“Then I must trust to chance,” Margaret thought. “In any event I have to go to Ashbourne to-night, and that is only one station beyond Crayford.”
As the booking clerk had anticipated, the train was late at Crayford, and Margaret continued to the station nearest her home, deciding to go to Tenterden the next morning.
In the meantime the day wore late, and still no news came to Sir Harold. It seemed that in a few hours he had aged years.
At nine o’clock Paul Asbury came to the hotel, and there was a look of pity in his eyes.
“I have everything in hand,” he said, reassuringly, in answer to Sir Harold’s appealing glance; “and all that we can do is—wait! The next few hours are pregnant with big results. I will stay with you if you will permit it. My men have instructions to telephone to me here.”
“There is some hope, then?”
“There is always hope,” was the reply.
Annesley told the detective of Miss Nugent’s visit that day. Then he wanted to know if Asbury had formed any theory concerning his wife.
“If she had left here at night, I should have feared for the worst,” he said. “Impulsive people do strange things in the dark. The river, you know! However, that is quite out of the question, as Lady Annesley left the hotel in the early morning. You say that she had no friend in the world save yourself—not even an acquaintance; but I will tell you this much, Sir Harold, I believe your wife visited Lady Elaine Seabright this morning. A lady enveloped in black was seen to enter Lady Elaine’s villa, and leave half-an-hour later. They parted upon the best of terms. I may be wrong, but I incline to the belief that this lady was your wife.”
Annesley was strangely moved, but he knew not what to think.