“I think not,” she said. “From what I have heard from Ma, he arrived late one night at Blatherwycke, met Dora clandestinely somewhere on the Bulwick Road, and, wishing her farewell, left next day for the Continent. Since that nobody has heard a single word about him.”
“Not even Dora?” I inquired, greatly surprised that Jack should have left again without a word to me.
“No. Dora, silly little goose, is crying her eyes out and quite spoiling her complexion. Their engagement is absolutely ridiculous.”
“She loves him,” I observed briefly.
“Nowadays a woman does not marry the man she loves. She does not learn to love until after marriage, and then, alas! her flirtation is not with her husband.”
I sighed. There was much truth in what this smart woman of the world said. It is only among the middle classes that persons marry for love. The open flirtation in Belgravia would be voted a scandal if it occurred in Suburbia. There is one standard of morals in Mayfair, another in Mile End.
By dint of artful questioning I endeavoured to glean from her whether she knew the reason of Jack’s departure, but either by design or from ignorance she was as silent as the sphinx.
“The only other fact I know beyond what I have already told you,” she replied, “was contained in a paragraph in the Morning Post, which stated that Captain Bethune, the well-known soldier-novelist, had left London for the Balkan States, in order to obtain material for a new romance upon which he is actively engaged. Really, novelists obtain as much advertisement and are quite as widely known as princes of reigning houses.”
Markwick at that moment turned quickly and expressed a fear that he must be going, as he had an appointment in the City, while Mabel, rising, stretched forth her small hand in farewell, and urging me not to forget to arrange a meeting with Fyneshade, accompanied her companion out.
When they had gone I stood for a long time gazing down into the street, pondering deeply. I could not discern the object of their visit, nor why that curious expression should have crossed their faces when I appeared. The reason they had called was, however, quite apparent half an hour later, for, to my abject dismay, I found that the little cabinet in which I had kept the fragments of paper I had discovered in Jack’s chambers on the night of the tragedy had been wrenched open, the papers turned over hurriedly, and the whole of the letters abstracted.