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CHAPTER XXXVII

THERE was no sign of Kate by the train due at half-past eight, and when Mary had ascertained that fact she went straight into her father's study. He was seated there looking somewhat perplexed. He did not know what to make of the aspect of affairs. Why had Kate gone away? Why was Mary so very queer--and the sick man upstairs, would he recover or would he die?

It was not very long since Mr. Hume had crept up on tiptoe and entered the sick-room, and stood close to the man whom a few days before he had seen in the perfection of health and happiness. He was lying on his bed now, looking more like a grey shadow than a living man. Occasionally faint words came from his lips; his delirium had left him; the nurse and the doctors all thought that he might recover, that in all probability he would recover, and yet Mr. Hume as he looked down at him felt that it was almost impossible, that nothing so changed, so withered, could once again revive and bloom forth into youth and strength. The only words which came from the sick man's lips were "Kate! Kitty, little Kitty, darling Kitty! Where is she? Where is my wife?"

Those were the sounds he uttered from time to time; he spoke of nothing else; he asked for no one else. Occasionally he gave a piteous glance towards the door, and then with a shuddering sigh would close his eyes.

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Dr. Thornton said to Mr. Hume as he was leaving the room, "Mrs. Henley ought to be here. Where can she have gone?"

And Hume had gone softly downstairs and said to himself also that Mrs. Henley ought to be here. He had a great admiration for his pretty niece. Where was she? Her husband was ill, at death's door, and calling for her. Where had she gone? Where was Marryat also? What did it all mean?

He was seated thinking these thoughts, glad to be alone for a few moments, much bewildered, much puzzled, when Mary swiftly opened the study door, closed it behind her, and came in.

"Now, father," she said, "if you don't mean to act, I do."

"What do you want to do, Mary?" replied her father.

"I want you to rouse yourself, to be a man--oh, I don't mind what you think, I will speak out. I want you to come with me to Plymouth by the twelve o'clock train. We can easily get to Plymouth if we take the next train to town. We can pack what things are necessary in a few moments. We shall reach Plymouth at seven in the morning. I have looked up the time-table and know exactly what I am saying, and we shall be there two or three hours before the arrival of the Hydra."

"But why should we be in Plymouth, and why should we catch the Hydra? My place is here, Mary. My dear child, what is the matter? Sit down, my dear, and try to compose yourself."

"Oh, folly, father," said Mary, stamping her foot impatiently, "when every moment is of importance that adventuress is slipping out of our very grasp, and you let her go."

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"What adventuress, my dear?"

"The woman you call your niece--Kate Henley. She is Kate Henley, but she is not your niece; she is no relation to you, and I am prepared to prove it."

"I cannot listen to you when you get upon that mad craze, Mary."

"That's just it; you call me mad, but I have excellent proof, only you must catch her first. What became of those tickets you meant to return yesterday? Why were they not left on your table? Who took them? Who would have taken any interest in them but the one woman to whom they were all important? I tell you what it is, father, Kate is an impostor, and I mean to prove it."

Mr. Hume shook his head sadly.

"I don't agree with you, Mary," he said, "nor can I encourage you in this feeling. You ought to fight against it, my dear child, you really ought."

Mary sat quite still, a despairing look came into her eyes.

"It would do little or no good if I went alone," she said, "but if you came you would bring her back. Will you go by yourself? Will you do that? That is all I ask. I will stay quietly here if you, father, will go to Plymouth to-night, and bring Kate Henley back."

"But I am going on a wild-goose chase; she is not on board the Hydra."

"Go and find out. If she is not on board I will cease to worry you any longer with regard to her; but I know she is, I have a firm conviction on that point. In the meantime I will stay here and wait. Her husband wants her--don't think of me--think of him. If she is indeed on board leaving the | | 355 country, ought we not to fetch her back? Is it right that he should die pining for her?"

"It is not right, Mary. To tell you the truth I would give the world to find her at the present moment. I am extremely anxious about Henley, so is the doctor; there is nothing I would not do, Mary, to get Kate back at this moment."

"Then take my advice, go yourself to Plymouth and bring her back. When the sick man knows that she is certainly returning he will have courage to wait for her. Bring her back, bring her back!"

Mr. Hume looked anxiously at Mary for a longtime.

"You certainly impel me by your earnestness," he said, "I can do nothing here. If I do this, if I yield to your wishes, will you make me a promise on your own account?"

"If I can, father, I will."

"My request is this, that if Kate is not on board the Hydra you will cease to persecute her, you will return to your normal state of health, you will believe that she is, what in truth she is, your cousin who was Kate Bouverie."

"Even that I will try to do," said Mary, the queerest smile crossed her face--it was more like a spasm than a smile.

"Then you will go?" she said.

"On this condition I will go; of course it is a wild-goose chase."

"Time will prove," replied the daughter. She slowly left the room.

Mr. Hume thought for a moment, then he took out his watch, he looked at it and went upstairs again. He met Dr. Thornton in the hastily prepared sitting-room in the west wing.

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"You think your patient will recover," he said.

"He is better; he has passed the crisis; I cannot say the danger is past; the great danger now is the state of anxiety he is kept in. He wants his wife; if his wife would return he would get well."

"She may come back at any moment," said Mr. Hume, "at the same time I cannot understand why she went."

"I believe she went because she could not bear to see him die," replied the doctor; "she was very strange in her behaviour."

"Very strange; I cannot account for it; thank God there are few women like her," replied Hume. He paused for a moment, then he said, "It is possible, just possible, that I may bring her back by this time to-morrow night. Can you keep him alive until then?"

"If I can give him any sort of hope I can keep him alive," said the doctor.

"Then I will go to a place where I think it possible my niece may be, and if I find her I will bring her back," said Mr. Hume. He left the room, packed a few things in a Gladstone bag, and sought his wife.

"Susannah," he said, "I am off to Plymouth by the, midnight train and must catch the next to town. Don't mind about dinner, my dear, I cannot wait to dine."

"But you must have something before you go, and why do you go at all, Robert?" said his wife.

Then he told her in a few words something of his strange interview with Mary.

"Keep her well in view," he said, "poor child, I go more on her account than anything else. She has got a strange craze, she has indeed inherited her aunt's madness."

"Oh, it is fearful, fearful!" said the mother.

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"Well, she has promised to be reasonable if I do not bring Kate back; I have little expectation of doing so. If Kate returns during my absence let Thornton know at once. Don't on any account allow her to rush suddenly into the sick-room. And now good-bye, my dear, I have not a moment to lose."

Mr. Hume kissed his wife and left the house. A he was walking down the avenue carrying his Glad-stone bag Ethel ran after him.

"What is the matter, father? Where are you going?"

"To Plymouth, my dear, by Mary's orders."

"Dear me, father," said Ethel, "Mary seems to rule every one."

"She is possessed by a mania, child; be patient with her," said the good man, heaving a heavy sigh as he spoke.

"There is such a queer man in the housekeeper's room, father. I went in there just now and he bowed to me and said that he was Mary's guest; he said his name was Rogers; he is to sleep at the Inn. While I was talking to him Mary came in and turned me out of the room. She said that he was one of her witnesses, and that she was gradually getting everything in train for a grand denouncement. What can she mean?"

"Poor child," said Mr. Hume, "it is part of her strange malady. We must humour her. But, Ethel dear, you must speak to your mother. Whoever that strange person is he must not sleep in the house to-night."

"Oh, he won't, father; he said he was going to the Inn in the village."

"Very well, only see that he does go," said Mr. Hume. "And now I must really be off."