The long summer day began to wane, and yet there were no definite tidings--nothing beyond the news Bracken had gathered of the widow in the morning. The detective was quite sure she was in the neighbourhood of Kennington; but beyond this he was sure of nothing.
Cheyne could hardly believe it possible she had not been found. It was, indeed, only by an effort he could believe she had been lost. When his mind was not busy with the subject of her disappearance, he always felt as though she were in Knightsbridge, and he was going over presently to see her, and chat with and chide her humorously for some fault of his own inventing. Then a great sadness fell upon, him, and he thought of all her sweet secret ways and gentle sprightliness. All her sweet ways were secret, and only to be found out by accident. Often and often she had been saucy to him, but never, as far as he knew, to her aunt. But her sauciness fascinated him more than anything else, and now a thousand instances of it crowded in upon him, and filled him with anguish at his loss. He had always been a man of few wants and desires; but, as often happens with such men, those wants were paramount with him, and the loss of anything he loved or had set his heart upon seemed to make his life bankrupt. He could have lived without wine or fine clothes, and never felt the want of either; but clean linen and tobacco were necessaries to him, as bread and beef are to other men. Although in the old days he had spoken of dukes and marquises, he had never longed to be one; he had never thought of being one; and now that things had taken such a different aspect, he set his titles and his riches down at a very low rate, and would rather have given up the marquisate of Southwold, or even the dukedom itself, than abandon the use of tobacco.
Now what had he lost? The only being on earth he loved. What were all his lands and castles and titles if he might not share them with her, if he might not live in the glory of her happiness? To feel that she was happy because he was with her, and that her happiness was diverted from his own individuality only by the contemplation or possession of something procured for her by him, was the end and aim of all his own expectations of happiness as far as the relations between man and woman are concerned. He had his independent masculine ambitions and hopes. He did not believe he should die if Marion were never found. He did not think he should throw his money and his coronet into the Thames, and lead the life of a recluse ever afterwards. But he knew that never again could he wrap anyone in such a beautiful mystical chivalry. Never again in all his life should he be able to taste the sweet perfume of romantic passion. He had the feelings of a poet, and she was his best-beloved poem. He had the ardour of a lover, and she was his most dear mistress. He worshipped beauty, and she was the most beautiful spirit in his earthly paradise.