CHAPTER XI.

CONCERNS LOVE AND A MYSTERY

The sensation caused by the suicide of Sir George Ravenscourt had already died down. Events pass quickly nowadays in London.

His executors had discovered that her ladyship and Miss Irene had been left well provided for, and that pecuniary worry could not have been held responsible for the fatal act.

Moreover, there was much mystery attaching to a sum of fifty thousand pounds in notes found in his safe in the wall of the library. Inquiries revealed that this sum had, a few days before, been placed to his credit at his bank by a person who could not be traced, but whose name was Sutherland. The money was in the shape of a draft upon the Banque de Paris et Pays Bas, of Amsterdam, and two days later Sir George had withdrawn it personally in notes.

None of his accounts showed whence it had been derived, and his solicitors, as well as the two executors, both business men, were greatly mystified.

Lady Ravenscourt and Maidee had removed to the house of the former’s sister, Mrs. Beresford, in Gloucester Terrace, Hyde Park, while the house in Carlton House Terrace had been closed, and the faithful Burgess left in charge.

Maidee and Gordon met daily. London society was interested in their engagement. He usually called to see her each morning, for after noon he was compelled to be down at the House, where the sittings were just then usually late, and it was not until the early hours that, tired out, he was able to get back to his rooms in Bruton Street.

Mourning had compelled Maidee to cancel all her engagements--and they were many, for she was much sought after by the younger hostesses--while it also prevented her going to the theatre or out to supper. Indeed, the tragic affair had completely cut off the sudden round of gaiety which had followed her presentation, and time now hung heavily upon her hands amid gloomy surroundings.

She was, however, a great reader, and, finding herself debarred from dancing and pleasure-seeking, she turned to books as a solace, and read the solid works of Schopenhauer, Hebbel, Lessing and Hegel, volumes at the very sight of which Gordon shuddered.

With great care, and without exhibiting any undue anxiety, young Cunningham had endeavoured to learn from Scotland Yard what action was being taken regarding Sir George’s death. As a Member of Parliament, he had facilities for making inquiry; yet, though in a veiled manner he threatened to put a question in the House, all the information he could gather was that, in face of the coroner’s verdict, it was not any further a police matter.

By this response he became distinctly unnerved. His object had been to discover in what direction the inquiries of the police, if any, were being pushed. There was a suspicion abroad--a distinct suspicion he had heard expressed in the clubs, over dinner-tables, and in the drawing-rooms of London--that Sir George had not died by his own hand. And if such suspicions were general, then no doubt Scotland Yard would hear of it and investigate.

He kept his apprehensions to himself, but his friends, and Maidee more especially, noted how pale, worn-out, and anxious he had become, and how each day increased the serious expression upon his usually open, merry countenance.

One morning when he called at Gloucester Terrace, and they were standing before the drawing-room fire clasped in each other’s arms, she suddenly asked anxiously:

“What’s the matter, dear? Is anything troubling you--anything on your mind?”

“On my mind!” he echoed, with a start. “Why no, darling. What should there be?”

“Oh! I don’t know, Gordon, but of late you’ve seemed so preoccupied, so silent, so very thoughtful,” replied the girl. “The whole world seems to have suddenly become gloomy and overshadowed since poor uncle’s death.”

“Well, I really didn’t know I looked unusually sad,” laughed the young man, rousing himself with an effort. “Perhaps it is on account of working hard over my new book upon Albanian independence. I want to get it out in the spring, and therefore have to write each morning after I return from the House.”

“You ought not to work so hard, dear,” she declared, looking up into his face. “I’m sure you will injure your health. Uncle often said you were burning the candle at both ends.”

But Gordon only laughed.

“I really don’t feel it,” he declared. “I can never be idle. My only regret is that my duties at the House prevent me from travelling.”

“And leaving me!” she cried in reproach, gazing into his pale face with a look of fond affection which was unmistakable.

“No, not that,” he hastened to assure her with tenderness. “My intention is, after our marriage, that you shall come out with me to the East. You would be delighted with the quaint life in Albania and Macedonia.”

“I’d very much love it all, except those horrible massacres for which your friends the Turks are responsible.”

“Ah! not always,” he exclaimed reprovingly. “You must not misjudge the Mussulman. Come with me and see for yourself, then your prejudice against the Turk will be swept away, I feel assured. Once I was just as prejudiced as you are--until I saw the truth with my own eyes.”

“Well, I do wish you’d take my advice, dear, and have a rest,” exclaimed the girl earnestly. “Put your book aside. It will do as well if published in the autumn as in the spring. Your reputation will not suffer by its delay.”

“Ah! but the very question with which I am dealing will come before the House next month, and I must have it out as soon as possible,” answered her lover, gazing upon her in admiration.

“Then, why don’t you pair, and go for a rest--on the Riviera or somewhere?”

“Oh, I’m sick of Nice and Monte, and the tea-table tabbies of Cannes. I’ve been there three seasons in succession.”

“Then go to Algeria or Tunis--or else to Assouan,” she suggested.

“Ah! you want to get rid of me,” he declared, laughing. “No; I shall remain in London. I can’t leave the House just now--quite impossible,” he said with decision.

But he did not allow her to guess that the reason he would not take a holiday was because his ambition prompted him to remain with a view to securing high office. Truth to tell, the constant lionising to which he had of late been subjected had turned his head a little. Hitherto he had been modest and unspoiled by success, but he had now suddenly become seized by an overweening ambition. He held himself in the highest esteem, and hailed himself as the coming man whom everyone predicted.

Clever enough not to betray to Maidee the extent of his own ambition, he knew that if he did so he must fall in her estimation. The blindness and ignorance of most women make them the victims of fancied perfections. Love, in the common acceptation of the term, is a folly. Love, in its purity, its loftiness, its unselfishness, as was Maidee’s affection, is not only a consequence, but a proof of moral excellence--the sensibility of moral beauty, the forgetfulness of self in the admiration engendered by it. Such love proves its claim to a high moral influence--the triumph of the unselfish over the selfish in a young girl’s nature.

She was sorely puzzled by her lover’s apparent apprehensiveness. He seemed pale, nervous, and expectant--quite unlike his usual self. In conversation he often remained silent, apathetic, thoughtful. What, she wondered, could be the reason?

No man in the fevered political world of London led a more strenuous life, she was well aware. He was constant in his attendance at divisions, he went everywhere, and was highly popular in the smartest set. As an orator he addressed great meetings in various parts of the country, and was already one of the best speakers his party possessed.

But many shook their heads. There was an unhealthy look about his face. Some whispered that he took opiates to soothe his overwrought brain, while others hinted at speculation and serious financial trouble in consequence.

As he bent and kissed his well-beloved good-bye, for it was already past noon, she felt somehow that his caress was not so warm or so passionate as it used to be. But she made no remark--she only wondered.

Crossing to a big bowl of sweet-smelling lilies of the valley upon a side-table, she picked him several, deftly made them into a buttonhole, tied them with cotton and placed them in the lappel of his black morning-coat, saying:

“There! Wear them to-day and think sometimes of me!”

“I always think of you, Maidee,” he declared with truth. “Always--always!” And, again kissing her fondly upon the lips, he added: “Never an hour passes but my thoughts turn to you, my well-beloved.”

The girl held in his embrace sighed slightly. She was very happy--and yet that curious anxiety of Gordon’s puzzled her.

He bade her adieu, holding her a long time close to his breast, crushing the lilies slightly. Then he kissed her once more, and, turning, left the warm, flower-scented room.

As, ten minutes later, he was seated in a taxi driving down Park Lane, staring straight before him, his pale, fevered lips moved, but at first no sound escaped them.

At last, however, he suddenly held his breath, and exclaimed aloud:

“Maidee--ah! my own Maidee--my darling--my own well-beloved! What would you think of me if you knew the bitter truth! But you must never know--never--_never_! I would rather kill myself first!”

Then he sat silent, his face white and haggard, his gloved hand clenched.

At Boodle’s he called for his letters, and gulped down a glass of neat brandy.

As he drove along the Mall he caught sight of those drab, drawn blinds of the house in Carlton House Terrace.

He started with a cry of horror, and placed both his hands before his eyes to shut out the view.

Yet, when he alighted at the House, he walked with firm step and smiling face past the saluting constable as though his conscience were perfectly at ease and he had no trouble in the world.

He obtained his letters at the post-office in the lobby, and then went along to one of the committee-rooms, where he had an appointment, nodding to men he knew and exchanging hurried words with one of the whips, easily and merrily, his manner entirely changed from that of twenty minutes before.

Alone in Mrs. Beresford’s drawing-room in Gloucester Terrace, Maidee, sweet, pensive, and neat in her sombre black, sat moodily looking out of the window, thinking and wondering.

“There is something wrong with Gordon,” she declared to herself. “He has never been the same since the night of poor uncle’s death. How strange it was that Uncle John should urge me to tell him nothing! What does the old fellow know, I wonder? Why has he taken so great and so secret an interest in me all these years? There is a mystery--a very great mystery somewhere. Of that I feel convinced.”