Part 76 (1/2)

At last she came down to the drawing-room, but lay on the sofa well wrapped up, and received only her most intimate friends.

The neuralgia had now settled on her right arm and hand, so that she could not write a letter; and she said to herself with a sigh, ”Oh, how unfit a girl is to do anything great! We always fall ill just when health and strength are most needed.”

Nevertheless, during this period of illness and inaction, circ.u.mstances occurred that gave her joy.

Old Wardlaw had long been exerting himself in influential channels to obtain what he called justice for his friend Rolleston, and had received some very encouraging promises; for the general's services were indisputable; and, while he was stirring the matter, Helen was unconsciously co-operating by her beauty, and the noise her adventure made in society. At last a gentleman whose wife was about the Queen, promised old Wardlaw one day that, if a fair opportunity should occur, that lady should tell Helen's adventure, and how the gallant old general, when everybody else despaired, had gone out to the Pacific, and found his daughter and brought her home. This lady was a courtier of ten years'

standing, and waited her opportunity; but when it did come, she took it, and she soon found that no great tact or skill was necessary on such an occasion as this. She was listened to with ready sympathy, and the very next day some inquiries were made, the result of which was that the Horse Guards offered Lieutenant-General Rolleston the command of a crack regiment and a full generals.h.i.+p. At the same time, it was intimated to him from another official quarter that a baronetcy was at his service if he felt disposed to accept it. The tears came into the stout old warrior's eyes at this sudden suns.h.i.+ne of royal favor, and Helen kissed old Wardlaw of her own accord; and the star of the Wardlaws rose into the ascendant, and for a time Robert Penfold seemed to be quite forgotten.

The very day General Rolleston became Sir Edward, a man and a woman called at the Charing Cross Hotel, and asked for Miss Helen Rolleston.

The answer was, she had left the hotel about ten days.

”Where is she gone, if you please?”

”We don't know.”

”Why, hasn't she left her new address?”

”No. The footman came for letters several times.”

No information was to be got here, and Mr. Penfold and Nancy Rouse went home greatly disappointed, and puzzled what to do.

At first sight it might appear easy for Mr. Penfold to learn the new address of Miss Rolleston. He had only to ask Arthur Wardlaw. But, to tell the truth, during the last fortnight Nancy Rouse had impressed her views steadily and persistently on his mind, and he had also made a discovery that co-operated with her influence and arguments to undermine his confidence in his employer. What that discovery was we must leave him to relate.

Looking, then, at matters with a less unsuspicious eye than heretofore, he could not help observing that Arthur Wardlaw never put into the office letter-box a single letter for his sweetheart. ”He must write to her,”

thought Michael; ”but I am not to know her address. Suppose, after all, he did intercept that letter.”

And now, like other simple, credulous men whose confidence has been shaken, he was literally brimful of suspicions, some of them reasonable, some of them rather absurd.

He had too little art to conceal his change of mind; and so, very soon after his vain attempt to see Helen Rolleston at the inn, he was bundled off to Scotland on business of the office.

Nancy missed him sorely. She felt quite alone in the world. She managed to get through the day--work helped her; but at night she sat disconsolate and bewildered, and she was now beginning to doubt her own theory. For certainly, if all that money had been Joe Wylie's, he would hardly have left the country without it.

Now, the second evening after Michael's departure, she was seated in his room, brooding, when suddenly she heard a peculiar knocking next door.

She listened a little while, and then stole softly downstairs to her own little room.

Her suspicions were correct. It was the same sort of knocking that had preceded the phenomenon of the hand and bank-notes. She peeped into the kitchen and whispered, ”Jenny--Polly--come here.”

A stout washerwoman and the mite of a servant came, wondering.

”Now you stand there,” said Nancy, ”and do as I bid you. Hold your tongues, now. I know all about it.”

The myrmidons stood silent, but with panting bosoms; for the mysterious knocking now concluded, and a brick in the chimney began to move.

It came out, and immediately a hand with a ring on it came through the aperture, and felt about.

The mite stood firm, but the big washerwoman gave signs of agitation that promised to end in a scream.