"I can never forget," she said slowly, "that you loved me—when—" her tender voice broke piteously—"when all the world despised me."
CHAPTER XX
John Everett may, or may not, have been excusable for neglecting to inform Jane Blythe of a matter which nearly concerned her, and which had occupied his own attention for an hour or more that very day. The firm of lawyers with whom he was associated—Messrs. Longstreet and Biddle, to be exact—had received by the morning's post a letter from certain London solicitors instructing them to advertise for, and otherwise endeavor to locate the whereabouts of one Jane Evelyn Aubrey-Blythe, who was known to have left England for America on or about April 6th of the current year. Information regarding this person, who was otherwise described as being young and of pleasing appearance and address, would be thankfully received by Messrs. Thorn, Nagle & Noyes, attorneys and counselors-at-law.
In pursuance of this desired end, John Everett had been deputed to frame a suitable inquiry to be inserted in the public prints, and the leading New York, Brooklyn, and Jersey City papers were presumably at that moment setting the type for said notices. Just why Mrs. Belknap had neglected to inform her brother of what she had been pleased to term Jane's romantic but imaginary appellation, she could not afterwards recall.
It was Bertha Forbes who finally brought John Everett's soaring thoughts to earth again, when he presented himself at her lodgings as the escort of Jane on that memorable rainy evening in May. Miss Forbes was officially crisp and cogent in her manner at first; but thawed perceptibly when the two took her wholly into their confidence.
Jane had appeared quite unmoved by the news of the legal inquiry which concerned itself so particularly with her person.
"It will be Uncle Robert," she said calmly. "I suppose he has been frightfully annoyed at my disappearance—and Aunt Agatha, too. But," she added, with a fleeting glance at her lover, "I'm glad I ran away."