While he leisurely discussed his oysters and ale he thought over all that he had heard, and formed his plans upon the information.
Harcourt had not reappeared upon the scene of Roma’s life. So much was certain. She was alone at Goblin Hall, comforting her lonely heart with the love of her adopted child—some miserable little waif, offspring of some unknown woman, picked up in an apartment house. He did not even know the name of the child or the woman. He could not remember whether the janitress had ever mentioned those names, nor was he sufficiently interested in Roma’s protégées to try to recollect.
Yet, my reader, if Mrs. Brown had chanced to call that mother or child by name Hanson would have been so thunderstruck that he would not have forgotten the circumstances, for, as the personal advertisements say, he would have heard “something to his advantage.”
However, this much he knew—that his rival was out of the way, departed for parts unknown; that the Grays were all in Europe; that Roma was at Goblin Hall, unprotected, except by her own strong self, and alone but for the presence of her pet child and her own servants.
And he determined to go down to see her there, to try to reconcile her to himself; and in the event of her obstinate refusal, to warn her that he should make an appeal to have the decision of the court that set aside their marriage ceremony as illegal reversed in his favor, on the ground of his compulsory absence from the trial. And this appeal he would make in any case. If she should still be obstinate in her determination to repudiate him he would find means to wring her heart so cruelly that she should be compelled to yield to him.
With this resolution he finished his lunch, paid his bill, went back to his hotel, packed up again, and sent off his luggage by express to Goeberlin.
Later he ate dinner, settled with the office clerk, and started for the six-thirty express train to Goeberlin. He caught it, and was soon flying westward on his evil errand.
CHAPTER XII
ROMA’S DESPAIR
Roma strove bravely to resist the dark cloud of despair that was fast settling down upon her soul.
She could not concentrate her thoughts sufficiently to enable her to read or write, and to attempt to knit or to sew was to leave her mind too free to fly to themes which to dwell upon was maddening.