CHAPTER XXXV.
ALAN “EVOLVES” A PLAN OF ACTION.
Kind hands brought Leslie back to life, and to a new sense of pain, for even the hands that love us must sometimes hurt, when they hope to heal.
Every servant of the household loved its fair mistress. And while those who could, bustled to and fro, commanded by Winnie, each eager to minister to so kind a mistress, and those who were superfluous went about with anxious, sympathetic faces, Alan Warburton, the one unpitying soul in all that household, paced his room restlessly, troubled and anxious—not because of Leslie’s illness, but because of the revelation just received from her lips.
“I cannot give life to the victim whose death lies at your door.”—[page 251].
Could this thing be true? Had his brother Archibald, a Warburton of the Warburton’s—that family so old, so proud, so pure; that family whose men had always been gentlemen whom the world had delighted to honor; whose women had been queens of society, stately, high-bred, above reproach—could Archibald Warburton have made a mesalliance? And such a mesalliance! The daughter of a pair of street mendicants, social outlaws; an adventuress with no name, no lineage, no heritage save that of shame.
“Of all the notable things of earth
The queerest one is pride of birth.”
For the moment it outweighed his grief for Archibald, his anxiety for Daisy, his very humanity. Later on, he might be Warburton the friend, and the truest of friends; Warburton the lover, and the tenderest, the most chivalrous of lovers; Warburton the champion, as on the night when he rescued Leslie; but now he is only Warburton the aristocrat; the aristocrat, insulted, defied, betrayed; brought into contact with mystery, intrigue, base blood, and in his own household. Could he ever forgive Leslie Warburton? Would he, if he could?
He had accused her as the cause of his brother’s death, as the source of the mystery which overhung the fate of little Daisy; and in his heart of hearts he believed her guilty. And now, her daring, her cool effrontery, had made some hitherto mysterious movements plain. Her father and mother, those wretches who lived in a hovel, and smelled of the gutter! But she had betrayed herself. These people must be found at whatever hazard.
Thus meditating, he paced up and down, up and down. And before he finally ceased his restless journeyings to and fro, he had evolved a theory and a plan of action. A very natural theory it was, and a very magnanimous plan.
Having first catalogued Leslie as an adventuress, he endowed her, in his theory, with all the attributes of the adventuress of the orthodox school—cunning, crafty, avaricious, scheming for a fortune; unscrupulous, of course, and only differing from the average adventuress in that she was the cleverest and the most beautiful, as she had been the most successful of her kind.
“Granted that these two old wretches are her parents,” he reasoned, “the rest explains itself. They incite her to plot for their mutual welfare. She marries Archibald, and even I discern that she does not love him; but he is wealthy, and an invalid. Only one thing stands between her and an eventual fortune, and that is poor little Daisy. Possibly she may have still some tenderness of heart, and for a time Daisy is spared. But after a while, the mysterious goings and comings begin; the arrival of notes by strange messengers; and a new look dawns upon my sister-in-law’s fair face. Then comes the masquerade. A man is here, in this house, by appointment with her. He follows her to the abode of the Francoises and so do I. Who is this man? A gentleman, she tells me. Her lover, doubtless, and all is explained. With Archibald removed, what would stand between her lover and herself? With Daisy removed, she would possess both lover and fortune. And to remove Daisy was to remove Archibald. The shock would suffice. She planned all this deliberately; and on the night of the masquerade the Francoises aided her, and Daisy was stolen.”
Thus reasoned Alan. And then he formed his plans. He would spare Leslie all public disgrace, but she must cease to call herself a Warburton of the Warburtons. She must give up the family name, and go away from the city; far away, where no gossiping tongue could guess at her history, or connect her with the Warburtons. For Daisy’s sake, for his brother’s sake, for the honor of the name, she must go. She might take her fortune, left her by her deceived husband, but she must go.
“I will institute a search for the Francoises,” he muttered. “Everything must be done privately; there must be no scandal. If I require assistance, I can trust Follingsbee. I will see Leslie again, in the morning. I will make terms with her, haughty as she is, and—first of all she shall tell me the truth concerning Daisy.”
He was not unmindful of his own peril, not regardless for his own safety, but he was determined to know the truth concerning the disappearance of Daisy Warburton, and if need be, to face the attendant risk.
“I will write to the Chief of Police again,” he mused. “I must have additional help. But first, before writing, I will see her once more.”
And then he ceased his promenade for a moment, to strike his hands together and stare contemptuously at his image reflected from the mirror directly before him.
“Fool!” he muttered half aloud; “that letter, that scrawl which I gave back to her so stupidly! It contained their address. It would tell me where to find them, if I had it; and I will have it.”
In the anger and astonishment of the moment, he had returned the threatening note to Leslie, mechanically and without once glancing at the directions scrawled at the foot of the sheet.
While Alan paced and pondered, Leslie, having recovered from her swoon, went weakly and wearily to her own room, tenderly escorted by Winnie and the good-hearted, blundering Millie.
When she was comfortably established upon a couch, and the too solicitous Millie had been dismissed, Winnie’s indignation burst out in language exceedingly forcible, and by no means complimentary to Alan Warburton.
But Leslie stopped the flow of her eloquence by a nervous appealing gesture.
“Let us not discuss these things now, dear; I think I have been overtasked. I cannot talk; I must have quiet; I must rest.”
And then Winnie—denouncing herself for a selfish, careless creature with the same unsparing bitterness that, a moment before, she had lavished upon Alan,—assured herself that the curtains produced the proper degree of restful shadow, that the pillows were comfortably adjusted, that all Leslie could require was close at her hand, kissed her softly on either cheek, and tripped from the room.
Left alone, Leslie lay for many moments moveless and silent, but not sleeping. The softly-shaded stillness of the room acted upon her over-wrought nerves like a soothing spell. She had passed the boundaries of uncertainty. She had writhed, and wept, and shuddered under the torturing hands of Doubt and Fear, Terror, and Surprise. She had bowed down before Despair. But all that was past; and now she was calm and tearless, a brave soul that, having abandoned Hope, stands face to face with its Fate.
After a time she moved languidly, and then lifted herself slowly from among the pillows.
“Not to-night,” she murmured, lifting her hand to her head with a sigh of weariness. “I must have rest first.”
But she did not return to her pillows. Instead, she arose slowly, crossed the room, and drawing back the curtains let in, in a glowing flood, the last brightness of the afternoon sunshine. Then seating herself at a dainty writing-desk, she penned three notes, with a hand that moved slowly but with no unsteadiness.
The first was addressed to Mr. Follingsbee; the second to Mrs. French, the mother of Winnie; and the third to Winnie herself.
When the notes were done, she still sat before the desk, watching the fading-out of the golden sunlight with a far away look in her eyes. She sat thus until the last ray had died in the West, and the twilight came creeping on grey and shadowy.
Some one was knocking at the drawing-room door. She arose slowly to admit the visitor. It was Alan’s valet, with a twisted note in his hand.
Leslie took the note, and bidding the servant wait, she returned to the inner room.
Madam:
As you manifested no hesitation in exhibiting to me the note received by you this morning, you will, I trust, not object to my giving it a second perusal. Please send it me by bearer of this. I will return it promptly.
Alan Warburton.
This is what Leslie read, and when she had finished, she took from her pocket the crumpled note of the Francoises. Over this she bent her head for a moment, murmured something half aloud, as if to impress it on her memory, and went back to the dressing-room with the two papers in her hand.
Going slowly toward the grate, she stirred the smouldering fire until it sent up a bright blaze, and with another glance at the crumpled note, she dropped it upon the glowing coals, and watched it crumble to ashes. Then she turned toward the valet, folding and twisting his master’s note back into its original shape as she advanced.
“Return this to your master,” she said, “and tell him that the paper he asks for has been destroyed.”
As the valet turned away, she closed the door and went back to the grate.
“Alan Warburton has canceled my debt to him with an insult,” she murmured, with a cold smile upon her lips. “From this moment he has no part in my existence.”