“I am thankful to have met you,” he said at last in a low, stern voice; “and I am more than thankful that I came.”
He held out his hand as he spoke, as though what he had heard impelled him to go on his way, and Dr. Aston wrung it with warm sympathy.
“We shall meet again,” he said. “Let me know if I can be of any use. I am staying at the Français.”
Grave and stern, but not apparently shaken or rendered nervous by the news he had heard, or by the prospect of the meeting before him, as a sympathetic or emotional man must have been, Dennis Falconer strode out of the station. Grave and stern he reached his destination, and enquired for Mrs. Romayne. His question was answered by the proprietor himself, supplemented by half-audible ejaculations from attendant waiters, in a tone in which sympathetic interest, familiarity, and even a certain amount of resentment were inextricably blended.
Monsieur would see Madame Romayne—cette pauvre madame, of a demeanour so beautiful, yes, even in these frightful circumstances, so beautiful and so distinguished? Monsieur had but just arrived from England—monsieur had then perhaps not heard? Monsieur was aware? He was a kinsman of madame? Monsieur would then doubtless appreciate the so great inconvenience occasioned, the hardly-to-be-reckoned damage sustained by one of the first hotels in Nice, by the event? Monsieur would see madame at once? But yes, madame was visible. There was, in fact, a monsieur with her even now—an English monsieur from the English Scotland Yard. Madame had sent—— But monsieur was indeed in haste.
Monsieur left no possibility of doubt on that score. The waiter, told off by a wave of the proprietor’s hand on the vigorous demonstration to that effect evoked by the mention of the monsieur from Scotland Yard, had to hasten his usual pace considerably to keep ahead of those quick, firm footsteps, and it was almost breathlessly that he at last threw open a door at the end of a long corridor.
“Mr. Romayne’s name is public property in connection with the affair, then, in London, since yesterday morning?”
The words, spoken in a hard, thin, woman’s voice, came to Falconer’s ear as the door opened; and the waiter’s announcement, “A kinsman of madame,” passed unheeded as he moved hastily forward into the room.
It was a small private sitting-room, evidently by no means the best in the hotel. With his back to the door stood a young man in an attitude of professional calm, rather belied by a certain nervous fingering of the hat he held, which seemed to say that he found his position a somewhat embarrassing one. Facing him, and indirectly facing the door, stood Mrs. Romayne.
She was dressed in black from head to foot, but the gown she wore was one that she had had in her wardrobe—very fashionably made, with no trace of mourning about it other than its hue.