At such times Leonard would sigh and murmur to himself, “Poor Jack!” and betaking himself to his writing desk again would pull out a locket and gaze long and earnestly on a face enshrined therein, a face which strikingly resembled that of Laura Treherne, and so would gain comfort and fall to work again.
Tonight, he had wandered into the unoccupied room and had glanced at the portrait two or three times, for he felt lonely and would have given a five-pound note to hear Jack’s tread upon the stairs, and his voice shouting for the housekeeper to bring him hot water.
“Poor Jack!” he murmured, “where is he now?” For some months had elapsed since he had found a few lines of sad farewell from Jack lying on his writing desk, but pregnant with despair and reckless helplessness. And Jack had gone whither not even Mr. Levy Moss, who sought him far and wide, could discover; and not Mr. Moss alone, but Lady Bell Earlsley; fast as she had traveled from Earl’s Court to London, she arrived too late to see Jack, too late to learn from his lips the nature of the trouble which he had spoken of in his short note to her. And from Leonard even, she could not learn much. He could only tell her that Jack and Una’s engagement was broken off, and by Jack himself, but for what reason he could not tell or guess. And with that Lady Bell had to be, not content, but patient.
“You were his dearest friend,” she said to Leonard, “can you not guess where he has gone?”
And Leonard had shaken his head sorrowfully. “I cannot even guess. He was utterly miserable and reckless; he once spoke, half in jest, of enlisting. He was in great trouble.”
“Money trouble?” Lady Bell had asked.
“Money trouble,” assented Len, and Lady Bell had sunk into Leonard’s chair and wrung her white hands.
“Money! money! how I hate the word! and here I am with more of the vile stuff than I know what to do with!”
“That would make no difference to Jack,” Leonard said, quietly; and Lady Bell had sighed—she almost sobbed—and gone on her way as near broken-hearted as a woman could be.
And then she had sought for him as openly as she dared, but with no result, save discovering that there were hundreds of young men who answered to Jack’s description, and who were all indignant when they applied in response to the advertisements and found that they were not the men wanted.