There was no answer from the girl who, with elbows on knees and her chin in her hands, stared into the fading fire as though unconscious of his presence.
“Good-bye, then, Miss Thornton, and—and God keep you—dear!”
Now it may be true, as her garrulous old aunt told me, that Miss Thornton was discovered in the drawing-room that night weeping bitterly, but if so, I venture to assert her tears were those of anger—the tears of a spoilt child. However, the point is not what I think, but what Williams thought. He left the Thorntons’ house firmly convinced that he had wholly failed in his mission and succeeded only in making the woman he loved hate him. But as he lay awake brooding over the situation the possibility presented itself that the girl might go to Forbes with the story and assert her loyalty by offering to marry him then and there. Such things had happened before. As he thought it over, the possibility became a fear, and the fear a resolution to protect the girl, not only against Forbes, but if necessary against herself. The step he took was theoretically quite as impossible as his original action. But to attempt the impossible is sometimes to achieve it.
Early the next morning Williams looked up Pierce & Butler, the attorneys who had represented Mrs. Forbes in the divorce proceedings, obtained her address, and straightway called upon the lady herself. His interview was short, but at its close he made another extraordinary move. He telegraphed Meyer that the East Broadway business was to be closed within twenty-four hours. Seeing that he had not up to that time made any adequate examination of the title, his action must have seemed somewhat rash to his clerks—especially as he spent most of the intervening hours, not at the Register’s office, but in the building of the green lamps on Mulberry Street known as Police Headquarters.
As a result of this, the first callers at Williams’ offices on the following morning were afforded singular accommodations. One of them was stationed behind the portières, another was supplied with a seat in a closet, and another was ensconced in a coat-cupboard.
Then Williams sat down at the big table in the Title-closing room and waited for Meyer and the other parties to the purchase and sale of the property. They came promptly.
Meyer arrived first, accompanied by Jacobs, his confidential clerk, for that prudent Hebrew never did anything without one of his own people being present as a witness; then Mr. Winter, the real estate broker, dropped in, and when finally Mr. August Stein, Attorney-at-law, introduced himself and his client Mrs. Forbes. Williams showed no surprise that Mr. Stein’s client did not in any way resemble the Mrs. Forbes he had interviewed only the day before.
Mr. Stein was a nervous, active little man who spoke in the sharp brisk tones of one who has much to do and but little time to do it in.
“Now, Mr. Williams, you are all ready, I hope. I have another appointment at 11.30. You found everything clear? Of course—of course. It isn’t everyone who can carry East Broadway property free and clear.—No, indeed, Mrs. Forbes.”