It was evident that more had occurred to make Mrs. Dawson afraid that she would, or perhaps could, say.
“Wait here,” Rupert said to her. “Don't stir.” The command seemed superfluous, for she had not at that moment the appearance of still possessing the power to move. Without speaking again, Rupert left the room and went quickly to the foot of the narrow stairs that led to the attics above.
He listened, crouching there, and heard nothing, and a cold fear came to him that perhaps Deede Dawson had done up above what he wished to do and then effected his escape while he himself had been lingering in Ella's room.
Adopting his plan of a rapid rush to disconcert the aim of any one who might be about to fire at him, he made a swift dash up the stairs and on the topmost one crouched down again and waited.
But still nothing happened, all was very quiet, and the door of one attic, the one which had been assigned to him as a bed-chamber, was wide open so that he could see into it and see that it was unoccupied.
But the doors of both the others were closed, and as he looked he made out in the gloom, for this landing by the attic was very badly-lighted by a small and awkwardly-placed skylight, a scattered dozen or so of hairpins, and a tortoiseshell comb such as he had seen sometimes in Ella's hair, lying on the floor near the door of the larger of the two attics, the one in which he remembered well he had found Deede Dawson on a certain night busy measuring and examining an empty packing-case.
With one quick rush he crossed the landing and flung himself at the door.
It opened at once, for it was not locked, and within he saw Deede Dawson, screw-driver in his hand, standing behind a large packing-case, the lid of which he had apparently that minute finished fastening down.
He looked up as Rupert entered thus precipitately, and he showed no sign of surprise or alarm.
“You're back early,” he said. “Something gone wrong?”
“What are you doing? What's in there?” Rupert asked, looking at the packing-case, his mouth and lips so suddenly dry he found it difficult to speak at all.
Deede Dawson began to laugh, a low and dreadful laughter that had in it no trace of merriment at all, but only of mockery and malice.
It was such laughter as a devil from the nethermost pit might give vent to when he saw at last a good man yield to long temptation.
“What's in there?” Rupert said again, pointing to the packing-case, and it was as though his soul swooned within him for fear of what the answer might be.
“What do the children say?” Deede Dawson returned with his terrible smile. “I'll give you three guesses, isn't it? See if you can guess in three tries.”
“What's in there?” Rupert asked the third time, and Deede Dawson laid down the screw-driver with which he had just driven home the last screw.
“Oh, see for yourself, if you want to,” he said. “But you ought to know. You know what was in the other case I sent away from here, the one I got Ella to take in the car for me? I want you to take this one away now, the sooner it's away the better.”
“That's it, is it?” Rupert muttered.
He no longer doubted, and for a moment all things swam together before him and he felt dizzy and a little sick, and so weak he staggered and nearly fell, but recovered himself in time.
The sensation passed and he saw Deede Dawson as it were a long way off, and between them the packing-case, huge, monstrous, and evil, like a thing of dread from some other world. Violent shudderings swept though him one after the other, and he was aware that Deede Dawson was speaking again.
“What did you say?” he asked vacantly, when the other paused.
“You look ill,” Deede Dawson answered. “Anything wrong? Why have you come back so soon? Have you failed?”
Rupert passed his hand before his eyes to clear away the mist that hung there and that hampered his sight.
He perceived that Deede Dawson held his right hand in the pocket of his coat, grasping something that bulged out curiously.
He divined that it was a pistol, and that Deede Dawson was ready to shoot at any moment, but that he wished very greatly to know first of all what had happened and why Rupert had returned so soon and whether there was immediate necessity for flight or not.
That he was uneasy was certain, for his cold eyes showed a hesitation and a doubt such as Rupert had never seen in them before.
“I'll tell you what's happened,” Rupert heard himself saying hoarsely. “If you'll tell me what's in there.”
“A bargain, eh?” Deede Dawson said. “It's easy enough. You can look for yourself if you unscrew the lid, but then, after all, why should we take all that trouble?”
As he spoke his pistol showed in his hand, and at once the heavy glass inkpot Rupert had held all this time flew straight and true, and with tremendous force, at Deede Dawson's head.
He avoided it only by the extreme rapidity with which he dropped behind the packing-case, and it flew over his head and crashed against the centre panel of a big wardrobe that stood in one corner of the room, splitting the panel it struck from top to bottom.
Following it, Rupert hurled himself forward with one great spring, but agile as a cat that leaps away from the mastiff's teeth, Deede Dawson slipped from his grasp to the other side of the room. In doing so he knocked his arm against the corner of the packing-case, so that his revolver fell to the ground.
With a shout Rupert stooped and seized it, and straightened himself to see that Deede Dawson had already another revolver in his hand—a second one that he had drawn from an inner pocket.
They remained very still, watching each other intently, neither eager to fire, since both wished first to make the other speak. For Rupert desired very greatly that Deede Dawson should tell him where Ella was, and Deede Dawson needed that Rupert should explain what had gone wrong, and how imminent and great was the danger that therefore most likely threatened him.
Each knew, too, that the slightest movement he made would set the other shooting, and each realized that in that close and narrow space any exchange of shots must almost of necessity mean the death of both, since both were cool and deadly marksmen, well accustomed to the use of the revolver.
Deede Dawson was the first to speak.
“Well, what next?” he said. “If that inkpot of yours had hit me it would pretty well have knocked my brains out, and if I hadn't hit my elbow against the corner of the packing-case I would have had you shot through with holes like a sieve by now. So far the score's even. Let's chat a bit, and see if we can't come to some arrangement. Look, I'll show I trust you.”
As he spoke he laid down, much to Rupert's surprise, and to his equal suspicion, his revolver on the top of a moth-eaten roll of old carpet that leaned against the wall near where he was standing.
“You see, I trust you,” he said once more.
“Take your pistol up again,” answered Rupert grimly. “I do not trust you.”
“Ah, that's a pity.” Deede Dawson smiled, making no effort to do as the other said. “You see, we are both good shots, and if we start blazing away at each other up here we shall both be leaking pretty badly before long. That's a prospect that has no attraction for me; I don't know if it has for you. But there are things I can tell you that might be interesting, and things you can tell me I want to know. Why not exchange a little information, and then separate calmly, rather than indulge in pistol practice that can only mean the death of us both? For if your first bullet goes through my brain I swear my first will be in your heart.”
“Likely enough,” agreed Rupert, “but worth while perhaps.”
“Oh, that's fanaticism,” Deede Dawson answered. “Flattering perhaps to me, but not quite reasonable, eh?”
“There's only one thing I want to know from you,” Rupert said slowly.
“Then why not ask it, why not agree to the little arrangement I suggest, eh? Eh, Rupert Dunsmore?”
“You know me, then?”
“Oh, long enough.”
“Where is Ella?”
Deede Dawson laughed again.
“That's a thing I know and you don't,” he said. “Well, she's safe away in London by this time.”
“That's a lie, for her mother's here still,” answered Rupert, even though his heart leapt merely to hear the words.
“Unbelieving Thomas,” smiled the other. “Well, then, she is where she is, and that you can find out for yourself. But I'll make another suggestion. We are both good shots, and if we start to fire we shall kill each other. I am certain of killing you, but I shan't escape myself. Well, then, why not toss for it? Equal chances for both, and certain safety for one. Will you toss me, the one who loses to give up his pistol to the other?”
“It seems to me a good idea,” Deede Dawson argued. “Here we are watching each other like cats, and knowing that the least movement of either will start the other off, and both of us pulling trigger as hard as we can. My idea would mean a chance for one. Well, let's try another way; the best shot to win. You don't trust me, but I will you.”
Leaving his pistol lying where he had put it down, he crossed the attic, and with a pencil he took from his pocket drew a circle on the panel of the wardrobe door that Rupert had split with the inkpot he had thrown.
In the centre of the circle he marked a dot, and turned smilingly to the frowning and suspicious Rupert.
“There you are,” he said, and made another circle near the first one. “Now you put a bullet into the middle of this circle and I'll put one afterwards through the second circle, and the one who is nearest to the dots I've marked, wins. What have you to say to that? Seems to me better than our killing each other. Isn't it?”
“I think you're playing the fool for some reason of your own,” answered Rupert. “There's only one thing I want to know from you. Where is Ella?”
“Let me know how you can shoot,” answered Deede Dawson, “and I'll tell you, by all that's holy, I will.”
Rupert hesitated. He did not understand all this, he could not imagine what motive was in Deede Dawson's mind, though it was certainly true enough that once they began shooting at each other neither man was at all likely to survive, for Rupert knew he would not miss and he did not think Deede Dawson would either.
Above all, there was the one thing he wished to know, the one consideration that weighed with him above all others—what had become of Ella? And this time there had been in Deede Dawson's voice an accent of twisted and malign sincerity that seemed to say he really would be willing to tell the truth about her if Rupert would gratify his whim about this sort of shooting-match that he was suggesting.
The purpose of it Rupert could not understand, but it did not seem to him there would be any risk of harm in agreeing, for Deede Dawson was standing so far away from his own weapon he could not well be contemplating any immediate mischief or treachery.
It did occur to him that the pistol he held might be loaded in one chamber only and that Deede Dawson might be scheming to induce him to throw away his solitary cartridge.
But a glance reassured him on that point.
“Let me see how you can shoot,” Deede Dawson repeated, leaning carelessly with folded arms against the wall a little distance away. “And I promise you I'll tell you where Ella is.”
Rupert lifted his pistol and was indeed on the very point of firing when he caught a glimpse of such evil triumph and delight in Deede Dawson's cold eyes that he hesitated and lowered the weapon, and at the same time, looking more closely, searching more intently for some indication of Deede Dawson's hidden purpose, he noticed, caught in the crack of the wardrobe door, a tiny shred of some blue material only just visible.
He remembered that sometimes of an afternoon Ella had been accustomed to wear a frock made of a material exactly like that of which so tiny a fragment showed now in the crack of the wardrobe door.
He turned quickly towards Deede Dawson. Their eyes met, and in that mutual glance Rupert Dunsmore read that his suspicions were correct and Deede Dawson that his dreadful trap was discovered.
Neither spoke. For a brief moment they remained impassive, immobile, their eyes meeting like blows, and then Deede Dawson made one spring to seize again the revolver he had laid down in the hope of enticing Rupert into the awful snare prepared for him.
But quick as he was, Rupert was quicker still, and as Deede Dawson leaped he lifted his pistol and fired, though his aim was not at the man, but at the revolver lying on the top of the roll of carpet where Deede Dawson had placed it.
The bullet, for Rupert was a man who seldom missed, struck the weapon fair and whirled it, shattered and useless, to the floor. Deede Dawson, whose hand had been already outstretched to seize it, drew back with a snarl that was more like the cry of a trapped wolf than any sound produced from human lips.
Still, Rupert did not speak. With the smoking pistol in his hand he watched silently and steadily his helpless enemy who, for his part, was silent, too, and very still, for he felt that doom was close upon him.
Yet he showed not the least sign of fear, but only a fierce and sullen defiance.
“Shoot away, why don't you shoot?” he sneered. “Mind you don't miss. I trusted you when I put my revolver down and I was a fool, but I thought you would play fair.”
Without a word Rupert tossed his pistol through the attic window.
They heard the tinkling fall of the glass, they heard more faintly the sound of the revolver striking the outhouse roof twenty feet below and rebounding thence to the paved kitchen yard beneath, and then all was quiet again.
“I only need my hands for you,” said Rupert softly, as softly as a mother coos to her drowsy babe. “My hands for you.”
For the first time Deede Dawson seemed to fear, for, indeed, there was that in Rupert Dunsmore's eyes to rouse fear in any man. With a sudden swift spring, Rupert leaped forward and Deede Dawson, not daring to abide that onslaught, turned and ran, screaming shrilly.
During the space of one brief moment, a dreadful and appalling moment, there was a wild strange hunting up and down the narrow space of that upper attic, cumbered with lumber and old, disused furniture.
Round and round Deede Dawson fled, screaming still in a high shrill way, like some wild thing in pain, and hard upon him followed Rupert, nor had they gone a second time about that room before Rupert had Deede Dawson in a fast embrace, his arms about the other's middle.
One last great cry Deede Dawson gave when Rupert seized him, and then was silent as Rupert lifted him and swung him high at arm's length.
As a child in play sports with its doll, so Rupert swung Deede Dawson twice about his head, round and round and then loosed him so that he went hurling through the air with awful force, like a stone shot from a catapult, clean through the window through which Rupert had the moment before tossed his pistol with but little more apparent effort.
Right through the window, bearing panes and sash with him, Deede Dawson flew with the impetus of that great throw and out beyond and down, turning over and over the while, down through the empty air to fall and be shattered like a piece of worthless crockery on the stone threshold of the outhouse door.
Surprised to find himself alone, Rupert put his hand to his forehead and looked vacantly around.
“My God, what have I done?” he thought.
He was trembling violently, and the fury of the passion that had possessed him and had given his mighty muscles a force more than human, was still upon him.
Going to the window, he looked out, for he did not quite know what had happened and from it he looked back at the wardrobe door.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes.”
He ran to it and tore open the door and from within very tenderly and gently he lifted down the half-swooning Ella who, securely gagged and tightly bound, had been thrust into its interior to conceal her from him.
Hurriedly he freed her from her bonds and from the handkerchief that was tied over her mouth and holding her in his arms like a child, pressing her close to his heart, he carried her lightly out of that dreadful room.
Only once did she stir, only once did she speak, when lifting her pale, strained face to him she murmured very faintly something in which he just caught the words:
“Deede Dawson.”
“He'll trouble us no more nor any one else, I think,” answered Rupert, and she said no more but snuggled down in his arms as though with a feeling of perfect security and safety.
He took her to her own room and left her with her mother, and then went down to the hall and took a chair and sat at the front door.
All at once he felt very tired and one of his shoulders hurt him, for he had strained a muscle there rather badly.
His one desire was to rest, and he did not even trouble to go round to the back of the house to see what had happened to Deede Dawson, though indeed that was not a point on which he entertained much doubt.
For a long time he sat there quietly, till at last his father arrived in a motor-car from Wreste Abbey, together with a police-inspector from the county town whom he had picked up on the way.
Rupert took them into the room where Deede Dawson's chessmen and the board were still standing and told them as briefly as he could what had happened since the first day when he had left his home to try to trace out and defeat the plot hatched by Walter Dunsmore and Deede Dawson.
“You people wouldn't act,” he said to the inspector. “You said there was no evidence, no proof, and I daresay you were right enough from the legal point of view. But it was plain enough to me that there was some sort of conspiracy against my uncle's life, I thought against my father's as well, but I was not sure of that at first. It was through poor Charley Wright I became so certain. He found out things and told me about them; but for him the first attempt to poison my uncle would have succeeded. Even then we had still no evidence to prove the reality of our suspicions, for Walter destroyed it, by accident, I thought at the time, purposely, as I know now. It was something Walter said that gave Charley the idea of coming here. Then he vanished. He must have roused their suspicions somehow, and they killed him. But again Walter put us all off the scent by his story of having seen Charley in London, so that it was there the search for him was made, and no one ever thought of Bittermeads. I never suspected Walter, such an idea never entered my head; but luckily I didn't tell him of my idea of coming to Bittermeads myself to try to find out what was really going on here. He knew nothing of where I was till I told him that day at Wreste Abbey, then of course he came over here at once. I thought it was anxiety for my safety, but I expect really it was to warn his friends. When I saw him here that night I told him every single thing, I trusted the carrying-out of everything I had arranged to him. If it hadn't been for a note Miss Cayley wrote me to warn me, I should have walked right into the trap and so would my father too.”
The police-inspector asked a few questions and then made a search of the room which resulted in the discovery of quite sufficient proof of the guilt of Deede Dawson and of Walter Dunsmore.
Among these proofs was also a hastily-scribbled note from Walter that solved the mystery of John Clive's death. It was not signed, but both General Dunsmore and Rupert knew his writing and were prepared to swear to it. Beginning abruptly and scribbled on a torn scrap of paper, it ran:
“I found Clive where you said, lucky you got hold of the note and read it before she sent it, for no doubt she meant to warn him. Take care she gets no chance of the sort again. I did Clive's business all right. She saw me and I think recognized me from that time she saw me over the packing-case business, before I took it out to sink it at sea. At any rate, she ran off in a great hurry. If you aren't careful, she'll make trouble yet.”
“Apparently,” remarked the inspector when he had read this aloud, “the young lady was very luckily not watched closely enough and did make trouble for them. Could I see her, do you think?”
“I don't know, I'll go and ask,” Rupert said.
Ella was still very shaken, but she consented to see the inspector, and they all went together to her room where she was lying on her bed with her mother fussing nervously about her.
She told them in as few words as possible the story of how she had always disliked and mistrusted the man whom so unfortunately her mother had married, and how gradually her suspicions strengthened till she became certain that he was involved in many unlawful deeds.
But always her inner certainty had fallen short of absolute proof, so careful had he been in all he did.
“I knew I knew,” she said. “But there was nothing I really knew. And he made me do all sorts of things for him. I wouldn't have cared for myself, but if I tried to refuse he made mother suffer. She was very, very frightened of him, but she would never leave him. She didn't dare. There was one night he made me go very late with a packing-case full of silver things he had, and he wouldn't tell me where he had got them. I believe he stole them all, but I helped him pack them, and I took them away the night Mr. Dunsmore came and gave them to a man wearing a mask. My stepfather said it was just a secret family matter he was helping some friends in, and later on I saw the same man in the woods near here one day—the day Mr. Clive was killed by the poachers—and when he came another time to the house I thought I must try to find out what he wanted. I listened while they talked and they said such strange things I made up my mind to try to warn Mr. Dunsmore, for I was sure there was something they were plotting.”
“There was indeed,” said Rupert grimly. “And but for that warning you sent me they would have succeeded.”
“Somehow they found out what I had done,” Ella continued. “As soon as I got back he kept looking at me so strangely. I was afraid—I had been afraid a long time, for that matter—but I tried not to show it. In the afternoon he told me to go up to the attic. He said he wanted me to help him pack some silver. It was the same silver I had packed before; for some reason he had got it back again. This time I had to pack it in the little boxes, and after I had finished I waited up there till suddenly he ran in very quickly and looking very excited. He said I had betrayed them, and should suffer for it, and he took some rope and he tied me as tightly as he could, and tied a great handkerchief over my mouth, and pushed me inside the wardrobe and locked it. I think he would have killed me then only he was afraid of Mr. Dunsmore, and very anxious to know what had happened, and why Mr. Dunsmore had come home, and if there was any danger. And I was a long time there, and I heard a great noise, and then Mr. Dunsmore opened the door and took me out.”
Three months had passed, and in a quiet little cottage on the outskirts of a small country town, situated in one of the most beautiful and peaceful vales of the south-west country, Ella was slowly recovering from the shock of the dreadful experiences through which she had passed.
She had been ill for some weeks, but her mother, fussily incompetent at most times, was always at her best when sickness came, and she had nursed her daughter devotedly and successfully.
As soon as possible they had come to this quiet little place where people, busy with their own affairs and the important progress of the town, had scarcely heard of what the newspapers of the day called “The Great Chobham Sensation.”
But, in fact, very much to Rupert's relief, comparatively little had been made known publicly, and the whole affair had attracted wonderfully little attention.
The one public proceeding had been the inquest of Deede Dawson, and that the coroner, at the request of the police eagerly searching for Walter Dunsmore, had made as brief and formal as possible. Under his direction the jury had returned a verdict of “justifiable homicide,” and Ella's illness had had at least one good result of making it impossible for her to attend to give her evidence in person.
At a trial, of course, everything would have had to be told in full, but both Allen, Deede Dawson's accomplice, and Walter Dunsmore, his instigator and employer, had vanished utterly.
For Walter the search was very hot, but so far entirely without result. Now could Allen be found. He was identified with a fair degree of certainty as an old criminal well known to the authorities, and it was thought almost certain that he had had previous dealings with Deede Dawson, and knew enough about him to be able to force himself into Bittermeads.
Of the actual plot in operation there he most likely knew little or nothing, but probably Deede Dawson thought he might be useful, and the store of silver found in the attic that Ella had been employed in packing ready for removal was identified as part of the plunder from a recent burglary in a northern town.
It was thought, therefore, that both Allen and Deede Dawson might have been concerned in that affair, that Deede Dawson had managed to secure the greater share of the booty, and that Allen, on the night when Rupert found him breaking into Bittermeads, was endeavouring to get hold of the silver for himself.
But the actual facts are not likely now ever to be known, for from that day to this nothing has been heard of Allen. His old haunts know him no more, and to his record, carefully preserved at Scotland Yard, there have been no recent additions.
One theory is that Deede Dawson, finding him troublesome, took effectual steps to dispose of him. Another is that Deede Dawson got him away by either bribes or threats, and that, not knowing of Deede Dawson's death, he does not venture to return.
In any case, he was a commonplace criminal, and his fate is of little interest to any one but himself.
It was Walter for whom the police hunted with diligence and effort, but with a total lack of success, so that they began to think at the end of three months that he must somehow have succeeded in making his way out of the country.
During the first portion of this time Rupert had been very busy with a great many things that needed his attention. And then Lord Chobham, his health affected by the crimes and treachery of a kinsman whom he had known and trusted as he had known and trusted Walter, was attacked by acute bronchitis which affected his heart and carried him off within the week. The title and estates passed, therefore, to General Dunsmore, and Rupert became the Honourable Rupert Dunsmore and the direct heir. All this meant for him a great deal more to see to and arrange, for the health of the new Lord Chobham had also been affected and he left practically everything in his son's hands, so that, except for the letters which came regularly but had been often written in great haste, Ella knew and heard little of Rupert.
But today he was to come, for everything was finally in order, and, though this she did not know till later, Walter Dunsmore had at last been discovered, dead from poison self-administered, in a wretched lodging in an East End slum. Rupert had been called to identify the body and he had been able to arrange it so that very little was said at the inquest, where the customary verdict of “Suicide during temporary insanity” was duly returned by a quite uninterested jury.
That the last had been heard of the tragedy that had so nearly overwhelmed his life, Rupert was able now to feel fairly well assured, and it was therefore in a mood more cheerful than he had known of late that he started on his journey to Ella's new residence.
He had sent a wire to confirm his letter, and it was in a mood that was more than a little nervous that she busied herself with her preparations.
She chose her very simplest gown, and when there was absolutely nothing more to do she went into their little sitting-room to wait alone by the fire she had built up there, for it was winter now and today was cold and inclined to be stormy.
Rupert had not said exactly when she was to expect him, and she sat for a long time by the fire, starting at every sound and imagining at every moment that she heard the front-door bell ring.
“I shall not let him feel himself bound,” she said to herself with great decision. “I shall tell him I hope we shall always be friends but that's all; and if he wants anything more, I shall say No. But most likely he won't say a word about all that nonsense, it would be silly to take seriously what he said—there.”
To Ella, now, Bittermeads was always “there,” and though she told herself several times that probably Rupert had not the least idea of repeating what he had said to her—there—and that most likely he was coming today merely to make a friendly call, and that it would never do for either of them to think again of what they had said when they were both so excited and overwrought, yet in her heart she knew a great deal better than all that.
But she said to herself very often:
“Anyhow, I shall certainly refuse him.”
And on this point her mind was irrevocably made up since, after all, whether Rupert would accept refusal or not would still remain entirely for him to decide.
At half-past three she heard the garden-gate creak, and when she ran to the window to peep, she saw with a kind of chill surprise that there was a stranger coming through.
“Some one he's sent,” she said to herself. “He doesn't want to come himself and so he has sent some one else instead. I am glad.”
Having said this and repeated again the last three words, and having gulped down a sob—presumably of joy—that unexpectedly fluttered into her throat, she went quickly to open the door.
The newly-arrived stranger smiled at her as she showed herself but did not speak. He was a man of middle height, quite young, and wrapped in a big, loose overcoat that very completely hid his figure. His face, clean-shaven, showed clear, strongly-marked well-shaped features with a firm mouth round which at this moment played a very gentle and winning smile, a square-cut chin, and extremely bright, clear kindly eyes that were just now smiling too.
When he took off his hat she saw that his hair was cut rather closely, and very neatly brushed and combed, and she found his smile so compelling and so winning that in spite of her disappointment she found herself returning it.
It occurred to her that she had some time or another seen some one like this stranger, but when or where she could not imagine.
Still he did not speak, but his eyes were very tender and kind as they rested on her so that she wondered a little.
“Yes?” she said inquiringly. “Yes?”
“Don't you know me, Ella?” he said then, very softly, and in a voice that she recognized instantly.
“Is it you—you?” she breathed.
Instinctively she lifted her hands to greet him, and at once she found herself caught up and held, pressed passionately to his strongly-beating heart.
An hour later, by the fire in the sitting-room, Ella suddenly remembered tea.
“Good gracious! You must be starving,” she cried, smitten with remorse. “And there's poor mother waiting upstairs all this time. Oh, Rupert, are you very hungry?”
“Starving,” he asserted, but held her to him as closely as ever.
“I must get the tea,” she protested. She put one cheek against his and sighed contentedly.
“It's nice to see the real you,” she murmured. “But oh, Rupert, I do miss your dear bristly beard.”