Clement glared at him. “You can’t mean Miss Reys, Miss Heloise Reys, who was here with a companion?” he cried.
“That’s the lady I mean,” said the cataclysmic porter. “She was asking for you right up to the moment she left.”
III
Clement Seadon was for the moment dazed by the dismaying unexpectedness of the news.
He had lost. Mr. Neuburg and his gang had not wasted a moment. They had whipped the girl out of his reach. They had effectually put a barrier of distance between him and Heloise.
He had a bitter vision of Heloise traveling away from him—away through this vast country where communications were scarce. She was more completely in the clutches of those terrible and sinister people with every mile she traveled, and he was less able to help. He stared at the porter. “She’s gone,” he said. “She—didn’t the lady leave a message?”
“None, sir. She seemed to expect that you was going to see her.”
“Yes,” said Seadon. He could understand how bewildered Heloise must have been when he did not keep his appointment of this morning. “And you’re sure she went to Montreal?”
“Yessir,” said the porter. Some one touched Clement’s arm, somebody said, “Seadon, old fellow....” Clement waved this hand aside without looking round. “Just one minute,” he said. Then to the porter, “You’re sure it was Montreal? I mean she wasn’t going further? Through to Sicamous, for example?”
“Sure, they’re stopping off at Montreal, her and her lady fren’. Didn’t I check their baggage to Montreal?”