Ailsa Lorne gave a little start as she examined the fragment.
"I thought at first that it was torn from my own dress," she said frankly, looking up at him, "for, as it happens, I was wearing a pink dress, but not quite of this shade. I will show it to you if you like."
"There is no need, Miss Lorne," said Cleek, his eyes shining. "If you tell me that you were not at Gleer Cottage last night, then there is no more to be said," and with a little laugh of sheer happiness he carefully replaced the bit of chiffon in his pocketbook. "Just one more question, please, Miss Lorne. Tell me: has Lady Katharine a certain kind of bracelet to which there is attached a small capsule by a link of gold, and which smells adorably of violets?"
"Yes. Anybody that knows her could tell you that. Her father, Lord St. Ulmer, brought it to her from South America. He had her name and the St. Ulmer arms engraved upon it. At least, upon what you have called the 'capsule,' which contains some highly concentrated perfume that makes the whole room fragrant whenever she removes a tiny gold stopper from the delightful thing."
"Thank you! I supposed as much. Now will you tell me, Miss Lorne, how long it is since Lady Katharine lost that little golden capsule from her bracelet? Was it, as I am hoping, on the day when you visited Gleer Cottage in company with her, or since?"
"What a strange question. She hasn't lost it at all. At least, she has made no mention of having done so, as I am sure she would if ithadbeen lost. Always, of course, providing it wasn't lost without her knowledge. At any rate, she wore it last night when we went to Clavering Close. I know that, because I remarked at the time that she had better let a jeweller look at it, as the ring of the scent globe was very nearly worn through."
"Was that before you left the Grange or after?"
"After—a long while after—at Clavering Close; in fact, while we were taking off our wraps preparatory to going down to the drawing-room."
"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek, puckering up his lips and looking grave. "You are establishing a very unpleasant fact by that statement. It proves that, in spite of your belief to the contrary, Lady Katharine revisited Gleer Cottage last night, and that, too,afterthe affair at Clavering Close."
"How perfectly absurd! Why, she wasn't out of my sight for a single instant."
"Nevertheless, she certainly visited Gleer Cottage last night," repeated Cleek with calm persistence. "I know that beyond all possible doubt, Miss Lorne; for I myself found the capsule of that bracelet there,crushed and broken, but still showing that the St. Ulmer arms and the name 'Katharine' had been engraved upon it. Don't look at me like that, please, or you will make me hate myself for having to tell you this."
"But I tell you it is impossible," she still protested. "I tell you she was never out of my sight for one instant from the time we left this house to the time we returned. No, not for one, Mr. Cleek, up to the very moment she left me to go to bed."
"Just so. But after that?"
"After that? After——" she began; and then stopped, and grew very pale and very, very still, for there had come to her a recollection of that moment when, as she had said, she fancied she heard Lady Katharine's door open and shut in the night when all the house was still.
"And after that?" repeated Cleek, driving the question home.
"How should I know?" she gave back, in something akin to panic. "How could I? We do not sleep together. But"—with sudden brightening—"this I do know, however: the bracelet was still on her wrist and the scent globe still attached to it, even then. I saw it with my own eyes."
"A clear proof that, as the capsule was dropped after that time, she left the house last night without your knowledge, Miss Lorne."
"I can't believe it; I will not believe it!" protested Ailsa loyally. "I know that she did not! Iknow!"
"How?"
"It is likely that you have not heard it, but Katharine is an accomplished violoncellist, Mr. Cleek. She loves her instrument, and in times of sorrow or distress she flies to it for comfort, and plays and plays until her nerves are soothed. Last night, after she left me, I heard her playing in her room."
"For long?"
"No. Of a sudden something went snap and the music ceased. She opened her door and called across the passage to me: 'Ailsa, pray for me. I am so wretched, so abandoned by fortune, that even the solace of my 'cello is denied me. I have broken the A-string and have not another in the house. Good-night, dear. I wish I could break the String of Life as easily!' After that she closed and locked the door, and I heard her go to bed."
The A-string!
Cleek turned away his head and took his chin between his thumb and forefinger.The A-string!And it was with a noose of catgut that the Count de Louvisan had been strangled!
"I'll not believe that she left the house," went on Miss Lorne. "She is the soul of honour, the very embodiment of truth, and she told me herself that she 'slept like a log until morning.' If she had gone out after I left her, after I fell asleep——"
"It could be proved and proved easily," interposed Cleek. "The night was moist and foggy, the roads were wet and muddy. Her clothes, the hem of her skirt, the state of her shoes—— But I will notask you to play the spy upon your friend, Miss Lorne."
"Nor would I do it!" she flashed back spiritedly; then stopped and gave a little excited exclamation and laid a shaking hand upon Cleek's sleeve. An automobile had swung suddenly into view in the drive leading up from the gates to the house, and in it were two men: one white of hair and snowy of beard but as erect as a statue; the other slim and young and fashionably dressed, and so clearly of the order "Johnnie" that he who ran might read. The General and his son had returned from their visit to Gleer Cottage.
Miss Lorne made that fact clear to Cleek in a few words.
"Now we shall have the full account of everything in Harry Raynor's original and detestable style," she whispered. "You are so shrewd in guessing riddles, Mr. Cleek, tell me, if you can, why it is that lions so often breed asses, and that heroes so often father clowns? If you were to search the world you could find no truer gentleman, in speech, in manner, in instincts, in everything, than dear old General Raynor; and yet, if you were to search it thrice over, you could find no greater cad than his son."
"From what I can see at this distance he certainly does look like a fine example of the genus bounder, I must confess," said Cleek. "You do not appear to have much of an opinion of the young man, Miss Lorne."
"I have not. I detest him! I never did care for 'scented' men; and when they come down to the 'curling iron' and the 'dye stick' they are simply abominable!"
"The 'dye stick'?"
"Yes. You mustn't be deceived by that waxed and delicately darkened moustache of Mr. Harry Raynor's, Mr. Cleek. It would be as sandy as his hair if the wretched little dandy didn't darken it with black cosmetic because he is ashamed of the cow colour which nature so appropriately bestowed upon it."
Cleek screwed round on his heel and looked at Mr. Harry Raynor with renewed interest.
"I suppose I ought not to have said that," she continued, "but I do detest him so. I think I had better run and tell Kathie that they have come back, but I will not keep you waiting many minutes." She smiled brightly at Cleek, and with a little nod ran lightly off, leaving him to await her return.
But, despite his interest in Mr. Harry Raynor, Cleek dropped discreetly out of sight and into one of the many winding paths with which the grounds abounded. A few minutes' gentle stroll along this particular one brought him to the rear of the house, and before he quite realized it he found himself within the precincts of the stable. The yard itself was deserted save for a single groom who was evidently hard at work polishing a boot, and which, judging from the muddy appearance of its companion, must have proved no easy task.
Cleek gave one look at the expensively cut article of footgear, then he lounged across the yard.
"That's a pretty tough job, isn't it?" said he offhandedly. The groom looked up, but meeting the visitor's disarming smile, only gave vent to a grunt.
"Should think it is a tough job," he muttered. "They're his lordship's boots, an' 'ow 'e comes to make 'em in such a state beats me to fits. Fair caked with mud, and 'im in bed with a sprained ankle. It's that valet of 'is, I s'pose——" He broke off, then looked questioningly at Cleek.
"I've lost my way," he said, plunging his hand into his pocket. "I strolled down a path from the lawns in front of the house. Which one will take me back?"
"First path to the right, sir, and thank you," said the gratified groom, and a minute later found Cleek back at the spot where Ailsa had left him.
He certainly had to admit that the whole affair was most perplexing, and he was still pondering over the various points of the case when Ailsa Lorne returned, and for a few moments they paced the lawn in silence; then Cleek turned with a little smile.
"I suppose we shall have to go and meet the General," said he serenely. "Shall we meet Lady Katharine's father as well?"
"Oh, dear, no! The man's in bed with a sprained ankle. Can't put his foot to the ground."
"Oh! Indeed? Then that explains it, of course. I wondered."
"Explains it? Explains what?"
"Why, his not being about at such a time—not appearing to take any interest in his daughter's affairs, especially her deliverance from a loveless marriage. It struck me as curious when I saw her. But I set it down to the possibility of there being bad blood between them. Is there?"
"No, there is not," said Ailsa, falling unconsciously into the trap. "Kathie is not the kind of girl to hold a grudge against any one, Mr. Cleek. She is intensely emotional, but she is also intensely loyal. The very last person in the world she would be likely to treat spitefully would be her father."
"I see. She is fond of him, then? Probably I have heard the wrong version of the story. Have I? I was told that it was he who compelled her, very much against her will, to accept the attentions of the—er—Count de Louvisan and to become engaged to him. That she begged her father to save her from marrying the man, but he would not—or could not—consent."
"That is quite true. You have not been misinformed. She did just what you have been told. Indeed, I happen to know that she even went so far as to get down on her knees to Lord St. Ulmer and implore him to kill her rather than to compel her to give up Geoff—and especially for a man she loathed as she did the Count de Louvisan. It was useless, however. That same night Lord St. Ulmer asked her to come to him alone in the library at UlmerCourt. They were together for two hours. The next day she accepted the Count de Louvisan."
"I see!" said Cleek. "Of course, his lordship told her something which influenced her beyond her own will and desires. Do you happen to know what that something was?"
"No. She has never told me one word beyond that she went into that library with a breaking heart, and came out of it with a broken one."
"And in spite of all that, she still loves this father who compelled her to give up all that life held, eh?"
"I didn't say that. I said that she was loyal to him, not that she loved him. How could she love a father whom she had not seen since she was a baby—whom she did not even know when he came back to claim her? Why, she hadn't even a picture to tell her what he looked like, and in all the years he was away he never wrote her so much as one line. A girl couldn't love a father like that. She might like him, she might be grateful to him, as Katharine is, for loading her with all the things that money can buy; but to love him—— What is the matter, Mr. Cleek? What in the world made you say 'Phew' like that?"
"Nothing! Do you happen to know if the late Count de Louvisan was ever in Argentina, Miss Lorne?"
"No, I do not. Why?"
"Oh, mere idle curiosity, that's all. Turned up suddenly at Ulmer Court, didn't he? Any idea from where?"
"Not the slightest. He called quite unexpectedly one evening after we all—Kathie, his lordship, and I—had been over to the autumn races at Fourfields. That was an unfortunate day altogether. We did not see the conclusion of even the first race. Lord St. Ulmer was suddenly taken ill, although he had been quite well a moment before, and was so bad that we had to leave immediately. Nothing would do him but that we must drive home as quickly as possible, so that he could consult our local doctor."
Cleek glanced at her swiftly. "Hum-m-m! Bad as that, was he?" he asked. "What did the local doctor think caused the illness? Or did his lordship recover on the way home, and find it unnecessary to call him in at all? Ah, he did, eh? Queer things those sudden attacks; you never know when they will come on or when they will go off again. Possibly his present illness came just as suddenly. Did it?"
"I don't know, I'm sure," replied Miss Lorne. "I wasn't there when it happened. Nobody was. Kathie and I had just gone into the refreshment room at the railway station for tea— Lord St. Ulmer said he didn't care for any, and would just step round to the news stall and get an afternoon paper—and when we came out there he was, poor man, sitting on a seat and groaning. He stepped on a banana peel, he said, and turned his ankle. A few minutes later Count de Louvisan put in an appearance. He had arranged to join us at Liverpool Street Station, and, no doubt, would have done so, but at the lastminute Lord St. Ulmer had made up his mind to journey up to town by an earlier train than originally arranged. Anyway, his lordship made him go and wire to General Raynor that he was afraid our visit would have to be postponed indefinitely, as he had met with an accident and was going direct to the Savoy Hotel. Of course the General came with his motor, and wouldn't listen to his stopping there; so we all came on, as agreed, to Wuthering Grange. That was the day before yesterday, and Lord St. Ulmer has been in bed ever since."
"Very neat, very neat indeed," commented Cleek. "Couldn't tell me, I suppose, where I might get a peep at— I—er—mean who is the doctor attending to him?"
"He hasn't a doctor. He wouldn't have one. He is a very obstinate man, Mr. Cleek, and simply would not allow General Raynor to call in the local practitioner. Claims that he brought some wonderful ointment with him from Argentina which, as he phrases it, 'beats all the doctors hollow in the matter of sprains and bruises'; and simply will not allow anybody to do anything for him."
Cleek puckered up his brows. Obviously it would be useless to represent himself as an assistant to the local doctor, or even to make himself up to pass muster for that doctor himself, for the purpose of examining a man who would not see any medical man upon any pretext whatsoever. And yet—— He gave a little toss of his shoulders, as if to throw away thesefresh ideas, and came back again to Lady Katharine. What other proof could he secure? Why had she played the 'cello at all at such a time? Was it to secure that very string? Was it but a cloak to hide her designs? A swift idea flashed across his mind, as he recalled Lennard's story of a lady in an ermine cloak. He turned suddenly to his companion.
"Miss Lorne," he asked, "did Lady Katharine bring her ermine cloak with her when she came up from Suffolk?"
"No," said Ailsa in reply. "And for the very best of reasons: she hasn't one."
"Oh, I see. Know anybody who has?"
"Yes, I have. Lady Chepstowe gave me hers when she went to India. Why?"
"Oh, just a fancy of mine, that's all," replied Cleek with apparent offhandedness. "I seem to fancy that I heard something about Lady Katharine having had her portrait painted wearing a very superb ermine cloak. But, of course, if she hasn't one—or—yes, she might have borrowed yours. You'd lend it to her, I know—lend it like a shot. Did you?"
"I certainly did not. For one thing, she never in her life asked me to; and for another, whoever told you that tale about her having her portrait painted wearing one must be blessed with a very remarkable imagination. She had no such portrait painted. And I never lent her the cloak for any purpose at any time."
"I see. Couldn't have left it lying about where anybody might pick it up, could you?"
"How like a man that is," she said gayly. "Fancy a girl, especially one in my position, being possessed of so valuable a thing as an ermine cloak, and then leaving it about like a fan or a garden hat! No, I did not leave it about. Indeed, I couldn't if I had wanted to."
"Why?"
"For the very good reason that I sent it to the furrier's to have it made into a muff and stole."
"May I ask when? Recently?"
"No; quite two months ago. They are storing it for me, and will make the alterations in time for next winter's wear. As a cloak, of course, it is quite useless to a girl in my position. But really, I must go now. Kathie will think it very heartless of us if we do not fly to hear the General's report. Wait for me here, please. I shall be back directly."
Then she hurried out of the summerhouse and taking a path which led round to the rear of the Grange, passed from sight and left Cleek to his own devices.
The arrival of Mrs. Raynor and the General upon the scene, with Harry Raynor in their wake, gave a different atmosphere, so to speak, to Cleek's thoughts, and he threw himself, heart and soul, into getting into the good graces of the family. He did not much fancy Mr. Harry Raynor, who was too self-assertive to be pleasant company to a matured man of the world, and just at the age which may be best described in the quotation, "young enough to know everything."
Nevertheless, he had made up his mind to secure an invitation to stay overnight at Wuthering Grange, in order that he might have a peep at Lord St. Ulmer, and he knew that it was only by making himself a boon companion of the young man that he could hope to secure it. About three and twenty, the idol of an adoring mother, if not of his father, that gentleman was of the type that favour the ladies of the ballet with their attentions, and prefer chorus girls, stage doors, and late suppers to home amusements and the like; and it was not long before Cleek had him nicely "managed" and in the desired frame of mind.
A casual remark about a certain dashing musical-comedyactress who had sprung into sudden prominence set the ball rolling; then Cleek expressed in confidence a burning desire to know the lady and deep disappointment over the fact that he knew no one who was in a position to introduce him; and in ten minutes' time he had his fish hooked.
"I say, you know, I'll give you an introduction to her like a shot, old chap, if you really do want to know her," young Raynor imparted to him in deep confidence as he led him outside and got him away from the ladies. "Know her like a book! Rippin' sort! Introduce you any time you like. My hat! yes!"
"Really?" said Cleek with every appearance of boundless delight. "You know her—you actually know her?"
"Yes, rather! Know the whole blessed shoot of 'em from Flossie Twinkletoes down. Get reams of letters from 'em and bushels of photos—all autographed. I say, come up to my den and have a peep. You never saw such a gallery!"
Cleek admitted to himself when he saw them that he never had, for the room was literally smothered under photographs of actresses, gymnasts, ladies of the music-hall persuasion, and public characters in general.
"Always sport my oak, you know," said the young man with a laugh and a wink, as he locked the door behind him. "Pater might see 'em, and then there would be a time of it. Awful old muff, the pater;good sort, you know, but he'd have this lot in the fire in less than no time if he knew. Fearful old fossil. Flowers, fruits, rubber at whist, pipe, and an old army friend—that's his idea of life."
Cleek felt like taking him by the back of the neck and kicking him. He didn't, however. He had other fish to fry; and he succeeded so well that before he left that room he had an invitation to stop the night, and as he had brought no evening clothes with him, the offer of a suit to meet the emergency.
"Look here, I'll tell you what, Barch," said Raynor when this invitation and this offer were accepted, turning round as he spoke—he was at a window which overlooked the drive up from the gates of the Grange "chaps like us don't want to sit in a drawing-room and waste time with a pair of prunes and prisms like Lady Katharine Fordham and that prig of a Lorne girl. If you're in for a lark, we'll slip out and I'll show you a bit of life on the sly. I like you— I'm blest if I don't; so if you're game for a kick up, I'll let you into a secret and give you the time of your life. Now, then, listen here, old chap."
He stopped abruptly as a sudden grating sound of wheels rose from the drive, and looking down, he saw that a vehicle had swung in through the gates and was advancing toward the house.
"Oh Lord! that settles it; now we're in for a visitation!" he said with an expression of deep disgust. "There's that prig of a chap, Geoff Clavering, driving in. Can't stick that fellow at any price!"
Geoff Clavering! Cleek rose as he heard the name, walked to the window, and looked out. So, then, he had not been so far out in his reckoning after all. Geoff Clavering had come at last to seek an interview with the girl of his heart.
Why the boy had delayed until now Cleek could not guess, unless it was because of a shrinking dread of going abroad anywhere at such a time; but that he had nerved himself to come at last for something more than a mere call was apparent at first glance; for his face was white and strained, and it was evident, even from this distance, that he was labouring under strong excitement.
Undoubtedly there would be, as he had surmised, a private interview arranged between those two people, and undoubtedly he must manage to overhear it. What a pity that this should have happened at this particular time, that young Clavering should have arrived while he was up here, out of the way of seeing what happened when Geoff and Lady Katharine first met!
A glance, a movement, a hundred different things, might tell him what he wanted to know if he were there at that moment of first meeting. But perhaps it was not yet too late. The carriage hadn't reached the entrance of the house as yet; perhaps, if he hurried, if he went at once——
"I say, let's go down, Raynor," he said desperately. "I don't know what's come over me, but my head's suddenly begun to swim, and I'm afraid I shall keelover if I don't get out in the air. We can let the lark you were speaking of rest until afterward. Come on, will you? By Jove! you know, I'm in a fearful way."
And from the effort to carry out the impression of extreme giddiness a curious thing came:
Clapping his hand to his head, and wheeling staggeringly round to make his way to the door, he had the good or ill fortune to blunder against a little table, upon which stood what was undoubtedly an earthenware tobacco jar, and to send it crashing to the ground. Instantly and out of it there rolled, on top of the quantity of spilled tobacco which had originally been used to cover it, a little silver box, which flew open as it fell and disgorged a photograph, a couple of letters in a woman's hand, and a fragment of pink gauze.
Cleek had just stooped to pick these things up and to lay them back upon the table, when a yet more curious thing happened.
"I say! You let those things alone!" snapped young Raynor excitedly; and springing forward, whisked them out of his hand. But not before Cleek had made a rather startling discovery: the letters were written in a woman's hand—a hand he recognized the instant he saw it—and the picture which accompanied them was a photograph of Margot. He had no longer a desire to hurry downstairs.
The rudeness of his act and of his manner of speaking seemed to dawn upon young Raynor almost ashe snatched the photograph and letters, and he hastened to apologize.
"I say, don't think me stable-bred, Barch," he said, a flush of mortification reddening his face. "Didn't mean to rip out at you like that, b'gad! Fact is, I was a bit excited; forgot for a moment that you're a pal. So don't get your back up, please."
"I haven't the slightest intention of doing so, dear chap," replied Cleek, who, it must be confessed, was a little shaken by the discovery. "Every man has a right to cut up a bit rough when he thinks some other fellow is going to pry into his secrets. And I reckon this is one of your pet mashes—eh, what?"
"Yes, something like that. The latest—and a ripper. French, you know. That's what rattled me for the moment. The dad loathes French women. I'm extra careful to keep this one's picture out of sight. I say! Don't know what you'll think about my manners, but I forgot all about your asking to go down and get out into the air. Sorry, old chap! Come along! Take my arm, and I'll help you."
As the breaking of the tobacco jar had deprived Raynor of again making use of that as a means of hiding the little silver box and its contents, he had, while speaking, crammed the letters, the photograph, and the scrap of pink gauze into an inside pocket of his coat, and now came forward and took Cleek's arm with the amiable intention of leading him from the room.
There was, of course, in the circumstances nothingfor it but to go, much as Cleek would have preferred to stop and trace the connection between young Raynor and Margot; but he was far too careful in his methods to cast any doubt regarding the genuineness of that sudden attack of a moment before by pretending that it had begun to abate, and therefore yielded himself to the inevitable.
But he had this consolation in doing it: not only would he now be enabled to witness the meeting between Geoff Clavering and Lady Katharine Fordham after all, but as a man who is ill is always more or less an object of sympathy and attention upon the part of women, he foresaw that he might induce Lady Katharine to hover round him, and thus bring Geoff Clavering within close range for easy and careful studying. Nor did he fear that he had lost all opportunity for pursuing the subject of Harry Raynor's acquaintance with Margot. The mere fact that that young man had the contents of the little silver box upon his person might easily cause an apprehensive inquiry regarding the risk of carrying them about where they might be dropped, and so brought to his father's attention; and from that inquiry it would be simple work getting back to the subject itself without exciting any suspicion regarding his keen interest in it. He therefore allowed young Raynor to lead him from the room.
"Fearfully groggy, old chap, fearfully," he said in answer to young Raynor's inquiry regarding how he felt as they went down the dim passage toward thestaircase; "head going round like a teetotum; hope I don't keel over and spoil the evening's sport by having to be put to bed like a kid. Don't want two sick men on one floor, do you, eh? Or is it on this floor that Lord St. Ulmer's room is situated?"
"Yes, that one over there—second door from the wing staircase. Speak low, old chap, or you may disturb him. Sleeps like a cat, they say—one eye and both ears always open. Doesn't do anything but sleep, I imagine, day and night, from the way he keeps to his room. Hullo! I say! What's it? Aren't going to crumple up, Barch, are you?"
This, because Cleek had suddenly lurched against the bannister at the head of the stairs, and swung clean round until his back was resting against it.
"No—that is, I hope not; but I do feel rotten, old chap," replied he. "Just half a second, will you?"
He lolled back his head, gave a sort of groan, and rapidly and silently began to count the doors and to make sure of the location of Lord St. Ulmer's room. "All right; only a passing spasm, I reckon, old chap," he went on as soon as he had discovered that his lordship's door was the third from the end of the passage, and that his window would, therefore, be the second from the angle of the wing in the outer wall of the house. "Come on—let's go down." And leaning heavily upon young Raynor, he descended to the dining-room.
The delay, trifling though it was, occasioned by the smashing of the tobacco jar and the discovery of the photograph, served to interfere with the smooth progress of events, as it fell out that Cleek did not, after all, rejoin the party below in time to witness the first meeting between Geoffrey Clavering and Lady Katharine Fordham, for the carriage had arrived at the entrance to the house before he put in an appearance, and the General and Mrs. Raynor, Ailsa and Lady Katharine, were out on the veranda talking excitedly with young Clavering when Harry and Cleek came upon the scene.
There is a subtle magic in love that dispels all other emotions, and despite the gravity of the situation, a look of happiness radiated from Lady Katharine's face, reflected, though in a far lesser degree, upon Geoffrey Clavering's; indeed it did not need an over-keen eye to detect that the young man was seriously ill at ease, and general conversation languished.
Cleek's entry, therefore, with young Raynor's announcement of his sudden attack of faintness, not only drew all attention, but, as he had foreseen, hebecame an object of extreme solicitude upon the part of the ladies.
"Crocked up, poor beggar, and came within an ace of bowling over," explained young Raynor as he led him to a seat in a big wicker chair. "Sharp attack of indigestion, if I know the symptoms. Bet you a hat, mater, it was that beastly cheese soufflé we had for lunch. Enough to kill a dog, that stuff. But you will give that silly ass of a cook his head, and let him serve up anything he likes. How are you, Clavering? Things look like going all right for you after all—eh, what? 'Tisn't every man who can have his rival's wind shut off to order."
The remark could not be said to be a happy one, despite the fact that the maker of it laughed as though he had just perpetrated a witticism; for even his doting mother could not but deplore it.
"Harry, darling, how can you?" she said reproachfully, as young Clavering coloured and the two girls looked distressed and indignant. "Darling, you ought to think before you speak."
"Huh!" grunted the disgusted General. "If he did, he probably wouldn't speak at all. It seems to me, Harry, that you must lie awake at nights planning how you can arrange to say just the wrong thing upon all occasions—you do it so constantly."
"Oh, that's it—just lay everything on me!" responded his dutiful offspring sulkily. "I'm always doing the wrong thing—if you believe what other people say. Seems to me that the best thing I can dois to take myself off, and then everybody will be happy. I say, Barch, when you feel like yourself again you'll find me either at the stables or in the pater's blessed ruin taking lessons in etiquette from the family ghost—if the pater has been able to rake up one and coax him to reside there."
And with this ill-natured dig at his father's pet weakness this engaging young gentleman lurched down the steps of the veranda and walked surlily away round the angle of the house.
The place which he had spoken of as "the pater's ruin" was a little fad of the General's, whose love of antiquities and the like had tempted him to transform a bare and unattractive part of the Grange grounds into something at least picturesque if not in the very highest good taste. Ancient ruins had always been a passion with him, but as you can't have ancient ruins in modern Wimbledon, the General had had a ruin built for himself, modelling it after the crumbling remains of an old Scottish castle which had appealed to his artistic eye, planting it with ferns and enwrapping ivy and vines of Virginia creeper, and even supplying it with owls and bats to keep up the illusion. It was his one harmless weakness, his one foible—that ruin; and nobody but his son ever mocked him for it, though many laughed in their sleeves and secretly made game of his foolish whim.
Cleek had heard of the "ruin" at Wuthering Grange before he had ever set foot inside the gates of the place; and hearing of it again—now, like this—hefelt that he would like to kick the young cub who could publicly mock his father's folly in this fashion. He saw the General's kindly old face flush with anger and mortification, and was not at all surprised when he presently made an excuse to get away and retired indoors.
Meantime, Cleek's plan of pretending illness had panned out precisely as he had imagined, and was productive of the results he desired. Essentially feminine and of a highly sympathetic nature, Lady Katharine hovered near him, doing all in her power to ease the sufferings of one whom she shrewdly suspected of being very near to the heart of her dearest friend, and this naturally brought Geoffrey to the little group surrounding him, and enabled him to study his attitude at close quarters.
The more he saw of Sir Philip Clavering's son and heir, the better he liked him; but although the young man occasionally turned an adoring look upon Lady Katharine, and appeared to be doing his best to share her evident high spirits, it was apparent to Cleek, after a moment's study, that his attitude was for the most part assumed. He made no attempt to get away from the others and have the lady of his heart all to himself, and whenever he and she were for a moment separated from Mrs. Raynor and Ailsa Lorne, he was nervous, distressed, and acted with an air of restraint that was as puzzling as it was pronounced.
A chance remark regarding the state of Lord St.Ulmer's health brought from Lord St. Ulmer's daughter the happy, excited remark:
"Oh, Geoff, dear, he's improving every hour, and he has been so wonderfully kind and tender to me this afternoon that I could kiss him. Just think, he says that things can go on now just as they did before Count de Louvisan came; that there is nothing now to come between us, Geoff; nothing to keep us apart for another moment!"
"Really? That's ripping!" said young Clavering, and in his effort to appear delighted smiled the ghastliest parody of a smile possible to conceive. It was so pronounced that even Lady Katharine herself noticed it and looked puzzled and distressed.
"You don't seem very glad," she said, a note of pain in her voice, a look of pain in her reproachful eyes. "Aren'tyou glad, Geoff? And is that why you did not come over to see me before?"
"Don't be silly, Kathie. I couldn't come any earlier because—well, because I couldn't, that's all."
"A very lucid explanation, I must say. What is the matter with you, Geoff? You're not a bit like yourself to-day—is he, Ailsa?"
But Ailsa made no reply. There was none really needed. Geoffrey had taken hardly any notice, but as if struck with a sudden thought, whipped out a notebook and began shuffling the pages nervously through his fingers.
"I'd nearly forgotten, Kathie," he said apologetically; "my mother asked if you would lend her thesebooks." He handed her the torn leaf with something scribbled upon it. "Any time will do, but she said you would have them."
Lady Katharine looked down at the writing, and a wave of colour surged over her face.
"But——" she commenced.
"I don't want them now; in fact, I can't stop even now, only I just wanted to know that you were all right."
There was no mistaking the look of adoration on the young man's face, but she looked at him reproachfully.
"Going back again, so soon!" she said softly, averting her head, while her lips trembled and her hand clutched painfully on the leaf of the notebook.
"I'm afraid I must, dear," responded Geoff. Then he turned swiftly to Cleek, who had been watching the little scene, the peculiar one-sided smile looping up the corners of his mouth.
"Good-bye, Mr. Barch; pleased to have met you," he said without, however, coming forward and offering his hand.
"Thanks! same to you; good-bye," replied Cleek, and that same smile was still on his face when a minute or two later, young Clavering having taken his departure, Cleek was rejoined by Ailsa Lorne.
"What do you think about it?" she asked abruptly. "What is it that is wrong? Oh, Mr. Cleek, do you think——"
"I'll be beyond 'thinking' before the morning. I shall know," he interposed. "Now, show me the way to that ruin, please. I want a word or two with Mr. Harry Raynor if he is there. Down that path, is it? Thanks very much." And swinging down from the veranda, he moved away in the direction indicated.
A brisk two minutes' walk brought him to the picturesque ruin with its ivy-wrapped walls, its gaping Gothic windows, and its fern-bedded battlements, so artfully copied that the stones actually seemed to be crumbling and the plants to have been set there by Nature rather than by man. Even the appearance of a dried-up moat and a ruined drawbridge was not wanting to complete the picture and to give an air of genuine antiquity; and he had just stepped on the latter to make his way across to the wide arch of the entrance when he was hailed, not from within, but from behind.
He faced round suddenly to see young Raynor moving quickly toward him. He was walking rapidly, and appeared to be in a state of great excitement.
"I say, Barch, hold on a moment, will you?" he sang out. Cleek gave him time to get to the drawbridge and then the reason for his excitement became known. "Look here, old chap, I'm afraid we shall have to give up our little 'lark' for this evening, after all. Rotten bad luck, but I've just got a message that will call me to—well, somewhere else; and I've got to go at once. Don't expect I shall be able to get back this side of midnight; but if youdon't mind prolonging your stay and making it two nights instead of one——"
"Not in the least. Delighted, old chap."
"Oh, well, then, that's all right. Have our night out to-morrow instead—eh, what? Look here, Barch, blest if I don't like you immensely. Let you into the secret. It'll be with 'Pink Gauze.'"
"Pink Gauze? Don't mean the little Frenchy, do you—the little beauty of the photograph?"
"The very identical. Be a good boy, Barchie, and I'll take you to see her to-morrow night. What do you think—eh, what?"
Cleek didn't say what he thought; it would have surprised the young man if he had.
"Well, ta-ta until midnight or thereabouts, old chap. So long!" And with a wave of the hand he was gone.
Cleek stood and looked after him for a moment, a curl on his lip, an expression of utter contempt in his eyes; then he gave his head a jerk indicative of a disgust beyond words, and, facing about, walked on into the ruins.
The General had done the thing well, at all events. The atmosphere of antiquity was very cleverly reproduced: walls, roof, floor—all had the appearance of not having been disturbed by the hand of any one for ages. Half-defaced armorial bearings, iron-studded doors, winding staircases, even a donjon keep.
This he came to realize when the sight of a rustediron ring in the floor tempted him to pull up and lay back a slab of stone that appeared centuries old, and to expose in doing so a twisting flight of stone steps leading downward into the very depths of the earth.
Really, you know, the old chap had done it well. Cells down there, no doubt—cells and chains and all that sort of thing. Well, he had time to spare; he'd go down and have a look at those cells. And, leaving the stone trap-slab open, he went down the black stairway into the blacker depths below, flicking the light of his torch about and going from cell to cell. One might swear that the place was centuries old. Rusty old barred doors, rustier old chains hanging from rings in the walls. Nothing modern, nothing that looked as if it had known use or been disturbed for these hundreds of years; nothing that—— Hello! There was a break in the illusion, at all events: a garden spade, with fresh earth clinging to the blade of it, leaning against the wall. Fancy a man so careful of preserving an atmosphere of antiquity letting one of the gardeners leave—— No, b'gad! it hadn't been left merely by chance. It had been brought here for use, and was probably left forfurtheruse. There was a place over in that corner that most decidedly had been recently dug up.
He walked over to the place in question and directed the glow of the torch so that the circle of light fell full upon it. Somebody had been digging in the earthen floor of the cell, and had made an attempt to hide the fact by sprinkling bits of stone and plasterscraped from the walls over it. In the ordinary course of things, and with a light less powerful than this of the electric torch, the thing would have passed muster very well, and would, in all probability, have escaped observation. Now, asked Cleek of himself, what the dickens should any one wish to dig in this place for? And, having dug, why try to disguise the fact? Hum-m-m!
He switched round suddenly, walked to the place where the spade stood, in the angle of the wall opposite, took it up, and, returning, began to dig where the digging had been done before.
This he had to do in the darkness, for the moment his thumb was removed from the button of the torch the light went out. But, having once located the place, this was not difficult, for the earth, having once before been disturbed, yielded easily to the spade.
For five—possibly six—minutes he worked on, shovelling out the loose earth and tossing it aside unseen; then, of a sudden, the spade encountered something which, though soft and yielding, would not allow the blade to penetrate it at all, press his foot down as hard as he might. If Cleek knew anything at all, he knew that that betokened a fabric of some sort, and knew, too, that he had got to the bottom of the original excavation.
He laid aside the spade, and the electric torch spat its light into the hole.
Clothing at the bottom of it—buried clothing!
He stooped and pulled it to the surface, letting thearticles thus unearthed drop one by one from his fingers. A cap, a pair of trousers, a coat with a badge on it, a stick with a loop of leather by which to carry it, a belt, and a number on that belt.
He looked at the number; it was a brass "4." He looked at the badge, and then rose upright, clamping his jaws hard and understanding.
What he had unearthed was the clothing of the Common keeper who had been done to death last night—the clothing which the assassin had stolen and worn.
And he had found that clothing here, hidden in the grounds of Wuthering Grange! Why, then, in that case, the murderer—— He stopped; and the thought went no farther—stopped, and releasing the button of the torch, let utter darkness swing in and surround him.
Some one had entered the ruin—some one was moving about overhead.
It was not a man's foot that made that soft noise; his trained ear recognized that fact at once. A woman, eh? What woman would be coming here at this time when all the ladies of the household would be in their rooms dressing for dinner?
He crept in the darkness out of the cell in which he had been digging, through the one next and through the next again, until he came to the passage leading to the staircase, and then, dropping on his hands and knees, went soundlessly up the stone steps.
Above him as he crept upward—as slow as any tortoise and with far less noise—sounded the woman's faint footfalls pacing the paved floor with that persistent restlessness which tells of extreme agitation. He had but just begun to ask himself what that agitation might portend, when something occurred which caused him to twitch up his head with a jerk and crouch there, a thing all eyes and ears.
The woman's footsteps had ceased abruptly, brought to a sudden halt by the ring of others—the nervous, heavy-heeled, fast-falling steps of an excited man coming across the drawbridge and into the ruin at a pace which was almost a run; and that manhad no more than come into range of the woman's vision when the thin, eager voice of Lady Katharine Fordham sounded and made the situation clear.
It was a tryst—the lovers' meeting upon which Cleek had built such high hopes and upon which he had blundered by the merest fluke.
"Geoff!" sounded that enlightening voice, with a nervous catch in it which told of a hard-hammering heart. "Thank heaven you have come. Ailsa thinks I am in my room dressing for dinner. Now tell me what it is all about, there's a dear, for my head has been in a whirl ever since I read what you wrote. Why did you want me to come here and meet you without anybody knowing? Whatever can it be that you 'have to say to me that no one on this earth must hear'? Do tell me. I'm frightened half to death!"
"Are you?" His footsteps clicked sharply as he moved rapidly across the floor toward her. "You have not gone so far as I, then, for I believe I have been frightenedpastdeath, and that after this nothing on earth or in heaven or hell can appall me! Come here, into my arms, and let me hold you while I speak. How I love you! My God, how I love you!"
"Geoff!"
"Put your arms round me. Kiss me! I want you to know that I love you so well I'll fight all the dogs of justice and all the devils of hell but what I'll stand by you and save you from them. They can't kill mylove for you. Nothing on God's earth can do that. I'll come between them and you no matter what happens, no matter what it costs me—life with all the rest. That's what I've come to tell you! But, oh, my God, Kathie, why didn't you letmekill him?"
"Kill him, Geoff? Good heavens, what are you talking about? Kill whom?"
"De Louvisan!"
"De Louvisan? Let you kill De Louvisan— I? Oh, my God! Geoff—you—think—I—killed—killed—him?"
Geoff groaned and buried his face in his hands. "There was no one in the house but you," he said hoarsely. "It was you who took me into the place; it was you who showed me his dead body spiked up there against the wall—you and you alone. My God! Kathie, what is the use of denying what we both know?"
Cleek sucked in his breath, drew every muscle of his body taut as wire, and then crouching back in the darkness listened intently.
Lady Katharine remained perfectly silent for a moment, as though she had been stricken dumb by the directness of the charge: as though the half-despairing, half-impatient protest of that final "What is the use of denying what we both know?" had impressed her with a realization of the utter futility of longer endeavouring to act a part.
It was either that that held her silent, Cleek told himself, or she was utterly amazed, utterly overcomeby an accusation which had no foundation in fact and had fallen upon her like a thunderbolt. If the latter should prove to be the case, why, then, Geoff Clavering would be lying, and she would be wholly and entirely innocent of the crime with which he had charged her.
Then she spoke suddenly:
"You mean this thing? You really and trulymeanit?"
Geoff bowed his head in silent assent.
"That I—I—did this thing?"
Still he could not answer, could not put into brutal words the conviction that had been forced upon him.
"That I met you and took you into Gleer Cottage last night?" she went on. "Took you in there and showed you that man's—body? I?"
"Not exactly showed it to me—that, as we both know, is an exaggeration. You showed me into the room where it was hanging, however. Or, at least, you waved me to the door and told me to go in there and wait a minute or two and you'd rejoin me and show me something that would 'light the way back to the land of happiness!' But you never did rejoin me. I waited in that dark room for fully ten minutes but you never came back. Afterward, when I struck a match to light a cigarette and saw that dead man spiked to the wall— God! I think I went mad for the moment. I know I ran out of the house, although I do not know when nor how; for when I came to my senses I was racing up and down the right-of-wayacross the fields; and if it had not been for you I should have run on until I dropped. But all of a sudden I remembered you, remembered that in rushing out of the house I had left you there; and you might come back to that room and find me gone, and think that I had deserted you. I ran back to the place as fast as I could. I remembered that when first you met me and took me into it you had led me in through the gates and up the drive to the door; but when I got back there a horror of the place seized me. I couldn't have gone in that way again had my life depended upon it. There was a break in the boundary wall. I got back into the grounds that way, cutting my wrist—look, see, here's the mark—on the fragments of broken glass which still adhered to the coping. I ran through the gardens and round to the back of the house. I burst open the rear door and raced along the passage to the room where De Louvisan's body hung. You were not there. I struck another match to see, noticing this time that there was the half of a candle standing upon the mantelpiece, where it had been secured in its own wax. I took that thing and lit it and ran through all the house, hunting for you. There was not a trace of you anywhere—and at last, in a panic, I rushed from the house and flew for my very life. But there was no getting away so easily as all that. Lights were shining, men were coming, the hue and cry had begun. I could not go forward; I dared not go back. I remembered the old hollow tree where we used toplay in our kiddy days, you and I. I ran to that and got inside of it—and I was there through all that followed. I was found in time, and it might have ended badly for me but for my father's friend, Mr. Narkom, and a French detective—a muff of a fellow named De Lesparre. It didn't, however. I got off scot free, thanking God that no suspicion pointed your way, and telling myself that you had not left so much as one hair from the ermine cloak you wore that might be caught up as a clue to bring the thing home to you!"
"The ermine cloak I wore! You say I wore an ermine cloak?"
"Yes. An ermine cloak and the same pretty white frock you had worn at the Close earlier in the evening. It was the white of the ermine that first attracted my attention in the darkness when I looked up and saw you near the gates of Gleer Cottage."
"That is not the truth!" she flung back, with a sudden awakening from the sort of stupor which, up till now, had mastered her. "I never wore an ermine cloak in my life! I never was nearer to Gleer Cottage last night than I am at this minute; and if you say that I met you, that I spoke to you, that I even saw you, or that you saw me after Ailsa Lorne led me out of the drawing-room at Clavering Close when you threatened the Count de Louvisan's life, you are saying what is absolutely untrue."
"Kathie!"
"I repeat it, utterly and absolutely untrue."
"Good God! Do you accuse me of lying?"
"There must be some horrible mistake. Some one impersonated me for some awful purpose. You never saw me again after I left your father's house last night, and you know it. But, in any case, since you confess that you were there, what took you to Gleer Cottage last night at all?"
Geoffrey Clavering's reply to Lady Katharine's staggering question was given so promptly that one might have been tempted to believe he had expected it and prepared himself for the question beforehand.
"I had no idea of going there at first," he said. "I couldn't remain among the guests after you had left the Close and Narkom's men had bundled that De Louvisan out of the house; my head seemed full of fire, and I simply couldn't. I got away as soon as I decently could, and went upstairs to my own room. I couldn't stop there, either; the stillness and the loneliness half maddened me and set me to thinking and thinking until I thought my head would burst. So, in sheer desperation, I caught up a cap, sneaked down the back stairs, and let myself out. Nobody saw me go, and, thank God, nobody saw me return, either. I walked about the Common for heaven knows how long before I turned round at the sound of some one coming toward me through the mist, and the next thing I knew I 'bumped' smack into that person, and found it to be my stepmother."
"Lady Clavering?" said the girl in a tone of theutmost surprise—and Cleek could have blessed her for the words, since they voiced an inquiry upon a subject which he much desired to have explained. "You mean to say that Lady Clavering was out there on the Common, away from her guests? What could have impelled her to take such a step—and at such a time?"
"She had come in search of me, she said. She felt anxious, distressed, afraid, so she said, that I would do something desperate, and went to my room to talk with me. When she found it empty she jumped to the conclusion that I had gone out for the purpose of following De Louvisan and meeting him somewhere for the mere satisfaction of thrashing him. She begged and implored me to come back to the Close; to do nothing rash; to think of my father; to remember her; to be careful to do nothing that would get your name mixed up in a vulgar brawl. And she wouldn't leave me until I promised her on my word of honour that I would make no effort to find De Louvisan. When I did that, she was satisfied and went back to the Close."
In the darkness of the stone staircase Cleek puckered up his brows and thoughtfully pinched his chin.
Oho! so that was the explanation of her ladyship's presence on the Common last night, was it? Mere solicitude for the welfare of a beloved stepson, eh? Hum-m-m! Rather disappointing, to say the least of it, to find that she had no more connection with the case than just that. After all, she was merely "a redherring drawn across the trail," eh? He shouldn't have thought so, but, of course, if young Clavering spoke the truth, that eliminatedherfrom the affair altogether. Odd that she should have bribed the Common keeper not to say a word about having met her! In the circumstances, why should she have done so?
Ah, yes—just so! She wouldn't like to have the affair talked about; she wouldn't like to have young Geoff put on his guard, so that he might purposely avoid meeting her, and she would be most anxious to get him back into the house as quietly and as expeditiously as possible. No, decidedly, you never can be certain. Women are queer fish at the best of times, and mothers have odd methods of reasoning when beloved sons are concerned. But stepmothers? Hum-m-m! Yes, yes! To be sure, there are always exceptions. Still, he hadn't thought—he decidedly had not thought——
Young Clavering was speaking again. Cleek let the "thought" trail off and lose itself, and pricked up his ears to listen.
"I suppose it was her speaking of you that first put the idea into my head," Geoff went on, "and impelled me to walk over to the place where we had been so happy before your father returned from Argentina and spoiled everything for us. That's why I went. That's how I came to meet you there."
"You did not meet me there!" she flung back indignantly. "Really this is past a jest."
"A jest? You think I'm likely to jest over it—a thing that threatens the life of the girl I love? In the name of heaven, Kathie, put an end to this nonsense. You know I did meet you there! You know how surprised I was when I got to the place to see you stealing out of the gates. Why, the very moment you saw me you spoke my name, and that I had no more than just time to say to you, 'For God's sake, Kathie, how did you come here?' when you plucked me by the sleeve and said, 'Come in, come in; I'll show you something that will light the way back to the land of happiness, dear!' And after all that to face me down like this—to pretend that you were not there. It is simply ridiculous."
"I am glad you can give it so mild a name," said the girl coldly. "To me it seems the cruellest and the wickedest falsehood a man could possibly utter. Dear God! what has come over you, Geoff? Are you mad, or are you something worse, to come here and make this abominable lying charge against me—againstme? And when you know in your heart that there is not one word of truth in it!"
"Oh, for God's sake, don't treat me as if I were a fool, Katharine. Who is there to impersonate you, and for what reason? I know what I know, I know what I've seen, what I've heard, what I've been through! Then what in heaven's name is the use of keeping up this idle pretence with me?"
"It is not a pretence—it is the truth, the simple and the absolute truth!" she replied with heat. "Ifthey were the last words I had to say in this world, I would repeat on the very threshold of the one to come:I was not at Gleer Cottage last night.I came straight from Clavering Close to Wuthering Grange, and I never left my room for one instant from that time until I came down to breakfast this morning. Ailsa Lorne was with me when I returned; she will tell you that I am speaking the truth."
Yes, decidedly Ailsa Lorne would tell him; that Cleek acknowledged to himself. Had she not done so already? But again she might also have told him that she thought she heard Lady Katharine's bedroom door open in the night and some one steal out of it. Besides, there was another thing—the golden capsule of the scent bracelet—to be reckoned with. Hum-m-m! Was there, then, a possibility that Geoff Clavering was speaking the truth, and that it was Lady Katharine herself who was lying? Of course, in that case—— Stop a bit—they were going at it again, and he could not afford to lose a single word.
"I don't care a hang what Ailsa Lorne or anybody else will say; I know what I know," young Clavering flung in doggedly. "You can't tell me that I didn't see a thing when I did see it—at least, you can't and expect to make me believe it. Give me credit for a little common sense."
"How can I when your own words so utterly refute it, when you convict yourself out of your own mouth, when even the dead man himself is a witness to the utter folly of this charge?"
"De Louvisan?"
"Yes. He speaks for me!"
"What nonsense!"
"He speaks for me," she repeated, not noticing the interruption, "and if you will not believe a living witness, then you must believe a dead one. Uncle Raynor and Harry said this morning that the Count de Louvisan's body had been found, not lying on the ground, but lifted up and spiked to the wall; and you who claim to have seen me in that house last night claim also to have searched the place and found no one but me present. Will you tell me, then, how I could possibly have lifted the body of a man weighing ten or eleven stone at the least computation, much less have lifted it high enough to spike it to a wall?"
"One for the girl!" commented Cleek silently.
"You might have had help; there might have been somebody there who left before I arrived," replied Geoff.
"And another one for the man!" Cleek was obliged to admit. "Which of this interesting pair is doing the lying? They can't both be speaking the truth. At least, they can't unless—— By Jupiter! Hum-m-m! Quite so! Quite so! 'Write me down an ass, gentlemen,' and an ass with a capital A." Then the curious one-sided smile travelled up his cheek, and lingered there longer than usual.
Young Clavering's last remark had hurt the girl more than anything he had yet said; hurt her sodeeply that she gave a little shuddering cry and, womanlike, broke into tears.
"That is the wickedest thing of all!" she said. "The very wickedest thing of all. I can't doubt any longer that you have made up your mind to bolster up this abominable thing by every possible insult to me!"
"Insult? What funny things are sometimes said by accident!" he flung back stridently. "I am likely to 'insult' you when I'm ready to stand by you through thick and thin, am I not? And to lie till I'm black in the face, so that I keep others from knowing what I know!"
"You don't know it—you can't know it! It never happened! I was not in that house last night, and you did not see me there!"
"Oh, well then, let us say I didn't," impatiently. "What does it matter one way or the other? Say I didn't, then! SayImurdered him; but, for God's sake, don't say I insult you when I have come here merely to show you how much I love you—how ready I am to fight the whole world for you. Come back into my arms, and let me tell you what I want to tell, dear. Come back, and don't fear anything or anybody on earth. They shan't touch you! They shan't lift a finger to harm you, say one single word against you; and God help the first that tries it, that's all! A man doesn't cease to love a woman just because she does a desperate thing for his sake. No, not he! If he's worthy of the name of man, heloves her all the better for it. That's how I love you! Better to-day than I ever loved you in all the days that were; better than I shall ever love anything in all the days that are to be. I don't care if you are red with the blood of a hundred men, you're the girl I love, the girl I mean to marry, the girl I'm going to stand up and fight for as long as there's breath left in my body!"
"Marry—marry?" Her voice struck through his even before he had finished speaking, and there was a sting in it that bit. "Do you think for one instant that I would marry you when you make such a charge as that against me? Do you think I would? Do you? I'd no more marry you than I would cut off my right hand, Geoff Clavering, after you have slandered me and lied about me like this."
"Kathie, dearest——"
"No—please! If you touch me I think I shall faint! Stay where you are! Let me alone! Ah, please do—please! I have suffered and suffered and suffered, but not like this; oh, never like this before! That you should say these things—you! That you should even dream of saying them! You ought to be ashamed of yourself—ashamed!"
"Kathie, darling——"
"No, no—don't, please don't; it would be wicked to touch me when I am suffering so much. I want to get back to my room— I want to lie down; my head will split if I don't. Please do not follow me; please stay where you are. I won't say a word toanybody; I promise you I won't. I'll try to bear it, I'll try to forget it. Nine years! Dear God, nine years; and—those marks totalled nine!"
He jumped as though some one had stabbed him; a red wave rushed up and crimsoned all his face, then flashed out of existence again and left it waxen white.
"Good God! you won't attempt to suggest——" he began, then lost the power of speaking altogether, and stood looking at her with blank eyes and with colourless lips hard shut as she crept on through the shadowy dusk to where the doorway of the ruin showed a pointed arch against the dimming saffron of a twilight sky. A moment her drooping figure stood there against that shield of yellow light, pausing irresolute with one foot on the edge of the drawbridge, one hand pressed to her head; then she turned and looked back at the place where he stood. But in the dim dusk of the ruin she could scarcely see him.
"I will never speak, I will never tell—even to the day I die I won't!" she said in a whisper; then waited an instant as if expecting a reply, and getting none, added yet more sadly, "Good-bye," and went across the drawbridge to the darkening gardens, and was gone.
For a minute the man made neither movement nor sound till of a sudden there came something so totally unexpected as to cause him to literally jump. Some one had given a none too perfect representation of a muffled sneeze, telling him that he was not alone.
"Who's there? Who are you?" he cried in an excited whisper
But nobody answered.
"Do you hear what I say? Come out and show yourself, whoever you are!" he called in a slightly louder tone; and then, getting no answer this time either, he fumbled in his pocket, fished out his match box, and struck a vesta.
The glimmering light showed him what the dusk had so successfully concealed heretofore—namely, the gap in the floor and the underside of the slab which usually covered the entrance to the underground cells, but which was now laid back on its hinges with its lower side upmost and the way to the stone staircase in full view. And in the very instant he made this discovery there rolled up from that gap the sound of somebody running away.
In a sort of panic young Clavering made a dash for the trap, and was through it and down the stone steps in almost no time, the wax vesta flickering and flaring in the fingers of his upraised hand and sending gushes of light weaving in and out among the arches of the passage and the gaping doorways of the mimic cells.