type of dwelling, and one far more suited to +the requirements of even a latter-day soothsayer. + +As he made his way over the dimly-lighted, ill-paved court which +separated the new building, that giving onto the street, from the +seventeenth-century mansion, Vanderlyn realised that his first +impression had been quite erroneous. Madame d'Elphis had evidently +gauged, and that very closely, the effect she desired to produce on her +patrons. Even in the daytime the mansarded house which now gloomed +before him must look secret, mysterious. Behind such narrow latticed +windows might well have dwelt Cagliostro, or, further back, the more +sinister figure of La Voison. + +But something of this feeling left him as he passed through the door +which gave access to the old house; and, as he began to walk up the +shabby gas-lit staircase, he felt that his repugnant task would be an +easy one. The woman who, living here, allowed herself the luxury of such +a lover as was the Marquis de Florac, would not--nay, could +not--hesitate before such an offer as ten thousand francs. + +There was but one door on the entresol, and on its panel was inscribed +in small gold letters the word "d'Elphis." As Vanderlyn rang the bell, +the odd name gleamed at him in the gas-light. + +There followed a considerable delay, but at last he saw a face peering +at him through the little grating--significantly styled a _Judas_, and +doubtless dating from the Revolution,--still to be found in many an +old-fashioned Parisian front-door. + +The inspection having apparently proved satisfactory, the door opened, +and Vanderlyn was admitted, by a young _bonne à tout faire_, into a hall +filled with a strong smell of cooking, a smell that made it clear that +Madame d'Elphis and her family--her _smalah_, as Jacques de Léra had +called them--had the true Southern love of garlic. + +Without asking his name or business, the servant showed him straight +into a square, gold-and-white salon. Standing there, forgetful for a +moment of his distasteful errand, Vanderlyn looked about him with +mingled contempt and disgust, for his eyes, trained to observe, had at +once become aware that the note of this room was showy vulgarity. The +furniture was a mixture of imitation Louis XV. and sham Empire. On the +woven tapestry sofa lay a child's toy, once costly, but now broken. + +How amazing the fact that here, amid these pretentiously ugly and +commonplace surroundings, innumerable human beings had stood, and would +stand, trembling with fear, suspense, and hope! Vanderlyn reminded +himself that here also Tom Pargeter, a man accustomed to measure +everything by the money standard, had waited many a time in the sure +belief that this was the ante-chamber to august and awe-inspiring +mysteries; here, all unknowing of what the future held, he would come +to-morrow morning, to learn, for once, the truth--the terrible +truth--from the charlatan to whom he, poor fool, pinned his faith. + +Suddenly a door opened, and Vanderlyn turned round with eager curiosity, +a curiosity which became merged in astonishment. The woman advancing +towards him made her vulgar surroundings sink into blurred +insignificance; for Madame d'Elphis, with her slight, sinuous figure, +draped in a red peplum, her pale face lit by dark tragic eyes, looked +the sybil to the life.... + +Vanderlyn bowed, with voluntary deference. "Monsieur," she said, in a +low, deep voice, "I must ask you to follow me; this is my sister's +_appartement_. I live next door." + +She preceding him, they walked through an untidy dining-room of which +the furniture--the sham Renaissance chairs and walnut-wood +buffet--looked strangely alien to Vanderlyn's guide, into a short, +ill-lighted passage, which terminated in a locked, handleless door. + +The woman whom he now knew to be Madame d'Elphis turned, and, facing +Vanderlyn, for the first time allowed her melancholy eyes to rest full +on her unknown visitor. + +"You have your stick, your hat?" she asked. "Yes?--that is well; for +when our séance is over, you will leave by another way, a way which +leads into the garden, and so into the street." + +She unlocked the door, and he followed her into a large book-lined +study--masculine in its sober colouring and simple furnishings. Above +the mantelpiece was arranged a trophy of swords and fencing-sticks; +opposite hung a superb painting by Henner. Vanderlyn remembered having +seen this picture exhibited in the Salon some five years before. It had +been shown under the title "The Crystal-Gazer," and it was even now an +admirable portrait of his hostess, for so, unconsciously, had Vanderlyn +begun to regard the woman who was so little like what he had expected to +find her. + +Madame d'Elphis beckoned to him to follow her into yet another, and a +much smaller, room. Ah! This was evidently the place where she pursued +her strange calling; for here--so Vanderlyn, trying to combat the eerie +impression she produced on him, sardonically told himself--were the +stage properties of her singular craft. + +The high walls were hung with red cloth, against which gleamed +innumerable plaster casts of hands. The only furniture consisted of a +round, polished table, which took up a good deal of the space in the +room; on the table stood an old-fashioned lamp, and in the middle of the +circle of light cast by the lamp on its shining surface, a round crystal +ball. Two chairs were drawn up to the table. + +An extraordinary sensation of awe--of vague disquiet--crept over +Laurence Vanderlyn; he suddenly remembered the tragic story of Jeanne de +Léra. Was it here that the sinister interview with the doomed girl had +taken place? + +It was Madame d'Elphis who broke the long silence:-- + +"I must ask you, Monsieur," she said, stiffly, "to depose the fee on the +table. It is the custom." + +Vanderlyn's thin nervous hand shot up to his mouth to hide a smile; the +eerie feeling which had so curiously possessed him dropped away, leaving +him slightly ashamed. + +"Poor woman," he said to himself, "she cannot even divine that I am an +honest man!" + +He bent his head gravely, and took the roll of notes with which he had +come provided out of his pocket. He placed a thousand-franc note on the +table. "What a fool she must think me!" he mentally exclaimed; then came +the consoling reflection, "But she won't think me a fool for long." + +Madame d'Elphis scarcely glanced at the thousand-franc note; she left it +lying where Vanderlyn had put it. "Will you please sit down, Monsieur?" +she said. + +Vanderlyn rather reluctantly obeyed her. As she seated herself opposite +to him, he was struck by the sad intensity of her face; he told himself +that she had once been--nay, that she was still--beautiful, but it was +the tortured beauty of a woman who lives by and through her emotions. + +He also realised that his task would not be quite as easy as he had +hoped it would be; the manner of La d'Elphis was cold, correct, and +ladylike--no other word would serve--to the point of severity. He saw +that he would have to word his offer of a bribe in as least offensive a +fashion as was possible. But while he was trying to find a sentence with +which to embark on the delicate negotiation, he suddenly felt his left +hand grasped and turned over, with a firm and yet impersonal touch. + +The centre of the soothsayer's cool palm rested itself on the ring--his +mother's wedding ring--loosely encircling his little finger, and then +Madame d'Elphis began speaking in a low, quiet, and yet hesitating, +voice,--a voice which suddenly recalled to her listener her Southern +birth and breeding; it was strangely unlike the accents in which she had +asked him to produce the promised fee. + +Surprise, a growing, ever-deepening surprise, kept Vanderlyn silent. He +soon forgot completely, for the time being, the business which had +brought him there. + +"For you the crystal," she whispered, "for others the Grand Jeu. You +have not come, as others do, to learn the future; you do not care what +happens to you--now." + +She waited a moment, then, "the ring brings with it two visions," she +said, fixing her eyes on the polished depths before her. "Visions of +love and death--of pain and parting; one, if clear, yet recedes far into +the past...." + +She raised her voice, and began speaking in a monotonous recitative: + +"I see you with a woman standing in a garden; behind you both is a great +expanse of water. She is so like you that I think she must be your +mother. She wears her grey hair in Madonna bands; she puts her arms +round your neck; as she does so, I see on her left hand one ring--the +ring which you are now wearing, and which I am now touching. She, your +mother, is bidding you good-bye, she knows that she will never see you +again, but you do not know it, so she smiles, for she is a brave +woman----" + +Madame d'Elphis stopped speaking. Vanderlyn stared at her with a sense +of growing excitement and amazement; he was telling himself that this +woman undoubtedly possessed the power of reading not only the minds, but +even the emotional memories, of those who came to consult her.... Yes, +it was true; his last parting with his mother had been out of doors, in +the garden of their own family house on the shores of Lake Champlain. + +As he looked fixedly at the crystal-gazer's downcast eyes, his own +emotions seemed to become reflected in her countenance. She grasped his +hand with a firmer, a more convulsive pressure. + +"I see you again," she exclaimed, "and again with a woman! This vision +is very clear; it evokes the immediate past--almost the present. The +woman is young; her hair is fair, and in a cloud about her head. You are +together on a journey. It is night----" + +Madame d'Elphis stopped speaking abruptly; she looked up at Vanderlyn, +and he saw that her dark eyes were brimming with tears, her mouth +quivering. + +"Do you wish me to describe what I see?" she asked, in an almost +inaudible voice. + +"No," said Vanderlyn, hoarsely,--he seemed to feel Peggy's arms about +his neck, her soft lips brushing his cheek. + +The soothsayer bent down till her face was within a few inches of the +polished surface into which she was gazing. + +"Now she is lying down," she whispered. "Her face is turned away. Is she +asleep? No, she is dead!--dead!" + +"Can you see her now?" asked Vanderlyn. "For God's sake tell me where +she is! Can I hope to see her again--once more?" + +Madame d'Elphis withdrew her hand from that of Vanderlyn. + +"You will only see her face," she answered, slowly, "through the +coffin-lid. That you will see. As to where she is now--I see her +clearly, and yet,"--she went on, as if to herself, "nay, but that's +impossible! I see her," she went on, raising her voice, "laid out for +burial under a shed in a beautiful garden. The garden is that of Dr. +Fortoul's house at Orange. At the head of the pallet on which she lies +there are two blessed candles; a nun kneels on the ground. Stay,--who is +that coming in from the garden? It is the wife of the doctor, it is +Madame Fortoul,"--again there came a note of wavering doubt into the +voice of the crystal-gazer. "She is whispering to the nun, and I hear +her words; she says, 'Poor child, she is young, too young to have died +like this, alone. I am having a mass said for her soul to-morrow +morning.'" + +Madame d'Elphis looked up. Her large eyes, of which the lids were +slightly reddened, rested on Vanderlyn's pale, drawn face. + +"Monsieur," she said, in a low, reluctant voice, "to be honest with you, +I fear I have been leading you astray. During the last few moments it is +my own past life that has been rising before me, not the present of this +poor dead woman. When I am tired--and I am very tired to-night--some +such trick is sometimes played me. I was born at Orange; as a child I +spent many hours in the beautiful garden which just now rose up before +me; I once saw a dead body in that shed--Madame Fortoul, who is devout, +often has masses said for those who meet with sudden deaths and whose +bodies are brought to her husband." + +The soothsayer rose from her chair. + +"If you will come to me to-morrow," she said, "bringing with you +something which belonged to this lady, I am sure I shall be able to tell +you all you wish to know. For that second séance," she added hurriedly, +"I shall of course ask no further fee." + +Vanderlyn, waking as from a dream, heard sounds in the other room, the +coming and going of a man's footsteps. He also got up. + +"Madame," he said, quietly, "I thank you from my heart. I recognise the +truth of all you have told me, _with one paramount exception_. It is +true that the woman whom you saw lying dead is now in the house of Dr. +Fortoul at Orange; the fact that you once knew the place is an +accident--and nothing but an accident. You have, however, Madame, made +one strange mistake." + +He took out of his pocket and held in his hand the large open envelope +containing, in addition to the remainder of the notes he had brought, +the slip he had cut from the newspaper. "Here is the proof that all you +have seen is true," he repeated, "with one exception--_This lady was +alone in the train_. It is important that this should be thoroughly +understood by you, for to-morrow you will be called upon to testify to +the fact." + +Madame d'Elphis stiffened into deep attention. + +"To-morrow morning," continued Vanderlyn, very deliberately, "one of +your regular clients is coming to ask you to assist him to solve a +terrible mystery. I will tell you his name--it is Mr. Pargeter, the +well-known sportsman. He is coming to ask you to help him to find +Mrs. Pargeter, who some days ago mysteriously disappeared. This +lady's death, but he does not yet know it, took place while she was +travelling--travelling alone. I repeat, Madame, that she was +_alone--quite alone--on her fatal journey_." + +Vanderlyn stopped speaking a moment; then his voice lowered, became +troubled and beseeching. + +"Once you have revealed the truth to Mr. Pargeter,--and he will believe +implicitly all you say,--then, Madame, you will not only have +accomplished a good action, but a sum, bringing the fee for the séance +which is just concluded up to ten thousand francs, will be placed at +your disposal by me." + +Madame d'Elphis looked long and searchingly at the man standing before +her. + +"Monsieur," she said, "will you give me your word that the death of Mrs. +Pargeter was as this paper declares it to have been--that is to say, a +natural death?" + +"Yes," answered Vanderlyn, "she knew that she would die in this +way--suddenly." + +"Then," said the fortune-teller, coldly, "I will do as you desire." + +Vanderlyn, following a sudden impulse, put the envelope he held in his +hand on the table. "Here is the fee," he said, briefly. "I know that I +can trust in your discretion, your loyalty,--may I add, Madame, in your +kindness?" + +"I am ashamed," she whispered, "ashamed to take this money." She clasped +her hands together in an unconscious gesture of supplication, and then +asked, with a curious childish directness, "It is a great deal--can you +afford it, Monsieur?" + +"Yes," he said, hastily; the suffering, shamed expression on her face +moved him strangely. + +"When you next see Mr. Pargeter," she murmured, "you shall have written +proof that I have carried out your wish." + +She tapped the table twice, sharply,--then led the way into the larger +room. It was empty, but Vanderlyn, even as he entered, saw a door +closing quietly. + +Madame d'Elphis walked across to an un-curtained window; she opened it +and stepped through on to a broad terrace balcony. + +"Walk down the iron stairway," she said, in a low voice, "there are not +many steps. A little door leads from the garden below straight into the +street; the door has been left unlocked to-night." + +Vanderlyn held out his hand; she took it and held it for a moment. "Ah!" +she said, softly, "would that _I_ had died when I was still young, still +beautiful, still loved!--" + + + + +XII. + + +The bright May sun was pouring into Tom Pargeter's large smoking-room, +making more alive and vivid the fantastic and brilliantly-coloured +posters lining the walls. + +Laurence Vanderlyn, standing there in a peopled solitude, caught a +glimpse of his own strained and tired face in a mirror which filled up +the space between two windows, and what he saw startled him, for it +seemed to him that none could look at his countenance and not see +written there the tale of his anguish, remorse, and suspense. And yet he +knew that now his ordeal was drawing to a close; in a few moments +Pargeter was due to return from his interview with Madame d'Elphis. + +Walking up and down the sunny room which held for him such agonising +memories of the long hours spent there during the last three days in Tom +Pargeter's company, Vanderlyn lived again every moment of his own +strange interview with the soothsayer. The impression of sincerity which +Madame d'Elphis had produced on him had now had time to fade, and he +asked himself with nervous dread whether she was, after all, likely to +do what she had promised. Nay, was it in her power to lie,--or rather to +tell the half-truth which was all that he had asked her to tell? + +At last there came the sound of the front-door of the villa opening, +shutting; and then those made by Pargeter's quick, short footsteps +striking the marble floor of the hall, and echoing through the silent +house. + +Vanderlyn stopped short in his restless pacing. He turned and waited. + +The door was flung open, and Pargeter came in. Quietly shutting the door +behind him, he walked down the room to where the other man, with his +back to the window, stood waiting for him. The three days and nights +which had carved indelible lines on the American's already seamed face, +had left Pargeter's untouched; just now he looked grave, subdued, but +his face had lost the expression of perplexed anger and anxiety which +had alone betrayed the varying emotions he had experienced since the +disappearance of his wife. + +At last, when close to Vanderlyn, he spoke--in a low, gruff whisper. +"Grid!" he exclaimed, "Grid, old man, don't be shocked! La d'Elphis says +that Peggy's dead--that she's been dead three days!" + +Vanderlyn could not speak. He stared dumbly at the other, and as he +realised the relief, almost the joy, in Pargeter's voice, there came +over him a horrible impulse to strike--and then to flee. + +"There, you can see it for yourself--" Pargeter held out, with fingers +twitching with excitement, a sheet of note-paper. "La d'Elphis wrote it +all down! I didn't see her--she's ill. But this is not the first time +I've had to work her in that way, and it does just as well. Her sister +managed everything,--she took her in one of Peggy's gloves which I'd +brought with me." + +Vanderlyn shuddered. He opened his mouth, but no words would come. Then +he looked down at the sheet of paper Pargeter had handed him:-- + + "The person to whom this glove belonged has been dead three days. + She died on a journey--alone. Think of the bridal flower,--it will + guide you to where she now lies waiting for those who loved her to + claim her." + +Pargeter laid one hand on Vanderlyn's arm--with the other he took out of +one of his pockets a sheaf of thin slips of paper. The American knew +them to contain accounts of accidents and untoward occurrences +registered at the Prefecture of Police. + +Pargeter detached one of the slips and laid it across the sheet of paper +on which Madame d'Elphis had written her laconic message:-- + +"Look--look at _this_, Grid! And don't say again I'm a fool for +believing in La d'Elphis! I've had this since the day before yesterday; +but I didn't bother to show it to you, for I didn't think anything of +it--I shouldn't now, but for La d'Elphis! But do look--'the body of a +young, fair woman found in a train at _Orange_,'--'the bridal flower,' +as La d'Elphis says--eh, what?" + +But still Vanderlyn did not speak. + +"I've thought it all out," Pargeter went on, excitedly. "Peggy was +driven to the wrong station--see? Got into the wrong train--and +then--then, Grid, when she found out what she'd done, she got +upset----" For the first time a note of awe, of horror, came into his +voice--"You see, my sister Sophy was right, after all; the poor girl's +heart was queer!" + +"And what are you going to do now?" asked Vanderlyn in a low, dry tone. +"Arrange for a special to Orange, I suppose? What time will you start, +Tom? Would you like me to come with you?" + +Pargeter reddened; his green eye blinked as if he felt suddenly blinded +by the bright sun. + +"I'm not thinking of going myself," he said, rather ashamedly. "Where +would be the good of it? Her brother and that cousin of hers are sure to +want to go. They can take Plimmer. The truth is--well, old man, I don't +feel up to it! I've always had an awful horror of death. Peggy knew that +well enough----" the colour faded from his face; he looked at the other +with a nervous, dejected expression. + +"Tom," said Vanderlyn, slowly, "why shouldn't _I_ go to Orange--with +Madame de Léra? Why say anything to Peggy's people till we really know?" + +For the first time Pargeter seemed moved to genuine human feeling. +"Well," he said, "you _are_ a good friend, Grid! I'll never forget how +you've stood by me during this worrying time. I wish I could do +something for you in return----" he looked at the other doubtfully. To +poor Tom Pargeter, "doing something" always meant parting with money, +and Laurence Vanderlyn was, if not rich, then quite well off. + +Vanderlyn's hand suddenly shook. He dropped the piece of paper he had +been holding. "Perhaps you'll let me have Jasper sometimes--in the +holidays," he said, huskily. + +"Lord, yes! Of course I will! There's nothing would please poor Peggy +more! Then--then when will you start, Grid? I mean for Orange?" + +"At once," said Vanderlyn. Then he looked long, hesitatingly at +Pargeter, and the millionaire, with most unusual perspicacity, read and +answered the question contained in that strange, uncertain gaze. + +"Don't bring her back, Grid! I couldn't stand a big funeral here. I +don't want to hear any more about it than I can help! Of course, it +isn't much good my going over to England _now_; but I won't stay in +Paris, I'll get away,--right away for a bit, on the yacht,--and take +some of the crowd with me." + + * * * * * + +No one ever knew the truth. To the Prefect of Police the mystery of the +disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter is still unsolved--unsolvable. When he +meets a pretty woman out at dinner he tells her the story--and asks her +what she thinks. + +As for Laurence Vanderlyn, he has gone home--home to the old colonial +house which was built by his great-grandfather, the friend of Franklin, +on the shores of Lake Champlain. He never speaks of Peggy excepting to +Jasper; but to the lad he sometimes talks of her as if she were still +there, still very near to them both, near enough to be grieved if her +boy should ever forget that he had a mother who loved him dearly. + + +THE END. + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Uttermost Farthing, by Marie Belloc Lowndes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UTTERMOST FARTHING *** + +***** This file should be named 18927-8.txt or 18927-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/9/2/18927/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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