The Pauper of Park Lane

“Well – how can I conjecture otherwise? The Doctor would never have left suddenly without sending word to me. Have you written to Charlie telling him of the sudden disappearance?”

“Yes. I wrote the same day that you told me, and addressed the letter to the Grand Hotel, at Belgrade.”

“Then he has it by now?”

“Certainly. I’m expecting a wire from him asking for further particulars. He should have got my letter the day before yesterday, but up to the present I’ve received no acknowledgment.”

Max did not tell her that her brother had not left London on the night when he was believed to have done so, and that it was more than probable he had never started from Charing Cross. He kept his own counsel, at the same time wondering what was the real reason why Marion so steadfastly refused to tell him the nature of Maud’s confession. That it had been of a startling nature she had already admitted, therefore he could only suppose that it had some direct connection with the astounding disappearance of both father and daughter.

On the other hand, however, he was suspicious of some ingenious plot, because he felt convinced that the Doctor would never have effaced himself without giving him confidential news of his whereabouts.

“Have you written to Maud?” he asked, after a fen; moments.

“No. I don’t know her address.”

“And you have not seen her?”

“No.”

“But you don’t seem in the least alarmed about her disappearance?”

“Why should I be? I rather expected it,” she answered; and it suddenly occurred to him whether, after all, she had been with Maud to the concert at Queen’s Hall on the night of the sudden removal.

A distinct suspicion seized him that she was concealing from him some fact which she feared to reveal – some fact that concerned herself more than Maud. He could see, in her refusal to satisfy him as to the girl’s confession, an attempt to mislead and mystify him, and he was just a trifle annoyed thereby. He liked open and honest dealing, and began to wonder whether this pretended promise of loyalty to her friend was not being put forward to hide some secret that was her own!

The two girls had, during the past few months, been inseparable. Had Maud really made a startling confession, or was the girl seated before him, with that strangely uneasy expression upon her beautiful countenance, endeavouring to deceive him?

He tried to put such thoughts behind him as unworthy of his devotion to her. But, alas! he could not.

Mystery was there – mystery that he was determined to elucidate.

Chapter Sixteen.

On Dangerous Ground

In the glorious sundown glinting across the river, and rendering it a rippling flood of gold, Max and Marion were seated in the long upstairs room of that old-fashioned riparian inn, the “London Apprentice,” at Isleworth, taking their tea at the open window.

Before them was the green ait, with the broad, tree-fringed river beyond, a quiet, peaceful old-world scene that, amid the rapidly changing metropolitan suburbs, remains the same to-day as it has been for the past couple of centuries or so.

They always preferred that quiet, old-fashioned upstairs room – the club-room, it was called – of the “London Apprentice,” at Isleworth, to the lawns and string bands of Richmond, the tea-gardens of Kew, or the pleasures of Eel Pie Island.

That long, silent, old, panelled room with its big bow-window commanding a wide reach of the river towards St. Margaret’s was well suited to their idyllic love. They knew that there they would at least be alone, away from the Sunday crowd, and that after tea they could sit at the window and enjoy the calm sundown.

The riverside at Isleworth does not change. Even the electric trams have passed close by it on their way to Hampton Court from Hammersmith but they have not modernised it. The old square-towered church, the row of ancient balconied houses, covered with tea-roses and jasmine, and the ancient waterman’s hostelry, the “London Apprentice,” are just the same to-day as they have ever been in the memory of the oldest inhabitant; and the little square in the centre of the riverside village is as silent and untrodden as in the years when Charles II loved to go there on his barge and dine in that very room at the inn, and when, later, David Garrick and Pope sang its praises.

Max and his well-beloved had finished their tea, and, with her hat and gloves off, she was lying back in a lounge chair in the deep bay window, watching the steamer Queen Elizabeth, with its brass band and crowd of excursionists, slowly returning to London. Near her he was seated, lazily smoking a cigarette, his eyes upon her in admiration, but still wondering, as he always wondered.

The truth concerning Maud Petrovitch had not been told.

He was very fond of the Doctor. Quiet, well-educated, polished, and pleasant always, he was, though a foreigner, and a Servian to boot, the very essence of a gentleman. His dead wife had, no doubt, influenced him towards English ways and English thought, while Maud herself – the very replica of his lost wife, he always declared – now held her father beneath her influence as a bright and essentially English girl.

The disappearance of the pair was an enigma which, try how he would, he could not solve. His efforts to find Rolfe had been unavailing, and Marion herself had neither seen nor heard from him. At Charlie’s chambers his man remained in complete ignorance. His master had left for Servia – that was all.

Max had been trying in vain to lead the conversation again up to the matter over which his mind had become so much exercised; but, with her woman’s keen ingenuity, she each time combated his efforts, which, truth to tell, only served to increase his suspicion that her intention was to shield herself behind her friend.

Why this horrible misgiving had crept upon him he could not tell. He loved her with his whole heart and soul, and daily he deplored that, while he lived in bachelor luxury in artistic chambers, and with every whim satisfied, she was compelled to toil and drudge in a London drapery store. He wished with his whole heart that he could take her out of that soul-killing business life, with all its petty jealousies and its eternal make-believe towards customers, and put her in the companionship of some elderly gentlewoman in rural peace.

But he knew her too well. The mere offer she would regard as an insult. A hundred times she had told him that, being compelled to work for her living, she was proud of being able to do so.

Charlie, her brother, he could not understand. He had just made a remark to that effect, and she had asked – “Why? He’s awfully good to me, you know. Lots of times he sends me unexpectedly five-pound notes, and they come in very useful to a girl like me, you know. I dare say,” she laughed, “you spend as much in a single evening when you go out with friends to the theatre and supper at the Savoy as I earn in a month.”

“That’s just it,” he said. “I can’t understand why Charlie, in his position, secretary to one of the wealthiest men in England, allows you to slave away in a shop.”

“He does so because I refuse to leave,” was her prompt answer. “I don’t care to live on the charity of anybody while I have the capacity to work. My parents were both proud in this respect, and I take after them, I suppose.”

“That is all to your credit, dearest,” he said; “but I am looking forward to the future. I love you, as you well know, and I can’t bear to think that you are bound to serve at Cunnington’s from nine in the morning till seven at night – waiting on a set of old hags who try to choose dresses to make them appear young girls.”

She laughed, her beautiful face turned towards him. “Aren’t you rather hard on my sex, Max?” she asked. “We all of us try to present ourselves to advantage in order to attract and please.”

“All except yourself, darling,” he said courteously. “You look just as beautiful in your plain black business gown as you do now.”

“That’s really very sweet of you,” she said, smiling. Then a moment later a serious look overspread her countenance, and she added: “Why worry yourself over me, Max, dear. I am very happy. I have your love. What more can I want?”

“Ah! my darling!” he cried, rising and bending till his lips touched hers, “those words of yours fill me with contentment. You are happy because I love you! And I am happy because I have secured your affection! You can never know how deeply I love you – or how completely I am yours. My only thought is of you, my well-beloved; of your present life, and of your future. I have friends – men of the world, who spend their time at clubs, at sport, or at theatres – who scoff at love. I scoff with them sometimes, because there is but one love in all the world for me – yours!”

“Yes,” she said, slowly fixing her eyes upon his, and tenderly stroking his hair. “But sometimes – sometimes I am afraid, Max – I – ”

“Afraid!” he echoed. “Afraid of what?”

“That you cannot trust me.”

He started. Was it not the unconscious truth that she spoke? He had been doubting her all that afternoon.

“Cannot trust you!” he cried. “What do you mean? How very foolish!”

But she shook her head, and a slight sigh escaped her. She seemed to possess some vague intuition that he did not entirely accept her statement regarding Maud. Yet was it, after all, very surprising, having in view the fact that she had admitted that Maud had made confession. It was the truth regarding that admission on the part of the Doctor’s daughter that he was hoping to elicit.

“Marion,” he said presently, in a low, intense voice, “Marion, I love you. If I did not trust you, do you think my affection would be so strong for you as it is?”

She paused for a moment before replying.

“That all depends,” she said. “You might suspect me of double-dealing, and yet love me at the same time.”

“But I do not doubt you, darling,” he assured her, at the same time placing his arm around her slim waist and kissing her upon the lips. “I love you; surely you believe that?”

“Yes, Max, I do,” she murmured. “I do – but I – ”

“But what?” he asked, looking straight into her fine eyes and waiting for her to continue.