When at about seven o'clock in the morning, Dr. Fergusson, and the servant Elizabeth, once more reached the house amongst the woods, Christina was dressed and ready to admit them by the little green gate in the wall. She had made herself ready for the day at a very early hour, stealing out of her beautiful charge's room whilst the latter was sleeping peacefully, and Fergusson smiled approvingly when he caught sight of the girl's trim figure and smiling face. He alighted quickly from the car, and helped Elizabeth to descend; and, whilst the servant hurried into the house, he put a quick question or two to Christina.
"Yes, she has had a quiet night on the whole," the girl answered; "she has not slept much at a time, but she has dozed now and then, and she has been wonderfully calm. She is asleep now, but she told me most particularly that she wished to be awakened when you came. I think," the girl hesitated as she glanced into the doctor's face, "I think she has something special to say to you."
"I am sorry to have to wake her," Fergusson answered, "but I am afraid there is no help for it, if she wishes to speak to me. I can't wait till she wakes naturally; I have a very busy day before me, besides which I ought to take you back to the small girl." Whilst he spoke he was walking up the flagged path to the house by Christina's side, glancing with pardonable curiosity at the white building, against its background of dark woods.
"Curious," he said reflectively. "I do not want to be unduly prying, but it is impossible to help wondering what that exceptionally beautiful woman is doing in this remote place, with apparently only an old servant and a homicidal maniac for company."
Christina's eyes met his, and she flushed. In the face of the promise of secrecy she had given to the lady of the house, she could not mention to Fergusson the existence of the sick man, whose presence she shrewdly suspected was in some way the reason for the beautiful lady's residence in this desolate corner of the world; and, in answer to his words, she only said quietly:
"I think there must be some very good reason why she does not wish people to know she is here; but of course I don't know what the reason is," and, saying this, she entered the hall door, and preceded the doctor to the room where her charge of the night still lay sleeping, a little smile on her beautiful face. Elizabeth stood beside her, and Christina saw that the good woman's eyes were full of tears.
"It does me good to see her sleeping like that," she whispered to the two who stood just within the doorway; "it's seldom she gets such restful sleep."
"You are sure she really wants to speak to me?" Fergusson asked the girl, speaking in low tones. "I cannot bear to disturb her, and yet I must do it if she really wants me. I have one or two urgent cases that should be seen early, and I cannot stay here."
"I am afraid we must disturb her," Christina whispered back. "Before she went to sleep, she told me I was on no account to let you go without speaking to her. I am sure she has something important she wishes to say."
"Then I'll be going to make some tea for you all," Elizabeth said gently; "you haven't slept much yourself, miss, I can see," she added, looking kindly into Christina's face, which bore traces of her wakeful vigil.
"I have lighted the kitchen fire," the girl said gaily, ignoring the remarks about her own night, "and I think tea will be just the loveliest thing in the world," and as Elizabeth went downstairs, she crept softly to the bedside, and laid her hand upon the white hand on the coverlet, the hand whose only ornament was its thick wedding ring.
"Dr. Fergusson has come back," she said very gently, when at her touch the dark eyes opened. "I am so sorry to wake you, but you wanted to speak to him." In that moment of waking, the smile that had lain on the sleeping face faded from it, and a long sigh escaped her.
"I was dreaming that Max and I," she began, and then, as recollection returned to her, she broke off her sentence, saying abruptly, "Yes, I must speak to the doctor. I must take the risk—all the risk," she added under her breath, and Christina saw that a look of fear stole into her eyes.
"Is there something I can do for you?" Fergusson approached the bed, and his voice was as gentle as Christina's had been. Something in the fragile appearance of the woman before them, something in the anguish of the deep eyes, gave both to the man and to the girl beside him, a feeling of almost reverential awe. Instinctively, they realised the presence of some great human tragedy; instinctively, they felt that in its presence, all voices must be hushed, and that no rough things of every day, should be allowed to intrude into the place of grief. The woman in the bed raised herself on her pillow, and looked full into Fergusson's face.
"I can trust you," she said. "I believe you will keep your own counsel about—whatever you see or hear in this house."
"Certainly I shall," he replied. "When Miss Moore came to me yesterday, I promised her that I would respect your confidence absolutely. I have entered the patient I have just taken to the asylum, as resident at the London address you gave me. I hope that was right? I have a rooted objection to telling deliberate lies," he added a little grimly.
"What I told you was quite true," she answered, smiling faintly. "Poor Marion was only here temporarily, her home is in London. Will you tell me about her before I ask you anything more? Is there any hope of her recovery? It all seemed so dreadfully sudden."
"She must have had a tendency to homicidal mania for years, probably all her life, and I should think her recovery is extremely doubtful. In any case, she will have to be under restraint for a long time, a very long time, and at present she is quite off her head."
"Poor Marion," his listener said sadly. "Poor, poor Marion. There need be no difficulty about her expenses. She must have every care, everything that is necessary, and if anything is ever wanted for her, will the asylum authorities write to Mrs. Stanforth, c/o Mrs. Milton, 180, Gower Street."
The doctor jotted down the address in his notebook, then looked again into the white, troubled face on the pillow, and said slowly:—
"There was something else you wanted me to do, was there not? Will you tell me now what it is?"
A faint colour tinged the whiteness of her face, for a second her glance wavered before his, and he saw that her hand moved restlessly.
"I know he will be angry with me," she said at last, "but—I must ask you to see him. I am so afraid he is worse than he thinks, than we all think. And you have promised secrecy? You have promised it?" she said vehemently, putting out her hands towards him. Fergusson looked, as he felt, profoundly puzzled.
"I have already promised to mention nothing of what I see or hear in this house to a living soul," he said, a trace of irritation creeping into his quiet voice. "I shall keep my promise. I cannot say more than that. Is there someone you wish me to see?" The woman's dark eyes turned to Christina, who stood at the foot of the bed, a silent and interested spectator of the strange little scene.
"I want the doctor to see my—the sick man you helped," she said in faltering accents. "Will you take him to the room you went to last night? Will you explain that I—that Madge begs him to tell the doctor all about his illness? He—he may be angry," she looked into Fergusson's eyes again, "but I think—you will understand—I think you will soothe him."
"Is he——" Fergusson was beginning, when one of those restlessly moving hands touched his.
"Please—don't ask me to tell you—who he is," she said earnestly; "he has been very ill; he has only come here—since he was convalescent," again her eyes fell before the doctor's glance, "but before he came here he was very ill, and in great trouble. Ah! be good to him," she exclaimed, her enforced calm of manner suddenly giving way; "let him have peace now; he has had such a troubled life." The tortured look in her eyes touched Fergusson deeply, his hand closed over her trembling one with a strong, reassuring grasp.
"I will do my best for him," he said cheerily; "and I will ask no unnecessary questions. You need not be afraid that I shall try to find out anything beyond his physical symptoms. Trust me." And with another kindly glance from those eminently trustworthy eyes of his, he bade Christina lead the way to his new patient. In silence they traversed the passage by which Christina had passed along on the previous night, but as she knocked on the door of the sick man's apartment, the doctor stooped towards her and whispered:—
"I don't know whether I ought to let you be mixed up in what may turn out an unpleasant mystery. Would you rather go away at once? I can explain my own presence to this man."
Christina shook her head, and her mouth took on a little determined look, which Fergusson learnt to recognise later on as one of her most marked characteristics.
"No—I will do what she asked me to do," she said. "I am not afraid of mysteries, and I must help my beautiful lady as much as ever I can." So saying, she turned the handle of the door, in response to an impatient "Come in!" and she and Fergusson entered together. The sick man lay propped up with pillows, his eyes turned towards the door, a fretful expression on his face, an expression which turned to one of acute fear, when he saw the doctor's form behind Christina.
"Who are you?" he exclaimed, shrinking back and trembling violently. "Why have you come here? I tell you I am all right in this place; you can't do me any harm now; I am safe—safe—why——"
"I have not come to do you any harm," the doctor answered soothingly, hiding the surprise he undoubtedly felt. "I am only a doctor who wants to make you well. You have been ill, haven't you?"
"Well, what of that?" the other answered sullenly, his eyes furtively watching Fergusson's face, his weak mouth quivering. "I don't want a doctor, even if I have been ill. I can do very well without a doctor. Why did you come?"
Christina stepped softly to the bedside, and her voice was very gently. "You remember me?" she said. "I came to help you last night; and I was told to tell you now as a special message, that Madge sent the doctor, that she begs you to tell him all about your illness. You can trust Dr. Fergusson," the girl went on earnestly. "He will not tell anybody that he has seen you. You can safely trust him."
"We are trusting too many people," came the querulous retort. "First Elizabeth was busy, and you came to me last night, and you are a total stranger. Though you were so kind to me, it is no use to pretend you are not a stranger. Yet I had to trust you, and now I have to trust the doctor. There are too many people in it now."
"This young lady, Miss Moore, and I, know absolutely nothing about you, or about the lady of this house," Fergusson said firmly, but soothingly. "We do not even know your relationship to one another. Your secrets are quite safe with us, because we have no idea what those secrets are. Therefore, you can safely trust us. And, in any case, I can answer for Miss Moore, as for myself—in any case, we shall keep silence about everything we have seen in this house." The sick man muttered one or two more feeble remonstrances, after which, with the sudden abandonment of his position, so characteristic of a weak nature, he said resignedly:
"Well, well, it is no use talking—it is never of any use for me to talk—and if Madge wishes me to be overhauled, so be it. I will put myself into your hands, but, understand, I do it under protest."
Denis Fergusson only nodded and smiled in response, saying to Christina—
"Now, if you will go and have that cup of tea, I will do my best for the patient here, and come to fetch you in a few minutes"; and the girl, taking the hint, left the two men together, and returned to the other room, where she found the beautiful lady lying with eyes wistfully turned towards the door, whilst Elizabeth vainly implored her to drink the tea she had made.
"I couldn't think of tea, or of anything else till you came back," the beautiful woman exclaimed, stretching out her hands to the girl, with feverish eagerness. "Was he vexed—my poor Max—was he dreadfully vexed when you took the doctor to his room?" Christina was conscious of a sudden wonder. Why, she speculated, did this woman's voice drop into accents of such divine tenderness when she spoke of the sick man? What attraction could that weak, querulous invalid possess for this stately, beautiful creature, who, to the girl's admiring eyes, seemed as far above him as a star is far from the earth. Why did she love him, as she most obviously did, with that intense, overmastering love which in a woman of this calibre almost approaches to the divine?
"Just at first he was rather vexed," she answered, "but Dr. Fergusson is very tactful; he inspires confidence. I think it will be all right now. And I have come back here to have some tea with you," she added brightly, seeing and understanding the old servant's anxious glances. "I am going to confess that I have been awake a great deal of the night, and tea will be very refreshing." She added these words, because she saw that the other woman would be more likely to drink her own tea, if she felt that Christina was really in need of the refreshment, and her surmise was right.
"Oh! but you must have your tea at once," the woman in the bed exclaimed. "I can't bear to think I have been keeping you awake; indeed, it is dreadful to think that you have all unwittingly come into my shadowed life," she added under her breath, whilst the girl seated herself beside the bed; and Elizabeth served them both.
"I am glad I have been able to help you," Christina said impulsively, when the servant softly left the room; "you don't know how glad I should be if I could do anything—to—make things easier for you," she ended rather lamely, but the admiration in her eyes was unmistakable, and the shapely white hand with its one ring, was laid on Christina's.
"You have helped me to-night more than you suppose," she said; "there is something very restful about your personality, little girl, do you know that? All night you have given me a feeling of rest and peace."
"I am glad," Christina answered, a light flashing into her eyes; "I believe I would rather be restful to people than anything else in the world."
"A rest-bringer," was the soft answer; "you will always be that, if you go on as you have begun. And, it is work worth doing—to bring rest to tired souls, to those who go through the vale of misery, who know—what pain means. Be a rest-bringer, little girl; you could not be anything better or sweeter."
Christina flushed vividly, partly at the words of praise, partly because, as they were spoken, a face rose before her mental vision, a man's face, lined and rugged, with marks of pain carved upon it, with a haunting look of pain in its grey eyes. And with that remembrance, came also a sudden impetuous wish that it might be given to her to bring rest to the man who was Lady Cicely's cousin, the man whose very name she did not know. She was startled out of the strange train of thought, by her companion's voice.
"I cannot imagine," she was saying, "why it is that your face and voice are in some odd way familiar to me, and yet you assure me we have never met before?"
"We have never met," Christina answered decidedly. "I could not have forgotten you if I had ever seen you—and oh!" she went on with an eager girlish gesture, "please mayn't I have some name to remember you by—not any name that—that you would rather I did not know," she added quickly, seeing an anxious look in the other's eyes; "only just something to keep in my thoughts of you."
"Call me—just—Margaret in your thoughts," was the answer; "that is one of my names; call me that."
"But it seems"—Christina hesitated—"it seems like impertinence, to call you by a Christian name. You——"
"Yes, I know. I am old enough to be your mother,"—the dark eyes looked wistfully into the eager young face—"and the life I have lived makes me feel more as if I was a thousand, instead of only thirty-eight. But still, there is a young corner in my heart—quite a young corner, where I can feel like a girl again; and it would please me if you called me Margaret."
"Margaret," Christina repeated softly; "I am glad you have such a beautiful name. It seems to belong to your beautiful face." She spoke dreamily, scarcely aware of what she said, but as the sound of her own words fell on her ears, she flushed deeply, and a deprecating look came into her eyes.
"Oh! I beg your pardon," she exclaimed; "I was speaking my thoughts aloud, and it was rude of me. But, do you know, ever since I first saw you, I have called you in my mind 'the beautiful lady.' You see, I had no name by which to call you."
"It was very pretty of you," Margaret smiled, her fingers touching the girl's dusky hair. "Once upon a time, long ago, when I was as young as you, I was beautiful; it is not vanity to say that now. I was a beautiful girl. But life, and all that life has brought—have——"
"They have made you more beautiful," the girl interrupted eagerly; "they have put sadness into your face, but they have not taken away its beauty; they have only added to it." Margaret smiled again, and an answering smile flashed over the girl's face, making the older woman lean towards her, and exclaim, with a puzzled stare—
"It certainly is most extraordinary how, when you smile, I find something so familiar in your face. The quick way you smile, reminds me of another face I have seen, but—I cannot remember where I saw it, or whose it is. And your voice reminds me of just such another clear voice, with restful cadences in it. Could I ever have known anyone belonging to your family?"
Christina shook her head, recognising dimly that the woman before her, belonged to a circle of life very different from that in which her father and mother had moved.
"I don't think it is at all likely you ever saw any relation of mine," she answered. "My name is Moore, and we were always very poor, and lived in an out-of-the-way Devonshire village. I never knew any of my relations, and I don't even know my mother's maiden name. I think her people had treated her very badly; she never mentioned them."
"Ah, well, it must be some chance likeness, but it will worry me, until I can remember who the person is of whom you remind me. Is that the doctor?" she broke off to say, her lighter tone changing to one of acute anxiety. "What is he coming to tell me?" The animation that for a few moments had lighted her features, and lessened some of the tragedy, in her eyes died away, and the face that was turned towards Dr. Fergusson, as he once more entered the room, had nothing upon it but an agonised question.
"He has allowed you to examine him thoroughly?" she asked.
"Yes, quite thoroughly." Fergusson's voice was gentle, but very grave, and as he came and stood beside the bed, Christina instinctively realised that he hesitated to speak further, because what he had to say was of a painful nature.
"Tell—me." Margaret spoke a little breathlessly; her eyes never left the kind, shrewd face looking down at her; the anguish in their depths hurt Denis's tender heart. To give pain to any woman, above all to a woman so fragile, so physically unfit to bear it as this woman seemed to be, was almost intolerable to him. Yet his honesty and strength of nature never allowed him to evade the truth, when truth had to be told, and he did not evade it now.
"I am afraid I have not good news to bring you," he said. "The patient I have just examined, is only momentarily convalescent. I—-think it is only fair to be quite honest with you: there is no real hope of his ultimate recovery." The woman in the bed uttered a little low sound, which seemed to Christina the most pitiful she had ever heard, but when she spoke, her voice was unnaturally quiet.
"You mean he has some incurable disease? Tell me the exact truth."
"Yes, quite incurable—and—very far advanced. I can give him a certain amount of alleviation, but—it would not be right to let you build any hopes on the possibility of a cure. There is no such possibility."
When the doctor's voice ceased, there was a strange, tense silence in the room for many minutes; and Christina, standing by the fireplace, felt as if she could almost see and hear the woman in the bed, gathering up her forces to meet this blow. Once the girl glanced at the white face and deep eyes, but she turned away her glance again, feeling it was not right that any other human being should gaze upon the tortured soul, that looked out of those eyes. Margaret herself first broke the silence.
"Will—it—be—long?" she asked.
"I think not," Fergusson answered gravely, "but in a case like this everything depends upon the temperament of the patient, his surroundings, his mental attitude. Anxiety, worry, any mental strain would accelerate matters."
The white hands that all this time had been so still on the coverlet, clasped themselves together, and there was a new note of passion in Margaret's voice, as she said—
"And—the mental strain is exactly what I cannot help, cannot prevent, cannot save him from."
"You must remember I am only giving you one man's opinion—only my own," Fergusson replied gently. "Would you like me to bring a London colleague to——"
"No—oh no!"—the look of fear he had before noticed in her eyes, leapt into them once more—"nobody else must come here, nobody else must see him. As it is, the risks"—she stopped suddenly, and ended her sentence in less agitated tones—"I am quite satisfied with your opinion, Dr. Fergusson," she said. "I would rather not have another doctor, and—you will respect my wish for silence about everything that has passed in this house?"
"Certainly I will respect it; you can trust me. In the patient's own interest, I think I ought to see him again, perhaps in two or three days; but nobody excepting Miss Moore and myself will know anything about the affairs of your house."
Having given her a few technical instructions as to the treatment of the sick man, the doctor was ready to take his departure, and he and Christina left the house together, after the girl had for a moment been drawn into Margaret's arms, and gently kissed.
"Thank you for all you have done," the beautiful woman whispered. "I don't think I can ever be grateful enough to you. Perhaps, we shall not ever meet again—but—think sometimes of me—pray sometimes for me—little rest-bringer."
*****
"That poor soul! that poor soul!" They were Fergusson's first words after he had turned the car out of the rough lane, into the main road. "I daresay it was fanciful, but the words in the Litany haunted me when I watched her this morning: 'In all time of our tribulation—Good Lord, deliver us.' She looks as if she had been through such an infinity of tribulation."
Christina's eyes were still dim with the tears brought there by Margaret's parting words, and her voice was not quite steady, as she answered—
"Yes; the word seems to belong to her, but she gives me the feeling that she is so strong, so tender, in spite of, or perhaps because of, all that she has suffered. I—wish I could do something more for her."
"Perhaps the opportunity may yet be given you," Fergusson answered. "I never believe people come into one's life purposelessly: we meet them for some reason, and we get chances of helping them—even if sometimes they seem only like 'ships that pass in the night,' greeting us as they sail by."
"The gentleman said he would be back in half an hour; he is staying a night at the inn, and he just wanted to see you and Miss Baba." Mrs. Nairne delivered this long message to Christina, when she and her small charge came in from their afternoon walk a few days later, and at her words, Christina's heart gave a sudden leap.
Was it possible that the grey-eyed man of the rugged face, the man who had called himself Lady Cicely's cousin, could be driving that way again? And was he coming to see the child? She was secretly pleased to observe that the landlady had provided a tea of superlative excellence, and that the worthy Mrs. Nairne thought, asshealso thought, that Lady Cicely's cousin might perhaps partake of that meal with Baba and her nurse.
There was a happy smile on her lips, and her eyes shone brightly, as she moved to and fro about their little sitting-room, putting it tidy, and arranging in two of Mrs. Nairne's fearsome vases (cherished possessions of that good lady, be it known) a tangle of brown leaves and crimson berries, that she and Baba had brought in from the hedges. The child's clear voice drifted in to her from the kitchen, where the small girl was proudly conscious of extreme usefulness, whilst she pattered to and fro behind Mrs. Nairne, and helped to arrange the tea-tray.
"We've got the best tea-set to-day," she announced to Christina in triumph, when she and the landlady entered the sitting-room together, "and I think the cakes isbeautiful," she added, with a little sigh of bliss, as her eyes rested on the table, at which Christina had also glanced approvingly.
"I thought the gentleman might like a cup of tea," Mrs. Nairne said apologetically, "and I can't bear for there not to be enough to eat."
"I am sure there will be plenty for us all," Christina answered gravely, though her eyes twinkled; "and it is good of you to have taken so much trouble. I can assure you, Baba and I will appreciate all the good things you have given us, and we are as hungry as hunters."
The sight that greeted Rupert Mernside's eyes, when, a few minutes later, he came into the firelit room, made a picture that lingered in his mind for the rest of his life. There were two candles on the round table, at which the child and girl sat, but the room was really lighted by the ruddy glow of the fire, whose flames leapt about the great log of wood on the top of the coals, and shed a delicious radiance all over the low, old-fashioned apartment. Some dead and departed mistress of Mrs. Nairne, had given her the oak furniture, of which the landlady herself spoke deprecatingly, as "queer old stuff," and the firelight was reflected a hundred times in the highly-polished black of the oak, and the bright brass of handles and knobs. The chintz that covered the furniture, had also come from a defunct mistress, whose taste had led her to love just those soft, dim colours, and the old-world patterns that best suited the oak of the furniture—and the whole result was supremely pleasing to an æsthetic taste. Flowers sent from Bramwell Castle, made a delicious fragrance in the air, and to the man, coming in out of the cold of a damp and foggy December afternoon, there was a peace in the atmosphere, that gave him a pleasing sense of home and restfulness.
The firelight shone full on Baba's delicately-tinted face, and golden curls; shone, too, on the dusky softness of her companion's hair, bringing out in it unexpected gleams of brightness, illuminating the girl's clear white colouring, and her sweet eyes, showing to the man who entered, the tenderness of the look that was bent on the little child beside her.
"Cousin Rupert!" Baba shrieked joyfully, scrambling from her seat, and flinging herself upon him, whilst Christina pushed back her chair more deliberately, and rose to greet their visitor. "We've cakes with sugar on them to-day, 'cos Mrs. Nairne thought you'd come to tea."
"Oh! she thought I should come to tea, did she?" Rupert answered, smiling, as he held out his hand to Christina, looking at her over Baba's curly head. The child was already in his arms, her soft face pressed against his, and his chin resting on her rippling curls, whilst he shook hands with her nurse, and said in his deep pleasant voice—
"I am glad I have just caught you both at tea, Miss Moore. Now you will let me have some tea, and then I shall hear how you both are, and be able to carry news of you to my cousin, at first hand."
Christina was far too guileless and simple of soul to read into Rupert's descent upon them, what was the actual truth—namely, that he felt impelled, as Baba's guardian, to keep a watchful eye upon the new importation Cicely had so impulsively introduced into her household; felt it indeed to be nothing more than his bare duty, to see that Baba's new nurse was all that Cicely enthusiastically believed her to be.
"Dear little Cicely's swans have before now turned out to be geese," Rupert had said to Wilfred Staynes, Cicely's brother, when he and that smart young soldier were returning from their motor trip across Sussex. "She insisted on engaging this lady nurse for the child, and practically took her without references. The references she gave us, were, to all intents and purposes, so much waste paper. The writers of them were all dead, or in the colonies."
"Cicely was always like that," Cicely's brother made reply. "She had the rattiest collection of sick and sorry animals in her youth, and of sick and sorry friends as she grew older. She has a way of stepping down into the highways and hedges, and compelling their inhabitants to enjoy her hospitality. It makes one feel one could always turn to Cicely if one went wrong, you know," he added thoughtfully; "she's always 'for the under dog,' as somebody once put it."
"Cicely is the dearest soul in the world," Rupert said quickly. "We all love her for her loving heart—but at the same time, I can't risk letting Baba fall into the hands of a stray adventuress, because Cicely's heart has been touched."
"If it's a question of adventuresses, I'll come and see the kid too," Wilfred answered laughingly. "I like the type; it amuses me. Bronze hair, green eyes, seductive manner. Oh! Rupert, my friend, if you think Baba is in the care of an adventuress, take, oh take me to call on her too!"
"What an ass you are, Wilfred," Rupert answered, with a lazy laugh. "Is it likely that even our dear and impulsive Cicely, would hand Baba over to the care of your adventuress type of woman? No; the only time I saw her, the girl seemed a most harmless, quiet little individual."
"You've seen her?"
"Yes; I saw her in the nursery at Eaton Square, making friends with Baba, but she made no impression upon me; she was just quite an ordinary-looking girl."
"Oh! la, la! then you may go alone to call on her at Graystone, and see that she is performing the whole duty of the nurse. The ordinary-looking girl makes no appeal to me."
His own, and Wilfred's idle words, flashed back into Rupert's mind now, as, across Baba's tangle of golden curls, his eyes looked down into the eyes uplifted to his—eyes to which the dancing firelight gave an oddly elusive effect. What colour were they? he wondered—grey, hazel, or green—deep soft green with great black pupils, and sweeping dark lashes, that curled upwards in a deliciously fascinating way. There was something child-like and appealing about those sweet eyes, something of the eternal child indeed, about her whole face, from the unclouded brow on which the dusky hair fell in soft tendrils and curls, to the half-parted lips, on which the smile over Baba's latest sally of wit, still lingered. There was nothing of the adventuress type about this girl, that was very certain, was his first thought; his second, that the uplifted face was in some way familiar to him, that quite lately he had seen it uplifted in precisely this way; and thirdly, he remembered how and when they had met.
"Why," he exclaimed, "how oblivious you must have thought me the other day! Surely youarethe young lady to whom my cousin and I gave a lift in the car?"
A vivid blush flooded Christina's face with colour, her eyes wavered under his glance.
"Yes, it was I who stopped your car, and I thought afterwards how dreadfully audacious and impatient I must have seemed. But I was anxious to get quickly to the doctor, that——"
"Not for this young person, was it?" Rupert interrupted, looking down at the child in his arms "she doesn't wear an invalid appearance."
"Oh! no, no, not for her." Christina spoke hurriedly, remembering the secrecy that had been enjoined upon her by the lady of the lonely house, and anxious to lead the conversation away as soon as possible from her visit to the doctor. But Rupert, having deposited Baba in her chair, seated himself beside her, and helped himself to a slice of Mrs. Nairne's hot buttered toast, continuing to talk placidly of the very subject the girl most desired to avoid.
"I am afraid somebody was really ill?" he said, and Christina noticed again what a musical voice his was. "You seemed to be desperately anxious to get the doctor as soon as possible."
"Yes," Christina, answered, trying to speak in matter-of-fact tones; "someone had asked me to fetch the doctor for them, and I didn't want to lose any time."
"I hope you found the doctor a satisfactory sort of person? Sometimes the medical men in these out-of-the-way places, are very impossible."
"I found a very unusual man," Christina said thoughtfully; "he is a Dr. Fergusson, doinglocum tenenswork here. He has a remarkable personality; he made one feel he was meant to be a leader of men."
"I hope he will do the patient good."
"I hope he will," Christina said hurriedly; "he—was in a great difficulty that night, and—I hope I did not do wrong in giving him some help he asked for?" she added, looking deprecatingly into the grey eyes fixed on her face, feeling that it was her obvious duty to tell this man, who was Lady Cicely's representative, of the night during which she had left Baba.
"I don't think you can have done anything very wrong," Rupert answered with a smile, and speaking almost caressingly, as he might have spoken to a child. His smile, and the tone of his words, set the girl's pulses beating, although she vaguely realised he was treating her with the same kindliness, he might have bestowed upon Baba.
"Dr. Fergusson was in a great difficulty," she went on, trying again to speak in matter-of-fact tones. "The lady of the house to which he went, was—was very lonely, and he asked me to take care of her for the night. In fact"—Christina smiled at the recollection—"he was very masterful—he really made me go. But I should not have gone, if I had not known that Baba was absolutely safe with Mrs. Nairne. And"—she paused—"I think I was able to help somebody in great trouble." Rupert's eyes still rested kindly on her face.
"I don't know that I should recommend you to make a practice of leaving Baba, and sitting up with people at night," he said, his smile taking away any possible sting from his words; "but I am sure in this instance, you only did what seemed most right. You and Baba are happy here?" he went on, anxious to spare her any unnecessary embarrassment.
"Baba likes this nice place," the child struck in, "and Christina tell about the prince. Baba thinks the prince is just 'zackly like you," she ended, with a wise nod of her curly head. Rupert found himself speculating why, at the child's speech, Baba's nurse flushed with such extreme vividness, and why she evinced so sudden a desire to change the subject.
"Oh! Baba—we don't want to talk about fairy stories now," she interposed. "Tell—tell all about the pony-cart, and our nice drives. Do you know," she added, looking at him with a shy glance, which seemed to him infinitely attractive, "I have never heard your name, so I don't know what to call you."
"Call him the prince," Baba's clear little voice remarked; "he's my Cousin Rupert, but he's 'zackly like the prince—and you're just 'zackly like the princess," she added, to Christina's no small discomfiture, pointing a dimpled forefinger in the girl's direction, "and some day the prince will marry the princess, and so they'll live happy ever after." Again a flood of colour rushed over Christina's face, and though Rupert saw it in the swift glance he cast at her, he was merciful enough to turn his eyes upon the child, and say gaily—
"You must find a much better prince than I am for your princess, little maid. Cousin Rupert is a battered old gentleman, with no prince-like qualities. Princes are always young and handsome, with blue eyes and golden hair, and silver armour, and lots of other jolly things like that, aren't they, Miss Moore?"
"Yes, certainly," she answered, rallying to his mood, and laughing brightly; "they always dress in silver armour, and the princesses never wear anything but white gowns."
"Sometimes—green gowns do quite as well for princesses," he answered, glancing at the girl's well-made green gown, with eyes of commendation. "Green belongs to fairyland," he added, when again the colour flushed into her cheeks. "I believe that you and Baba have only quite lately come from that enchanted country—both the two of you, as my old nurse used to say."
"We like fairyland—Baba and I," the girl said gently, "and we both hope, some day, to see the fairies inside the flowers, or dancing round one of their lovely rings. We have found ever so many fairy rings in the fields round here." She spoke with something of a child's eagerness, all her momentary embarrassment gone, and Rupert looked at her, with an increasing sense of approval. Cicely had not acted altogether unwisely, in deciding to give her small daughter this unknown, unvouched-for girl as a nurse. She was obviously a lady, and a cultured lady, and she possessed that nameless quality which never failed to appeal to Rupert's fastidious taste—the restful charm of the true gentlewoman. He liked this Miss Moore, he told himself, he distinctly liked her, and he inwardly commended Cicely's choice, whilst he said to Christina—
"And all this time I have most rudely left your question unanswered. You asked my name: it is Mernside—Rupert Mernside."
"Oh!" was the only word that jerked itself out of Christina's lips, whilst her eyes gazed at him with an expression of such unmistakable dismay, that he looked at her in surprise.
"Have you any unpleasant associations with my name?" he asked. "Has anybody called Mernside ever annoyed you?"
"Oh, no!" she answered quickly. "Only—once I heard the name before—just R. Mernside—and I was surprised when—when it turned out to be your name too." The words were so incoherent, the sentence so oddly turned, that Rupert only looked as he felt, more puzzled than before.
"I had not ever seen you, had I, until I saw you in Baba's nursery?" he questioned.
"No—never." She looked increasingly disconcerted, beneath his puzzled stare. "It was only—that I had heard—had come across the name before, and it—surprised me to hear—it again."
Not wishing to add to her almost painful embarrassment, Rupert tactfully changed the subject, but being an unusually observant man, he noticed that she was not really at her ease during the whole course of his visit. He rose to go, therefore, earlier than he would otherwise have done, seeing how singularly peaceful he found the home-like atmosphere. The girl, with her sweet eyes and restful manner, the baby with her flower-like face, and her loving ways; the old-world firelit room, the pervading sense of what was child-like, simple, serene—all these soothed the man, racked with suspense and misery. It was with reluctance that he closed the door upon it all, Baba's parting words echoing in his ears, as he ran downstairs, and out into the fog of the December evening—
"I think you are just 'zackly like the prince—my pretty lady's prince—and she's the princess!"
Walking briskly up the village street in the direction of the inn, he smiled, as the words spoken in the clear little voice recurred to him again, and the picture of the child and the girl stayed in his mind during the remainder of the evening, whilst he sat in the uncompromisingly dull sitting-room with Wilfred, listening with very fluctuating attention to that young man's chatter, about motoring, sport, and the possibilities of a Frontier campaign.
"And what about Baba and her nurse?" the young man ended by saying. "As Baba's uncle, I believe it was really my stern duty to go and look her up."
"Ah, well, I happen to be her guardian," Rupert answered drily; "and you were very much occupied with that American and his Daimler, when I went out——"
"And has the nurse the bronze hair of the typical adventuress, only tell me that," Staynes answered, stretching out his long legs to the fire. "If she has, I shall feel it imperative to call on Baba to-morrow, before——"
"Don't talk rot, my good fellow." Rupert's tones had in them a note of irritation, which his astute cousin was not slow to observe. "Didn't I explain to you that Cicely, with all her tenderness of heart, has too much common sense to give over Baba to the care of any doubtful sort of person? The child's nurse is—just a nice, quiet girl, who looks after her well and keeps her happy."
"Great Scott!A nice, quiet girl! I think I can safely take her on trust, if you are satisfied that she is—nice—and quiet. The adventuress appealed to me, but nice quiet girls—no, thank you, Rupert! Now if only she had been like that delightful young person with green eyes, who stopped the car the other day—I—should have felt twinges of conscience about my duty as an uncle."
"What an utter rotter you are!" In spite of himself Mernside laughed, knowing from a long and intimate acquaintance with Wilfred, that the young man's surface nonsense went no deeper than the surface, and that Staynes was in no sense of the word a Lothario. A slight, a very slight, twinge afflicted his own conscience, when he remembered the identity of the girl he had left that afternoon, in the home-like, firelit room, with the girl to whom his cousin had just alluded.
"There is no necessity to tell him that the two girls are one and the same," Rupert argued with himself. "Some day, presumably, he will meet Miss Moore, and he may then recognise her again. But the probability is that by that time, the motor incident will have gone out of his head." Meanwhile, throughout the bantering conversation he carried on with Wilfred, he found himself constantly wondering why the sound of his name, had caused Baba's nurse such surprise and embarrassment. She had seemed so friendly, so natural, so simple, until the moment when his name had been mentioned, and then she had changed into hesitating self-consciousness, her eyes afraid to meet his, her manner uneasy and shy.
The real reason for the change in her never, of course, occurred to him. It was only very occasionally that he even remembered the annoying episode of the matrimonial advertisement, and then merely with a passing feeling of regret, that he had failed to help the girl who had been his fellow-victim in Jack Layton's hoax. The girl's initials had faded from his memory, in the more personal and acute trouble of Margaret Stanforth's continued absence and silence, and he never for a moment connected the writer of the wistful little note signed "C.M.," with Baba's newest and most devoted slave. If his thoughts that evening ran with curious persistency on Christina, her thoughts turned with no less persistency to him and his visit, and above all, to the dismaying discovery that he was the R. Mernside to whom she had audaciously written, who in return had written to her so kindly. After Baba had been safely tucked up in her cot, sleepily asseverating that she meant to go for a ride in Cousin Rupert's car, and that he was "her Christina's prince," Christina herself returned back to the sitting-room, and, seated before the fire, went over in her own mind all the conversation of the afternoon, with its final climax.
"And I don't know whether I ought to tell him who I really am, or not," the girl reflected, looking deep into the heart of the glowing coals. "He was so kind to-day, but I don't believe he would go on feeling kind to a girl who could answer an advertisement like that—even though he would still be kind, because he is a gentleman. I wonder if I ought to tell him? And yet—it would be horrible—horrible to have to say it. I should be so ashamed—-so dreadfully ashamed. Only—I think, perhaps—he would understand how poor I was, how desperate I felt, that day when I wrote to him. He has such an understanding face, and his eyes look as if they had seen so much sorrow, so that he would know what other people's sorrows mean. I wish—I—could be a rest-bringer to him." From that thought, she drifted away to the lonely house in the valley, to the beautiful woman whose troubled face and deep, anguished eyes haunted the girl like an obsession, and to the sick man, whose death, so Dr. Fergusson had said, was only perhaps a matter of a few short weeks. What strange tragedy was hidden by the four walls of that lonely house? What did it all mean—the secrecy, the isolation, and above all the trouble that had been written so plainly on that beautiful woman's face?
"I don't suppose I shall ever see her again," was Christina's final and regretful thought, as she rose to go to bed. "I wish people didn't have to be like 'ships that pass in the night'—only passing—not staying together for a little while."