She refused, therefore, but with so genuine a regret that the refusal could not give offence. The Moodys, however, while recognizing the girl's claim to independence of judgment, in their turn a.s.serted their claim to befriend her, and Toni was only too ready to accept their advice and a.s.sistance.

Hearing that it was of importance that she should set about making some money without delay, Mr. Moody secured for her a post as a.s.sistant-librarian and secretary in a big library belonging to an Italian friend of his own.

It was something of an irony that Toni's work should take her into an atmosphere that could not fail to remind her of her husband and his literary aspirations; and her heart used to contract pitifully within her sometimes when she entered the big, lofty, book-lined room, which was not unlike the stately library in the beautiful old house by the river where her married life had come to so tragic a close.

She owed the post to her proficiency in Italian and English rather than to any scholarly ability. To the end of her life Toni would never be bookish. She would always prefer living to reading about life; and it was fortunate that her work in this new library consisted largely of translating, roughly, from books in Italian and English, or in typing, from dictation, in either language.

She grew to like her employment in the quiet, mediaeval-looking room. Her employer, a gentle, sad-eyed elderly man with an invalid daughter, treated her with the utmost kindness; and if it had not been that every fibre in her being cried out incessantly for Owen, she might in time have been content.

Her first friends, the Moodys, had settled her in rooms with an old servant of their own who had married a little Italian bookseller, and were unremitting in their kindness to her; but Toni desired only to be alone in her leisure hours and refused many of the invitations which Mrs. Moody sent her from time to time.

So the days pa.s.sed, quietly and tranquilly enough; and though to Toni it seemed that all the joy, all the happiness had fled from life, that the "sweet things" had lost their sweetness, the sunshine its glory, the flowers their perfume, she was not ungrateful for the peace which had come to her so unexpectedly.

Of her husband, of Greenriver, she never dared to think. She guessed, drearily, that Owen would feel bound, in humanity, to inst.i.tute a search for his missing wife; but by a fortunate chance she had been able to cover her tracks and disappear effectually; and as the weeks glided by, and discovery was apparently as far off as ever, she began to feel, with a miserable certainty, that in time her husband would relinquish the search, and settle down to forget the frivolous, uneducated girl who had not known how to appreciate the honour he had done her in making her his wife.

To-day, this glorious spring day when the violet-scented air held a hint of summer's warmth in its breath, Toni was making holiday.

Her employer was from home, called to London by the hint of a wonderful book sale to be held there the following week; and Toni's time was her own for nearly eight days.

She had started early that morning on a pilgrimage to the little village where, long ago, she had pa.s.sed the first happy years of her life; and had arrived, before noon, to find, as she had half-expected, that none of her old friends remained to give her welcome.

Old Fiammetta was dead, as was, of course, the kindly Padre who had befriended Roger Gibbs when the young widower had decided to stay on, with his little daughter, in the home which his Antonia had made so joyous. A few of the children with whom she had played lived here still, but they had grown into st.u.r.dy, swarthy young men and women who had long since forgotten the dark-eyed child whose Italian had been as fluent as their own; and though she wandered disconsolately through the straggling little village, she met with no single glance of recognition.

She did not know that some months previously urgent inquiries had been made at the tiny post-office as to whether a young lady had arrived in the village unexpectedly. It had struck Owen as possible that, in her madness, Toni might have returned to her childhood's home; but although, had she not met Luisa, Toni would probably have done so, that chance meeting at the station had turned her feet into another path, and naturally no one here knew anything of her whereabouts.

She had intended spending the whole of her holiday in the village; but the absence of any welcome depressed her sensitive spirit, and she decided to return to Naples in the evening and spend the days of her freedom in exploring more thoroughly the fascinating streets and byways of the picturesque and romantic town.

It was late when she arrived home, carrying her little valise; and old Janet, who in spite of her long residence in Italy was still uncompromisingly British, was surprised to see her lodger returning.

"I thought you were going to stay a few days," she said quite reproachfully. "Now a real good change would have been the very best thing for you, miss, and I'm right sorry to see you back."

"You're not very kind, Janet!" Toni smiled rather wearily, "I couldn't stay ... all my friends were dead and gone ... there were only ghosts left to welcome me, and I couldn't bear it!"

The old woman read the disappointment in the girl's tone and was sorry for her.

"Well, come along in, miss, and I'll bring you some supper right away.

There's an omelette, and some lovely risotto I'm making for Pietro, and a gla.s.s or two of Chianti will soon hearten you up--though for my part I think a bottle of good English stout is worth all the thin wines in Italy!"

When, later, she bustled in again with some excellent coffee, the old woman brought a bundle of papers which had been left by Mrs. Moody earlier in the day. There were various English and American magazines, and a few weekly papers; and had doubtless been intended to lighten the loneliness of Toni's holiday.

She sat sipping her coffee and turning the pages rather listlessly.

Somehow reading appealed to her less than ever nowadays. She was always so fully occupied with her own miserable thoughts, that the imaginative writings of other people could claim small share of her interest; but she dipped into the magazines as she sat alone, and tried to forget herself for an hour in the perusal of their pages.

Among the papers was a copy of the _Daily Telegraph_, sent to Mrs. Moody occasionally by a sister in London; and Toni was idly turning the clumsy sheets when a name she knew attracted her attention.

She scanned the paragraph hurriedly a little pulse beating in her temple as she read.

"We learn on good authority that the famous portrait-painter Mr.

James Herrick, better known as Mr. Herrick Vyse, has accepted a commission to paint the two beautiful daughters of Lord and Lady Tregarthen at their historic home in Cornwall. The young subjects, who are twins, are only nine years of age, but are ranked among the loveliest of England's many beautiful children, and doubtless the artist will do their childish beauty full justice. Mr. Herrick has already left his picturesque bungalow on the Thames for Tregarthen House, where he will be the guest of Lord and Lady Tregarthen during the painting of the portrait."

The paper fell from Toni's hands and the light of a great inspiration flashed into her face.

Lately she had longed, with ever-increasing intensity, for some authentic news of Owen. She felt she would give all she had in the world to hear that he was well, that her flight had not ruined his life; but she had no means of finding out anything without running the risk of giving away the secret of her own hiding-place.

She had sometimes thought of writing to Eva Herrick, binding her to the strictest secrecy, and imploring her, for the sake of their old friendship, to give her the information she craved. But there were so many drawbacks to the plan. Her letter might easily fall into Herrick's hands, and though the contents would be sacred to him, the Italian postmark would be enough to betray her whereabouts.

But now, during Herrick's absence, she might surely risk sending Eva a letter. She felt pretty certain that Mrs. Herrick would not give away her secret. By this time Toni was quite able to appreciate the part Eva Herrick had played in her unfortunate escapade; and she realised, very plainly, that Eva's unhappy desire to ruin other lives as hers had been ruined, had been at the bottom of her eager sympathy and pretended help.

Even now Eva would doubtless seek to prevent any real reconciliation between husband and wife; and in any case Toni felt that she must take the risk; she must have news, hear how Owen had taken her flight; and surely Eva would not refuse to answer her letter.

She wrote it there and then. It was very short, only a few lines imploring the recipient to give her all news of Owen, while keeping the secret of the writer's hiding place. Of herself Toni merely stated that she was at work and content; but the few scribbled lines breathed a spirit of misery, of supplication which would surely melt even the hardest heart.

Having signed her name, and seen that the address at the top of the sheet was correct, Toni hastily procured an envelope, thrust in the fateful letter, and immediately slipped out of the house to post it.

Up to this moment she had acted impulsively, without giving herself time to think, with possibly a lurking fear at the back of her mind that if she stopped to consider she would tear up the letter instead of posting it. But when once it had left her hand, when she had heard the thud it made in falling into the almost empty box, a great terror seized Toni, and she stood trembling in the deserted street, feeling that she would give all she had to rescind her impetuous action.

But doubts and misgivings were alike useless now. The letter had pa.s.sed out of her keeping, and she must abide by her own deed, trusting fervently that no further misfortune would follow her precipitancy.

Realizing at last that regrets were futile, Toni turned away and went home, there to spend a sleepless night torturing herself with all sorts of premonitions and visions of ill-luck.

But in her wildest flights of imaginative terror over the receipt of her letter, and its consequences, Toni never approached the truth.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Toni's letter was delivered to Mrs. Herrick late one afternoon; and with a slight feeling of wonder as to her correspondent's ident.i.ty, Eva broke the seal languidly and took out the thin foreign sheet without the least notion that this letter was to her a veritable messenger of Fate.

It did not take her long to read the few scrawled lines in which Toni proffered her desperate request; and when she had read them, Eva let the sheet flutter to the floor while she pondered on the strange chance which led the woman whose life she had helped to ruin to appeal to her for aid.

The months which had pa.s.sed since Toni's flight had not been happy ones for Eva Herrick. On hearing of the part she had played in the culminating catastrophe, her husband had felt at first that he could barely find it in his heart to forgive such deliberate treachery; and for a short s.p.a.ce of time even the malicious and reckless Eva knew what it was to be afraid. She was afraid, not of Herrick's wrath, but of the consequences. If, as at times she almost feared, he were to leave her, what would her position be? Already disgraced, discredited in the eyes of the world, she would find it impossible to face that world all alone, without the shelter of her husband's name; and although Toni's plight was nothing to her, there were times when she almost wished she had left the girl alone and had not encouraged her to take the fatal step of leaving her home.

She picked up the flimsy sheet again and re-read the pitiful words. The letter could be answered easily enough. If she replied truthfully, she would relate a tragic history of a winter of lonely despair lived out in the beautiful old house, which to its solitary owner was like a body without a soul, a mere empty sh.e.l.l which had once held something precious beyond all words.

She could narrate of blank and heavy days, when Owen Rose shut himself up in his library and refused to see a single fellow-creature save the servants who had known and loved his pretty young wife. Eva could have told of the dismissal of the housekeeper, Mrs. Blades, whose long service had seemed to her sufficient to warrant an impertinent stricture on Mrs. Rose's shameless conduct. She had learned her mistake very quickly; and had gone forth lamenting the short-sighted folly which had ended her long and tyrannical reign at Greenriver. Further, Eva could have related how, when the papers were full of complimentary reviews of Owen Rose's novel, the author himself turned away from all praise, fulsome and discriminating alike, and took up his pen only to write such articles as his position on the staff of the _Bridge_ rendered necessary.

But as yet Eva did not know what form her reply would take.

Warped, distorted, malignant as her judgment too often was, there was something very vital in that despairing cry from Italy; and in spite of herself Eva could not banish its echo from her ears.

She might answer, briefly, that Owen was still at Greenriver, and, so far as she knew, in good health and spirits. As she framed the words she had a mental vision of Owen as she had last seen him, thin, pale, haggard, with the fire of a restless despair burning in his blue eyes.

Although he went out and about, and greeted his friends much as usual, no one could doubt that the whole man was consumed as by a devouring flame. He had been tortured with terrible neuralgic headaches all through the winter; but though the doctor urged him to try the effect of a sojourn abroad, nothing would induce him to leave Greenriver.

His tentative inquiries in Italy having proved futile, he clung to the idea that Toni was still in England; and the thought that she might return to her home and find him gone was one which recurred to him like a nightmare whenever he took even the short journey up to town.

"What shall I say, I wonder?" Eva sat gazing thoughtfully into the fire, while the Spring twilight fell over the river which glided so quietly past her windows. "If I say she is forgotten it will almost break her heart; yet if I tell her that her husband is breaking _his_ heart to find her, will she come to England instantly and humble herself till he takes her back into his home?"