Chapter Fourteen.
Jack Yelverton’s Confession.
I went myself next morning and saw the manager of Madame Gabrielle, Limited, to demand an explanation. He was one of those frock-coated diviners of the depths of woman’s mind—a person of polite deportment and address, who, although expressing extreme regret at having “to part with the young lady,” nevertheless declared that it was impossible to carry on business if the rules were daily broken. The rules, he said, were framed in order that the establishment should be well conducted, and it was considered that eleven o’clock was quite late enough for any young female to be out in that neighbourhood.
I explained that it was entirely my fault, and that if I had known I would have called and apologised for her; but he merely raised his eyebrows and observed that the young lady had left, and the others had taken her summary dismissal as a salutary lesson. Inwardly I denounced him as a tyrannical taskmaster of the superior shop-walker class, and left with, I confess, very little good-feeling towards him. Muriel had long ago told me how on one occasion this man had attempted to kiss her, and she had smacked his face. He had now driven her out into the world at an instant’s notice, merely because of the vengeful dislike which still rankled within him.
Several weeks passed. The June sun shone brightly in the London streets, giving promise of near holidays to those toiling millions who twice each day hurry across the Thames bridges to and from their labours, and whose only relaxation is a week at Margate or at Southend. But from me all desire for life and gaiety had departed.
Though evening after evening I sought Muriel, and also wrote to her relatives at Stamford in an endeavour to discover her whereabouts, yet all was in vain. She had disappeared entirely.
The thought struck me that on leaving Madame Gabrielle’s she had perhaps immediately found another situation; but as the frock-coated manager had received no letter of inquiry about her that theory seemed scarcely feasible. More and more the circumstances puzzled me. When I reflected upon our conversation that Sunday afternoon in Bushey Park I was inclined to doubt her declaration that she knew nothing of the mysterious Aline. Again, her apparent fear and anxiety when I chanced to mention the death of poor Roddy was more than passing strange. That she had a minute knowledge of Aline’s visits to me was quite plain, therefore what more natural than that she should be aware of the extraordinary acquaintance between Roddy and that woman whose touch consumed. Sometimes I was inclined to believe that she was in possession of the true circumstances of my friend’s death; and at such moments the thought occurred to me that she, Muriel Moore, had been Roddy’s female visitor, who had called in his valet’s absence.
The thought was truly a startling one. Had she thus cast me aside because she feared me—because there was a terrible guilt upon her?
There was some inexplicable association between the fair-faced worker of evil, whom I knew as Aline Cloud, and this pure and honest woman whom I was ready to make my wife. Its nature was an enigma which drove me to despair in my constant efforts to solve it.
One morning, when in the depths of despair, I was sitting after breakfast idling over the newspaper, and wondering whether I could find Muriel by means of advertisement, Simes brought in a telegram, which summoned me at once to Tixover.