Even the monosyllable was scarcely articulate.
“He is not there,” said Mr. Harding.
“He never came back to London!”
“Yes —he did. That’s just the point. He started to come to us about ten o’clock, and has never been heard of since.”
Claire stood mute before them, her face pale as ashes in the light of the candle, which she carried quite steadily now. She had trembled in her fear; she stood like a statue in its realisation; then, with a single moan, she turned away, and her candle passed steadily through the hall, and slowly and steadily up the stairs.
Mr. Harding seemed lost in his own reflections, when Daintree clutched him by the arm.
“What did I tell you as we came up to the house?”
Harding thought a little. “You said it was Blaydes. Well, if so, she shall never have him. But I only wish I knew where he was!”
“So do I,” said Daintree, viciously; and he held out his hand as they entered the hall; but Mr. Harding would not hear of his going to bed.
“For pity’s sake don’t desert me yet! There is no sleep for me this night. What can have happened to the fellow—between West End and this? What can have happened?”
“I neither know nor care.”
“Nor I—nor I—but a man can’t help his forebodings!”
And Harding shuddered as he shut the library door, and lit the fire with his own hands, though the night was so warm; and cowered over it till daylight, a ghostly satire on the loud, flamboyant, cocksure head of last night’s dinner-table.
