Volume 22 — CHAPTER XLV.

A THUNDERBOLT IN STANDON SQUARE.

It was just one o'clock on the following Thursday, and Thorne was walking from the office to Bellevue street. He had adopted a quicker and more business-like pace than in old days, and came down the street with long steps, his head high and an abstracted expression on his face. Suddenly he stopped. "Miss Lisle!" he exclaimed. "Good God! What is the matter?"

It was Judith, but so pale, with fear and horror looking so terribly out of her eyes, that she was like a spectre of herself. She stopped short as he had done, and gazed blankly at him.

"Judith, what is it?" he repeated. "For God's sake, speak! What is the matter?"

He saw that she made a great effort to look like her usual self, and that she partly succeeded. "I don't know," she answered. "Please come, Mr. Thorne, but don't say anything to me yet. Not a word, please."

In silence he offered her his arm. She took it, and they went on together. Something in Judith Lisle always appealed with peculiar force to Percival's loyalty. He piqued himself on not even looking inquiringly at his companion as they walked, but he felt her hand quivering on his arm, and his brain was busy with conjectures. "Bertie has been away the last day or two," he said to himself. "Can she have heard any bad news of him? But why is she so mysterious about it, for she is not the girl to make a needless mystery?" When they reached Bellevue street she quitted his arm, thanked him with a look and went up stairs. Percival followed her.

She opened the door of her sitting-room and looked in. Then she turned to the young man, who stood gravely in the background as if awaiting her orders.

"Will you come in?" she said. But when she thought he was about to speak she made a quick sign with her hand: "Not yet, please."

The cloth was laid, but some books and papers had been pushed to one end of the table. Judith went to them and lifted them carefully, as if she were looking for something. Then she went to the little side-table, then to the chimney-piece, still seeking, while Thorne stood by the window silently waiting.

The search was evidently unavailing, and Judith rang the bell. During the pause which ensued she rested her elbow on the back of Bertie's easy-chair and covered her eyes with her hand. She was shaking from head to foot, but when the door opened she stood up and tried to speak in her usual voice: "Are there any letters by the second post for me, Emma?"

The little maid looked wonderingly at Mr. Thorne and then at Miss Lisle: "No, ma'am: I always bring 'em up."

"I know you do, but I thought they might have been forgotten. Will you ask Miss Bryant if she is quite sure none came for me this morning?"

There was another silence while Emma went on her errand. She came back with Miss Bryant's compliments, and no letters had come for Miss Lisle.

"Thank you," said Judith. "That will do. I will ring when I want dinner brought in."

When they were left alone Percival stepped forward. "What is it?" he said. "You will tell me now."

She answered with averted eyes: "You know that our school broke up yesterday? Emmeline Nash went away by the nine-o'clock train, but she has never gone home."

"Has never gone home!" Percival repeated. "That is very strange. She must have met with some accident." There was no answer. "It may not be anything serious: surely, you are distressing yourself too much."

Judith looked up into his face with questioning eyes.

"Or perhaps it is some school-girl freak," Thorne went on. "Naturally, Miss Crawford must be very anxious, but don't make up your mind to the worst till you know for certain."

Still that anxious questioning look, as if she would read his very soul. Percival was startled and perplexed, and his eyes made no response. The girl turned away with a faint cry of impatience and despair: "And I am his own sister!"

Percival stood for a moment thunder-struck. Then "Bertie?" he said.

"But you did not think of him till I spoke," she answered passionately. "It was my doing—mine!"

"Where is Bertie?" Thorne asked the question with something of her fear in his eyes.

"I don't know. I had that yesterday morning."

He took a pencilled scrap of paper from her hand. Bertie had written, "I find I cannot be back this afternoon, probably not till to-morrow. Don't expect me till you see me, and don't be anxious about me. All right.—Your H.L."

"How did you get this?" he asked, turning it uneasily in his fingers.

"A boy brought it from the station not half an hour after he went."

Percival was silent. A sudden certainty had sprung up in his mind, and it made any attempt at reassuring her little better than a lie. Yet he felt as if his certainty were altogether unfounded. He could assign no reason for it. The truth was, that Bertie himself was the reason, and Percival knew him better than he had supposed.

"Mr. Thorne," said Judith, "don't you hate me for what I've said? Surely you must. Miss Crawford doesn't dream that Bertie has anything to do with this. And you didn't, for I watched your eyes: you never would have thought of him but for me. It is I, his own sister, who have hinted it. He has nobody but me, and when his back is turned I accuse him of being so base, so cruel, so mercenary, that—" She stopped and tried to steady her voice. Suddenly she turned and pointed to the door: "And if he came in there now, this minute—oh, Bertie, my Bertie, if you would!—if he stood there now, I should have slandered him without a shadow of proof. Oh, it is odious, horrible! The one in all the world who should have clung to him and believed in him, and I have thought this of him! Say it is horrible, unnatural—reproach me—leave me! Oh, my God! you can't."

And in truth Percival stood mute and grave, holding the shred of paper in his hand and making no sign through all the questioning pauses in her words. But her last appeal roused him. "No," he said gently, "I can't reproach you. If you are the first to think this, don't I know that you will be the one to hope and pray when others give up?" He took her hands in his: she suffered him to do what he would. "How should Miss Crawford think of him?" he said. "Pray God we may be mistaken, and if Bertie comes back can we not keep silence for ever?"

"I could not look him in the face."

"Tell me all," said Thorne. "Where did he say he was going? Tell me everything. If you are calm and if we lose no time, we may unravel this mystery and clear Bertie altogether before any harm is done. As you say, there is no shadow of proof. Miss Nash may have gone away alone: school-girls have silly fancies. Or perhaps some accident on the line—"

"No," said Judith.

"No? Are you sure? Sit down and tell me all."

She obeyed to the best of her ability. She told him what Bertie had said about the situation he hoped to obtain, and what little she knew about Emmeline's disappearance.

Percival listened, with a face which grew more anxious with every word.

This is what had actually happened that morning at Standon Square: Judith was busy over Miss Crawford's accounts. She remembered so well the column of figures, and the doubtful hieroglyphic which might be an 8, but was quite as likely to be a 3. While she sat gazing at it and weighing probabilities in her mind the housemaid appeared, with an urgent request that she would go to Miss Crawford at once. Obeying the summons, she found the old lady looking at an unopened letter which lay on the table before her.

"My dear," said the little schoolmistress, "look at this." There was a tone of hurried anxiety in her voice, and she held it out with fingers that trembled a little.

It was directed in a gentleman's hand, neat and old-fashioned: "Miss Emmeline Nash, care of Miss Crawford, Montague House, Standon Square, Brenthill."

Judith glanced eagerly at the envelope. For a moment she had feared that it might be some folly of Bertie's addressed to one of the girls. But this was no writing of his, and she breathed again. "To Emmeline," she said. "From some one who did not know when you broke up. Did you want me to direct it to be forwarded?"

"Forwarded? where? Do you know who wrote that letter?" By this time Miss Crawford's crisp ribbons were quivering like aspen-leaves.

"No: who? Is there anything wrong about this correspondent of Emmeline's? I thought you would forward it to her at home. Dear Miss Crawford, what is the matter?"

"That is Mr. Nash's writing. Oh, Judith, what does it mean? She went away yesterday to his house, and he writes to her here!"

The girl was taken aback for a moment, but her swift common sense came to her aid: "It means that Mr. Nash has an untrustworthy servant who has carried his master's letter in his pocket, and posted it a day too late rather than own his carelessness. Some directions about Emmeline's journey: open it and see."

"Ah! possibly: I never thought of that," said Miss Crawford, feeling for her glasses. "But," her fears returning in a moment, "I ought to have heard from Emmeline."

"When? She would hardly write the night she got there. You were sure not to hear this morning: you know how she puts things off. The mid-day post will be in directly: perhaps you'll hear then. Open the letter now and set your mind at rest."

The envelope was torn open. "Now, you'll see he wrote it on the 18th—Good Heavens! it's dated yesterday!"

"My dear Emmeline: Since Miss Crawford wishes you to remain two days longer for this lesson you talk of, I can have no possible objection, but I wish you could have let me know a little sooner. You very thoughtfully say you will not give me the trouble of writing if I grant your request. I suppose it never occurred to you that by the time your letter reached me every arrangement had been made for your arrival—a greater trouble, which might have been avoided if you had written earlier. Neither did you give me much choice in the matter.

"But I will not find fault just when you are coming home. I took you at your word when your letter arrived yesterday, and did not write. But to-day it has occurred to me that after all you might like a line, and that Miss Crawford would be glad to know that you will be met at the end of your journey."

Compliments to the schoolmistress followed, and the signature,

"Henry Nash."

The two women read this epistle with intense anxiety. But while Miss Crawford was painfully deciphering it, and had only realized the terrible fact that Emmeline was lost, the girl's quicker brain had snatched its meaning at a glance. She saw the cunning scheme to secure two days of unsuspected liberty. Who had planned this? Who had so cleverly dissuaded Mr. Nash from writing? And what had the brainless, sentimental school-girl done with the time?

"Where is she?" cried Miss Crawford, clinging feebly to Judith. "Oh, has there been some accident?"

"No accident," said Judith. "Do you not see that it was planned beforehand? She never thought of staying till Friday."

"No, never. Oh, my dear, I don't seem able to understand. Don't you think perhaps my head will be clearer in a minute or two? Where can she be?"

The poor old lady looked vaguely about, as if Miss Nash might be playing hide-and-seek behind the furniture. Her face was veined and ghastly. She hardly comprehended the blow which was falling upon her, but she shivered hopelessly, and thought she should understand soon, and looked up at Judith with a mute appeal in her dim eyes.

"Where can she be?" The girl echoed Miss Crawford's words half to herself. "What ought we to do?"

"I can't think why she wrote and told them not to meet her on Wednesday," said the old lady. "So timid as Emmeline always was, and she hated travelling alone! Oh, Judith! Has she run away with some one?"

A cold hand seemed to clutch Judith's heart, and her face was like marble. Bertie! Oh no—no—no! Not her brother! This treachery could not be his work. Yet "Bertie" flashed before her eyes as if the name were written in letters of flame on Mr. Nash's open note, on the wall, the floor, the ceiling. It swam in a fiery haze between Miss Crawford and herself.

She stood with her hands tightly clasped and her lips compressed. It seemed to her that if she relaxed the tension of her muscles for one moment Bertie's name would force its way out in spite of her. And even in that first dismay she was conscious that she had no ground for her belief but an unreasoning instinct and the mere fact that Bertie was away.

"Help me, Judith!" said Miss Crawford pitifully. She trembled as she clung to the girl's shoulder. "I'm not so young as I used to be, you know. I don't feel as if I could stand it. Oh, if only your mamma were here!"

Judith answered with a sob. Miss Crawford's confession of old age went to her heart. So did that pathetic cry, which was half longing for her who had been so many years at rest, and half for Miss Crawford's own stronger and brighter self of bygone days. She put her arm round the schoolmistress and held up the shaking, unsubstantial little figure. "If Bertie has done this, he has killed her," said the girl to herself, even while she declared aloud, "I will help you, dear Miss Crawford. I will do all I can. Don't be so unhappy: it may be better than we fear." But the last words, instead of ringing clear and true, as consolation should, died faintly on her lips.

Something was done, however. Miss Crawford was put on the sofa and had a glass of wine, while Judith sent a telegram in her name to Mr. Nash. But the poor old lady could not rest for a moment. She pulled herself up by the help of the back of the couch, and sitting there, with her ghastly face surmounted by a crushed and woebegone cap, she went over the same old questions and doubts and fears again and again. Judith answered her as well as she could, and persuaded her to lie down once more. But in another moment she was up again: "Judith, I want you! Come here—come quite close!"

"Here I am, dear Miss Crawford. What is it?"

The old lady looked fixedly at the kneeling figure before her. "I've nobody but you, my dear," she said. "You are a little like your mamma sometimes."

"Am I?" said Judith. "So much the better. Perhaps it will make you feel as if I could help you."

"You are not like her to-day. Your eyes are so sad and strange." Judith tried to smile. "Your brother, Mr. Herbert, is more like her. I noticed it when he was here last. She had just that bright, happy look."

"I don't remember that," Judith answered. (One recollected the school-girl, and one the wife.)

"And that sweet smile: Mr. Herbert has that too. One could see how good she was. But I didn't mean to talk about that. There is something—I sha'n't be easy till I have told some one."

"Tell me, my dear," said Judith.

The schoolmistress looked anxiously round: "I may be mistaken—I hope I am—but do you know, dear, I doubt I'm not quite so wakeful as I ought to be. You wouldn't notice it, of course, because it is when I am alone or as good as alone. But sometimes—just now and then, you know—when I have been with the girls while they took their lessons from the masters, the time has seemed to go so very fast. I should really have thought they hadn't drawn a line when the drawing-master has said, 'That will do for to-day, young ladies,' and none of them seemed surprised. And once or twice I really haven't been quite sure what they have been practising with Mr. Herbert. But music is so very soothing, isn't it?"

Judith held her breath in terror. And yet would it not be better if that horrible thought came to Miss Crawford too? If others attacked him his sister might defend. Nevertheless, she drew a long sigh of relief when the old lady went on, as if confessing a crime of far deeper dye: "And in church—it isn't easy to keep awake sometimes, one has heard the service so often, and the sermons seem so very much alike—suppose some unprincipled young man—"

"Dear Miss Crawford, no one can wonder if you are drowsy now and then. You are always so busy it is only natural."

"But it isn't right. And," with the quick tears gathering in her eyes, "I ought to have owned it before. Only, I have tried so hard to keep awake!"

"I know you have."

Miss Crawford drew one of her hands from Judith's clasp to find her handkerchief, and then laid her head on the girl's shoulder and sobbed. "If it has happened so," she said—"if it has been my carelessness that has done it, I shall never forgive myself. Never! For I can never say that I didn't suspect myself of being unfit. It will break my heart. I have been so proud to think that I had never failed any one who trusted me. And now a poor motherless girl, who was to be my especial care, who had no one but me to care for her—Oh, Judith, what has become of her?"

There was silence for a minute. How could Judith answer her?

"I can never say I didn't doubt myself; but it was only a doubt. And how could I give up with so many depending on me?"

"Wait till we know something more," Judith pleaded. "Wait till we hear what Mr. Nash says in answer to your message. I am sure you have tried to act for the best."

"I shall never hold up my head again," said Miss Crawford, and laid it feebly down as if she were tired out.

The telegram came. Emmeline had not been heard of, and Mr. Nash would be at Brenthill that afternoon.

Judith searched the little room which the school-girl had occupied, but no indication of her intention to fly was to be found. She dared not question the servants before Mr. Nash's arrival. Secrecy might be important, and there would be an end to all hope of secrecy if once suspicion were aroused.

"There's nothing to do but to wait," she said, coming down to Miss Crawford. "I think, if you don't mind, I'll go home for an hour or so."

"No, no, no! don't go!"

"I must," said Judith. "I shall not be long."

"You will."

"No. An hour and a half—two hours at the utmost."

"Oh, I understand," said Miss Crawford. "You will never come back."

"Never come back? I will promise you, if you like, that I will be here again by half-past two—that is, if I go now."

"Oh, of course I can't keep you: if you will go, you will. But I think it is very cruel of you. You will leave me to face Mr. Nash alone."

"Indeed I will not," the girl replied.

"And, after all, it is not half so bad for you as for me. He can't blame you. It will kill me, I think, but he can't say anything to you. Oh, Judith, I'm only a stupid old woman, but I have meant to be kind to you."

"No one could have been kinder," said Judith. "Miss Crawford, whatever happens, believe me I am grateful."

"Then you will stop—you will stop? He can't say anything to you, my dear."

Judith was cold with terror at the thought of what Mr. Nash might have to say to her. At the same moment she was burning with anxiety to get to Bellevue street and find some letter from Bertie. She freed her hands gently, but firmly. Miss Crawford sank back in mute despair, as if she had received her death-wound.

"Listen to me," said Judith. "I must go, but I will come back. I would swear it, only I don't quite know how people swear," she added with a tremulous little laugh. "Dear Miss Crawford, you trusted mamma: as surely as I am her daughter you may trust me. Won't you trust me, dear?"

"I'll try," said the old lady. "But why must you go?"

"I must, really."

"It won't be so bad for you: he can't blame you," Miss Crawford reiterated, drearily pleading. "Judith, no one ever had the heart to be so cruel as you will be if you don't come back."

"But I will," said Judith. She made her escape, and met Percival Thorne on her way to Bellevue street.

"And now what is to be done?" she asked, looking up at him when she had told him all. "No letter—no sign of Bertie."

Percival might not be very ready with expedients, but his calmness and reserve gave an impression of greater resources than he actually possessed. He hesitated while Judith spoke, but he did not show it. There was a pause, during which he caught at an idea, and uttered it without a trace of indecision. "I'll look up Gordon," he said, glancing at his watch. "If Gordon told Bertie of this situation, he may be able to tell us where a telegram would find him. Perhaps he may explain this mysterious little note. If we can satisfactorily account for his absence, we shall have nothing to say about Bertie, except to justify him if any one else should bring his name into the affair. And you could do your best to help Mr. Nash and Miss Crawford in their search."

"Yes, but where will you find Mr. Gordon?"

"He's a clerk at a factory in Hill street. I will go at once." And he hurried off.

Judith went to the window and looked after him with a despairing sense of loneliness in her heart. The little maid asked her if the dinner should be brought in, and she answered in a tone that she hoped was cheerful.

Miss Bryant came in with a dish and set it on the table. She seldom helped in this way, and Judith divined the motive. Conscious that she was narrowly scanned, she tried to assume a careless air, and turned away so that the light should not fall on her face. But Lydia said nothing. She looked at Judith doubtfully, curiously, anxiously: her lips parted, but no word came. Judith began to eat as if in defiance.

Lydia hesitated on the threshold, and then went away. "Stuck-up thing!" she exclaimed as soon as she was safe in the passage. "But what has he been doing? Oh, I must and will know!"

Percival returned before Judith's time had expired, and came into the room with a grave face and eyes that would not meet hers.

"Tell me," she said.

He turned away and studied a colored lithograph on the wall. "It wasn't true," he said. "Gordon was at the last practicing, but he never said a word about this organist's situation. In fact, Bertie left before the choir separated."

"Some one else might have told him," said Judith.

There was a pause. "I fear not," said Percival, intently examining a very blue church-spire in one corner of the picture. "In fact, Miss Lisle, I don't see how any one could. There is no vacancy for an organist there—no prospect of any vacancy. I ascertained that."

Another pause, a much longer one. Percival had turned away from the lithograph, but now he was looking at a threadbare place in the carpet as thoughtfully as if he would have to pay for a new one. He touched it lightly with his foot, and perceived that it would soon wear into a hole.

"I must go back to Miss Crawford," said Judith suddenly. He bent his head in silent acquiescence. "What am I to tell her?" She lifted a book from the table, and laid it down again with a quivering hand. "Oh, it is too cruel!" she said in a low voice. "No one could expect it of me. My own brother!"

"That's true. No one could expect it."

"And yet—" said Judith. "Miss Crawford—Emmeline. Oh, Mr. Thorne, tell me what I ought to do."

"How can I? I don't know what to say. Why do you attempt to decide now? You may safely leave it till the time comes."

"Safely?"

"Yes. You will not do less than your duty."

She hesitated, having a woman's craving for something to which she might cling, something definite and settled. "It is not certain," she said at last.

"No," he answered. "Bertie has deceived you, but it may be for some foolish scheme of his own. He may be guiltless of this: it is only a suspicion still."

"Well, I will go," said Judith again. "Oh, if only he had come home!"

"There is a choir-practice to-night," said Percival. "If all is well he will be back in time for that. They have no doubt of his coming. Why not leave a note?"

She took a sheet of paper and wrote on it—

"My dearest Brother:" ("If he comes back he will be best and dearest," she thought as she wrote. It had come to this, that it was necessary to justify the loving words! "If he comes back, oh how shall I ever atone to him?") "Come to me at once at Standon Square. Do not lose a moment, I entreat you. "Yours always,

Judith."

She folded and addressed it, and laid it where he could not fail to see it as he came in. Then, having put on her hat, she turned to go.

"Let me walk with you," said Percival. Lydia met them on the stairs and cast a look of scornful anger on Miss Lisle. "Much she cares!" the girl muttered. "He doesn't come back, but she can go walking about with her young man! Those two won't miss him much."

Thorne saw his companion safely to Standon Square, and then went to the office. He was late, a thing which had never happened before, and, though he did his best to make up for lost time, he failed signally. His thoughts wandered from his work to dwell on Judith Lisle, and, if truth be confessed, on the dinner, which he had forgotten while with her. He was tired and faint. The lines seemed to swim before his eyes, and he hardly grasped the sense of what he wrote. Once he awoke from a reverie and found himself staring blankly at an ink-spot on the dingy desk. The young clerk on his right was watching him with a look of curiosity, in which there was as much malevolence as his feeble features could express, and when Thorne met his eyes he turned away with an unpleasant smile. It seemed as if six o'clock would never come, but it struck at last, and Percival escaped and made his way to Bellevue street.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]