"And you don't think she ever played him false? You don't think she cared for the prize-fighter? What was his name, by-the-by; Bolisco, wasn't it?"
"Yes, sir, Jim Bolisco. No, she never cared a straw for him—a great ugly brute, with a cock-eye. She'd known him when she was a child—for her people were very low—father kept a small public out Battersea way; and it ain't easy for a woman to shake off that sort of friend. Bolisco was took up by Sir Hubert Withernsea, and used to dine at the Abbey Road sometimes, much to the Colonel's disgust. No, I don't believe Kate ever had the slightest liking for that man; but I sometimes used to fancy she was afraid of him."
CHAPTER XVI.
"Later or sooner by a minute then,
So much for the untimeliness of death,—
And as regards the manner that offends,
That rude and rough, I count the same for gain—
Be the act harsh and quick!"
His interview with Chater left John Faunce troubled in mind, and deeply meditative. Had there been a crime, or was the disappearance of Colonel Rannock a fact easily accounted for in the natural course of events? The mother's conviction that some evil had befallen him was after all founded on an inadequate reason. If he had gone to Klondyke, as he intended, the whole fabric of his life would have been changed, and the man who while in the civilized world corresponded regularly with his mother, might well forget his filial duty, in the daily toil and hourly dangers, hopes, and disappointments of the struggle for gold. It was difficult to judge a man so placed by previous experience or everyday rules. The most dutiful son might well leave home letters unwritten; or a letter, trusted to a casual hand, might easily go astray.
Then there was always the possibility that he had changed his plans; that he had stayed in New York or in San Francisco; that he had chosen some other portion of the wild West for his hunting ground; that he had spent the summer fishing in Canada, or the autumn shooting in the Alleghanies; and, again, that his letters to England had been lost in transit.
Faunce would not have been disposed to suspect foul play on so slight a ground as the absence of news from the wanderer, but there had been that in Mrs. Randall's manner and countenance which had excited his darkest suspicions, and which had been the cause of his undiminished interest in her proceedings.
If there had been a crime she knew of it, had been in it, perhaps. He had watched her and studied her, but he had never questioned her. The time was not ripe for questioning. He did not want to alarm her by the lightest hint of his suspicions. She was too important a factor in the mystery.
He called on her on the evening after his interview with Chater, and persuaded her to go to a theatre with him. It was the first time he had assumed the attitude of established friendship, but although she seemed surprised at the invitation, she accepted it.