In order to beguile the time, rather than from any hope Marion had returned, Cheyne went more than once to Tenby Terrace. There he found poor Miss Traynor had at last succumbed, and gone to bed; but no trace or tidings of the missing girl. If "to be wroth with those we love works like madness in the brain," there is some self-sustaining power in the anger itself; but to love tenderly, and seek the loved object in vain, is more wearing and depressing than mere anger.
He went to Mr. Macklin; but the energetic lawyer was able to do nothing beyond find out that No. 8, Garthorne Street might be bought for eight hundred pounds, upon which Cheyne told him to buy; and when the purchase had been effected, to make a deed of gift in favour of Mrs. Harriet Dumaresq, and hand the documents to the widow without comment or explanation. The purchase and the gift were to be made in the name of Ashington. Cheyne wished to benefit in a substantial way the woman who had been gentle to his love, and careful of her when she was away from him.
The long summer day began to wane, and yet there were no definite tidings--nothing beyond the news Bracken had gathered of the widow in the morning. The detective was quite sure she was in the neighbourhood of Kennington; but beyond this he was sure of nothing.
Cheyne could hardly believe it possible she had not been found. It was, indeed, only by an effort he could believe she had been lost. When his mind was not busy with the subject of her disappearance, he always felt as though she were in Knightsbridge, and he was going over presently to see her, and chat with and chide her humorously for some fault of his own inventing. Then a great sadness fell upon, him, and he thought of all her sweet secret ways and gentle sprightliness. All her sweet ways were secret, and only to be found out by accident. Often and often she had been saucy to him, but never, as far as he knew, to her aunt. But her sauciness fascinated him more than anything else, and now a thousand instances of it crowded in upon him, and filled him with anguish at his loss. He had always been a man of few wants and desires; but, as often happens with such men, those wants were paramount with him, and the loss of anything he loved or had set his heart upon seemed to make his life bankrupt. He could have lived without wine or fine clothes, and never felt the want of either; but clean linen and tobacco were necessaries to him, as bread and beef are to other men. Although in the old days he had spoken of dukes and marquises, he had never longed to be one; he had never thought of being one; and now that things had taken such a different aspect, he set his titles and his riches down at a very low rate, and would rather have given up the marquisate of Southwold, or even the dukedom itself, than abandon the use of tobacco.
Now what had he lost? The only being on earth he loved. What were all his lands and castles and titles if he might not share them with her, if he might not live in the glory of her happiness? To feel that she was happy because he was with her, and that her happiness was diverted from his own individuality only by the contemplation or possession of something procured for her by him, was the end and aim of all his own expectations of happiness as far as the relations between man and woman are concerned. He had his independent masculine ambitions and hopes. He did not believe he should die if Marion were never found. He did not think he should throw his money and his coronet into the Thames, and lead the life of a recluse ever afterwards. But he knew that never again could he wrap anyone in such a beautiful mystical chivalry. Never again in all his life should he be able to taste the sweet perfume of romantic passion. He had the feelings of a poet, and she was his best-beloved poem. He had the ardour of a lover, and she was his most dear mistress. He worshipped beauty, and she was the most beautiful spirit in his earthly paradise.
And now she was gone, gone away from him? No one whom he knew could tell him where she was, and he could not find her. Good Heavens! what an unhappy ending to all the happy hours he had spent with her, all the happy hours he had spent thinking of her when away from her! He had in the still times of his leisure thought of nothing else. "She was his festival to see;" and he had brightened some of his darkest hours with thoughts of her. He had never to her betrayed his love emotionally. He looked on emotion with suspicion. But his passions, like his frame, were strong. His rage, his pity, his love, would have carried him any distance. But for mere emotion, that quality of human nature which appraises everything by the accident of the present moment, he had a supreme contempt.
He became restless. He could not remain in one place. The same faculty of his nature which drove him down in a fury to Silverview now drove him between the two extremes of rage and despair. His passions, when roused, were grotesque. In his ordinary moods few men had a more level or equable temper; but once excited, he knew no self-control, attempted no moderation. At one time he thought of going to Bracken, seizing him by the shoulders, and knocking his brains out against a wall; at another time he thought of putting an advertisement in the papers, setting forth the whole facts of the case and offering a stupendous reward for any information about her.
At last daylight failed, and the long summer day was over. Macklin, who remained at his office, declared that he had been belied by events; and Bracken confessed that, since morning, no progress had been made, and that practically no progress could be made during the night. Cheyne asked Bracken what was to be done; and Bracken said little or nothing could be done till morning. What was there for him to do? Nothing. He might go to bed, but there was no chance of his sleeping. This night was worse than last, for nothing had been done towards the recovery of the girl last night, and he had felt the fullest confidence in the men he had put on her track. Now a whole day had been passed in active search, and nothing had been discovered.
What if she had met with an accident, and was now lying in a hospital? But no; Bracken surely had inquired at all the hospitals in London. Then there was the worst chance, the most awful chance. Perhaps she had met with an accident, and was now beyond the united skill of all the hospitals in London! The Thames, the treacherous, lithe, sleek, murderous Thames, could it have anything to do with the fact that she had not written, the fact that no trace of her had been found of later date than yesterday evening? That woman over there in Kennington had told them the missing girl had seemed in great distress. Could it be that, driven desperate by her desolate condition, she had----
The thought was unendurable. It drove him mad. He would not, he could not, sit any longer inactive under it. What was the good of rank and civilisation, and wealth and police, if a young girl might disappear, and the cleverest men in London could find no trace of her? Why, in the American forests a hunter could follow up his poor, helpless, simple child.