"Good land!" said Jake in open astonishment.
"You don't know him," said Toby again with conviction.
And Jake laughed, good-humoured but sceptical. "Maybe I've something to learn yet," he said tolerantly. "But it's my impression that for sheer mischief and double-dealing he could knock spots off any other human being on this earth."
"Oh, if that's all you know about him," said Toby, "you've never even met him—never once."
"Have you?" questioned Jake abruptly.
She coloured up to the soft fair hair that clustered about her blue-veined temples, and turned from him with an odd little indrawn breath. "Yes!" she said. "Yes!"—paused an instant as if about to say more; then again in a whisper, "Yes!" she said, and went lightly away as if the subject were too sacred for further discussion.
"Good land!" said Jake again, and departed to his own room in grim amazement.
Saltash the sinner was well known to him and by no means uncongenial; but Saltash the saint, not only beloved, but reverenced and enshrined as such, as something beyond his comprehension! How on earth had he managed to achieve his sainthood?
"Well?" said Saltash with quizzical interest. "Where is she? And how is she getting on?"
It was the Sunday afternoon of his promised visit, a day soft with spring showers and fleeting sunshine. Maud sat in a basket-chair on the verandah and regarded him with puzzled eyes. She passed his questions by.
"Charlie," she said, "where does she come from?"
He raised his shoulders expressively. "Where do all women come from—and why,chère reine? It would be such a peaceful planet without them."
He was in a baffling mood, and she knew better than to pursue the subject under those conditions. She abandoned her effort with a sigh.
"She is not a woman; she is a child, very charming but utterly irresponsible. She is in the training field just now with Jake and Bunny. She is a positive delight to Jake. She can do anything with the horses."
"But not such a delight to you?" suggested Saltash shrewdly.
Maud hesitated momentarily. "I love her of course," she said then. "But—though I have tried to make her feel at ease—I think she is a little afraid of me—afraid anyhow to be quite natural in my presence."
"But are we any of us that?" protested Saltash. "Are we not all on our best behaviour in the audience-chamber?"
Maud sighed again. "They are all great pals," she said irrelevantly. "She and Bunny are terribly reckless. I hope they won't break their necks before they have done."
"Or their hearts?" suggested Saltash, looking mischievous.
She smiled. "I don't think there is much danger of that, anyhow at present. She is a positive child, Charlie,—as young as Eileen in many ways, or perhaps younger. Shall we walk down to the field and look at them?"
"Your servant, madam!" said Saltash readily.
He was on his feet in an instant, and she realized that he had been chafing to go since the moment of his arrival.
"You take a great interest in her," she remarked, as they walked along the terrace.
He made his most appalling grimace. "I have never had an infant to look after before," he said "And—I have to make my report to Larpent."
"Ah! How is he?" questioned Maud.
He shot her a swift glance. "Is the child anxious?"
"Not in the least. I don't believe she ever thinks about him. She told me on the first day that she hardly knows him."
Saltash laughed. "How honest of her! Well, he's getting better, but he won't be well yet. May I leave her in your charge, a while longer?"
"Of course!" Maud said warmly. "I love to have her, and she is a great help to me too. The children simply worship her, and she is splendid with them. I believe Eileen will very soon get over her dread of riding."
"Toby can ride?" asked Saltash.
"Oh yes, like a cow-boy. She is amazingly fearless, and never minds a tumble in the least. She can do the most extraordinary things exactly like a boy. I am always afraid of her coming to grief, but she never does."
"Funny little beggar!" said Saltash.
"I am quite sure of one thing," pursued Maud. "She never learnt these things at any school. She tells me she has been to a good many."
"I believe that's true," said Saltash. "I imagine she is fairly quick to pick up anything, but I haven't known her myself for long."
"She must have picked up a good deal onThe Night Moth," observed Maud unexpectedly.
He glanced at her again. "Why do you say that? She was under my protection—and Larpent's—onThe Night Moth."
"I know. She idolizes you," Maud smiled at him somewhat dubiously. "But she must have mixed fairly freely with the crew to have picked up the really amazing language she sometimes uses."
Saltash's brows worked whimsically. "Some of us have a gift that way," he remarked. "Your worthy Jake, for instance—"
"Oh, Jake is a reformed character," she interrupted. "He hardly ever lets himself go now-a-days. And he won't allow it from Bunny. But Toby—Toby never seems to know the good from the bad."
"Has Jake taken her in hand?" asked Saltash with a chuckle.
"Oh yes. He checks her at every turn. I must say she takes it very sweetly, even offered to take her meals in her room yesterday when he was rather down on her. It absolutely disarmed Jake of course. What could he say?"
"Yes, she's a disarming monkey certainly," agreed Saltash. "But I never was great on the management and discipline of children. So she knocks under to the great Jake, does she?"
"Oh, not entirely." Maud laughed a little. "Only this morning they had a battle. I don't know how it is going to end yet. But—she can be very firm."
"She never tried any battles with me," said Saltash, with some complacence.
"No. But then your sense of duty is more elastic than Jake's. You never—probably—asked her to do anything she didn't want to do."
"Can't remember," said Saltash. "What did Jake want?"
Maud's smile lingered. "You'll laugh of course. But Jake is quite right, whatever you do. He wanted her to go to church with little Eileen and me this morning. She's only a child, you know, and he naturally took it for granted that she was going. We both did. But just at the last moment she absolutely refused, told him quite frankly that she was—an atheist."
Saltash's laugh had a sound half-mocking, half-exultant. "What said the worthy Jake to that? Stop! I know what he said. He said. 'You can call yourself by any fool name you please, but you've got to go to Church like a respectable citizen if I say so.' Wasn't that it?"
"Something like it," Maud admitted. "How did you know?"
"Oh, I know Jake," said Saltash dryly. "And what happened then? She refused?"
"Yes, she refused. She was frightened, but she refused. She looked as if she were going to run away, but in the end Jake went off with her to the stables saying they would go to-night. They were quite friends when I saw them again, but she had been crying, poor little thing. I wish I could help her, but somehow I can't get near enough. Jake seems to understand her best."
"Wonder if she will give in?" said Saltash.
They were passing through a shrubbery that led to the training-field, and there came the quick thud of hoofs galloping on short turf as they approached.
"I don't think there is much doubt about that," Maud said.
Saltash laughed again mockingly. "Oh, we all know Jake is invincible, virtuous rectitude incarnate. But you can't hammer a girl into submission like a boy and I rather fancy that Toby is not wholly ignorant of the art of getting her own way."
"Jake never hammered Bunny," Maud said quietly, "But he manages him notwithstanding."
They rounded a curve and came upon the gate that led into the field. The galloping hoofs were close to them. As they reached the corner two riders flashed past at full speed. One of them—Bunny—lay on his horse's neck, yelling wild encouragement to his mount. The other,—a slight, childish figure—was kneeling on the saddle like a small, crouching creature, perfectly poised and wholly unafraid. As the horse that carried her dropped to a canter on the hill, she got to her feet with absolute ease, and stood, arms out and swaying to the animal's motion, till, as they rounded another curve, she dropped to the saddle again, and passed from sight, following in Bunny's tracks.
"Quite a pretty exhibition!" remarked Saltash. "Where is Jake?"
Jake himself appeared at the moment riding soberly, mounted on his favourite horse, The Hundredth Chance. He greeted Saltash with a smile and jumped to the ground to join them at the gate.
"They'll be round again directly. Just riding off their spirits," he explained in his easy drawl. "You motored over, my lord?"
Saltash nodded with a touch of impatience. He was watching with restless eyes for the reappearance of the girl on horseback. She had not seen him at the gate, yet somehow his arrogance rebelled at the fact that she had passed him by.
Jake stood with The Hundredth Chance nuzzling against him. He did not trouble himself to make conversation; that was not his way. He also waited for the reappearance of the riders.
They came, riding side by side and jesting with carelesscamaraderie. Toby's face was delicately flushed. The fair head had no covering. She was dressed and looked exactly like a boy.
At sight of Saltash standing by the gate her whole attitude changed. She uttered a queer sound, half-whoop, half-sob, and flung herself out of the saddle. In a moment she had reached him, was hanging to his arm in mute greeting, everything else in the world forgotten. It was pathetically like the re-union of a lost dog to its master.
Saltash's ugly face softened miraculously at her action. The jest died on his lips. "Why, Nonette!" he said. "Nonette!"
She strangled another sob. Her face was burning, quivering, appealing, no longer the face of a boy. "I thought you'd forgotten to come," she said.
"What? Was I expected to lunch?" said Saltash. "Ah! Was that why you wouldn't go to church?"
Toby looked up, desperately smiling. "It may have been—partly. But I never do go. Do you?"
"Not often," said Saltash. "I might if I stayed here. There's no knowing.You'll be pleased to hear your daddy is better. He's coming down to theCastle to convalesce. And when he's done that, I'm going to have aparty—a coming-out party—for you."
"For me!" Toby gasped, staring at him with scared blue eyes. "I hope you won't, sir," she said.
He laughed back at her, his brows working mischievously. "Mais pourquoi pas, mignonne?You are old enough. Maud will come and be hostess, won't you, Maud? You shall have Jake too for a watch-dog, if you want him. After that, you shall be presented at Court, when you've learnt to curtsey prettily instead of turning somersaults. You must let your hair grow, Nonette, and leave off wearing breeks. You've got to be a credit to me."
"Oh, damn!" said Toby in dismay. "I mean—oh, bother!"
"Yes, it's a good thing you mean only that, isn't it?" laughed Saltash."If you go on wearing those masculine things much longer, you'll haveJake punching your head for little slips of that kind. He's gettingmighty particular, I'm told."
"Not afraid of Jake!" said Toby, casting a swift look at her host.
Jake was lighting his pipe. His face wore a faint smile. He was holding Toby's animal as well as his own. "Aren't you going to ride again?" he said.
"No," said Toby.
"Oh, come on!" Bunny pushed his horse forward without dismounting. "Glad to see you, Charlie, but we must have one more gallop. Come on, Toby! Be a sport!"
But Toby, still holding Saltash's sleeve, would not so much as look at him. "Not coming," she said tersely.
Saltash laughed. Bunny coloured suddenly and hotly. "Oh, all right!" he said, and, wheeling his horse, rode away.
"Now you've hurt his little feelings," observed Saltash.
"Who cares?" said Toby, and nestled closer, till with his sudden reckless grin he thrust an arm about her shoulders.
"I'll tell you what it is, Nonette. You're getting spoilt all round.Something will have to be done. Shall I take her away, Jake?"
"And bring me back when I'm good?" put in Toby eagerly.
He laughed and pinched her ear. "I shall want to keep you myself—when you're good. I haven't yet found anyone to sew on buttons like you do. No,ma chère, you'll have to stay and be caned for your sins. Jake is a better schoolmaster than I am, being so eminently virtuous himself. I hope you do cane her, Jake. I'm sure she needs it."
"No," Jake said, preparing to mount again. "I haven't tried that at present."
Toby watched him a little wistfully as he moved away, leading her horse."I am trying to be good," she said. "He knows that."
"Yes, she's trying hard," Maud said very kindly. "Jake and I are going to be proud of her some day."
Saltash's brows twisted humorously. "I wonder," he said. And then again lightly he laughed. "Don't get too good, Nonette! I can't rise to it."
She turned swiftly, looking up into the derisive face above her with open adoration in her own. "You!" she said. "You!"
"Well, what about me?" he said.
She coloured very deeply. "Nothing, sir, nothing! Only—you're so great!"
He flicked her cheek, grimacing hideously. "Is that your pretty way of telling me I'm the biggest rotter you ever met?"
"Oh, no!" said Toby quickly and earnestly. "Oh no! I think you are—a king. If—if anyone could make me believe in God, you could."
She spoke with a sincerity that held a hint of passion. The grimace flicked out of Saltash's face like a picture from a screen. For a moment he had the blank look of a man who has been hit, he knows not where. Then with lightning swiftness, his eyes went to Maud. "You hear that?" he said, almost on a note of challenge. "Why don't you laugh?"
She met his look with absolute steadfastness. There was a certain pity in her own. "Because," she said with great gentleness, "I believe that it is true."
In the silence that followed she waited for his own laugh of mockery and did not hear it. The odd eyes comprehended her, and passed her by, fell abruptly to Toby and dwelt upon her with a whimsical tenderness.
"I always said you were a little ass, didn't I, Toby?" he said.
And Toby turned with an apologetic murmur and softly kissed his hand.
Toby went to church that Sunday evening with great propriety, Saltash having departed, taking Bunny with him to spend the evening at Burchester. Her behaviour was a model of decorum throughout, but returning she begged Jake for a cigarette as a reward of virtue.
"It'll keep me good for hours," she assured him.
And Jake, who yearned for a smoke himself, could not find it in his heart to refuse.
"Don't overdo it, that's all!" he said. "Young Bunny is always at it, and it's very bad for him."
"Oh, I've got heaps more sense than Bunny," said Toby, with lofty assurance.
She smoked the cigarette with delicate appreciation though Jake's tobacco was by no means suited to a feminine palate, and they returned at peace with all the world.
Maud, who had been watching for them somewhat anxiously, saw with relief that her fears were groundless. Toby's serene countenance told her that all was well. No, she had not hated it so very badly after all. It was nothing to make a fuss about anyhow. She would go again if Jake liked.
She seemed in fact mildly amused by the idea that he could be so easily pleased, and asked him later with her chin in the air if there were any other odd jobs he would like her to perform.
But when Maud presently went to the piano, she came and sat on a low chair near her and listened in absolute stillness while she played. They were alone, and Maud played on and on, almost forgetful of her silent companion, suffering her fingers to wander in unison with her thoughts. All her life music had been her great joy and solace. She was not a brilliant musician as was Saltash, but she had the gift of so steeping herself in music that she could at times thereby express that which otherwise would have been unutterable—the hidden emotions of her soul.
Nearly an hour had passed thus before she remembered the silent little figure behind her, and then it was with a swift sense of compunction that she took her hands from the keys and turned.
"Toby dear, how boring this must be for you! Are you asleep? Why, child, what is it?"
With a start she saw that Toby's fair head was bowed upon her arms in an attitude of the most hopeless, the most bitter, despair.
She made a convulsive movement at the sound of Maud's voice, and in a moment lifted a white, strained face. "I am just a little tired, that's all," she said in a voice that quivered in spite of her. "Please go on playing! I like it."
Maud got up with quiet decision and went to her, but Toby was on her feet before she reached her. She stood with that look of a small, frightened animal so characteristic of her, her two hands nervously locked together.
Maud took her gently by the arm. "Shall we sit down and talk?" she said.
Toby yielded as it were involuntarily to the quiet touch. In her plain white blouse with the sailor collar she looked a mere child—a piteous, shy child.
Maud drew her down upon the sofa. All the mother in her went out to the forlorn little creature, yet for the moment she hesitated, as one afraid to strike a wrong note.
Toby was trembling a little and that fact decided her. She put a comforting arm about her.
"Do you know I am wondering how to make you happy?" she said.
Toby choked back a sob. "You are very kind, and I am stupid—stupid. I will try to be happy. I will really."
Maud began to draw her gently nearer, but Toby surprised her by a sudden passionate movement and slipped down on to the floor, hiding her face against her.
"I'm not fit—to speak to you!" she said in a vehement, strangled whisper. "I'm so bad—so bad. And I do—so—want to be good."
"My dear, dear child!" Maud said very tenderly.
Toby fought with herself for a space, her thin arms tightly claspingMaud's knees. At last, forcing back her distress she lifted her head.
"I'm so dreadfully sorry. Don't let it upset you! Don't—tell Jake!"
"You are quite safe with me, dear," Maud assured her. "But can't I help you?"
She knew even as she asked the question that Toby was not prepared to give her full confidence, and her own reserve shrank from asking for it.
Toby looked up at her with quivering lips. "Oh, you are good!" she said."I want to be good—like you. But—I don't feel as if I ever shall be."
Maud laid a very gentle hand upon the blue-veined forehead. "I think goodness is only comparative at the best of times, dear," she said. "I don't feel that I am specially good. If I seem so to you, it is probably because my life holds very few temptations to be anything else."
"Ah!" Toby said, with a quick sigh. "And do you think people ought to be made to suffer for—for things they can't help?"
Maud shook her head. "I am afraid it often happens, dear."
"And yet you believe in God," Toby said.
"Yes, I believe in God." With quiet reverence Maud made answer. "And I am quite sure, Toby—quite, quite sure—that He never holds people responsible for the things they can't help."
"Then why—" began Toby restlessly.
Maud interrupted her. "No, no. Don't ask why! The world is as God made it. 'We are His workmanship.' Let Him do with us as He will!"
Toby's hands clenched. A frown that was curiously unchildlike drew the wide forehead. "Are we to be quite passive then? Just—slaves?"
"No," Maud said. "Servants—not slaves. There is a big difference. And every one of us—every one of us—has God's work to do in the world."
"And you think that bad people,—like me—can do anything?" said Toby.
Maud smiled a little. "Toby dear, I am quite sure that your work is waiting for you."
"Don't know where I'm going to begin," said Toby, with another sigh.
"My dear, you have begun." Maud's hand smoothed the fair hair. "Do you think I don't know how hard you try?"
Toby's eyes filled with quick tears. "But is it any good trying? Shall I ever get away from—from—" She broke off with a nervous, upward glance. "Shall I ever do more than begin?" she substituted rather piteously.
"My dear, yes." Very quietly, with absolute decision, Maud made answer. "You are young—too young to be hampered by anything that is past. You have your life before you, and—to a very great extent—you can make of it what you will. There is no need—believe me, there is no need—to look back. There is only time enough for the present. Just keep on trying! Make the very best you can of it! And you will find the future will come out all right."
"Will it?" said Toby rather dubiously.
Maud bent and kissed her. "Certainly it will, dear. Never doubt it! It may not be the future we plan for ourselves, but it will be the very best possible if we keep on doing our best with the present."
"Thank you," Toby murmured gratefully. "And you really think—you do really think—the past doesn't matter?"
Maud was silent for a few moments. The thought of Saltash was in her mind, his jesting evasions, his air of careless proprietorship. What was the thing in this child's past that she desired so earnestly to put away? She wondered if she ought to ask, but she could not.
A slight terror ran through the small, supplicating figure at her knee, and quick pity banished doubt. "I think it is entirely in our own hands, dear," she said gently. "The past can always be left behind if we work hard enough."
"Oh, thank you," Toby said again, and gathering Maud's hands impulsively into her own she kissed them. "I'm going to work very hard," she said. "You'll help me, I know. I've got to—to leave off turning somersaults—and learn to—curtsey."
She sent a shy smile into Maud's face, and almost in spite of herself Maud answered it. There was something oddly appealing, irresistibly attractive, about the child. She was so young and ardent, yet so pathetically anxious to please.
"Of course I will help you," she said. "I will always help you, my dear."
And Toby, emboldened, thrust warm arms about her neck, and held her close.
The perfect rose of a June sunset was slanting through the fir-woods of Burchester Park, making the red trunks glow. At the end of a long grass ride the new moon dipped to the west, a silver boat uptilted in a green transparent sea. A very great stillness lay upon all things—the eventide quiet of a summer day.
The dull thudding of a horse's hoofs along the ride scarcely seemed to break that magic silence. A frightened rabbit scurrying to cover made no sound at all. Somewhere a long way off a cuckoo was calling, tenderly, persistently. Somewhere near at hand a blackbird was warbling to his mate. But it all went into the enchanted silence, blending with the hush of the coming night. The man who rode the horse was conscious only of the peace of his surroundings. He doffed his cap to the moon in mock reverence, and carried it in his hand.
He came to the end of the ride and checked his animal on the brow of a steep descent. The park lay below him wrapped in mystery. On another slope a full mile away stood the Castle, ancient battlemented, starkly splendid, one westward-facing window burning as with fire. He sat motionless for a space, gazing across at it, his face a curious mask of conjecture and regret.
Finally, with great suddenness, he lifted his hand and smote his horse sharply on the flank. In a moment he was being precipitated at a headlong gallop down the hill. He went like the wind, and the enchanted wood was left behind.
Riding up the further slope to the Castle a few minutes later, he was hailed from behind and reined in to look back. A long-legged figure detached itself from a clump of trees that shadowed the bailiff's house and came racing in pursuit.
"Hi! Charlie! Don't be in such a deuce of a hurry! I'm going your way."
Saltash waited, not too patiently. "My good chap, you're dressed and I'm not! I shall be late for my guests."
"What's it matter?" scoffed Bunny breathlessly, reaching his side. "Maud and Jake don't count, and Toby is only a kid. I don't suppose she's ever been out to dine before."
"She's old enough to begin," remarked Saltash, pushing on at a walk.
"Well, she is beginning," said Bunny, with a grin as he strode beside him. "You haven't seen her for some weeks, have you? You'll see a difference, and so will her father."
"How?" said Saltash briefly.
Bunny's grin became more pronounced. "Oh, it's chiefly clothes. Maud is rather clever in that line, you know. I haven't seen a great deal of her lately. She's generally scampering round on horseback with Jake. But once or twice—with Maud—I've seen her look quite demure. She's really getting almost good-looking," he added dispassionately.
Saltash flung a swift look downwards. "Don't you approve?"
Bunny shrugged his shoulders. "I don't see enough of her to care either way. She's still a kid, you know,—quite a kid."
Saltash dropped the subject abruptly. "You're liking your job all right?"
"Rather!" Bunny made instant and enthusiastic reply. "It's just the sort of thing I was made for. Old Bishop's a brick. We're getting quite fond of one another."
"Sort of life you enjoy?" questioned Saltash.
"Oh, rather! I've always thought I'd like to manage a big estate. WishI'd got one of my own."
"All right. I'll adopt you," laughed Saltash. "You shall be the son of my old age."
"Oh, don't be an ass!" protested Bunny. "Why on earth don't you get married?"
Saltash's brows twisted wryly. "Afraid I've lived too long,mon cher. If I had married your sister in the long ago, things might have been vastly different. As it is, I see no prospect of changing my state. Think it matters?"
"Well, it's rather a shame to let a good name die out," maintained Bunny. "And of course it's rot to talk like that about Maud. You can't pretend to have stayed in love with her all these years. There must have been heaps of others since then."
"No, I'm not pretending," said Saltash. "As you say, there have been—heaps of others." He made an odd gesture towards the western sky behind him. "There are always—heaps of stars, Bunny; but there's never more than one moon."
"Rot!" said Bunny.
"It is, isn't it?" said Saltash, and laughed with brief derision. "Well,I must get on. You can do the receiving if I'm late. Tell them I've beenin town and only got back at mid-day! You needn't bother about Larpent.I'll see to him."
He flicked his horse's neck and was off with the words.
Bunny, striding after, watched him ride swiftly up the slope till the fir-trees of the avenue hid him from view.
"Queer fish!" he murmured to himself. "Very queer fish!"
He entered the Castle a little later by the great stone hall and found it lighted from end to end as if in preparation for a reception. He had known the place for years, but it always struck him afresh with its magnificence. It looked like a palace of kings. There were some beautiful pieces of statuary both in marble and bronze, and upon each of these a shaded light shone.
At the end of the hall a wide oak staircase that branched mid-way led to an oak gallery that ran round three sides of the hall, and where it divided a high door stood open, showing a lighted room beyond. Bunny left his coat with the silent-stepping butler and went straight up the shallow stairs.
He entered the stately apartment at the top expecting to find it empty. It was the drawing-room—a vast and lofty chamber with satin-covered walls, superbly furnished with old French furniture in royal blue velvet and gilt. There was a further room beyond, but Bunny did not pursue his way thither, for a man in evening-dress turned suddenly from one of the great southward-facing windows and moved to meet him.
He was a gaunt man with a trim beard and the eyes of the sea-farer, and he walked with a slight roll as if accustomed to pitching decks.
"Sir Bernard Brian?" he said.
Bunny held out his hand. "You're Captain Larpent, of course. I wonder we've never met before. I've heard of you often enough. Sorry you had such bad luck withThe Night Moth."
"Oh, damnable luck!" said the sailor gloomily.
"Still you came out of it alive," said Bunny consolingly. "And your daughter too. Things might have been worse."
Larpent grunted. "Think so?"
"She does anyway," said Bunny, with a grin.
Larpent grunted again. "Shipboard is not the place for a girl," he remarked.
"Toby seems more at home on horseback than anywhere else," said Bunny.
Larpent gave him a keen look. "Oh, she still goes by that name, does she?" he said.
"What do you call her?" said Bunny.
Larpent snapped his fingers curtly.
"Does she come for that?" asked Bunny.
"Usually," said Larpent.
"Then she's more docile than I thought she was," commented Bunny.
Larpent said nothing. He propped himself against the high mantelpiece and stared morosely out before him to the pine-clad slopes of the park.
"How you must hate being ashore!" said Bunny.
"Why do you say that?" Larpent scarcely removed his moody gaze.
"You look as if you did." There was a hint of chaff in Bunny's voice. He surveyed the gaunt man with humorous interest, seated on one of the gilt chairs with his hands clasped round his knee. "I suppose Saltash will buy another yacht, won't he?"
Larpent's eyes came definitely down to him, grimly contemptuous. "Do you also suppose that would be the same thing?" he said.
Bunny flushed a little, but he accepted the rebuff with a good grace. "I don't know, sir. You see, I've never been the captain of a yacht."
Larpent's hard visage relaxed a little. He resumed his contemplation of the distant pine-woods in silence.
Bunny got up whistling and began to stroll about the room. He was never still for long. He was not very familiar with the state reception-rooms of Burchester Castle and he found plenty to interest him.
Several minutes passed, and he had almost forgotten the silent man who leaned against the fire-place, when suddenly Larpent came out of his melancholy reverie and spoke.
"How long has the child been with these Boltons?"
Bunny paused at the further end of the room. "Let's see! It must be some time now—practically ever since the wreck. It must be about six weeks. Yes; she came just before I left to take on this job—the week of the Graydown Meetings." Bunny's eyes kindled at the memory. "We had some sport the day she came, I remember; quite a little flutter. In fact we soared so high that I thought we were going to create a sensation, and then"—Bunny whistled dramatically—"down we came with a rush, and I was broke!" He began to laugh. "It's rather a shame to tell you, isn't it? But you won't give me away? We've never done it since."
"I shan't give anyone away," said Larpent grimly.
"Good! You're a sport, I can see."
The genuine appreciation in Bunny's voice brought an icy glimmer of amusement to the elder man's eyes, but he made no verbal comment.
Again a silence fell, and Bunny came strolling back, a smile on his handsome boyish face.
"Fine place this," he remarked presently. "It's a pity Saltash is here so little. He only comes about three times a year, and then only for a couple of nights at a time. There's heaps of game in the woods and no one to shoot it."
"He probably knows his own business best," remarked Larpent.
"Oh, probably. But the place is wasted on him for all that." Bunny spoke with a frown. "Why on earth he doesn't marry and settle down I can't think. Can't you persuade him to?"
"No," said Larpent quite definitely.
Bunny glanced at him. "I don't know why not. I know he's considered to have gone the pace a bit, but after all he's no worse than a hundred others. Why the devil shouldn't he marry?"
Larpent shrugged his shoulders. "Don't ask me!" he said.
"Well, he ought to," maintained Bunny. "If you have any influence with him, you ought to persuade him to."
"I haven't," said Larpent.
Bunny flung away impatiently. "It's a confounded shame—a gorgeous family place like this and no one but servants to live in it!"
"It is, isn't it?" gibed Saltash, unexpectedly entering from the further door. "Large enough for fifty wives, eh, Bunny? Well, as I said before, you get married and I'll adopt you. It'll save me a lot of trouble. You're so keen on recommending the marriage medicine to other people. Try it yourself, and see how you like it!"
He walked straight down the long room with the words, passing both Larpent and Bunny on his way, pausing by neither. "I like to hear you two discussing my case," he jested. "You, Bunny, who have never had the great disease, and Larpent who has never got over it!"
He approached the open door that led out upon the great staircase, the jest still on his lips and the laughter in his eyes. He reached it and stretched out both hands with a fine gesture of greeting.
"Welcome to my poor hovel!" he said. "Madam, I kneel at your feet."
A clear high laugh answered him from below, and both of his companions turned sharply at the sound.
A figure in white, girlish, fresh as the morning, sprang suddenly into view. Her eager face had the delicate flush of a wild rose. The hair clustered about her temples in tender ringlets of gold. Her eyes, blue and shining, gave her the look of a child just awakened from happy sleep—a child that expects to be lifted up and kissed.
"By—Jove!" murmured Bunny under his breath, staring openly. "By—Jove!"
And these words failed him. He had never been so astounded in his life. This girl—this funny little Toby with the sharp features and pointed chin, the girl-urchin with whom he had chaffed and played—was actually a beauty, and till that amazing moment he had not realized the fact.
As he went forward to greet her, he saw that Larpent was staring also, and he chuckled inwardly at the sight. Decidedly it must be a worse shock for Larpent than it was for himself, he reflected. For at least he had seen her in the chrysalis stage, though most certainly he had never expected this wonderful butterfly to emerge.
Maud, of course, was the witch who had worked the marvellous transformation, Maud with her tender mother-wisdom that divined so much. He looked at her now, and wondered as he met her smile if she fully realized what she had done.
Across the wonder came Saltash's quizzing voice—"Mais, Nonette,Nonette, you are a vision for the gods!"
And a curious hot pang that was like a physical stab went through Bunny. How dared Charlie use that caressing tone to her—as though she were a mere ordinary woman to be trifled with and cajoled? He had never disapproved of Saltash before, but for that moment he almost hated him. She was too young, too sweet, too—different—to be treated thus.
And then he was standing close to her, and Saltash, laughing, pushed him forward. "Do you know this fellow,ma chère?"
The wide blue eyes came up to his with a pleased smile of comradeship. "Why, it's Bunny!" the clear voice said. "I'm so glad you're here too—in this ogre's castle."
Her hand gave his a little confiding squeeze, and Bunny's fingers gripped in answer. He realized suddenly that she was nervous, and all the ready chivalry of his nature rose up to protect her. For a moment or two he kept her hand close in his own.
Then Saltash airily took it from him. "Come!" he said lightly. "Here is someone else you ought to know!"
He wheeled her round with the words. She came face to face with Larpent. There was an instant of dead silence, then Toby uttered a little quivering laugh.
"Hullo—Captain!" she said
"Hullo!" said Larpent, paused a moment, then abruptly took her by the chin, and, stooping, touched the wide brow with his lips. "All right?" he asked gruffly.
Toby gave a little gasp; she seemed to be trembling. But in a second she laughed again, with more assurance. "Yes, all right, captain," she said. "I—I—I'm glad to see you again. You all right too?"
Bunny, looking on, made the abrupt discovery that Larpent also was embarrassed. It was Saltash who answered for him, covering the moment's awkwardness with the innate ease of manner which never seemed to desert him.
"Of course he's all right. Don't you worry about him! We're going to buy him another boat as soon as the insurance Company have done talking. Maud, this is my captain, the finest yachtsman you've ever met and my very good friend."
He threw his merry, dare-devil glance at Larpent as he made the introduction, and turned immediately to Jake.
"You two ought to get on all right. He disapproves of me almost as strongly as you do, and—like you—he endures me, he knows not wherefore!"
Jake's red-brown eyes held a smile that made his rugged face look kindly as he made reply. "Maybe we both have the sense to spot a winner when we see one, my lord."
Saltash's brows went up derisively. "And maybe you'll both lose good money on the gamble before you've done."
"I think not," said Jake, in his steady drawl. "I've known many a worse starter than you get home on the straight."
Saltash laughed aloud, and Toby turned with flushed cheeks and lifted eyes, alight and ardent, to her hero's face.
Saltash's glance flashed round to her, the monkeyish grin still about his mouth, and from her to Bunny who stood behind. He did not speak for a moment. Then: "No; you've never known a worse starter, Jake," he said; "and if I do get home on the straight it will be thanks to you."
Very curiously from that moment Bunny found his brief resentment dead.
"Let's go out into the garden!" said Bunny urgently.
Dinner was over, and Maud and Saltash were at the piano at the far end of the great room. Jake and Larpent were smoking in silent companionship at a comfortable distance. Toby, who had been very quiet the whole evening, sat silently apart in a low chair with her hands clasped about her knees. Bunny alone was restless.
She lifted her eyes to him as he prowled near her, and they held a hint of mischief. At his murmured words she rose.
"You'd like to?" he questioned.
She nodded. "Of course; love it. You know the way. You lead!"
Bunny needed no second bidding. He went straight to the tall door and held it open for her. Toby, very slim and girlish in her white raiment, cocked her chin and walked out in state. But the moment they were alone she turned upon him a face brimful of laughter.
"Oh, now we can enjoy ourselves! I've been feeling so proper all the evening. Quick! Where shall we go?"
"Into the garden," said Bunny. "Or wait! Come up on to the battlements!It's ripping up there."
She thrust her hand eagerly into his. "I shall love that. Which way do we go?"
"Through the music-room," said Bunny.
He caught and held her hand. They ran up one of the wide stairways that branched north and south to the Gallery. Saltash's music followed them from the drawing-room as they went. He was playing a haunting Spanish love-song, and Toby shivered and quickened her pace.
They reached another oak door which Bunny opened, drawing her impetuously forward. "This is Charlie's own particular sanctum. Rather a ripping place, isn't it? He's got a secret den that leads somewhere out of it, but no one knows how to get in."
He led her over a polished oak floor into a long, almost empty apartment with turreted windows at each end, and a grand piano near one of them that shone darkly in the shaded lamplight. Underfoot were Persian rugs, exquisite of tint and rich of texture. Two or three deep divans completed the furniture of the room giving it a look of Eastern magnificence that strangely lured the senses.
"Rather like a harem I always think," said Bunny, pausing to look round. "There's an Arabian Nights sort of flavour about it that rather gets hold of one. Why? You're shivering! Surely you're not cold!"
"No, I'm not cold," said Toby. "But I don't like this place. It's creepy.Let's go!"
But Bunny lingered. "What's the matter with it? It's luxurious enough.I've always rather liked coming in here."
Toby made a small but vehement gesture of protest. "Then you like horrid things," she said. "There's no air in here;—only—only—scent."
Bunny sniffed. "Well, it's quite subtle anyhow; not enough to upset anybody. Rather a seductive perfume, what?"
She surprised him by stamping in sudden fury upon the bare floor."It's beastly! It's hateful! How can you like it? It—it—it's bad!It's—damnable!"
Bunny stared at her. "Well, Charlie designed it anyway. It's the one corner in the whole Castle that is individually his. What on earth is there that you don't like about it?"
"Everything—everything!" declared Toby passionately. "I don't want to stay here another minute. Show me the way out!"
She spoke with such imperiousness that Bunny judged it best to comply. He showed her a door in the eastern wall that was draped by a heavy red curtain.
"You can get up on to the ramparts that way. But wait a minute while I find the switch! What are you running away from? There isn't a bogey-man anywhere."
Toby drew in her breath sharply with a nervous glance over her shoulder. "I think it's a dreadful place," she said. "I want to get out into the air."
Bunny opened the door, and a dark passage gaped before them. "This looks much more eerie," he observed, feeling about for a switch. "Do you really like this better?"
"Much better," said Toby, going boldly into the darkness.
"Don't believe there is a switch," said Bunny, striking a match. "No, there isn't! How beastly medieval! Look here! Wait while I go and get an electric torch!"
"No, no! Let's feel our way! I'm sure we can," urged Toby. "Come on!It'll be fun. Shut the door!"
The spirit of adventure seized upon Bunny. He let the door swing closed and caught her hand again.
Toby's delighted chuckle told him that she had fully recovered her equilibrium. Her fingers twined closely about his own.
"Now we shall have some fun!" she said.
They went forward together for a few yards in total darkness. Then, from somewhere high above them a faint light filtered through.
"That's on the stairs," said Bunny. "One of those window-slits through which in the old hospitable days all comers were potted at. Look out how you go!"
The words were scarcely uttered when they both kicked against the lowest stair and blundered forward. A squeal of laughter came from Toby. Bunny said "Damn!" with much heartiness and then laughed also.
"I knew it would be fun," said Toby. "Are you hurt?"
He raised her with a strong young arm. "No, I'm all right. Are you?"
"Yes. I'm loving it. What happens next? Do the stairs wind round and round till we get to the top?"
"Yes. There are about six hundred of 'em. Feel equal to it?"
"Equal to anything," said Toby promptly. "Let me go first!"
"Why don't I go and get a light?" said Bunny.
"Because you're not to. Because it's heaps more fun without. Besides, there's lots of light up there. Now then? Are you ready? Come on! Let's go!"
Indomitable resolution sounded in Toby's voice. She drew herself free from Bunny's hold, and began to mount.
"You know it's haunted, don't you?" said Bunny cheerily. "A beautiful lady was once captured and imprisoned in this turret in the dear old days when everyone did those things. She had to choose between throwing herself from the battlements and marrying her wicked captor—an ancestor of Charlie's, by the way. She did the latter and then died of a broken heart. They always did, you know. Her poor little ghost has wandered up and down this stair ever since."
"Idiot!" said Toby tersely.
"Who?" said Bunny. "And why?"
"The woman. Why didn't she throw herself over? It would have been much easier."
"Perhaps she didn't find it so," said Bunny. "And she'd doubtless have done the haunting stunt even if she had."
"Well, then, why didn't she marry the brute and—and—give him hell?" said Toby tensely.
Bunny uttered a shout of laughter that echoed and re-echoed up and down the winding stair.
"Is that what you would have done?"
"I'd have done one or the other," said Toby.
"By Jove, how bloodthirsty you sound!" ejaculated Bunny. "Are you in earnest by any chance?"
"Yes, I am in earnest." There was a note of bitter challenge in Toby's reply. "If a woman hasn't the spunk to defend herself, she's better dead."
"I agree with you there," said Bunny with decision. "But I don't know how you come to know it."
"Oh, I know a lot of things," said Toby's voice in the darkness, and this time it sounded oddly cold and desolate as if the stone walls around them had somehow deadened it.
He put out a hand and touched her, for she seemed in some fashion to have withdrawn from him, to have become remote as the echoes about them. "There are heaps of things you don't know anyway," he said. "You're only a kid after all."
"Think so?" said Toby.
She evaded his hand, flitting up before him towards that grim slit in the wall through which the dim half-light of the summer night vaguely entered. Her light figure became visible to him as she reached it. There came to him a swift memory of the butterfly-beauty that had so astounded him earlier in the evening.
"No, I don't," he said. "You're past that stage. What on earth has Maud been doing to you? Do you know when you first came into the drawing-room tonight I hardly knew you?"
Toby's light laugh came back to him. She was like a white butterfly flitting before him in the twilight. "I wondered what you'd say. I've given up jumping rosebushes, and I'm learning to be respectable. It's rather fun sometimes. Maud is very good to me—and I love Jake, don't you?"
"Yes, he's a brick; always was," said Bunny enthusiastically. "I'd back him every time. But, I say. Don't get too respectable, will you? Somehow it doesn't suit you."
Again he heard her laugh in the darkness—a quick, rather breathless laugh. "I don't think I'll ever be that," she said. "Do you?"
"I don't know," said Bunny. "But you looked scared to death when you came in—as if you were mounted on a horse that was much too high for you. I believe you were afraid of that old daddy of yours."
"I am rather," said Toby. "You see, I don't know him very well. And I'm not sure he likes me."
"Of course he likes you," said Bunny.
"Why? I don't know why he should."
"Everyone does," said Bunny, with assurance.
"Don't be silly!" said Toby.
They were past the slit in the wall, and were winding upwards now towards another. Bunny postponed argument, finding he needed all his breath for the climb. The steps had become narrower and more steeply spiral than before. His companion mounted so swiftly that he found it difficult to keep close to her. The ascent seemed endless.
Again they passed a window-slit, and Bunny suddenly awoke to the fact that the flying figure in front was trying to out-distance him. It came to him in a flash of intuition. She was daring him, she was fooling him. Some imp of mischief had entered into her. She was luring him to pursuit; and like the whirling of a torch in a dark place, the knowledge first dazzled, and then drew him. All his pulses beat in a swift crescendo. There was a considerable mixture of Irish deviltry in Bunny Brian's veins, and anything in the nature of a challenge fired him. He uttered a wild whoop that filled the eerie place with fearful echoes, and gave chase.
It was the maddest race he had ever run. Toby fled before him like the wind, up and up, round and round the winding stair, fleet-footed, almost as though on wings, leaving him behind. He followed, fiercely determined, putting forth his utmost strength, sometimes stumbling on the uneven stairs, yet always leaping onward, urged to wilder effort by the butterfly elusiveness of his quarry. Once he actually had her within his reach, and then he stumbled and she was gone. He heard her maddening laughter as she fled.
The ascent seemed endless. His heart was pumping, but he would not slacken. She should never triumph over him, this mocking imp, this butterfly-girl, who from the first had held him with a fascination he could not fathom. He would make her pay for her audacity. He would teach her that he was more than a mere butt for her drollery. He would show her—
A door suddenly banged high above him. He realized that she had reached the top of the turret and burst out upon the ramparts. A very curious sensation went through him. It was almost a feeling of fear. She was such a wild little creature, and her mood was at its maddest. The chill of the place seemed to wrap him round. He felt as if icy fingers had clutched his heart.
It was all a joke of course—only a joke! But jokes sometimes ended disastrously, and Toby—Toby was not an ordinary person. She was either a featherbrain or a genius. He did not know which. Perhaps there was no very clear dividing line between the two. She was certainly extraordinary. He wished he had not accepted her challenge. If he had refused to follow, she would soon have abandoned her absurd flight through the darkness.
It was absurd. They had both been absurd to come to this eerie place without a light. Somehow her disappearance, the clanging of that door, had sobered him very effectually. He cursed himself for a fool as he groped his way upwards. The game had gone too far. He ought to have foreseen.
And then suddenly he blundered into an iron-clamped door and swore again.Yes, this thing was beyond a joke.
The door resisted him, and he wrestled with it furiously as though it had been a living thing obstructing his passage.
He had begun to think that she must have bolted it on the outside when abruptly it yielded to his very forcible persuasion, and he stumbled headlong forth into the open starlight. He was out upon the ramparts, and dim wooded park-lands stretched away to the sea before his dazzled eyes.
The first thing that struck him was the emptiness of the place. It seemed to catch him by the throat. There was something terrible about it.
Behind him the door clanged, and the sound seemed the only sound in all that wonderful June night. It had a fateful effect in the silence—like the tolling of a bell. Something echoed to it in his own heart, and he knew that he was afraid.
Desperately he flung his fear aside and moved forward to the parapet. The wall was thick, but between the battlements it was only the height of his knee. Below was depth—sheer depth—stark emptiness.
He looked over and saw the stone terrace dimly lit by the stars far below him. The gardens were a blur of darkness out of which he vaguely discerned the glimmer of the lake among its trees.
His heart was beating suffocatingly; he struggled to subdue his panting breath. She was somewhere close to him of course—of course. But the zest of the chase had left him. He felt dizzy, frightened, sick. He tried to raise his voice to call her, and then realized with a start of self-ridicule that it had failed him. He leaned against the parapet and resolutely pulled himself together.
Then he went forward and found himself in a stone passage, actually on the castle wall, between two parapets; the one on his left towering above the inner portion of the castle with its odd, uneven roofs of stone, the one on his right still sheer above the terrace—a drop of a hundred feet or more.
The emptiness and the silence seemed to strike at him with a nebulous hostility as he went. He had a vague sense of intrusion, of being in a forbidden place. The blood was no longer hot in his veins. He even shivered in the warmth of the summer night as he followed the winding walk between the battlements.
But he was his own master now, and as he moved forward through the glimmering starlight he called to her:
"Toby! Toby, I say! Come out! I'm not playing."
He felt as if the silence mocked him, and again that icy construction about the heart made him catch his breath. He put up a hand to his brow and found it wet.
"Toby!" he cried again, and this time he did not attempt to keep the urgency out of his voice. "The game's up. Come back!"
She did not answer him, neither did she come; but he had a strong conviction that she heard. A throb of anger went through him. He strode forward with decision. He knew that the battlement walk ended on the north side of the Castle in a blank wall, built centuries before as a final defence from an invading enemy. Only by scaling this wall could the eastern portion be approached. He would find her here. She could not possibly escape. Something of confidence came back to him as he remembered this. She could not elude him much longer.
He quickened his stride. His face was grim. She had carried the thing too far, and he would let her know it. He rounded the curve of the castle wall. He must be close to her now. And then suddenly he stopped dead. For he heard her mocking laughter, and it came from behind him, from the turret through which he had gained the ramparts.
He wheeled round with something like violence and began to retrace his steps. He had never been so baffled before, and he was angry,—hotly angry.
He rounded the curve once more, and approached the turret. His eyes were accustomed to the dim half-light, but still he could not see her. Fuming, he went back the whole distance along the ramparts till he came to the iron-clamped door that had banged behind him. He put forth an impatient hand to open it, for it was obvious that she must have eluded him by hiding behind it, and now she was probably on the stair. And then, very suddenly, from far behind him, in the direction of the northern wall, he heard her laugh again.
He swung about in a fury, almost too incensed to be amazed. She had the wings of a Mercury, it was evident; but he would catch her—he would catch her now, or perish in the attempt. Once more he traversed the stony promenade between the double line of battlements, searching each embrasure as he went.
All the way back to the wall on the north side he pursued his way with fierce intention, inwardly raging, outwardly calm. He reached the obstructing wall, and found nothing. The emptiness came all about him again. The ghostly quiet of the place clung like a tangible veil. She had evaded him again. He was powerless.
But at that point his wrath suddenly burst into flame, the hotter and the fiercer for its long restraint. He wheeled in his tracks with furious finality and abandoned his quest.
His intention was to go straight down by the way he had come and leave her to play her will-o'-the-wisp game in solitude. It would soon pall upon her, he was assured; but in any case he would no longer dance to her piping. She had fooled him to the verge of frenzy.
Again he rounded the curve of the wall and came to the door of the turret. A great bastion of stone rose beside this, and as he reached it a small white figure darted forward from its shadow with dainty, butterfly movements, pulled at the heavy oak door and held it open with an elaborate gesture for him to pass.
It was a piece of exquisite daring, and with an older man it would have taken effect. Saltash would have laughed his quizzing, cynical laugh and accepted his defeat with royal grace. But Bunny was young and vehement of impulse, and the flame of his anger still scorched his soul with a heat intolerable. She had baffled him, astounded him, humiliated him, and his was not a nature to endure such treatment tamely.
He hung on his stride for a single moment, then hotly he turned and snatched her into his arms.