CHAPTER XII.

RECOGNITION.

Three days after Mr. Van Duren's little birthday dinner at Greenwich, the following advertisement appeared in the second column of the _Times_:--

"_Albatross_.--Should this meet the eye of any person or persons who happened to be on board the schooner _Albatross_ when she foundered off Marhyddoc Bay on the 18th Oct., 18--, they may hear of something to their advantage, by applying to Messrs. Reed and Reed, Solicitors, Bedford Row, London."

This advertisement was repeated every other day for three weeks. At the end of that time there came a response.

As it happened, Van Duren never saw the advertisement, and there was no one to show it to him; no one who knew what a terrible fascination such an announcement would have had for him. His newspaper reading was generally confined to the money article, the City intelligence, and the latest telegrams. For miscellaneous news and leading articles he cared little Or nothing.

Now that everything had been got out of Max Van Duren that could be got out of him, the motive that had induced Miriam Byrne to play the part she had played existed no longer; and although it was needful that appearances should still be kept up, there was no longer the same strain upon her. While keeping Van Duren at arm's length, and permitting no lover-like familiarities, on the ground that as yet he was only accepted on probation, it would not have been wise, having an eye to future eventualities, to repel him too rigidly, or to have run the risk of frightening him away. He must be so kept in hand that a little coaxing--a smile, a look, a whispered word--could always lure him to her side. He would fain have been twice as loving, twice as assiduous in his attentions, as Miriam would allow him to be. "Wait," she would say, "wait till I have made up my mind, and then----!" a look would finish the sentence, a look which seemed to say, "You know very well that I shall end by accepting you, and then I won't object to your kissing me, or perhaps to kissing you in return." That, at least, was Van Duren's interpretation of it.

During the time that the advertisement was appearing every other day, Byrne seized the opportunity for obtaining a little rest and change. He and Miriam went back for a week to their old lodgings in Battersea, which they had not yet given up. Van Duren believed that they were going to the seaside, but could not discover the particular place for which they were bound. Miriam put the case to him playfully.

"No, I shall not tell you where we are going," she said, with a smile, "because that would be merely offering you a premium to run down and spend the end of week with us. I am going to leave you for seven long days. You will not know where I am, and I shall not write to you. I am going to test you--I am going to see whether you will like me as well when I come back as you do now."

"You should try me for seven years instead of seven days," said Van Duren, fervently.

"Suppose I take you at your word, and stay away for seven years," said Miriam, with a mischievous sparkle in her eye.

"Like a knight of old, I should start in quest of you long before that time was at an end; I should search for you till I found you in your hidden bower, and then I should seize you, and carry you away with me, whether you liked it or no."

"Yes, and while you were riding off with me as fast as you could go, I should be slily searching for a joint in your armour, and when I had found it, I should stab you to the heart with my silver bodkin. What a romance it would be!"

"Especially for the poor fellow who was stabbed."

"He would live in song and story ever after, and that would be far more fame than he would deserve."

At the end of a week Miriam and her father found themselves back in Spur Alley, and three days later there came a response to the advertisement. Messrs. Reed and Reed were called upon by two men who professed to have been on board the _Albatross_ at the time she foundered. One of these men was Paul Morrell, the mate of the ill-fated schooner; the other one was Carl Momsen, an ordinary seaman. An appointment was made for the following day, when Mr. Byrne came in person to examine them. A private room was set apart for the interview, and one of Messrs. Reed's shorthand clerks was there to take notes. The men were examined separately, and out of each other's hearing, but the evidence elicited from one was almost an exact counterpart of the evidence elicited from the other. The evidence of both of them may be summarized as follows:--

The _Albatross_ sailed from Liverpool for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 17th October, 18--. She was not in the habit of carrying passengers, but on this particular occasion there was one passenger on board her who was said to be a friend of the owner. He was a foreigner, but spoke very good English. He had sandy-coloured hair, and wore small gold rings in his ears. Neither of the men knew his name. The _Albatross_ was caught in a gale off the mouth of the Mersey. Next morning she sprung a leak, and a little while after the schooner's head was put about for Marhyddoc Bay. Outside the bay the vessel foundered, and the crew had barely time to take to the boats before she went down. At the last moment the man with the earrings brought up out of his cabin what looked like a small portmanteau, it being covered with leather, but which he called a box. This box he wanted to take with him in the boat, but as the men had orders to take off and leave behind them all superfluous clothing, and as it was the merest chance whether even then the boat would not be swamped, it was quite evident that the box must be left behind. The man entreated and stormed, and offered a reward of five hundred pounds to any one who would take his box ashore. But life is sweeter than five hundred pounds, and the box had to be left behind. The man raved like a maniac about the loss, but an hour or two after reaching shore he disappeared, and neither Morrell nor Momsen either saw or heard anything of him from that day forward.

After the examination was over, Morrell, as being the more intelligent of the two men, was asked whether he thought it possible that if he were to see the passenger of the Albatross he could recognise him again.

After so long a time it seemed very doubtful to him whether he could do so, he said, but he would be happy to try.

Accordingly, next day, while Van Duren was dining at his usual tavern, Morrell was instructed to walk into the room and call for some dinner, and see whether he could pick his man out of the assembled company.

About an hour later he rejoined Byrne in a private room of another tavern close at hand.

"I picked him out in a moment, sir," said the ex-mate. "Yes, the very moment I set eyes on him I knew him again. He's stouter and older looking, of course, and he's close-shaved now, and wears no earrings; but, for all that, he's the same man."

"I think you told me the other day," said Byrne, "that you had nothing very particular to do just now?"

"Yes, sir, I did. I only got back from China a few weeks since, and, as I am getting on in life, it's just a toss up with me whether I shall go to sea again or settle down ashore for the rest of my days."

"Then you will have no objection to enter my service for a little while?"

"None whatever, sir."

"On Wednesday morning next I shall want you to go down from Euston Station to Marhyddoc, and there make certain inquiries for me."

"Nothing could please me better, sir. I've had plenty of travelling by water: a little travelling by land will make a pleasant change."

"Then meet me here on Tuesday evening at seven, and I will give you your instructions."

Before proceeding further, Byrne thought that he had better put Ambrose Murray in possession of what he had done since their last meeting, and seek his sanction to the steps he proposed taking next. Byrne accordingly sought Murray out at his lodgings, and the two men had a long consultation. Gerald, unfortunately, was at Stammars just then, and could not be present.

"Everything now hinges upon the result of Morrell's inquiries at Marhyddoc," said Byrne. "Should the report he will bring back with him prove a favourable one, then we may consider ourselves fortunate indeed--then we may take it that the best or worst will soon be known to us. But should the result of his inquiries prove unfavourable to our hopes, then all that we have done--all my toiling and scheming, all the expense you have been put to--will have been next to useless. Van Duren's guilt as the murderer of Paul Stilling may have been morally proved to the satisfaction of you and me and one or two others, but that would be of no avail whatever in proving your innocence and in bringing home the crime to him. Unless we can wrest from the sea the terrible secret which it has hidden so carefully all these years, the guilt of Van Duren will remain unproved for ever. Beyond the point now reached by us it is impossible to advance a single step till we shall have made that secret our own."

"The sea has only been keeping its secret all these years that it might yield it up when the time should be ripe for me to ask for it. That time has now come. I ask for it, and I shall have it. Have no fear, my good friend, no fear whatever. Guided by an unseen hand, we have threaded a labyrinth from which at first there seemed no possible outlet; and now that we have reached the gate, and are bidden to look for the key, can you doubt that it is there for the searching--can you doubt that we shall find it?"

"Cracked, to a certainty," muttered Byrne to himself, as he left the house. "And no wonder either, poor fellow, when one remembers all that he has had to go through."

Morrell went down to Wales in due course, and in due course he returned. His report to Byrne was of such a nature that the latter could not conceal his exultation. "We shall have him yet!" he exclaimed, much to the ex-mate's astonishment. "He has escaped for twenty long years, but the hangman's fingers shall unbutton his collar before he is six months older."

Then he went and saw Murray again, and it was arranged that they two, together with Gerald, if possible, should go down to Marhyddoc as soon as certain necessary preparations which would have to be made in London should be completed. Morrell, too, was to form one of the party.

When Byrne and Miriam got back to their rooms in Spur Alley, Van Duren could not conceal his exultation at seeing them under his roof again. His time of probation would soon be at an end now: Miriam would soon have to make up her mind to the utterance of a definite "Yes," or "No." Now that she had come back, she seemed more kind and gracious to him than before, from which fact he did not fail to draw an augury that was favourable to his own wishes.

Ambrose Murray had his little portmanteau packed ready for the journey to Wales several days before the other preparations could possibly be completed. Miss Bellamy had never seen him so elated before. He went about the house singing to himself in an under-tone, or whistling snatches of old tunes that had been popular when he was a boy. That cloud of quiet melancholy, which would sometimes oppress him for days together, without a break in its dulness, had all but vanished, leaving but a shadow of its former self behind. Miss Bellamy had asked him several times to go and have his portrait taken, but up to the present he had always declined to do so. One fine day, however, after the journey to Wales had been decided on, he astonished her by telling her that if she would go and be photographed he would follow her example.

"First of all, Maria, you shall be photographed by yourself," he said, "and then I'll be photographed by myself; and after that, what do you say to our being photographed together, eh? Such old friends as you and I are ought to be photographed together. But, above all things, Maria, don't forget to be taken with your locket."

This latter remark was a sly hit at the large, old-fashioned locket which Miss Bellamy wore round her neck on high days and holidays--at such times, in fact, as she wore her silver grey dress and her company cap, but at no other. Ambrose Murray could remember Miss Bellamy wearing this locket when she was a girl of nineteen, and she wore it still. He often joked her about it, and would offer to wager anything that if she would only let him have a peep inside it he should find there the portrait of a certain handsome cornet of dragoons, with whom, according to his account, she had at one time a desperate flirtation. But he never had seen inside the locket, and Miss Bellamy was quite sure that he never would do so with her consent; for within that old-fashioned piece of jewellery was shut up the cherished secret of Miss Bellamy's life. Ambrose Murray's laughing assertion that in it was hidden the portrait of a man was so far true, but the likeness was not that of any young cornet of dragoons, but that of Ambrose Murray himself--of Ambrose Murray at two-and-twenty, with brown hair, and laughing eyes, and no care in the world beyond that of making up his mind which one out of a bevy of pretty girls he was most in love with. He fell in love, not with Miss Bellamy, but with her friend, and Miss Bellamy's secret remained buried for ever in her own heart. With the portrait were shut up two locks of hair: one lock was of a light golden brown colour, the other was white.

"There is room for another portrait," said Miss Bellamy to herself, with a sigh, when Ambrose Murray proposed going to the photographer's, "and then it will be full." She had left orders in her will that the locket should be buried with her. How her heart fluttered, how the unwonted colour rushed to her face, when Ambrose proposed that they should be photographed together! Years had no power to weaken or alter her love, but she would have died rather than let Murray suspect for a moment the existence of any such feeling on her part. He knew it not, but it was a fact that, with the exception of a few trifling legacies, all her little property was bequeathed to him, or, in event of his prior demise, to Eleanor. In her secret heart she could not help dreading a little the coming of that time when father and daughter should learn to know and love each other. She must then, of necessity, fall into the background; she must then, of necessity, sink into little more than a mere cypher in the sum of Ambrose Murray's existence. Had Eleanor been a daughter of her own she could hardly have loved her better, and she told herself, times without number, that to see the girl and her father happy in each other's love ought to be sufficient reward for any one who thought of others more than herself. And ought she not to study the happiness of these two, both of whom were so dear to her, rather than her own selfish feelings?

However sharp the pang might be, whatever the cost to herself might be, she would so study it--she would do her best to bring them together.

That time when Ambrose Murray was, as it were, living under the same roof with her, was a very happy time for Miss Bellamy. Murray himself did not seem to know, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that he never thought how greatly he was indebted to her. Beyond a flying visit now and then from Gerald, he had no society save that of Miss Bellamy, and of the children of the two houses in which he and she had apartments. He almost invariably took tea and supper with Miss Bellamy, and spent his evenings with her, and made, besides, almost as free a use of her sitting-room as of his own. He looked upon her, in fact, as he would have looked upon a sister to whom he was much attached, and that she regarded him in the light of a brother he was fully convinced.

An agreement had long ago been come to between Gerald and Miss Bellamy by which it was arranged that Ambrose Murray should be relieved from all pecuniary cares and liabilities. No one ever presented him with a bill for the rent of his apartments. The servant would ask him what he would have for breakfast or dinner, and whatever he might order was there for him ready to the minute, but no butcher or baker ever vexed his soul with unpaid accounts. Now and then he would find a sovereign in some odd place or other--in his razor-case, inside one of his gloves, or in the folds of his Sunday cravat. He would pick up the coin, look at it curiously for a moment or two, wondering how he could possibly have been so absent-minded as to leave money there, and then put it quietly into his pocket and think no more about it.

A brief telegram from Byrne reached Ambrose Murray one afternoon:--

"Preparations completed. Shall be ready to start from Euston Square at nine o'clock on Saturday morning. Shall expect to find you on platform, unless I hear from you in course of to-day."

He was so fluttered by the receipt of this telegram that he could not eat any dinner. He at once sat down and wrote a note to Gerald, enclosing the telegram, and begging of him, if he could possibly do so, to join him in Wales early in the ensuing week. Then he said to himself, "I must write to Mary before I go. I feel sure that she is expecting a letter from me. But first the boat must be finished."

In a back room he had fixed up a lathe, and a small joiner's bench, at which he occasionally amused himself. There were various kinds of useless knick-knacks that he could manufacture with some degree of skill, and the toys of half the children in the neighbourhood were mended at his bench. As soon as he had sent off his letter to Gerald, he shut himself up in his little workshop, and set to work busily to finish a little toy boat, which was half done already. It was a very small affair--a child's boat, in fact, cut out of a block of wood, and not more than a couple of feet in length. He worked at it till late that evening, and by noon next day it was finished to his satisfaction. Then he slept for an hour, and then he sat down to write his letter. This is what he wrote:--

"My Darling Mary,

"I had a very strange dream the other night. I dreamt that I had written you a letter, and that when I had sealed it up I put it in a little boat, and let the boat and the letter float down the river with the tide. And in my dream I seemed to watch the boat till it got far out to sea, beyond the sight of any land. Then all at once the clouds gathered, till the black edges of one of them seemed to touch the sea, and then from cloud and sea together there was formed a huge waterspout, that presently drew to itself and sucked up my boat and letter. And when they vanished, the waterspout vanished also, and presently the clouds broke away, and in the heavens one splendid star was shining, which seemed to me as a token that you had received my letter.

"My darling, I have translated this dream as a message from you, telling me what I ought to do. Very often of late your face has appeared to me in my dreams; but when I have tried to speak to you, an invisible finger seemed to be laid on my lips, and my heart could only yearn dumbly towards you. But now you have shown me a way by means of which a message may reach you--for from you alone that dream could come. The boat is ready, and the midnight tide will take it down to the sea, and then at dawn of day the waterspout will come and lift my letter up into the clouds; but of what will follow after I know nothing.

"My darling, day by day the time of our separation grows shorter; soon shall we see each other again, and all these long years of waiting and trouble will seem but as a dim vision of the night, fading and vanishing utterly in the bright dawn of an everlasting day. The purpose that has held me and chained me to this life for so, long a time is now near its fulfilment, and after that I feel and know that I shall not be long before I join you. Soon the time will be here when I can tell everything to our child--our child, Mary! whom I have never seen since she lay an infant in your arms. Very precious will her love be to me, but not so precious as yours. I shall stay with her a little while, I shall tell her all about the mother whom she cannot remember, and then I shall go to you.

"To-morrow night, darling, you will come to me in my sleep, will you not? Then, when I see you, I shall take it as a token that you have had my letter.

"Soon I will write to you again--when the sea shall have given up the secret which it has hidden so carefully for twenty years. Till then, adieu.

"Your husband,

"Ambrose Murray."

This singular document Mr. Murray sealed up carefully, and then addressed it, "To my Wife in Heaven." Then leaving a message for Miss Bellamy, who happened to be out shopping, that he was going out for the evening, he took a hansom to London Bridge and started by the next train for Gravesend, taking the boat and letter with him. He had still some hours to wait; but at midnight, having made a previous arrangement with a boatman, he put off from the pier stairs, and was pulled slowly out to the middle of the black and silent river. A few stars could be seen overhead; now and then the moon shone down through a rift in the clouds. The whole scene was weird and ghostly. The tide was running down rapidly. A cold wind blew faintly across the river, as though it were the last chill breath of the dying day. They halted in mid-stream just as the clocks on shore began to strike twelve. Then Murray took his toy-boat out of its brown paper covering, and having firmly fixed his letter in it by means of a strip of wood intended for that purpose, he leaned over the side and placed it gently on the surface of the stream. On this point, at any rate, poor Murray was still insane.

"What are you after, master?" cried the boatman, whose suspicions were beginning to be aroused.

"I am sending a letter to my wife," answered Murray, as he lifted his hat for a moment. "See how swiftly it starts on its journey. And now I can see it no longer. But no harm will happen to it. How pleased my darling will be when she reads it!"

The boatman said no more, but thinking that he had got a crazy person to deal with, whose next act might be to jump into the river himself, he made all possible haste back to shore.

It happened, singularly enough, that on the Wednesday previous to the Saturday fixed on by Peter Byrne for the journey to Wales, Mr. Van Duren entered his room and announced to him and Miriam that he had been called suddenly from home on business of great importance. Byrne, as yet, had given no hint of any intention on his part to go out of town, and he now determined to say nothing about it till after Van Duren's departure.

"How long do you expect to be away, Mr. Van Duren?" asked Miriam, as she glanced at him out of her big black eyes.

"Four or five days, at the least, I am afraid," he said. "It is a source of great annoyance to me to be called away at this time, but unfortunately there is no way of avoiding it. You may depend upon my getting back as quickly as possible," he added, significantly.

"The house will seem very lonely and dull without you."

"I am afraid you flatter me," he replied, slowly. Then he suddenly drew his chair up to her side and took her hand in his. "Miriam," he said, "do you know that the time you asked for in order that you might be able to make up your mind is nearly at an end?"

"Yes, I suppose it is," said Miriam, in little more than a whisper.

"As soon as I return from the continent, I shall expect you to give me an answer."

She did not speak.

"If I only knew what the answer would be!"

She smiled, and gave him another glance out of her black eyes.

The colour mounted to his forehead.

"You won't keep me in suspense much longer?" he said. "You will let me know my fate, won't you, as soon as I come back?"

For the first time she bent her eyes on him fully and steadily. "Yes, Mr. Van Duren," she said, "you shall know your fate when you get back from the Continent."

Before she knew what he was about to do, he had seized her hand and pressed it passionately to his lips. She shuddered from head to foot as she withdrew it from his grasp. Bakewell knocked and entered. "Your hansom is at the door, sir, and you have only just time to catch the train."

Van Duren arose and made his adieux. "Your father still seems very weak and feeble," he said, in a low voice, to Miriam, as he stood for a moment at the door. "I am afraid that the warm weather has not done much to benefit him."

"Will anything in this world ever do much to benefit him," she answered. Then there was a last shake of the hand, and then she watched him go downstairs. As soon as she heard the front door clash she ran to the window, and waved him a last adieu as he was driven away. "Shall I ever see him again, I wonder?" she whispered to herself "I hope not."

"Farewell, Max Jacoby, otherwise Van Duren!" cried Byrne, as he took off his wig and flung it across the room. "When next we meet it will be under very different circumstances."

Pringle, as was usual whenever his master was from home, was left in special charge of the premises. At such times he slept in the house, and was waited upon by Bakewell and his wife. As it was necessary to give some sort of an intimation that they were going out of town, Byrne, on the Friday morning, sent Miriam downstairs to see Pringle, and tell him that they had suddenly made up their minds to take a holiday at the seaside for a week or two. Pringle was most affable and polite, and desired Miss Byrne to give his respects to her papa, and say how sincerely he hoped that the sea air might prove of benefit to him. At the same time, might he be permitted to ask for an address to which he could send any post letters that might happen to come for Mr. Byrne after his departure?

As Miriam had not mentioned the place to which they were going, this seemed only a fair question. However, she had an answer ready. She wrote down Miss Bellamy's address, to which place Pringle was requested to send all letters.

That same evening, between eight and nine, Miriam and her father went out for a little while to make a few final arrangements for their journey in the morning. They had hardly been gone five minutes when Pringle happened to find himself on the landing opposite the door of their sitting-room. On turning the handle the door was found to be unlocked and the gas only half turned down--signs that the inmates might be expected back before very long.

Leaving the door wide open, Pringle glided into the room. He was dying to know to what place Byrne and his daughter were going--in fact, he did not believe they were going to the seaside at all--and he thought that he might perhaps find a luggage label, or something else, in the room, that would reveal to him what he wanted to know.

One or two boxes, ready packed, were there, and on the table lay several loose labels, but, unfortunately for Pringle's purpose, they were still blank. Gliding quietly about the room, he next tried the different drawers and cupboards, hoping that in one or other of them he might find a clue of some kind to what he was so anxious to know, but all his searching proved of no avail. Suddenly he heard the street door open, and he had hardly time to get out of the room and round the corner of the next landing, before Miriam ran lightly up the stairs to fetch something that she had forgotten.

Later on in the evening, when Byrne and Miriam had got back home, Pringle sent Bakewell upstairs to ask at what time next morning they would like to have a cab in readiness.

"How long will it take to drive to Euston Square?" asked Miriam.

"A good half-hour, miss. Three-quarters, if you happen to meet with a block."

"At that rate an hour would be ample time. Will you kindly arrange to have a cab in readiness by nine o'clock?"

At five minutes past nine next morning, Mr. Byrne and his daughter, together with sundry boxes of luggage, drove away from Spur Alley in a four-wheeler for Euston Square. Three minutes later Pringle was following on their heels in a hansom. He had timed himself to arrive at the station within two minutes of those whom he was following. He alighted, and began to reconnoitre cautiously. It would not do to be seen by either father or daughter. Peeping round a corner of the entrance doors into the large hall, he there saw Miriam standing by the luggage, Byrne having in all probability gone to secure tickets. Pringle beckoned to a porter. "I'm from Scotland Yard," he whispered. "I want you to find out, without its being noticed, for what place those boxes are directed by which yonder young lady is standing."

"All right, sir--that's easily done," said the porter.

Three minutes later he came back to Pringle. "The boxes are labelled for Marhyddoc, in North Wales," he said. Pringle put down the name of the place in his note-book, gave the man a shilling, and took the next omnibus back to the City.

But he did not leave the station till he caught a glimpse of Byrne as he stood at the refreshment counter waiting for his travelling flask to be filled. But the Peter Byrne whom he now saw was a very different person from the decrepit, deaf old invalid of Spur Alley, The long white locks, the black velvet skull-cap, the hump on the left shoulder, and the feeble walk, had all disappeared in the cab, as if by magic, leaving behind them a brisk, pleasant-looking gentleman of middle age, who was speaking with the young person that was waiting upon him, and who seemed to have no difficulty whatever in hearing her replies.

"I thought as much," said Pringle, with a knowing shake of the head. "It's no more than I expected. I've known all along that the old boy and his daughter were up to some private little game of their own. Well, so long as it means no good to Van Duren and no harm to me, I'm not the man to spoil their sport. But what will Van Duren say when he gets back home and finds his birds flown? It don't matter: I hope to have flown too by that time."

END OF VOL. II.

______________________________________________ BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, SURREY.