CHAPTER XIVA few minutes later in his own room and by candle-light he set to work to find a meaning for the arrangement of little pebbles "Crumbs" had placed upon the foreshore. A dozen times he went over the dot-dash lines in his pocket-book, and each time the hidden meaning intensified in clarity. Finally, he began to write with a sudden vivid and passionate interest.The first word defined was "Oberst." Then he continued slowly and carefully: "Mistrauish und aufgeregt. Neue Minen karte in Händen des Capitans. Nicht möglich es sofort zu finden. Von R. ist nichts zu hören. Ganze geschichte schwierig. Bitte um antwort.—S."So, friend 'Crumbs' is a German after all, and an educated German at that," he exclaimed under his breath.Then he took his pencil and began to translate the message. The result in English was as follows:"Colonel suspicious and nervous. New mine chart in hands of naval commander; impossible to find it at once. No news of R. Matters difficult. Answer this.—S."John looked up with a grave face. Almost for the first time he felt a doubt. In that moment he almost doubted even Dacent Smith's power to cope with such subtlety, such ingenious co-ordination as this."Crumbs" was a spy actually in the heart of a vital fort, a spy who was possibly one of a score, or a hundred, busy upon the South Coast at that moment. John felt oppressed by a consciousness of dark agencies planning evil. Here was no romance. Here was real, hard, solid fact; War. Sims was an item in this warfare, one of a chain, of which Manwitz, Cherriton, Mrs. Beecher Monmouth, and the great unknown himself were all separate links.For some minutes John paced the narrow confines of his room.Who was R. from whom no news had arrived? A sensation that calamity and failure was possible bore in upon him. He had made a discovery truly, but would that discovery mean the frustration of the mysterious attack that was impending? He did not know, he hardly dared to hope."If Heatherpoint Fort were out of action," Colonel Hobin had said, "and if Scoles Head were similarly out of action, there might be the devil to pay."John realised as he paced his little room with "Crumbs's" message in his hand, that an attack by sea was planned. Otherwise why the mention of the new mine chart? And if an attack by sea was intended on the great naval port of ... Scoles and Heatherpoint must be first put out of action. After that, the boom which ran across from Ponsonby Lighthouse to ... must be overcome.He looked again at the message."This must be got to Dacent Smith at once," thought he; "and in the meantime 'Crumbs' must be watched."He placed the message carefully in his pocket-book. Then, a new thought having struck him, he hurried out and sought Sergeant Ewins. The sergeant occupied one compartment of an old railway coach, which had been turned into huts for the men. Ewins was lying on his bunk when John entered, reading a Sunday paper by the light of a fort candle as thick as a man's wrist."I want to have a word with you, Ewins," said John, sitting on the edge of the chief gunner's bunk, which had formerly been a railway seat. "Can you tell me," he went on, "if it is possible for anyone to make a landing on the south shore, there? I mean in the bay below the look-out.""It's possible, of course," Ewins answered, "but risky.""You don't think it possible," inquired John, "for a submarine to lie out there in the bay and send a small canvas boat ashore?"Ewins shook his head."You've forgotten our minefield—a submarine could not pass it, sir.""No, I haven't forgotten that," answered John; "but suppose the Germans know where our mines are?""Then they'd know more than we do, sir," answered Ewins. "Nobody in the fort knows that, except the Commander, and perhaps the Colonel.""The reason I am asking you," went on John, "is that I have discovered something and want to give you an opportunity of coming down on the shore with me.""To-night, sir?" inquired Ewins.John nodded."I suppose, Ewins, it seems fantastical and impossible to you, but I have a theory that the Germans intend to bring a boat ashore there. In my opinion, they have been there before to-night."Ewins's eyes opened wide."Do you think that is so, sir?" he asked in a voice of deep amazement. Then his eyes brightened. "I'd like to come with you, sir, if you think there's any likelihood of that sort of thing.""I don't only think it, I know it," said John. "It may not be to-night, because of the full moon, nor to-morrow night. But some time or other, and maybe soon, I am prepared to bet my hat that a German will land from the sea. He will land, Ewins, in the bay below us, within a quarter of a mile of where we are now sitting."The manner in which Ewins took this information filled John with satisfaction. The old soldier was spoiling for a fight. For four years he had had nothing better to shoot at than a target, and he was longing for a chance of real action.Nevertheless John's fear was correct, for that night and the next night the moon shone brilliantly, and nothing happened on the shore. "Crumbs's" message lay unread in the bright moonlight. The third night, however, the sky was overcast.But by a sudden, swift turn of circumstances John was not there to see what happened.Manton's record on "Crumbs's" secret signal had been taken with the utmost seriousness by Dacent Smith, and on the afternoon of the third day, when John was alone at tea in the mess-room, an orderly thumped along the passage."A gentleman to see you, sir," said the orderly."What's his name?" John asked."Captain Sinclair, sir."John rose, and a minute later Captain X. stepped into the little room. Captain X. was in uniform, and John noticed that he wore the Mons ribbon and the D.S.O."Surprised to see me, eh?" exclaimed the young man, gripping John's hand heartily; then dropping his voice, "I'm here from the Chief. Is it quite private here?""Quite," John answered, "but I would rather take you into my room."They went along the passage to John's bedroom. John seated himself on the bed, and Captain X. or Sinclair occupied the only chair."The Chief's thoroughly stirred up," said Sinclair, plunging into his subject without preliminary. "He has passed on your information to me. I must say you seem to have all the luck, Treves. A signal on the sands, eh? That beats everything for cunning. I have heard of clothes being hung out in the Morse code, and Morse smoke signals from a chimney—by the way, do you think your chap Sims signals with smoke from his bakehouse?"John shook his head."I have spent hours looking at his chimney," he said. "It was the first thing I thought of when I began to suspect him, and it was only an accident which made me get on to his real game after all. I knew any kind of flash signal was out of the question here.""Neatest thing they've done yet, eh, Treves? I must say this sort of thing makes the fight full of zipp and go," he said. Then he looked at John with a commiserating eye: "I am going to dash your spirits, old chap.""Well, get on with it," said John."I am going to pick up the plums you have shaken off the tree.""How's that?"For answer Sinclair drew an envelope from his pocket. John recognised the colour and shape of the envelope in a minute. He read the short, typed letter with gathered brows, then struck a match and destroyed it carefully. The letter contained an order from Dacent Smith that John should surrender his position at Heatherpoint to Captain X., and was to resume work immediately against Cherriton, Dr. Voules, and Mrs. Beecher Monmouth."It's rough luck, old chap," said Captain X., "but I expect that before this big movement is finished you will have as much chance of adventure as I shall.""I hope so," said John. "But I was looking forward to the result of 'Crumbs's' signal. Last night the moon shone out of pure cussedness."Captain X. sprang up to the window and looked out."It's clouding up to-night, old chap," he exclaimed joyously, "and you'll be away for the fun. Hallo!" he said. His eyes were lowered and were fixed upon a man in shirt-sleeves in the doorway opposite. "Is that 'Crumbs'?""Yes," said John, "but don't let him see you looking at him. I am not so sure that he hasn't spotted something.""He'll spot something in a day or two," said Captain X., coming back from the window, "and in the meantime the Chief's orders are to leave him a long rope."John's orders from his Chief were that he should report to Colonel Hobin and leave Heatherpoint immediately. He began to change his clothes, and talked to his companion at the same time."You can rub acquaintance with 'Crumbs' while I get out of the fort," he said. "He mustn't see me in mufti. I shall spend a night in Newport, and call on Dr. Voules to-morrow morning.""Who do you think Voules is?" asked the Captain.John shook his head."I shall know more about that to-morrow," he said.When he was ready to go he shook hands cordially with his companion. He always felt older than Captain X., though their ages were the same. Captain X.'s audacity and joy in life amused John. His colleague always put so much zest into everything he did."I should advise you," he said, gripping the Captain's hand, "to use Ewins if you want any help on the beach to-night. He is an old soldier, and I should think, if an awkward moment arrived, you could rely on him.""Thanks," said Sinclair. "This is a new game for me. I have never had the chance of angling for a German submarine commander before, but I expect there'll be one ashore here to-night, eh, Treves?""Somebody comes ashore," responded John, "and reads those signals."He went out and sat in the mess-room for a few minutes, leaving Sinclair time to occupy "Crumbs'" attention while he slipped away from the fort.CHAPTER XVThe situation at Heatherpoint was exactly to the liking of Captain Sinclair. He realised, from what John had told him, that "Crumbs" was no mean antagonist, and he was feverish to make the spy's acquaintance. But the manner in which he strolled into "Crumbs's" bakehouse before John's departure was the most casual in the world. One of Sinclair's chief gifts was an innocent and infectious smile, and under the most trying of circumstances he was always cheerful. With this smiling cheeriness of manner Sinclair possessed, as is often the case, a fair share of astuteness."It smells good in here," he said, putting his head into "Crumbs's" warm atmosphere."Crumbs," who was kneading dough at his board, turned about."Don't mind me," said Sinclair cheerfully. He stepped into the bakehouse and held a good-humoured conversation with "Crumbs." He spent a quarter of an hour in cheery garrulity, and when he went away, "Crumbs," from the darkness of his lair, watched him stride across the asphalt yard towards the officers' quarters. The man's eyes narrowed as he recalled that Sinclair had been peering at him out of John's quarters a little while earlier. When his work was finished that night "Crumbs" cleaned himself and had a chat with Ewins, who was smoking a pipe on the step of the old railway carriage that formed both men's quarters in the upper fort."Who's this new captain we got?" Private Sims asked."Don't know," answered Ewins. "He's done his bit, seemingly." He was referring to Sinclair's Mons ribbon and the D.S.O."We seem to be getting a lot of changes lately," pursued "Crumbs." He had removed the flour from his eyelashes and moustache, and his lean, sallow, discontented face and glassy, strange-looking eyes struck Ewins as particularly unpleasant. Sims was generous in handing cake and so forth whenever chance occurred, but he was not liked in the fort. The other men could not get the hang of him, and when he rose presently and shambled away into the fort buildings, Ewins, who was expecting every minute to be called by Sinclair, was not sorry.For an hour or two that evening "Crumbs" pottered about. He gossiped in the kitchen, had a talk with the sergeant controlling the leave-book, found his way into the mess-room, and complained to Parkson, who was adjutant, on the quality of the flour being supplied from outside. After that the Colonel met him in the corridor, where he had no right to be, near Sinclair's bedroom. And, as the Colonel was the one man in the fort, outside Sinclair, who knew the truth about him, he questioned "Crumbs" somewhat sharply."What are you doing here, Sims?""I have just been in, sir, to complain about the flour to the adjutant. I wasn't thinking," he went on, with a perfect semblance of an absent-minded air, "I wasn't thinking, and I came here instead of going along to the right——""You ought to know the run of the fort by this time," said the Colonel, and passed on.It was an hour later that Sims, who had made a shattering discovery, sat in his cubicle of the railway compartment, with the door locked, and penned a rapid letter. He wrote fluently, in the manner of a man whose education has been thorough and efficient. His lips twitched slightly as his pen sped over the paper. There was a tense expression upon his sallow face, and he pulled nervously at his long, drooping moustache.At the head of the letter he put no address."Dear Doctor," he wrote, "our plans are threatened. The new officer here, Lieutenant Treves, has been watching me closely for the past week. He has cross-examined Ewins about the guns, and evidently knows something. To-day a second officer has arrived, a Captain Sinclair. I doubt him also. They both suspect me. But my important news is that to-night I secured my first opportunity of going through Treves's belongings. I was able to open his dispatch-box, and among other papers of no importance, I discovered a letter from Cherriton, with whom he has apparently some association. The letter was signed by Cherriton, which clearly showed me that Treves is playing both for and against us. I have suspected him for days. I implore you, doctor, to probe this matter. If you hear no more from me you will know that things have gone wrong. I beg of you to act drastically and immediately.—S."When "Crumbs" had finished this letter he read it carefully through and avoided blotting it, so that there could be no trace of its existence. When the letter had dried he placed it in an envelope and addressed it to "Dr. Voules, Rollo Meads, Brooke."It was the custom at Heatherpoint for the fort letters to be sent to Freshwater post office every night at seven precisely in a locked bag. "Crumbs," with his letter in his pocket, hovered about the orderly-room until the bugle began to blow seven. He then hurriedly followed the orderly into the mess-room, where the adjutant nightly locked the bag with his key. Lieutenant Parkson was in the act of locking the bag when "Crumbs" shambled into the little room with an apology. He handed his letter to Parkson, who dropped it in and locked the bag.CHAPTER XVIJohn decided to walk into Freshwater, and then take the train to Newport. As he made his way along the road from Heatherpoint, carrying a small handbag, a red bicycle came towards him."Are you going to the fort?" he asked the telegraph boy."Yes, sir.""Anything for Treves?"The boy nodded."Lieutenant Treves, sir."A minute later John had torn open an envelope containing a telegram, which ran:Come to me at the Gordon Hotel, Newport. Shall be there this evening. ELAINE.Elaine's wire came to him as an utter surprise, a surprise that was tinctured with pleasure. He had never forgotten her since their first, and only meeting. He had indeed thought of her a hundred times, recalling her as she stood in the little room in Camden Town. Without doubt she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.During the past weeks every moment of his time had been occupied, and there had been no possibility of carrying out his promise to visit her.As he walked he drew out her telegram and read it carefully through, possibly for the sixth time. The wording brought to him a measure of comfort; he felt, somehow, that she was not in so distressed a state of mind as when he had received her former wire to Bernard Treves."I shall see her within an hour," thought John, as he stepped into a train at Freshwater. But as the train drew nearer to Newport his high spirits evaporated; he began to argue that Elaine Treves was outside his sphere of work. Dacent Smith had impressed upon him the intense seriousness of the German menace on the South Coast; no private considerations, John told himself, held precedence of the duty that lay before him. Elaine Treves was a victim of the innocent deception he had been obliged to practise. But it was not his fault that she was an extremely beautiful woman, and that she believed him to be her husband.At the Gordon Hotel, a small quiet, specklessly clean building, John entered the hall, and found Elaine herself descending the stairs. For a moment the girl did not notice him, and John was free to observe the daintiness of her costume, the slender dignity of her figure, and the quite astonishing beauty of her grey, long-lashed eyes. The note of pathos that had been apparent when he first met her was now not so marked. She struck him as serious, but not depressed.Elaine had descended the stairs to the vestibule before her eyes met his."Oh, Bernard," she exclaimed, and instantly took his hand in her gloved fingers. "But you can't have come in answer to my wire?" she went on."No," said John; "I came on other business.""You are not angry with me?""No; why should I be angry?" asked John."Because I wired to you," said Elaine. "Let us go upstairs, Bernard. The sitting-room's empty; we can talk there."She led him up to a little, parlour-like apartment, with a gay carpet, and a circular table in the middle of the room. Here she closed the door and stood with her back to it, looking up into John's face. Her eyes searched his closely. Her splendid beauty, the wistful expression of her face, a certain shy girlishness, all appealed to John's feelings. He found it difficult to sustain the searching gaze lifted to his.Suddenly Elaine drew in a deep breath."Bernard," she whispered, "you are different."John turned away."Yes," he answered, quietly, "I suppose I am a little different.""Ever since the last time I saw you I have felt it," went on Elaine. "I have thought much of our last meeting," she added."So have I," John answered lamely, not knowing exactly how to handle the situation. They were seated now on opposite sides of the hearth, and Elaine was taking the hatpins out of her hat with pretty feminine gestures that held John's attention."I was only going a lonely walk," she explained, "when I met you, but I won't go now; we'll have tea here together. You will notice," she went on, placing her hat on her knee and piercing it with her long hatpins, "that I have not scolded you for failing to write to me.""I am sorry," said John, "but I have been tremendously occupied.""I guessed," said Elaine, "that you were at home with your father. I am so glad of that, Bernard; I used to feel," she went on, hesitatingly, "that you were not treating him well, and that his indignation against you was—was—" she hesitated a moment—"well—justified."John had been observing her closely."Why did you wire for me, Elaine?" he said, using her name for the first time.Elaine looked at him, and then away. The colour rose to her cheeks, a delicate colour that enhanced her beauty."I don't know," she said. "I got a little frightened, I think. You see, your friend, Captain Cherriton, began to call on me rather regularly."John pricked up his ears."Did he cross-examine you about me?"Elaine shook her head."He scarcely mentioned you.""Oh, I see," said John, suddenly enlightened; "he came to force his unpleasant attentions upon you. Is that it?"Elaine was silent a moment. She was thinking how well John carried himself. The husband she had known, neurotic and nerveless and irritable, now appeared before her clear-eyed, calm and more manly than she had ever believed him to be. She felt herself drawn to him, as she had felt herself attracted on that last meeting in London. Her nature was quick and ready to forgive."I had to forbid him the house in the end, Bernard."John sat suddenly erect."Was he impudent to you?"The sudden lowering of his brows and tension of his figure caught Elaine's interest."Then you do mind, Bernard?" she asked quietly."Of course I mind, when you are insulted," he returned. "Or, rather, I ought to mind."For, like a blow, the thought suddenly struck him that he himself was treating her with gross injustice. It was one thing to deceive, in a good cause, Colonel Treves; it was another thing to deceive this young and beautiful girl, who was another man's wife. And he, John Manton, was standing in that other man's shoes.John's situation at that moment was as delicate as any situation in which he had yet found himself. It was an easy matter to confront Manwitz and Cherriton, and even Mrs. Beecher Monmouth, in the character of Bernard Treves. It was not so easy to present himself in that character before Bernard Treves's wife. The thought that had occurred to him at their first meeting came again into his mind; at any moment he might make a false step. An unlucky turn of phrase, a lack of knowledge of some incident in their mutual past, might instantly betray him. For Elaine Treves, despite her striking beauty and her intense femininity, was quite keenly alive and intelligent.They took tea in the hotel, and after the meal John suggested a walk in the town. Elaine readily assented, and together they explored the quaint side streets of Newport. If matters had been different, if John had accompanied her in his own character, and had not had to act a part that was extraordinarily difficult, he would have been in the highest of spirits.Already he had remarked upon Elaine's air of distinction. She knew how to dress, how to put on her hat, how to make herself in all respects a delightful picture of girlish attraction. John knew nothing of feminine economics, or he would have been aware that her fashionably smart costume and that pretty hat she wore had cost almost nothing at all, and had been mostly the work of her own hands.During the walk they stopped and looked into a quaint curiosity shop. John admired a set of old Chippendale chairs and a pair of inlaid duelling pistols. He and Elaine were standing close together as he spoke, and he felt her slender, gloved hand laid delicately on his arm."Bernard!""What is it?" asked John.She was looking up into his face, a pleased expression in her fine grey eyes."Your taste seems to have changed utterly.""Oh, I don't know," said John. "I—I—perhaps my taste has matured——""You used to hate all old things."John was looking down into her face, that appeared to him now as the most beautiful in the world. He made no answer to her remark, and Elaine went on:"You look at things so differently, Bernard.""In what way?" John asked."I don't know," answered she. "I have a sort of queer feeling, Bernard, that you are yourself, and yet there is something that has occurred to make you different."John felt that the discussion was drifting in an awkward direction."Do you know what I think?" he remarked."What do you think?" asked Elaine, as they walked together."I think I ought to do something to make up for all the bad times—er—I have given you in the past."She was silent, walking along gazing before her."They were bad times, some of them, Bernard," she returned, quietly. She moved a little nearer to him as they walked. "But I have always felt," she went on, "that it was not really you. I feel that—that the unfortunate habit you had contracted, the—the——""I understand," John intervened."I believe now," went on Elaine, "it was not really you. You were not responsible, and I always hoped that some time, when you had conquered yourself, you would become different."She paused a moment, and John felt her arm slip through his. It was strange, but his pulse-beat quickened at this quiet manifestation of her growing feeling towards him. He felt that, somehow or other, she was being drawn towards him, that she was, as it were, shielding herself under his protection. And yet, all the time, the situation was an impossible one. He had no right to permit advances of this sort; the deception he was practising upon her was utterly and completely cruel. What would have happened, he asked himself, if he had suddenly faced her and had said: "I am not your husband, I am not Bernard Treves—but John Manton? The man you believe me to be—your husband—is a drug-sodden and hysterical degenerate, a soldier who has been guilty of treachery to his country."His thoughts switched back to the necessity of turning the conversation. He could feel the warmth of her arm resting upon his own."Let us talk of cheerful things," he said. "For instance, that is a very pretty hat you have on.""Do you like it? I made it myself.""Yes, I like it," responded John, appearing to look at it with the critical eye of a husband. "Of course," he said, "it is quite easy for a hat to look well where you are concerned."Elaine was frankly pleased."Why are you flattering me, Bernard?""That wasn't flattery. If I set out to flatter you, I should talk in quite a different way to that.""Do you know," she went on quickly, "when I met you in the hotel my heart was beating terribly. I was afraid you might be angry!""How could I be angry?""I don't know," she said; "but sometimes, Bernard, you used to be so dreadfully angry at the things I did."Somehow the recollection of these things appeared to sweep over her, for she drew her hand away from John's arm."I thought we were going to talk of cheerful things," John reminded her. He began to draw her attention to the quaintness of the streets, and managed, until their return to the hotel, to keep her mind fully occupied with trivialities.When they reached the little sitting-room at the hotel, he rang the bell and ordered dinner to be prepared for two at seven o'clock."May we have it here in the sitting-room?" he asked the waiter."Certainly, sir," answered the man.Elaine, whose air of constraint had quite vanished again, went to her room, took off her hat, and put on an afternoon blouse. When she returned to the sitting-room John noticed her little attempt to dress herself for the evening."I thought you'd like to see me in something smarter for dinner," she said. "Do you like it, Bernard?""It could not be better," said John. Inwardly he was saying: "I like everything about you; I like your fine, dark hair; I like your frank, beautiful eyes, and your honesty and your simplicity, and the fact that you are a girl and yet a woman. What I do dislike, however, is the fact that you have a waster of a husband, and that I have no right to be here this minute standing in that waster's shoes."They sat down together at the round table in the middle of the hotel' parlour. The waiter, a gloomy individual, in tired-looking dress clothes and in a white shirt that should have been washed a week earlier, lit four pink-shaded candles, served the soup, and went away. Soup was followed by fish and an excellent entrée. John, looking over the top of the pink-shaded candles, saw a brightness in Elaine's eyes. He had been talking gaily keeping the conversation away from anything personal, and telling her anecdotes that made her laugh. And all the time, although he was not aware of the fact, he was drawing her towards him, fanning the flame of love that the real Bernard Treves had never kindled. She was experiencing new feelings towards this man whom she believed to be her husband. The shifty look in his eyes that she had disliked in the past had vanished. The Bernard Treves who sat before her looked frankly and keenly into her face. He was not in the least intimate; he was, indeed, somewhat aloof, but this very quality of aloofness puzzled and attracted her.By the time dinner was cleared away and the cloth removed, Elaine was completely at her ease. Her old fear of offending her husband had totally vanished. She could not understand her own feelings and began to take herself to task for having been hard with him in the past. When Bernard Treves had persisted in his habit of heavy drinking and drug-taking, she had been obliged to make a stand. She had done everything she could to win him to better ways. But when to these habits he had added violence and other cruelties towards herself, she had informed him that until he made some effort to control himself she could not live with him as his wife. It was characteristic of her, as it is sometimes characteristic of gentle people, that firmness lay beneath an unaggressive exterior. She had kept her word. But to-night, for the first time, she began to doubt the justice of what she had done. She told herself that she had been hard on Bernard Treves, that she ought to have clung to him, however low he sank.CHAPTER XVIIJohn, who had deposited himself on a chair at the hearth, lit a cigarette, and was consuming it with a good deal of satisfaction. He had never in his life partaken of an evening meal that had given him so much satisfaction; even the funereal and shabby waiter seemed to him a creature of delight, and the little room in the hotel—he would always remember it as an apartment brightened by the eyes of Elaine Treves. It was not usual for John Manton to be led away, but to-night, for some minutes, he let his senses toy with impossibilities. He permitted himself to forget the existence of Bernard Treves. And when the waiter left the room, and Elaine rose and came towards him, he made no effort to avoid her approach, as he had done once or twice earlier in the evening. She stood beside his chair and laid her hand on his shoulder. John looked up and saw that her face had grown serious."I want to make a confession to you, Bernard.""Let it be a cheerful confession," smiled John."I was mistaken, after all.""It's easy to make mistakes," returned John."I ought not to have sent you away from me," said Elaine.John thought a moment, then observed quietly:"Perhaps I deserved to be sent away.""Do you remember, Bernard, when you came to Camden Town after you had seen your father?"John, naturally, did not recollect."I do not recall it very clearly," he said."When you—you——" She broke off, and again, as she had done in the street, she moved a little away from him. A wave of aversion towards him appeared to sweep over her. "When," she went on, "I told you that we could not be together again until—until——""Until I could behave myself," John put in.Elaine nodded slightly in assent."I thought that I was doing right, and when you said you'd never forgive me I still held out. I wonder, Bernard, if you will forgive me?""Of course I'll forgive you," returned Manton, magnanimously. He would have forgiven her anything. He could not believe her capable of anything which would need forgiveness. She came to him again and stood before him, looking down.John, out of politeness, that she should not be standing when he was seated, stood up, and suddenly he felt Elaine's hand in his."Bernard," she whispered, "you care for me still——""I care for you more than ever I did," said John. He tried valiantly to slip his hand from hers."You love me, I mean?"Elaine's face was upturned; there was a wistful expression in her fine, grey eyes, and there was something more than wistfulness. John could see it shining there. Inwardly he was conscientiously cursing the Fates that had placed him in this impossible position—and yet outwardly he was glad. He was thrilled and happy that this situation had arisen. Then his thoughts took a turn, and his spirits sank. The love he saw shining in her eyes was not for him, but for Bernard Treves. He put away her hand and moved back in his chair."You do love me, Bernard?" she whispered again."Yes," John answered. He was convinced that there was no other thing for him to say."And you'll forgive me for sending you away?"John nodded.Elaine went on again: "It was wrong not to let you stay with me. I had no right to do it; after all, a wife has no right to act as I did.""Why think of it and worry about it now?" said John, attempting to strike an ordinary tone of voice."But I want to make everything straight between us, Bernard."John led her to a chair, and she seated herself. He tried to turn the conversation, but this time he failed. Elaine felt a growing desire to wipe away all misunderstandings between them."I have still my confession to make, Bernard.""What is it?" inquired John cheerily.There was a silence for a moment—a silence that John felt to be momentous, that rendered him uncomfortable. Then Elaine's words came to him, uttered in a low tone."I never loved you till to-night, Bernard!"John was conscious of a sudden and exultant thrill."Is that all your confession?" he asked.Elaine nodded. Her hand was in his. John lifted it to his lips. Then recollection came to him; he drew himself erect, standing away from her."It's getting late, Elaine," he said. "I ought to be going." There was something vibrant and new in his voice that caused her heart to beat violently. "You see," John went on, somewhat clumsily, "I have important work to do to-morrow."But Elaine had not loosed her grip of his hand. She suddenly hid her face on his shoulder; he could feel her arms about him. For a minute, what was to John an awkward silence, subsisted between them, then Elaine spoke again:"Why should you go, Bernard?" she whispered. "I was cruel to you, but I did not wish to be cruel.""You are never cruel," protested John. "Don't think of it any more."His situation in that moment was the hardest that Fate could have possibly imposed upon him. Here was the finest woman he had ever met—young, beautiful and ardent, with her arms about his neck, whispering love to him. She was speaking to him as a wife to a husband whom she loves, and all the time he was not that husband. And, to complicate matters, he felt now that the love she was prepared to offer was not offered to the other—to Bernard Treves—but to himself alone."Bernard," she murmured, "at the back of my heart, through all those black days, I whispered always that some time I should be happy.""I am sure you'll be happy," said John. "It will not be my fault if you are not." He drew in a deep breath. "But to-night—I must go; I—I am very busy; I have many things to do to-night. Confidential work." He lifted her hand, bent and kissed her slender white fingers. "Some day I'll explain."A minute later he was gone.
CHAPTER XIV
A few minutes later in his own room and by candle-light he set to work to find a meaning for the arrangement of little pebbles "Crumbs" had placed upon the foreshore. A dozen times he went over the dot-dash lines in his pocket-book, and each time the hidden meaning intensified in clarity. Finally, he began to write with a sudden vivid and passionate interest.
The first word defined was "Oberst." Then he continued slowly and carefully: "Mistrauish und aufgeregt. Neue Minen karte in Händen des Capitans. Nicht möglich es sofort zu finden. Von R. ist nichts zu hören. Ganze geschichte schwierig. Bitte um antwort.—S.
"So, friend 'Crumbs' is a German after all, and an educated German at that," he exclaimed under his breath.
Then he took his pencil and began to translate the message. The result in English was as follows:
"Colonel suspicious and nervous. New mine chart in hands of naval commander; impossible to find it at once. No news of R. Matters difficult. Answer this.—S."
John looked up with a grave face. Almost for the first time he felt a doubt. In that moment he almost doubted even Dacent Smith's power to cope with such subtlety, such ingenious co-ordination as this.
"Crumbs" was a spy actually in the heart of a vital fort, a spy who was possibly one of a score, or a hundred, busy upon the South Coast at that moment. John felt oppressed by a consciousness of dark agencies planning evil. Here was no romance. Here was real, hard, solid fact; War. Sims was an item in this warfare, one of a chain, of which Manwitz, Cherriton, Mrs. Beecher Monmouth, and the great unknown himself were all separate links.
For some minutes John paced the narrow confines of his room.
Who was R. from whom no news had arrived? A sensation that calamity and failure was possible bore in upon him. He had made a discovery truly, but would that discovery mean the frustration of the mysterious attack that was impending? He did not know, he hardly dared to hope.
"If Heatherpoint Fort were out of action," Colonel Hobin had said, "and if Scoles Head were similarly out of action, there might be the devil to pay."
John realised as he paced his little room with "Crumbs's" message in his hand, that an attack by sea was planned. Otherwise why the mention of the new mine chart? And if an attack by sea was intended on the great naval port of ... Scoles and Heatherpoint must be first put out of action. After that, the boom which ran across from Ponsonby Lighthouse to ... must be overcome.
He looked again at the message.
"This must be got to Dacent Smith at once," thought he; "and in the meantime 'Crumbs' must be watched."
He placed the message carefully in his pocket-book. Then, a new thought having struck him, he hurried out and sought Sergeant Ewins. The sergeant occupied one compartment of an old railway coach, which had been turned into huts for the men. Ewins was lying on his bunk when John entered, reading a Sunday paper by the light of a fort candle as thick as a man's wrist.
"I want to have a word with you, Ewins," said John, sitting on the edge of the chief gunner's bunk, which had formerly been a railway seat. "Can you tell me," he went on, "if it is possible for anyone to make a landing on the south shore, there? I mean in the bay below the look-out."
"It's possible, of course," Ewins answered, "but risky."
"You don't think it possible," inquired John, "for a submarine to lie out there in the bay and send a small canvas boat ashore?"
Ewins shook his head.
"You've forgotten our minefield—a submarine could not pass it, sir."
"No, I haven't forgotten that," answered John; "but suppose the Germans know where our mines are?"
"Then they'd know more than we do, sir," answered Ewins. "Nobody in the fort knows that, except the Commander, and perhaps the Colonel."
"The reason I am asking you," went on John, "is that I have discovered something and want to give you an opportunity of coming down on the shore with me."
"To-night, sir?" inquired Ewins.
John nodded.
"I suppose, Ewins, it seems fantastical and impossible to you, but I have a theory that the Germans intend to bring a boat ashore there. In my opinion, they have been there before to-night."
Ewins's eyes opened wide.
"Do you think that is so, sir?" he asked in a voice of deep amazement. Then his eyes brightened. "I'd like to come with you, sir, if you think there's any likelihood of that sort of thing."
"I don't only think it, I know it," said John. "It may not be to-night, because of the full moon, nor to-morrow night. But some time or other, and maybe soon, I am prepared to bet my hat that a German will land from the sea. He will land, Ewins, in the bay below us, within a quarter of a mile of where we are now sitting."
The manner in which Ewins took this information filled John with satisfaction. The old soldier was spoiling for a fight. For four years he had had nothing better to shoot at than a target, and he was longing for a chance of real action.
Nevertheless John's fear was correct, for that night and the next night the moon shone brilliantly, and nothing happened on the shore. "Crumbs's" message lay unread in the bright moonlight. The third night, however, the sky was overcast.
But by a sudden, swift turn of circumstances John was not there to see what happened.
Manton's record on "Crumbs's" secret signal had been taken with the utmost seriousness by Dacent Smith, and on the afternoon of the third day, when John was alone at tea in the mess-room, an orderly thumped along the passage.
"A gentleman to see you, sir," said the orderly.
"What's his name?" John asked.
"Captain Sinclair, sir."
John rose, and a minute later Captain X. stepped into the little room. Captain X. was in uniform, and John noticed that he wore the Mons ribbon and the D.S.O.
"Surprised to see me, eh?" exclaimed the young man, gripping John's hand heartily; then dropping his voice, "I'm here from the Chief. Is it quite private here?"
"Quite," John answered, "but I would rather take you into my room."
They went along the passage to John's bedroom. John seated himself on the bed, and Captain X. or Sinclair occupied the only chair.
"The Chief's thoroughly stirred up," said Sinclair, plunging into his subject without preliminary. "He has passed on your information to me. I must say you seem to have all the luck, Treves. A signal on the sands, eh? That beats everything for cunning. I have heard of clothes being hung out in the Morse code, and Morse smoke signals from a chimney—by the way, do you think your chap Sims signals with smoke from his bakehouse?"
John shook his head.
"I have spent hours looking at his chimney," he said. "It was the first thing I thought of when I began to suspect him, and it was only an accident which made me get on to his real game after all. I knew any kind of flash signal was out of the question here."
"Neatest thing they've done yet, eh, Treves? I must say this sort of thing makes the fight full of zipp and go," he said. Then he looked at John with a commiserating eye: "I am going to dash your spirits, old chap."
"Well, get on with it," said John.
"I am going to pick up the plums you have shaken off the tree."
"How's that?"
For answer Sinclair drew an envelope from his pocket. John recognised the colour and shape of the envelope in a minute. He read the short, typed letter with gathered brows, then struck a match and destroyed it carefully. The letter contained an order from Dacent Smith that John should surrender his position at Heatherpoint to Captain X., and was to resume work immediately against Cherriton, Dr. Voules, and Mrs. Beecher Monmouth.
"It's rough luck, old chap," said Captain X., "but I expect that before this big movement is finished you will have as much chance of adventure as I shall."
"I hope so," said John. "But I was looking forward to the result of 'Crumbs's' signal. Last night the moon shone out of pure cussedness."
Captain X. sprang up to the window and looked out.
"It's clouding up to-night, old chap," he exclaimed joyously, "and you'll be away for the fun. Hallo!" he said. His eyes were lowered and were fixed upon a man in shirt-sleeves in the doorway opposite. "Is that 'Crumbs'?"
"Yes," said John, "but don't let him see you looking at him. I am not so sure that he hasn't spotted something."
"He'll spot something in a day or two," said Captain X., coming back from the window, "and in the meantime the Chief's orders are to leave him a long rope."
John's orders from his Chief were that he should report to Colonel Hobin and leave Heatherpoint immediately. He began to change his clothes, and talked to his companion at the same time.
"You can rub acquaintance with 'Crumbs' while I get out of the fort," he said. "He mustn't see me in mufti. I shall spend a night in Newport, and call on Dr. Voules to-morrow morning."
"Who do you think Voules is?" asked the Captain.
John shook his head.
"I shall know more about that to-morrow," he said.
When he was ready to go he shook hands cordially with his companion. He always felt older than Captain X., though their ages were the same. Captain X.'s audacity and joy in life amused John. His colleague always put so much zest into everything he did.
"I should advise you," he said, gripping the Captain's hand, "to use Ewins if you want any help on the beach to-night. He is an old soldier, and I should think, if an awkward moment arrived, you could rely on him."
"Thanks," said Sinclair. "This is a new game for me. I have never had the chance of angling for a German submarine commander before, but I expect there'll be one ashore here to-night, eh, Treves?"
"Somebody comes ashore," responded John, "and reads those signals."
He went out and sat in the mess-room for a few minutes, leaving Sinclair time to occupy "Crumbs'" attention while he slipped away from the fort.
CHAPTER XV
The situation at Heatherpoint was exactly to the liking of Captain Sinclair. He realised, from what John had told him, that "Crumbs" was no mean antagonist, and he was feverish to make the spy's acquaintance. But the manner in which he strolled into "Crumbs's" bakehouse before John's departure was the most casual in the world. One of Sinclair's chief gifts was an innocent and infectious smile, and under the most trying of circumstances he was always cheerful. With this smiling cheeriness of manner Sinclair possessed, as is often the case, a fair share of astuteness.
"It smells good in here," he said, putting his head into "Crumbs's" warm atmosphere.
"Crumbs," who was kneading dough at his board, turned about.
"Don't mind me," said Sinclair cheerfully. He stepped into the bakehouse and held a good-humoured conversation with "Crumbs." He spent a quarter of an hour in cheery garrulity, and when he went away, "Crumbs," from the darkness of his lair, watched him stride across the asphalt yard towards the officers' quarters. The man's eyes narrowed as he recalled that Sinclair had been peering at him out of John's quarters a little while earlier. When his work was finished that night "Crumbs" cleaned himself and had a chat with Ewins, who was smoking a pipe on the step of the old railway carriage that formed both men's quarters in the upper fort.
"Who's this new captain we got?" Private Sims asked.
"Don't know," answered Ewins. "He's done his bit, seemingly." He was referring to Sinclair's Mons ribbon and the D.S.O.
"We seem to be getting a lot of changes lately," pursued "Crumbs." He had removed the flour from his eyelashes and moustache, and his lean, sallow, discontented face and glassy, strange-looking eyes struck Ewins as particularly unpleasant. Sims was generous in handing cake and so forth whenever chance occurred, but he was not liked in the fort. The other men could not get the hang of him, and when he rose presently and shambled away into the fort buildings, Ewins, who was expecting every minute to be called by Sinclair, was not sorry.
For an hour or two that evening "Crumbs" pottered about. He gossiped in the kitchen, had a talk with the sergeant controlling the leave-book, found his way into the mess-room, and complained to Parkson, who was adjutant, on the quality of the flour being supplied from outside. After that the Colonel met him in the corridor, where he had no right to be, near Sinclair's bedroom. And, as the Colonel was the one man in the fort, outside Sinclair, who knew the truth about him, he questioned "Crumbs" somewhat sharply.
"What are you doing here, Sims?"
"I have just been in, sir, to complain about the flour to the adjutant. I wasn't thinking," he went on, with a perfect semblance of an absent-minded air, "I wasn't thinking, and I came here instead of going along to the right——"
"You ought to know the run of the fort by this time," said the Colonel, and passed on.
It was an hour later that Sims, who had made a shattering discovery, sat in his cubicle of the railway compartment, with the door locked, and penned a rapid letter. He wrote fluently, in the manner of a man whose education has been thorough and efficient. His lips twitched slightly as his pen sped over the paper. There was a tense expression upon his sallow face, and he pulled nervously at his long, drooping moustache.
At the head of the letter he put no address.
"Dear Doctor," he wrote, "our plans are threatened. The new officer here, Lieutenant Treves, has been watching me closely for the past week. He has cross-examined Ewins about the guns, and evidently knows something. To-day a second officer has arrived, a Captain Sinclair. I doubt him also. They both suspect me. But my important news is that to-night I secured my first opportunity of going through Treves's belongings. I was able to open his dispatch-box, and among other papers of no importance, I discovered a letter from Cherriton, with whom he has apparently some association. The letter was signed by Cherriton, which clearly showed me that Treves is playing both for and against us. I have suspected him for days. I implore you, doctor, to probe this matter. If you hear no more from me you will know that things have gone wrong. I beg of you to act drastically and immediately.—S."
When "Crumbs" had finished this letter he read it carefully through and avoided blotting it, so that there could be no trace of its existence. When the letter had dried he placed it in an envelope and addressed it to "Dr. Voules, Rollo Meads, Brooke."
It was the custom at Heatherpoint for the fort letters to be sent to Freshwater post office every night at seven precisely in a locked bag. "Crumbs," with his letter in his pocket, hovered about the orderly-room until the bugle began to blow seven. He then hurriedly followed the orderly into the mess-room, where the adjutant nightly locked the bag with his key. Lieutenant Parkson was in the act of locking the bag when "Crumbs" shambled into the little room with an apology. He handed his letter to Parkson, who dropped it in and locked the bag.
CHAPTER XVI
John decided to walk into Freshwater, and then take the train to Newport. As he made his way along the road from Heatherpoint, carrying a small handbag, a red bicycle came towards him.
"Are you going to the fort?" he asked the telegraph boy.
"Yes, sir."
"Anything for Treves?"
The boy nodded.
"Lieutenant Treves, sir."
A minute later John had torn open an envelope containing a telegram, which ran:
Come to me at the Gordon Hotel, Newport. Shall be there this evening. ELAINE.
Elaine's wire came to him as an utter surprise, a surprise that was tinctured with pleasure. He had never forgotten her since their first, and only meeting. He had indeed thought of her a hundred times, recalling her as she stood in the little room in Camden Town. Without doubt she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
During the past weeks every moment of his time had been occupied, and there had been no possibility of carrying out his promise to visit her.
As he walked he drew out her telegram and read it carefully through, possibly for the sixth time. The wording brought to him a measure of comfort; he felt, somehow, that she was not in so distressed a state of mind as when he had received her former wire to Bernard Treves.
"I shall see her within an hour," thought John, as he stepped into a train at Freshwater. But as the train drew nearer to Newport his high spirits evaporated; he began to argue that Elaine Treves was outside his sphere of work. Dacent Smith had impressed upon him the intense seriousness of the German menace on the South Coast; no private considerations, John told himself, held precedence of the duty that lay before him. Elaine Treves was a victim of the innocent deception he had been obliged to practise. But it was not his fault that she was an extremely beautiful woman, and that she believed him to be her husband.
At the Gordon Hotel, a small quiet, specklessly clean building, John entered the hall, and found Elaine herself descending the stairs. For a moment the girl did not notice him, and John was free to observe the daintiness of her costume, the slender dignity of her figure, and the quite astonishing beauty of her grey, long-lashed eyes. The note of pathos that had been apparent when he first met her was now not so marked. She struck him as serious, but not depressed.
Elaine had descended the stairs to the vestibule before her eyes met his.
"Oh, Bernard," she exclaimed, and instantly took his hand in her gloved fingers. "But you can't have come in answer to my wire?" she went on.
"No," said John; "I came on other business."
"You are not angry with me?"
"No; why should I be angry?" asked John.
"Because I wired to you," said Elaine. "Let us go upstairs, Bernard. The sitting-room's empty; we can talk there."
She led him up to a little, parlour-like apartment, with a gay carpet, and a circular table in the middle of the room. Here she closed the door and stood with her back to it, looking up into John's face. Her eyes searched his closely. Her splendid beauty, the wistful expression of her face, a certain shy girlishness, all appealed to John's feelings. He found it difficult to sustain the searching gaze lifted to his.
Suddenly Elaine drew in a deep breath.
"Bernard," she whispered, "you are different."
John turned away.
"Yes," he answered, quietly, "I suppose I am a little different."
"Ever since the last time I saw you I have felt it," went on Elaine. "I have thought much of our last meeting," she added.
"So have I," John answered lamely, not knowing exactly how to handle the situation. They were seated now on opposite sides of the hearth, and Elaine was taking the hatpins out of her hat with pretty feminine gestures that held John's attention.
"I was only going a lonely walk," she explained, "when I met you, but I won't go now; we'll have tea here together. You will notice," she went on, placing her hat on her knee and piercing it with her long hatpins, "that I have not scolded you for failing to write to me."
"I am sorry," said John, "but I have been tremendously occupied."
"I guessed," said Elaine, "that you were at home with your father. I am so glad of that, Bernard; I used to feel," she went on, hesitatingly, "that you were not treating him well, and that his indignation against you was—was—" she hesitated a moment—"well—justified."
John had been observing her closely.
"Why did you wire for me, Elaine?" he said, using her name for the first time.
Elaine looked at him, and then away. The colour rose to her cheeks, a delicate colour that enhanced her beauty.
"I don't know," she said. "I got a little frightened, I think. You see, your friend, Captain Cherriton, began to call on me rather regularly."
John pricked up his ears.
"Did he cross-examine you about me?"
Elaine shook her head.
"He scarcely mentioned you."
"Oh, I see," said John, suddenly enlightened; "he came to force his unpleasant attentions upon you. Is that it?"
Elaine was silent a moment. She was thinking how well John carried himself. The husband she had known, neurotic and nerveless and irritable, now appeared before her clear-eyed, calm and more manly than she had ever believed him to be. She felt herself drawn to him, as she had felt herself attracted on that last meeting in London. Her nature was quick and ready to forgive.
"I had to forbid him the house in the end, Bernard."
John sat suddenly erect.
"Was he impudent to you?"
The sudden lowering of his brows and tension of his figure caught Elaine's interest.
"Then you do mind, Bernard?" she asked quietly.
"Of course I mind, when you are insulted," he returned. "Or, rather, I ought to mind."
For, like a blow, the thought suddenly struck him that he himself was treating her with gross injustice. It was one thing to deceive, in a good cause, Colonel Treves; it was another thing to deceive this young and beautiful girl, who was another man's wife. And he, John Manton, was standing in that other man's shoes.
John's situation at that moment was as delicate as any situation in which he had yet found himself. It was an easy matter to confront Manwitz and Cherriton, and even Mrs. Beecher Monmouth, in the character of Bernard Treves. It was not so easy to present himself in that character before Bernard Treves's wife. The thought that had occurred to him at their first meeting came again into his mind; at any moment he might make a false step. An unlucky turn of phrase, a lack of knowledge of some incident in their mutual past, might instantly betray him. For Elaine Treves, despite her striking beauty and her intense femininity, was quite keenly alive and intelligent.
They took tea in the hotel, and after the meal John suggested a walk in the town. Elaine readily assented, and together they explored the quaint side streets of Newport. If matters had been different, if John had accompanied her in his own character, and had not had to act a part that was extraordinarily difficult, he would have been in the highest of spirits.
Already he had remarked upon Elaine's air of distinction. She knew how to dress, how to put on her hat, how to make herself in all respects a delightful picture of girlish attraction. John knew nothing of feminine economics, or he would have been aware that her fashionably smart costume and that pretty hat she wore had cost almost nothing at all, and had been mostly the work of her own hands.
During the walk they stopped and looked into a quaint curiosity shop. John admired a set of old Chippendale chairs and a pair of inlaid duelling pistols. He and Elaine were standing close together as he spoke, and he felt her slender, gloved hand laid delicately on his arm.
"Bernard!"
"What is it?" asked John.
She was looking up into his face, a pleased expression in her fine grey eyes.
"Your taste seems to have changed utterly."
"Oh, I don't know," said John. "I—I—perhaps my taste has matured——"
"You used to hate all old things."
John was looking down into her face, that appeared to him now as the most beautiful in the world. He made no answer to her remark, and Elaine went on:
"You look at things so differently, Bernard."
"In what way?" John asked.
"I don't know," answered she. "I have a sort of queer feeling, Bernard, that you are yourself, and yet there is something that has occurred to make you different."
John felt that the discussion was drifting in an awkward direction.
"Do you know what I think?" he remarked.
"What do you think?" asked Elaine, as they walked together.
"I think I ought to do something to make up for all the bad times—er—I have given you in the past."
She was silent, walking along gazing before her.
"They were bad times, some of them, Bernard," she returned, quietly. She moved a little nearer to him as they walked. "But I have always felt," she went on, "that it was not really you. I feel that—that the unfortunate habit you had contracted, the—the——"
"I understand," John intervened.
"I believe now," went on Elaine, "it was not really you. You were not responsible, and I always hoped that some time, when you had conquered yourself, you would become different."
She paused a moment, and John felt her arm slip through his. It was strange, but his pulse-beat quickened at this quiet manifestation of her growing feeling towards him. He felt that, somehow or other, she was being drawn towards him, that she was, as it were, shielding herself under his protection. And yet, all the time, the situation was an impossible one. He had no right to permit advances of this sort; the deception he was practising upon her was utterly and completely cruel. What would have happened, he asked himself, if he had suddenly faced her and had said: "I am not your husband, I am not Bernard Treves—but John Manton? The man you believe me to be—your husband—is a drug-sodden and hysterical degenerate, a soldier who has been guilty of treachery to his country."
His thoughts switched back to the necessity of turning the conversation. He could feel the warmth of her arm resting upon his own.
"Let us talk of cheerful things," he said. "For instance, that is a very pretty hat you have on."
"Do you like it? I made it myself."
"Yes, I like it," responded John, appearing to look at it with the critical eye of a husband. "Of course," he said, "it is quite easy for a hat to look well where you are concerned."
Elaine was frankly pleased.
"Why are you flattering me, Bernard?"
"That wasn't flattery. If I set out to flatter you, I should talk in quite a different way to that."
"Do you know," she went on quickly, "when I met you in the hotel my heart was beating terribly. I was afraid you might be angry!"
"How could I be angry?"
"I don't know," she said; "but sometimes, Bernard, you used to be so dreadfully angry at the things I did."
Somehow the recollection of these things appeared to sweep over her, for she drew her hand away from John's arm.
"I thought we were going to talk of cheerful things," John reminded her. He began to draw her attention to the quaintness of the streets, and managed, until their return to the hotel, to keep her mind fully occupied with trivialities.
When they reached the little sitting-room at the hotel, he rang the bell and ordered dinner to be prepared for two at seven o'clock.
"May we have it here in the sitting-room?" he asked the waiter.
"Certainly, sir," answered the man.
Elaine, whose air of constraint had quite vanished again, went to her room, took off her hat, and put on an afternoon blouse. When she returned to the sitting-room John noticed her little attempt to dress herself for the evening.
"I thought you'd like to see me in something smarter for dinner," she said. "Do you like it, Bernard?"
"It could not be better," said John. Inwardly he was saying: "I like everything about you; I like your fine, dark hair; I like your frank, beautiful eyes, and your honesty and your simplicity, and the fact that you are a girl and yet a woman. What I do dislike, however, is the fact that you have a waster of a husband, and that I have no right to be here this minute standing in that waster's shoes."
They sat down together at the round table in the middle of the hotel' parlour. The waiter, a gloomy individual, in tired-looking dress clothes and in a white shirt that should have been washed a week earlier, lit four pink-shaded candles, served the soup, and went away. Soup was followed by fish and an excellent entrée. John, looking over the top of the pink-shaded candles, saw a brightness in Elaine's eyes. He had been talking gaily keeping the conversation away from anything personal, and telling her anecdotes that made her laugh. And all the time, although he was not aware of the fact, he was drawing her towards him, fanning the flame of love that the real Bernard Treves had never kindled. She was experiencing new feelings towards this man whom she believed to be her husband. The shifty look in his eyes that she had disliked in the past had vanished. The Bernard Treves who sat before her looked frankly and keenly into her face. He was not in the least intimate; he was, indeed, somewhat aloof, but this very quality of aloofness puzzled and attracted her.
By the time dinner was cleared away and the cloth removed, Elaine was completely at her ease. Her old fear of offending her husband had totally vanished. She could not understand her own feelings and began to take herself to task for having been hard with him in the past. When Bernard Treves had persisted in his habit of heavy drinking and drug-taking, she had been obliged to make a stand. She had done everything she could to win him to better ways. But when to these habits he had added violence and other cruelties towards herself, she had informed him that until he made some effort to control himself she could not live with him as his wife. It was characteristic of her, as it is sometimes characteristic of gentle people, that firmness lay beneath an unaggressive exterior. She had kept her word. But to-night, for the first time, she began to doubt the justice of what she had done. She told herself that she had been hard on Bernard Treves, that she ought to have clung to him, however low he sank.
CHAPTER XVII
John, who had deposited himself on a chair at the hearth, lit a cigarette, and was consuming it with a good deal of satisfaction. He had never in his life partaken of an evening meal that had given him so much satisfaction; even the funereal and shabby waiter seemed to him a creature of delight, and the little room in the hotel—he would always remember it as an apartment brightened by the eyes of Elaine Treves. It was not usual for John Manton to be led away, but to-night, for some minutes, he let his senses toy with impossibilities. He permitted himself to forget the existence of Bernard Treves. And when the waiter left the room, and Elaine rose and came towards him, he made no effort to avoid her approach, as he had done once or twice earlier in the evening. She stood beside his chair and laid her hand on his shoulder. John looked up and saw that her face had grown serious.
"I want to make a confession to you, Bernard."
"Let it be a cheerful confession," smiled John.
"I was mistaken, after all."
"It's easy to make mistakes," returned John.
"I ought not to have sent you away from me," said Elaine.
John thought a moment, then observed quietly:
"Perhaps I deserved to be sent away."
"Do you remember, Bernard, when you came to Camden Town after you had seen your father?"
John, naturally, did not recollect.
"I do not recall it very clearly," he said.
"When you—you——" She broke off, and again, as she had done in the street, she moved a little away from him. A wave of aversion towards him appeared to sweep over her. "When," she went on, "I told you that we could not be together again until—until——"
"Until I could behave myself," John put in.
Elaine nodded slightly in assent.
"I thought that I was doing right, and when you said you'd never forgive me I still held out. I wonder, Bernard, if you will forgive me?"
"Of course I'll forgive you," returned Manton, magnanimously. He would have forgiven her anything. He could not believe her capable of anything which would need forgiveness. She came to him again and stood before him, looking down.
John, out of politeness, that she should not be standing when he was seated, stood up, and suddenly he felt Elaine's hand in his.
"Bernard," she whispered, "you care for me still——"
"I care for you more than ever I did," said John. He tried valiantly to slip his hand from hers.
"You love me, I mean?"
Elaine's face was upturned; there was a wistful expression in her fine, grey eyes, and there was something more than wistfulness. John could see it shining there. Inwardly he was conscientiously cursing the Fates that had placed him in this impossible position—and yet outwardly he was glad. He was thrilled and happy that this situation had arisen. Then his thoughts took a turn, and his spirits sank. The love he saw shining in her eyes was not for him, but for Bernard Treves. He put away her hand and moved back in his chair.
"You do love me, Bernard?" she whispered again.
"Yes," John answered. He was convinced that there was no other thing for him to say.
"And you'll forgive me for sending you away?"
John nodded.
Elaine went on again: "It was wrong not to let you stay with me. I had no right to do it; after all, a wife has no right to act as I did."
"Why think of it and worry about it now?" said John, attempting to strike an ordinary tone of voice.
"But I want to make everything straight between us, Bernard."
John led her to a chair, and she seated herself. He tried to turn the conversation, but this time he failed. Elaine felt a growing desire to wipe away all misunderstandings between them.
"I have still my confession to make, Bernard."
"What is it?" inquired John cheerily.
There was a silence for a moment—a silence that John felt to be momentous, that rendered him uncomfortable. Then Elaine's words came to him, uttered in a low tone.
"I never loved you till to-night, Bernard!"
John was conscious of a sudden and exultant thrill.
"Is that all your confession?" he asked.
Elaine nodded. Her hand was in his. John lifted it to his lips. Then recollection came to him; he drew himself erect, standing away from her.
"It's getting late, Elaine," he said. "I ought to be going." There was something vibrant and new in his voice that caused her heart to beat violently. "You see," John went on, somewhat clumsily, "I have important work to do to-morrow."
But Elaine had not loosed her grip of his hand. She suddenly hid her face on his shoulder; he could feel her arms about him. For a minute, what was to John an awkward silence, subsisted between them, then Elaine spoke again:
"Why should you go, Bernard?" she whispered. "I was cruel to you, but I did not wish to be cruel."
"You are never cruel," protested John. "Don't think of it any more."
His situation in that moment was the hardest that Fate could have possibly imposed upon him. Here was the finest woman he had ever met—young, beautiful and ardent, with her arms about his neck, whispering love to him. She was speaking to him as a wife to a husband whom she loves, and all the time he was not that husband. And, to complicate matters, he felt now that the love she was prepared to offer was not offered to the other—to Bernard Treves—but to himself alone.
"Bernard," she murmured, "at the back of my heart, through all those black days, I whispered always that some time I should be happy."
"I am sure you'll be happy," said John. "It will not be my fault if you are not." He drew in a deep breath. "But to-night—I must go; I—I am very busy; I have many things to do to-night. Confidential work." He lifted her hand, bent and kissed her slender white fingers. "Some day I'll explain."
A minute later he was gone.