night’s wandering. Nelly, dear,” said the Signora, very gently, “you weren’t in love with this young man; you didn’t return his affection, did you?”
“In love with him!” cried Eleanor Vane, with a shudder, “oh! no, no.”
“And yet you seem sorry at having left Hazlewood.”
“I am sorry—I—I had many reasons for wishing to stay there.”
“You were attached to your companion, Miss Mason?”
“Yes, I was very much attached to her,” answered Eleanor; “don’t ask me any more questions to-night, dear Signora. I’m tired out with my journey and the excitement of—all—that has happened to-day. I will explain things more fully to-morrow; I am glad to come back to you—very, very glad to see you once more, dearest friend; but I had a strong reason for wishing to stay at Hazlewood,—I have a powerful motive for wanting to go back there, if I could go back—which I fear I never can.” The girl stopped abruptly, as if absorbed in her own thoughts, and almost unconscious of her friend’s presence.
“Well, well, my dear, I won’t question you any further,” Eliza Picirillo said, soothingly. “Goodness knows, my dear, I am glad enough to have you with me, without worrying you about the why and the wherefore. But I must go and try and get your little room ready again for you, or perhaps, as it’s late, you’d better sleep with me to-night.”
“If you please, dear Signora.”
The music-mistress hurried away to make some preparations in the bed-chamber adjoining the little sitting-room, and Eleanor Vane sat staring at the guttering tallow candles on the table before her, lost in the tumult and confusion of thoughts which as yet took no distinct form in her brain.
At the very moment in which she had set a barrier between herself and Hazlewood, that might prevent her ever crossing the threshold of its gates, she had made a discovery which rendered that retired country dwelling-house the one spot upon earth to which she had need to have free access.
“I fancied that I was going away from my revenge when I left London to go into Berkshire,” she thought, “now I leave my revenge behind me at Hazlewood. And yet how can it be as I think? How can it be so? Launcelot Darrell went to India a year before my father died. Can it be only a likeness after all—an accidental likeness between that man and Mrs. Darrell’s son?”
She sat thinking of these things—reasoning with herself upon the utter improbability of the identity of the two men, yet yielding again and again to that conviction which had forced itself upon her, sudden and irresistible, in the Windsor Street,—while the Signora bustled about between the two rooms, stopping to cast a stolen glance now and then at Eleanor Vane’s thoughtful face.
Mr. Richard Thornton came in by-and-by. The Phœnix was closed as to dramatic performances, but the scene-painter’s work never stopped. The young man gave utterance to a cry of delight as he saw the figure sitting in his aunt’s easy-chair.
“Nell!” he exclaimed, “has the world come to an end, and have you dropped into your proper position in the general smash! Eleanor, how glad I am to see you.”
He held out both his hands. Miss Vane rose and mechanically put her white fingers in the weather-beaten looking palms held out to receive them.
In that moment the scene-painter saw that something had happened.
“What’s the matter, Nell?” he cried eagerly.
“Hush, Dick,” said the girl, in a whisper. “I don’t want the Signora to know.”
“You don’t want the Signora to know what?”
“I have found that man.”
“What man?”
“The man who caused my father’s death.”
CHAPTER XXII. IN THE SHIPBROKER’S OFFICE.
Eleanor Vane employed the morning after her arrival at the Pilasters in writing to Laura Mason. She would have written a long letter if she could, for she knew what grief her sudden departure must have caused her childish and confiding companion; but she could not write of anything except the one thought that absorbed her whole brain, leaving her for the common business of life a purposeless and powerless creature. The explanation which she gave of her sudden departure was lame and laboured; her expressions of regard were trite and meaningless. It was only when she came to that subject which was the real purpose of her letter; it was only when she came to write of Launcelot Darrell, that there was any vigour or reality in her words.
“I have a favour to ask you, dear Laura,” she wrote, “and I must beg you to use your best discretion in granting it. I want you to find out for me the date of Mr. Darrell’s departure for Calcutta, and the name of the vessel in which he sailed. Do this, Laura, and you will be serving me; perhaps serving him also.”
“If I find that he really was in India at the date of my father’s death,” Eleanor thought, “I must cease to suspect him.”
Later in the day, Miss Vane went out with Richard into the streets and squares in which all their secret conferences had taken place. She told the scene-painter very simply and briefly of what had happened, and poor Dick listened to her story with a tender respect, as he would have listened to anything from her. But he shook his head with a sad smile when she had finished.
“What do you think now, Richard?” she asked.
“I think that you are the dupe of a foolish fancy, Nelly,” the young man answered. “You are deceived by some chance resemblance between this Mr. Darrell and the man you saw upon the Boulevard. Any dark pale-faced man lounging moodily on a kerbstone would have reminded you of the figure which is so interwoven with the memories of that mournful time in Paris. Forget it, Nelly, my dear; forget that dark chapter in the history of your girlhood. Your father’s rest will be none the sweeter because the brightness of