“But why? For God’s sake, man, tell me why.”
“No,” said Frothingham, rising; “you’d better read about it for yourself. It will be more satisfactory. You can find a file of the New York Herald at the office of the Paris paper. It’s only a block or so away, you know. Look up last January. But I’d try to stop those cables first. I must be off now; I’ve got an appointment.” And he joined the now much augmented throng on the promenade.
Grey dropped a five-franc piece on the table, and hurried into a fiacre that stood in waiting.
“Rue Taitbout, 46,” he directed.
But when he reached there it was to learn that his messages had been dispatched and that no power on earth could recall them.
II
Consumed with eager concern, Grey had himself driven to the office of the Herald. He was perturbed, distraught, and nervously apprehensive.
“Under a cloud,” he repeated, thoughtfully; “under a cloud. That may mean anything—murder, arson, theft, elopement. I’m a fugitive from justice, I suppose. That much Frothingham made very clear when he urged my stopping those cables.” And then his mood changed, and he argued that he was unnecessarily agitated. It could not be so bad. In his senses or out of them he would never, he felt sure, have committed a crime—some indiscretion, possibly, but not a crime.