He and his wife and family had left Boulogne, and had gone away in debt. No investigation had thus far succeeded in discovering the place of their retreat.
Reading this letter aloud to Romayne, I was interrupted by him at the last sentence.
“The inquiries must have been carelessly made,” he said. “I will see to it myself.”
“What interest can you have in the inquiries?” I exclaimed.
“The strongest possible interest,” he answered. “It has been my one hope to make some little atonement to the poor people whom I have so cruelly wronged. If the wife and children are in distressed circumstances (which seems to be only too likely) I may place them beyond the reach of anxiety—anonymously, of course. Give me the surgeon’s address. I shall write instructions for tracing them at my expense—merely announcing that an Unknown Friend desires to be of service to the General’s family.”
This appeared to me to be a most imprudent thing to do. I said so plainly—and quite in vain. With his customary impetuosity, he wrote the letter at once, and sent it to the post that night.
X.
ON the question of submitting himself to medical advice (which I now earnestly pressed upon him), Romayne was disposed to be equally unreasonable. But in this case, events declared themselves in my favor.
Lady Berrick’s last reserves of strength had given way. She had been brought to London in a dying state while we were at Vange Abbey. Romayne was summoned to his aunt’s bedside on the third day of our residence at the hotel, and was present at her death. The impression produced on his mind roused the better part of his nature. He was more distrustful of himself, more accessible to persuasion than usual. In this gentler frame of mind he received a welcome visit from an old friend, to whom he was sincerely attached. The visit—of no great importance in itself—led, as I have since been informed, to very serious events in Romayne’s later life. For this reason, I briefly relate what took place within my own healing.
Lord Loring—well known in society as the head of an old English Catholic family, and the possessor of a magnificent gallery of pictures—was distressed by the change for the worse which he perceived in Romayne when he called at the hotel. I was present when they met, and rose to leave the room, feeling that the two friends might perhaps be embarrassed by the presence of a third person. Romayne called me back. “Lord Loring ought to know what has happened to me,” he said. “I have no heart to speak of it myself. Tell him everything, and if he agrees with you, I will submit to see the doctors.” With those words he left us together.