"All old pieces of furniture have that kind of thing," said Vanderlyn, "there isn't any secret about it."

Pargeter fumbled at the bra.s.s-headed pin; he pulled it out, and a drawer which filled up the side of the davenport shot out. Yes, here were more packets inscribed with the words, "Jasper's letters, written at school,"

and then others, "To be returned to Laurence Vanderlyn in case of my death;" and two or three loose letters.

"Well, these won't tell us anything, eh, Grid?" Pargeter opened the first envelope under his hand:--

"Dear Mammy," (he read slowly),

"Please send me ten shillings. I have finished the French cherry-jam. I should like some more. Also some horses made of gingerbread. I have laid 3 to 1 on Absinthe. Betting is forbidden, but as it was Dad's horse I thought I might. My bat is the best in the school.

"Your loving "Jasper."

"He's a fine little chap, isn't he, Grid?" Pargeter was fingering absently a yellowing packet of Vanderlyn's letters: "Fancy keeping your old letters! What a queer thing to do!"

Vanderlyn said nothing. The maid stared at him stealthily.

At last Pargeter put the packet down, and deliberately opened yet another envelope which lay loose. "I suppose this is the last note you wrote to her?" he said, then, opening it, murmured its contents over to himself:--

"Dear Peggy,

"I hear the show at the Gardinets is worth seeing. I'll call for you at two to-morrow.

Yours sincerely, "L. V."

"Well, it's no use our wasting any more time here, is it? We'd better go downstairs and have a smoke. Why--why, Grid!--what's the matter?"

"It's nothing," said Vanderlyn, roughly, "I'll be all right in a minute or two----"

"I don't wonder you're upset," said the other, moodily. "But just think what it must be for _me_. I can't stand much more of it. It's been simply awful since Peggy's brother and that cousin of hers arrived. They treat me as if I were a murderer! They're at the Prefecture of Police now, making what they're pleased to call their own enquiries."

They had left Peggy's room, and as he spoke Pargeter was leading the way down a staircase which led into his smoking-room.

Once there, he shut the door and came and stood close by Vanderlyn.

"Grid," he said, lowering his voice, "I've been wondering--don't you think it would be a good plan if I were to go and see that fortune-teller of mine, Madame d'Elphis? I don't mind telling you that I'd a shot at her yesterday evening, but she was away. She does sometimes make mistakes, but still, she's a kind of Providence to me. I never do anything important--I mean at the stables--without consulting her."

Vanderlyn looked at the eager face, the odd twinkling green and blue eyes, with scarcely concealed surprise and contempt.

"Surely you don't think she could tell you where--what's happened to Peggy?" he said incredulously.

"If I could have seen her last night," went on Pargeter, "I'd have got away to England to-day. There's no object in my staying here; _I_ can't help them to find Peggy. But La d'Elphis won't see me before to-morrow morning. If she can't clear up the mystery n.o.body can. I'm beginning to think, Grid"--he came close up to the other man,--"that something must have happened to her. I'm beginning to feel--worried!"

X.

An hour later Vanderlyn had escaped from Pargeter, and was standing alone in Madame de Lera's drawing-room.

He was scarcely conscious of how many hours he had spent during the last terrible three days, with the middle-aged Frenchwoman who had been so true and sure a friend of Margaret Pargeter. In Madame de Lera's presence alone was he able, to a certain extent, to drop the mask which he was compelled to wear in the presence of all others, and especially in that of the man who, as time went on, seemed more and more to lean on him and find comfort in his companionship.

Vanderlyn had walked the considerable distance from the Avenue du Bois to the quiet street near the Luxembourg where Adele de Lera lived, and all the way he had felt as if pursued by a mocking demon.

How much longer, so he asked himself, was his awful ordeal to endure?

The moments spent by him and Pargeter in Peggy's room had racked heart and memory. He now fled to Madame de Lera as to a refuge from himself.

And yet? Yet he never looked round her pretty sitting-room, with its faded, rather austere furnishings, without being vividly reminded of the woman he had loved and whom he had now lost, for it was there that Peggy had spent the most peaceful hours of her life since Pargeter had first decided that henceforth they should live in Paris.

At last Madame de Lera came into the room; she gave her visitor a quick questioning look. "Have you nothing new to tell?" she asked.

And, after a moment of scarcely perceptible hesitation, Vanderlyn answered, "I have nothing new to tell," but as they both sat down, as he saw how sad and worn the kind face had become in the last three days, there came over him a strong wish to confide in her--to tell her the whole truth. He longed, with morbid longing, to share his knowledge.

She, after all, was the only human being who knew the story of his tragic, incomplete love. It would be an infinite comfort and relief to tell her, if not everything, then at least of the irony, the uselessness, of their present search.

Since last night the secret no longer seemed to be his alone.

But Vanderlyn resisted the temptation. He had no right to cast even half his burden on another. Any moment the odious experience which had, it seemed, already befallen Madame de Lera might be repeated. She might again be cross-questioned by the police. In that event it was essential that she should be still able truthfully to declare that she knew nothing.

"I have just come from Tom Pargeter," he observed quietly. "I can't help being sorry for him. The police have been worrying him, and--and at their suggestion we have been seeking among her things--among her correspondence--for some clue. But of course we found nothing. Pargeter is longing to go away--to England. How I wish he would go,--G.o.d! how I wish he would go! After all, as he says himself, he can do no good by staying here. He would receive any news within an hour."

Madame de Lera leant forward. "Ah! but if Mr. Pargeter leaves Paris before--before something is discovered, his conduct would be regarded as very cruel--very heartless."

"Did you know," said Vanderlyn, in a low voice, "that Peggy once before disappeared for three days? Pargeter keeps harking back to that. He thinks that she found out something which made her leave him again."

"Yes," said Madame de Lera, "I knew of that episode in their early married life--but on that occasion, Mr. Vanderlyn, our poor friend cannot be said to have disappeared--she only returned to her own family."

"Why, having once escaped, did she ever go back to him?" asked Vanderlyn, sombrely.

"You forget," said Madame de Lera, gently, "that even then there was her son."

Her son? Nay, Vanderlyn at no moment ever forgot Peggy's child. To himself, he seemed to be the only human being who ever thought of the poor little boy lying ill in far-away England.

"Well, you need not be afraid," he said quickly, "that Pargeter will go away to-day. He intends to stay in Paris at least till to-morrow night, for he is convinced, it seems, that the fortune-teller, Madame d'Elphis,--the woman who by some incredible stroke of luck stumbled on the right name of that horse of his which won the Oaks,--will be able to tell him what has happened to--to Margaret Pargeter."

And, meeting Madame de Lera's troubled gaze, he added in a low bitter tone, "How entirely that gives one the measure of the man,--the absurd notion, I mean, that a fortune-teller can solve the mystery! Fortunately or unfortunately, this Madame d'Elphis has been away for two or three days, but she will be back, it seems, in time to give Pargeter, who is a favoured client, an appointment to-morrow morning."

Adele de Lera suddenly rose from her chair; with a nervous movement she clasped her hands together.

"Ah, but that must not happen!" she exclaimed. "We must think of a way by which we can prevent an interview between Mr. Pargeter and La d'Elphis! Unless," she concluded slowly, "there is no serious reason why he should not know the truth--now?"

Vanderlyn also got up. A look of profound astonishment came over his face.

"The truth?" he repeated. "But surely, Madame de Lera, it is impossible that this woman whom Pargeter is going to consult to-morrow morning can have any clue to the truth! Surely you do not seriously believe----" he did not conclude his sentence. That this broad-minded and religious Frenchwoman could possibly cherish any belief in the type of charlatan to which the American diplomatist supposed the famous Paris fortune-teller to belong was incredible to him.

"I beg of you most earnestly," she repeated, in a deeply troubled voice, "to prevent any meeting between Mr. Pargeter and Madame d'Elphis!

Believe me, I do not speak without reason; I know more of this soothsayer and her mysterious powers than you can possibly know----"