Part 31 (1/2)

He was absent but a few moments.

”Back to Charing Cross Station,” directed Zoe, and got into the cab again.

She had done her best. But, throughout the whole of the journey to the Strand, her mind was occupied with dire possibilities. It almost alarmed her, this too keen interest which she found herself taking in the fortunes of Severac Bablon.

At Charing Cross the taxi-man received a sovereign. It was more than double his fare. He knew, then, that his professional instincts had not misled him, but that he had been driving an American millionairess.

In the foyer of the Astoria, Mary Evershed was waiting, with Mrs.

Wellington Lacey in stately attendance. Mary was simply radiant. She sprang forward to meet Zoe, both hands outsretched.

”Wherever have you been?” she cried.

”Picture show!” said Zoe, with composed mendacity, glancing at the aristocratic chaperon.

”I could not possibly wait until the morning,” Mary ran on, her eyes sparkling with excitement. ”I had to run along here straight from horrid, stuffy Downing Street to tell you. d.i.c.k has inherited a fortune.”

”What!” said Zoe, and grasped both her friend's hands. ”Inherited a fortune!”

”Well--not quite a fortune, perhaps--five thousand pounds.”

And John Jacob Oppner's daughter, a real chum to the core, never even smiled. For she knew what five thousand pounds meant to these two, knew that it meant more than five _hundred_ thousands meant to her; since it meant the difference between union and parting, between love and loss, meant that Sir Richard Haredale could now shake off the fetters that bound him, and look the world in the face.

”Oh, Mary,” she said, and her pretty eyes were quite tearful. ”How very, very glad I am! Isn't it just great! It sounds almost too good to be true! Come right upstairs and tell me all about it!”

In Zoe's cosy room the story was told, not a romantic one in its essentials, but romantic enough in its potential sequel. A remote aunt was the benefactress; and her death, news of which had been communicated to Sir Richard that evening, had enriched him by five thousand pounds and served to acquaint him, at its termination, with the existence of a relation whom he had never met and rarely heard of.

Mr. Oppner came in towards the close of the story, and offered dry congratulations in that singular voice which seemed to have been preserved, for generations, in sand.

”He ought to invest it,” he said. ”Runeks are a good thing.”

”You see,” explained Mary. ”He hasn't actually got it yet, only the solicitor's letter. And he says he will be unable to believe in his good luck until the money is actually in the bank!”

”Never let money lie idle,” preached Oppner. ”Banks fatten on such foolishness. Look at Hague. Ain't _he_ fat?”

Though it must have been imperceptible to another, Zoe detected, in her father's manner, a suppressed excitement; and augured from it a belief that the capture of Severac Bablon was imminent.

However, when Mary was gone, Mr. Oppner said nothing of the matter which, doubtless, occupied his mind, and Zoe felt too guilty to broach the subject. They retired at last, without having mentioned the name of Severac Bablon.

Zoe found sleep to be impossible, and lay reading until long past one o'clock. But when the book dropped from her hands, she slept soundly and dreamlessly.

In the morning she scanned her mail anxiously. But there was nothing to show that her warning had been received. Could it be that Severac Bablon had suddenly deserted the cottage for some reason, and that he would to-night walk, blindly, into the trap prepared for him?

She was anxious to see her father. And his manner, at breakfast, but dimly veiled an evident exultation. He ate very little, leaving her at the table, with one of his dry though not unkindly apologies, to go off with the stoical Mr. Alden.

If only she had a friend in whom she might confide, whose advice she might seek. Zoe laughed a little to think how excited she was on behalf of Severac Bablon and how placidly she surveyed the possibility of her father's being relieved of a huge sum of money.

”That's the worst of knowing Pa's so rich!” she mused philosophically.

The morning dragged wearily on. Noon came. Nothing and n.o.body interested Zoe. She went to be measured for a gown and could not support the tedium of the operation.

”Send someone to the Astoria to-morrow,” she said. ”I just can't stand here any longer.”