So Trenholme went out into the village street and walked to his quarters in the White Horse Inn. It was not yet two o'clock, but dawn had already silvered the northeast arc of the horizon. Just twenty hours earlier an alarm clock had waked him into such a day as few have experienced. Many a man has been brought unexpectedly into intimate touch with a tragedy of no personal concern, but seldom indeed do the Fates contrive that death and love and high adventure should be so closely bound, and packed pellmell into one long day.
Only to think of it! When he stole upstairs with the clock to play a trick on Eliza, he had never seen Sylvia nor so much as heard her name spoken. When he sang of love and the dawn while striding homeward through the park, he had seen her, yet did not know her, and had no hope of ever seeing her again. When he worked at her picture, he had labored at the idealization of a dream which bade fair to remain a dream. And now by some magic jugglery of ordinary events, each well within the bounds of credibility, yet so overwhelmingly incredible in their sequence and completeness, he was Sylvia's lover, her defender, her trusted knight-errant.
Even the concluding words of that big, round-headed, sensible detective had brought a fantasy nearer attainment. If Sylvia were rich, why then a youngster who painted pictures for a living would hardly dare think of marrying her. But if Sylvia were poor—and Winter's comments seemed to show that these financiers had been financing themselves at her expense—what earthly reason was there that she should not become Mrs. John Trenholme at the earliest practicable date? None that he could conceive. Why, a fellow would have to be a fool indeed who did not know when he had met the one woman in the world! He had often laughed at other fellows who spoke in that way about the chosen one. Now he understood that they had been wise and he foolish.
But suppose Sylvia—oh, dash it, no need to spoil one's brief rest by allowing a beastly doubt like that to rear its ugly head! One thing he was sure of—Robert Fenley could never be a rival; and Fenley, churl that he was, had known her for years, and could hardly be pestering her with his attentions if she were pledged to another man. Moreover he, John, newly in love and tingling with the thrill of it, fancied that Sylvia would not have clung to him with such complete confidence when the uproar arose in the park if——Well, well—the history of the Fenley case will never be brought to an end if any attempt is made to analyze the effects of love's first vigorous growth in the artistic temperament.
About a quarter past three Dr. Stern's little landaulet was halted at the same cross-road where a policeman had stopped it nearly three hours earlier.
"That you, Tom?" said the constable. "You're wanted at the station."
"What station?" inquired the chauffeur.
"The police station."
"Am I, by gum? What's up?"
"The Scotland Yard men want you."