Part 55 (1/2)

His face was the picture of distress.

”I shall come for you at eight,” he said, stopping the taxi at once. ”Good-bye till then.”

He got out and gave directions to the chauffeur. Then he did a very strange thing. He hailed another taxi and, climbing in, started off in the wake of the two women. From a point of vantage near the corridor leading to the ”American bar,” he saw Hetty sign her slips and move off toward the lift. Whereupon, seeing that she was quite out of the way, he approached the manager's office and asked for accommodations.

”Nothing left, sir.”

”Not a thing?”

”Everything has been taken for weeks, sir. I'm sorry.”

”Sorry, too. I had hoped you might have something left for a friend who expects to stop here--a Miss Castleton.”

”Miss Castleton has just applied. We could not give her anything.”

”Eh?”

”Fortunately we could let her have rooms until eight this evening.

We were more than pleased to offer them to her for a few hours, although they are reserved for parties coming down from Liverpool tonight.”

Booth tried the Cecil and got a most undesirable room. Calling up the Savoy on the telephone, he got her room. The maid answered.

She informed him that Miss Castleton had just that instant gone out and would not return before seven o'clock.

”I suppose she will not remove her trunks from the station until she finds a permanent place to lodge,” he inquired. ”Can I be of any service?”

”I think not, sir. She left no word, sir.”

He hung up the receiver and straightway dashed over to the Savoy, hoping to catch her before she left the hotel. Just inside the door he came to an abrupt stop. She was at the news and ticket booth in the lobby, closely engaged in conversation with the clerk. Presently the latter took up the telephone, and after a brief conversation with some one at the other end, turned to Hetty and nodded his head. Whereupon she nodded her own adorable head and began the search for her purse. Booth edged around to an obscure spot and saw her pay for and receive something in return.

”By Jove!” he said to himself, amazed.

She pa.s.sed near him, without seeing him, and went out into the court. He watched her turn into the Strand.

When the night boat from Dover to Calais slipped away from her moorings that evening, Hetty Castleton and her maid were on board, with all their bags and trunks, and Brandon Booth was supposed to be completely at sea in the heart of that glittering London-town.

The night was fog-laden and dripping, and the crossing promised to be unpleasant. Wrapped in a thick sea-ulster Hetty sat huddled up in the lea of the deck-house, sick at heart and miserable. She reproached herself for the scurvy trick she was playing on him, reviled herself and yet pitied herself. After all, she was doing him a good turn in forcing him to despise her for the shameless way in which she treated his devotion, his fairness, his loyalty.

He would be happier in the end for the brief spasm of pain and disgust he was to experience in this second revelation of her unworthiness.

Crouching there in the shadow, with the foghorn chortling hoa.r.s.ely over the shabby trick,--so it seemed to her,--she stared back at the misty glow of the pier and tried to pierce the distance that lay between her and the lights of London, so many leagues away.

HE was there, in the glitter and glamour of it all, but black with disappointment and wonder. Oh, it was a detestable thing she had done! Her poor heart ached for him. She could almost see the despair, the bewilderment in his honest eyes as he sat in his room, hours after the discovery of her flight, defeated, betrayed, disillusioned.

There were but few people crossing. Sailors stood by the rail, peering into the fog, but it seemed to her that no one else was afoot on board the steamer. Already the boat was beginning to show signs of the uneasy trip ahead. Many foghorns, far and near, were barking their lugubrious warnings; the choppy waves were slas.h.i.+ng against the vessel with a steady beat; the bobbling of the s.h.i.+p increased as it plunged deeper into the cross-seas. But she had no thought of the s.h.i.+p, the channel or the perils that surrounded her. Her mind was back in London with her heart, and there was nothing ahead of her save the dread of tomorrow's sunlight.

She was a good sailor. A dozen times, perhaps, she had crossed the English Channel, in fair weather and foul, and never with discomfort.

Her maid, she knew, was in for a wretched brawl with the waves, but Hetty was too wise a sailor to think of trying to comfort the unhappy creature. Misery does not always love company.

A tall man came shambling down the narrow s.p.a.ce along the rail and stopped directly in front of her. She started in alarm as he reached out his hand to support himself against the deck house. As he leaned forward, he laughed.