"But what do you think of it all?" said Denzil, eager for some comment.
"I'll tell you that," rejoined Jorce, "when you have heard the story of Mr. Vrain."
In a few minutes Lucian was led by his guide into a pleasant room, with French windows opening on to a wide verandah, and a sunny lawn set round with flowers.
Books were arranged on shelves round the walls, newspapers and magazines were on the table, and near the window, in a comfortable chair, sat an old man with a volume in his hand. As Jorce entered he stood up and shuffled forward with a senile smile of delight. Evidently—and with reason, poor soul—he considered the doctor his very good friend.
"Well, well!" said the cheery Jorce, "and how are you to-day, Mr. Vrain?"
"I feel very well," replied Vrain in a soft, weak voice. "Who is this, Doctor?"
"A young friend of mine, Mr. Vrain.
He wishes to hear your story."
"Alas! alas!" sighed Vrain, his eyes filling with tears, "a sad story, sir."
The father of Diana was of middle height, with white hair, and a long white beard which swept his chest.
On his cheek Lucian saw the cicatrice of which Diana had spoken, and mainly by which the dead man had been falsely identified as Vrain.
He was very like Clear in figure and manner; but, of course, the resemblance in the face was not very close, as Clear had been clean shaven, whereas the real Vrain wore a beard.
The eyes were dim and weak-looking, and altogether Lucian saw that Vrain was not fitted to battle with the world in any way, and quite weak enough to become the prey of villains, as had been his sad fate.
"My name is Mark Vrain, young sir," said he, beginning his story without further preamble. "I lived in Berwin Manor, Bath, with my wife Lydia, but she treated me badly by letting another man love her, and I left her.
Oh, yes, sir, I left her.
I went away to Salisbury, and was very happy there with my books, but, alas!
I took morph——"
"Vrain!" said Jorce, holding up his finger, "no!"
"Of course, of course," said the old man, with a watery smile, "I mean I was very happy there.
But Signor Ferruci, a black-hearted villain"—his face grew dark as he mentioned the name—"found me out and made me come with him to London.
He kept me there for months, and then he brought me here."
"Kept you where, Mr. Vrain?" asked Lucian gently.
The old man looked at him with a vacant eye.
"I don't know," he said in a dull voice.
"You came here from Bayswater," hinted Jorce.
"Yes, yes, Bayswater!" cried Vrain, growing excited. "I was there with a woman they called my wife.
She was not my wife!
My wife is fair, this woman was dark.
Her name was Maud Clear: my wife's name is Lydia."
"Did Mrs. Clear say you were her husband, Michael?"
"Yes.
She called me Michael Clear, and brought me to stay with the doctor.
But I am not Michael Clear!"
CHAPTER XXVI THE OTHER MAN'S WIFE
As soon as Lucian arrived back in his rooms he sat down at his desk and wrote a long letter to Diana, giving a full account of his extraordinary discovery of her father in Jorce's asylum, and advising her to come up at once to London.
When he posted this—which he did the same night—he sighed to think it was not a love letter.
He could have covered reams of paper with words of passion and adoration; he could have poured out his whole soul at the feet of his divinity, telling her of his love, his aspirations, his hopes and fears.
No doubt, from a common-sense view, the letter would have been silly enough, but it would have relieved his mind and completed his happiness of knowing that he loved and was beloved.
But in place of writing thus, he was compelled by his promise to Diana to pen a description of his late discovery, and interesting as the case was now growing, he found it irksome to detail the incident of the afternoon.
He wished to be a lover, not a detective.
So absent-minded and distraught was Lucian, that Miss Greeb, who had long suspected something was wrong with him, spoke that very evening about himself.
She declared that Lucian was working too hard, that he needed another rest, although he had just returned from the country, and recommended a sleeping draught.
Finally she produced a letter which had just arrived, and as it was in a female hand, Miss Greeb watched its effect on her admired lodger with the keen eyes of a jealous woman.
When she saw him flush and seize it eagerly, casting, meanwhile, an impatient look on her to leave the room, she knew the truth at once, and retired hurriedly to the kitchen, where she shed floods of tears.
"I might have guessed it," gasped Miss Greeb to a comfortable cat which lay selfishly before the fire. "He's far too good-looking not to be snapped up.
He'll be leaving me and setting up house with that other woman.
I only hope she'll do for him as well as I have done.
I wonder if she's beautiful and rich. Oh, how dreadful it all is!"
But the cat made no comment on this tearful address—not as much as a mew.
It rolled over into a warmer place and went to sleep again.