"Why yes, Mr. Stephens! Pray say anything you like."
"Well, my dear sir, I should like to give you a very sincere piece of advice." He hesitated. "If I were you I should go back to America as soon as possible. I feel this sad affair has thoroughly spoilt your visit to Paris; and speaking as a man who has children himself, I am sure it has not been well, either for Miss Daisy or for your son, to have become absorbed, as they could hardly help becoming, in this distressing business."
The American felt slightly puzzled by the seriousness with which the other delivered this well-meant but wholly superfluous advice. What just exactly did the lawyer mean by these solemnly delivered words?
"Why," said the Senator, "you"re quite right, Mr. Stephens; it has been an ordeal, especially for my girl Daisy: she hasn"t had air and exercise enough during this last fortnight, let alone change of thought and scene.
But, as a matter of fact, I am settling about our pa.s.sages to-day, on my way back to the hotel."
"I am very glad to hear that!" exclaimed the other, with far more satisfaction and relief in his voice than seemed warranted. "And I presume that your son will find lots of work awaiting him on his return home?
There"s nothing like work to chase cobwebs from the brain or--or heart, Mr. Senator."
"That"s true: not that there are many cobwebs in my boy"s brain, Mr.
Stephens," he smiled broadly at the notion.
"Messieurs! Mesdames! En voiture, s"il vous plait. En voiture--!"
A few minutes later Mr. Stephens waved his hand from his railway carriage, and as he did so he wondered if he himself had ever been as obtuse a father as his new American friend seemed to be.
As he walked away from the station Senator Burton made up his mind to go back on foot, taking the office of the Transatlantic Steamship Company on his way. And while he sauntered through the picturesque, lively streets of the Paris he loved with so familiar and appreciative an admiration, the American found his thoughts dwelling on the events of the last fortnight.
Yes, it had been a strange, an extraordinary experience--one which he and his children would never forget, which they would often talk over in days to come. Poor little Nancy Dampier! His kind, fatherly heart went out to her with a good deal of affection, and yes, of esteem. She had behaved with wonderful courage and good sense--and with dignity too, when one remembered the extraordinary position in which she had been placed with regard to the Poulains.
The Poulains? For the hundredth time he wondered where the truth really lay.... But he soon dismissed the difficult problem, for now he had reached the offices of the French Transatlantic Company. There the Senator"s official rank caused him to be treated with very special civility; at once he was a.s.sured that three pa.s.sages would be reserved for him on practically what boat he liked: he suggested the Lorraine, sailing in ten days time, and he had the satisfaction of seeing good cabins booked in his name.
And as he walked away, slightly cheered, as men are apt to be, by the pleasant deference paid to his wishes, he told himself that before leaving Paris he must arrange for a cable to be at once dispatched should there come any news of the mysterious, and at once unknown and familiar, John Dampier. Mrs. Dampier would surely find his request a natural one, the more so that Daisy and Gerald would be just as eager to hear news as he himself would be. He had never known anything take so firm a hold of his son"s and daughter"s imaginations.
On reaching the Hotel Saint Ange the Senator went over to Madame Poulain"s kitchen; it was only right to give her the date of their departure as soon as possible.
"Well," he said with a touch of regret in his voice, "we shall soon be going off now, Madame Poulain. Next Tuesday-week you will have to wish us bon voyage!"
And instead of seeing the good woman"s face cloud over, as it had always. .h.i.therto clouded over, when he had sought her out to say that their stay in Paris was drawing to a close, he saw a look of intense relief, of undisguised joy, flash into her dark expressive eyes, and that though she observed civilly, "Quel dommage, Monsieur le Senateur, that you cannot stay a little longer!"
He moved away abruptly, feeling unreasonably mortified.
But Senator Burton was a very just man; he prided himself on his fairness of outlook; and now he reminded himself quickly that their stay at the Hotel Saint Ange had not brought unmixed good fortune to the Poulains. It was natural that Madame Poulain should long to see the last of them--at any rate this time.
He found Gerald alone, seated at a table, intent on a letter he was writing. Daisy, it seemed, had persuaded Mrs. Dampier to go out for a walk before luncheon.
"Well, my boy, we shall have to make the best of the short time remaining to us in Paris. I have secured pa.s.sages in the Lorraine, and so we now only have till Tuesday-week to see everything in Paris which this unhappy affair has prevented our seeing during the last fortnight."
And then it was that the something happened, that the irreparable words were spoken, which suddenly and most rudely opened the Senator"s eyes to a truth which the English lawyer had seen almost from the first moment of his stay in Paris.
Gerald Burton started up. His face was curiously pale under its healthy tan, but the Senator noticed that his son"s eyes were extraordinarily bright.
"Father?" He leant across the round table. "I am not going home with you.
In fact I am now writing to Mr. Webb to tell him that he must not expect me back at the office for the present: I will cable as soon as I can give him a date."
"Not going home?" repeated Senator Burton. "What do you mean, Gerald? What is it that should keep you here after we have gone?" but a curious sensation of fear and dismay was already clutching at the older man"s heart.
"I am never going back--not till John Dampier is found. I have promised Mrs. Dampier to find him, and that whether he be alive or dead!"
Even then the Senator tried not to understand. Even then he tried to tell himself that his son was only actuated by some chivalrous notion of keeping his word, in determining on a course which might seriously damage his career.
He tried quiet expostulation: "Surely, Gerald, you are not serious in making such a decision? Mrs. Dampier, from what I know of her, would be.
the last to exact from you the fulfilment of so--so unreasonable a promise.
Why, you and I both know quite well that the Paris police, and also Mr.
Stephens, are convinced that this man Dampier just left his wife of his own free will."
"I know they think that! But it"s a lie!" cried Gerald with blazing eyes.
"An infamous lie! I should like to see Mr. Stephens dare suggest such a notion to John Dampier"s wife. Not that she is his wife, father, for I"m sure the man is dead--and I believe--I hope that she"s beginning to think so too!"
"But if Dampier is dead, Gerald, then--" the Senator was beginning to lose patience, but he was anxious not to lose his temper too, not to make himself more unpleasant than he must do. "Surely you see yourself, my boy, that if the man is dead, there"s nothing more for you to do here, in Paris?"
"Father, there"s everything! The day I make sure that John Dampier is dead will be the happiest day of my life." His voice had sunk low, he muttered the last words between his teeth; but alas! the Senator heard them all too clearly.
"Gerald!" he said gravely. "Gerald? Am I to understand--"
"Father--don"t say anything you might be sorry for afterwards! Yes, you have guessed truly. I love Nancy! If the man is dead--and I trust to G.o.d he is--I hope to marry her some day. If--if you and Mr. Stephens are right--if he is still alive--well then--" he waited a moment, and that moment was the longest the Senator had ever known--"then, father, I promise you I will come home. But in that case I shall never, never marry anybody else. Daisy knows," went on the young man, unconsciously dealing his father another bitter blow. "Daisy knows--she guessed, and--she understands."
"And does she approve?" asked the Senator sternly.
"I don"t know--I don"t care!" cried Gerald fiercely. "I am not looking for anyone"s approval. And, father?" His voice altered, it became what the other had never heard his son"s voice be, suppliant:--"I have trusted you with my secret--but let it be from now as if I had not spoken. I beg of you not to discuss it with Daisy--I need not ask you not to speak of it to anybody else."
The Senator nodded. He was too agitated, too horror-stricken to speak, and his agitation was not lessened by his son"s final words.
EPILOGUE
I
It is two years to a day since John Dampier disappeared, and it is only owing to one man"s inflexible determination that the search for him has not been abandoned long ago.
And now we meet Senator Burton far in body, if not in mind, from the place where we last met him.
He is standing by an open window, gazing down on one of the fairest sights civilised nature has to offer--that of an old English garden filled with fragrant flowers which form scented boundaries of soft brilliant colour to wide lawns shaded by great cedar trees.
But as he stands there in the early morning sunlight, for it is only six o"clock, he does not look in harmony with the tranquil beauty of the scene before him. There is a stern, troubled expression on his face, for he has just espied two figures walking side by side across the dewy gra.s.s; the one is his son Gerald, the other Nancy Dampier, still in the delicate and dangerous position of a woman who is neither wife, maid, nor widow.
The Senator"s whole expression has changed in the two years. He used to look a happy, contented man; now, especially when he is alone and his face is in repose, he has the disturbed, bewildered expression men"s faces bear when Providence or Fate--call it which you will--has treated them in a way they feel to be unbearably unfair, as well as unexpected.
And yet the majority of mankind would consider this American to be supremely blessed. The two children he loves so dearly are as fondly attached to him as ever they were; and there has also befallen him a piece of quite unexpected good fortune. A distant relation, from whom he had no expectations, has left him a fortune "as a token of admiration for his high integrity."
Senator Burton is now a very rich man, and because Daisy fancied it would please her brother they have taken for the summer this historic English manor house, famed all the world over to those interested in mediaeval architecture, as Barwell Moat.
Here he, Daisy, and Nancy Dampier have already been settled for a week; Gerald only joined them yesterday from Paris.
Early though it is, the Senator has already been up and dressed over an hour; and he has spent the time unprofitably, in glancing over his diary of two years ago, in conning, that is, the record of that strange, exciting fortnight which so changed his own and his children"s lives.