CHAPTER XVI

A FATAL STEP

THERE was indeed someone waiting for Juliet when she arrived at Folkestone station, but it was not Dora Felgate nor anyone belonging to her family, since they had no expectation of seeing Juliet that day.

Algernon Chalcombe was standing on the platform when the train came but she looked at him for some moments without recognising him, so strangely altered was his appearance; for he had shaved away the silky black moustache which his fingers had been for ever lovingly caressing, and the mouth, unscreened, looked large and coarse. His fine dark eyes were hidden behind smoke-coloured spectacles, and his dress was different from anything Juliet had seen him wear before. The loose-fitting tweed suit, and large, soft felt hat, might have been worn by a German artist, and for such Algernon would have been well content to pass.

"Is it you, Algernon?" Juliet exclaimed, with a start, as he addressed her. "I did not know you. How very strange you look! Why are you wearing those frightful glasses?"

"I have a weakness of the eyes, which compels me to protect them from the awful glare of sunlight on this coast," he said, with a smile. "I am sorry you do not find them becoming; but what a joy that you have arrived, my Juliet! I have been so anxious while I waited. I was afraid your courage would fail you at the last. But now you have got safely away from them all, and are here, my brave darling, all will be well."

"I wish I could think so," said Juliet, with a shiver. "Don't let us talk of it, Algernon. You don't know what it cost me to do it."

"You will never regret it," he said.

But Juliet could not feel that. Already she began to see the act she had committed in its true light, and a dread of the Nemesis which attends all wrong-doing was awaking in her heart.

"Now, what is to be done?" he asked. "We decided that it would be better to cross the Channel from Dover. Shall we go on to Dover at once, or would you like to see something of Folkestone first?"

"Oh, do not let us stay here!" exclaimed Juliet. "I dare not walk about in Folkestone. If I should meet the Felgates, what would they think?" And a deep flush of shame dyed her face. "Besides," she added, in desperation, "you decided that we should go on to Dover at once. You said that we should be married as soon as we got there."

"Yes, yes, dearest; but you know it is too late now for us to be married to-day. So I think it will be best for us to go on by to-night's boat to Paris, and have the ceremony performed there to-morrow morning."

"Can it be done as easily there?" asked Juliet. "Oh, as easily as possible. We only have to go before the British consul."

Juliet asked no more about it. She knew positively nothing of the legal preliminaries to marriage. She had indeed previously given Algernon a large sum of money, with which it was understood that he was to purchase a special marriage licence and meet other expenses incidental to the ceremony; but she was content to leave all the details in his hands.

On inquiry, it was found that there was a train for Dover in half an hour. Juliet's trunk was claimed and re-labelled; then she wrote with pencil on a postcard she had brought with her, and posted it to her mother, after which, they paced the platform till the train came up. Juliet was miserable as she waited; at every turn she dreaded to be confronted by the astonished faces of the Felgates. The change in Algernon Chalcombe's appearance filled her with vague uneasiness, though it did not strike her that it was assumed as a disguise.

It was a relief when she found herself in the train and moving out of the station; but in a few minutes, she had to alight again, this time at Dover Pier.

They found the station in a state of bustle and confusion. The boat from Calais had come in rather behind time, and its passengers, eager and flurried, were streaming up from the quay to the station. As she and her companion made their way through the crowd, alike anxious to escape observation, Juliet suddenly encountered the hard, keen gaze of Mrs. Hayes, who was advancing, followed by a porter burdened with numerous small packages.

"Oh, there is Mrs. Hayes!" she exclaimed, in a low tone of dismay.

"Where?" he asked quickly. "Never mind. Come this way, Juliet. Sharp!" And opening the door of a waiting room, he hurried her inside and out by another door into a road at the back of the station. A few minutes' sharp walking took them beyond the stir of the station.

Juliet was greatly agitated. "Oh, Algernon, she saw me! I am certain that she recognised me! And she will tell mother! Oh, what shall I do?"

"What does it matter?" he asked. "She would not recognise me. For aught she knows, we have a perfect right to be together. I might be your cousin."

"Oh, she knows I have no cousins," replied Juliet. "Hannah and Salome have some in Scotland, but I have none."

"Well, then, I might be their cousin," he said lightly, trying to smooth away her annoyance. "Why trouble about what a disagreeable old woman may think or say? We will go to an hotel now and get some tea, and then we can have a row or a drive to while away the time till the boat starts."

"If I had been a little nearer, she would have spoken," said Juliet, unable to dismiss the matter so easily. "And she is going back to London! She will tell them at home how she saw me at Dover!"

"But by that time, we shall be man and wife, and they will be unable to part us," he said.

Juliet's look did not brighten. Somehow, that consummation had ceased to appear to her a very happy prospect.

Algernon Chalcombe was over-confident as to the impossibility of his being recognised by Mrs. Hayes; that lady was greatly excited by the glimpse she caught of Juliet and her companion.

"John," she said eagerly to her husband, when he and her daughters came up, "John, I have just seen Juliet Tracy, accompanied by a man whom I am sure was that fellow Chalcombe. He had altered himself somewhat, but I am certain it was he. I am never mistaken in a face. Now, what can they be doing here alone?"

"My dear, how can I tell?" he asked helplessly.

"They are eloping, John; that is what it is. Juliet is just the girl to do such a thing, and you must go after them and stop her. It is your duty as her clergyman. Quick, John! They went this way, through that door."

"That is all very well, my dear; but I should like to know what chance there is of finding anyone in this crowd," he said testily, as he looked in the opposite direction to that she indicated. There had been much to try his patience in his continental journeyings with his wife and daughters, and it was beginning to feel the strain.

"I tell you they went out of the station. There is no crowd outside. Do go and look after them."

"And meanwhile miss my train! It will start as soon as the luggage is in. How do you know that Juliet is not staying at Dover with her mother and sisters? They talked of going to the seaside. But do come along now, or you will miss your chance of a comfortable place."

Mrs. Hayes shook her head in a way which said that she knew better than he. His last suggestion, however, struck her as good, seeing that it was evident that the compartments of the train were rapidly filling. She did not speak again till they were settled, with their belongings, in one of the carriages, and she had counted the packages and assured herself that nothing was missing. Then she remarked solemnly, as she looked round on her husband and daughters, "I always said that that girl would come to no good. It is a mystery to me that Providence should suffer such a one to have so much money."

The interval ere the hour came at which the boat started for Calais seemed long and tedious to both Juliet and Algernon. She was far from suspecting how terribly to him the time seemed to lag. She had no knowledge that could give her the least idea of the nature of the dread that oppressed him, and caused him to shrink from every eye that looked at him with penetration in its glance, and to long for the darkness that might shield him from detection. She did not notice the nervous starts he gave from time to time at the sound of a voice or a step. Her own inner consciousness was too painfully absorbing for her to be very observant of him. She was not aware of any diminution of the lover-like devotion Algernon was wont to display towards her, though he felt he was playing his part badly, and lapsing into fits of absentmindedness which ill became the situation.

Once Juliet broke down, and declared that she could not go on with it. She would return home by the next train and confess all to her mother. He had difficulty in soothing her agitation and bending her will again to his, but he persuaded her that it was too late to go back. The irrevocable step was taken.

"To-morrow you shall write to your mother," he said. "She will forgive us when she knows there is nothing else to be done."

And she suffered him to lead her on to the deck of the steamer.

It was a lovely summer night. The air was still, the sea calm. Stars shone brightly in the cloudless sky. Juliet elected to remain on deck. Algernon found a sheltered seat for her, and wrapped her warmly from the night air. Then he talked tenderly to her, trying to depict in glowing colours the future that lay before her. His spirits seemed to rise as the shore of England receded in the distance. But Juliet's depression only deepened. The hues in which he painted his pictures of the coming days seemed to her dead and cold. Only once did she display any eagerness.

"Algernon," she said suddenly, "you will not forget what you promised me? That as soon as we have a home of our own, mother shall share it with us?"

"Certainly, dearest, certainly," he said; "it shall be as you wish." He was ready to promise anything concerning so far-off an event, as long as she remained tranquil, and did not draw the attention of their fellow-passengers to them by any display of excitement.

She said little after that, and it being difficult to maintain a conversation to which she would supply only monosyllables, he too became silent.

Juliet was looking at the stars twinkling brightly overhead. She had always loved to watch the stars; but to-night, it seemed to her that they looked down on her with a reproachful gaze. Did they know all the history of her life up to this moment of self-assertion and flight? Did they look on her as a selfish, hard-hearted, ungrateful child? Ah, and they were looking down on her home too—on her mother, who perhaps at this hour was praying God to bless her wayward child. A sob broke from Juliet at the thought.

"Oh," she murmured, scarcely above a whisper, "I am doing what is very selfish and wrong! Only evil can come of it."

"Nonsense, Juliet," Algernon responded impatiently. "This all comes of your puritanical bringing up. One must act for oneself in this life. For my part, I pity the man or woman who is not selfish. If you do not look after your own interests, it is certain no one else will."

Juliet made no reply, and almost immediately afterwards came the bustle of landing at Calais.

There was a brief delay at Calais, of which most of the travellers availed themselves to get refreshment. Algernon procured a cup of coffee for Juliet, which she drank; but he could not persuade her to eat anything. In a short time, they were in the train speeding along towards Paris.

There were many persons travelling, and the compartment was very full. Most of the passengers grumbled at the discomfort, as they tried to compose themselves to sleep. But to Juliet, it did not seem to matter that her position was not a restful one. She felt not the least inclination to sleep.

Algernon presently fell into an uneasy slumber; but Juliet could not close her eyes. She noted closely, without being aware that she did so, every detail of the dress and demeanour of her fellow-passengers—the little Swiss governess whose broad, beaming countenance plainly proclaimed that she was going home for her holidays; the selfish man, probably deeming himself a gentleman, who had taken the corner seat, whilst his weary wife sat without any support for her head; the two young Englishwomen, looking happy and capable, who were evidently going on a tour by themselves—how Juliet envied them!—and others more or less remarkable, who all in some strange way afforded her food for bitter reflection. What a curious, unreal nightmare of a journey that was to Juliet!

It was early morning when they arrived in Paris, so early that the air was raw and chill, and Juliet shook with cold as she roused herself and followed Algernon along the platform. Everything which met her eyes added to the sense of unreality which possessed her mind. Her fellow-passengers, wan and dishevelled from their night's journey, the blue-bloused porters noisily vociferating, the officials in strange uniform, the foreign names and novel arrangements, all affected her with a vague feeling of discomfort.

"We will get your trunk and drive at once to an hotel," said Algernon.

But the trunk was not easily found, and when claimed, it had to be examined. Algernon chafed under the delay. At last the trunk was secured, and a porter carried it to a cab. It was hoisted on to the box; the smaller articles were put within the vehicle; Juliet had taken her seat, Algernon had instructed the driver where to take them, and his foot was on the step, when suddenly a hand was laid on his arm, and the voice of a French official pronounced his name, adding a few words which drove all the colour in an instant from his face.

Juliet could not understand the words. She had already discovered that her knowledge of French, acquired from books, but ill-fitted her to comprehend the language when spoken around her by native tongues. But though the words convoyed no meaning to her, the effect she saw them to produce on Algernon thrilled her with alarm.

And the next moment, another official advanced to Algernon, saying in English—"Monsieur, you are arrested."

Algernon faltered a few words in French, to the effect that there was a mistake.

"Ah, no, monsieur, there is no mistake. We have our orders. See, here is a warrant. This—is it not your name? You will do well to come with us tranquilly. There is no good in making a scene. Monsieur will bid madame adieu and come with us."

Apparently Algernon recognised the wisdom of the advice to make no scene. He turned and spoke to Juliet, his face still utterly colourless.

"Juliet, dearest, there is some tremendous mistake; but I must go with them and explain. You had better drive on to the hotel, and I will join you there immediately."

"Oh, Algernon, I cannot bear to be left alone! Can't you make them see that it is a mistake? Tell them you are an Englishman. Have you not a passport or something you can show them?"

He made no reply, but turned from her sullenly.

But the official who spoke English took compassion on her.

"If there should be a mistake, monsieur will be set at liberty at once. Madame may be sure of that."

"But why, why is he arrested?" demanded Juliet. "What is he supposed to have done?"

"He is wanted—in London," said the man slowly; "we are telegraphed to stop him. It is just a little affair of—of—let me think, what is the word that you say?"

"A little affair of what?" demanded Juliet.

"Ah, I have it—forgerie—a little affair of forgerie. Is it that madame comprehends?"

"Forgery!" Juliet sank back in the cab with a low cry of dismay.

The man closed the door, and the next moment the vehicle was in motion, bearing her, she knew not whither, through the strange city.