EVENTS succeeded each other rapidly, after the memorable day to Isabel of the luncheon at the farm.
On the next day (the ninth of the month) Lady Lydiard sent for her steward, and requested him to explain his conduct in repeatedly leaving the house without assigning any reason for his absence. She did not dispute his claims to a freedom of action which would not be permitted to an ordinary servant. Her objection to his present course of proceeding related entirely to the mystery in which it was involved, and to the uncertainty in which the household was left as to the hour of his return. On those grounds, she thought herself entitled to an explanation. Moody’s habitual reserve — strengthened, on this occasion, by his dread of ridicule, if his efforts to serve Isabel ended in failure — disinclined him to take Lady Lydiard into his confidence, while his inquiries were still beset with obstacles and doubts. He respectfully entreated her Ladyship to grant him a delay of a few weeks before he entered on his explanation. Lady Lydiard’s quick temper resented his request. She told Moody plainly that he was guilty of an act of presumption in making his own conditions with his employer. He received the reproof with exemplary resignation; but he held to his conditions nevertheless. From that moment the result of the interview was no longer in doubt. Moody was directed to send in his accounts. The accounts having been examined, and found to be scrupulously correct, he declined accepting the balance of salary that was offered to him. The next day he left Lady Lydiard’s service.
On the tenth of the month her Ladyship received a letter from her nephew.
The health of Felix had not improved. He had made up his mind to go abroad again towards the end of the month. In the meantime, he had written to his friend in Paris, and he had the pleasure of forwarding an answer. The letter inclosed announced that the lost five-hundred-pound note had been made the subject of careful inquiry in Paris. It had not been traced. The French police offered to send to London one of their best men, well acquainted with the English language, if Lady Lydiard was desirous of employing him. He would be perfectly willing to act with an English officer in conducting the investigation, should it be thought necessary. Mr. Troy being consulted as to the expediency of accepting this proposal, objected to the pecuniary terms demanded as being extravagantly high. He suggested waiting a little before any reply was sent to Paris; and he engaged meanwhile to consult a London solicitor who had great experience in cases of theft, and whose advice might enable them to dispense entirely with the services of the French police.
Being now a free man again, Moody was able to follow his own inclinations in regard to the instructions which he had received from Old Sharon.
The course that had been recommended to him was repellent to the self-respect and the sense of delicacy which were among the inbred virtues of Moody’s character. He shrank from forcing himself as a friend on Hardyman’s valet: he recoiled from the idea of tempting the man to steal a specimen of his master’s handwriting. After some consideration, he decided on applying to the agent who collected the rents at Hardyman’s London chambers. Being an old acquaintance of Moody’s, this person would certainly not hesitate to communicate the address of Hardyman’s bankers, if he knew it. The experiment, tried under these favoring circumstances, proved perfectly successful. Moody proceeded to Sharon’s lodgings the same day, with the address of the bankers in his pocketbook. The old vagabond, greatly amused by Moody’s scruples, saw plainly enough that, so long as he wrote the supposed letter from Hardyman in the third person, it mattered little what handwriting was employed, seeing that no signature would be necessary. The letter was at once composed, on the model which Sharon had already suggested to Moody, and a respectable messenger (so far as outward appearances went) was employed to take it to the bank. I............