A Mysterious Disappearance

“Well, this morning I have received very satisfactory news from America,” and he handed over Corbett’s letter for perusal.

“Yes,” agreed Sir William, “these things promise well. We will look into them when we reach England. Meanwhile, I give my provisional sanction to my daughter’s engagement. She is a good girl, Mensmore. She will be a true and excellent wife. I think you are worthy of her, and I hope that whatever clouds may have darkened your life will now pass away. You two ought to be happy.”

“We will, sir,” said Mensmore fervently.

“By the way, where is your sister? Is she in England or abroad?”

Mensmore had been expecting this question. He was prepared for it.

“Mrs. Hillmer is my half-sister,” he explained. “I have not seen much of her since – since an unhappy marriage she contracted some years ago.”

“Indeed. Is her husband alive?”

“I can hardly tell you. I believe so. But she does not live with him. She is well provided for, but it was partly on account of this matter that I came to the Riviera for the winter. To tell the truth, I quarrelled with her about it.”

“Ah, well. Her troubles need not affect Phyllis and you, except to give you warning. And take my advice. Never interfere between husband and wife. However good your motive, ill is sure to come of it.”

In the growing dusk Sir William Browne did not note his companion’s embarrassment in discussing this topic. Mensmore was essentially an honorable man, and he detested the necessity which forced him to permit false inferences to be drawn from his words. Yet there was no help for it. He was compelled to suffer for the faults of another.

It was relief when the dressing-bell for dinner allowed him to escape to his cabin.

There was quite a large gathering for dinner. Places like Genoa contain a number of highly interesting personages if the visitor discovers them. The British race produces a richer variety of human flotsam and jetsam than any other. These derelicts come to anchor in out-of-the-way parts of the earth. They seem to have been everywhere and have done everything, while the whole world is an open book to them.

Thus there was no lack of variety in the conversation, and, as usual in such assemblies, it dealt more with persons than with incidents.

Phyllis had arranged the guests, so it may be taken for granted that her lover was near her – in fact, he sat exactly opposite. The lady he took in to dinner was the wife of an English doctor, and the British consul at the port was Miss Browne’s table companion.

The consul was a chatty man, who kept himself well informed concerning society events.

“By the way,” he said to Phyllis, “did you ever meet Lady Dyke?”

“No, her name is not familiar to me.”

“Do you mean the wife of Sir Charles Dyke?” said Mensmore; and the sudden interest he evinced caused Phyllis to glance at him wonderingly.

“Yes, that is she.”

“I know Sir Charles well. What is there new about his wife?”

“She is dead.”

“Good Heavens! Dead! When, and how?”

Mensmore was so obviously agitated that others present noticed it, and Phyllis marvelled much that in all their confidence the name of Dyke had never escaped his lips.

The consul, too, was a little nonplussed by the sensation caused by his words.

“I fear,” he said, “that I have blurted out the fact rather unguardedly. The Dykes are friends of yours?”

“No, no, not in that sense. Sir Charles I have known for many years. But are you sure his wife is dead?”

“My authority is an announcement in the Times to hand by to-day’s post. I should not have mentioned it were not her ladyship so well known in society, and the affair is peculiar, to say the least.”

“Peculiar – how?”

In his all-absorbing interest in the consul’s statement, Mensmore paid no heed to the curious looks directed at him; he had become very pale, and was more excited in manner than the circumstances appeared to warrant.

“In this sense: The paper is the issue of January 28, yet the notice says that Lady Dyke died on November 6. This is odd, is it not? A woman of her position could hardly have quitted life so quietly that no one would trouble to publish the fact until nearly three months after the event.”

“It is extraordinary – inexplicable!”

“Did you know Lady Dyke personally, Bertie?” put in Phyllis timorously.

The question restored Mensmore to some sense of his surroundings.

“I have never even seen her,” he said, trying desperately to be commonplace; “but her husband is an old schoolfellow of mine, and I have heard much of both of them since their marriage. I am quite shocked by the news.”

“I can only repeat my regret for having spoken of it so carelessly,” said the polite consul.

“Oh, I am glad to know of it since it has happened. Poor Lady Dyke! How strange that she should die!”

Phyllis had the tact to change the conversation, and Mensmore gradually recovered his self-possession. A woman’s eyes are keener than a man often gives her credit for; and Phyllis saw quite plainly that after the first effect of the news had passed it, in some indefinable way, seemed to have a good effect on her lover. But if a woman’s intuition is seldom at fault her reasoning faculties are narrow.

Trying to arrive at a solution of the mystery attending Mensmore’s behavior, Phyllis suddenly became hot all over.

She felt furiously and inordinately jealous of a woman she did not know, and who was admittedly dead before Mensmore and she herself had met.

Hence her nose went high in the air when Bertie claimed her for the first dance.

“Who is this Lady Dyke in whom you are so deeply interested?” she said, drawing him beneath a sheltering awning.

“As I said,” replied Mensmore, “she is the wife of an old acquaintance of mine.”

“But you must have been very fond of her to feel so keenly when you heard of her death?”

“Fond of her! I have never, to my knowledge, laid eyes on her.”

“Oh!” And the tone was somewhat mollified. “Then why did you look so worried during dinner?”

“Simply because I know Sir Charles.”

“What a dear, sympathetic little boy you are! When I die, Bertie, I suppose you will drop down stiff from grief at once.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. We are missing all this delightful music.”

And they whirled away down the snowy deck, forgetful of all things save one, that they were in love.

Now, what a pity it was that Bruce was not on board the White Heather that night. Many complications, and not a little misery, would have been avoided thereby.