"Nonsense; hitting out wildly!" said young Porunglow, junior partner (of three weeks' standing) of Shaddock, Porunglow, Quaver, and Porunglow, great West-Indian merchants, who had been three months in business, and who frequented the vortex of West-end society. "Streightley might have gone on all right if he had not married old Guyon's daughter; a splendid gal, who made the tin fly like--like old boots! Thundering fine parties they had, sir. None of the Belgravian nobs did it up browner in the way of foreign singers, and Edgington, and Coote and Tinney, and real flowers, and all that kind of thing. I s'pects it's that that's settled Streightley's hash."
"I shall take deuced good care to attend the meeting of creditors," said the first speaker; "and unless the personal expenses are decidedly moderate, I shall take the opportunity of saying a few words on that subject."
This was the tone in which the matter was talked over in the City, and then the talkers turned to the discussion of other things. Of the firm of Streightley and Son nothing soon remained, save the name on the door-posts in Bullion Lane: the winding-up and the meeting of the creditors were duly reported in the City Intelligence; and shortly afterwards a new firm took the old house, and the erasure of the name from the doors and of the memory of the firm from their friends were almost simultaneous.
So there was a smash in Bullion Lane and a sale at Portland Place, and Robert Streightley, the quondam "City magnate," the merchant-prince, had lost his place among rich men, of consequence to mankind and human affairs; and had returned to his former quiet life in his mother's suburban house (for her income had happily been secured against the vicissitudes of business), and had not even begun to "look about him;" but was stunned and silent under the reiterated shocks of calamity.
His mother and sister had taken the intelligence of his ruin as most women do take the tidings of a calamity in which the affections are not concerned--that is to say, quietly and resignedly. If so many other persons had not also been ruined, it would have been much harder to bear, because then inconsiderate, hasty people might have blamed Robert; but as it was, he was only one of many; and they thought about the matter much as they would have thought about a war in Russia, or a revolution in Venetia, the rinderpest, or a railway accident.
As for Robert, he had little personal feeling in the affair. Poverty or wealth made little difference to him. He could have faced the one with courage and confidence, had Katharine remained with him, and bid him grow rich again for her sake; he had valued the other only because it had won her. And now the money which had enabled him to do the evil he had done was gone, and the wife it had purchased was gone; and days had melted into weeks, and weeks into months, and brought no word or sign of her. No language can tell how Robert suffered during all the time that his attention was externally claimed by his business; with what agony of hope deferred he would ask Yeldham, day after day, if there was any chance of discovering her place of retreat. Foremost in Robert Streightley's memory was the mind-picture of his desolate home; keenest of all his torturing thoughts was the idea of his cherished one, so daintily reared, now perhaps exposed to privation or absolute want. Compared with the horror of this feeling, the disgrace of his failure, the loss of his City position, which at another time would in themselves have been sufficient to crush him, now fell upon him with lightness--the world thought with extraordinary lightness--for such a sensitive man. But Yeldham, who alone was in his confidence, knew what were the secret yearnings of his heart. "O God! if we could only find her, Charley; if I could only see her once again, only hear her say she forgave me, I think I'd be content to die, and slip out of it all."
The inquiries which Yeldham had instituted in every possible quarter had all been without result, and already many weeks had elapsed, when one morning Robert received a letter from Mrs. Stanbourne, to whom he had written immediately on Katharine's departure, but from whom, up to that time, he had received no reply. He had had no exact knowledge of her address, and his inquiries had elicited no more precise indication than "Rome;" so he had no resource but waiting--with little patience indeed, and but poorly rewarded, for the letter ran thus:
"Florence.
"My Dear Mr. Streightley,--Your letter has been following me about for several weeks,--I believe for months, indeed,--and has only just reached me. I cannot--I need not tell you how greatly the news which it conveys has pained and distressed me. I am sure you will understand this without my dwelling upon the point, and that you personally will be assured of my sympathy in this your hour of grief. I am old enough to be allowed to speak plainly in these matters, even to one with whom I have not been very long acquainted, and I may tell you therefore that not merely did I see in you many qualities which any girl might be proud of in a husband, but I took the opportunity of showing to Katharine that I had observed them. I am sure furthermore, not merely from the manner in which those remarks were received, but from the general tenour of her conduct, that she had not one thought which she would have been ashamed of sharing with you, and I therefore am disposed to hope that her departure may have been caused by childish petulance, provoked by some little 'tiff,' which you have not explained to me--that it has been merely temporary, and that now, ere this note reaches you, she has returned to you and her duty. If this be so, you will throw this letter into the fire and think no more of it. But if it be not so; if she is still holding aloof from you through self-will, and which I suppose, as her relative, I may venture to call obstinacy, I think it best to give you all the aid and information in my power. I need scarcely tell you that she is not, that she has not been, with me. I do not know that she would have sought me; but, at any rate, my frequent changes of address would have prevented her finding me. Had I seen her, I should have put aside my own ill-health (which is, I suspect, a great deal laziness, and hatred of England in the dull season), and, starting off at once, never left her until I had restored her to you. But I remember that two or three years ago a great friend and old schoolfellow of hers, Annie Burton--of whom I know Katharine had a very high opinion--went to live at the Convent de St. Etienne, in Paris, and, as I believe, ended in taking the veil there. If all the other inquiries which you have doubtless set on foot have failed, would it not be well to make a search for our poor lost girl at this convent? Such a place would be likely to attract her in her then frame of mind. She would have the solace of the companionship of her old friend; and as boarders are received at the convent, she could command perfect privacy and peace, and, so far as she knows, avoid every chance of discovery. This is rather a vague idea, but it is a foundation upon which pursuit may improve. I sincerely trust it may not be needed, but yet I think it advisable to send it. In any case I shall be most anxious to hear from you again, and to assist you in any way in my power.
"Yours very sincerely,