blow to poor Muriel when she and her father were compelled to leave the old shop and take furnished rooms in a back street at the further end of the town, and a still more serious misfortune fell upon her when a few months later her father died, leaving her practically alone in the world. Through the influence of one of the commercial travellers from London, who had been in the habit of calling upon her father, she had obtained the berth at Madame Gabrielle’s, and for the past year had proved herself invaluable at that establishment, one of the most noted in London as selling copies of “the latest models.”
We did not very often meet, for she well understood that a union was entirely out of the question. We were excellent friends, purely Platonic, and it gave her pleasure and variety to dine sometimes with me at a restaurant. There was nothing loud about her; no taint of the London shop-girl, whose tastes invariably lie in the direction of the lower music-halls, Cinderella dances, and Sunday up-river excursions. She was a thoroughly honest, upright, and modest girl, who, compelled to earn her own living, had set out bravely to do so.
From where we sat dining we could listen to the music and look down upon the restaurant below. The tables were filled with diners and the light laughter and merry chatter general.
We had not met for nearly a month, as I had been down to Tixover, where we had had a house-party with its usual round of gaiety, shooting and cycling. Indeed, since June I had been very little in London, having spent the whole summer at Zermatt.
“It seems so long since we were last here,” she exclaimed suddenly, casting her eyes around the well-lit restaurant. “I suppose you had quite a merry time at home?”
“Yes,” I answered, and then began to tell her of all our doings, and relating little bits of gossip from her home – that quiet, old-fashioned market town with its many churches, its broad, brimming Welland winding through the meadows, and picturesque, old-world streets where the grass springs from between the pebbles, and where each Friday the farmers congregate at market. I told her of the new shops which had sprung up in the High Street, of the death of poor old Goltmann who kept the fancy shop where in my youth I had purchased mechanical toys, and of the latest alterations at Burleigh consequent upon the old Marquis’s death. All this interested her, for like many a girl compelled to seek her living in London, the little town where she was born was always dearly cherished in her memory.
“And you?” I said at last. “How have you been going along?”
She placed both her elbows on the table and looked straight into my eyes.
“Fairly well,” she answered, with a half-suppressed sigh. “When you are away I miss our meetings so much, and am often dull and miserable.”
“Without me, eh?” I laughed.
“Life in London is terribly monotonous,” she said as I pushed the dessert-plate aside, and lit a cigarette. “I often wish I were back in Stamford again. Here one can never make any friends.”
“That’s quite true,” I replied, for only those who have come from the country to earn their bread know the utter loneliness of the great metropolis with its busy, hurrying millions. In London one may be a householder for ten years without knowing the name of one’s next-door neighbour, and may live and work all one’s life without making scarce a single friend. Thus the average shop-girl is usually friendless outside her own establishment unless she cares to mix with that crowd of clerks and others who are fond of “taking out” good-looking shop-assistants.
I often felt sorry for Muriel, knowing how dull and monotonous was her life, but while I sat chatting to her that evening a vision of another face rose before me – the pale face with the strange blue eyes, the beautiful countenance of the mysterious Aline.
It seemed very much as if Roddy knew my mysterious friend. If so, it also seemed more than likely that I had been deceived in her; because was not Roddy a well-known man about town, and what more likely than that he had met her in London? To me, however, she had declared that she had only arrived in London a week before, and had never been out. Whatever was the explanation, Roddy’s concern at hearing her name was certainly extraordinary.
I therefore resolved to seek her again, and obtain some explanation.
Why, I wondered, had she made that vague prophecy of evil which would befall me if we continued our acquaintanceship? It was all very extraordinary. The more I thought of it, the more puzzling became the facts.
Chapter Four
Not Counting the Cost
The afternoon was damp, chilly, and cheerless as I stood at my window awaiting Aline. I had written to her, and after some days received a reply addressed from somewhere in South London declining to accept my invitation, but in response to a second and more pressing letter I had received a telegram, and now stood impatient for her coming.
Outside, it was growing gloomy. The matinée at the Garrick Theatre was over, and the afternoon playgoers had all gone their various ways, while the long string of light carts belonging to the Pall Mall Gazette stood opposite, ready to distribute the special edition of that journal in every part of London. The wind blew gustily, and the people passing were compelled to clutch their hats. Inside, however, a bright fire burned, and I had set my easiest chair ready for the reception of the dainty girl who held me beneath her spell.
Even at that moment I recollected Muriel, but cast her out of my thoughts when I reflected upon Aline’s bewitching beauty.
Moments passed as hours. In the darkening day I stood watching for her, but saw no sign, until I began to fear she would disappoint me. Indeed, the clock on the mantel-shelf, the little timepiece which I had carried on all my travels, had already struck five, whereas the hour she had appointed was half-past four.
Suddenly, however, the door opening caused me to turn, and my pretty companion of that night was ushered in by Simes.
“I’m late,” she said apologetically. “I trust you will forgive me.”
“It is a lady’s privilege to be late,” I responded, taking her hand, and welcoming her gladly.
She took the chair at my invitation, and I saw that she was dressed extremely plainly, wearing no ornaments. The dress was not the same she had worn when we had met, but another of more funereal aspect. Yet she was dainty and chic from her large black hat, which well suited her pale, innocent type of beauty, down to her tiny, patent-leather shoe. As she placed her foot out upon the footstool I did not fail to notice how neat was the ankle encased in its black silk stocking, or how small was the little pointed shoe.
“Why did you ask me to come here?” she asked, with a slightly nervous laugh when, at my suggestion, she had drawn off her gloves.
“Because I did not intend that we should drift apart altogether,” I answered. “If you had refused, I should have come to you.”
“At Ellerdale Road?” she exclaimed in alarm.
“Yes; why not? Is your aunt such a terrible person?”
“No,” she exclaimed in all seriousness. “Promise me you will not seek me – never.”
“I can scarcely promise that,” I laughed. “But why were you so reluctant to come here again?” I inquired.
“Because I had no desire to cause you any unnecessary worry,” she replied.
“Unnecessary worry? What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled.
But she
