“Eh, what, my dear?” said Lord Culvers, turning round in his chair and facing her. “I’ve hardly taken in what he says. I should like to have read the letter once again.”
“I’ll repeat to you what he says,” said Juliet, in the same slow, quiet tones as before; “he says you are to get a maid—a maid, do you understand, to confirm my words before you believe them. He advises you to set a watch on your daughter—someone, I suppose, to follow her about and peep into her letters—and asks you to take his word—his word after doubting mine—that I know more than I choose to tell!”
“Eh, my dear, are you quite sure he meant it to be taken that way?” asked Lord Culvers.
He sighed wearily.
“It’s such a painful affair! Why—why doesn’t Ida send us a line and end our suspense?” He broke off again, then looking full into Juliet’s face as if hoping there to read confirmation to his words, he added: “No, no, my dear; I don’t believe that you are keeping anything back from me—you couldn’t be so heartless and cruel.”
But it was said a little dubiously.
“May I come in?” said a voice at that moment. Then, without waiting for a reply, the door opened, and Clive Redway entered in the easy, familiar way which his relations with the Culvers family warranted.
“I’ve come once more to beg permission to start for Florence,” he began, and then broke off abruptly, looking from Juliet to Lord Culvers, from Lord Culvers to Juliet, the faces of both so evidently bearing the marks of a disturbing subject of thought.
Juliet was the first to explain: “A letter has come from Sefton—there it is in fragments in the wastepaper basket—and I am accused by him of knowing more than I have told about Ida and her movements. It’s true in one way, I do know more than I have told about Ida—and about Sefton also. I could, if I had chosen, have told you things that would have startled you.”
“Eh, what?” cried Lord Culvers, looking scared.
“I mean it. I could have told you that he and Ida had some desperate quarrels. Once Ida told him to his face that she hated him—at least he told me so, and begged me to make peace between them. I made things straight, and then Ida to seal their reconciliation paid off his debts—all, at least, that he told her of.”
“Paid his debts!” echoed Lord Culvers, his face showing simple blank astonishment.
“Yes,” continued Juliet. “Do you remember three months back you paid Ida a good deal of money—dividends or something or other—and told her she had better collect her bills in and pay them? Very well, those bills are still unpaid; every penny of that money went to Sefton.”
“Is it possible?”
“Yes. Ida rolled the banknotes up into a ball, and they played tennis with it one afternoon. She won the game, and then tossed the ball over to him as she left the ground—I can see her now—just as you would toss a ball to a lapdog.”
All this time Clive had been standing a little apart, his face growing whiter and whiter, his brow knotting into an ugly frown. Now he advanced a step, and laid his hand on Juliet’s arm.
“And you let your sister marry such a man as that—without a word of remonstrance,” he said, in a low, constrained tone.
Juliet felt herself now on the defensive all round. She held her head very high, half-closed her eyes, and her face slightly—very slightly—flushed.
“Without a word of remonstrance!” she repeated. “Off and on Ida and I had a good many words about Sefton, though whether they were words of remonstrance is another thing. You see I liked him—I dare say it was very absurd of me, but I did like him, and more than once I said to Ida, ‘What a pity it is you and I cannot change places, and you marry Clive, and I marry Sefton!’ ” This was meant as a counterthrust; but it didn’t strike quite as she meant it should.
“I wish to Heaven—” broke in Clive, hotly. Then he checked himself, biting his lip to keep back words that would have fallen with evil grace upon the ear of his betrothed.
Lord Culvers rose excitedly from his chair.
“It’s too much! Too much!” he exclaimed, in a piteous tone. “Why, why is all this told me now when I am absolutely powerless to remedy the evil? Gracious Heaven what have I done that my life should be filled with turmoil from year’s end to year’s end?”
As if magnetically drawn to it, he finished his sentence with his eyes uplifted to a picture hanging over the mantelpiece.
It was that of the first Lady Culvers. One glance at it sufficiently answered the question what he had done that his life should be filled with turmoil and worry. The beautiful eyes and mouth, the very turn of the head, the droop of the eyelid, the crisp, curly hair, expressed in every line and tint the vivacity, waywardness, and love of fun which in Ida and Juliet had fascinated their friends and lovers, and had made their father’s life off and on a burden to him.
Juliet did not heed her father’s outburst. She remained standing facing Clive, and, narrowing her eyes, steadily surveyed him.
“It is very good of you to show so much interest in Ida and her affairs,” she said, sarcastically; “but I do think a journey to Florence to cross-question Madame Verdi will be a work of supererogation. You had far better run over to Paris and keep your eye on my cousin Sefton.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Clive, curtly, peremptorily.
Her words struck a sudden and most painful keynote to his mind. Was it possible that Ida’s disappearance was the
