_ CHAPTER XXVII. SYDNEY GOES ON A MYSTERIOUS EXPEDITION
The family were greatly alarmed at Sydney's collapse. Mrs. Pell had fondly hoped that his Southern trip would be of permanent benefit to him, and here he was breaking down on the first night of his return.
Not one of them associated his seizure in any way with the subject on which they had been talking except Rex. He could not but recall a somewhat similar attack, when Sydney had fainted in his office while he (Rex) was telling Scott Bowman of their inheritance.
But Miles Harding's affairs had nothing to do with this. What did it all mean? Rex asked himself, as he sped off for the doctor.
When he got back, Sydney had come to, but seemed to be suffering severely. And yet when asked if he was in pain, he would shake his head and beg so imploringly that they would leave him to himself, that the fears of the family were intensified many fold.
The doctor was utterly nonplused. He prescribed a quieting potion, and went away, promising to return again in the morning.
"And perhaps you had better humor him in his desire to be left alone," he said to Mrs. Pell. "But of course arrange to be near in case another collapse occurs."
The household separated for bed that night with sober faces.
"Syd hasn't been like himself since Mr. Tyler died," remarked Roy, lingering at the door of Rex's room.
Rex did not reply immediately. He stood looking at his brother intently for an instant, then he put a hand on Roy's shoulder, gently pulled him into the room and closed the door behind him.
"Sit down a minute, Roy," he said gravely; "I want to tell you something."
"What is it? What makes you look so solemn, Reggie? Is it anything about Syd?"
"Yes, it's about Syd. Something that happened last summer, and which he told me not to tell; but it seems to me that I ought to tell now."
In a few words then, Rex related what he and Scott Bowman had witnessed, adding an account of what Sydney had said to him when he asked to have the doctor sent out of the room.
"It's queer, isn't it, Roy?" Rex added.
"Yes, but I can't connect it with the present case."
"Neither can I. That makes it queerer still. Perhaps you'd better not say anything about what I told you."
"No, I shan't," and the boys sat quiet a while longer, discussing the mystery of this affair in lowered tones.
Meanwhile Sydney in his room across the hall, was lying in his bed with his eyes wide open staring at the ceiling. Now and then he passed his hand across his forehead, on which the perspiration kept gathering.
"It is Nemesis," he murmured over and over. "I have felt that it would come, and now at last it has appeared, and through Rex, of all the others!"
All through that night he remained thus wakeful. He watched, helplessly, the gradual breaking of the dawn, knowing that he had not slept a moment and feeling that he must have this physical ill to bear in addition to the mental one which already weighed him down to the earth.
But he had come to the turning point now. In some way this was a relief, even though the prospect immediately ahead of him was such a fearsome one.
He wished that he could go up to the office without seeing any of the family, as he had done that other morning in Marley.
But he could not do this now. They would worry and send after him. He must try and get through the ordeal of facing them as best he could.
He rose at the usual time, but before he had finished dressing there was a knock at the door and Roy's voice wanting to know how he was.
"All right," he replied, and then, as his brother asked if he might come in, he opened the door.
"All right!" exclaimed Roy, after one look at his face, "Oh, Syd!"
"It's only because I haven't slept," Sydney hastened to assure him.
"Then what are you getting up for?" Roy went on.
"I must go down town. I have that to do which will ease my mind, and make me all right again, I trust."
The last words were added in so low a tone as to be scarcely audible.
"Oh, Syd, what is it? What is worrying you? Can't I help you in any way?"
"No, Roy, you cannot now. Perhaps-- later-- I will need-- need your pity."
"Pity! Oh, Syd, you do not know what you say."
"Don't, Roy. I have a hard task to perform; do not, I beg of you, make it harder."
Roy said no more; he would not after this. He went back to his own room and went over in his mind all that had befallen them since they had been what the world called wealthy.
"Not one bit happier, though; no, not as happy," he added for himself.
At the breakfast table Sydney insisted that he felt plenty well enough to go to the office.
"Can't you see, mother," he said at last, "that it is a matter of the mind and not of the body. Let me have the opportunity of easing that, and-- you will see the result."
But when he left the house he did not go at once to his office. He stopped at the first drug store he passed, and walked up to the little stand on which the city directory was kept.
He turned the pages to D, and then looked up Darley.
There were several of the name, and a frown contracted his brow. But he took out his pencil and memorandum book, and made a note of the various addresses. Then he went on, but soon turned into a street that would not take him to the office. He boarded a car and rode off in the direction of South street. In the course of twenty minutes he was waiting for his ring to be answered at the door of a very modest little house near the Baltimore tracks.
But after he had been admitted, he did not remain long inside.
"I must try another," he muttered, consulting his memorandum.
He tried several others, but with equal ill success. The quest seemed hopeless.
"There may be nothing in it after all," he murmured. "But that does not lighten my load here;" and he pressed his hand over his heart.
All that day he kept up his hunt, scarcely stopping to get a little lunch at noon. Toward nightfall he called at an address on Seventh Street next to the last on his list.
It was an odd looking house-- apparently a store, for there was a regular shop window, but there was nothing in it but curtains that screened off the interior, and no sign, and the door when he tried it, was locked. But there was a bell handle close beside it, and this he pulled.
The door was opened after quite an interval, to a mere crack, and the voice of an aged woman wanted to know who was there.
"A gentleman to see Mr. David Darley," Sydney answered.
"You can't see him," came back the reply, "He's been dead these five months."
"Well, then," went on Sydney, pushing against the door to prevent any possibility of its being shut in his face, "I want to see some of his relations-- his wife, or daughter, or somebody."
"There ain't any of them either," was the reply. "There's only me."
"Well, then, I'd like to see you," Sydney rejoined, feeling that this, too, was to be a wild goose chase, but determined, nevertheless, to leave no stone unturned.
"What do you want to see me about?" went on the old lady. "I don't know you."
"I just want to ask you some questions about Mr. Darley. Are you any relation of his?"
"I'm his mother-in-law," and the door was slowly opened, but only wide enough to admit Sydney, when it was closed behind him with great rapidity.
He looked with some curiosity at the person who admitted him. She was very small, not much above his waist in height, and quite old, with snow white hair and a very peaceful expression of face that contrasted markedly with her evident fear of strangers.
She did not ask Sydney to be seated, and remained standing herself, taking up her station in the doorway that led into the room beyond, as if seeking to bar out any intrusion there.
The apartment in which Sydney found himself was a very pleasant one, well lighted from the large window, whose upper portion was undraped. There were some pictures on the walls, a piano stood at one side, and a guitar could be seen off in one corner.
But Sydney was not in the mood to take many notes of his surroundings. He proceeded at once with the business in hand.
"Was Mr. David Darley any relation to Maurice Darley?" he inquired.
"Will it hurt David if I answer?" replied the old lady cautiously.
"How can it, since you say he is dead?" Sydney responded with the flicker of a smile.
"Well, then," answered the other, heaving a little sigh, "I don't see as it can do any harm for me to say that David was his brother."
"At last," burst forth Sydney with something between a shout and a groan. He put his hand against the wall as if to steady himself. _