The dread that beset him was that in the hall he would attract the attention of one of the servants. Trembling with cold, he crept into his overcoat and tip-toed to the door. All was silent in the house. Out into the night he stole, glancing furtively up and down the avenue like one who dreads detection. He reeled with dizziness as he reached the sidewalk and leaned for a moment against a railing. The night air seemed to revive him after a time; for pulling himself together with a mighty effort, he moved on toward his club like one who walks in sleep and flees from the phantoms of his dream.
CHAPTER XXVI.
“It is hard, Gertrude; very hard! But I must be in London a week from to-day.”
Gertrude Van Vleck looked up at her father as he uttered these words, and her face grew a shade paler, while the tears started to her eyes. She was clad in a travelling costume that was extremely becoming to her tall and graceful figure. In her hand she held an almost undecipherable scrawl. It was from Mrs. Percy-Bartlett, and ran as follows:—
“My dear Gertrude,—Perhaps you have already heard the awful news. My husband died suddenly at the Union Club last night. I am so utterly stunned that I cannot write coherently, but one insistent thought is with me at this sad time. You must not change your plans on my account. I long for you at this moment with my whole heart, but my selfishness must have no weight with you. If you really wish it, I will join you in London soon; but I can make no special arrangements just now. I will write to you or send you a cable message as soon as I have the strength and opportunity to think of the future.”
“Listen, Gertrude,” continued Mr. Van Vleck, almost sternly, “We have no time to lose. Don’t think me heartless, my child; but I must be in London on the date I have set, for many reasons that would not interest you. Sit down and write to Mrs. Percy-Bartlett at once. Tell her that we will wait for her in London, and take her to the Continent with us. I absolutely cannot wait over a steamer at this time. Poor little woman, I am sorry that there is no other way.”
With a heavy heart Gertrude Van Vleck penned a note—how inadequate, almost heartless, it appeared to her as she re-read it—and despatched it by a messenger to Mrs. Percy-Bartlett. The generous, affectionate heart of the girl rebelled against the necessity that compelled her to take this course; but there seemed to be, at the moment, no alternative.
Gertrude had had but little personal contact with that mysterious thing we call death. The suddenness of her friend’s bereavement appalled her. There comes a time in every one’s experience, early or late, when the insignificance of one human life in the make-up of the illimitable universe is emphasized with a stunning force that leaves us wiser, perhaps, but infinitely more sad. Gertrude Van Vleck had thought much about the strange problems that the life of the world presents, but the final and most significant riddle that haunts the mind of man, the awful question that death asks, had never touched her deeply. But now it had come to her in a new guise, and she felt crushed and hopeless with the pitiless suddenness of the shock.
The drive to the steamer seemed almost interminable. The noises of the streets, the disjointed exclamations of her father, the feverish throbbing in her head, caused Gertrude the most acute suffering. The bustle and excitement at the pier aggravated the restlessness and discontent that made her whole being ache. There seemed to be something childish in the vivacity of the men and women around her, who came and went, laughed and cried, were silent or loquacious, as if a voyage across the Atlantic were a thing of great moment. What was it compared with that mysterious journey into the unknown that we must all take to-day, or to-morrow, or a few years hence?