The marquis stopped again and looked at him with a faint, puzzled confusion, as if he were trying to remember what it was he had written; then he nodded.
“Ah, yes; I remember. I sent you the note because I thought you would like to hear some information I received about Miss Barlow——”
“Miss Marlowe, do you mean?” said Lord Cecil, biting his lips. “What information——”
“Give me time, please,” said the marquis, arranging his dressing-gown. “Your impetuosity is rather trying.”
“Great heavens!” exclaimed Lord Cecil, clinching his hands; “why do you torture me like this? You forget—or do you not forget?—is it from sheer malice that you keep me in this suspense? You know, I see you know, that I have not heard from Miss Marlowe; that I fear some accident——”
“I know nothing of your not having heard from her,” said the marquis, with perfect coolness; “and I care less. I wrote to you because I considered that I should do so, on a point of honor. You were absent on my business, and it was my duty to let you know what I had heard. I have always done my duty, and I did it in this case, though the writing of even a short note is irksome to me.”
“Well, my lord, well?” demanded Lord Cecil, and he paced to and fro, “what is it? Is she ill?—is she——” He could not force his lips to utter the word “dead.”
“Ill? Oh, no; I hope not. The fact is, I—I may say ‘No,’ for it is generally known, I imagine, that Miss Barlow—pardon, Miss Marlowe—has disappeared.”
Dreadful as the word sounded, Lord Cecil drew a breath of relief, and a smile, a very mirthless one, crossed his lips.
“Disappeared?” he said, almost contemptuously. “You mean she has left Barton? That accounts for her not having received my letters or answered them. Where has she gone?”