I returned to my hotel in time for dinner, but still I could not rid myself of the feeling that some calamity was approaching. Having sent my meal away almost untouched, I called a hansom and drove to the nearest theatre, but the picture of Phyllis crying and calling for me in vain kept me company throughout the performance, and brought me home more miserable at the end than I had started. All night long I dreamed of it, seeing the same picture again and again, and hearing the same despairing cry, “Oh, Dick! Dick! come to me!”
In the morning there was only one thing to be done. Accordingly, after breakfast I set off to make sure that nothing was the matter. On the way I tried to reason with myself. I asked how it was that I, Dick Hatteras, a man who thought he knew the world so well, should have been so impressed with a bit of wizardry as to be willing to risk making a fool of myself before the two last people in the world I wanted to think me one. Once I almost determined to turn back, but while the intention held me the picture rose again before my mind’s eye, and on I went more resolved to solve the mystery than before.
Arriving at the hotel, I paid my cabman and entered the hall. A gorgeously caparisoned porter stood on the steps, and of him I enquired where I could find Miss Wetherell. Imagine my surprise when he replied:—
“They’ve left sir. Started yesterday afternoon, quite suddenly, for Paris, on their way back to Australia!”
III
I Visit My Relations
For the moment I could hardly believe my ears. Gone? Why had they gone? What could have induced them to leave England so suddenly? I questioned the hall porter on the subject, but he could tell me nothing save that they had departed for Paris the previous day, intending to proceed across the Continent in order to catch the first Australian boat at Naples.
Feeling that I should only look ridiculous if I stayed questioning the man any longer, I pressed a tip into his hand and went slowly back to my own hotel to try and think it all out. But though I devoted some hours to it, I could arrive at no satisfactory conclusion. The one vital point remained and was not to be disputed—they were gone. But the mail that evening brought me enlightenment in the shape of a letter, written in London and posted in Dover. It ran as follows:
“Monday Afternoon.
“My Own Dearest—
“Something terrible has happened to papa! I cannot tell you what, because I do not know myself. He went out this morning in the best of health and spirits, and returned half an hour ago trembling like a leaf and white as a sheet. He had only strength enough left to reach a chair in my sitting-room before he fainted dead away. When he came to himself again he said, ‘Tell your maid to pack at once. There is not a moment to lose. We start for Paris this evening to catch the next boat leaving Naples for Australia.’ I said, ‘But, papa!’ ‘Not a word,’ he answered ‘I have seen somebody this morning whose presence renders it impossible for us to remain an instant longer in England. Go and pack at once, unless you wish my death to lie at your door.’ After that I could, of course, say nothing. I have packed, and now, in half an hour, we leave England again. If I could only see you to say goodbye; but that, too, is impossible. I cannot tell what it all means, but that it is very serious business that takes us away so suddenly I feel convinced. My father seems frightened to remain in London a minute longer than he can help. He even stands at the window as I write, earnestly scrutinising everybody who enters the hotel. And now, my own—”
But what follows, the reiterations of her affection, her vows to be true to me, etc., etc., could have no possible interest for anyone save lovers. And even those sympathetic ones I have, unfortunately, not the leisure now to gratify.
I sat like one stunned. All enjoyment seemed suddenly to have gone out of life for me. I could only sit twirling the paper in my hand and picturing the train flying remorselessly across France, bearing away from me the girl I loved better than all the world. I went down to the Park, but the scene there had no longer any interest in my eyes. I went later on to a theatre, but I found no enjoyment in the piece performed. London had suddenly become distasteful to me. I felt I must get out of it; but where could I go? Every place was alike in my present humour. Then one of the original motives of my journey rose before me, and I determined to act on the suggestion.
Next morning I accordingly set off for Hampshire to try, if possible, to find my father’s old home. What sort of a place it would turn out to be I had not the very remotest idea. But I’d got the address by heart, and, with the help of a Bradshaw, for that place I steered.
Leaving the train at Lyndhurst Road—for the village I was in search of was situated in the heart of the New Forest—I hired a ramshackle conveyance from the nearest innkeeper and started off for it. The man who drove me had lived in the neighbourhood, so he found early occasion to inform me, all his seventy odd years, and it struck him as a humorous circumstance that he had never in his life been even as far as Southampton, a matter of
