theory,then visited all the impressarios he could find in an endeavour todiscover an artist whose real name was Lepage. But from the first thissearch was foredoomed to failure, for girls who desire to exchange homelife for the stage seldom give their impressarios their correct names,hence no such person as Mariette Lepage could be traced."
"Then, after all, we are as far off discovering who this mysteriouswoman is as we ever were," George observed, glancing at his visitor witha half-amused smile.
"Well, not exactly," the solicitor answered. "Undoubtedly the girl whodisappeared from the house in the Rue Toullier was the woman for whom weare searching."
"The letter found on Nelly Bridson is sufficient proof that she's stillalive," said the younger man.
"Exactly; and from its tone it would appear that she is in the lowerstrata of society," Harrison remarked.
"Whoever she is I shall, I suppose, be required to offer her marriage,even if she's a hideous old hag! My father was certainly determinedthat I should be sufficiently punished for my refusal to comply with hisdesire," George observed, smiling bitterly.
"Why regret the past?" Harrison asked slowly, referring again to theblue foolscap by the fitful light of the fire. "The inquiry has, up tothe present, resulted in the elucidation of only one definite fact;nevertheless, Rutter is certainly on the right scent, and as he is nowextensively advertising in the principal papers throughout France, Ihope to be able ere long to report something more satisfactory."
"It will be no satisfaction whatever to me if she is found," observedthe young man, grimly.
"But it is imperative that the matter should be cleared up," thesolicitor protested. "When we have discovered her you will, of course,be at liberty to offer her marriage, or not, just as you please."
"It is a most remarkable phase of the affair that the only personacquainted with this mysterious woman was poor Nelly," the youngbarrister exclaimed at last. "You will remember that in the letter,with its slang of the slums, Liane's name was mentioned. Well, I havewritten asking her whether she is acquainted with any woman of the samename with which the curious letter is signed, but she has replied sayingthat neither herself nor her father ever knew any such person, and theyhad been quite at a loss to know how Nelly should have become acquaintedwith her. Here is her reply; read for yourself," and from his pocket hetook several letters, and selecting one, handed it to the keen-faced,grey-haired man, at the same time striking a vesta and lighting the lampstanding upon the table.
"You don't seem to mind other people reading your love-letters," the oldsolicitor said, laughing and turning towards the light. "When I wasyoung I kept them tied up with pink tape in a box carefully locked."
George smiled. "The pink tape was owing to the legal instinct, Isuppose," he said. Then he added, with a slight touch of sorrow, "Thereare not many secrets in Liane's letters."
The shrewd old man detected disappointment in his voice, and afterglancing at the letter, looked up at him again, saying, "The course oftrue love is not running smooth, eh? This lady is in Nice, I see."
"Yes, Harrison," he answered gravely, leaning against the table withhead slightly bent. "We are parted, and I fear that, after all, I haveacted foolishly."
"You will, no doubt, remember my advice on the day of your father'sdeath."
"I do," George answered, huskily. "At that time I fondly believed sheloved me, and was prepared to sacrifice everything in order that sheshould be mine. But now--"
"Well?"
"Her letters have grown colder, and I have a distinct and painful beliefthat she loves me no longer, that she has, amid the mad whirl of gaietyon the Riviera, met some man who has the means to provide her with thepleasures to which she has been accustomed, and upon whom she looks withfavour. Her letters now are little more than the formal correspondenceof a friend. She has grown tired of waiting."
"And are you surprised?" Harrison asked.
"I ought not to be, I suppose," he said gloomily. "I can never hope tomarry her."
"Why despair?" the old solicitor exclaimed kindly. "You have youth,talent, and many influential friends, therefore there is no reason whyyour success at the Bar should not be as great as other men's."
"Or as small as most men's," he laughed bitterly. "No, Harrison,without good spirits it is impossible for one to do one's best. Those Idon't possess just now."
"Well, if, because you are parted a few months, the lady pleases toforsake you, as you suspect, then all I can say is that you are veryfortunate in becoming aware of the truth ere it is too late," the elderman argued.
"But I love her," he blurted forth. "I can't help it."
"Then, under the circumstances, I would, if I were you, stick to myprofession and try and forget all that's past. Bitter memories shortenlife and do nobody any good."
"Ah! I only wish I could get rid of all thought of the past," hesighed, gazing fixedly into the fire. "You are my friend and adviser,Harrison, or I should not have spoken thus to you."
The old man, with his blue foolscap still in his thin, bony hand,paused, regarded his client's son with a look of sympathy for a fewmoments, and sighed.
"Your case," he said at last, "is only one of many thousands. All ofus, in whatever station, have our little romances in life. We have atsome time or another adored a woman who, after the first few months, hascast us aside for a newer and perhaps richer lover. There are few amongus who cannot remember a sweet face of long ago, a voice that thrilledus, a soft, caressing hand that was smooth as satin to our lips. Wesigh when we recollect those long-past days, and wonder where she is,who she married, and whether, in her little debauches of melancholy, sheever recollects the man who once vowed he would love her his whole lifethrough. Years have gone since then, yet her memory clings to us asvividly as if she were still a reality in our lives. We still love herand revere her, even though she cast us aside, even though we are notcertain whether she still exists. The reason of all this is becausewhen we are young we are more impressionable than when we are older,with wider and more mature experience of the world. The woman we attwenty thought adorable we should pass by unnoticed if we were forty.Thus it is that almost all men cherish in their hearts a secretaffection for some woman who has long ago gone out of their lives,passed on, and forgotten them."
George smiled bitterly at the old man's philosophy. "Are you, then, oneof those with a romance within you?" he asked, his face suddenlybecoming grave again.
"Yes," the old lawyer answered, his features hard and cold. "I,dry-as-dust, matter-of-fact man that I am, I also have my romance.Years ago, how many I do not care to count, I loved a woman just asmadly as you love Liane Brooker. She was of good family, wealthy, andso handsome that a well-known artist painted her portrait, which washung at one of the Galleries as one of a collection of types of Englishbeauty. That she loved me I could not doubt, and the first six monthsof our acquaintance in the quaint old cathedral town where we lived wasa dream of sunny, never-ending days. At evening, when the office atwhich I was articled was closed, she met me, and we walked together inthe sunset by the river. I see her now, as if it were but yesterday, inher simple white dress and large hat trimmed with roses. The years thathave passed have not dimmed my memory."
And the old man, pausing, sat with his steely eyes gazing into the fire,a hardness in the corners of his mouth as if the recollection of thepast was painful.
"Months went by," he continued in a harsh voice, quite unlike the tonehabitual to him. "She knew that I was poor, yet against the wishes ofher parents, purse-proud county people, she had announced her intentionof waiting a year or two, and then marrying me. At length there came aday when I found it necessary to exchange the quiet respectability ofDurham for the bustle of a London office, and left. Ours was a sadfarewell, one night beneath the moon. She took my ring from my finger,kissed it and replaced it, while I kissed her hair, and we exchangedvows of undying love. Then we parted. Well, you may guess the rest.Within three months she was a wife,
but I was not her husband. From themoment when we said farewell on that memorable night I never saw her norheard from her again. Times without number I wrote, but my lettersremained unanswered, until I saw in the papers the announcement of hermarriage with some man who I ascertained later had amassed a fortune atthe Cape and had taken her out there with him. Though I have grown old,I have never ceased to remember her, because she was the one woman Iadored, the woman who comes once into the life of every man to lightenit, but who, alas! too often forsakes him for reasons incomprehensibleand leaves him solitary and forgotten, with only a deep-cherished