Nancy? Oh no! I and Jules dined alone. He is out now, giving a French lesson. I have not seen Nancy since—let me see—since Thursday, I think; the day before yesterday.”
Lavinia Preen sat down, half-bewildered. She related the history of the evening.
“It is elsewhere that Nancy is gone,” remarked Madame Carimon. “Flore must have misunderstood her.”
Concluding that to be the case, and that Nancy might already be at home, Lavinia returned at once to the Petite Maison Rouge, Mary Carimon bearing her company in the sweet summer twilight. Lavinia opened the door with her latch-key. Flore had departed long before. There were three latch-keys to the house, Nancy possessing one of them.
They looked into every room, and called out “Nancy! Nancy!” But she was not there.
Nancy Preen had gone off with Captain Fennel by the six-o’clock train, en route for Dover, there to be converted into Mrs. Fennel.
And had Nancy foreseen the terrible events and final crime which this most disastrous step would bring about, she might have chosen, rather than take it, to run away to the Protestant cemetery outside the gates of Sainteville, there to lay herself down to die.
IV
“Where can Nancy be?”
Miss Preen spoke these words to Mary Carimon in a sort of flurry. After letting themselves into the house, the Petite Maison Rouge, and calling up and down it in vain for Nancy, the question as to where she could be naturally arose.
“She must be spending the evening with the friends she stayed to dine with,” said Madame Carimon.
“I don’t know where she would be likely to stay. Unless—yes—perhaps at Mrs. Hardy’s.”
“That must be it, Lavinia,” pronounced Madame Carimon.
It was then getting towards nine o’clock. They set out again for Mrs. Hardy’s to escort Nancy home. She lived in the Rue Lothaire; a long street, leading to the railway-station.
Mrs. Hardy was an elderly lady. When near her door they saw her grand-nephew, Charles Palliser, turn out of it. Charley was a good-hearted young fellow, the son of a rich merchant in London. He was staying at Sainteville for the purpose of acquiring the art of speaking French as a native.
“Looking for Miss Ann Preen!” cried he, as they explained in a word or two. “No, she is not at our house; has not been there. I saw her going off this evening by the six-o’clock train.”
“Going off by the six-o’clock train!” echoed Miss Lavinia, staring at him. “Why, what do you mean, Mr. Charles? My sister has not gone off by any train.”
“It was in this way,” answered the young man, too polite to flatly contradict a lady. “Mrs. Hardy’s cousin, Louise Soubitez, came to town this morning; she spent the day with us, and after dinner I went to see her off by the train. And there, at the station, was Miss Ann Preen.”
“But not going away by train,” returned Miss Lavinia.
“Why, yes, she was. I watched the train out of the station. She and Louise Soubitez sat in the same compartment.”
A smile stole to Charles Palliser’s face. In truth, he was amused at Miss Lavinia’s consternation. It suddenly struck her that the young man was joking.
“Did you speak to Ann, Mr. Charles?”
“Oh yes; just a few words. There was not time for much conversation; Louise was late.”
Miss Preen felt a little shaken.
“Was Ann alone?”
“No; she was with Captain Fennel.”
And, with that, a suspicion of the truth, and the full horror of it, dawned upon Lavinia Preen. She grasped Madame Carimon’s arm and turned white as death.
“It never can be,” she whispered, her lips trembling: “it never can be! She cannot have—have—run away—with that man!”
Unconsciously perhaps to herself, her eyes were fixed on Charles. He thought the question was put to him, and answered it.
“Well—I—I’m afraid it looks like it, as she seems to have said nothing to you,” he slowly said. “But I give you my word, Miss Preen, that until this moment that aspect of the matter never suggested itself to me. I supposed they were just going up the line together for some purpose or other; though, in fact, I hardly thought about it at all.”
“And perhaps that is all the mystery!” interposed Madame Carimon briskly. “He may have taken Ann to Drecques for a little jaunt, and they will be back again by the last train. It must be almost due, Lavinia.”
With one impulse they turned to the station, which was near at hand. Drecques, a village, was the first place the trains stopped at on the up-line. The passengers were already issuing from the gate. Standing aside until all had passed, and not seeing Nancy anywhere, Charley Palliser looked into the omnibuses. But she was not there.
“They may have intended to come back and missed the train, Miss Preen; it’s very easy to miss a train,” said he in his good nature.
“I think it must be so, Lavinia,” spoke up Madame Carimon. “Any way, we will assume it until we hear to the contrary. And, Charley, we had better not talk of this to-night.”
“I won’t,” answered Charley earnestly. “You may be sure of me.”
Unless Captain Fennel and Miss Ann Preen chartered a balloon, there was little probability of their reaching Sainteville that evening, for this had been the last train. Lavinia Preen passed a night of discomfort, striving to hope against hope, as the saying runs. Not a very wise saying; it might run better, striving to hope against despair.
When Sunday did not bring back the truants, or any news of them, the three in the secret—Mary Carimon, Lavinia, and Charley Palliser—had little doubt that the disappearance meant an elopement. Monsieur Jules Carimon, not easily understanding such an escapade, so little in accordance with the customs and manners of his own country, said in his wife’s ear he hoped it would turn out that there was a marriage in the case.
Miss Preen received a letter from Dover pretty early in the week, written by Ann. She had been married that day to Captain Fennel.
Altogether, the matter was the most bitter blow ever yet dealt to Lavinia Preen. No living being knew, or ever would know, how cruelly her heart was wrung by it. But, being a kindly woman of good sound sense, she saw that the best must be made of it, not the worst; and this she set herself out to do. She began by hoping that her own instinct, warning her against Captain Fennel, might be a mistaken one, and that he had a good home to offer his wife and would make her happy in it.
She knew no more about him—his family, his fortune, his former life, his antecedents—than she knew of the man in the moon. Major Smith perhaps did; he had been acquainted with him in the past. Nancy’s letter, though written the previous day, had been delivered by the afternoon post. As soon as she could get dinner over, Lavinia went to Major Smith’s. He lived at the top of the Rue Lambeau, a street turning out of the Grande Place. He and his wife, their own dinner just removed, were sitting together, the major indulging in a steaming glass of schiedam and water, flavoured with a slice of lemon. He was a very jolly little man, with rosy cheeks and a bald head. They welcomed Miss Lavinia warmly. She, not quite as composed as usual, opened her business without preamble; her sister Ann had married Captain Fennel, and she had come to ask Major Smith what he knew of him.
“Not very much,” answered the major.
There was something behind his tone, and Lavinia burst into tears. Compassionating her distress, the major offered her a comforting glass, similar to his own. Lavinia declined it.
“You will tell me what you know,” she said; and he proceeded to do so.
Edwin Fennel, the son of Colonel Fennel, was stationed in India with his regiment for several years. He got on well enough, but was not much liked by his brother officers: they thought him unscrupulous and deceitful. All at once,