Humphrey Statham fell back like a man stunned by a heavy blow. He had come down there to carry out the wish of his life; to tell the woman whom, in the inmost depths of his big manly heart he worshipped, that the hope of his life was at last accomplished, and that he was at length enabled to take her away, to give her a good position, and to devote the remainder of his existence to her service. She was not there to hear his triumphant avowal--she had fled, no one knew where, and he saw plainly enough that, not merely was all sympathy withheld from him, but that he was suspected by the neighbours to have been privy to, and probably the accomplice of, her flight, and that his arrival there a few days afterwards with the apparent view of making inquiries was merely an attempt to hoodwink them, and to divert the search which might possibly be made after her into another direction.
Under such circumstances, an ordinary man would have fallen into a fury, and burst out into wild lamentation or passionate invective; but Humphrey Statham was not an ordinary man. He knew himself guiltless of the crime of which by Emily's friends and neighbours he was evidently suspected, but he also knew that the mere fact of her elopement, or at all events of her quitting her home without consulting him on the subject, showed that she had no love for him, and that therefore he had no right to interfere with her actions. He told the neighbours this in hard, measured accents, with stony eyes and colourless cheeks. But when he saw that even then they disbelieved him, that even then they thought he knew more of Emily Mitchell's whereabouts than he cared to say, he instructed the local authorities to make such inquiries as lay in their power, and, offered a reward for Emily Mitchell's discovery to the police. He returned, to London an altered man; his one hope in life had been rudely extinguished, and there was nothing now left for him to care for. He had a competency, but it was valueless to him now; the only one way left to him of temporarily putting aside his great grief was by plunging into work, and busying his mind with those commercial details which at one time he had so fervently abhorred, and now, when it was no longer a necessity for him, business came to him in galore, his name and fame were established in the great City community, and no man in his position was more respected, or had a larger number of clients.
"Too late comes this apple to me," muttered Humphrey Statham, quoting Owen Meredith, as he shook himself out of the reverie into which he had fallen. "Nearly four years ago since I paid my last visit to Leeds; more than three since, as a last resource, I consulted the Scotland-yard people, and instructed them to do their best in elucidating the mystery. The Scotland-yard people are humbugs; I have never heard of them since, and shall never hear of Emily again. Good God, how I loved her! how I love her still! Was it that she stands out in my memory as my first and only real love, lit up perhaps by boyish fancy--the same fancy that makes me imagine that my old bare cock-loft in the Adelphi was better than my present comfortable rooms in Sackville-street. Dans un grenier qu'on est bien à vingt ans. No, she was more than that. She was the only woman that ever inspired me with anything like real affection, and I worship her--her memory I suppose I must call it now--as I worshipped her own sweet self an hour before I learned of her flight. There, there is an end of that. Now let me finish-up this lot, and leave all in decent order, so that if I end my career in a snipe-bog, or one of the Tresco pilot-boats goes down while I am on board of her, old Collins may have no difficulty in disposing of the contents of the safe."
Out of the mass of papers which had originally been lying before him, only two were left. He took up one of them and read the indorsement, "T. Durham--to be delivered to him or his written order (Akhbar K)." This paper he threw into the second drawer of the safe; then he took up the last, inscribed "Copy of instructions to Tatlow in regard to E. M."
"Instructions to Tatlow, indeed!" said Humphrey Statham, with curling lip; "it is more than three years since those instructions were given, but hitherto they have borne no fruit. I have half a mind to destroy them; it is scarcely possible--"
His reflections were interrupted by a knock at the door. Bidden to come in, Mr. Collins, the confidential clerk, put in his head, and murmured, "Mr. Tatlow, from Scotland-yard."
"In the very nick of time," said Humphrey Statham, with a half-smile; "send Mr. Tatlow in at once."
[CHAPTER X.]
MR. TATLOW ON THE TRACK.
"Mr. Tatlow?" said Humphrey Statham, as his visitor entered.