She saw that he was at her mercy; and forthwith, in her zeal to protect him against any further machinations of an unworthy woman, she informed him that she had herself witnessed the meeting with Gavrolles at the Countess Aurelia’s, and had seen enough to shock and terrify her exceedingly. Then with a certain amount of nervousness, but no compunction, she admitted that, in duty to her brother, she had afterwards played the spy, and had watched from a distance, next day, the secret meeting at the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park.
Forster heard her out with a strange sickness of heart; and when she had finished he looked at her with a face so wistful, so sorrowful, that she could no longer restrain her tears.
‘Oh, James!’ she cried, ‘forget her! She was never worthy of your love. Think of those who do love you—and of your child!’
He answered her in a voice hollow but determined—
‘My first thought must be of her. What you have told me confirms me in my opinion that she is sinless. Until I find her and ask her forgiveness, I shall not rest. O Madeline! my love! my wife!’
He rushed weeping from the room. Miss Forster remained spell-bound. ‘Find her, and ask her forgiveness?’ She could scarcely believe the evidence of her ears; the idea was so utterly preposterous.
Owing to the circumstances of the case, it was impossible to advertise for the fugitive in the public journals, in any such way as would lead to her discovery and discomfiture. She had gone away of her own freewill, and any mystery attached to her disappearance was of her own making. To awaken the hue and cry for her by name would have been to set all the bells of slander pealing, and Forster was determined to spare both himself and the woman he loved so utter a humiliation.
Nevertheless, he inserted in the ‘agony’ column of the ‘Times’ a brief appeal, signed ‘F.,’ and headed ‘Queen’s Gate,’ which the initiated only understood. Then he went to the head of a private inquiry office, conducted by a firm of ex-detectives, and secured his co-operation.
‘If she’s in London, we’ll find her, sir,’ said the chief, a jaunty, military-looking man, with a bald head and French moustache and imperial. ‘We’ll set to work at once. You say she’d no friends handy?’
‘None, that I am aware of.’