第30章

How did she convey it there?She would not have intrusted it to Mrs.Barker.The idea struck him now as distastefully as it seemed improbable.Perhaps she had been here herself with her companion--the convent sometimes made that concession to a relative or well-known friend.He recalled the fact that he had seen Mrs.Barker enter the hotel alone,after the incident of the opening door,while he was leaning over the balustrade.It was SHE who was alone THEN,and had recognized his voice;and he had not known it.She was out again to-day with the procession.A sudden idea struck him.He glanced quickly at the letter in his hand,and hurriedly opened it.It contained only three lines,in a large formal hand,but they sent the swift blood to his cheeks.

"I heard your voice to-day for the third time.I want to hear it again.I will come at dusk.Do not go out until then."He sat stupefied.Was it madness,audacity,or a trick?He summoned the waiter.The letter had been left by a boy from the confectioner's shop in the next block.He remembered it of old,--a resort for the young ladies of the convent.Nothing was easier than conveying a letter in that way.He remembered with a shock of disillusion and disgust that it was a common device of silly but innocent assignation.Was he to be the ridiculous accomplice of a schoolgirl's extravagant escapade,or the deluded victim of some infamous plot of her infamous companion?He could not believe either;yet he could not check a certain revulsion of feeling towards her,which only a moment ago he would have believed impossible.

Yet whatever was her purpose,he must prevent her coming there at any hazard.Her visit would be the culmination of her folly,or the success of any plot.Even while he was fully conscious of the material effect of any scandal and exposure to her,even while he was incensed and disillusionized at her unexpected audacity,he was unusually stirred with the conviction that she was wronging herself,and that more than ever she demanded his help and his consideration.Still she must not come.But how was he to prevent her?It wanted but an hour of dusk.Even if he could again penetrate the convent on some pretext at that inaccessible hour for visitors,--twilight,--how could he communicate with her?He might intercept her on the way,and persuade her to return;but she must be kept from entering the hotel.

He seized his hat and rushed downstairs.But here another difficulty beset him.It was easy enough to take the ordinary road to the convent,but would SHE follow that public one in what must be a surreptitious escape?And might she not have eluded the procession that morning,and even now be concealed somewhere,waiting for the darkness to make her visit.He concluded to patrol the block next to the hotel,yet near enough to intercept her before she reached it,until the hour came.The time passed slowly.He loitered before shop windows,or entered and made purchases,with his eye on the street.The figure of a pretty girl,--and there were many,--the fluttering ribbons on a distant hat,or the flashing of a cambric skirt around the corner sent a nervous thrill through him.The reflection of his grave,abstracted face against a shop window,or the announcement of the workings of his own mine on a bulletin board,in its incongruity with his present occupation,gave him an hysterical impulse to laugh.The shadows were already gathering,when he saw a slender,graceful figure disappear in the confectioner's shop on the block below.In his elaborate precautions,he had overlooked that common trysting spot.He hurried thither,and entered.The object of his search was not there,and he was compelled to make a shamefaced,awkward survey of the tables in an inner refreshment saloon to satisfy himself.Any one of the pretty girls seated there might have been the one who had just entered,but none was the one he sought.He hurried into the street again,--he had wasted a precious moment,--and resumed his watch.The sun had sunk,the Angelus had rung out of a chapel belfry,and shadows were darkening the vista of the Alameda.She had not come.Perhaps she had thought better of it;perhaps she had been prevented;perhaps the whole appointment had been only a trick of some day-scholars,who were laughing at him behind some window.In proportion as he became convinced that she was not coming,he was conscious of a keen despair growing in his heart,and a sickening remorse that he had ever thought of preventing her.And when he at last reluctantly reentered the hotel,he was as miserable over the conviction that she was not coming as he had been at her expected arrival.The porter met him hurriedly in the hall.

"Sister Seraphina of the Sacred Heart has been here,in a hurry to see you on a matter of importance,"he said,eyeing Key somewhat curiously."She would not wait in the public parlor,as she said her business was confidential,so I have put her in a private sitting-room on your floor."Key felt the blood leave his cheeks.The secret was out for all his precaution.The Lady Superior had discovered the girl's flight,--or her attempt.One of the governing sisterhood was here to arraign him for it,or at least prevent an open scandal.Yet he was resolved;and seizing this last straw,he hurriedly mounted the stairs,determined to do battle at any risk for the girl's safety,and to perjure himself to any extent.