It was well for her ladyship, as it is for all of us, that there was no invisible hand to draw aside the curtain of the future and reveal to her even a glimpse of what was to be.
Meanwhile, the real heir had unaccountably vanished from the haunts which had known him, and was as one dead to that little world in which he had been such a familiar figure. No word of him, or message of any kind reached his whilom associates. A vague rumour got spread about, originating no one seemed to know how or whence, that he had joined a certain exploring expedition which just then was being a good deal talked about; but it was a rumour which was never confirmed.
Men talked and wondered for a little while, and then presently he was forgotten.
CHAPTER III.
ALEC’S PROPOSITION
With the inmates of Withington Chase two uneventful years glided imperceptibly away. Between Sir Gilbert and his wife the name of the proscribed heir was never mentioned; to all seeming he had vanished out of their lives as completely as if he had never existed. That his image still dwelt more or less in his father’s thoughts was only in the natural order of things, but to faithful Mr. Page alone, from whom the baronet had few or no secrets, did Alec’s name ever cross his lips, and to him no oftener than was unavoidable.
The lawyer had duly remitted his quarterly allowance to the young man, forwarding it now to one obscure continental town and now to another, in accordance with Alec’s written request; but, beyond that, nothing whatever was known of him or his whereabouts.
Then one day the baronet received a letter from his son, dated from Catanzaro, a small out-of-the-way town in southern Italy.
In it the writer stated that he was utterly tired of the idle, purposeless life he had been leading for the past two years, and that if his father would agree to give him six thousand pounds down, he would emigrate to the United States and never trouble him for another shilling as long as he lived. But he would do more, much more, than that, should his father consent to his proposition. In that case he would agree to the cutting off of the entail and would sign whatever documents might be needful for the due carrying out of that design. Sir Gilbert sat staring at the letter after he had finished reading it like a man whose faculties had been paralysed by sheer amazement.
So absorbed was his attention that he was unconscious of the door behind him being opened and of the entry of his wife. Her footfalls made no noise on the thick carpet. She went up behind him and was on the point of placing a hand on his shoulder, when her gaze vas attracted to the letter which lay spread open on the writing-table in front of him.
Lady Clare was more than a score of years younger than her husband and her eyesight was still as keen as ever it had been. Half-a-dozen seconds sufficed her to take in the sense of Alec’s letter, the handwriting of which she had at once recognised. A little gasp escaped her before she knew it. An instant later the baronet had started to his feet, and was confronting her with flaming eyes; involuntarily his hand closed over the letter.