leave the place," Max declared. "Charlie should soarrange things that you could leave. His salary from old Statham issurely sufficient to enable him to do that!"
"Yes; but if he keeps me, how can he keep a wife as well?" asked Marion."Dear old Charlie is awfully good to me. I never want for anything;but he'll marry Maud before long, I expect, and then I shall--"
"Marry me, darling," he exclaimed, concluding her sentence.
She blushed slightly and smiled.
"Ah!" she said, in mock reproof. "That may occur perhaps in the dimfuture. We'll first see how Charlie's marriage turns out--eh?"
"No, Marion," he cried. "Come, that isn't fair! You know how I loveyou--and you surely recollect your promise to me, don't you?" he askedseriously.
"Of course I do," she replied. "You dear old boy, you know I'm onlyjoking."
He seemed instantly relieved at her words, and steered across to theMiddlesex banks as they approached Brentford Dock in order to get thefull advantage of the rising tide.
"Has Charlie seen Maud of late?" he asked, a few moments later.
"I don't know at all. I suppose he's in the East. I haven't seen himsince he came to the shop to say good-bye to me."
"I wonder if the Doctor and his daughter have returned to their owncountry?" he suggested.
"What! Have you heard nothing of them?"
"Nothing," he replied. "I have endeavoured to discover where theirfurniture was taken, or where they themselves went, but all has been invain. Both they and their belongings have entirely disappeared."
The girl did not utter a word. She was leaning back, with her fine eyesfixed straight before her, reflecting deeply.
"It is all very extraordinary," she remarked at last.
"Yes. I only wish, darling, you were at liberty to tell me the wholetruth regarding Maud, and what she has told you," he said, his gazefixed upon her pale, beautiful face.
"I cannot do that, Max," was her prompt answer, "so please do not askme. I have already told you that in this matter my lips are sealed by asolemn promise--a promise which I cannot break."
"I know! Yet I somehow cannot help thinking that you could reveal to mesome fact which might expose the motive of this strange andunaccountable disappearance," he said. "Do you know, I cannot get ridof the suspicion that the Doctor, and possibly Maud herself, have beenvictims of foul play. Remember that as a politician he had many enemiesin his own country. A political career in the Balkans is not thepeaceful profession it is here at St Stephen's. Take Bulgaria, forinstance, and recall the political assassinations of Stambuloff,Petkoff, and a dozen others. The same in Servia and in Roumania. Thewhole of the Balkans is permeated by an air of political conspiracy, forthere life is indeed cheap, more especially the life of the public man."
"What! Then you really suspect that both Maud and her father haveactually been the victims of some political plot?" she asked, regardinghim with a strange expression.
"Well--how can I conjecture otherwise? The Doctor would never have leftsuddenly without sending word to me. Have you written to Charlietelling him of the sudden disappearance?"
"Yes. I wrote the same day that you told me, and addressed the letterto the Grand Hotel, at Belgrade."
"Then he has it by now?"
"Certainly. I'm expecting a wire from him asking for furtherparticulars. He should have got my letter the day before yesterday, butup to the present I've received no acknowledgment."
Max did not tell her that her brother had not left London on the nightwhen he was believed to have done so, and that it was more than probablehe had never started from Charing Cross. He kept his own counsel, atthe same time wondering what was the real reason why Marion sosteadfastly refused to tell him the nature of Maud's confession. Thatit had been of a startling nature she had already admitted, therefore hecould only suppose that it had some direct connection with theastounding disappearance of both father and daughter.
On the other hand, however, he was suspicious of some ingenious plot,because he felt convinced that the Doctor would never have effacedhimself without giving him confidential news of his whereabouts.
"Have you written to Maud?" he asked, after a fen; moments.
"No. I don't know her address."
"And you have not seen her?"
"No."
"But you don't seem in the least alarmed about her disappearance?"
"Why should I be? I rather expected it," she answered; and it suddenlyoccurred to him whether, after all, she had been with Maud to theconcert at Queen's Hall on the night of the sudden removal.
A distinct suspicion seized him that she was concealing from him somefact which she feared to reveal--some fact that concerned herself morethan Maud. He could see, in her refusal to satisfy him as to the girl'sconfession, an attempt to mislead and mystify him, and he was just atrifle annoyed thereby. He liked open and honest dealing, and began towonder whether this pretended promise of loyalty to her friend was notbeing put forward to hide some secret that was her own!
The two girls had, during the past few months, been inseparable. HadMaud really made a startling confession, or was the girl seated beforehim, with that strangely uneasy expression upon her beautifulcountenance, endeavouring to deceive him?
He tried to put such thoughts behind him as unworthy of his devotion toher. But, alas! he could not.
Mystery was there--mystery that he was determined to elucidate.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
ON DANGEROUS GROUND.
In the glorious sundown glinting across the river, and rendering it arippling flood of gold, Max and Marion were seated in the long upstairsroom of that old-fashioned riparian inn, the "London Apprentice," atIsleworth, taking their tea at the open window.
Before them was the green ait, with the broad, tree-fringed riverbeyond, a quiet, peaceful old-world scene that, amid the rapidlychanging metropolitan suburbs, remains the same to-day as it has beenfor the past couple of centuries or so.
They always preferred that quiet, old-fashioned upstairs room--theclub-room, it was called--of the "London Apprentice," at Isleworth, tothe lawns and string bands of Richmond, the tea-gardens of Kew, or thepleasures of Eel Pie Island.
That long, silent, old, panelled room with its big bow-window commandinga wide reach of the river towards St Margaret's was well suited totheir idyllic love. They knew that there they would at least be alone,away from the Sunday crowd, and that after tea they could sit at thewindow and enjoy the calm sundown.
The riverside at Isleworth does not change. Even the electric tramshave passed close by it on their way to Hampton Court from Hammersmithbut they have not modernised it. The old square-towered church, the rowof ancient balconied houses, covered with tea-roses and jasmine, and theancient waterman's hostelry, the "London Apprentice," are just the sameto-day as they have ever been in the memory of the oldest inhabitant;and the little square in the centre of the riverside village is assilent and untrodden as in the years when Charles II loved to go thereon his barge and dine in that very room at the inn, and when, later,David Garrick and Pope sang its praises.
Max and his well-beloved had finished their tea, and, with her hat andgloves off, she was lying back in a lounge chair in the deep bay window,watching the steamer _Queen Elizabeth_, with its brass band and crowd ofexcursionists, slowly returning to London. Near her he was seated,lazily smoking a cigarette, his eyes upon her in admiration, but stillwondering, as he always wondered.
The truth concerning Maud Petrovitch had not been told.
He was very fond of the Doctor. Quiet, well-educated, polished, andpleasant always, he was, though a foreigner, and a Servian to boot, thevery essence of a gentleman. His dead wife had, no doubt, influencedhim towards English ways and English thought, while Maud herself--thevery replica of his lost wife, he always declared--now held her fatherbeneath her influence as a bright and essentially English girl.
The disappearance of the pair was an enigma which, try how he would, hecould no
t solve. His efforts to find Rolfe had been unavailing, andMarion herself had neither seen nor heard from him. At Charlie'schambers his man remained in complete ignorance. His master had leftfor Servia--that was all.
Max had been trying in vain to lead the conversation again up to thematter over which his mind had become so much exercised; but, with herwoman's keen ingenuity, she each time combated his efforts, which, truthto tell, only served to increase his suspicion that her intention was toshield herself behind her friend.
Why this horrible misgiving had crept upon him he could not tell. Heloved her with his whole heart and soul, and daily he deplored that,while he lived in bachelor luxury in artistic chambers, and with everywhim satisfied, she was