“Carthew!” Hilary exclaimed, springing from his seat and grasping his friend by the hand. “What is wrong?”
“Don’t you know? Thank Heaven! it hasn’t got about much yet, then! But, of course, it can’t be kept a secret much longer.”
“Man alive, what do you mean? What is it that should be kept a secret? Has anything happened to her—to Lady Carthew?”
His friend sat down by the table and wearily rested his head on his hand.
“I haven’t slept for three nights,” he said. “Anxiety about her has banished rest by night and day. She is mad, Hilary, I am certain of it. No other explanation could explain, could justify her conduct. She sprang from the train on our wedding journey, and I have not seen her since.”
“And you can sit quietly there and tell me such a thing!” almost shouted Hilary, stirred to violent indignation by what he supposed to be his friend’s callous apathy. “Good heavens! Carthew, what are you made of?”
Lord Carthew looked at him and frowned.
“There is no need for this excitement on your part,” he said, coldly. “Lady Carthew was not injured by her escapade. Indeed, within three hours of her leap, she telegraphed to me from Clapham Junction, informing me that she was on her way to London. I was forced to go on first to Northborough, where all manner of rejoicings had been prepared, to quiet them with some story of Lady Carthew’s health which had necessitated a change of plans. But I wired to a detective agency to find out her address, and communicate with me at my club. Imagine, Hilary, the awful disgrace of the thing. Having to call in professional spies to find out one’s own wife! Worst of all, this girl, who seemed the perfection of modesty and refinement, has, through her mental affliction, become so strangely different that you would hardly know her. All her reserve, all her delicacy and grace have left her. In the short time we spent together, she contrived to make me the laughing-stock of a vulgar crowd by her open flirtation with her father’s gamekeeper, that gypsy fellow who shot you in the arm.”
Hilary’s face betokened amazement, largely tinctured by incredulity; but the latter quality he refrained from expressing, as he asked, quietly:
“Have the detectives furnished you with any clue?”