Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir Part 15

"My dearest! What can you mean? Deceive you! Treachery! Can you deem me--_me_--capable of such things. My dearest, you are overtired! And your jacket has become unb.u.t.toned. Listen, that is the railway bell.

Laura, you will not leave me with such words on your lips?"

"Forgive me, Stephen."

"I have done so already, dearest, and now we must part! It is very hard--but--I cannot even go with you to the platform. Someone might see us. It is for your sake, darling."

"Yes, yes, I know," she said, with a sigh. "Good-bye--you will write or come to me--when?"

"Soon, in a day or two," he said. "Do not be impatient. There is much to be done; my poor uncle's funeral, you know. Good-bye. See! I will stay here and watch the train off. Good-bye, dear, dear Laura!"

She put her arm round him and returned his kiss, and glided away, but at the turn of the road leading to the station she turned and, holding up her hand, sent a word back to him.

It was:

"Remember!"

Stephen waited until the train puffed out of the station, and not until it had flashed some distance did the set smile leave his face.

Then, with a rather puzzled and uneasy expression, he turned and walked swiftly back to the house.

His brain was in a whirl, the sudden appearance of the young girl coming on the top of the other causes of excitement bewildered him, and he felt that he had need of all his accustomed coolness. The sudden peril and danger of this accursed will demanded all his attention, and yet the thought of the girl would force itself upon him. He had met her, as she had said, in the streets, and had commenced an acquaintance which had resulted in an engagement. Alone and unprotected, save for an old grandfather, and innocent of the world, Laura Treherne had been, as it were, fascinated by the smooth, soft-spoken Stephen, from whose ready tongue vows of love and devotion rolled as easily as the scales from a serpent in spring-time. And he, for his part, was smitten by the dark eyes and quick, impulsive way of the warm-hearted girl.

But there had come upon him of late a suspicion that in binding himself to marry her he had committed a false step; to-night the suspicion grew into something like certainty.

To tell the truth, she had almost frightened him. Hitherto the dark eyes had ever turned on his with softened gaze of love and admiration; to-night, for the first time, the hot, pa.s.sionate nature had revealed itself.

The deep-toned "Remember!" which came floating down the lane as she disappeared rang unpleasantly in his ears. Had he been a true-hearted man the girl's spirit would have made her more precious in his eyes; but, coward-like, he felt that hers was a stronger nature than his, and he began to fear.

"Yes," he muttered, as he unlocked the library window, and sank into a chair. "It was a weak stroke, a weak stroke! But I can't think of what is to be done now, not now!"

No, for to-night all his attention must be concentrated on the will.

Wiping the perspiration from his brow, he lit another candle. This time nothing should prevent him from destroying the accursed thing which stood between him and wealth; he would burn it at once--at once. With feverish eagerness he thrust his hand in his coat, then staggered and fell back white as death.

_The pocket was empty. The will was not there._

"I--I am a fool!" he muttered, with a smile. "I put it in the other coat," and he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the overcoat, but a glance, a touch showed him that it was not there either.

Wildly, madly he searched each pocket in vain, went on his knees and felt, as if he could not trust his sight alone, every inch of the carpet; turned up the hearth-rug, almost tore up the carpet itself, shook the curtains, and still hunted and searched long after the conviction had forced itself upon his mind that in no part of the room could the thing be hidden.

Then he paused, pressing his hand to his brow and biting his livid lips.

Let him think--think--think! Where could it be? He had not dropped it on the stairs or in any other part of the house, for he remembered, he could swear, that he had felt the thing as he stood in the study b.u.t.toning up his overcoat. If not in the house, where then?

Throwing aside all caution in his excitement, he unfastened the window, and, candle in hand, examined the grand terrace, traced every step which he had taken across the lawn--and all to no purpose.

"It is lying in the road," he muttered, the sweat dropping from his face. "Heaven! lying glaring there, for any country clown to pick up and ruin me. I must--I will find it! Brandy--I must have some brandy--this--this is maddening me!"

And indeed he seemed mad, for though he knew he had not pa.s.sed it, he went back, still peering on the ground, the candle held above his head.

Suddenly he stumbled up against some object, and, looking up, saw the tall figure of a man standing right in his path. With a wolfish cry of mingled fear and rage, he dropped the candle and sprang on to him.

"You--you thief!" he cried, hoa.r.s.ely; "give it to me--give it me!"

The man made an effort to unlock the mad grasp of the hands round his throat, then scientifically and coolly knocked his a.s.sailant down, and, holding him down writhing, struck a match.

Gasping and foaming, Stephen looked up and saw that it was Jack Newcombe--Jack Newcombe regarding him with cool, contemptuous surprise and suspicion.

"Well," he said contemptuously, "so it's you! Are you out of your mind?"

and he flung the match away and allowed Stephen to rise.

Trembling and struggling for composure, Stephen brushed the dust from his black coat and stood rubbing his chest, for Jack's blow had been straight from the shoulder.

"What have you got to say for yourself?" said Jack, sternly. "I asked you if you had gone mad. What are you doing here with a candle, and behaving like a lunatic?"

Stephen made a mighty effort for composure, and a ghastly smile struggled to his face.

"My dear Jack, how you startled me!" he gasped. "I was never so frightened in my--my life!"

"So it appeared," said Jack, with strong disgust in his voice. "Pick up the candle--there it is."

And he pointed with his foot. But Stephen was by no means anxious for a light.

"Never mind the candle," he said. "You are quite right--I must have seemed out of my mind. I--I am very much upset, my dear Jack."

"Are you hurt?" inquired Jack, but with no great show of concern.

"No, no!" gasped Stephen; "don't distress yourself, my dear Jack--don't, I beg of you. It was my fault, entirely. The--the fact is that I----"

He paused, for Jack had got the candle, lit it, and held it up so that the light fell upon Stephen's face.

"Now," he said, his tone plainly intimating that he would prefer to see Stephen's face while he made his explanation.

"The fact is," Stephen began again, "I have had the misfortune to lose a pocketbook--no, not a pocketbook, that is scarcely correct, but a paper which I fancied I had put in my pocketbook, and which must have dropped out. It--it was a draft of a little legal doc.u.ment which my lawyer had sent me--of no value, utterly valueless--oh, quite----"

"So I should judge from the calm way in which you accused the first man you met of stealing it," said Jack, with quiet scorn.

Stephen bit his lip, and a glance of hate and suspicion shot from under his eyelids.

"Pray forgive me, my dear Jack," he said, pressing his hand to his brow, and sighing. "If you had sat up for so many nights, and were so worn and overwrought, you would have some sympathy with my overstrained nerves. I am much shaken to-night, my dear Jack--very much shaken."

And indeed he was, for the Savage's fist was by no means a soft one.

Jack looked at him in silence for a moment, then held the candle toward him.

"You had better go to the house and get some of the servants to help you look for the paper," he said. "Good-night."

"Oh, it is of no consequence," said Stephen, eagerly. "Don't go--stop a moment, my dear Jack. I--I will walk with you as far as the inn."

"No, thanks," said Jack, curtly; then, as a suspicious look gleamed in Stephen's eyes, he added: "Oh, I see! you are afraid I should pick it up in the road. You had better come."