“Had she always treated you in that fashion?” he presently asked.
“No,” said Clive, bitterly, “when I was first introduced to her at the Gordons’, where we were both staying, she seemed to—to like me; at least, I thought so. Then Juliet joined her there, and everything at once seemed changed.”
“Ah‑h, Juliet. I suppose you quickly transferred your devotion from one sister to the other.”
“I scarcely know how it came about,” said Clive, miserably. “Juliet was so kind and sympathetic, Ida so strange and cold; and they were so much alike in their faces and their ways! Sometimes when I was talking to Juliet I could fancy she was Ida! And then before I well knew how far I had gone, the thing was done.”
“Ah‑h, and then Ida rushes off to Florence to study art; you go to the Cape on a mission for me; Captain Culvers comes upon the scene and flirts with Juliet; home rushes Ida, and throws herself once more into the breach, marries her cousin; and Juliet is kept true to her absent lover. Then, having married a man for whom possibly she had neither liking nor esteem, she finds it impossible to carry her self-sacrifice farther, and so takes sudden flight. Clive, there is my solution to the whole mystery.”
And Clive, with eyes opened too late, had the conviction forced upon him that this solution was most probably the true one.
Ida’s devotion to Juliet had never been open to doubt, and she had sealed that devotion by giving up her lover in the first instance to the sister’s whim. Then when a lover less worthy had come upon the scene, and Juliet’s fancy had seemed to waver, she had put the question of the capricious girl’s happiness beyond a doubt by another act of self-sacrifice—a marriage with the less desirable suitor who might otherwise have fallen to Juliet’s lot. Read in this light, the wedding at the church where the funeral service had been read over her dead mother, the laying of her bridal flowers on that mother’s grave, could be easily understood.
Clive groaned aloud.
“What a fool—a miserable fool I have been!” he exclaimed, clenching his fingers into the palm of his hand. “I could blow my brains out!”
“In your love affairs I’ll admit they’ve been of very little use to you,” said his father, drily.
Then there fell a pause, during which the father’s heart must have ached for the look of dumb, hopeless misery which settled on his son’s face.
“If I could only know that she is safe and well, I should ask nothing more,” said Clive, presently, in a voice that matched his face.
Assuredly at the moment news of her health and safety compassed the whole of his desires. He could not have framed his lips to the prayer that she might return and be planted in Captain Culvers’s home as his wife.
Mr. Redway did not heed the remark; absorbed in thought, he leaned his head upon his hand.
“The only objection,” he said, slowly, after awhile, “that I can see to my version of the affair, is that it is too simple a reading of the mystery. In real life, as a rule, the solutions to mysteries are nearly as mysterious as the thing itself. Human motives and feelings are so complex, that when they are revealed to us, it is often difficult to believe that they stand to action in the relation of cause to effect. And when a woman’s motives and feelings are concerned, the whole thing becomes a thousand times more complex.”
“But no other solution presents itself; I wish to Heaven it did!” said Clive, passionately.
“Lord Culvers appears to be without ideas or theories on the matter?”
“Absolutely. His one endeavour is to keep the matter quiet till Ida writes. I’ve begged him again and again to let me run over to Florence to question Madame Verdi—the lady with whom Ida stayed when there—as to whether she knows anything of Ida’s movements. But no! he will not have the affair made public. He says Ida will be sure to write in a day or so.”
“Her promise to write may have been only a blind to keep them all quiet while she arranged her plans.”
“Exactly; and meanwhile we are losing precious time. And as for hushing the matter up, the thing will soon be impossible. Already people are beginning to talk. I was asked only this morning if it were true that Ida and Culvers had quarrelled on their wedding tour, and that Ida had returned to her home. I dare say the servants have set the wildest stories afloat.”
“What is Juliet’s theory? Of course, if my solution of the mystery is correct, it is impossible to believe that Juliet knows any more than we do.”
“Juliet is altogether an enigma to me. To all appearance she takes the matter as calmly as her father.”
“And you say you have cross-questioned her yourself?”
“Tried to. But you might as well try to cross-question the wind or the waves as Juliet when she has a mind to be silent. With all her gaiety and capriciousness, she can keep a secret if she is so disposed. I know perfectly well if Ida had tied her down with any promises, there’s no power on earth would make her break them. Those sisters are loyal to each other to an altogether remarkable degree.”
“Did you ask her, as I suggested, what jewellery her sister was wearing when she left home?”
“I did so this morning. She is not at all sure what rings Ida was wearing; but she knows for certain that she had on the diamond hawk brooch that had been her mother’s, for she saw her fasten the band of her dress with it under her shoulder-cape when she changed her dress for travelling.”
“Ah‑h, that’s something to note!”
“I should think
