CHAPTER XXIV.

"Get up, Miss Pauline, get up quick!"

"What is the matter, Sally?" cries Pauline, rubbing her eyes. "How

funny you look! Has anything happened?"

"Hush! Yes; your sister--Miss Addie--is--is missing! She is not in her

room, and her bed has not been slept in all night."

"Addie--Addie missing? I--I don't understand! What do you mean, Sally?

Missing--where?"

"Heaven knows--Heaven knows!" cries the old woman, wringing her hands.

"I believe she had words with her husband after dinner last night. She

went to her room, saying she had a headache, and--and no one has seen

or heard anything of her since."

Pauline, now thoroughly awake and startled, springs out of bed.

"But her husband, Sally! He--he knows where she is? What does he say?"

"I told him, and he said nothing--absolutely nothing; he didn't seem

surprised or startled, but just went into his study, locked the door

after him, and has been there ever since."

"I--I don't think there is anything to be alarmed about," says Pauline,

her teeth chattering nevertheless; "it is a sudden quarrel, I suppose.

She--she is very hot tempered, you know, and has gone off in a huff

for a couple of days to Aunt Jo. Give me a bit of paper, Sally. I'll

scribble a telegram to Leamington, and we'll have an answer in half an

hour, and--wait--wait--I'll send another to Bob--he'll be wanted on the

spot to patch up matters. Now, Sally, I'll depend on you to keep it as

dark as possible. Don't let Lottie know on any account, or the other

servants, if possible. We'll have it all right before the evening,

never fear!"

* * * * *

Three hours later Robert Lefroy, warm, dusty, and excited from

suspense--for the telegram has told him nothing but that he is wanted

immediately--arrives at Nutsgrove, and is received by Pauline with

scared white face in the dining-room.

"What is it? What has happened? Any one ill--hurt?" he asks

breathlessly.

"No, no! Speak lower, and keep--keep composed as I am. It's

Addie--she's missing! Since last night nobody knows what--what has

become of her. Listen, listen--don't speak yet! She had a row with her

husband after dinner, and must have gone away soon after, and--"

"Yes--Aunt Jo? Have you tele--"

"I have, and she's not there, and has not been there. I've made

cautious inquiries at the farm; but no one saw her there either;

and--and I don't know what to do, I'm so frightened!"

"Her husband--Tom--what does he say? What is he doing?"

"He has been locked up in his study all the morning, and I--I was

afraid to go in to him. I thought that I would wait until you came,

that you would--would manage better than I should."

"I will go to him at once. Give me a glass of wine, sister."

"But, Bob darling, listen--listen to what they say! Oh, it's

dreadful--dreadful to have such--such vile suspicions afloat!"

"What suspicions? What d'ye mean?"

"Sally heard in the kitchen, half an hour ago, that one of the maids,

seeing off a friend by the 10.30 up-train last night, is sure--sure she

saw Addie at the station, going off in the train with--with a stranger,

who--who took her ticket for her!"

"A stranger! What stranger? What the deuce do you mean, Pauline?" cries

the boy fiercely, shaking off her clinging arms.

"Oh, I don't mean anything! It's only what they say, the wretches!

And that is not all; they say she--she was heard two or three times

out in the grounds last week talking to some man and crying bitterly.

The cook's little sister and brother heard her one night, and saw her

distinctly."

"Pauline! How could you degrade yourself by listening to such low, vile

slanders? It is infamous!"

"It was Sally who told me--told me in order that her husband might know

at once and take some measures to stop these scandalous lies. He has

not stirred from his study to-day."

"I will go to him at once. I'll stir him pretty quick, I can tell you!

My poor little sister! I'll see you avenged," says Robert fiercely.

He knocks at the door boldly. After a few seconds he is admitted; and

stands facing his brother-in-law, who greets him gravely.

"Tom, Tom," he bursts out at once, "what--what is the meaning of all

this? What is there between you and Addie? Where has she gone to? What

does it mean?"

"Your sister has left me, Robert. I know nothing more about her

movements than this note will tell you. I found it this morning on my

table, her wedding-ring inclosed."

Robert takes up the note and reads slowly the following--

"This is to tell you I am going. I see it is all over at last. I could

not live with you again after your words to me this evening. You have

done your best, but you have failed. Heaven reward you and keep you

all the same! Do not ever think of me again; I am going to him who has

brought this ruin on me; it is his duty to bear with me now for the

few short years I may yet have to drag on my wretched life.

"ADELAIDE."

Robert raises a bloodless face and stares stupidly at his

brother-in-law.

"I--I don't understand. What can she mean? For Heaven's sake,

Armstrong, can't you speak? 'I am going to him who has brought

this--this ruin on me.' She--she must be mad--stark staring mad!

Whom--whom does she mean? Tom, Tom, for Heaven's sake, tell me!"

"She means that she has gone to the man," says Armstrong, with

contemptuous sternness, "whom you forced her to jilt in order to marry

me."

The boy's expression of bewilderment is so genuine as to impress him

for a moment.

"The man we forced her to jilt to marry you! The mystery thickens. She

jilted no man to marry you, Armstrong; I'll swear it on the Bible, if

you like. You were the only man who ever asked her in marriage; there

was no one else--we knew no one, she went nowhere. You must be mad

yourself to say such a thing!"

"There was not this cousin--Edward Lefroy--the casual mention of whose

name disturbed her so much a few evenings ago that she had to leave the

room in your very presence?"

"Edward Lefroy--Teddy Lefroy!" he retorts impatiently. "Why, he was

only a boy, a schoolboy, whom we looked on as a brother, whom--whom

Addie has not met since she was a child! Teddy Lefroy? Your suspicion

is absurd, below contempt, Armstrong! I--I am ashamed of you!"

Armstrong only smiles very bitterly.

"You will not think my suspicions below contempt when I tell you,

my boy, that I myself saw your sister a few evenings ago crying in

this man's arms, bemoaning her fate, struggling weakly against the

temptation into which she has now fallen, urging--"

"You saw her--you saw her, you heard her! Armstrong, I don't believe

you!" he bursts out impulsively. "I don't believe you! You were

dreaming, drunk--"

"No, Robert, no," he answers drearily. "I was quite sober, and I was

standing within a few yards of them both. There was no mistake--I heard

and saw them distinctly."

"And--and you did not interfere?"

"No. Why should I? Your sister and I had lived for many months in

a mere semblance of union, her actions were quite free. Besides, I

thought that worldly consideration, her affection for you, would

prevent her from taking the extreme step she did."

"I don't believe it, I don't believe it!" cries Robert, his voice

struggling with rising sobs. "I don't care what you saw or what you

heard, Thomas Armstrong! I have known my sister for twenty years, and

you for one, and I'll stake her honor, her virtue, her truth against

your word any day, and maintain it before the world too! How dare you

say such things of her, you--you cowardly low-bred upstart! Oh, Tom,

Tom," pleads the poor lad, hot tears raining down his cheeks unchecked,

"look me in the face and tell me you don't believe it! You don't, you

can't, you dare not believe it! Think of her as you saw her daily

amongst us here--so light-hearted, careless, impulsive, so quick to

resent injustice, so tender with suffering, so anxious to please you,

to entice you into her innocent girlish pleasures, so dainty in her

speech, in her actions--dainty even to prudishness! You--you have seen

her in society among men; but you have never detected a light word, a

flirting glance. No, no! She was voted slow, heavy in hand, full of

airs among our fellows. Men never dared try to flirt with her as they

do with other young married women, I tell you. Tom, Tom, think of all

this, and say--say you don't believe it--say you will put your shoulder

to the wheel and help me to clear up the mystery, find her, and bring

her home to us again! Addie, Addie, the best of us all, the sweetest,

the most unselfish, the truest-hearted! She would go through fire and

water for any one she loved. You don't know her as I do. Listen, Tom,

listen! A few years ago, when I had scarlet fever, and they said I

could not recover, she ran away from the farm to which they had all

been sent, climbed into my room through the window, hid under the bed

when the doctor came, and remained to nurse me until I was well. And

you think--you think that she--"

He stops and looks imploringly into Armstrong's sad stern face; but he

answers only by laying a pitying hand on the boy's shoulder.

"I tell you, I tell you," he continues passionately, shaking off

his hand, "that she was nearer heaven than any of us, all her life

through--the best of us all, whom every one loved, whom every one

turned to for help, for pity, for affection--the best of us all--the

best of us all! You know that yourself--you, her husband. I have seen

it in your face--ay, twenty times. And you believe that Heaven would

let such as she become a--"

The harsh word dies on his lips, his head falls forward on his

outstretched arms.

"Robert," answers Armstrong, after a short pause, "you plead well.

There is much truth in what you urge; but I, alas, can convince you in

your own words! Your sister was hot, impulsive, warm-hearted, and--and

would go through fire and water for any one she loved. She is doing so

now, Heaven help her!"

"I don't believe it, I don't believe it! Give me proofs!"

"Proofs!" he repeats impatiently. "Great Heaven, boy, what surer

proof could I give you than her own words? Read her confession again.

You--you don't suppose it's a fraud? What motive could I have in

forging the record of my dishonor?"

"I can't understand it, I can't understand it!"

"I can, and you will also, when I tell you that the villain, in my

hearing, threatened to take his own life if she refused to listen to

him. Judge the effect of such a threat on any one of her impulsive

nature."

"I--I wish I had killed him that day I met him! Oh if I had only

known, only guessed! Even now, Armstrong, I tell you I can not realize

it--I can not! He was utterly penniless too; he asked me to lend him a

five-pound note, and told me, if he could manage his passage-money, he

would sail in the 'Chimborazo' for Melbourne on the seventeenth."

"He has managed his passage-money. Your sister got five hundred pounds

from me last evening."

The words seemed to have slipped out unconsciously, for the deep flush

of shame that spreads over Robert's face is reflected as warmly in the

speaker's the same moment.

There is a pause, broken only by Robert's hot panting breath; then

Armstrong speaks again.

"The 'Chimborazo,' you say? She sailed from Gravesend on the

seventeenth, and takes in passengers at Plymouth two days later. To-day

is--let me see--the nineteenth. Yes, they would be just in time,

leaving here last night, to sail in her."

"Tom," says Robert, rising to his feet, "will you grant me a last

request? Come with me now at once, and see if--if your suspicion is

correct, if we can find any trace of them on board--I--I mean at the

shipping-agents, among the list of cabin-passengers. Will you, will

you?"

"Yes, my boy, if you like," he answers wearily. "But, if my suspicion

is verified to-day, you must never allude to this subject again before

me. I do not object to let you and yours continue to look on me as

a friend, but you must forget henceforth that you ever called me

brother-in-law."

"Yes," Robert answers, his handsome head downcast, his burning eyes

painfully averted--"yes, I--I can easily do that, because--because,

I shall forget I ever had a sister. Armstrong, Armstrong, you--you

understand what I feel, if--if this should prove true. I--I may not be

able to speak to you again; but you understand, don't you, that the

pain, the disgrace, the wrong that we--that she has brought on your

life can never, if I live to be an old man, be entirely wiped from

mine? You understand," he continues, with flashing eyes, the veins in

his neck swelling with suppressed emotion, "that, if--if either of them

crossed my path at this moment, I should have as little compunction in

striking them dead at my feet as I should have in crushing out the life

of the meanest, most harmless insect that crawls on earth? You--you

believe me, don't you?"

"Yes, Robert, I do," he answers, grasping Robert's outstretched hand,

feeling for the first time in his life a sense of respect, of esteem

almost, for the unfortunate boy.