The Mystery of Lincoln's Inn Part 10

"I had rather not," answered his father, sharply; "I prefer to do it myself."

Eversleigh knew very well that it would never do to let any one but himself look after Silwood's department.

The day of Silwood's disappearance wore to its end; the next day, Sunday, pa.s.sed. It saw the lovers at Ivydene much engrossed with themselves, but not to such an extent as to prevent many comments on the delay in Morris Thornton's coming, and some surmises as to its cause, the chief of which was that he was carrying out his idea of giving Kitty a "surprise"--carrying it a little further than she had expected. Though she was disappointed, she was not alarmed.

On the Monday of that week, Francis Eversleigh, looking more haggard and wretched than before, was again at 176, New Square.

"Will Thornton come to-day?" he asked himself, despairingly.

He strove to keep calm and hide his sufferings from the world, but every moment was torture. Yet Monday went the way of all former Mondays, and still Morris Thornton did not come. And so it was with Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday, and Sat.u.r.day; the week was gone, and Thornton had not appeared!

Pondering this fact, Eversleigh, who remembered what Thornton had said about his ill-health, was inclined to the conclusion that somewhere on the road his old friend had had an attack, and had broken down. But, if this were the case, why had he not sent, or caused to be sent, a message to the firm or to his daughter? Eversleigh knew she had not heard anything further from her father, nor had the firm heard from Thornton.

In one sense, the non-appearance of Thornton was a relief to Francis Eversleigh--it put the day of judgment off; but in another, the prolonging of the suspense intensified his mental agony.

Thornton's silence was as terrible as it was really inexplicable.

Kitty, who was not aware of her father's serious condition, and hence could not frame from that circ.u.mstance a possible explanation of his not coming, was greatly perplexed.

At first she felt no fear, and kept saying to herself and to Gilbert--to whom, of course, she talked of all that was in her heart--that she would see her father to-morrow or next day; but to-morrow became to-day, and next day to-morrow, and yet he did not appear. And there was nothing from him--not a single line!

Gilbert, lover-like, did his utmost to cheer her, saying what was obviously probable--her father had been unexpectedly delayed, but would be here very soon, and so on--and he spoke with such cheeriness that she gained some confidence from his. But as the days sped by, and Morris Thornton came not nor sent word, her apprehensions increased, and all Gilbert's loving speeches could not allay them. Gilbert, too, began to wonder not a little what it all meant.

It at length became evident to him that there was something peculiarly significant in the non-appearance and silence of Morris Thornton. He spoke what was in his mind to his father, who, in reply, told him the only hypothesis he could form was that Thornton had fallen ill at some point in the course of the journey, though that did not account for nothing being heard of him. Gilbert now learned for the first time of the precarious state of Thornton's health. He agreed with his father that nothing should be said about it to Kitty, as it could not but add to her anxiety.

But what Gilbert had heard made him comply all the more eagerly with a suggestion Kitty offered on the next Sunday, when they were talking on this subject, which temporarily had a.s.sumed more importance almost than their love.

This was that a cablegram should be sent to Vancouver to Morris Thornton, asking when she was to expect to see him in London.

Gilbert despatched the cablegram for her from the Central Telegraph Office in the Strand, on his return to town late that evening.

No answer was received by the girl till far on in the afternoon of Monday.

The first thing she noticed on looking at the reply message was that it was not signed by her father, but by his local agent.

Then she read the whole cablegram, which ran--

"Your father sailed from New York for Southampton by _St. Louis_, July 21. No further advices. Wallace."

"July 21," said Kitty to herself. "Why, he ought to have been here a week ago at least."

For it was now Monday, August 9th!

Eighteen days had elapsed since the sailing of the _St. Louis_ from New York, on July 21st!

CHAPTER IX

What was the explanation? Kitty wondered, much perplexed.

Her father had left Vancouver and had gone to New York--so she gathered from the cablegram. And as he had not been to see her she concluded that he could not be in England, and that meant in the circ.u.mstances that he had not sailed from New York on the 21st of July as he had intended.

Gilbert had suggested to her that her father had been unexpectedly detained, and at first, as this seemed a probable solution of the problem, she was inclined to think this was what had occurred.

But, as she reflected further, it did not seem so likely. For supposing he had been forced to delay his journey for a whole week, and had exchanged his berth on the _St. Louis_ for one on the boat of the same line sailing a week later, that is, on the 28th, there would still have been plenty of time for him to have arrived in England and to have seen her, as he would have reached Southampton by the 3rd of August, or by the 4th at latest. And it was now the 9th!

As Kitty tried to puzzle the matter out, her fears, vague, but none the less distressing, were greatly increased, and she began to suspect that something, she knew not what, had happened to her father.

Gilbert, now as anxious as Kitty was, was at Surbiton in the evening to hear what news she had received from Vancouver, and he was as much bewildered as she by the cablegram from Wallace, Morris Thornton's agent. All he could do was to remind her, as he had done before, that the delay in her father's coming, as well as his silence, might all be part of his scheme to "surprise" her. But Kitty replied that this made her father out as unkind in the extreme; she was sure he would never willingly put such a strain upon her affection.

"I can't make it out at all," she said, wrinkling her pretty brows. "It seems very singular that he does not write."

Then an idea struck her. It was that there might be, on a careful re-reading of the letter she had received from her father, in which he had said he was returning to England, some words which would afford a clue.

"I shall look at his letter again," she said to Gilbert, and went up to her room to fetch it.

"He writes," remarked the girl, when she had brought it down, "quite positively 'I will come in a few days after you receive this.' 'A few days,' he says. If he had sailed on the 21st of July and came here to-morrow--why, it would be nearly three weeks, and you can't call that a few days."

"No," a.s.sented Gilbert; "but, Kitty, it's hardly three weeks. If he had sailed on the 21st he would have been here about the 28th or the 29th.

You see what's left is more like ten days than three weeks. But what is the date of your father's letter?"

"July 11th."

"And when did you get it, dear?"

"Oh, Gilbert, don't you know, don't you remember?" asked Kitty, with some reproach in her voice. "Surely, you cannot have forgotten that I got it on the very day you told me that you loved me!"

"Ah, sweetheart," quickly replied Gilbert, taking her hand and pressing it tenderly, "I've been so happy that I have lost all count of time--I forget everything but you, my darling!"

"A pretty speech," exclaimed Kitty, smiling upon him while her hand returned the pressure of his, "and I suppose I must forgive you, Gilbert. But about this letter of father's. Well, it came just sixteen days ago to-day. Now, sixteen days are not exactly a few days, are they?" she asked, sticking to her point.

"It was on the 24th that his letter came," said Gilbert.

"So you have remembered the date, sir?" cried Kitty.

"I had not really forgotten, dear; but thinking about your father had, for the moment, put it out of mind."

"Oh, yes, I know, Gilbert," she said, a little absently.

He devoured her with eyes of love, but he noticed that her thoughts were not with him. They had reverted to her father.

"I think I see how it all fits in," she said, after a long pause, "for his sailing on the 21st. He wrote me on the 11th; that gave him ten days to wind up his business in Vancouver, so far as he could wind it up, and to get to New York in--five days in Vancouver, and five days for the journey to New York. If he had sailed on the 21st, as he said to his agent he would, he would have been here on the 28th or 29th, that is, in three or four days after his letter. Now three, four, or even let us say five days, would be a few days--just as he says in his letter. I can see he had planned it all out, so as to fit everything in. Don't you see that, Gilbert?"

"It certainly looks like it, dear."

"Yes, it does. It is very strange that he did not carry out his intention. I cannot understand it. There is some mystery about it I cannot fathom."