“Don’t pity me,” I said, rising. “I’m sure I shall enjoy it. Au revoir, Miss Hamilton.”
And I did enjoy it. Many a time afterwards I thought of that slim little figure in the long riding-habit, her golden hair streaming in the breeze, and her dainty, flushed face aglow with excitement and delight, and of the pleasant prattle which her little ladyship poured into my willing ears. I remembered, too, her quaint, naïve ways, and the grave way in which she thanked me for taking care of her—little mannerisms which soon yielded to familiarity and vanished altogether. And, strange though it may seem, I found always more satisfaction in recalling these things than the winged look and merry speeches of Miss Agnes Hamilton.
CHAPTER XL.
MY MISSION.
For the first time in my life I was in London—and alone. There had been no reply from Mr. Marx to the telegrams commanding his instant return, and so on the third morning after my arrival at Ravenor Castle I quitted it again to go in search of him. Accustomed though he was to conceal his feelings, and admirably though he succeeded in doing so in the presence of his guests, I could see that Mr. Ravenor was deeply anxious to have the suspicions which my story had awakened either dispelled or confirmed. Nor, indeed, although their purport was scarcely so clear to me, was I less so.
I suppose that no one, especially if he had never before been in a great city, could pass across London for the first time without some emotion of wonder. To me it was like entering an unknown world. The vast throng of people, the ceaseless din of traffic, and the huge buildings, all filled me with amazement which, as we drove through the Strand to Northumberland Avenue, grew into bewilderment. Only the recollection of my mission and its grave import recalled me to myself as the cab drew up before the Hotel Metropole.
My bag was taken possession of at once by one of the hall-porters and I engaged a room. Then I made inquiries about Mr. Marx.
The clerk turned over two or three pages of the ledger and shook his head. There was no one of that name stopping in the hotel, he informed me.
“Can you tell me whether anyone of that name has been staying here during the last week?” I asked.
He made a further search and shook his head.
“We have not had the name of Marx upon our books at all, sir, during my recollection,” he declared. “Quite an uncommon name, too; I should certainly have remembered it.”