The Pauper of Park Lane Part 21

She averted his gaze, and slowly but firmly disengaged herself from his embrace, while he, on his part, wondered.

She was silent, her face pale, and in her eyes a look of sudden fear.

"Tell me, darling," he whispered. "You have something to say to me--is not that so?"

He loved her, he told himself, as truly as any man had ever loved a woman. It was only that one little suspicion that had arisen--the suspicion that she had not been to Queen's Hall with his friend's daughter.

He took her hand lightly in his and raised it courteously to his lips, but she drew it away, crying, "No! No, Max! No."

"No?" he gasped, staring at her. "What do you mean, Marion. Tell me what you mean."

"I--I mean that--that though we may love each other, perfect trust does not exist between us."

"As far as I'm concerned it does," he declared, even though he knew that his words were not exactly the truth. "Why have you so suddenly changed towards me, Marion? You are my love. I care for no one save yourself.

You surely know that--have I not told you so a hundred times? Do you still doubt me?"

"No, Max. I do not doubt you. It is you who doubt me!"

"I do not doubt," he repeated. "I have merely made inquiry regarding Maud, and the confession which you yourself told me she made to you.

Surely, in the circ.u.mstances, of her extraordinary disappearance, together with her father, it is not strange that I should be unduly interested in her?"

"No, not at all strange," she admitted. "I am quite as surprised and interested over Maud's disappearance as you are."

"Not quite so surprised."

"Because I view the whole affair in the light of what she told me."

"Did what she tell you in any way concern the Doctor?" he asked eagerly.

"Indirectly it did--not directly."

"Had you any suspicion that father and daughter intended to suddenly disappear?"

"No; but, as I have before told you, I am not surprised."

"Then they are fugitives, I take it?" he remarked, in a changed tone.

"Certainly. They were no doubt driven to act as they have done. Unless there--there has been a tragedy!"

"But the men who removed the furniture must be in some way connected with the Doctor's secret," he remarked. "There were several of them."

"I know. You have already described to me all that you have discovered.

It is very remarkable and very ingenious."

"A moment ago you were about to tell me something, Marion," he said, fixing his gaze upon hers; "what is it?"

"Oh!" she answered uneasily. "Nothing--nothing, I a.s.sure you!"

"Now, don't prevaricate!" he exclaimed, raising his forefinger in mock reproof. "You wanted to explain something to me. What was it?"

She tried to laugh, but it was only a very futile attempt, and it caused increased suspicion to arise within his already overburdened mind. Here he was, endeavouring to elucidate the mystery of the disappearance of a friend, yet she could not a.s.sist him in the least. His position was sufficiently tantalising, for he was convinced that by her secret knowledge she held the key to the whole situation.

Usually, women are not so loyal to friends of their own s.e.x as are men.

A woman will often "give away" another woman without the least compunction, where a man will be staunch, even though the other may be his enemy. This is a fact well-known to all, yet the reason we may leave aside as immaterial to this curious and complex narrative which I am endeavouring to set down in intelligible form.

Marion, the woman he loved better than his own life, was a.s.suring him that she had nothing to tell, while he, at the same moment, was convinced by her att.i.tude that she was holding back from him some important fact which it was her duty to explain. She knew how intimate was her lover's friendship with the missing man, and the love borne his daughter by her own brother. If foul play were suspected, was it not her bounden duty to relate all she knew?

The alleged confession of Maud Petrovitch struck him now more than ever as extraordinary. Why did Marion not openly tell him of her fears or misgivings? Why did not she give him at least some idea of the nature of her companion's admissions? On the one hand, he admired her for her loyalty to Maud; while, on the other, he was beside himself with chagrin that she persistently held her secret.

In that half-hour during which they had sat together in the crimson sundown, her manner seemed to have changed. She had acknowledged her love for him, yet in the same breath she had indicated a gulf between them. He saw in her demeanour a timidity that was quite unusual, and he put it down to guiltiness of her secret.

"Marion," he said at last, taking her hand firmly in his again, and speaking in earnest, "you said just now that you believed I loved you, but--something. But what? Tell me. What is it you wish to say? Come, do not deny the truth. Remember what we are both to each other. I have no secrets from you--and you have none from me!"

She cast her eyes wildly about her, and then they rested upon his. A slight shudder ran through her as he still held her soft, little hand.

"I know--I know it is very wrong of me," she faltered, casting her eyes to the floor, as though in shame. "I have no right to hold anything back from you, Max, because--because I love you--but--ah!--but you don't understand--it is because I love you so much that I am silent--for fear that you--"

And she buried her head upon his shoulder and burst into tears.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

IN WHICH A SCOT BECOMES ANXIOUS.

That same Sunday evening, at midnight, in a cane chair in the lounge of the Central Station Hotel, in Glasgow, Charlie Rolfe sat idly smoking a cigar.

Sunday in Glasgow is always a dismal day. The weather had been grey and depressing, but he had remained in the hotel, busy with correspondence.

He had arrived there on Sat.u.r.day upon some urgent business connected with that huge engineering concern, the Clyde and Motherwell Locomotive Works, in which old Sam Statham held a controlling interest, but as the manager was away till Monday, he had been compelled to wait until his return.

The matter which he was about to decide involved the gain or loss of some 25,000 pounds, and a good deal of lat.i.tude old Statham had allowed him in his decision. Indeed, it was Rolfe who practically ran the big business. He reported periodically to Statham, and the latter was always satisfied. During the last couple of years, by his clever finance, Rolfe had made much larger profits with smaller expenditure, even though his drastic reforms had very nearly caused a strike among the four thousand hands employed.

He had spent a most miserable day--a grey day, full of bitter reflection and of mourning over the might-have-beens. The morning he had idled away walking through Buchanan Street and the other main thoroughfares, where all the shops were closed and where the general aspect was inexpressibly dismal. In the afternoon he had taken a cab and gone for a long drive alone to while away the hours, and now, after dinner, he was concluding one of the most melancholy days of all his life.

There were one or two other men in the lounge, keen-faced men of commercial aspect, who were discussing, over their cigars, prices, freights, and other such matters. In the corner was a small party of American men and women, stranded for the day while on their round tour of Scotland--the West Highlands, the Trossachs, Loch Lomond, Stirling Castle, the Highlands, and the rest--anxious for Monday to come, so as to be on the move again.

Rolfe stretched his legs, and from his corner surveyed the scene through the smoke from his cigar. He tried to be interested in the people about him, but it was impossible. Ever and anon the words of old Sam Statham rang in his ears. If the house of Statham--which, after all, seemed to be but a house of cards--was to be saved, it must be saved at the sacrifice of Maud Petrovitch!

Why? That question he had asked himself a thousand times that day. The only reply was that the charming half-foreign girl held old Statham's secret. But how could she? As far as he knew, they had only met once, years ago, when she was but a child.

And Statham, the elderly melancholy man who controlled so many interests, whose every action was noted by the City, and whose firm was believed to be as safe as the Bank of England, actually asked him to sacrifice her honour. What did he mean? Did he suggest that he was to wilfully compromise her in the eyes of the world?

"Ah, if he knew--if he only knew!" murmured Rolfe to himself, his face growing pale and hard-set. "Sam Statham believes himself clever, and so he is! Yet in this game I think I am his equal." And he smoked on in silence, his frowning countenance being an index to his troubled mind.

He was reviewing the whole of the curious situation. In a few years he had risen from a harum-scarum youth to be the private secretary, confidant, and frequent adviser to one of the wealthiest men in England.

Times without number, old Sam, sitting in his padded writing-chair in Park Lane, had commended him for his business ac.u.men and foresight.

Once, by a simple suggestion, daring though it was, Statham had, in a few hours, made ten thousand pounds, and, with many words of praise the dry, old fellow took out his chequebook and drew a cheque as a little present to his clever young secretary. Charlie Rolfe was however, unscrupulous, as a good many clever men of business are. In the world of commerce the dividing-line between unscrupulousness and what the City knows as smartness is invisible. So Marion's brother was dubbed a smart man at Statham Brothers' and in those big, old-fashioned, and rather gloomy offices he was envied as being "the governor's favourite."

Charlie intended to get on. He saw other men make money in the City by the exercise of shrewdness and commonsense, and he meant to do the same.

The business secrets of old Sam Statham were all known to him, and he had more than once been half tempted to take into partnership some financier who, armed with the information he could give, could make many a brilliant coup, forestalling even old Statham himself. Up to the present, however, he had never found anybody he could implicitly trust.

Of sharks he knew dozens, clever, energetic men, he admitted, but there was not one of these who would not give away their own mother when it came to making a thousand profit. So he was waiting--waiting until he found the man who could "go in" with him and make a fortune.