Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/13

6 was one which made the subject especially unapproachable. Yet, what was to be done? While the manager hesitated, Lygon, hearing a foostepfootstep [sic] in his brother-in-law’s room, opened his own door.

“I thought that Charles had returned,” said Arthur, retiring.

“A moment, Mr. Lygon, if you please. I had hoped to find him here; but I have missed him. You have no idea where he is to be found?”

“Not much. He just mentioned Versailles, but I can hardly say that I think he is gone there.”

“Versailles! Let me say one word to you.”

“By all means, Mr. Aventayle,” said Arthur, closing the door.

“I scarcely know how to begin, Mr. Lygon; and yet minutes may be precious. I had better say at once, without stopping to apologise for knowing anything that concerns yourself, or any one else, that I have just learned that a frightful meeting is likely to take place—may have taken place already—and that murder may be the issue.”

“Some one we care about, or you would not be so agitated. Who is it, who?”

“Mr. Urquhart has gone down to Versailles to meet Ernest Adair.”

“Stop,” said Arthur Lygon, his eyes flashing, but his voice subdued by a painful effort until it was almost calmer than ordinary. “How do you know this?”

“From a man who cannot be mistaken—who knows all—who speaks of Ernest Adair as a dead man.”

“As a dead man,” repeated Arthur Lygon. “That is a strange way to speak of him,” he added, very slowly, the words evidently meaning nothing less than what was in the speaker’s mind. “So Urquhart has gone down to meet him,” he said, after a pause. “You are sure that it is Urquhart?”

“Quite sure. I came to tell Hawkesley.”

“It is much more proper that you should tell me,” said Arthur, with extraordinary calmness.

“More proper?”

“Certainly, and I am obliged to you for doing so. I wonder whether Hawkesley was aware of this, and whether that knowledge took him to Versailles?”

“No, he could not be.”

“You speak positively. I dare say that you are right. However, if he has gone there, it is all very well. He will let me know what is to be done next.”

“I fear that I have not made you understand me.”

“Perfectly. Urquhart is gone to Versailles to meet Adair.”

“To kill him, sir. He will kill him.”

“He has a right to do so,” replied Arthur Lygon, calmly as before. “At least, for reasons which we need not enter upon, he has the first right to make the attempt. If he foregoes that right, or fails, it will then be a question as to any subsequent step. But Hawkesley will inform me as to that. I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Aventayle.”

And with a courteous gesture, Lygon left the room.

“That man is stunned,” said Aventayle. “He is not responsible for his actions. I do not think that Charles Hawkesley ought to leave him alone. But, in the name of Heaven, what had I better do? I wish I had not called upon that accursed Pole, and then I should not have been burdened with the knowledge of this horror. I can do nothing. I could tear down to Versailles, and to what end? I might do actual harm. It might be said that I had some knowledge of the deed that was to be done—the police will accuse a man of anything, and that Pole is in league with them.”

And the manager, to do him justice, more agitated at the news he had heard, than disturbed at the possibility of his getting into difficulty, sat down and meditated on the extraordinary position in which he had been placed. And in the mean time others were as excited as himself, and with even more cause.

A few moments after Adair had finished transcribing the contents of the affiche in front of the house in the avenue, a ceremony which he performed with some ostentation, even returning as if to verify what he had written down, Mary Henderson, emerging from a back street in the neighbourhood, hurried away from the town, and made for a point in the road near the spot where Silvain had met Ernest.

She waited some time, expecting the arrival of her lover, and evinced some of her characteristic impatience. She walked up and down rapidly, and cast eager glances up and down the approaches.

“It is done, though,” she said, by way of calming herself. “Only when one has done anything, it is so aggravating to be kept waiting by the person to whom one burns to tell it. Ah, here he comes, and at what a pace, poor fellow. I will not say a severe word to him.”

Silvain was certainly coming—coming, too, with all the speed he could put on. No lover ever hurried at that rate to any love-making since the world began. Even Henderson, with all her knowledge of Silvain’s devotion, not to speak of his awe, could not attribute that excess of zeal to his mere desire not to keep her waiting.

“You have news!” she cried, the instant he came within hearing.

“News indeed,” answered the panting Silvain.

And in half a dozen hurried words he told her that Adair was in the house, and that Mr. Urquhart had followed him.

“I knew it would be so, I knew it would be so. I saw him for a moment, Silvain. I knew that he was come for vengeance. It is too dreadful. I must tell the poor lady—I must tell her—I have lost my head—I must tell her.”

Mrs. Lygon had been reading, in her chamber, but her heart was far away from the book, which had fallen from her hand. She was far away in England, and a child was at her knee, and the soft cheek of another child, a younger one, rested against her own, and she heard its murmur of affection, an inarticulate utterance to all the world, and more eloquent than any words to one heart.

In a moment Laura was brought back to the realities of her position.

The door suddenly opened, and Henderson, without a word of apology, rushed to the side of Laura.