He seized his hat, and with a crushed down sob of literal fear, he rushed away.
Outside the office he came upon a hansom. He leaped into it, shouting the Bloomsbury address to the man.
“Drive for your life!” he yelled. “A sovereign for you if you get me there quickly!”
The man’s horse was fresh. They rushed through the streets. Arriving at the house, he tossed the driver his promised sovereign, and letting himself in with his latch key, he dashed into the drawing room. It was empty!
He was leaving the room hurriedly, when he encountered the landlady. “Miss Viola has gone to bed, sir, she overtired herself, visiting the sick-poor with her flowers, and all that, to-day, and she——”
“Thanks!” with a hurried nod he raced up the stairs. The child’s bedroom was next to his own. He entered it without knocking. He was too much agitated to stand upon ceremony.
The room was in darkness, he struck a match, laid it to the gas nipple, then shot a quick glance at the bed. In that first glance, he saw that it was empty. He went close up to the bed, it had been occupied, he could see that. He thrust his hand well down under the clothes. There was faint body warmth left in the bedding—or it seemed so to him.
“God help me?” he groaned. And two great tears fell glittering from his eyes.
“Viola! Viola! my precious darling!” he moaned. “You were my life, my——”