She waited for some time. A light appeared after a while in an upper window, and one or two shadows crossed the white linen blind. Sabina went a little higher up the court and watched. Shadows came again—first, the shadow of a woman with a hat upon her head—ah, that was Miss West!—next that of a man—nearer the window and more distinct. Sabina thought that she recognised the slight stoop of the shoulders, the stiff and halting gait.
"I've caught you at last, have I, Mr. Reuben Dare!" she said to herself, with a chuckle, as she noted the number of the house and the name of the court. "Well, I shall get three hundred pounds for this night's work! I'll wait a bit and see what happens next."
What happened next was that the lights were extinguished and that the house seemed to be shut up.
"Safe for the night!" said Sabina, chuckling to herself. "I won't let the grass grow under my feet this time. I'll tell the police to-morrow morning, and I'll write to Mrs. Vane as well. He shan't escape us now!"
She retraced her steps to Russell Square, and at once indited a letter to Mrs. Vane with a full account of all that she had seen and heard. She slipped out to post it that very night, and lay down with the full intention of going to Scotland Yard the next morning. But in the morning she was delayed for an hour only; but that hour was fatal to her plans. When the police visited the house in Vernon Court, they found that the rooms were empty, and that Cynthia and her father had disappeared. Nobody knew anything about them; and the police retired in an exceedingly bad humor, pouring anathemas upon Sabina's head. But Sabina did not care; she had received news which had stupefied her for a time and hindered her in the execution of her designs—little Dick Vane was dead.
The child had never rallied from the accident which had befallen him. For several days and nights he had lain in a state of coma; and then, still unconscious, he had passed away. His watchers scarcely knew at what moment he ceased to breathe; even the General, who had seldom left his side, could not tell exactly when the child died. So peacefully the little life came to a close that it seemed only that his sleep was preternaturally long. And with him a long course of perplexity and deceit seemed likely also to have its end.
Mrs. Vane had disappointed and displeased the General during the boy's illness; she had steadily refused to nurse him—even to see him, towards the end. The General was an easy and indulgent husband, but he noticed that his wife seemed to have no love for the child who was all in all to him. The worst came when Flossy refused to look at the boy's dead face when he was gone. The General reproached her for her hardness of heart, and declared bitterly that the child had never known a mother's love. And Flossy did not easily forgive the imputation, although she professed to accept it meekly, and to excuse herself by saying that her nerves were too delicate to bear the shock of seeing a dead child.
Troubles seemed to heap themselves upon the General's head. His boy had gone; Enid, whom he tenderly loved, had left his house; Hubert, to whom also he was much attached, lay ill again, and was scarcely expected to recover. By the time the funeral was over, the General had worked himself up to such a state of nervous anxiety, that it was felt by his friends that some immediate change must be made in his manner of life. And here a suggestion of Flossy's became unexpectedly useful—she proposed that the General should go to his sister's for a time, and that she should stay at Hubert's lodging.
It was not that she cared very much for her brother, or that she was likely to prove a good nurse, but that she was afraid, from what Sabina said, that Hubert might be doing something rash—making confession perhaps, or taking Cynthia West into his confidence. If she were on the spot, she felt that she could hinder any such rash proceeding with Sabina's help.
But Sabina was not to the fore. When she heard that Mrs. Vane was coming to town, she threw up her engagement and went back to her aunt's at Camden Town. A trained nurse took her place, and Mrs. Vane lodged in the house.