“Have you any special reason for wishing to protect her?” asked Jim.
She shook her head.
“I thought I had a month ago,” she said. “I thought she was somebody whom I was seeking. A chance resemblance, fleeting and elusive, brought me to her; she was one of the shadows I pursued,” she said with a bitter little smile, “one of the ghosts that led nowhere. She interested me. Her beauty, her fresh innocence and her character have fascinated me, even though she has ceased to be the real object of my search. And you, Mr. Steele. She interests you too?” She eyed him keenly.
“Yes,” said Jim, “she interests me too.”
“Do you love her?”
The question was so unexpected that Jim for once was not prepared with an answer. He was a reticent man ordinarily, and now that the opportunity presented he could not discuss the state of his feelings towards Eunice.
“If you do not really love her,” said the woman, “do not hurt her, Mr. Steele. She is a very young girl, too good to be the passing amusement that Digby Groat intends she shall be.”
“Does he?” said Jim between his teeth.
She nodded.
“There is a great future for you, and I hope that you will not ruin that career by an infatuation which has the appearance at the moment of being love.”
He looked at the flushed and animated face and thought that next to Eunice she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
“I am almost at the end of my pursuit,” she went on, “and once we can bring Digby Groat and his mother to book, my work will be done.” She shook her head sadly. “I have no further hope, no further hope,” she said.
“Hope of what?” asked Jim.
“Finding what I sought,” said Mrs. Fane, and her luminous eyes were fixed on his. “But I was mad, I sought that which is beyond recall, and I must use the remaining years of my life for such happiness as God will send to me. Forty-three years of waste!” she threw out her arms with a passionate gesture. “Forty-three years of suffering. A loveless childhood, a loveless marriage, a bitter betrayal. I have lost everything, Mr. Steele, everything. Husband and child and hope.”
Jim started back.
“Good God!” he said, “then you are—”
“I am Lady Mary Danton.” She looked at him strangely. “I thought you had guessed that.”
Lady Mary Danton!
Then his search was ended, thought Jim with dismay. A queer unsatisfactory ending, which brought him no nearer to reward or advancement, both of which were so vitally necessary now.
“You look disappointed,” she said, “and yet you had set yourself out to find Lady Mary.”
He nodded.
“And you have found her. Is she less attractive than you had imagined?”
He did not reply. He could not tell her that his real search had not been for her, but for her dead child.
“Do you know I have been seeing you every day for months, Mr. Steele?” she asked. “I have sat by your side in railway trains, in tube trains, and even stood by your side in tube lifts,” she said with the ghost of a smile. “I have watched you and studied you and I have liked you.”
She said the last words deliberately and her beautiful hand rested for a second on his shoulder.
“Search your heart about Eunice,” she said, “and if you find that you are mistaken in your sentiments, remember that there is a great deal of happiness to be found in this world.”
There was no mistaking her meaning.
“I love Eunice,” said Jim quietly, and the hand that rested on his shoulder was withdrawn, “I love her as I shall never love any other woman in life. She is the beginning and end of my dreams.” He did not look up at the woman, but he could hear her quick breathing.
Presently she said in a low voice:
“I was afraid so—I was afraid so.”
And then Jim, whose moral courage was beyond question, rose and faced her.
“Lady Mary,” he said quietly, “you have abandoned hope that you will ever find your daughter?”
She nodded.
“Suppose Eunice were your daughter? Would you give her to me?”
She raised her eyes to his.
“I would give her to you with thankfulness,” she said, “for you are the one man in the world whom I would desire any girl I loved to marry”—she shook her head. “But you, too, are pursuing shadows,” she said. “Eunice is not my daughter—I have traced her parentage and there is no doubt at all upon the matter. She is the daughter of a South African musician.”
“Have you seen the scar on her wrist?” he asked slowly. It was his last hope of identification, and when she shook her head, his heart sank.
“I did not know that she had a scar on her wrist. What kind of a scar is it?” she asked.
“A small round burn the size of a sixpence,” said Jim.
“My baby had no such mark—she had no blemish whatever.”
“Nothing that would have induced some evilly disposed person to remove?”
Lady Mary shook her head.
“Oh, no,” she said faintly. “You are chasing shadows, Mr. Steele, almost as persistently as I have done. Now let me tell you something about myself,” she said, “and I warn you that I am not going to elucidate the mystery of my disappearance—that can wait. This building is mine,” she said. “I am the proprietor of the whole block. My husband bought it and in a moment of unexampled generosity presented it to me the day after its purchase. In fact, it was mine when it was supposed to be his. He was not a generous man,” she said sadly, “but I will not speak of his treatment of me. This property has provided me with an income ample for my needs, and I have, too, a fortune which I
