第43章 The Other Side of the Wall(3)

"Carmichael,"he said,"I MUST find her.If she is alive,she is somewhere.If she is friendless and penniless,it is through my fault.How is a man to get back his nerve with a thing like that on his mind?This sudden change of luck at the mines has made realities of all our most fantastic dreams,and poor Crewe's child may be begging in the street!"

"No,no,"said Carmichael."Try to be calm.Console yourself with the fact that when she is found you have a fortune to hand over to her."

"Why was I not man enough to stand my ground when things looked black?"

Carrisford groaned in petulant misery."I believe I should have stood my ground if I had not been responsible for other people's money as well as my own.Poor Crewe had put into the scheme every penny that he owned.He trusted me--he LOVED me.And he died thinking I had ruined him--I--Tom Carrisford,who played cricket at Eton with him.What a villain he must have thought me!"

"Don't reproach yourself so bitterly."

"I don't reproach myself because the speculation threatened to fail--I reproach myself for losing my courage.I ran away like a swindler and a thief,because I could not face my best friend and tell him I had ruined him and his child."

The good-hearted father of the Large Family put his hand on his shoulder comfortingly.

"You ran away because your brain had given way under the strain of mental torture,"he said."You were half delirious already.

If you had not been you would have stayed and fought it out.

You were in a hospital,strapped down in bed,raving with brain fever,two days after you left the place.Remember that."

Carrisford dropped his forehead in his hands.

"Good God!Yes,"he said."I was driven mad with dread and horror.

I had not slept for weeks.The night I staggered out of my house all the air seemed full of hideous things mocking and mouthing at me."

"That is explanation enough in itself,"said Mr.Carmichael.

"How could a man on the verge of brain fever judge sanely!"

Carrisford shook his drooping head.

"And when I returned to consciousness poor Crewe was dead--and buried.

And I seemed to remember nothing.I did not remember the child for months and months.Even when I began to recall her existence everything seemed in a sort of haze."

He stopped a moment and rubbed his forehead."It sometimes seems so now when I try to remember.Surely I must sometime have heard Crewe speak of the school she was sent to.Don't you think so?"

"He might not have spoken of it definitely.You never seem even to have heard her real name."

"He used to call her by an odd pet name he had invented.

He called her his `Little Missus.'But the wretched mines drove everything else out of our heads.We talked of nothing else.

If he spoke of the school,I forgot--I forgot.And now I shall never remember."

"Come,come,"said Carmichael."We shall find her yet.We will continue to search for Madame Pascal's good-natured Russians.

She seemed to have a vague idea that they lived in Moscow.

We will take that as a clue.I will go to Moscow."

"If I were able to travel,I would go with you,"said Carrisford;

"but I can only sit here wrapped in furs and stare at the fire.

And when I look into it I seem to see Crewe's gay young face gazing back at me.He looks as if he were asking me a question.

Sometimes I dream of him at night,and he always stands before me and asks the same question in words.Can you guess what he says,Carmichael?"

Mr.Carmichael answered him in a rather low voice.

"Not exactly,"he said.

"He always says,`Tom,old man--Tom--where is the Little Missus?'"

He caught at Carmichael's hand and clung to it."I must be able to answer him--I must!"he said."Help me to find her.Help me."

On the other side of the wall Sara was sitting in her garret talking to Melchisedec,who had come out for his evening meal.

"It has been hard to be a princess today,Melchisedec,"she said.

"It has been harder than usual.It gets harder as the weather grows colder and the streets get more sloppy.When Lavinia laughed at my muddy skirt as I passed her in the hall,I thought of something to say all in a flash--and I only just stopped myself in time.

You can't sneer back at people like that--if you are a princess.

But you have to bite your tongue to hold yourself in.I bit mine.

It was a cold afternoon,Melchisedec.And it's a cold night."

Quite suddenly she put her black head down in her arms,as she often did when she was alone.

"Oh,papa,"she whispered,"what a long time it seems since I was your `Little Missus'!"

This was what happened that day on both sides of the wall.