"Is Gillie very upset? Is he much disappointed?" she asked in a low voice.
"Yes, I think Gillie is upset—more upset than I should have expected him to be! He's disappointed, too, at not having seen little Alice. He's really fond of children, and, as he truly says, Alice is bound to be his heiress—unless of course he should marry, which is very unlikely."
Oliver was speaking in a preoccupied, absent voice, as if he was hardly thinking of what he was saying. "We're thinking, he and I, of going to the Continent next week. We've got business to do in Paris—rather important business, too. Of course I'll try and come back here before leaving for Mexico."
Mrs. Tropenell felt as if the walls of the room were falling about her. Oliver had always spoken of late as if he meant to stay on in England till after Christmas.
"How long d'you expect to be in France?"
"I can't tell yet, mother. I might be there a fortnight, or I might be there six weeks—it all depends on the business we're going to do. No dates are settled yet."
He waited a few moments, then said slowly, "I've been wondering whether you would mind going up with Laura to London for a few days? Somehow I think Pavely is more likely to let her go if you offer to go too."
There swept over her a feeling of recoil, but she let her son see nothing of that. "Very well," she said quietly. "I quite understand—I'll do my best.I agree that Laura ought to see her brother again. And what areyouthinking of doing, my dear?"
"Oh, I thought of going up to town, too." He spoke with a detached air. "You and I could stay in that nice little hotel where we stayed years ago, mother. Of course I'm only thinking of a few days in town, before Gillie and I go off to Paris."
As they came through into the house, she was startled by the expression on her son's face. He looked as if he had had a shock; he was very pale, it was as if all the healthy colour had been drained out of his tan cheeks.
"Oliver?" she exclaimed. "Do you feel ill, my darling? When you came in before dinner you looked as if you had caught a chill."
"It was rather cold on the downs, but I feel very much as usual, thank you, mother. A talk with Gillie always tires me. I think he's got a rather——" he hesitated for a word, then found it—"obstreperous vitality."
WHEN Godfrey Pavely arrived at the Bank next morning it seemed to him that days, instead of hours, had gone by, since that hateful and degrading scene had taken place between himself and his wife's brother.
Laura had not spoken to him again, except to utter the few sentences which were necessary to keep up the pretence that they two were on their usual terms, before the servants, and, what had been more difficult, before their little daughter.
After Alice had gone to bed, they had eaten their dinner in silence, and, in silence also, they had spent the evening reading up to eleven o'clock. At last Godfrey, getting up, had said in a nervous, conciliatory tone, "Well, good-night, Laura." But she had not answered him, for by that time the servants were gone to bed, and there was no longer any reason for hypocrisy.
Laura had always been an exceptionally silent woman, but this was the first time, in the long armed neutrality of their married life, that she had actually refused to answer when he spoke to her. Feeling acutely uncomfortable, because curiously helpless, Godfrey Pavely now wondered how long this state of things was to endure.
He asked himself whether he had said anything yesterday which could really justify Laura in this extraordinary attitude. Now and again there seemedto sound in his ears the voice in which she had uttered the last words which she had spoken to him of her own free will. "Don't speak to me," she had exclaimed passionately. "I shall never, never forgive you for this!"
Women were so unreasonable—ridiculously, absurdly unreasonable. Laura knew exactly what Gillie was like, for he, Godfrey, had gone to special pains to make Laura fully understand the mean, despicable anddangerousway in which her brother had behaved over the forged cheque—for forgery it was, though it had been difficult to persuade Laura of the fact. He remembered now, how, at last, after he had forced his wife to understand, she had abased herself, imploring him to save her brother from the consequences of his wicked action.
Godfrey also remembered sorely how grateful Laura had seemed to be after everything had been arranged, and Gillie had finally gone off to Mexico, a ruined and discredited man. He felt a glow of virtuous satisfaction when he recalled how she had thanked him—her kind, generous husband—for what he had done! True, the loan then advanced had been paid back, and Gillie—to use the stupid expression which seems to be creeping into the British language—had "made good." But that was no reason why he should come back and thrust himself into his, Godfrey's, home, and make friends with Godfrey's only child—after he had actually given an undertaking, in his own, melodramatic words, "never to darken Godfrey's door again."
Yet in his innermost heart Godfrey Pavely was sorry now that he had behaved as he had done yesterday.He had allowed his temper to get the better of him, always a silly thing for a sensible man to do. By behaving as he had done he had put a weapon into Laura's hands....
At one moment he considered the advisability of going into Freshley Manor on his way home to-day, to consult Mrs. Tropenell. And then he had suddenly remembered that his brother-in-law was actually her guest! That fact alone made a most disagreeable complication.
As he looked over his letters, and dictated some of the answers to them, he tried without success to put the matter out of his mind. It had taken there the place occupied by the unpleasantness connected with those absurd anonymous letters. For the first time, this morning he forgot them.
There came a knock at the door. "A letter, sir, has just been brought by Mrs. Tropenell's man. He said there was an answer, so he's waiting."
With quickened pulse, Godfrey Pavely opened the letter. He had long been familiar with Mrs. Tropenell's clear, flowing handwriting, and he wondered what she could have to say to him which she preferred to write, rather than telephone.
The banker was attached to Mrs. Tropenell. Always she had acted towards him in a high-minded, straightforward way, and on two occasions he had had reason to be specially grateful to her, for on each of these occasions she had intervened, successfully, between Laura and himself, and made Laura see reason. But she never alluded to the past, even in the remotest way, and he had come of late years to thinkand hope she had forgotten those now distant, painful, active misunderstandings.
If Mrs. Tropenell was now pleading with him for a reconciliation with Gilbert Baynton, then he knew that it would be very difficult for him to say "no" to a woman to whom he owed so much. It would also be a graceful way of getting out of the difficulty in which he had involved himself....
But the contents of the letter disagreeably surprised him, for they were quite other than what he had expected them to be—
"Dear Godfrey:—Oliver and Gilbert Baynton have to go to the Continent on business. I think they will be away for some time, and Gilbert speaks of going straight back to Mexico from France."I write to know if you will allow Laura to come up to town with me for a few days? It would enable her to see something of her brother, before a separation which may last, as did their past separation, for years."I hope, dear Godfrey, you will see your way to granting this request of mine. It is in very truth my request—not Laura's."Your affectionate old friend,"Lettice Tropenell."
"Dear Godfrey:—Oliver and Gilbert Baynton have to go to the Continent on business. I think they will be away for some time, and Gilbert speaks of going straight back to Mexico from France.
"I write to know if you will allow Laura to come up to town with me for a few days? It would enable her to see something of her brother, before a separation which may last, as did their past separation, for years.
"I hope, dear Godfrey, you will see your way to granting this request of mine. It is in very truth my request—not Laura's.
"Your affectionate old friend,
"Lettice Tropenell."
The unfortunate man—for he was in the full meaning of the words an unfortunate man—stared down at the letter.
He felt moved and perplexed by the way it was worded. "Your affectionate old friend"—what a strange way to sign herself! Mrs. Tropenell hadnever signed herself so before. And what exactly did she mean by saying that it was her request, not Laura's? In spite of those words, he felt convinced that Laura, too proud to ask this favour of him after the shameful way she had behaved yesterday, had persuaded Mrs. Tropenell to ask it for her.
He sat down and drew a piece of notepaper towards him. He was glad of the opportunity of showing them all how magnanimous he was—how much of aman. Laura should go to London with his full permission. Of course he knew quite well, at the back of his mind, that if he refused it she would probably go just the same. But in all the circumstances it would be just as well to heap coals of fire on her head. She should go—but not taking their child with her. His little Alice must not be contaminated.
When his daughter was old enough, he, Godfrey, would tell her the truth about her mother's brother. He did not hold with concealing this sort of thing from young people. Inhisfamily, thank God, there had never been anything to hide. All had always been honest and above-board. Besides, if anything happened to him, Alice would be a very wealthy woman, and Gillie would almost certainly try and get hold of her and of her money. He, Godfrey, knew that well enough.
"My dear Mrs. Tropenell:—Certainly it shall be as you ask——" He could not help adding, "though Laura knows that in doing this she is disregarding my formal wishes. Still, I admit that, Gillie being her brother, it is, I suppose, natural thatshe should wish to see him again before he leaves England."
"My dear Mrs. Tropenell:—Certainly it shall be as you ask——" He could not help adding, "though Laura knows that in doing this she is disregarding my formal wishes. Still, I admit that, Gillie being her brother, it is, I suppose, natural thatshe should wish to see him again before he leaves England."
Then he hesitated—indeed, he kept the messenger for whom he had already rung waiting for quite a long time. But at last he signed himself: "Your affectionate, and always grateful, Godfrey Pavely."
When the banker reached home rather early that afternoon—for he felt too much upset to go in and spend his usual pleasant hour with Katty at Rosedean—little Alice met him with the news that "Mummy" had gone to London, and that she, Alice, was going to be allowed to sit up to dinner to bear him company.
It was characteristic of the man that, if relieved, he was also sharply annoyed. He had hoped to extract from his wife some word of reluctant thanks for his magnanimity. But no, she had not even left a note telling him what day she would return!
Things had not fallen out at The Chase that morning as Godfrey Pavely had supposed. After breakfast Laura, still in a kind of stupor of pain and indignation, had gone into the garden. She had not been there a quarter of an hour when Mrs. Tropenell, who so seldom came to The Chase, had suddenly appeared, walking with stately, leisurely steps over the grass, to tell her of Oliver's and Gillie's coming departure for the Continent.
It was Mrs. Tropenell who had proposed sending that note to Godfrey, but Godfrey, who so little understood his wife, either for good or evil, was right in his belief that she would not have allowed her plans to be affected by his answer. At once Laura had determined to go to London, whether Godfrey gave hisconsent or no. Yet she was relieved when there came to her from Freshley the news that her husband's answer to Mrs. Tropenell's request was in the affirmative.
The message was given to her over the telephone by Oliver Tropenell, and in giving it he used the allusive form of words which come naturally when a man knows that what he says may be overheard: "Mother has just had a note saying that it is quite all right. So we propose to call for you in time to get the five minutes to one from Langford Junction. Does that give you enough time?" And she had exclaimed, "Oh, yes, yes! I'm quite ready now."
To that he had made no answer, and she had felt a little chill at the heart. Oliver's voice had sounded curiously cold—but then the telephone does sometimes alter voices strangely.
Those eight days in London! Laura was often to live through each of those long days during the dull weeks which followed her return home. Yet, when she did look back on that time, she had to admit that she had not been really happy, though the first hours had been filled with a sort of excited triumph and sense of victory. It was such a relief, too, to be away from Godfrey, and spared, even if only for a few days, the constant, painful irritation of his presence.
But her brother, for whose sake, after all, she was in London, jarred on her perpetually. For one thing, Gillie was in extravagant, almost unnaturally high spirits, set on what he called "having a good time," and his idea of a good time was, as Oliver once grimly remarked, slightly monotonous.
Gillie's good time consisted in an eager round ofbusiness interviews, culminating each evening in a rich dinner at one of the smart grill-rooms which were then the fashion, followed by three hours of a musical comedy, and finally supper at some restaurant, the more expensive the better.
To his sister, each evening so spent seemed a dreary waste of precious time. For in the daytime the two ladies, who had taken rooms in an old-fashioned hotel in a small street off Piccadilly, saw very little of Gillie and Oliver. Gillie had insisted that Oliver and he should go and stay at what he considered the smartest and most modern hotel in London, and though the strangely assorted quartette always lunched together, the two partners had a good deal to do each morning and most afternoons.
To Mrs. Tropenell's surprise Oliver apparently had no wish to be with Laura alone. Was it because he was afraid of giving himself away to his coarse-minded, jovial partner? Oliver looked stern, abstracted, and, when at the play, bored.
She admitted another possible reason for his almost scrupulous avoidance of Laura. With regard to the bitter feud between the brothers-in-law, Oliver had spoken to his mother with curious apathy. Perhaps he was honestly desirous of not taking sides. But on the whole Mrs. Tropenell swung more often to her first theory, and this view was curiously confirmed on the one Sunday spent by them in town.
Gillie, grumbling, a good deal at the dulness of the English Sunday, had motored off early to the country to spend the day with some people whom he had known in Mexico. And late that morning Oliver suddenly suggested that Laura and he should go out for a turnin the Green Park—only a stone's-throw from the rooms the two ladies were sharing.
And that hour, which was perhaps fraught with bigger circumstance than any one, save Oliver himself, was ever to know, did remain in Laura Pavely's memory as a strange and, in a sense, a delicious oasis, in her long, arid stay in London. For, as the two walked and talked intimately together in a solitude all the greater because peopled by the indifferent and unknown, they seemed to come nearer to one another—and to meet, for the first time, in an atmosphere of clarity and truth. Laura, perhaps because she had felt, during these last few days, so desperately lonely in a spiritual sense, talked more freely, albeit in a more detached way, to her devoted, considerate, and selfless friend, than she had ever been able to bring herself to do to any other human being.
For a while, after they had turned and begun pacing together under the now yellowing plane trees, neither of them spoke. Then Oliver said abruptly, "So all our schemes have vanished into air—I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry too," she said. "I always knew that Godfrey would never allow me to go away with Gillie, but I never, never thought that even he could behave as he did to my brother the other day——"
There was a sound of suppressed passion and revolt in her voice that he had never heard there before. It touched a chord in his own heart, but all he said, slowly, was, "I suppose Gillie irritated him."
"No, I don't think so. There wasn't time for Gillie to do anything, for Godfrey at once refused to shake hands with him. That's how it began."
"Gillie ought to have written first. My mother begged him not to take Godfrey by surprise——"
"Your mother is always right," she said in a low voice. "I've never known her wrong yet, though her advice isn't always easy to follow, Oliver."
"I'm afraid she was right this time, anyhow."
"I know she was."
There fell between them a long, pregnant silence. And then Oliver said, in a low, moved voice, "I'm afraid that this last business has made you very unhappy, Laura?"
She answered, "Yes—foolishly so. I ought not to have been surprised, for by this time I know Godfrey so well." And she believed herself to be speaking the truth.
"It's not his fault," she went on painfully, "that he has nothing in common with me and with my brother, different as we, too, are the one from the other. Gillie and I might have been born on different planets from Godfrey."
Laura had not meant to speak of Godfrey to Oliver. Indeed, she had formed the resolution never to do so again. But somehow, to-day, she felt as if she might break that salutary rule.
His next words seemed to prove to her that she could trust him to understand, for, "Yes," he said quietly, "you're right there, Laura. You and Godfrey have nothing in common between you, and that being so, I suppose there's nothing to be done?"
"No, there's nothing to be done," she repeated hopelessly. And then once more she broke her wise resolution: "If it hadn't been for Alice, I should, even now, be tempted to do what I so nearly did at thetime that Godfrey and Gillie"—she hesitated—"had their first misunderstanding."
"What you nearly did then, Laura?" There came an eager, questioning thrill in her companion's strained voice.
"Yes—" Why shouldn't she unburden her heart for once? "Yes, at the time of that first quarrel between my brother and my husband, I nearly left Godfrey. But for your mother, I should have done so. Alice was a tiny baby then, and I didn't realise, as I realise now, what an awful responsibility a woman takes on herself in breaking up a child's happy home. Only your mother stopped my doing it, and the fact"—she looked at him with a soundless depth of sadness in her face—"the fact that Gillie didn't really want me to go and live with him. Of course it was long before the question of his going to Mexico was raised."
"And have you never regretted that you did not carry out that purpose?"
Oliver Tropenell was looking straight before him as he asked the dangerous question. They were walking, slowly, slowly, along the broad path which runs just within the railings along the park side of Piccadilly. Between twelve and one on an autumn Sunday morning this path is generally deserted.
She did not answer at once, and he said quickly, "Forgive me! I ought not to have asked you that."
"Yes," she said again, "you can ask me anything you like, Oliver. But it's very difficult to answer such a question truthfully."
And again there fell between them one of thoselong silences which played a curious part in a conversation neither ever forgot.
At last Laura did answer Oliver's dangerous question. "I have always known in my heart that your mother was right in making me do what she did—I mean in persuading me that for my little girl's sake I must go on. Alice loves her father, though I think, perhaps foolishly, that of the two she cares for me best——"
"Of course she does!" he exclaimed.
"But whether that be so or not, I know what a terrible thing it would have been for Alice if Godfrey and I had lived apart. I've never doubted that—I don't doubt it now. But for that I could not go on—after what happened the other day."
"Then if, as is of course possible, you and I don't meet again for years and years, am I to think of you as always going on in exactly the same way?" he asked.
Some cruel devil outside himself had seemed to force him to utter the hopeless question which he had already made up his mind should be, must be, answered by Fate in the negative.
They had stopped their slow pacing side by side, and he was now looking down into her sad, desolate eyes. He saw the word—the one word "Yes," form itself on her quivering lips.
"Do you really mean that, Laura? Answer me truly."
And then suddenly there came over Laura Pavely an extraordinary sensation. It was as if this man, whose burning eyes were fixed on her face, were willing her to say aloud something which, however true,were better left unsaid. "There will never come any change," she answered, feeling as if the words were being forced out of her, "till, as the Marriage Service says, 'death us do part.'"
"Do you ever think of that possibility?"
He put the probing question in a singularly detached, almost a light, tone of inquiry.
But she answered very solemnly, again as if impelled to tell him the truth—a truth she had never thought to tell to any human being:
"There was a time before Alice was born when I was so unhappy, largely, as I can see now, through my own fault, when I felt I could not bear it any longer, and——" Her voice dropped, and he bent down so that he might catch the almost whispered words, "I was strongly tempted to—to kill myself," she said. "I used to go and walk up and down that little path across the head of the lake, and plan out how I would do it. Even now I do not think that any one, except perhaps your mother, would ever have suspected. It would have been so easy to make it appear an absolute accident."
He remained silent, and she went on, more composedly:
"I had got into a selfish, morbid state, Oliver, and yet the temptation was not wholly selfish, for I knew that Godfrey was miserable too, and my sense told me that if anything happened to me he would very soon marry again—some woman who would appreciate his good qualities, who would be happy with him, who would not be, as I knew I was, a bitter disappointment."
Once more her voice had become nearly inaudible,and once more Oliver bent his dark, convulsed face down to hear what she said.
Tears were rolling down Laura's face. But suddenly she made an immense effort over herself, and went on, calmly:
"It was your mother who helped me over that bad, foolish time. I don't know what I should have done but for Aunt Letty. I think she's the only person in the world to whom Godfrey ever listens—who can ever make any impression on him. It's strange in a way, for I know she doesn't really like either of us."
As he uttered a violent expression of dissent, she went on: "It's quite true, Oliver, and what is more, of the two she likes Godfrey the best. Why shouldn't she? She thinks I've behaved very unkindly to Godfrey. The only excuse she can make for me—she told me so once, long ago—is that I'm inhuman. I suppose in a way Iaminhuman?" She looked at him plaintively, a strange, piteous expression in her beautiful, shadowed eyes.
And Oliver Tropenell caught his breath. God—how he loved her! Her inhumanity—to use that cruelly misleading term which she had just used herself—only made his passion burn with a purer, whiter flame. The one thing in the world that mattered to him now was this woman's deliverance from the awful death-in-life to which her sensitive conscience, and her moving love for her child, alone condemned her. Yes, Laura's deliverance was the only thing worth compassing—and that even if the deliverer were wrecked, soul as well as body, body as well as soul, in the process.
They began walking again, slowly, slowly, once more enwrapped in a silence which said so much more than words could have said, even to Laura's still numb, unawakened heart.
It was she who at last broke the kind of spell which lay on them both. They had come almost to the end of the broad path. Opposite to where they were standing, on the other side of the road, was a huge white and green building, handsome and showy, looking strangely un-English and out of place in the famous old London way.
"They pulled down such a wonderful, delightful house just there," she said regretfully. "I was once taken to it by my father, when I was quite a little girl. It was like going right back a hundred years—not only to another London, but to another England. It's a shame that any one should have been allowed to pull down such a bit of old London as that."
And Oliver agreed, absently.
So, talking of indifferent things, they walked back to the hotel where Mrs. Tropenell was awaiting them, and the three afterwards spent the rest of the day peacefully together. But the next day there began again for them all the same dreary round—that odd, artificial life of "having a good time," as Gillie jovially put it.
Somehow Laura did not mind it so much now as she had done before. Her talk with Oliver had shifted her burden a little, and made her feel as if he and she had gone back to their old, happy, simple friendship. It had also deadened her feeling of acute, unreasoning anger with Godfrey.
At last came the morning when Oliver and Gilliewere to go to Paris. And at the last moment, standing on the platform at Charing Cross, there took place a rather pathetic, ridiculous little scene.
Gillie had bought for his sister a beautiful old jewel, and he thrust it—with a merry little word as to this being the first really nice present he had ever given her—into her hand. When she opened the case and saw the emerald and pearl heart, her eyes brimmed over with tears.
Even Gillie was moved. "There, there!" he exclaimed. "Nothing to cry about—'Nuff said,' Laura. Perhaps we'll meet again sooner than you think, my friends the Americans say."
And she tried to smile.
Then Gillie turned to Mrs. Tropenell, speaking with much greater sincerity of feeling than he was wont to do. "I'll never forget your kindness—in the past and in the present—to my sister and to me, Mrs. Tropenell. I'm not such a careless brute as I seem to be—I never forget a kindness—or an injury. Now then, Oliver!"
Laura felt her hand seized, closed on in a vice-like pressure which hurt, then dropped. "Good-bye, Laura," said Oliver in an almost inaudible tone. "Good-bye, till we meet again."
AS so often happens after hours or days of crises, and even of quarrel, things went better for a while after Laura's return to The Chase.
True, life was now, even more than before, dull, sad, and difficult. She missed Oliver Tropenell's constant companionship and stimulating talk, more than she was willing to acknowledge even to her innermost self. And yet, when Godfrey spoke of the other man's absence from Freshley with regret, his words jarred on her, and made her feel vaguely ashamed. Yet surely, surely she had nothing to reproach herself with in the matter of Oliver Tropenell? She would so gladly have kept him as Godfrey's friend as well as her own.
They had made it up, those two ill-matched people—made it up, that is, after a fashion. They were now much where they had been six months ago, just before Oliver Tropenell with his strong, masterful personality had come into their joint lives.
And Godfrey? Godfrey Pavely was happier, more complacent than usual, during those late autumn days. He also was ashamed—though not unreasonably so—of the absurd importance he had attached to those two vulgar anonymous letters! He was sorry now that he had spoken of the matter to Oliver Tropenell, for that odd, rather awkward talk of theirs on the matter had been perhaps a contributory cause of the otherman's sudden departure. If Oliver came home for Christmas, he, Godfrey, would "make it all right."
The banker had yet another reason for feeling life pleasanter than usual just now. He was engaged in a rather big bit of financial business of a kind his soul loved, for it was secret, immediately profitable, and with a gambling risk attached to it. The only person to whom he had said a word concerning the affair was Katty Winslow, and even to her, for he was a very prudent man, he had been quite vague.
With Katty he was becoming daily more intimate. Laura's cold aloofness made him seek, instinctively, a kinder, warmer, and yes, occasionally, a tenderer feminine presence. For the first time, lately, Godfrey had begun to tell himself that Katty would have made an almost perfect wife.... And Katty could have told you almost the exact moment when that thought had first flashed upon Godfrey Pavely's brain. But she also knew that so far he was content, most irritatingly content, with thestatus quo. Not so she——And one evening Katty tried an experiment which was on the whole remarkably successful, though its effects were strangely different from what she had expected.
While dining alone with Godfrey and Laura at The Chase, she startled her host and hostess by throwing out a careless word as to the possibility of her leaving Rosedean—of letting the house furnished, for a year....
Laura was astonished to see how much this casual remark of Katty's upset Godfrey. He uttered an exclamation of deep surprise and annoyance, and his wife told herself bitterly how strange it was that Godfrey, feeling so strongly about Katty, should not understandhow she, Laura, felt about Gillie. After all, Gillie was her own brother, and Katty was not Godfrey's sister—only an old playmate and friend!
Godfrey was, in very truth, much more than upset at those few careless words of his old friend—playmate, in the sense that Laura meant, she had never been. So disturbed and taken aback indeed that he lay awake much of that night.
The next morning he broke his walk into Pewsbury by going into Rosedean, this being the very first time he had ever done such a thing.
He was kept waiting a few moments—as a matter of fact only a very few moments—in the familiar little drawing-room, before Katty, wearing a charming, pale blue dressing-gown, edged with swansdown, joined him.
As was her way, she began speaking at once. "Why, what's the matter?" she exclaimed. "Has anything gone wrong, Godfrey?"
He answered irritably, "No, not that I know of. But I've something to say to you." He pulled out his big, old-fashioned gold repeater. "It's twenty to ten—I thought I'd find you down!"
"I always breakfast upstairs in my own room. But I didn't keep you waiting long——"
She was still a little breathless, for she had come down very quickly.
And then he began, with no preamble: "I want to know if you really meant what you said last night about letting this house furnished for a year? I'm by no means sure if the terms of your lease allow for your doing that; I shall have to look into it after Iget to the Bank. Still, I thought I'd better come and see you first."
Katty grew very pink. "Oh, Godfrey!" she exclaimed. "Surely you wouldn't be so unkind——?"
There came over her pretty face that curious, obstinate look which he had already seen there often enough to dread. Also she made him feel ashamed of himself. But how attractive she looked—how fresh and dainty—like a newly opened rose! Katty had twisted up her hair anyhow, but that only made her look younger, and more natural.
"Let's come out into the garden," she said coaxingly. "Surely you can stay for a few minutes? This is the very first time you've ever been to see me in the morning! Why not telephone through and say you've been delayed,—that you can't be at the Bank till eleven?" She was edging him as she spoke towards the corner where, behind a screen, there stood the telephone instrument.
As if compelled to obey, he took up the receiver, and uttered the familiar words, "Pewsbury 4." And at once there came an answer.
"Is that you, Privet? What a comfort it is to know that I can always rely on your being there, whoever else isn't! This is only to say that I have been delayed, and that I don't expect to be at the Bank till eleven."
Then came the calming, comforting answer, "Very good. That'll be all right, sir. There's nothing much doing this morning, from what I could make out when I was looking over your letters just now."
So Godfrey Pavely, feeling rather as if he was being driven along by a pleasant fate, hung the receiverup, and followed the blue-garbed figure out of doors, into a little pleasance now filled with exquisite autumnal colouring, and pungent, searching scents.
In the furthest corner of the walled garden, which was so much older than the house itself, was a tiny lawn surrounded by high hedges. There they could talk without any fear of being overlooked or overheard; and, before her visitor could stop her, Katty had dragged two cane-seated easy chairs out of her little summer-house.
They both sat down, but this time Katty warily remained silent. She was waiting for her companion to begin.
"You weren't serious, were you?" he said at last, and she felt the underlying pain and surprise in his voice. "You don't really mean that you want to go away, Katty? Where would you go to? What would you do? Have the Standens asked you to go abroad again—not for a whole year, surely?"
"No," she said slowly, "not the Standens. If you must know, I've been offered a furnished cottage rent-free by those friends of mine, the Haworths, who live near York. The truth is, I can't afford to keep up Rosedean! I hate saying this to you, but it's the truth."
"If you didn't go away so much——" he began irritably.
But she cut across him sharply, "After all, I've a right to go away if I like! But it isn't that, Godfrey. I've gone into it all—really I have! Even if I never left Rosedean I should still be too poor to go on living here comfortably."
"How much too poor?" he asked.
Katty drew a long breath. In a sense she was speaking at random, but no one would have known it from the tone in which she answered: "About a hundred a year—a little less, a little more."
And then Godfrey Pavely said something which very much surprised Katty. "About that thousand pounds which was left to you the other day," he said hesitatingly.
"Well? That'll only bring in thirty-five pounds a year; you made all the arrangements," she added wearily. "You wouldn't let me have it—as I wanted you to do."
"I couldn't, Katty, you know that! I didn't ask your aunt to make me your trustee."
"Well, that thirty-five pounds won't make any difference."
She was sorry now she had told him of the little house on her generous friends' estate. Perhaps he would offer to let her off the Rosedean rent. But Katty had quite made up her mind to cut the cable, and make a fresh start elsewhere.
"Wait a bit," he said slowly, "women always run on so fast! When I mentioned that thousand pounds, I was not thinking of giving it you, as you call it, to spend. I was thinking of that foreign investment I mentioned to you last week. If you're willing to take the risk, I might stretch a point, for if things go well that thousand pounds might easily be trebled in the course of the next two years. I'm so sure of that, that I'm quite willing to advance you, say, two hundred pounds."
He knew quite well that his proposal was utterly illogical, and bore, so to speak, no relation to the factthat the investment he was proposing might turn up trumps.
Katty's eyes sparkled. She was very fond of ready money, and it was such a long, long time since she had had any. "D'you mean you'd really give me two hundred poundsnow?" she asked joyfully.
And Godfrey, with his eyes fixed on the grass, said in a shamed voice, "Yes—that is what I do mean."
Somehow it hurt him to feel how that sum of money, so trifling to him, affected her so keenly. He was better pleased with her next question.
"What sort of an investment exactly is it?"
"It's in the nature of a company promotion," he said slowly. "And of course you must regard anything I tell you about it as absolutely private."
"Yes, I quite understand that!"
He drew a piece of paper out of his pocket. "As a matter of fact I've got a few facts about it jotted down here."
She drew her chair rather nearer to his, and Godfrey Pavely, turning his narrow yet fleshy face towards her, began speaking with far more eagerness and animation than usual. Katty, who was by no means a fool where such things were concerned, listened absorbedly while he explained the rather big bit of financial business in which he was now interested.
After he had been speaking to her without interruption for some minutes, Katty exclaimed: "Yes, I think I see now exactly what you mean! There certainly doesn't seem much risk attached to it—at any rate as regards the start off, as it were. But what made these French bankers pickyouout, Godfrey? After all, they're doing you a very good turn."
"I don't exactly know why they picked me out, as you call it——" he spoke hesitatingly. "But during that year I spent in Paris I came across a great many of that sort of people. My father got me the best possible introductions."
The piece of paper on which he had jotted certain notes and calculations was a large piece of thin foreign notepaper covered with small handwriting in the diluted ink which some French business men use.
"Can you read French?" he asked doubtfully.
She answered rather sharply, "Yes, of course I can!" and held out her hand.
The letter, which bore a Paris address, and the date of a fortnight back, was from the French banking house of Zosean & Co. It explained at some length that a client of the bank, a wealthy South American of Portuguese extraction named Fernando Apra, had become possessed of an estate on the coast of Portugal to which was attached a gambling concession. The idea was to make the place a kind of Portuguese Monte Carlo, and the present possessor was very desirous that English capital and English brains should be put into the company. The returns promised were enormous, and there seemed to be little or no risk attached to the business—if it was run on the right lines.
"I have gone into the matter very thoroughly," said Godfrey Pavely, "and I have convinced myself that it's all right. This Fernando Apra already has a London office. I managed to see him there for a few minutes last week. His real headquarters are in Paris."
"And are you finding all the money?" asked Katty eagerly. "Will it be all your money andmythousandpounds, Godfrey? In that case I suppose we shall get all the profits?"
He smiled a little at woman's cupidity. "No," he said, "I haven't been able to find it all myself. But I've managed to get in a very good man. Some one with whom I've done business before, Katty."
"What's his name?" she asked inquisitively.
Godfrey Pavely waited a moment. "I don't know that I ought to tell you—" he said uncomfortably. "He doesn't want to appear in the business."
"Of course you ought to tell me!" All sorts of strange ideas floated through Katty's mind. Was he going to say "Oliver Tropenell"? She rather expected he was.
"Well, Iwilltell you," he said, "for I know you can hold your tongue. The name of the man who's going into this business with me is Greville Howard."
"D'you mean the big money-lender?" Katty couldn't help a little tone of doubt, of rather shocked surprise, creeping into her voice.
"Yes," he said doggedly, "I do mean the man who was once a great money-lender. He's retired now—in fact he's living——" and then he stopped himself.
"Why, of course!" Katty felt quite excited. "He's living in Yorkshire, near the Haworths! They've often talked about him to me! They don't know him—he won't know anybody. He's a rather queer fish, isn't he, Godfrey?"
"He's absolutely straight about money," exclaimed Godfrey Pavely defensively. "I've had dealings with him over many years. In fact he's the ideal man for this kind of thing. He has all sorts of irons in the fire—financially I mean—on the Continent. He's a bigshareholder in the company that runs the Dieppe and Boulogne Casinos."
He got up. "Well, I ought to be going now. It's all right isn't it, Katty? You won't talk again of going away?"
"Could you let me have that two hundred pounds this afternoon?" she asked abruptly.
Godfrey Pavely looked at her with a curious, yearning, rather sad look. Somehow he would have preferred that Katty should not be quite so—so—he hardly formulated the thought to himself—so ready to doanythingfor money. "Very well," he said. "Very well, my dear"—he very seldom called her "my dear," but he had done so once or twice lately. "I'll bring it this afternoon, in notes."
"Thatwillbe kind of you," she said gratefully. "But look here, Godfrey, do take it out of my thousand pounds! Put eight hundred in this thing."
He shook his head and smiled. Women were queer, curiously unscrupulous creatures! "That would be right down dishonest of me, Katty."
They were now walking across the little lawn, which was so securely tucked away, out of sight of any prying window, and before going through the aperture which had been cut in the hedge, they both turned round and clasped hands. "Thank you so—so much," she said softly. "You've been a dear, kind friend to me always, Godfrey."
"Have I?" he said. "Have I, Katty? Not always, I fear."
"Yes, always," and her voice trembled a little.
He bent down and kissed her on the mouth with akind of shamed, passionate solemnity which moved, and, yes, a little amused her. Whatqueer, curiously scrupulous creatures men were!
"Go now, or you'll be late," she whispered.
And he went.
CERTAIN days become retrospectively memorable, and that however apparently uneventful they may have seemed at the time.
To Laura Pavely the 6th of January opened as had done all the other days during the last few weeks, that is, quietly, dully, and sadly.
There was one difference, trifling or not as one happened to look at the matter. Godfrey was away in London. He had been absent for over a week—since the 28th, and though he had been expected back last night, there had come a telephone message, late in the afternoon, to say that his business would keep him away a day longer.
This morning—it was a Friday morning—Laura, trying hard to shake off her depression, told herself that she and Alice might as well go for a ride. It was a beautiful day, and the wind blew soft. They would go across the downs to a certain lonely spot which Alice loved.
Laura was already in the hall in her riding habit, waiting for the child, when there came a telephone message through from Pewsbury. It was from the Bank asking what time Mr. Pavely would be there. A gentleman with whom he had made an appointment for ten o'clock, had been waiting for him since that hour. It was now nearly eleven.
Laura turned to the servant: "Did Mr. Pavely give you any message to send on to the Bank?" she asked.
The man answered, "No, ma'am, not that I understood. Mr. Pavely didn't come himself to the telephone."
"What was the message exactly?" Laura was always kind and courteous in her manner to her servants, and they were all attached to her.
"It was as how Mr. Pavely was being detained, and could not be home last night, ma'am. The person who gave the message was in a great hurry—he cut me off before I could say anything to him."
"I suppose we ought to have telephoned to the Bank early this morning," said Laura thoughtfully. But it had never occurred to her that it would be necessary for her to do so. Her husband was a very exact man of business. She had taken it as certain that he had also communicated with the Bank.
"Who was it telephoned just now?" she asked.
"I think it was Mr. Privet himself, ma'am. He said he felt sure Mr. Pavely intended to be back this morning, because of the gentleman he had arranged to see."
"Perhaps I had better speak to Mr. Privet myself," said Laura. "Is that you, Mr. Privet?"
"I wish you a very good morning, Mrs. Pavely. I didn't mean to put you to any trouble, but you see the matter is important——" Even through the telephone she could hear a mysterious tone in the old voice, though he was speaking in so low a tone that she could scarcely hear. "It's Lord St. Amant. He's been here since ten o'clock, and he says he can't stop any longer. Mr. Pavely made an appointment with hislordship over a week ago. It's very strange he should have forgotten, isn't it, Mrs. Pavely?"
"Yes, I think itisstrange," she said slowly. "Will you tell his lordship that I'm exceedingly sorry that word was not sent him. If I had known of the appointment, of course I would have communicated with him either by telephone or by a note."
"Then I'm to put off all Mr. Pavely's appointments for to-day?"
"Well, yes, Mr. Privet, that seems to me the only thing you can do."
Laura smiled a little as she left the telephone. Mr. Privet's tone, if not his words, made it quite clear that he thought Mr. Pavely had committed a serious solecism, almost the worst solecism a country banker could commit, in not keeping an appointment with the great man of the neighbourhood, who was to be the new Lord Lieutenant of the county.
An hour and a half later, as mother and child were riding slowly home, Laura suddenly told herself that it was a long time since Mrs. Tropenell had seen Alice on pony-back. Why shouldn't they both go on to Freshley? And if Aunt Letty asked them to stay to lunch, as she very probably would, so much the better!
On their way to the front door of the house, they turned into the stable-yard to find a groom, and then, suddenly, Laura felt a queer, and to herself an utterly unexpected and new, sensation sweep over her. It was a sensation of eager, unreasoning joy.
Oliver Tropenell stood in the middle of the yard, talking to his mother's old groom. He looked ill andtired—dreadfully tired. But all at once, as he saw Laura and her child come riding in, a wonderful change swept over his dark face—there came over it a glowing expression of welcome and delight. He lifted Alice off her pony. Then he came forward to help Laura....
With a shock of surprise which seemed to make her heart stop beating, Laura felt her whole being responding to the ardent, and at once imperious and imploring look with which he gazed up into her eyes. She was shaken, awed by the passion he threw, perhaps unconsciously, into that long, beckoning look—stirred to the heart by the feeling of content his mere presence brought her.
But even in those few flashing moments, Laura Pavely quickly, almost fiercely, assured herself that this new, strange sensation of oneness, of surrender on her part, was "friendship," nothing more.
Yet her voice faltered in spite of herself, as she said, "Hadn't we better ride round? I only came in here to find some one to hold the horses, in case your mother wanted us to come in."
But with a muttered, "Mother has got Lord St. Amant to luncheon—I know she would like you both to stay, too," he lifted her off her horse.
They walked to a door which led into the back part of the house, and so by a corridor to a small room where Mrs. Tropenell generally sat in the morning. As they went along, Alice, alone, chattered happily.
At last Laura, more for the sake of proving to herself that she felt quite at ease than for anything else, asked suddenly, "I suppose you didn't see Godfrey on your way through London?"
Oliver waited a few moments—so long indeed that she wondered if he had heard her. But she knew in her heart that he had, for his face had darkened at the mention of her husband's name. At last he answered, very deliberately, "Is Godfrey away then?"
"Yes. He went off some days ago. We expected him home yesterday; but he sent a telephone message to say he wasn't coming back till to-night."
They were now before the door of Mrs. Tropenell's sitting-room. Her son opened it quietly, and for a moment the three stood there, gazing into the panelled, sunlit little room, which was part of the survival of a much older building than the eighteenth-century manor-house.
Mrs. Tropenell, sitting upright in a low chair, was looking up into the face of the man who stood before her, and they were both so absorbed in what they were saying that neither had heard the door open.
Laura gazed with new eyes, a new curiosity, at Lord St. Amant. She had seen him often in this house, though sometimes at comparatively long intervals, ever since she was a child, and always he had had a fixed place, in her mind and imagination, as Mrs. Tropenell's one man-friend.
To-day, seeing the two thus talking eagerly together she felt her interest oddly quickened. She was asking herself eagerly whether some such passage as that which had taken place between herself and Oliver Tropenell three months ago, and which had caused her so much pain, had ever occurred between those two in the days when Lady St. Amant, a fretful, selfish invalid whom every one disliked, was still alive. If yes, then Mrs. Tropenell had evidently known how to retain thefriendship, the warm affections of a man who, younger, had been notoriously inconstant.
In Laura's eyes these two had always been old when she thought of them at all. But to-day she realised, as in a flash, that the man and woman before her had also been young, and that not so very long ago.
Even now, Lord St. Amant was a still vigorous and active-looking man. He was leaning over the back of a chair, looking eagerly into his old friend's face. Was it true, as some of the gossips said, that he had remained a widower for that same friend's sake?
Laura gazed at him with an almost hungry curiosity. She was absurdly surprised that he looked to-day exactly as he had always looked in her eyes—a pleasant, agreeable-mannered, amusing man of the world, not at all her notion of the one-time lover of many women.
Lord St. Amant's hair had now gone white, but, apart from that he looked just as he had been wont to look, when he came and went about Freshley Manor, when she, as a child, had stayed there with her mother. Some years later, she had become dimly aware—girls always know such things—that Mrs. Tropenell had had a fleeting notion of marrying her to Lord St. Amant. But Laura had also known that it was Mrs. Tropenell, not herself, who was the magnet which then drew him so often to Freshley Manor.
They had once, however, had an intimate talk together. It had been on one of the very rare occasions when Mrs. Tropenell was ill, confined to bed, upstairs, and she, Laura Baynton, had been left alone to entertain her Aunt Letty's old friend. And their talk—she remembered it now—had been all of Oliver: of Oliver and his mother.
Lord St. Amant had spoken with much heat of Oliver's having settled on the other side of the world, leaving Mrs. Tropenell lonely. Then he had smiled a curious little smile: "But that makes no difference. To a mother 'distance makes the heart grow fonder,' and also 'lends enchantment to the view.' An only son, Laura, is the most formidable of rivals."
The girl had been flattered, touched too, by the implied confidence.
She had yet another vivid memory of Lord St. Amant. He had sent her, immediately on hearing of her engagement to Godfrey Pavely, a magnificent wedding present; also he had come, at some inconvenience, to her marriage.
Godfrey had supposed the compliment due to regard for himself and for his father, but Laura, of course, had known better. Lord St. Amant had come to her marriage to please Mrs. Tropenell—because he regarded her, in a sense, as Mrs. Tropenell's adopted daughter.
Something of all this moved in quick procession through Laura Pavely's mind, as she stood in the doorway, looking more beautiful, more animated, more feminine, in spite of—or was it because of?—her riding dress, than Oliver Tropenell had ever seen her.
She moved forward into the room, and Lord St. Amant turned quickly round.
If Laura looked at Lord St. Amant with a new interest, a new curiosity in her beautiful eyes, he, on his side, now looked at Laura more attentively than he had done for a long time. He had been abroad for two months, and this was the first time he and Mrs. Tropenell had met since his return.
They had just had a long talk, and during that talk she had at last told him something which had amused, surprised, and yes, interested him very much; for Lord St. Amant, in the evening of his days, found himself more, not less, tolerant of, and interested in, human nature, and in human nature's curious kinks and byways, than at the time when he himself had provided his friends and contemporaries with food for gossip and scandal. But he had been very comforting in his comments on her story, and more than once he had made his old friend smile. Mrs. Tropenell had felt very, very glad to see Lord St. Amant. It was natural that she should be glad to have once more within easy reach of her the one human being in the world to whom she could talk freely, and who took an unaffectedly close, deep interest in all her concerns.
Not till they were all sitting at luncheon, was Laura able, in a low tone, to inquire after her brother. Little Alice knew nothing of her uncle's visit to England. Godfrey and Laura had tacitly agreed to keep the child in ignorance of it. But now Laura asked, with some eagerness, "And Gillie? What's happened to Gillie? Is he still abroad?"
Olive answered at once, "No, he's gone back to Mexico." And then, as he saw a look of blank disappointment shadow her face, he added, hastily, "He gave me a lot of messages for you—I was coming over this afternoon to deliver them. You know what Gillie's like—he never writes if he can help it!"
"Yes," she said, "I know that," and she sighed. "Did he go from a French port?" she asked.
Oliver hesitated. It was almost as if he had forgotten.But at last he answered, "Yes, he went from Havre. I saw him off."
And then something rather untoward happened. There came a violent ringing at the front door—a loud, imperious pulling at the big, old-fashioned iron bell-pull. To the surprise of his mother, Oliver flushed—a deep, unbecoming brick red. Starting up from table, he pushed his chair aside, and walked quickly to the door. It was almost as if he expected some one. "I'll see who it is!" he called out.
They heard him striding across the hall, and flinging open the front door....
Then he came back slowly, and Mrs. Tropenell saw that there was a look of immeasurable relief on his face. "It's a man who's brought a parcel from Pewsbury for one of the servants. He declared he couldn't make any one hear at the back, and so he came round to the front door—rather impudent of him, eh?" and he sat down again.
Coffee was served in the pleasant, low-ceilinged drawing-room, and then Oliver and Laura went out of doors, with Alice trotting by their side.
It was quite like old times. And the child voiced their unspoken feeling, when, slipping her hand into Oliver's, she exclaimed, "This is jolly! Just like what it used to be when you were here before!"
And he pressed the little hand which lay so confidingly in his. "Yes," he said, in a low voice, "the same—but nicer, don't you think so, Alice?"
And Alice answered with the downrightness of childhood, "I can't tell yet! I shall know that after you've been here a little while. We can't garden as much as we did then, for now the ground is too hard."
"But we can do other things," said Oliver, smiling down at her.
And Alice answered doubtfully, "Yes, I suppose we can."
They did not say very much. Oliver did not talk, as perhaps another man would have done, of his and Gillie's adventures in France and Italy. And after a comparatively short time Laura suggested that she and Alice had better now ride home.
"Will you come over to tea?" she asked.
And Oliver said yes, that he would.
"I daresay Godfrey will be back by then. He often takes the early afternoon train down from London."
But to that he made no answer, and Laura, with a rather painful sensation, saw the light suddenly die out of his face.
He came round to the stable. "I'll walk a little way with you," he said.
But she exclaimed rather hurriedly, "No, don't do that, Oliver! Stay with your mother and Lord St. Amant."
And without any word of protest he obeyed her.
It is strange what a difference the return of a friend may make to life! Laura Pavely felt another woman as she busied herself that afternoon, happily waiting for Oliver Tropenell. Honestly she hoped that Godfrey would come back by the early afternoon train; he, too, would be glad to see Oliver.
But the time went by, and there came no message through from London ordering the car to be sent to the station, and Laura told herself that perhaps Godfrey had gone straight to the Bank.
At last, a little after five, Oliver Tropenell came sauntering in, very much as he used to saunter in, during the long happy summer days when they had just become friends.
They had tea in Alice's day-nursery, and after tea, they all three played games till it was nearly seven. Then, reluctantly, Oliver got up, and said he must go home. And as he stood there, gazing down into her face, Laura was struck, as she had been that morning in the first moment of their meeting, by his look of fatigue and of strain. She, who was so little apt to notice such things, unless her little girl was in question, glanced up at him anxiously. "You don't look well," she said, with some concern. "You don't look as if you'd had a holiday, Oliver."
"I shall soon get all right," he muttered, "now that I'm here, with mother." And then, in a lower voice, he added the words, "and with you, Laura."
She answered, nervously determined to hark back to what had been their old, happy condition, "Alice and I have both missed you dreadfully—haven't we, my darling?"
And Alice said gaily, "Oh yes, indeed, we have, mother." Then the child turned, in her pretty, eager way to Oliver, "I hope you'll stay a long, long time at Freshley. If only it snows, father thinks it may soon, you and I can make a snow man!"
And Oliver, after a moment's pause, answered, "Yes, so we can, Alice. I'm going to stay at home some time now, I hope."
And again, on hearing those words, Laura felt that new, unreasoning thrill of joy which she had felt when she had seen Oliver standing in the middle ofhis mother's stable-yard. Till that moment, and now again, just now, she had not known how much she had missed her friend.
At last, when it was really time for him to go, Laura and Alice both accompanied their guest to the hall. Then he turned abruptly to Laura: "How about to-morrow? May I come to-morrow morning?"
And over Laura there came just a little tremour of misgiving. Surely Oliver was going to be—reasonable?
"Yes," she said hesitatingly, "I shall be very glad to see you—though of course I'm rather busy in the morning. To-morrow Mademoiselle is not coming. Perhaps I'd better telephone early and tell you our plans for the day. Godfrey will be so glad to see you, Oliver. He asked only the other day when Mrs. Tropenell expected you back."
But to that remark Oliver made no answer.
After the heavy front door had shut behind her visitor, and when Alice had already run out of the hall, Laura opened the front door again.
She called out: "Perhaps you'll meet Godfrey. He may be here any moment now; if he's been at the Bank, he will walk out from Pewsbury."
But Oliver did not turn round. He was evidently already out of hearing.
Feeling strangely restless, Laura walked out a little way, closing the door partly behind her. There was about a quarter of a mile of carriage road from the house to the gate, but the night was very clear, the ground hard and dry. Soon her eyes became accustomed to the darkness; she could see Oliver's tall figure rapidly growing less and less, dimmer and dimmer.Every moment she expected to see another, still more familiar, form emerge from out of the darkness. But, after pacing up and down for perhaps as long as ten minutes, she went back into the house. Godfrey was evidently coming home by the last train.
Moved by an indefinable feeling of peace as well as of contentment, Laura sat up long that night, waiting for her husband. She had made up her mind to tell him, not only that Oliver had come back, but also that her brother was on his way to Mexico. Half ashamedly she asked herself why they should not all three go back to the happy conditions which had lasted all the summer?
But there came neither Godfrey nor news of him, and Laura spent the evening of a day of which the date was to become memorable, not unhappily in reading.
When it came to half-past eleven, she knew that her husband would not be home that night, but, even so, she sat up till the tall lacquered clock in the hall struck out the chimes of midnight. Then, a little reluctantly, she went upstairs, telling herself that if in the morning there was still no news of Godfrey, she and Alice would stroll along to Rosedean. Katty might know something of Godfrey's movements, for when she had been last at The Chase an illusion had been made to a bit of business he was to do for her in London, which would necessitate some correspondence.