The Broken Thread

by William Le Queux

Raife was maddened with the combination of incidents which had spoilt his return to Aldborough Park with his fiancée. Making an excuse to leave the room, he ran downstairs, and, hastily swallowing a full glass of the abandoned sloe gin, he went into the yard and asked the chauffeur: “Did you see the number of that car that was here just now?”

“No, sir,” came from the man.

He found the solitary ostler and asked him whether he knew the car or anything about it. The man had been feeding the horse in the loose box and had not seen the car.

Raife was a good-tempered man, but he was morose for a while. After the disconcerting incident of the stable-yard, and the somewhat mixed recollections caused by the visit to the white room, Raife decided that it was best to drive straight to Aldborough Park, and postpone the stroll through the town. As they drove, the apparition of Gilda Tempest in the garb of a hospital nurse, yielding to his caresses in the white room, haunted his mind. He had waived aside the Apache spectre. He could fight him, but he could not fight this apparition.

Hilda Muirhead sat opposite to him. Presently she said: “You look troubled, Raife. Has anything real serious happened?”

Raife forced a smile, and answered cheerily: “No, my dear! I’ve got a bit of a headache. One isn’t used to trains after the quietude of the desert.”

Then anent nothing, which was not her wont, Hilda added. “Oh, say! Raife. After you had left the queer white room I discovered a little door behind a curtain. It wasn’t a cupboard. I’m sure it led somewhere. It looked so cunning and mysterious. Do tell me where it leads to.”

This was the door of the narrow staircase leading to the loose box in the stable, through which Gilda Tempest had escaped when Lady Remington was about to enter the room. Raife winced at the question. The sweet young face of his fiancée opposite contrasted strangely with the face of Gilda, whom he had taught himself to hate. He replied: “Yes. There is a staircase there. I’ll show it to you some day, perhaps.” The last word qualified the promise, for he had no intention of showing it to her.

The handsome and silent-running Rolls-Royce car sped merrily over the smooth roads up and down the Kentish hills—the roads of “the garden of England,” and it was spring time. The sun of an English spring day is not as the sun of the Egyptian desert, but it is sufficient to reveal the tender buds and dainty blossom of the hedgerow. As they sped through the narrow roads that led to Aldborough Park, it made an exquisite picture. It was a picture that was entirely unfamiliar to Hilda. She may have read of a spring day in “the garden of England,” but she had not seen one, and the sight of it thrilled her. She noticed the respectful greetings of the labourers, the women and children as they passed. Sir Raife Remington was a respected power in this land of his. He was not an owner of mines and mills in a disaffected area, to be met with scowls or curt nods. He was a landlord of ancient lineage, among tenants whom he and his ancestors had ruled generously, and with mutual sympathy. A downward sweep and a curve in the road brought them to the lodge gates. The massive wrought-iron gates, surmounted by the Reymingtoune arms, were already open. The lodge-keeper and his family were grouped together, saluting and curtseying to the master of Aldborough on his return from “furrin’” parts. Raife greeted them cheerily, as the car swept through and into the avenue with its long line of stately beeches. Hilda’s breast heaved, and her heart throbbed. “I am to be Lady Remington and the mistress of all this,” she said to herself. She thought of the soot-laden city of Cincinnati, in Ohio, where she had spent so much of her time. She compared the crudeness of an American landscape with the finished charm of this historical place, of which she was to be mistress. It seemed too good to be true. The phantom of “the other woman” flitted through her mind, and her pleasure was, for a time, less restrained.

As they emerged from the avenue, the mansion, in all its ancient grandeur, came into view. They passed through the shadow of a group of ancient pines and cedars of Lebanon, a graceful sweep around flower beds ablaze with blossoms brought them to the main entrance, where the stately old butler, Edgson, stood bareheaded to receive them. He was supported by a group of white-aproned and white-capped maids, and a pert little page-boy in livery, with a liberal display of bright buttons.