CHAPTER VII
When Browne heard the maid's news, his heart sank like lead. He could scarcely believe his ill-fortune. Only a moment before he had been comforting himself with the thought that he would soon be standing face to face with Katherine, ready to ask her a question which should decide the happiness of his life. Now his world seemed suddenly to have turned as black as midnight. Why had she left England so suddenly? What had taken her away? Could it have been something in connection with that mysterious business of Madame Bernstein's of which he had heard so much of late? Then another idea struck him. Perhaps it was the knowledge that she was leaving that had occasioned her unhappiness on the previous afternoon. The maid who had opened the door to him, and whose information had caused him such disappointment, was a typical specimen of the London boarding-house servant, and yet there was sufficient of the woman left in her to enable her to see that her news had proved a crushing blow to the man standing before her.
"Can you tell me at what hour they left?" Browne inquired. "I was hoping to have seen Miss Petrovitch this morning."
"I can tell you what the time was exactly," the girl replied. "It was on the stroke of nine when they got into the cab."
"Are you quite certain upon that point?" he asked.
"Quite certain, sir," she answered. "I know it was nine o'clock, because I had just carried in the first floor's breakfast; and a precious noise, sir, he always makes if it is not on the table punctual to the minute. There were some letters for Madame Bernstein by the post, which the other girl took up to her bedroom. As soon as she read them she sent down for Mrs. Jimson and called for her bill. 'I leave for Paris in an hour's time, Mrs. Jimson,' says she, sort of short-like, for I heard her myself; 'so make me out my bill and let me have it quickly.'"
"And did Miss Petrovitch appear at all surprised or put out at having to leave London at such short notice?" Browne asked, not without a little trepidation.
"Well, sir, that was exactly what I was a-going to tell you," the girl replied, dropping her voice a little, and glancing back over her shoulder into the house, as if she were afraid of being overheard. "She did seem precious put out about it; at least so the other girl says. Jane tells me she feels certain Miss Petrovitch had been crying, her eyes were that red, and when she went into the room she and madame were at it hammer and tongs.
"I suppose they left no message for any one?" Browne inquired, refusing to comment on what the girl had just told him.