Again, he had evaded me!
So I returned to my rooms utterly fagged by the long vigil, and feeling thoroughly ill. Indeed, in my weak state, it had been a somewhat injudicious proceeding, yet I felt anxious and impatient, eager to strike a crushing blow against the daring band who held poor Lola so completely in their power.
The result of my imprudence, however, was another whole week in bed, and a further confinement to my room for a second week. Meanwhile Rayner was active and watchful.
Observation upon the offices of Loicq Frères showed that only an English clerk was left in charge, and that neither Vernon, Jeanjean nor Bertini had since been there. Vigilance upon Merton Lodge, in Hampstead, also resulted in nothing. It was clear, therefore, that the trio had become alarmed at my visit to Hatton Garden, even though I had exercised every precaution to avoid recognition.
As I sat in my big arm-chair, day after day, unable to go out, I carefully reviewed all the events of the past, just as I have set them down in these pages. Somehow—how it came to pass, I cannot tell—I found myself thinking more than ever of Lola Sorel, the sweet-faced, innocent-looking girl whose career had been fraught with so much tragedy, apprehension and bitterness.
Every day, nay, every hour, her pretty, fair face arose before my vision—that pale, delicately-moulded countenance, with the big, blue, wondering eyes, larger and more perfect than the eyes of any woman I had ever before met in the course of my adventurous career.
Time after time I asked myself why my thoughts should so constantly revert to her. Sleeping or waking, I dreamed ever of that dainty little figure with its sweet, rather sad face, the pathetic countenance of the pretty Parisienne who had so gradually fascinated and entranced me.
Within myself, I laughed at my own feelings of sympathy towards her. Why should I entertain any regard for a girl who, after all, was only a thief—a girl whose innocence had decoyed men, and caused women to betray the whereabouts of their jewels, so that her associates could rob them with impunity?
From the moment when I had seized her in my bedroom at Balmaclellan I had pitied her, and that pity had now deepened into keen sympathy for her, held, as she was, in those bonds of guilt, yet struggling always to free herself, like a poor frightened bird beating its wings against the bars.
Had I fallen in love with her? Time after time I asked myself that question. But time after time did I scout the very idea and laughed myself to ridicule.