Only once again, when she rose to go, I spoke to her of the great sorrow at my heart, and then alone with her in the silence of my room I implored her to reciprocate my love.

She stood motionless, allowing her hand to rest in mine, while I reiterated my declaration of affection. But when I had finished she withdrew her hand firmly, and with a negative gesture burst into tears.

I saw how agitated she was, how she trembled when her white hands came into contact with mine.

She tried to escape me, but I would not release her. Loving her as I did, I was determined that she should not slip away from me. Surely, I urged, I, her oldest friend, had a right to her rather than a stranger whom she had only known a few brief weeks. She was unjust to me.

Suddenly, while I was imploring earnestly that she would hesitate before thus casting my love aside, the clock of St Martin's struck the half-hour.

She glanced at the clock upon the mantelpiece, exclaiming--

"See! It is half-past eleven! I must go at once. I shall be locked out now, as it is. I've been late so often recently. You know how strict our rules are."

"But tell me that I may hope, Muriel. Only tell me that I may hope."

"It is useless," she answered hastily, twisting free her hand, and re-arranging her veil at the mirror. "I have told you. Let me go."

"No, no! You shall not, unless you promise me. I love you, Muriel.

You shall not pa.s.s out of my life like this."

"It will be midnight before I get back," she cried distressed. "I had no idea it was so late as this!"

"Your business matters not. To me your love is all--everything."

She stood erect before me, statuesque, queenly, looking upon me with her dark-brown eyes, in which I thought I detected a glance of pity. But it was only for an instant. Her face suddenly grew hard and set. There was a look of firm determination, which told me that my hope could never be realised; that she had spoken the truth; that she loved another.

"Good-bye," she said, in a voice half-choked with emotion, and as she put forth her hand I grasped it and pressed it to my lips.

"Good-bye, Muriel," I murmured, with a bitterness felt in the depths of my soul. "But may I not go with you to your door?"

"No," she responded, "I shall take a cab. Good-bye."

And as the tears again rose in her eyes she turned and went out.

I heard Simes saluting her a moment later, then the outer door closed, and I sat motionless, staring before me fixedly. I had, during that afternoon, awakened to the fact that I loved her; but it was, alas! too late. Another had supplanted me in her affections.

She had left me hopeless, crushed, grief-stricken, and desolate.

Next day pa.s.sed drearily, but on the next I sent Simes along to Madame Gabrielle's with a note in which I asked Muriel to see me again, making an appointment to meet her at Frascati's that evening. "Let me see you once more," I wrote, "if for the last time. Do not refuse me, for I think always of you."

In half an hour my man returned, and by his face I knew that something unusual had occurred.

He had my note still in his hand.

"Well," I said inquiringly, "have you brought an answer?"

"Miss Moore is no longer there, sir," he answered, handing me back the note.

"Not there?" I exclaimed, surprised.

"No, sir. I saw the head saleswoman, and she told me that the young lady was not now in their employ."

"Not in their employ?" I echoed, starting up. "Has she left?"

"It appears, sir, that on Sunday night she broke one of the rules, which says that no a.s.sistant may be out after eleven o'clock. She arrived at midnight, and was yesterday morning instantly dismissed. They told me that she took her belongings and went away without scarcely uttering a word except to complain of the extremely harsh treatment she had received. The manager of the firm was, however, inexorable, for it appears that other a.s.sistants had constantly been breaking the rule, and only a week ago a serious warning was posted up in the dining-room.

Miss Moore was therefore dismissed as an example to the others."

"It's infamous!" I cried. "Then no one knows where she now is?"

"No, sir. I made inquiries, but no one could tell me where I might probably find her. She was, they say, heartbroken at this treatment."

I said nothing, but taking the note, slowly tore it into tiny fragments.

The woman I loved so well was now cast upon the pitiless world of London, without employment, without friends, and probably without money.

Yet where to look for her I knew not.

By her manner when we had parted, I felt confident that her natural pride would not allow her to seek my a.s.sistance. She would, I knew, suffer in silence alone rather than allow me to help her.

When I thought of the harshness of this firm she had served so diligently and well, I grew furious. It was unjust to discharge a girl instantly and cast her on the world in that manner. It was infamous.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

JACK YELVERTON'S CONFESSION.

I went myself next morning and saw the manager of Madame Gabrielle, Limited, to demand an explanation. He was one of those frock-coated diviners of the depths of woman's mind--a person of polite deportment and address, who, although expressing extreme regret at having "to part with the young lady," nevertheless declared that it was impossible to carry on business if the rules were daily broken. The rules, he said, were framed in order that the establishment should be well conducted, and it was considered that eleven o'clock was quite late enough for any young female to be out in that neighbourhood.

I explained that it was entirely my fault, and that if I had known I would have called and apologised for her; but he merely raised his eyebrows and observed that the young lady had left, and the others had taken her summary dismissal as a salutary lesson. Inwardly I denounced him as a tyrannical taskmaster of the superior shop-walker cla.s.s, and left with, I confess, very little good-feeling towards him. Muriel had long ago told me how on one occasion this man had attempted to kiss her, and she had smacked his face. He had now driven her out into the world at an instant's notice, merely because of the vengeful dislike which still rankled within him.

Several weeks pa.s.sed. The June sun shone brightly in the London streets, giving promise of near holidays to those toiling millions who twice each day hurry across the Thames bridges to and from their labours, and whose only relaxation is a week at Margate or at Southend.

But from me all desire for life and gaiety had departed.

Though evening after evening I sought Muriel, and also wrote to her relatives at Stamford in an endeavour to discover her whereabouts, yet all was in vain. She had disappeared entirely.

The thought struck me that on leaving Madame Gabrielle's she had perhaps immediately found another situation; but as the frock-coated manager had received no letter of inquiry about her that theory seemed scarcely feasible. More and more the circ.u.mstances puzzled me. When I reflected upon our conversation that Sunday afternoon in Bushey Park I was inclined to doubt her declaration that she knew nothing of the mysterious Aline. Again, her apparent fear and anxiety when I chanced to mention the death of poor Roddy was more than pa.s.sing strange. That she had a minute knowledge of Aline's visits to me was quite plain, therefore what more natural than that she should be aware of the extraordinary acquaintance between Roddy and that woman whose touch consumed. Sometimes I was inclined to believe that she was in possession of the true circ.u.mstances of my friend's death; and at such moments the thought occurred to me that she, Muriel Moore, had been Roddy's female visitor, who had called in his valet's absence.

The thought was truly a startling one. Had she thus cast me aside because she feared me--because there was a terrible guilt upon her?

There was some inexplicable a.s.sociation between the fair-faced worker of evil, whom I knew as Aline Cloud, and this pure and honest woman whom I was ready to make my wife. Its nature was an enigma which drove me to despair in my constant efforts to solve it.

One morning, when in the depths of despair, I was sitting after breakfast idling over the newspaper, and wondering whether I could find Muriel by means of advertis.e.m.e.nt, Simes brought in a telegram, which summoned me at once to Tixover.

An hour later I left, and that afternoon arrived home to find that my father had been thrown from his horse, while riding towards Deene by a bridlepath, and was lying in a dangerous condition, with my old friend Dr Lewis, of Cliffe, and Dr Richardson, of Stamford, in attendance upon him. As may be imagined, my mother was in a state of terrible anxiety, and I at once telegraphed to my sister, who had left Beaulieu long before, and was now at Bournemouth. Next morning she arrived, but by that time my father had taken a turn for the better, and Dr Lewis, who was untiring in his attention, declared that the turning point was past and that he would recover. A good fellow was Lewis; a hardworking, careful, good-natured bachelor, who was known and respected throughout the whole countryside, because of his merry demeanour, the great pains he took with even the poorest, and the skill with which he treated one and all of his patients, from Countess to farm-labourer. Besides which, he was a remarkable whist player.

On the day of my arrival I feared the worst, but when I had been at Tixover for a day or two it was apparent that my father would recover, therefore all our spirits rose again, and one evening after dinner I went up to Mrs Walker's to have a smoke with Yelverton.

He greeted me with the cordiality of the old days at Wadham as I was ushered in, produced the inevitable whiskey from the cupboard, and we settled down to chat.

He related to me the princ.i.p.al local events of the past month, but with the air of one who was already tired of rusticating.