“Humph! White hair may turn black, and new teeth may be made to replace lost ones,” observed the lawyer. “I would not be put off the scent by changes of that sort, if the main points coincided.”
“Very true. I must start at once, then, for Saxony, and try and see for myself. I shall have difficulty in gaining the confidence of the directors of the place, I dare say. Can you help me by a letter of introduction to any of them?”
“Yes; I am well known to the principal medical man by name, and I will give you a line to him with pleasure.”
He wrote it, and shook hands with his client and wished him good-speed.
Clide travelled without halting till he drove up to the door of the asylum. His letter procured him admittance at once to the private room of the medical man, and, what was of greater importance, it inclined the latter to credit his otherwise almost incredible story. When Clide had told all he deemed necessary, the doctor informed him that the patient whom he believed to be his wife had already left the house and the country altogether; she had spent three full weeks under his care, and was then well enough to be removed, and had, by his advice, been taken home for the benefit of native air. It was just three days since she had left Saxony. The doctor could give no idea as to where she had gone, beyond that she had returned to England; he knew nothing of the whereabouts of her native place there, and her uncle had left no clue to his future residence.
Clide was once more baffled by fate, and found himself again in a dead-lock. In answer to his inquiries concerning the nature of Isabel’s disease, the medical man said that it was hereditary, and therefore beyond the likelihood—not to say possibility—of radical cure. This, it seemed, was the third attack from which she had suffered. The first was in early girlhood, before the patient was eighteen; the second, somewhat later and of much longer duration—it had lasted six years, her uncle said; then came the third crisis, which, owing, perhaps, to the improved general health of the patient, but more probably to the more judicious and enlightened treatment she had met with, had passed off very rapidly. It was, however, far from being a cure. It was at best but a recovery, and the disease might at any moment show itself again in a more obstinate and dangerous form. Perfect quiet, freedom from excitement, whether mental or physical, were indispensable conditions for preserving her against another crisis. It was needless to add after this that the career of an actress was the most fatal one the unfortunate young woman could have adopted. But in that, no doubt, she was more passive than active.
With this new light on his path, Clide hastened his return to England, farther than ever, it seemed, from his journey’s end, and laden with a heavier burden than when he set out. March! march! was still the command that sounded in his ears, driving him on and on like the Wandering Jew, and never letting him get nearer the goal.
He had not the faintest idea of Isabel’s native place. She had told him she was Scotch, and her name said so too, though she was perfectly free from the native accent which marked her uncle’s speech so strongly. But what did that prove either way? Was Cameron her name, or Prendergast his? He had taken a new name in his travels, and so had she. Still, feeble as the thread was, it was the only one he had to guide him; so he started for Scotland as soon as he landed in England, having previously taken the precaution to acquaint the police in London with his present purpose, and what had led him to it. If Isabel were sufficiently recovered to appear again in public, it was probable that the brutal man—who was in reality no more than her task-master—would have made some engagement for her with a manager, and she might at this moment be singing her brain away for his benefit in some provincial theatre. It was clear he shunned the publicity of the London stage. Clide thought of these things as he tramped over the purple heather of the Highlands, following now one mirage, now another; and his heart swelled within him and smote him for his angry and vindictive feelings toward Isabel; and tears, that were no disgrace to his manhood, forced themselves from his eyes. Poor child! She was not to blame, then, for wrecking his life, and coming again like an evil genius to thrust him back into the abyss just as he had climbed to safety, beckoned onwards and upwards by another angel form. She was a victim herself, and had perhaps never meant to deceive or betray him, but had loved him with her mad, untutored heart as well as she knew how.
The winter days dragged on drearily, as he went from place to place in Scotland, and found no trace of the missing one, heard nothing that gave him any hopes of finding her. The police were equally unsuccessful in London. Stanton had gone back there, very much against his inclination; but Clide insisted that he would be of more use in the busy streets, keeping his keen eyes open, than following his master in his wanderings up and down Scotland.
One dark afternoon the valet was walking along Regent Street, when he stopped to look at some prints in a music-shop. The gas was lighted, and streamed in a brilliant blaze over the gaudily-attired tenors and prime donne that were piling the agony on the backs of various operatic songs. Stanton was considering them, and mentally commenting on the manner of ladies and gentlemen who found it good to spend their lives making faces and throwing themselves into contortions that appeared to him equally painful and ridiculous, when he noticed a lady inside the shop engaged in choosing some music. She was dressed in black, and he only caught a glimpse of her side face through her veil; but the glimpse made him start. He watched her take the roll of music from the shopman, secure it in a little leathern case, and then turn to leave the shop. She walked out leisurely, but the moment she opened the door she quickened her pace almost to a run; and before Stanton knew where he was, she had rushed into the middle of the street. He hastened after her, but a string of carriages and cabs intervened and blocked the street for some moments. As soon as it was clear, he saw the slight figure in black stepping into an omnibus. He hailed it, gesticulating and hallooing frantically; but the conductor, with the spirit of contradiction peculiar to conductors, kept his head persistently turned the other way. Stanton tore after him, waving his umbrella and whistling, all to no purpose, until at last he stopped for want of breath. At the same moment the omnibus pulled up to let some travellers alight; he overtook it this time, and got in. The great machine went thundering on its way, and there opposite to him sat the lady in black, his master’s wife, he was ready to swear, if she was in the land of the living. He saw the features very indistinctly, but well enough to be certain of their identity; the height and contour were the same, and so was the mass of jet black hair that escaped in thick plaits from under the small black bonnet. Then there was the conclusive fact of his having seen her in a music-shop. This clinched the matter for Stanton. The omnibus stopped, the lady got out, ran to the corner of the street, and waited for another to come up, and jumped into it; Stanton meanwhile following her like her shadow. She saw it, and he saw that she saw it, and that she was frightened and trying to get away from him. Why should she do so if she were not afraid of being recognized? He was not a gentleman, and could see no reason for an unprotected young woman being frightened at a man looking fixedly at her and pursuing her, unless she had a guilty conscience. He sat as near as he could to her in the omnibus, and when it pulled up to let her down he got down. She hurried up a small, quiet street off Tottenham Court Road, and on reaching a semi-detached small house, flew up the steps and pulled violently at the bell. Stanton was beside her in an instant.