In the meantime Tyrrel and Ethel had reached London and gone to the Metropole Hotel; because, as Ethel said, no one knew where Dora was; but if in England, she was likely to be at the Savoy. They were to be two days in London. Tyrrel had banking and other business to fully occupy the time, and Ethel remembered she had some shopping to do, a thing any woman would discover if she found herself in the neighborhood of Regent Street and Piccadilly. On the afternoon of the second day this duty was finished, and she returned to her hotel satisfied but a little weary. As she was going up the steps she noticed a woman coming slowly down them. It was Dora Mostyn. They met with great enthusiasm on Dora's part, and she turned back and went with Ethel to her room.
Ethel looked at her with astonishment. She was not like any Dora she had previously seen. Her beauty had developed wondrously, she had grown much taller, and her childish manner had been superseded by a carriage and air of superb grace and dignity. She had now a fine color, and her eyes were darker, softer, and more dreamy than ever.
"Take off your hat, Dora," said Ethel, "and tell me what has happened. You are positively splendid. Where is Mr. Mostyn?""I neither know nor care. He is tramping round the world after me, and I intend to keep him at it. But I forget. I must tell you how THAT has come about.""We heard from Mrs. Denning. She said she had received you safely.""My dear mother! She met me like an angel; comforted and cared for me, never said one word of blame, only kissed and pitied me. We talked things over, and she advised me to go to New York. So we took three passages under the names of Mrs. John Gifford, Miss Gifford, and Miss Diana Gifford.
Miss Diana was my maid, but mother thought a party of three would throw Mostyn off our track.""A very good idea."
"We sailed at once. On the second day out I had a son. The poor little fellow died in a few hours, and was buried at sea. But his birth has given me the power to repay to Fred Mostyn some of the misery he caused me.""How so? I do not see."
"Oh, you must see, if you will only remember how crazy Englishmen are about their sons. Daughters don't count, you know, but a son carries the property in the family name. He is its representative for the next generation. As I lay suffering and weeping, a fine scheme of revenge came clearly to me.
Listen! Soon after we got home mother cabled Mostyn's lawyer that `Mrs. Mostyn had had a son.' Nothing was said of the boy's death. Almost immediately I was notified that Mr. Mostyn would insist on the surrender of the child to his care. I took no notice of the letters. Then he sent his lawyer to claim the child and a woman to take care of it. I laughed them to scorn, and defied them to find the child. After them came Mostyn himself. He interviewed doctors, overlooked baptismal registers, advertised far and wide, bribed our servants, bearded father in his office, abused Bryce on the avenue, waylaid me in all my usual resorts, and bombarded me with letters, but he knows no more yet than the cable told him. And the man is becoming a monomaniac about HISSON."
"Are you doing right, Dora?"
"If you only knew how he had tortured me! Father and mother think he deserves all I can do to him. Anyway, he will have it to bear. If he goes to the asylum he threatened me with, I shall be barely satisfied. The `cat-faced woman' is getting her innings now.""Have you never spoken to him or written to him? Surely""He caught me one day as I came out of our house, and said, `Madam, where is my son?' And I answered, `You have no son.
The child WAS MINE. You shall never see his face in this world. I have taken good care of that.'
"`I will find him some day,' he said, and I laughed at him, and answered, `He is too cunningly hid. Do you think I would let the boy know he had such a father as you? No, indeed. Not unless there was property for the disgrace.' I touched him on the raw in that remark, and then I got into my carriage and told the coachman to drive quickly.
Mostyn attempted to follow me, but the whip lashing the horses was in the way." And Dora laughed, and the laugh was cruel and mocking and full of meaning.
"Dora, how can you? How can you find pleasure in such revenges,""I am having the greatest satisfaction of my life. And I am only beginning the just retribution, for my beauty is enthralling the man again, and he is on the road to a mad jealousy of me.""Why don't you get a divorce? This is a case for that remedy. He might then marry again, and you also.""Even so, I should still torment him. If he had sons he would be miserable in the thought that his unknown son might, on his death, take from them the precious Mostyn estate, and that wretched, old, haunted house of his. I am binding him to misery on every hand.""Is Mrs. Denning here with you?"
"Both my father and mother are with me.
Father is going to take a year's rest, and we shall visit Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Paris or wherever our fancy leads us.""And Mr. Mostyn?"
"He can follow me round, and see nobles and princes and kings pay court to the beauty of the `cat-faced woman.' I shall never notice him, never speak to him; but you need not look so suspicious, Ethel. Neither by word nor deed will I break a single convention of the strictest respectability.""Mr. Mostyn ought to give you your *******."
"I have given ******* to myself. I have already divorced him. When they brought my dead baby for me to kiss, I slipped into its little hand the ring that made me his mother. They went to the bottom of the sea together. As for ever marrying again, not in this life. I have had enough of it. My first husband was the sweetest saint out of heaven, and my second was some mean little demon that had sneaked his way out of hell;and I found both insupportable." She lifted her hat as she spoke, and began to pin it on her beautifully dressed hair. "Have no fear for me," she continued. "I am sure Basil watches over me. Some day I shall be good, and he will be happy." Then, hand in hand, they walked to the door together, and there were tears in both voices as they softly said "Good-by."
