“I can no longer refuse to believe in you,” she said, “though I fear I shall have a harder task to convince my father than you had to convince me. Good-bye, and thank you. I really feel that you would be a powerful ally, and if I can possibly persuade him to take you into his confidence I will.”
“That, of course, would be the better way,” said Westerham. “I assure you that I must have a great deal of knowledge of Melun which would be invaluable to your father. Still, if he declines to tell me anything, remember that I am quite prepared to serve him blindly and in all good faith. I shall be quite content to wait for an explanation.”
On this he took his departure, and presently made his way to the station, where he waited for the afternoon mail. Long before the train was due he saw Kathleen enter the railway station carrying a black bag. He gave no sign, and she, for her part, steadily ignored his presence.
At Dieppe he watched her go on board the mail-boat, and then followed her to the saloon deck. There he kept her under surveillance, but made no attempt to communicate with her in any way.
Thus quietly watchful, he guarded her progress to London, where, at Victoria, he saw her enter a hansom and drive rapidly away. His thoughts had been so busy with the things of the immediate present that until he found himself alone at the London terminus he took no thought of what he should next do.
He then decided that he would go to his greatly-neglected rooms in Bruton Street in order to obtain some additions to his all-too-scanty wardrobe, for, with the exception of a few things he had purchased when he left Walter's Hotel, he practically had nothing but the clothes he stood up in; and these were the clothes with which he had been so mysteriously furnished while he lay chloroformed at Mme. Estelle's.
On arriving at Bruton Street the doorkeeper surveyed him with astonishment.
“Why, sir! I was told that you had gone abroad.”
“Gone abroad!” exclaimed Westerham. “Gone abroad! Nothing of the kind.”
He denied the suggestion flatly, and, indeed, was so taken aback by the man's manner that for the moment he quite forgot he had in reality not only been abroad but had returned again from abroad in the space of twenty-four hours.