"Yes, yes," said Yeldham; "I know, Robert, I know; have trust in me; be assured I will tell her all you wish--every thing--and I will bring her with me--something tells me so--and you know I am not sentimental, or presentimental either. Only keep quiet, and get well; it won't do to frighten her with such a face as that, you know," said Yeldham, with a dreary attempt at cheerfulness.
"I'll take care," returned Robert; "but, Charley, you won't deceive me, will you? You'll tell me every word she says, no matter how severe, no matter how hopeless. You'll tell me every word and, as far as you can, every look. I shall be able to see them by the aid of this" and he touched his breast-pocket, in which Yeldham knew he always carried the miniature by whose aid Katharine had been identified. "And, Charley, you'll tell her I never, never blamed her: you'll tell her I suffered; but I know I deserved it all." His eyes were shining now with a feverish light, and Yeldham hastened to terminate their interview. He bent over Robert, as he lay upon the sofa, and took his hand.
"Be content, Robert," he said; "I have never failed you yet, and I will not fail you now. All that I know, and all that I can guess you wish to have said to your wife, I will say to her; and as surely as I am talking to you now I will bring her home to you,--I never felt more certain of any thing. Good-bye, my dear fellow; you have nothing to do but trust me, keep quiet, and get well."
"Yes, I will keep very quiet--as quiet as I can. God bless you! Good-bye."
They wrung each other's hands, and Yeldham went away, speaking gravely to Alice in the hall, and reflecting with a queer sense of wonder, when he gained the road, upon the oddity of the fate that made him a messenger, in this supreme crisis, to Katharine Streightley, the only woman who had ever made him think regretfully of his loneliness, the only woman who had ever realised his early dreams of love and beauty.
Robert had kept his face towards the door until the sound told him Yeldham had shut the little garden-gate, and was gone; then he turned his head away, buried his face in the sofa-cushion, and closed his eyes. Thus old Alice found him, when she came to see if he required any thing, an hour later; and the old woman said downstairs that she wished Master Robert would let her send for the doctor, for he was looking "desperate white and weary, to be sure."
When Charles Yeldham reached Paris in the evening after his interview with Robert, he found the fair city looking beautiful, under the combined influence of clear starlight, sharp frost, and the glow of the best-arranged gaslight in Europe. The scene, striking as it always must be, made but little impression upon him, as he drove from the railway-station to his hotel, revolving in his mind all the circumstances of the painful and difficult business which lay before him, and haunted by the remembrance of Robert's white, grieved face. He was tired, depressed, and more doubtful of the success of his undertaking than when he had spoken so confidently to Robert; but he tried to rouse himself, to shake off the foreboding which beset him, and to arrange some definite plan for the interview with Katharine, which he felt sure would be accorded him. It was no part of his intention to take her by surprise. He knew that she would resent such a ruse as an unpardonable liberty, and did not doubt that it would defeat its own purpose, and lead to her immediate departure from Paris. He made his calculations in this way: "When she receives my request for an interview, she will conclude that no further effort at concealment will avail; she will remember that no coercion of her is possible; and she will consider it more in accordance with her own dignity to grant me the interview--a concession winch does not commit her to any thing. After all, too, she is a woman; and she must want to know something about the world she has turned her back on; she must, after all this time." So Charles Yeldham felt no apprehension about the first portion of his task, though there was a strange flutter of various emotions in the feelings with which he anticipated finding himself in Katharine's presence.
He wrote briefly to Robert, announcing his arrival, and went early to rest. At noon on the following day he presented himself to the unrecognising stare of the concierge at No.-- Rue d'Alger, and having named Mademoiselle Hartmann, passed up the wearisome flight of stairs leading au quatrième. He was admitted by the girl herself, and gladly perceived that she was looking much improved in health. The appearance of the neat little apartment also bore witness to improvement of another kind. Modest as before, it was more comfortable, and was now a pleasant snug nest for this lonely bird.
The girl had believed in Yeldham from the first, and was unaffectedly glad to see him. She had expected him, she told him candidly; and she had told the dear lady all about his previous visit.
"You did well," said Yeldham. "I would not have you deceive your good friend in any thing."