"'Mr. Laurence, what have you done with Lucy West?
"He turned red to his temples, he wasn't too old or too hardened to blush then, but he denied everything. Lying,—cold, barefaced lying, is one of Mr. Thorndyke's principal accomplishments.
"'He knew nothing of Lucy West—how dared I insinuate such a thing.' Straightening himself up haughtily. 'If she had run away from me, with some younger, better looking fellow, it was only what I might have expected. But fools of forty will never be wise;' and then, with a sneering laugh, and his hands in his pockets, my young pasha strolls away, and we spoke of Lucy West no more.
"That was five years ago. One winter night, a year after, walking up Grand street about ten o'clock, three young women came laughing and talking loudly towards me. It needed no second look at their painted faces, their tawdry silks, and gaudy 'jewelry,' to tell what they were. But one face—ah! I had seen it last fresh and innocent, down among the peaceful fields. Our eyes met; the loud laugh, the loud words, seemed to freeze on her lips—she grew white under all the paint she wore. She turned like a flash and tried to run—I followed and caught her in five seconds. I grasped her arm and held her fast, savagely, I suppose, for she trembled as she looked at me.
"'Let me go, Mr. Liston,' she said, in a shaking voice; 'you hurt me!'
"'No, by Heaven,' I said, 'not until you answer me half a dozen questions. The first is: 'Was it Laurence Thorndyke with whom you ran away?'
"Her eyes flashed fire, the color came back to her face, her hands clenched. She burst forth into such a torrent of words, choked with rage, interlarded with oaths, that my blood ran cold, that my passion cooled before it. She had been inveigled away by Thorndyke, there was no sham marriage here—no promise of marriage even; I will do him that justice, and in six months, friendless and penniless, she was adrift in the streets of New York. She was looking for him night and day, if ever she met him she would tear the very eyes out of his head!
"Would she go home? I asked her. I would pay her way—her mother would receive and pardon her.
"She laughed in my face. What! take my money—of all men! go back to the village where once she had queened it over all the girls—like this! She broke from me, and her shrill, mocking laugh came back as she ran and joined her companions. I have never seen her since.
"That is my story, Miss Bourdon. Two years have passed since that night—my dull life goes on—I serve Mr. Darcy—I watch Mr. Thorndyke. I have come to his aid more than once, I have screened his evil deeds from his uncle as I have screened this. He is to be married the first week of December to Miss Helen Holmes, a beautiful girl and an heiress. The last duty I am to perform for him is to hush up this story of yours, to restore you to your friends like a bale of damaged goods. But I think his time has come; I think it should be our turn now. It is for you and me to say whether he shall inherit his uncle's fortune—whether he shall marry Helen Holmes or not."