The Phantom Lover Part 6

His thoughts were in a whirl; the whole world needed readjusting. Was he selfish? he asked himself in perplexity--if so, it was quite unconsciously, and anyway Ashton was the last person who should have made the accusation.

"I am sending you some money by a friend of mine...."

There was no hint that the money was first to be borrowed; he had evidently been sure of his prey; Micky swore under his breath.

Of course, Ashton had not dreamed of the letter being opened, had not dreamed of anything but that his carefully-made plans would be minutely carried out and nothing more said.

Micky sat for a long time, lost in thought; the hands of the clock crawled round to one and the chime struck; he looked up then, glancing at the clock vaguely.

If he had not met Esther Shepstone there might have been no Esther in the world at all now; if he allowed that letter to reach its destination he would be plunging her back again into the abyss of despair from which he had dragged her only that evening. She loved Ashton; of that Micky was sure. Very well then, she should at least have some part of her ideal left to her.

He went over to his desk and took up paper and pen; he spread Ashton's letter out before him and studied the writing carefully.

Ordinary sort of writing, rather unformed and sprawly, but after a trial run Micky managed a very presentable copy of it.

He sat back in his chair and eyed his handiwork with pride; he had missed his vocation, he told himself with a chuckle; he ought to have been a forger.

Then he dipped the pen in the ink again and squared his elbows. He had never written a love-letter in his life, but he knew positively that he was about to write one now.

He thought of Esther and the wistfulness of her grey eyes; she was the girl whom a man could love. He coloured a little as the thought involuntarily crossed his mind; she was a girl whom--he began to write rapidly.

"My darling little girl----"

Micky was naturally rather eloquent with his pen, though he had never before tried it in this especial direction.

"This is the most difficult letter I have ever had to write in all my life; first, because I love you so much; and, secondly, because I am afraid it is going to hurt you nearly as much as it hurts me. Dear, as it will be some time before I see you again, and because I cannot explain everything to you, I am going to ask you to trust me till we meet again. I am leaving England to-night...."

Micky paused and ran his fingers through his hair agitatedly before he struggled on once more: "I shall be thinking of you every minute till we meet again, and of the happy times we have had together. I will write to you whenever I can...." The pen paused, and Micky groaned, recalling that Ashton had said he should not write at all.

"It'll have to do, anyway," he muttered, and again the pen flew: "I'm not much of a hand at writing letters, as you know, but you must try and read between the lines, and guess at all I would say were we together ... All I will say to you when we meet again."

That last sentence was rather neat, Micky thought with pride, then a wave of compunction swept through his heart as he remembered the tragedy behind it all, and he finished the page soberly enough: "Ever yours, Raymond Ashton."

"d.a.m.n him!" said Micky under his breath, as he blotted the signature; then he took two ten-pound notes from a drawer in his desk, and, enclosing them in the envelope, sealed and stamped it.

It was half-past one, but Micky climbed into his coat again. He locked Ashton's letter into his desk, and, taking the one he had written, went quietly down to the street.

The world was sleeping and deserted, and Micky's footsteps echoed hollowly along the pavement.

"You're a fool, you know!" he told himself, with a sort of humour.

"You're a bally fool, my boy! It won't end here, you see if it does."

But he went on to the pillar-box at the street corner.

When he reached it he stood for a moment with the letter in his hand.

"You're a fool," he told himself again hardily. "Micky, my boy, you're a bally idiot, interfering with what doesn't concern you--with what doesn't concern you in the very least."

He looked up at the stars and thought of Esther Shepstone, of her eyes and her wavering smile, and the soft note in her voice as she had asked him--

"Are you always as kind to every one as you have been to me?"

No concern of his! It was every concern of his; he knew that he was only living for the hours to pa.s.s before he saw her again. No concern of his! when the greatest miracle of all the world had come to pa.s.s during those last hours of the old year, inasmuch that Micky Mellowes, heartwhole and a bachelor for thirty odd years, had been bowled over by a girl without a shilling to her name--a girl who loved another man, but a girl to whom Micky had without wishing it, without knowing it, dedicated the rest of his life!

He was her champion for the future, some one to stand between her and the callousness of the man of whom even now she was probably thinking.

"No concern of mine!" said Micky to himself with fine scorn. "Why, of course it is! Every concern of mine."

He squared his shoulders and dropped the envelope into the pillar-box.

And so Micky Mellowes posted his first love-letter.

CHAPTER III

In spite of the events of the night Micky Mellowes slept soundly. It was half-past nine when he woke, to find his man Driver moving noiselessly about the room.

When he saw that Micky was awake he approached the bed.

"Good-morning, sir, and a happy New Year."

Driver had an expressionless voice; he announced tea or tragedy in exactly the same tone.

"Eh?" said Micky vacantly; the words opened the door of memory, and he sat up with a start. It was New Year's Day, and last night ... ye G.o.ds! what had not happened last night? Micky tingled to the tips of his fingers as he remembered the letter he had written and posted; he had expected to feel rotten about it in the light of day; it was an agreeable surprise to find that he did not feel anything of the kind.

When he went in to breakfast there was a pile of letters waiting for him; he looked them through carelessly--there was one from Marie Deland, which he opened with a vague feeling of nervousness.

Marie was a nice little girl; he really was quite fond of her, and yet ... surely the days of miracles had not yet pa.s.sed away, seeing that in a few short hours his feeling for her had changed from something warmer to more brotherly affection.

It made him feel uncomfortable to read what she had written; it was really only quite an ordinary letter of regret that she had not seen him last night, but Micky imagined he could read more between the lines.

"... I quite hoped you would drop in, if only for a few moments," so she wrote. "It's been so dull. I am writing this alone in the library."

Micky knew that library well; he and she had spent a good deal of time there together talking sweet nothings; he wondered if he would have been an engaged man by this time if that relative of the Delands had not so conveniently died, and if Esther had not chosen his particular street in which to weep.

He screwed the letter up and tossed it into the fire; he would answer it some time, or call; there was no immediate hurry. When he had finished his breakfast he went to his locked desk and took out Ashton's letter--somehow until he actually saw it again he could not quite believe that the events of last night had not all been a dream; but the letter was real enough, at all events with its callous beginning to "Dear Lallie."

The morning seemed to drag; twice people rang him up on the 'phone and asked him to lunch, but Micky was not in the mood for lunch; he felt a suppressed sort of excitement, as if something of great import were about to happen.

Driver looked at him woodenly once or twice; his face was as expressionless as his voice, but his dull eyes saw everything, and behind them his keen brain wondered what had happened to make Micky so restless.

Towards one o'clock he ventured a gentle reminder.

"You have an engagement for half-past three, sir--Miss Langdon's."