No account of what had happened could be in the papers under a couple of days; so I had every reason to suppose Hartover would not receive any hint of it before we met. I arranged with Lavender, moreover, that, as his connection with Fédore had no direct bearing on the case, Hartover’s name was to be carefully kept out of such reports as appeared. This done, I tried to occupy myself with the books, pictures, and other treasures the house contained; assiduously waited on by William, meanwhile, who, from his readiness to linger and to talk, suspected more, as I judged, than he dared ask or than I very certainly intended to tell him.
But my leisure suffered interruption sooner than I anticipated, and in a manner calculated to set William’s curiosity more than ever on edge.
On the second day—it was a Sunday—Lavender called about ten o’clock, bringing me news of which more hereafter; suffice it that a great burden was lifted off my mind. Having been prevented attending morning service by the detective’s visit, I went to church in the evening; but returned little the better, spiritually, I fear, for an hour’s sermon in which the preacher—a portly, well-nourished personage just then very popular in the fashionable world—dilated with much unction upon the terrors of hell, and the extreme difficulty of avoiding them, the impossibility of so doing, in fact, for ninety-nine hundredths of even ‘professing Christians’—so called—let alone the not inconsiderable remainder of the human race. What a gospel to set forth! What a Moloch to offer as supreme object of adoration! Yet this congregation, so representative of rank and wealth, listened quite complacently, without the smallest evidence of criticism or of revolt. Had they no heart to feel with? No brains with which to think? I walked homeward disturbed and sad.
Before the portico of Lord Longmoor’s house stood a travelling carriage, off which the men-servants were loading down a mighty array of boxes and trunks. And it was Lady Longmoor herself, surely—I could not mistake the buoyant step, the gay poise of the head, as of one that should say, ‘Look, good people all, look! I like it, I am well worth it’—who swept up the steps and into the lighted hall! Why this sudden descent of her Magnificence, and whence?
I made my way round to the side-door and let myself in, unperceived as I hoped.
But in the corridor William met me with a somewhat distracted countenance.
‘My lord is asking for you, sir,’ he said. ‘He arrived back about half an hour ago. I persuaded him to dine at once. His lordship seems quite upset, sir—not at all well. But he was very urgent to see you directly, whenever you came in.’
I own my pulse quickened as I went along the corridor and into the dining-room, where I found Hartover at table. He turned round, but without rising, and held out both hands to me.
‘Oh! there you are, thank goodness,’ he said. ‘I have been haunted by a childish fear you would have vanished—been spirited back to Cambridge.’
I forced a laugh and inquired after Lord Longmoor.