For some time after this disappearance of Violet, David needed the focusing of all his manhood to set himself to work. His feeling was that nothing is worth while. He wished to sit in his easy-chair, stare, and be vaguely conscious of the coming and going of his charwoman. An old Londoner now, he no longer heard the roar, nor stifled at the smoke of that torrent that goes up forever. He could have sat over his fire in a sort of abstract state, without thought, hope, or care, for days. If he took up the pen he groaned; but he did take it up, and it proved medicinal. Little by little he acquired tone.

Meantime, he would often re-read the note which had had so powerful an effect on him, until one day, in the ripening of his mind, the thought rose in him: “There’s something queer here. She must have been very agitated when she wrote this!”

Then he began to think that it was not quite like Violet’s writing. Presently hope, energy, action burst into blossom afresh within him. Suppose, he thought, that the whole business was somehow a trick of that man? Suppose that she was in London all the time? He wrote to her at Porchester Gardens that day, but received no answer. Van Hupfeldt had given orders that all letters for the Mordaunts should be sent to him, nor did he send on David’s letter to Violet, for he knew David’s writing. Moreover, he had warned the proprietors at Porchester Gardens that a certain man, who was likely to make himself troublesome to the Mordaunts, might present himself there in the hope of learning their address in the country, in view of which they had better give the address to no one.

Now, at David’s only meeting with Violet at the grave, she had mentioned to him her country address, but, having heard it only once and that heedlessly, when his brain was full of new notions, it had so far passed out of his mind in the course of time that all that he could remember of it was that it was in Warwickshire. Nor could any racking of his brains bring back more of it than the name of the county. After some days he betook himself to Porchester Gardens.

“Is Mrs. Mordaunt at home?” he asked.

“No,” was the answer, “she isn’t staying here now. She is in the country.”

That much, then, of the note found on the grave was true.

“When did she go?” he asked.

“Last Tuesday week,” was the answer.

The note was true!

“I have written Miss Mordaunt a letter,” said David, “telling her that I have in my possession something which I know that she would like to have, and have received no answer. I suppose you forward her letters on to her?”

“Yes; we send them to a gentleman who forwards them on.”

“Ah? What gentleman is that?”

“A Mr. Van Hupfeldt.”

“I see. But can you give me Mrs. Mordaunt’s address?”

“We are not to give it; but any letters will be sent on.”

“Through Mr. Van Hupfeldt?”

“Yes.”

“But suppose I send you one with a cross on the envelope, would you do me the special favor to send that one on direct, not through Mr. Van Hupfeldt?”

“We have instructions as to the Mordaunts’ letters,” said the landlady, “and, of course, we follow them.”

“Well, but you seem very inflexible, especially as I tell you—”

“Can’t help that, sir. We were told that you would be turning up, and I give you the answer which I was directed to give. It is quite useless to come here making any request as to the Mordaunts.”

David went away discomforted. There remained to him one hope—Dibbin. He ran round to Dibbin’s and asked for the address.

“I’m afraid I’m hardly authorized to do that,” answered the agent, to whom such appeals were matters of every-day business.

“Do be reasonable,” urged David. “Miss Mordaunt herself gave me her address, only I have let it slip out of my mind.”

Dibbin shook his head like an emblem of doubt. “Of course,” he said, “I shall be happy to send on anything which you commit to me.”

“Direct?” asked David, “or through Van Hupfeldt?”

“Direct, of course,” answered Dibbin. “I have no sort of instructions with respect to Mr. Van Hupfeldt.”

“Have you ever seen him, Dibbin?”

“Never.”

“Don’t happen to know his address?”

“No; I merely knew his name quite lately by repute as that of a man of wealth about town, and as an acquaintance of the Mordaunts.”

“‘Acquaintance’ is good, as a phrase,” David could not help blurting out. “Well, I have something belonging to Miss Mordaunt, and will send you a letter to forward.”

That day the letter was written and sent, a stiff-stark little missive, informing Miss Mordaunt that Mr. Harcourt had duly received the note left on the grave, and had once before written her to say so, as well as to tell her that he had in his possession a book which he believed to be the diary of her sister. He did not care to send it her through another, but would at once forward it on receiving a line from her.

After two days came an answer: Miss Mordaunt thanked Mr. Harcourt extremely for his pains, and would be glad to receive the book to which he referred at “the above address,” that address being: “The Cedars, Birdlip, Gloucestershire.”

David actually had the diary wrapped up to send to this address. Then he paused. The handwriting of the note was not quite like that of the note in which she had made the appointment with him at the grave. It was rather like the writing of the note which he had found with the wreath—not quite, perhaps, the same. And then again the address which she had given him by word of mouth that first evening at Kensal Green was in Warwickshire. He remembered that much, beyond doubt. Was she, then, spending some time with friends at “The Cedars” in—Gloucestershire? He thought that it might be a good thing, before sending the diary, if he took a run down into Gloucestershire to make sure that she was really there.

This he did the next day, and found that “The Cedars” was a mansion two miles from the village of Birdlip, old, somewhat dismantled, shut up, occupied only by a few retainers. No Violet was there.

He learned at one of the village taverns that the place was the property of Van Hupfeldt. He took the diary back to London with him that same night.

What seemed certain to him now was that Van Hupfeldt himself or some agent of Van Hupfeldt’s must be in the Mordaunts’ house, and that this letter sent through Dibbin had never reached Violet. So again he was cut off from her. Not one word could he speak to her. He craved only for one small word. When that marriage of hers with Van Hupfeldt was to take place he did not know; but he felt that it might be soon. He had taken upon himself to say to her that it should never be, and not one word could he utter to prevent it. He had forgotten, and his brain would not give up its dead. He beat his brow upon his dining-room table where his head had dropped wearily on his coming home that early morning from the country.

To go to her, to tell her all, to stop the indecent marriage, to cast himself at her feet, and call upon her pity for his passionate youth—this impulse drove him; but he could not stir a step. A great “No” bewitched him. His straining was against ropes of steel. Half-thoughts, half-inventions of every impossible kind passed like smoke through his mind, and went away, and came wearily again. The only one of any likelihood was the thought of kneeling to Dibbin, of telling him that Van Hupfeldt was probably Strauss, and beseeching him for the Mordaunts’ sake to give the address. But he had not the least faith in the success of such a thing. To that dried man, fossilized all through, incrusted in agency, anything that implied a new departure, a new point of view, was a thing impossible. His shake of the head was as stubborn a fact in nature as any Andes. There was only the diary left—the diary might contain the address!

David did not wish to open those locked thoughts. He had hardly the right, but, after a whole day spent in eying the book, he laughed wildly and decided. It was a question of life, of several lives. He put the book to his lips, with a kiss of desperation, inhaling its faded scent of violets.

At once he rushed out with it to a tradesman skilled in locks, and was surprised at the ease with which the man shot back the tiny lever with a bit of twisted wire.

“I can make you a key by the morning,” said the man, squinting into the lock, and listening to its action as he turned the wire in his fingers. “It is a simple mechanism with two wards. Meantime, here it is, opened.”

He refused even to be paid for “so slight a thing.” David handed him a cigar—and ran; and was soon deep in it. The first passage thrilled him as with solemn music:

Then references to life in a hotel, not named, and the good-natured scrutiny of strangers “who knew us at once as a newly-married couple, though we tried to be offhand to each other.”

Later she described the beginning of housekeeping in London, “where all is so strange”; then a few phrases which sighed.

After some days there was a darker mood:

Then, some four months after marriage:

Harry away a whole week now. Telegram from Paris: “Cannot leave Mrs. S. for some time yet.” He is glad that I have decided to give up the stage without delay. So soon, so soon! I am glad, too, for some reasons, and sorry for others. Is not that life in a few words?...

It is strange that I should regret the passing of the stage, now that it becomes a necessity. There I found companionship, of a sort. I shall be so lonely. But not for long. Harry returns next week, “on the 10th” his second message says, and then I think really that I must begin to insist upon seeing my mother. He can hardly refuse now. To meet her again! though our eyes will be flooded with tears. And Vi! dear, dear Vi! Will she be eager to hear all about it? But the reproach in her eyes! What did she think when she opened that letter of mine? How she would weep over her old flighty Gwen! Oh, darling mother, and sweet, ever-forgiving sister, how I long to hold you in my arms! If Harry only knew you he would surely trust you, and then I would not care if the publication of the marriage was delayed another year.