Both Lady Poole and Marjorie during that time had come insensibly to lean upon him, and to ask his advice about this or that. A terrible gap had been created in Marjorie's life, and though Gouldesbrough could not fill it, he came at the right moment to comfort and sustain.
Before he returned to London, Sir William had gradually glided into a new relation with the girl to whom he had been engaged. He found his power over her had increased. She was more dependent and subservient in her great trouble than she had ever been during the time when she was promised to be his wife, and he must sue for favours.
And Gouldesbrough noticed also that, though the girl's grief seemed in no way lessened her hopes of ever seeing Guy Rathbone again seemed to be dwindling. The cunning words that he had spoken, the little hint of a vulgar Circe was perhaps beginning to germinate within Marjorie's brain. She was too loyal to believe any such statement, but, nevertheless, it had an unconscious influence with her. At any rate, she began to cease discussion of the mystery, and there was the hinting of a coming resignation to the hard and impenetrable fact.
This at least was what Sir William Gouldesbrough deduced.
Trained watcher of the mind and human impulse as he was, psychologist of marvellous knowledge and penetration, he began to see, or so he thought to himself, that all was not yet lost, that it might well be that the events of the last few weeks would some day—not yet or soon, but some day—place him upon a higher pedestal than ever before.
On the evening of the fourth day after his arrival, Sir William Gouldesbrough returned to town. In the afternoon he had driven with Lord Landsend and Percy Alemare to the cemetery.
It had been a cold and blustering afternoon, and the plain hearse and the single carriage that followed it had trotted through the semi-deserted streets until the grave-side was reached. The shivering vicar of a neighbouring church, whose turn it was to take the cemetery duty for the week, had said the words of the burial-service, and in some half-an-hour all that was mortal of Mr. Eustace Charliewood had disappeared for ever and a day.
He would never stroll up Bond Street in his fur coat any more. Never again would he chat with the head-waiter upon the important question of a lunch. No longer would Mr. Proctor, the masseur, set the little rubber hammers to beat out the lines of dissipation upon that weak and handsome face. Mr. Eustace Charliewood had resigned his membership of the St. James's Street Clubs, and had passed out of Vanity Fair into the night.
After the funeral, Gouldesbrough went to say good-bye to Lady Poole and Marjorie. His last words to them were these—
"I shall go on," he said, "doing all that I can in every possible way. And everything that I do I will let you know, and if I can discover the slightest clue to this terrible mystery, you shall hear it at once. But don't buoy yourself up with false hopes, that is all I ask. None of us can say what the future may have in store, but for my part I have not much hope. It may seem a cruel thing for me to say, Marjorie, but I think it is my duty to say it. Bear up and be brave, and remember that I am always close by to do anything I can in any and every way to help you and your mother."