'For that reason you must defer going there until the evening,' said Martin Gurwood, with more firmness than he had hitherto shown. 'This sad event has thrown the house into great confusion, and it will be necessary that I should go back and apprise Mrs. Calverley, whom you do not know, I think, of your intention of coming there tonight.'
'I suppose you are right,' said Alice, in a disappointed tone. 'I suppose, even at such a dreadful time as this, there are regulations and observances which must be respected. Will you promise me that you will come to me this evening?'
'Either I myself or some friend whom I can trust,' said Martin. 'And now I must leave you; for the time is short, and I have a great deal to do in it.'
He took one glance at her pale, tearful face, with even more than interest, and withdrew.
He was thinking to himself how very beautiful she was, when his reflections were checked by his catching sight of a female figure, in a black cloak, in the path before him.
On his near approach the lady raised her veil, and to his astonished eyes revealed the features of Madame Du Tertre.
[CHAPTER VI.]
RUN TO EARTH.
The driver of the hansom cab which Pauline had chartered did his duty nobly by his fare. In going so long a distance, and on a comparatively deserted road, he knew too well the impossibility of concealing his pursuit from the observation of his brother Jehu; indeed, no sooner did they pass the confines of Guelph Park than the driver who had Martin in his charge turned round, and there ensued between the two men an interchange of signs familiar only to the initiated of the craft, which set them both at their ease, and prevented farther interrogation. Pauline's driver followed the other hansom at sufficient distance never to lose sight of it; and when Martin Gurwood stopped the cab and alighted from it, the pursuing cabman drew up at a convenient bend of the road and communicated the fact to his fare. Then Pauline jumped out, discharged the man--she would provide her own means of return, she said--and slowly and stealthily followed Martin's retreating figure.
The pursuit in which she was engaged was by no means unpleasant to Pauline; indeed, she rather liked it. There was, as has before been noticed, something stealthy and cat-like in her nature and her manner; and the mere fact that, unknown to him, she was watching a person who was evidently engaged in a private mission, the discovery of which might seriously affect him, and would in any event be disagreeable to him, had for her a potent charm. As she journeyed onward in the cab, her thoughts had been fixed upon the object of Martin Gurwood's secret expedition. That it was of importance she was certain, or he would not otherwise have refused with so much decision his mother's request that he should devote the day to the inspection of documents in Mr. Jeffrey's company. That it had to do with the mystery of Calverley and Claxton, and consequently with the greater, and to her far more interesting mystery of Tom Durham's disappearance, she fully believed. As yet she had been able to discover nothing concerning the paper which she had found in the wooden box underneath Mr. Calverley's desk, the memorandum of the transfer of two thousand pounds 'to be given to T.D. at the request of A.C.' Perhaps the very business on which she was engaged might give her some clue to it--might reveal the identity of this Claxton which Mr. Calverley had so pertinaciously concealed from her. Once brought face to face with him, she could readily trust to her own wit and tact to extract from him the information she required, or, at all events, to learn something that would be of service to her in accomplishing her self-imposed task.