The Immortal Moment Part 48

He looked round the room, and his face, under its deference, betrayed his sharp annoyance at finding himself alone with Miss Lucy.

"Pardon me," he said, "I thought that Mrs. Tailleur was here."

"Mrs. Tailleur asked me to tell you that she cannot see you. She has gone to her room."

"To her room?"

He stared at her, and his face loosened in a sudden incredulity and dismay.

"Did she tell you she was going there?"

"Yes. She was very tired."

"But--she was here not half an hour ago. She couldn't have gone without my seeing her."

"She went out," said Jane faintly, "by the window."

"She couldn't get to her room without going through the hall. I've been there all the time on the seat by the stairs."

They looked at each other. The seat by the stairs commanded all ways in and out, the entrance of the pa.s.sage, and the door of the sitting-room, and the portiere of the lounge.

"What do you think?" he said.

"I think that she has not gone far. But if she goes, it is you who will have driven her away."

"Forgive me if I remind you that it is not I who have given her up."

"It was you," said Jane quietly, "who helped to ruin her."

His raised eyebrows expressed an urbane surprise at the curious frankness of her charge. And with a delicate gesture of his hand he repudiated it and waved it away.

"My dear lady, you are alarmed and you are angry, consequently you are unjust. Whatever poor Kitty may have done I am not responsible."

"You are responsible. It's you, and men like you, who have dragged her down. You took advantage of her weakness, of her very helplessness.

You've made her so that she can't believe in a man's goodness and trust herself to it."

He smiled, still with that untroubled urbanity, on the small flaming thing as she arraigned him.

"And you consider me responsible for that?" he said.

Their eyes met. "My brother is here," said she. "Would you like to see him?"

"It might be as well, perhaps. If you can find him."

She left him, and he waited five minutes, ten minutes, twenty.

She returned alone. All her defiance had gone from her, and the face that she turned to him was white with fear.

"She is not here," she said. "She went out--by that window--and she has not come in. We've searched the hotel, and we can't find her."

"And you have _not_ found your brother?"

"He has gone out to look for her."

She sat down by the table, turning her face away and screening it from him with her hand.

Marston gave one look at her. He stepped out, and crossed the lawn to the bottom of the garden. The gate at the end of the path there swung open violently, and he found himself face to face with Robert Lucy.

"What have you done with Mrs. Tailleur?" he said.

Lucy's head was sunk upon his breast. He did not look at him nor answer.

The two men walked back in silence up the lawn.

"You don't know where she is?" said Marston presently.

"No. I thought I did. But--she is not there."

He paused, steadying his voice to speak again.

"If I don't find her, I shall go up to town by the midnight train. Can you give me her address there?"

"You think she has gone up to town?" Marston spoke calmly. He was appeased by Lucy's agitation and his manifest ignorance as to Kitty's movements.

"There's nothing else she could do. I've got to find her. Will you be good enough to give me her address?"

"My dear Mr. Lucy, there's really no reason why I should. If Mrs.

Tailleur has not gone up to town, her address won't help you. If she has gone, your discreetest course by far, if I may say so----"

"Is what?" said Lucy sternly.

"Why, my dear fellow, of course--to let her go."

Lucy raised his head. "I do not intend," he said, "to let her go."

"Nor I," said Marston.

"Then we've neither of us any time to lose. I won't answer for what she may do, in the state she's in."

Marston swung slightly round, so that he faced Lucy with his imperturbable stare.

"If you'd known Mrs. Tailleur as long as I have you'd have no sort of doubt as to what she'll do."

Lucy did not appear to have heard him, so sunk was he in his own thoughts.

"What was that?" said Marston suddenly.

They listened. The gate of the Cliff path creaked on its hinges and fell back with a sharp click of the latch. Lucy turned and saw a small woman's figure entering the garden from the Cliff. He strode on toward the house, unwilling to be observed and overtaken by any guests of the hotel.

Marston followed him slowly, pondering at each step of the way.