'I shall not see you again for a long time,' he said, as he was leaving.

'I start to-morrow on a long journey.'

'Out of England?'

He did not specify his route, merely said that he was going far from England. They shook hands, and Mrs. Baxendale was left with a musing expression on her face. She turned her eyes to the counter; the purchase for which Dagworthy had just paid was a box of ladies' gloves. The shopman put them aside, to be made into a parcel and sent away.

When, half an hour later, she reached home, she was at once informed that Mr. Athel was in the drawing-room. The intelligence caused her to bite her lower lip, a way she had of expressing the milder form of vexation. She went first to remove her walking apparel, and did not hasten the process. When she at length entered the drawing-room Wilfrid was pacing about in his accustomed fashion.

'You here?' she exclaimed, with a dubious shake of the head. 'Why so soon?'

'So soon! The time has gone more quickly with you than with me, Mrs.

Baxendale.'

Clearly he had not spent the last three months in ease of mind. His appearance was too like that with which he had come from Oxford on the occasion of his break-down.

'I could bear it no longer,' he continued. 'I cannot let her go away without seeing her.'

'You will go this evening?'

'Yes, I must. You have nothing hopeful to say to me?'

Mrs. Baxendale dropped her eyes, and answered, 'Nothing.' Then she regarded him as if in preface to some utterance of moment, but after all kept silence.

'Has she heard of anything yet?'

'I believe not. I have not seen her since Tuesday, and then she told me of nothing. But I don't ask her.'

'I know--you explained. I think you have done wisely. How is she?'

'Well, seemingly.'

He let his feeling get the upper hand.

'I can't leave her again without an explanation. She _must_ tell me everything. Have I not a right to ask it of her? I can't live on like this; I do nothing. The days pa.s.s in misery of idleness. If only in pity she will tell me all.'

'Don't you think it possible,' Mrs. Baxendale asked, 'that she has already done so?'

He gazed at her blankly, despairingly.

'You have come to believe that? Her words--her manner--seem to prove that?'

'I cannot say certainly. I only mean that you should be prepared to believe if she repeated it.'

'Yes, if she repeats it. I shall have no choice. Well, I wished to see you first; I will go to Banbrigg at once.'

Mrs. Baxendale seemed reluctant to let him go, yet at length she did. He was absent an hour and a half. At his return Mrs. Baxendale had friends with her in the drawing room. Wilfrid ascertained it from the servant, and said that he would go to the sitting-room he had formerly occupied, and wait there till the lady was alone.

She came to him before very long, and learnt that he had not been able to see Emily; the servant had told him that she could see no one till the next morning.

Mrs. Baxendale sighed.

'Then you must wait.'

'Yes, I must wait.'

He pa.s.sed the night at the house. Mr. Baxendale was in London, parliamentarily occupied. At eleven next morning he went again to Banbrigg. Again he was but a short time absent, and in his face, as he entered the drawing-room, Mrs. Baxendale read catastrophe.

'She has gone!' he said. 'She left very early this morning. The girl has no idea where she has gone to, but says she won't return--that she has left for good. What does this mean?'

'What does it mean?' the lady repeated musingly. 'I wonder, I wonder.'

'She knew I called yesterday; I left my name. She has gone to avoid me.'

'That may be. But all her preparations were evidently made.'

'But it may not be true. The girl of course would say whatever she was bidden to. I don't believe that she has really gone.'

'I do,' said Mrs. Baxendale, with quiet significance.

'On what grounds? You know more than you will tell me. Is there no one with common humanity? Why do you plot against me? Why won't you tell me what you know?'

'I will, if you sit down there and endeavour to command yourself. That is, I will tell you certain things that I have heard, and something that I have seen. Then we will reason about them.'

Wilfrid's brow darkened. He prepared to listen.

'About six weeks ago,' the lady began, 'I went to see a friend of mine, a lady who was recovering from an illness, someone who knows Emily, though not intimately. In her illness she was nursed by the same woman who helped poor Mrs. Hood when Emily was in her fever. This woman, it appears, was induced to talk about Emily, and gave it as a secret that Emily's illness had something to do with an attachment between her and Mr. Dagworthy, her father's employer. Her grounds for believing this were, first of all, the fact of Emily frequently uttering his name in her delirium, with words which seemed to refer to some mystery between them; then the circ.u.mstance of Mr. Dagworthy's having, shortly after, left a note at the house, with special injunctions to the servant that it should be given into Emily's own hands. This story, you may imagine, surprised me not a little. A few days later Mr. Dagworthy dined with us, and I took an opportunity of talking with him; it seemed to me certain that Emily had some special place in his thoughts. I know, too, that he was particularly anxious throughout the time of her illness, and that of her mother.'

The listener was paralysed.

'Why have you kept this from me?' he asked, indignation blending with his misery.

'Because it was no better than gossip and speculation. I had no right to report such things--at all events, so it seemed to me. Now I am going to add something which may be the wildest error, but which cannot trouble you much if you imagine that the story is true. Yesterday, just before I came home to find you here, I met Mr. Dagworthy by chance in a draper's shop, and he told me that he was going away to-day, leaving England.'

'To-day?'

'Yes. And I saw that he had been buying a box of ladies' gloves.'

'What do you mean?' Wilfrid stammered out.

'I know that he has no female relatives--except his wife's, who live in another part of England, and are on bad terms with him.'

'His _wife_--you said?'

'His late wife; he is a widower. Now we may be imagining in the silliest way, but--'

'But why--' Wilfrid checked himself. 'Do I understand you? You think Emily has gone with him--has gone to be married to him?'

'It is almost impossible seriously to think it.'