"Too late!" she repeated. "What do you mean?"
"The ceremony at Eastminster is on Sunday week. He was to have been there at least a week before. I am afraid that he will not go at all now."
"We must act at once," my mother declared, firmly. "I know exactly where you saw him. I will go there at once."
"We will go there together," I cried. "I shall be ready in a minute."
She shook her head.
"I must go alone," she said, quietly. "You would only be in the way. I know the neighborhood and the people. They will tell me more if I am alone."
She was away until midnight. When at last she returned I saw at once by her face that she had been unsuccessful.
"There is no clue, then?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"None."
We sat and looked at one another in silence.
"To-morrow," she said, "I will try again."
But to-morrow came and went, and we were still hopelessly in the dark. On the morning of the third day we were in despair. Then, as we sat over our breakfast, almost in despair, a letter was brought to me. It was from Alice, and enclosed in it was one from my father.
"You seem," she wrote, "to have been very anxious about father lately, so I thought you would like to read this letter from him. We are almost straight here now, but it has been very hard work, and I have missed you very much...."
There was more of the same sort, but I did not stop to read it. I pa.s.sed it on to my mother, and eagerly read the few lines from my father. His letter was dated three days ago--the very day of my meeting with him in the Commercial Road, and the postmark was Ventnor.
"My dear child," he commenced, "I am better and shall return for certain on Monday. The air here is delightful, and I have felt myself growing stronger every day. If you see the Bishop tell him that you have heard from me. My love to Kate, if you are writing. I hope that she will be coming down for next week. There is a good deal for me to say to her.--Your affectionate father, Horace Ffolliot."
My mother read both letters, and then looked up at me with a great relief in her face.
"After all you see you must have been mistaken," she exclaimed. "There can be no doubt about it."
And I said no more, but one thing was as certain as my life itself--the man who had waved me back from following him along the pavements of the Commercial Road was most surely no other man than my father.
CHAPTER XXVIII
EASTMINSTER
The days that followed were, in a sense, like the calm before the threatened storm. As the date of my father"s promised return to Eastminster drew near, every day I expected to hear from Alice that he had abandoned his purpose, and that Northshire would see him no more.
But no such letter came. On the contrary, when news did come it was news which astonished me.
"You will be glad to hear," Alice wrote, "that father came back last night looking better, although rather thin. He did not seem to have understood that you were already with Mrs. Fortress, and I think he was disappointed not to see you. At the same time, considering that you have acted without consulting him in any way, and that there is certainly some room for doubt as to the wisdom of the step you have taken, I think that he takes your absence very well. He wants you to come down in a week for a day or two. No doubt you will be able to manage this. You must stay for a Sunday. Father preached last evening, and there was quite a sensation. Lady Bolton has been so kind. She says that the Bishop is continually congratulating himself upon having found father in the diocese. I have not seen either Mr. Deville or Miss Berdenstein since I left the Vicarage. As you can imagine I have been terribly busy. The house here is simply delightful. The old oak is priceless, and there are such quaint little nooks and corners everywhere. Do come at once. Ever your loving sister, Alice."
I pa.s.sed the letter across to my mother, and when she had finished it she looked with a smile into my still troubled face.
"That proves finally that you were wrong," she remarked, quietly. "I suppose you have no more doubts about it?"
I shook my head. I did not commit myself to speech.
"I suppose I must have been mistaken," I said. "It was a wonderful likeness."
"He wants to see you," she continued, looking wistfully across at me. "You know what that means?"
"Yes," I answered. "I think I know what that means."
"He will try to make you leave me," she went on. "Perhaps he will be right. At any rate, he will think that he is right. It will be a struggle for you, child. He has a strong will."
"I know it," I answered; "but I have made up my mind. Nothing will induce me to change it--nothing, at any rate, that my father will be able to say. Another month like the last would kill me. Besides, I do not think that I was meant for a clergyman"s daughter--I am too restless. I want a different sort of life. No, you need not fear. I shall come back to you."
"If I thought that you would not," she said, "I should be very unhappy. I have made so many plans for the future--our future."
I crossed the room to the side of her chair and threw myself down upon my knees, with my head in her lap. She pa.s.sed her arms around me, and I had no need to say a single word. She understood.
I think as I walked down the little main street of Eastminster that sunny morning I knew that the crisis in these strange events was fast drawing near. The calm of the last few days had been too complete. Almost I could have persuaded myself that the events of the last month or two had been a dream. No one could possibly have imagined that the thunderclouds of tragedy were hovering over that old-fashioned, almost cloistral, dwelling house lying in the very shadows of the cathedral. My father was, beyond a doubt, perfectly at his ease, calm and dignified, and wearing his new honors with a wonderful grace and dignity. Alice was perfectly happy in the new atmosphere of a cathedral town. To all appearance they were a model father and daughter, settling down for a very happy and uneventful life. But to me there was something unnatural alike in my father"s apparent freedom from all anxiety and in Alice"s complacent ignorance. I could not breathe freely in the room whilst they talked with interest about their new surroundings and the increased possibilities of their new life. But what troubled me most perhaps was that my father absolutely declined to discuss with me anything connected with the past. On every occasion when I sought to lead up to it he had at once checked me peremptorily. Nor would he suffer me to allude in any way to my new life. Once, when I opened my lips to frame some suggestive sentence, I caught a light in his eyes before which I was dumb. Gradually I began to realize what it meant. By leaving him for my mother, I had virtually declared myself on her side. All that I had been before went for nothing. In his eyes I was no longer his daughter. Whatever fears he had he kept them from me. I should no longer have even those tragic glimpses into his inner life. My anxieties, indeed, were to be lessened as my knowledge was to be less. Yet that was a thought which brought me little consolation. I felt as though I had deserted a brave man.
I had come for a walk to escape from it, and at the end of the little line of shops issuing from the broad archway of the old-fashioned hotel I came face to face with Bruce Deville. He was carefully, even immaculately, dressed in riding clothes, and he was carrying himself with a new ease and dignity. Directly he saw me he stopped short and held out his hand.
"What fortune!" he exclaimed, forgetting for the moment, or appearing to forget, to release my hand. "I heard that you were down, and I was going to call. It is much pleasanter to meet you though!"
I was miserably and unaccountably nervous. Our old relative positions seemed suddenly to have become reversed.
"We will go back, then," I said; "it is only a moment"s walk to the close."
He laid his hand upon the sleeve of my jacket and checked me.
"No! it is you whom I wanted to see. I may not be able to talk to you alone at your house, and, besides, your father might not allow me to enter it. Will you come for a short walk with me? There is a way through the fields a little higher up. I have something to say to you."
I suffered myself to be easily persuaded. There was something positively masterful about the firm ring of his voice, the strong touch of his fingers, the level, yet anxious glance of his keen, grey eyes. Anyhow I went with him. He appeared to know the way perfectly. Soon we were walking slowly along a country road, and Eastminster lay in the valley behind us.
"Where is Miss Berdenstein?" I asked him.
He looked at me with a gleam of something in his eyes which puzzled me. It was half kindly, half humorous. Then in an instant I understood. The girl had told him. Something decided had happened then between them. Perhaps she had told him everything.
"I believe," he answered, "that Miss Berdenstein has gone to London. Don"t you feel that you owe me a very humble plea for forgiveness?"
I looked at him cautiously.
"Why?"
His lips relaxed a little. He was half smiling.
"Did you not make a deliberate plot against me in conjunction with Miss Berdenstein?"