"Tell me just what has happened." The demand spoken so quietly had the effect desired.

Ruxton pulled himself together. His father watched the return of control with satisfaction.

He told the story of his journey to Wednesford calmly and quietly, without missing a detail. Sir Andrew listened closely, the seriousness of his att.i.tude deepening with every fresh detail which pointed the certainty of foul play. At the conclusion of the story he was as gravely apprehensive as the other, and his sympathy for his boy's heart-broken condition was from the depths of his devoted heart.

"I've got the best Scotland Yard can supply working for us, and each man has been offered fabulous rewards if he can ascertain her whereabouts. So far I have no news; no hope. Dad, I love Vita so that this thing has nearly set me crazy. I tell you I must find her. I must save her from these devils, or----"

"Have you seen Von Hertzwohl?"

Ruxton started. His drawn face and straining eyes underwent a complete change at the simple enquiry from his father.

"No. I----"

"It seems to me if their object is to get at him it should not be impossible that a clue---- Besides, I sent a letter on to him, which came under cover addressed to me. That was the first thing this morning, just before you arrived. It was written in a woman's hand, and----"

"G.o.d! Why didn't you speak of it before?" The demand was almost rough.

Such was the rush of blind hope that suddenly surged through the younger man's heart.

The father's eyes twinkled.

"You had told me nothing. I knew nothing of the trouble."

"Of course. I'm sorry, Dad." Ruxton's whole att.i.tude had undergone a swift change.

Now he was all eager hope, and strung to a pitch of desire for action.

"I will go to him at once."

"Now?" The old man shook his head. "You're too reckless, boy. Think it over carefully. Remember, Dorby is full of German agents. I should suggest to-night. I should suggest you adopt the garb of a worker.

Ruxton Farlow visiting a working man's abode. It would be too inviting to our--enemies."

"Dad, you're right--always right. Yes; to-night. You think it was a letter from her?"

Sir Andrew shook his head.

"I haven't an idea, boy," he said in his deliberate fashion. "How could I be expected to? The letter came, and I sent it on by hand. A perfectly trustworthy hand, under cover of a fresh address to Mr.

Charles Smith. Now it's different. It seems it might be a--clue."

"Might? Of course it is. There is only one woman who would write to him. But--why not have written to me?"

The same thought had simultaneously occurred to the father, and, as it came, something of the lighter manner which had been steadily gathering died out of his shrewd eyes.

It was a little yellow brick cottage, part of a terrace of a dozen or so, in a cul-de-sac, guarded at its entrance by a beer-house on one hand, and, on the other, a general shop. The brickwork was black with years of fog and soot, and the English climate. The front of it possessed three windows and a doorway, with a step that at rare intervals was tinted with a sort of yellow ochre. The windows were curtainless, and suggested years of uncleanliness in the inhabitants.

The interior was little better. The owners of the place lived down-stairs. The two small rooms above were let to lodgers of the working cla.s.s. One of the latter was employed in one of the shipyards.

The other the poor housewife was doubtful about. He remained unemployed, and was a foreigner; but he paid his rent, and didn't seem to require her to do any cooking for him. Then he seemed fond of her dirty-faced children, of whom there seemed to be an endless string, who frequently invaded his quarters, and submitted him to an interminable catechism of childish enquiry.

Otherwise the tall, lean workman with the hollow cheeks and luminous eyes was left to prosecute his apparently fruitless search for work unquestioned. Mrs. Clark was far too busy with her brood of offspring to concern herself with his affairs, a small mercy vouchsafed him, and for which he was duly thankful. Mr. Charles Smith by no means courted the intimacy of his neighbors, or his fellow-lodger; at the same time, he avoided exciting any suspicion.

He had received a letter that morning. He had read it at once. It was written in German, but the address upon the outer envelope was in a bold English handwriting. After reading it he straightened up his meagre room in a preoccupied fashion. His big, foreign-looking eyes were more than usually reflective, and a curious pucker of thought had drawn his s.h.a.ggy brows together. Then, as was his rule, he pa.s.sed out of the house, greeting the ragged fragments of humanity, who owed--and rarely yielded--obedience to Mrs. Clark, in his friendly fashion, and set out on what appeared to be his daily pursuit of employment. He returned at noon.

He read his letter again, and sat thinking about it until he was disturbed by one of the children. Then he again set forth. Nor did he return to his abode until darkness had closed in, and the army of small children had been bestowed for the night in their various nooks and corners of the lower premises.

He lit the cheap oil lamp on his table, seated himself in the unstable old basket-chair beside his uninviting bed, and settled himself for a third perusal of his letter.

It was a long letter, and it was signed "Vita." It was written in a striking feminine hand, which moulded the spidery German characters into something unusually strong and characteristic. He displayed a mild wonder that German characters supervened the signature. But the wonder pa.s.sed as he read, lost in the gravity of alarm which steadily grew in his eyes as he turned each page.

He paused during this third reading at several of the paragraphs. He reread them, as though he would penetrate the last fraction of their significance. And at each pause, at each rereading, his disquiet grew.

That letter had a grave effect upon him. So much so that he forgot time, he forgot that he had yet to go out and seek food at some ham-and-beef shop, and that he was hungry. The final paragraph of the letter perhaps affected him most of all, and gave him an unease of heart which none of the rest could have done. It was a paragraph which opened up for his scrutiny the depths of a woman's soul in the first great rush of a pa.s.sionate love. He had read this with deep emotion, and a great sympathy. And as he read it he felt something of the wrong which, through him and his efforts, was being inflicted upon the woman whom it was his paternal right to cherish and protect. Then, in the last lines of this outpouring, he received the final blow which brought him a realization. It was an example of the wonderful magnanimity and self-sacrifice of a woman's love. It was the renunciation of all her hopes and yearnings in the interests of the man upon whom she had bestowed the wealth and treasure of her woman's heart.

He mechanically folded up the letter and returned it to an inner pocket. He rose with a sigh, and gazed about him uncertainly. The meaning of his sordid surroundings pa.s.sed him by. His thoughts were on so many other things which filled his active faculties, leaving no room for the consideration of his own comforts. He even forgot that he had not eaten since noon. He extracted a sheet of paper from a small locked hand-grip, and set about writing a brief message--a message such as he had been asked for. He enclosed it in an envelope and addressed it to Redwithy Farm in Buckinghamshire.

He had just completed his task when the stairs outside his door creaked under a heavy footfall. The next moment there was a knock at his door.

Two minutes later Ruxton Farlow, clad in workman's clothes, occupied the protesting wicker-chair, while Prince von Hertzwohl contented himself with a seat upon the unyielding bed. The oil lamp shone dully upon the table and threw into dim relief two faces, whose strength and suggestion of mentality suited ill the quality of the clothes which covered the bodies beneath them.

To Von Hertzwohl it was as though some miracle of a none too pleasant nature had been performed. In view of his letter from Vita, Ruxton Farlow was the last person he desired to see. On the other hand, he had been waiting anxiously to hear from him, or see him on the subject of the happenings at the yards, of which the whole town of Dorby had become aware.

Ruxton had his own purpose in view, but the Prince gave him no opportunity of developing it at the first excitement of the meeting.

"Tell me, Mr. Farlow. Tell me of it all," he cried, in his swift, impulsive way. "I have heard so much and know so little. I have lived through a fever since yesterday morning. I have listened to the wildest stories of conspiracies and plots. It is said, even, that your father's offices have been destroyed; that he has been injured. But I knew that was not right. You will tell me it all."

Ruxton was reluctantly forced to abandon his own purpose for the moment. He even smiled in answer to the old man's wide, eager eyes.

"They have started on us," he said, with quiet confidence. "Oh, yes, they have started. The purpose was well intentioned, but of childish inception and indifferent execution. They have delayed work for perhaps two weeks. They have become obsessed with the use of bombs, which was a disease during the war."

"But the explosions--they were terrific. I heard them here, in this bed."

"The German race can do nothing without bl.u.s.ter, and they seem to regard bl.u.s.ter as achievement. They destroyed the slipways of two of the new submersibles, with little damage to the vessels themselves.

They have destroyed an office, and the working-plans therein. We have many others, and your originals are safely disposed. It is nothing. It is scarcely worth discussing."

The old man shook his head--that wonderful head--which still fascinated the Englishman. The latter noted the added intellectuality of the face since it had been clean shaven. It was a splendid face.

"No." There was an anxious light still lurking in the wide eyes of the inventor. "But it is the beginning. Only the beginning. Who knows what may happen next?"

Ruxton threw up his head. His eyes were full of a world of pain and suffering. The change had been wrought by the man's last words.

"That is it," he cried. "It is not the destruction at the yards. It is that which also they may do--which they have done. It is that which has brought me here now. I am nearly mad with anxiety and dread. I am thinking of your--daughter, sir. I can find no trace of her at her house, or elsewhere. She has gone, vanished, spirited away without a word to her--friends."

The Prince's face became a study in bewilderment. His luminous eyes looked to have grown bigger than ever. He opened his lips to speak.

Then he closed them. Then he fumbled in his pocket.

"Since when has she----?"

But he was not permitted to complete his question.