There were brass candelabra at intervals upon the walls of the gallery and little electric lamps aglow in the sham candles above them. Far down the immense apartment, Gavin perceived the stalwart figure of a bronze-faced man and by his side a young girl, whose pose was so natural, whose manner was so clearly that of an aristocratic, that he did not hesitate to name her instantly for Lord Melbourne's daughter. Unable at the distance to see much of her face, it took shape for him as he drew nearer; and so he found himself against his will staring at her intently as one who would satisfy himself as to where and when he had seen her before. This interest he could not immediately explain; nor did her father's cordial if somewhat loud-toned greeting recall him from his vain pursuit of identity. He felt instinctively that the Lady Evelyn was no stranger to him, and yet for the life of him he could give no good account of any previous meeting.
"Welcome to Melbourne Hall, Mr. Ord—I had begun to say that you had deserted us."
Gavin stammered some vain tale of lost train and business calls; but he did not tear his eyes away from the Lady Evelyn's face.
"Great God," he said to himself at last, "that was the face I saw in the river!"
BOOK I
THE ESCAPADE
CHAPTER I
A TELEGRAM TO BUKHAREST
Upon a night of May, some twelve months before Gavin Ord had gone down into Derbyshire at the Earl of Melbourne's invitation, Count Odin, a Roumanian celebrity of evil reputation in his own country and none in others, quitted the Savoy Hotel by the Strand entrance and had just called a hansom when a well-dressed girl, whom he was surprised to see afoot, stumbled by accident against him, and nervously, yet very prettily, offered him her apologies.
Gifted with a prodigious amount of quite unmeaning gallantry, the Count bowed low and said in passable English that no harm had been done and that it should be his part to apologize.
"Mademoiselle," he said, "it is all the fault of your narrow pavements. Here is a cab. Since we are no longer strangers permit me to drive you to your destination. The night is too hot for you to walk."
The girl drew back instantly as though covered with confusion, and without vouchsafing a single word of reply to the civil invitation, went on westward as fast as the busy street would permit her to walk. Her only desire appeared to be to escape recognition by those who passed her by. She might have been any age between twenty and twenty-five years; her hair was coal black, and her eyes were of the deepest blue. So much the Count had not failed to observe; but his curiosity was not by any means at an end. Dismissing the cab with a haste so pronounced that a fortune might have hung upon his quest, he set off down the Strand after the unknown; and was soon so near to her that his outstretched hand could have touched her as she walked.
Who was she? Whither was she going; whence she had come. The meeting had been so unlooked for, it appeared to be such a very story of marvels that the man would not, dare not even now, believe in his good fortune. For three years, often by day and night, he had been dreaming of an hour when he would find the daughter of the man who had consigned a father to a living grave and compelled the son to a vagrant life. And here, in a London street, he met her face to face—not by his own desire or cleverness, but by one of those accidents which are the true tragedies of life. Never for a single moment did he doubt that she was the woman he sought. He had come to England, guarding as a precious possession a miniature painting which had been found among his father's effects. The face which he had so often looked upon in that little picture was most certainly the face he had seen for one brief instant in the Strand this night. Eyes, expression, the shape of the characteristic mouth, the tiny ears, the coal-black hair, how familiar they seemed to him. "She is Forrester's daughter," he said, and walked the faster for the thought.
It was an easy task, for the girl had no idea that anyone followed her. Crossing the street by St. Martin's Church, she passed the National Gallery at the same swift walk; and neither looking to the right nor to the left, she made straight for Pall Mall and the Carlton Hotel there. At the first hazard, Count Odin believed that this was her destination, a fact which puzzled him not a little; but she passed the hotel without a glance at its doors and going on up the Haymarket, turned suddenly into one of the little courts there and was instantly lost to his view. In his turn, he recognized the place at a glance, and as though both relieved and enlightened stood a moment upon the pavement to debate the situation.
"So," he said to himself, "my lady is an actress—or would it be a chorus girl? Well, we shall soon find that out."
He strolled up the narrow alley, and coming to a broad double door of wood, saw written above it in big red letters, "STAGE DOOR," and, on a bell below, the words "Carlton Theatre." The comparative quiet of the scene, the few people about, and the darkness of the passage beyond the door told him that a rehearsal was in progress and not an actual performance. When he read the bill of the play, affixed to a dirty board, he learned that on the following Wednesday evening, at eight-thirty precisely, Mr. Charles Izard would present Etta Romney in the new play "Haddon Hall," by Constant Hayter. Not much of a play-goer, though a recognized frequenter of those houses devoted to musical comedy, the Count asked himself if he had ever heard the name of Etta Romney before. He could not remember to have done so—but, while he stood there, the stage door-keeper came out to smoke a pipe in the alley, and to him the Count addressed himself with that disregard of diplomatic approach which is a habit of the dubious adventurer.
"The young lady who just went in—I think she is a friend of mine."
"Ah," said the stage door-keeper, without taking his pipe from his lips.
"If you could tell me her name, I would send in my card."
"No doubt you would," said the stage door-keeper.
Nonplussed, the Count stroked his mustache a little viciously and began to fumble in his trousers' pocket.
"No good," said the stage door-keeper, anticipating the offer, and then bridling up as he recognized the kind of man he had to do with, he exclaimed peremptorily:
"Come, it's time you went home to dinner, ain't it; you look hungry enough."
"I was going to give you five shillings," said the Count.
"You keep 'em for your poor old mother in the workhouse," said the stage door-keeper, and he went within and slammed the doors—a hint that even Count Odin could not mistake.
Far from being disturbed at this honest rebuff, the Count, with an adventurer's ready resource, strolled round to the front of the theatre and consulted the play-bills there on the off-chance that one of them would enlighten him. The box-office was closed at this hour, but framed photographs of the company engaged for the new play, "Haddon Hall," decorated the pillars of the vestibule; while a large picture, full-length and conspicuously displayed, "presented" the heroine, Miss Etta Romney, to such of the curious as should care to take their stand before it. Hardly had the Count glanced at the photograph when he recognized the original of it to be the young girl whom he had just left at the stage-door.
"Forrester's daughter, beyond a doubt," said he.
He waited for no more but called a cab and drove to the telegraph office in