Part 26 (1/2)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

A STRANGE a.s.sERTION.

The look of combined alarm and surprise which Jack's face betrayed was sufficient to convince me of the truth. Aline was the woman from whom he had fled; and she had visited him secretly. She had, it was apparent, discovered his whereabouts, and rather than excite gossip by coming to call upon him in the village, had met him clandestinely at some point on the high road halfway between Stamford and Duddington.

Then I reflected upon all that he had told me on the previous night; of how fondly he loved her, and of the curious dread in which he held her.

Were not my own experiences more extraordinary than those of mortal man?

Were not the changes wrought in my rooms by her influence little short of miraculous?

Aline Cloud, although the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, possessed a potency for the working of evil that was appalling. When I thought of it I shuddered.

Perhaps Jack Yelverton had discovered this. Perhaps he, a clergyman, a worker in the holy cause, had found out what evil influences emanated from her, and on that account had held aloof. He had told me plainly that he had come there to escape her. Did not that prove that he had discovered, what I, too, had found out, that her influence was alluring, that in her hand she held the golden apple?

He had been entranced by her beauty, but fortunately her witchery had not been sufficient to allure him to his ruin. I remembered when, in a moment of madness, I had declared my love to her, how she had told me she could not reciprocate it. What more likely then, that she loved Jack Yelverton?

That night I sat alone thinking it all over in the small, old-fas.h.i.+oned sitting-room which had been my own den before I had left to live in London. What, perhaps, puzzled me most of all was the fact that Muriel possessed such intimate knowledge of Aline's actions and of my brief period of madness; and somehow I could not get rid of a vague feeling that she was aware of the truth concerning poor Roddy's sad end.

Oppressed by the knowledge of a terrible truth which he had sworn not to divulge, and hiding from a woman whom he feared, Jack Yelverton was in as strange a position as myself; therefore next day I called upon him to give him an opportunity of telling me how this woman had at last discovered him.

He, however, said nothing; and when I incidentally expressed my intention of returning to London, and a hope that his whereabouts would still remain a secret from the person whom he did not wish to meet, he merely smiled sadly, saying--

”Yes. I hope she won't discover me. If she does--well, I must move again. Should I disappear suddenly you will know the cause, old fellow.”

These words caused me to doubt the truth of my surmise. His manner was as though he had not kept the appointment, as I had suspected, and indeed I had no absolute knowledge that Aline and this woman whom he held in fear were one and the same person. Thus I left him with my mind in a state of indecision and bewilderment.

I knew not what to think.

Through the close, stifling days of July and August I remained in London with but one object, namely, that of finding Muriel. She had disappeared completely, and with some object; for she had not only hidden herself from me, but also from her nearest relatives.

Through those hot, dusty days, which, in former years, I had spent at Tixover, I pursued my inquiries in the various drapery establishments at Holloway, Peckham, Brixton, Kensington, and other shopping centres, but with no result. She had not written to any of the ”young ladies” at Madame Gabrielle's, and none knew her whereabouts.

Yet the unexpected always happens. Just as I was about to give up my search and return to Tixover to get fresh air, for August and September are pleasant months in the Midlands, I chanced one afternoon to be crossing Ludgate Circus, from Ludgate Hill to Fleet Street, when I suddenly overtook a figure that seemed familiar.

I started, drew back in hesitation for a moment, and then approached and raised my hat.

It was Aline Cloud.

”You!” she gasped, paling slightly as she recognised me.

”Yes,” I replied. ”But I'm not so very formidable, am I?”

”No,” she laughed, in an instant recovering her self-possession as she took my hand. ”Only you startled me.”

I remarked upon the lapse of time since we had met, and in response she answered--

”Yes. I've been away.”

I recollected her visit to Stamford, but said nothing, resolving to mention it later. It was about four o'clock, and in order to chat to her I invited her to take tea. At first she was unwilling, making a couple of vague excuses and contradicting herself in her confusion; but as I hailed a cab and it drew up to the kerb she saw that all further effort to avoid me was unavailing, and accompanied me.