“ ‘Oh, courage, we shall win to the surface yet,’ said Laura. ‘Seek and you shall find: I believe in that. I take it that you have not heard from poor Aubrey?’
“ ‘No,’ — low in tone.
“ ‘Why? Why?’ Laura asked of herself, staring.
“ ‘There can be only two reasons,’ Hylda said; ‘either he is no longer alive, or he is in some situation in which he finds it impossible to write.’
“ ‘But what kind of situation can that be? Perhaps he is conscious of having done something wrong, and shrinks from writing—’
“ ‘He?’ — from Hylda with raised eyebrows; then she smiled, saying, ‘Excuse me, I am always assuming that others know him with the same certainty as I do.’
“ ‘But how can you say not, in that undoubting way, Miss Hood? Of the two guns found together in the other man’s flat one was Aubrey’s, and the gunshots found in the child’s throat fit Aubrey’s gun, not the other man’s; so Detective-Sergeant Barker was telling me—’
“ ‘How can he know which of the two is Aubrey’s gun?’ Hylda asked.
“ ‘Aubrey’s initials are on it!’
“ ‘Still, Aubrey would hardly have taken up a loaded gun for any reason... It may be that the other man’s initials are the same as Aubrey’s—’
“ ‘It may be, of course.’
“ ‘And as to this other man,’ Hylda asked, ‘no trace of him yet?’
“ ‘None!’ Laura spun round with a laugh, ‘he has disappeared from the face of creation as completely as Aubrey has. It strikes me that the pair of them have been up to something, so both are in hiding.’
“ ‘Aubrey would not hide, I assure you, Miss O’Donague,’ replied Hylda.
“Laura, looking contemplatively at her, remarked: ‘Do you know, I think we are going to be friends?’
“ ‘We won’t be foes?’ asked Hylda.
“ ‘Let’s hope not. I am a ripping good hater.’
“ ‘And I am a good lover — if I love. But will you tell me now everything that you know?’
“Laura, now sitting by Hylda’s side, told how ‘the other man’ who had vanished with Aubrey round that street corner had taken the flat in Aubrey’s block of buildings only two days before the wedding day, and had moved into it without waiting to have the flat repapered. He had taken it in the name of ‘Hamilton Jones,’ but it had been ascertained by the police that this was not really his name. ‘Jones’ had bought his furniture in Tottenham Court Road only the day before he moved into his new abode, an abode whose hall door happened to face Aubrey’s; and whether this ‘Jones’ had taken that flat knowing that Aubrey was there, or just by chance, or what was the nature of the relation between him and Aubrey, remained all a mystery. As to the wounded child, she was a little maid of seven, of an extraordinary beauty — foreign, it was believed, since dark, and since she wore a diamond medallion of the Madonna about her throat, and as her costume was found to be luxurious in the extreme, it was doubted if she really belonged to this ‘Hamilton Jones,’ whose furniture was cheap. There was no name on the child’s linen, only a bird in blue silk. She was then lying in St. George’s Hospital, had not yet spoken, but would recover; and Laura had thrice been to see her.
“To all which Hylda listened with her eyes on the floor, and then a sigh rose from the depths of her; her pretty, broad face looked rather drawn and pale; and Laura, sitting by her, whispered:
“ ‘Don’t be too sad; wait, I’ll find him for you; it will be all right’; and she took a hand of Hylda’s, saying, ‘What lovable hands you have, Miss Hood — Hylda! These warm little mortal hands, imperfect and dear: I am going to kiss this left one near the heart’ — she kissed it, mourning, ‘Don’t grieve, don’t grieve, my heart bleeds for you’; and playing with the hand; while Hylda smiled at her, she asked, ‘What are these dents in the flesh of the first and second fingers? — Funny...’
“ ‘They are due to years of interval-stopping on the violin,’ Hylda said.
“ ‘Of course, that’s it. I have heard that you are a virtuoso, and I demand to hear you soon. Are you still at the College?’
“ ‘Nominally; but all that’s over for me now, I’m afraid.’
“ ‘But why?’
“ ‘My father had no money to leave me, Miss O’Donague: I shall have to earn my living.’
“Up started Laura at this, dancing, clapping her palms, crying, ‘Oh, how jolly!’
“ ‘Hardly for me,’ said Hylda.
“ ‘For me, yes,’ cried Laura. ‘For that means you living with me! Do you know, I dreamed it? Yes, one night: and here it is, come to pass. Why, I want a companion! I have actually been inquiring—’
“ ‘Miss O’Donague, you are very good—’
“ ‘Call me Laura this instant!’
“Hylda looked at her with dimples in her smile, but said nothing.
“ ‘Why, how jolly!’ cried Laura; ‘just think, always to be together now, and we’ll talk of Aubrey all day, and be good to each other, and bear with each other, and read each other’s letters, and go incognito on sprees to Venice on our own, and down to Clanning — did Aubrey tell you about Clanning?’
“ ‘He told me,’ said Hylda, ‘and of that child lost down there. By the way, he had a most ludicrous story to tell me on the day before our wedding day about two men going to his flat and as good as charging him with having stolen the child. Has she been found, do you know?’
“ ‘I think not.’
“ ‘Aubrey said that the two men entered his flat and searched all through—’
“ ‘Ah?’ said Laura, smiling to herself with downcast eyes.
“ ‘Yes, and insisted that they had actually heard the child speaking in the flat.’
“ ‘Oh?... Poor old Aubrey! he was in for it those few days, wasn’t he?’
“ ‘Haven’t you heard anything of this incident before?’
“ ‘Well, yes, I think I heard something of it from — Barker,’ and Laura jumped up anew from the sofa, opened a book on a table, looked at it, humming, cast it aside.
“ ‘She doesn’t invariably utter everything that she is thinking,’ thought Hylda; and she added aloud: ‘To what could such a delusion of these officers have been due?’
“Laura pouted, asking: ‘How can you be sure that it was a delusion?’
“ ‘Because there was no one at all in Aubrey’s flat, so no one could have been heard in it!’
“ ‘I see. But since Detective-Sergeant Barker vows that he heard the child with his own ears in the flat, what answer can be made to that? Maybe Aubrey saw the child down at Clanning, fell in love with her, for she was very pretty, and — nicked her.’
“ ‘Miss O’Donague,’ said Hylda very gravely, ‘we seem to disagree on the subject of Aubrey; so perhaps we had better not talk much of him.’
“ ‘Meaning that I am in love.’
“ ‘Did I imply that?’
“ ‘You exhaled it. But when did Aubrey tell you about his little legacy? When did he say he was going to draw it?’
“ ‘He told me on the fourth day before the wedding day that he meant to draw it in two days’ time,’ answered Hylda.
“ ‘So his birthday was two days before the wedding day?’
“ ‘Birthday? What has his birthday to do with it?’
“ ‘So you don’t know — he never told you — that the legacy was to be paid on his birthday?’
“ ‘I — no — you must be mistaken — he never mentioned it.’
“Hylda’s eyes were so large with scare and amazement, that Laura leaped up laughing and could not help saying, ‘What, are there things which Aubrey kept dark from you?’