"And you think that person was—?" Margaret fixed her eye on Arthur. The dreadful wildness was gathering there once more.
"Dear Mrs. Grey," he said earnestly, "I only say I have my suspicions. Trust me, I will leave no stone unturned to find your husband and child. I have a clue to both."
"What do you mean?"
Arthur gave in answer the story of the Russian, omitting, of course, the suspicion of the fair St. Petersburgers.
"My first step," he said, "shall be to look up Count Orloff. He has set the Russian police to work, and I believe has found out something through Mrs. Grey's solicitor in England. Your child and the gentleman with whom she is will certainly be conspicuous travellers. I made inquiries at York, at the hotel and station, and found that about a week ago they must have taken the train from York to Southampton, so it is highly probable they were bound for some foreign port. We must set agents to work at Cherbourg, Havre, Lisbon and Gibraltar, for I think it scarcely likely they can have left Europe. Courage, my dear Mrs. Grey! I think we shall light upon them. I will follow the track most likely to have been taken by your husband, leaving the recovery of the child in the hands of my solicitor—a very different person, I can assure you, from Mr. Robinson—for if, as I suspect, this villain has taken his revenge by depriving you of your child, remember, it is an offence punishable by law, and he shall be hunted down till his crime is discovered and himself traced."
The young man's form dilated, he stood erect, he looked what he was—an Englishman, strong, vigorous, full of noble impulse, of physical power, of untiring energy. The languor of the fashionable, the elegant good-for-nothingness, the nonchalant indifference, had all gone; he had found an object and was ready to throw himself heart and soul into its pursuit.
Margaret listened to his hope-inspiring words, and she felt herself animated with a new courage. She turned to her young protector with glistening eyes: "And you are ready to do all this for me? How shall I thank you?"
"By being strong and courageous," he answered; "but, Mrs. Grey, it is I who should talk of gratitude. You have changed me from an idle good-for-nothing into a man with an object before him, an aim to which all his soul is given. I know it is a good thing. I feel it. It will be my first battle with the world's injustice. God grant it may succeed! I believe it will. There is one thing more. You tell me that your landlady, in relating the story of your child's disappearance, described your husband. Now, either one of two things. My theory, supported by the waiter at York and suggested by the man's own words, is wrong altogether, or else she has been bribed to give you false information. In the latter case—which, I must say, rather fits in with my own ideas—she ought to be watched; and certainly this is no place for you. Who knows what she might not do in dread of discovery? Here you are more or less in her power. Think a moment. Have you no friends?"
Margaret turned pale. "Jane has certainly acted strangely of late," she said, after a pause; "she has even been insolent once or twice when, as she thought, I was too weak to notice it; but I cannot think her quite so bad as you seem to imagine. I do not wish to leave this place yet; you see, I have become accustomed to it. Then I have a kind of feeling that here, if anywhere, my trouble is to end. You remember that picture which was the first link between you and me? Do you know why it appealed to me so strangely? It was like a kind of dream I have often had. I used to say in the old days that I had what Goethe called the second sight. Sometimes at superstitious moments I was inclined to think this dream a kind of vision of the future, and it comforted me beyond measure. It has come so often and in such different forms, but it always ends in the same way—Maurice coming back to me over the sea, and living here in my quiet corner. If I could tell you how much I have built on this small foundation! But the dream only comes with the sea-sounds. In those miserable London days I used even to pray for it at night, I was so utterly hopeless; it never came."
Arthur looked thoughtful: "I shall see my cousin before I go; she has been very delicate lately, and my aunt, I believe, is very anxious for her to have change of air. Perhaps she would allow her to come here and stay with you for a time."