The Making of a Soul Part 54

"G.o.d, Herrick--here's Toni." Owen dashed out of the room followed by Herrick, and the two reached the front door at the same moment.

Andrews, who had come running from the kitchen regions at the sound of the horn, flung open the door, and disclosed the big car with its flaring head-lamps, throbbing itself to a standstill at the foot of the steps.

A young man jumped out--a man whom neither Rose nor Herrick had ever seen before--and, rus.h.i.+ng up the steps, looked wildly round him.

"Where is she?" he demanded loudly. "Where is she?"

"To whom do you allude?" asked Owen coldly, his fastidious soul revolted by the spectacle which the young man presented. Dowson was hatless, dishevelled. In his agony of mind at Toni's departure he had torn his collar apart, feeling himself choking, and during the drive to Greenriver he had rumpled his hair so wildly that it stood up in mad disorder over his head. His face was dusty, the mist had soaked his clothes till they clung tightly to his narrow frame, and about his whole figure there was an air of unkempt desolation which was unattractive in the extreme.

"I allude to Toni--your wife, if you like to call her that." The unfortunate young man was distraught between disappointment and anxiety.

"Where is she? Has she come home after all?"

"My wife?" Owen raised his eyebrows superciliously. "My good man, what are you talking about? If you know anything about Mrs. Rose be kind enough to tell us at once what it is, but please remember she is not Toni--to you."

"Oh, isn't she?" Beneath the weight of conflicting emotions Mr. Dowson was losing his head. "Well, she was going to be, that's all. She came away with me to-night of her own free will ... and we wore going to cross to Paris, and then ... oh, I don't know what then, but anyway she was going to stay with me, and when you had divorced her----"

"Divorced her?" Owen uttered the words in so ferocious a tone that the young man fell back a pace. "What the devil do you mean by making a suggestion of that sort? And why in G.o.d's name should I divorce my wife--for you?"

The scorn with which he spoke the last two words drove Leonard Dowson to frenzy.

"Why? Why not? You never loved her--you never knew how to treat her. You made her miserable, you let her see you thought her inferior to you, not good enough for you ... you wouldn't dismiss that woman you had to help you though you knew To--your wife hated her...."

He was las.h.i.+ng himself to greater and greater fury at the thought of Toni's sufferings.

"Even when you'd made her so wretched that she was ready to die, she still thought of you. She knew I loved her as she deserved to be loved, and she was coming away with me, not because she loved me, but because she thought by leaving you she'd set you free--free to divorce her, to cast her off, to marry someone else, for all I know--some lady whom you'd perhaps be pleased to call your equal."

Beneath his savage indictment even Owen stood dumb. There is always something electrifying about absolute sincerity, and no one, listening, could possibly doubt that the man was speaking from the very depth of his soul.

As he stood panting, glaring at Owen with hatred in his eyes, Herrick stepped forward with a question.

"Excuse me, sir"--neither of them knew, as yet, the name of the visitor--"may I ask how you became possessed of all this information? I am perfectly sure that Mrs. Rose herself has not been your informant, but I fail to see----in the first place, may we ask your name?"

"My name is Dowson, Leonard Dowson." He spoke defiantly. "And as to who told me, well, it doesn't much matter, that I can see, but it was a friend of--of Mrs. Rose." He dared not again call her "Toni."

"A friend?" In one sickening flash of intuition, Herrick knew who had been Toni's evil genius. He stopped short, physically incapable of questioning further; but Owen had no such scruples.

"Who is this--friend?" He could not help the sneer; and Herrick paled in the lamplight, fearing yet powerless to avert the answer.

"I don't suppose it matters telling you." Dowson paused. "It was Mrs.

Herrick--Mrs. Rose's best friend--who told me; and she swore that every word was true."

There was a short, tense silence; and Andrews, who had been hovering unnoticed in the background, suddenly dived through the baize door and disappeared, as one who feels his presence an intrusion.

"So it was Mrs. Herrick who gave you this precious information." Owen, very pale, turned to Herrick. "Herrick, I won't insult your wife by asking if this is true. It's a lie, of course. Mrs. Herrick is a friend of my wife's. She would never play such a treacherous, underhand part----"

"I ... I don't know what to say...."

"No, I should think you don't." Dowson spoke vehemently. "You know it was she who put me up to it all along. She said Mrs. Rose had owned to being--well, fond of me in her way, though of course she put her husband first. But she told me I had a chance, that if I'd offer to take Mrs.

Rose away she'd come ... oh, she convinced me fast enough. I daresay I was a fool, but I couldn't bear to stand by and say nothing when by taking her away----"

He stopped suddenly. Owen had made a threatening step forward.

"Look here"--Owen's voice was choked with rage--"stop talking all that rot, and tell me what you've done with my wife. First, of all, where is she?"

"How can I tell you when I don't know?" retorted the young man almost rudely. "She came away with me right enough, and then we had an accident to the car--a tyre burst--and we went into a hotel at Stratton to wait for it to be repaired. I went to the post-office to send a telegram, and when I came back she'd gone."

"Gone--where?"

"Oh, aren't I telling you I don't know?" In his excitement the young dentist's refinement fell away from him, showing the rough human man beneath. "She slipped out soon's my back was turned--left a sc.r.a.p of paper saying she couldn't go on with me--and that's all I know."

"But she must have left some traces."

"She left her dressing-bag, if that's anything," said Dowson gloomily.

"It's in the car outside. I thought at least she'd have come back here, and I had to come on to make sure. I"--for a second his rough voice softened--"I had to be certain she was safe."

"Well, she isn't here." Owen spoke harshly. "You were very ready to take her away, with your d.a.m.ned philanderings and what not, but you might at least have looked after her. Where is she? Good G.o.d, man, you're not only a blackguard and a thief--you're a d.a.m.ned fool as well!"

"I may be a fool, but I'm not a blackguard!" Mr. Dowson's eyes blazed in his pallid face. "_I_ didn't marry the girl and then neglect her--_I_ didn't win her love and then throw it aside as of no importance--_I_ didn't break her heart with my sneers and coldness, as you did. You may be her husband and I'm only a man who loves her, but I'll guarantee I'd have known how to treat her a million times better than you ever did."

The two men glared at one another furiously; and for a moment Herrick feared Owen was about to strike the man who defied him. Owen's face was convulsed with rage, his eyes looked almost black, and a vein in his temple hammered madly.

Herrick stepped forward hastily.

"I say, excuse me reminding you that this is not the time for recriminations. Mrs. Rose has not returned, and the thing to do now is to set all possible inquiries on foot. You agree with me, Rose?"

Owen turned to him, the pa.s.sion dying out of his face, leaving only a great weariness and a great dread.

"You are right. We must find Toni. But how?"

"Well, we'd better make inquiries at Stratton first. You are on the 'phone? Good. Well, we will ring up the railway station, and the hotels.

Mrs. Rose may have gone to one of them for the night. And we could try the garages. Possibly she will hire a car to bring her home."

"Yes. And I'll order out the car and try the roads myself." Owen looked suddenly alert. "If she should be attempting to walk home, or anything of that sort, I should pick her up."

"Yes. And I should give orders to the servants to have everything ready for Mrs. Rose--food, and fires, and things, when she returns. She'll be chilled to the bone with this mist."

"Yes. I'll do it at once. I'll go and get on the 'phone, if you'll be so good as to ring for the servants. I'll order a fire in her room, and a little supper."

He turned away, full of hope now that there was something to be done; and Herrick was following him, when Dowson, who had been temporarily forgotten, a.s.serted his presence.

"And what am I to do while you're searching for her?" His rage had died away, and he looked the picture of dejection. "Can't I do anything?

I--you know I'd die for Toni--for Mrs. Rose. Can't you suggest something for me to be doing?"

Owen turned on him fiercely.

"_You?_ You've done enough harm for one night. Suppose you take yourself off--we've seen all we want of you, I a.s.sure you."

"But----"