The far-away creatures whom he had seen floating about him, beautiful and indistinct, are brought under his very nose; and before he has time to recover his bewilderment, hey presto, the witchcraft has begun; the magic circle is drawn around him! the spells are at work, the whole formula of sorcery is in full play, and the victim is as powerless to escape as the marble-legged prince in the Eastern story.”
Ruminating in this wise, Robert Audley reached the house to which he had been directed as the residence of Mrs. Barkamb. He was admitted immediately by a prim, elderly servant, who ushered him into a sitting-room as prim and elderly-looking as herself. Mrs. Barkamb, a comfortable matron of about sixty years of age, was sitting in an arm-chair before a bright handful of fire in the shining grate. An elderly terrier, whose black-and-tan coat was thickly sprinkled with gray, reposed in Mrs. Barkamb’s lap. Every object in the quiet sitting-room had an elderly aspect of simple comfort and precision, which is the evidence of outward repose.
“I should like to live here,” Robert thought, “and watch the gray sea slowly rolling over the gray sand under the still, gray sky. I should like to live here, and tell the beads upon my rosary, and repent and rest.”
He seated himself in the arm-chair opposite Mrs. Barkamb, at that lady’s invitation, and placed his hat upon the ground. The elderly terrier descended from his mistress’ lap to bark at and otherwise take objection to this hat.
“You were wishing, I suppose, sir, to take one — be quiet, Dash — one of the cottages,” suggested Mrs. Barkamb, whose mind ran in one narrow groove, and whose life during the last twenty years had been an unvarying round of house-letting.
Robert Audley explained the purpose of his visit.
“I come to ask one simple question,” he said, in conclusion, “I wish to discover the exact date of Mrs. Talboys’ departure from Wildernsea. The proprietor of the Victoria Hotel informed me that you were the most likely person to afford me that information.”
Mrs. Barkamb deliberated for some moments.
“I can give you the date of Captain Maldon’s departure,” she said, “for he left No. 17 considerably in my debt, and I have the whole business in black and white; but with regard to Mrs. Talboys —”
Mrs. Barkamb paused for a few moments before resuming.
“You are aware that Mrs. Talboys left rather abruptly?” she asked.
“I was not aware of that fact.”
“Indeed! Yes, she left abruptly, poor little woman! She tried to support herself after her husband’s desertion by giving music lessons; she was a very brilliant pianist, and succeeded pretty well, I believe. But I suppose her father took her money from her, and spent it in public houses. However that might be, they had a very serious misunderstanding one night; and the next morning Mrs. Talboys left Wildernsea, leaving her little boy, who was out at nurse in the neighborhood.”
“But you cannot tell me the date of her leaving?”
“I’m afraid not,” answered Mrs. Barkamb; “and yet, stay. Captain Maldon wrote to me upon the day his daughter left. He was in very great distress, poor old gentleman, and he always came to me in his troubles. If I could find that letter, it might be dated, you know — mightn’t it, now?”
Mr. Audley said that it was only probable the letter was dated.
Mrs. Barkamb retired to a table in the window on which stood an old-fashioned mahogany desk, lined with green baize, and suffering from a plethora of documents, which oozed out of it in every direction. Letters, receipts, bills, inventories and tax-papers were mingled in hopeless confusion; and among these Mrs. Barkamb set to work to search for Captain Maldon’s letter.
Mr. Audley waited very patiently, watching the gray clouds sailing across the gray sky, the gray vessels gliding past upon the gray sea.
After about ten minutes’ search, and a great deal of rustling, crackling, folding and unfolding of the papers, Mrs. Barkamb uttered an exclamation of triumph.
“I’ve got the letter,” she said; “and there’s a note inside it from Mrs. Talboys.”
Robert Audley’s pale face flushed a vivid crimson as he stretched out his hand to receive the papers.
“The persons who stole Helen Maldon’s love-letters from George’s trunk in my chambers might have saved themselves the trouble,” he thought.
The letter from the old lieutenant was not long, but almost every other word was underscored.
“My generous friend,” the writer began — Mr. Maldon had tried the lady’s generosity pretty severely during his residence in her house, rarely paying his rent until threatened with the intruding presence of the broker’s man —“I am in the depths of despair. My daughter has left me! You may imagine my feelings! We had a few words last night upon the subject of money matters, which subject has always been a disagreeable one between us, and on rising this morning I found I was deserted! The enclosed from Helen was waiting for me on the parlor table.
“Yours in distraction and despair,
“HENRY MALDON.
“NORTH COTTAGES, August 16th, 1854.”
The note from Mrs. Talboys was still more brief. It began abruptly thus:
“I am weary of my life here, and wish, if I can, to find a new one. I go out into the world, dissevered from every link which binds me to the hateful past, to seek another home and another fortune. Forgive me if I have been fretful, capricious, changeable. You should forgive me, for you know why I have been so. You know the secret which is the key to my life.
“HELEN TALBOYS.”
These lines were written in a hand that Robert Audley knew only too well.
He sat for a long time pondering silently over the letter written by Helen Talboys.
What was the meaning of those two last sentences —“You should forgive me, for you know why I have been so. You know the secret which is the key to my life?”
He wearied his brain in endeavoring to find a clew to the signification of these two sentences. He could remember nothing, nor could he imagine anything that would throw a light upon their meaning. The date of Helen’s departure, according to Mr. Maldon’s letter, was the 16th of August, 1854. Miss Tonks had declared that Lucy Graham entered the school at Crescent Villas upon the 17th or 18th of August in the same year. Between the departure of Helen Talboys from the Yorkshire watering-place and the arrival of Lucy Graham at the Brompton school, not more than eight-and-forty hours could have elapsed. This made a very small link in the chain of circumstantial evidence, perhaps; but it was a link, nevertheless, and it fitted neatly into its place.
“Did Mr. Maldon hear from his daughter after she had left Wildernsea?” Robert asked.
“Well, I believe he did hear from her,” Mrs. Barkamb answered; “but I didn’t see much of the old gentleman after that August. I was obliged to sell him up in November, poor fellow, for he owed me fifteen months’ rent; and it was only by selling his poor little bits of furniture that I could get him out of my place. We parted very good friends, in spite of my sending in the brokers; and the old gentleman went to London with the child, who was scarcely a twelvemonth old.”
Mrs.
