Part 21 (2/2)

”I'm shaky,” replied Lamotte, lifting an unsteady hand. ”And then we are advised to have faith in our physician. I should swallow my own mixture with fear and trembling.”

”And pour it down your neighbor's throat with entire satisfaction,”

interpolated Doctor Heath.

”Precisely, just as you pour this stuff down mine. Thanks, Heath,”

handing back the gla.s.s. ”Now then, we are all friends here, and you two know what I wish to learn. Heath,” shading his eyes with his hand as he reclined on the settee. ”I came back, from a two day's tramp about the country in search of Miss Wardour's robbers, or of traces of them, this morning. Let that pa.s.s. I called at Wardour Place first of all, have just come from there in fact--and Constance tells me--”

He paused as if struggling with some emotion, and Ray Vandyck stirred uneasily, flushed slightly, and partially turned away his face. Only Clifford Heath retained his stoical calm.

”Well!” he said coolly, ”Miss Wardour tells you--what?”

”That my sister has run--away.”

”Oh! Well, Lamotte, I am glad you know it. It's a hard story to tell a friend.”

”So thought Constance, and she would give me no particulars, she told me,” letting his hand fall from before his face, ”to come to you.”

”And why to me?” coldly.

”She said that you knew the particulars--that you brought her the news.”

”True; I did. Still it's a hard story to tell, Lamotte.”

”And no one will tell it more kindly, I know. Say on, Heath; don't spare me, or mind Vandyck's presence--I don't. I know that I must hear this thing, and I know that Ray is my friend. Go on, Heath; get it over soon.”

Raymond Vandyck arose and walked to the window, standing with his back toward them while Doctor Heath, in a plain, straightforward, kindly manner, told the story of Sybil's flight, just as he had told it to Constance Wardour.

For a long time after the story was done, Lamotte lay with his face buried in his arms, silent and motionless, while young Vandyck stood like a graven image at his post by the window.

Finally, Lamotte brought himself to a sitting posture, and, with the look and tone of a man utterly crushed, said:

”Thank you, Heath. You have done me a kindness. This is the most terrible, most unheard of thing. My poor sister must be mad. She has _not_ been herself, now that I remember, for some weeks. Something has been preying upon her spirits. There has been--by heavens! Ray, Ray Vandyck, can you guess at the cause of this madness?”

Raymond Vandyck wheeled suddenly, and came close to his interlocutor, the hot, angry blood surging to his face.

”There was plenty of 'method in this madness,'” he sneered. ”As to the _cause_, it may not be so hard to discover as you seem to imagine.” And, before they could recover from their astonishment, he was out and away, banging the door fiercely as he went.

For a moment the lurid light gleamed in Frank Lamotte's eye, and it seemed that another ”attack” was about to seize him, but he calmed himself with a mighty effort, and turning toward Doctor Heath, said, plaintively:

”Has all the world run mad, Heath? What the devil does that fellow mean?”

”I know no more than you, Lamotte,” said the doctor, upon whose face sat a look of genuine surprise. ”I don't think he quite knows himself. He has been sadly worked up by this affair.”

”Humph! I suppose so. Well, for Sybil's sake, I forgive him, this once; but--I hope he will outgrow these hallucinations.”

”Doubtless he will,” replied the doctor, somewhat drily. ”I say, Lamotte, you had better run down to my house, and turn in for a couple of hours; you look done up,--and you can't stand much more of this sort of thing. I must go now, to see old Mrs. Grady, over at the mills.”

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