"Still," she said to her husband, "if he had not got them with him, he would have written to ask where they were. He was never a very good correspondent. But I wonder he hasn't written to ask how my aunt is. I hope there is nothing the matter. I hope I did not do wrong in letting them go without actually knowing of his being in Paris."
Of course her husband assured her she had not. But her conscience was not at rest, for Susan had grown gentler now that she was happily married, and she was softened too by the thought of her kind aunt's state. All through the last sad days the children kept coming into her mind, and though Mrs. Lacy was too weak even to ask about them, Susan felt almost guilty when she finally tried to thank her for her goodness.
"I don't deserve it," she thought, "I was not kind to the two human beings she loved best," and she wrote over and over again to Captain Bertram at the Marseilles hotel, begging him to send her news of the children, and when Mrs. Marton's letter came from India repeating what she had before written from Marseilles, but with of course no further news, and no mention of the Paris address, poor Susan became so unhappy that her husband promised to take her over to make inquiries in person if no answer came to another letter he sent to Marseilles to the landlord of the hotel, begging him to tell all he knew of Captain Bertram's movements. This letter brought a reply, as you will hear, from Captain Bertram himself.
It was evening before Walter arrived. Gladys and Roger were in bed and asleep. Auntie and Rosamond were waiting for him with the greatest anxiety to hear his news. He looked bright and cheery as he came into the room, still enveloped in his wraps, which he began to pull off.
"It's nice and warm in here," he said; "but, oh, it's so cold outside. And it was so mild and sunny down there; I would have liked to stay a day or two longer. It was to please him I hurried back so quickly—poor man, he is in such a state about the children!"
"But, Walter, what is the meaning of it all? Why has he not come himself?"
"Do you like him?" put in Rosamond.
"Awfully," said Walter boyishly. "He's just what you would expect their father to be. But I'm forgetting—I haven't told you. He's been dreadfully ill—he can only just crawl a step or two. And all this time he's not had the slightest misgiving about the children, except the fear of not living to see them again of course. He's not had the least doubt of their being safe in England; and only just lately, as he began to get well enough to think consecutively, he has wondered why he got no letters. He was just going to try to write to that place—Market-Lilford—when I got there. So he was mystified too! But we got to the bottom of it. This was how it was. He was feeling ill at Marseilles—he had put off too long in India—and he thought it was the air of the place, and as he had some days to pass before he was due in Paris, he went on to Nice, thinking he'd get all right there and be able to look about for a house if he liked it. But instead of getting all right he broke down completely. He wrote out a telegram to tell Miss Susan that he was ill, and that she must not start the children. It would have been in plenty of time to stop them, had she got it, but she never did."
"Never got it," repeated both ladies.
"No; the waiter told him it was all right, but it wasn't. His writing was so bad that at the office they couldn't read the address, and the message was returned from London the next day; and by that time he was so ill that the doctor wouldn't allow them to ask him a thing, and he probably wouldn't have understood them if they had. This, you see, he's only found out since I got there. The doctor was meaning to tell him, but he took his time about it, and he did not know how important it was. So, in a way, nobody was to blame except that Miss Susan. That's what Bertram says himself; but while I was there he telegraphed to Marseilles for his letters. There were several from her, and the last so frantic that he's writing to say it's all right; especially as she's been very cut up about the poor old lady's death. But she shouldn't have started the children till he telegraphed from Paris. Besides, he had told her to send a maid with them for the journey. It wasn't the Martons' fault; they did their best."