A new tenseness seemed to have crept into the situation. The conversation, never without its emotional tendencies, at once changed its character. Philippa, cold and reserved, with a threat lurking all the time in her tone and manner, became its guiding spirit.
“We may enquire your name?” she asked.
“I am the Baron Maderstrom,” was the prompt reply. “For the purpose of my brief residence in this country, however, I fancy that the name of Mr. Hamar Lessingham might provoke less comment.”
“Maderstrom,” Philippa repeated. “You were at Magdalen with my brother.”
“For three terms,” he assented.
“You have visited at Wood Norton. It was only an accident, then, that I did not meet you.”
“It is true,” he answered, with a bow. “I received the most charming hospitality there from your father and mother.”
“Why, you are the friend,” Helen exclaimed, suddenly seizing his hands, “of whom Dick speaks in his letter!”
“It has been my great privilege to have been of service to Major Felstead,” was the grave admission. “He and I, during our college days, were more than ordinarily intimate. I saw his name in one of the lists of prisoners, and I went at once to Wittenberg.”
A fresh flood of questions was upon Helen's lips, but Philippa brushed her away.
“Please let me speak,” she said. “You have brought us these letters from Richard, for which we offer you our heartfelt thanks, but you did not risk your liberty, perhaps your life, to come here simply as his ambassador. There is something beyond this in your visit to this country. You may be a Swede, but is it not true that at the present moment you are in the service of an enemy?”
Lessingham bowed acquiescence.
“You are entirely right,” he murmured.
“Am I also right in concluding that you have some service to ask of us?”
“Your directness, dear lady, moves me to admiration,” Lessingham assured her. “I am here to ask a trifling favour in return for those which I have rendered and those which I may yet render to your brother.”
“And that favour?”
Their visitor looked down at his torn attire.
“A suit of your brother's clothes,” he replied, “and a room in which to change. The disposal of these rags I may leave, I presume, to your ingenuity.”
“Anything else?”
“It is my wish,” he continued, “to remain in this neighbourhood for a short time—perhaps a fortnight and perhaps a month. I should value your introduction to the hotel here, and the extension of such hospitality as may seem fitting to you, under the circumstances.”
“As Mr. Hamar Lessingham?”
“Beyond a doubt.”
There was a moment's silence. Philippa's face had become almost stony. She took a step towards the telephone. Lessingham, however, held out his hand.
“Your purpose?” he enquired.
“I am going to ring up the Commandant here,” she told him, “and explain your presence in this house.”
“An heroic impulse,” he observed, “but too impulsive.”
“We shall see,” she retorted. “Will you let me pass?”
His fingers restrained her as gently as possible.
“Let me make a reasonable appeal to both of you,” he suggested. “I am here at your mercy. I promise you that under no circumstances will I attempt any measure of violence. From any fear of that, I trust my name and my friendship with your brother will be sufficient guarantee.”
“Continue, then,” Philippa assented.
“You will give me ten minutes in which to state my case,” he begged.
“We must!” Helen exclaimed. “We must, Philippa! Please!”
“You shall have your ten minutes,” Philippa conceded.
He abandoned his attitude of watchfulness and moved back on to the hearth-rug, his hands behind him. He addressed himself to Philippa. It was Philippa who had become his judge.
“I will claim nothing from you,” he began, “for the services which I have rendered to Richard. Our friendship was a real thing, and, finding him in such straits, I would gladly, under any circumstances, have done all that I have done. I am well paid for this by the thanks which you have already proffered me.”
“No thanks—nothing that we could do for you would be sufficient recompense,” Helen declared energetically.
“Let me speak for a moment of the future,” he continued. “Supposing you ring that telephone and hand me over to the authorities here? Well, that will be the end of me, without a doubt. You will have done what seemed to you to be the right thing, and I hope that that consciousness will sustain you, for, believe me, though it may not be at my will, your brother's life will most certainly answer for mine.”
There was a slight pause. A sob broke from Helen's throat. Even Philippa's lip quivered.
“Forgive me,” he went on, “if that sounds like a threat. It was not so meant. It is the simple truth. Let me hurry on to the future. I ask so little of you. It is my duty to live in this spot for one month. What harm can I do? You have no great concentration of soldiers here, no docks, no fortifications, no industry. And in return for the slight service of allowing me to remain here unmolested, I pledge my word that Richard shall be set at liberty and shall be here with you within two months.”
Helen's face was transformed, her eyes glowed, her lips were parted with eagerness. She turned towards Philippa, her expression, her whole attitude an epitome of eloquent pleading.
“Philippa, you will not hesitate? You cannot?”
“I must,” Philippa answered, struggling with her agitation. “I love Dick more dearly than anything else on earth, but just now, Helen, we have to remember, before everything, that we are English women. We have to put our human feelings behind us. We are learning every day to make sacrifices. You, too, must learn, dear. My answer to you, Baron Maderstrom—or Mr. Lessingham, as you choose to call yourself—is no.”
“Philippa, you are mad!” Helen exclaimed passionately. “Didn't I have to realise all that you say when I let Dick go, cheerfully, the day after we were engaged? Haven't I realised the duty of cheerfulness and sacrifice through all these weary months? But there is a limit to these things, Philippa, a sense of proportion which must be taken into account. It's Dick's life which is in the balance against some intangible thing, nothing that we could ever reproach ourselves with, nothing that could bring real harm upon any one. Oh, I love my country, too, but I want Dick! I should feel like his murderess all my life, if I didn't consent!”
“It occurs to me,” Lessingham remarked, turning towards Philippa, “that Miss Fairclough's point of view is one to be considered.”
“Doesn't all that Miss Fairclough has said apply to me?” Philippa demanded, with a little break in her voice. “Richard is my twin brother, he is the dearest thing in life to me. Can't you realise, though, that what you ask of us is treason?”
“It really doesn't amount to that,” Lessingham assured her. “In my own heart I feel convinced that I have come here on a fool's errand. No object that I could possibly attain in this neighbourhood is worth the life of a man like Richard Felstead.”
“Oh, he's right!” Helen exclaimed. “Think, Philippa! What is there here which the whole world might not know? There are no secrets in Dreymarsh. We are miles away from everywhere. For my sake, Philippa, I implore you not to be unreasonable.”
“In plain words,” Lessingham intervened, “do not be quixotic, Lady Cranston. There is just an idea on one side, your brother's life on the other. You see, the scales do not balance.”
“Can't you realise, though,” Philippa answered, “what that idea means? It is part of one's soul that one gives when one departs from a principle.”
“What are principles against love?” Helen demanded, almost fiercely. “A sister may prate about them, Philippa. A wife couldn't. I'd sacrifice every principle I ever had, every scrap of self-respect, myself and all that belongs to me, to save Dick's life!”
There was a brief, throbbing silence. Helen was feverishly clutching Philippa's hand. Lessingham's eyes were fixed upon the tortured face into which he gazed. There were no women like this in his own country.
“Dear lady,” he said, and for the first time his own voice shook, “I abandon my arguments. I beg you to act as you think best for your own future happiness. The chances of life or death are not great things for either men like your brother or for me. I would not purchase my end, nor he his life, at the expense of your suffering. You see, I stand on one side. The telephone is there for your use.”
“You shan't use it!” Helen cried passionately. “Phillipa, you shan't!”
Philippa turned towards her, and all the stubborn pride had gone out of her face. Her great eyes were misty with tears, her mouth was twitching with emotion. She threw her arms around Helen's neck.
“My dear, I can't! I can't!” she sobbed.
Philippa's breakdown was only momentary. With a few brusque words she brought the other two down to the level of her newly recovered equanimity.
“To be practical,” she began, “we have no time to lose. I will go and get a suit of Dick's clothes, and, Helen, you had better take Mr. Lessingham into the gun room. Afterwards, perhaps you will have time to ring up the hotel.”
Lessingham took a quick step towards her,—almost as though he were about to make some impetuous withdrawal. Philippa turned and met his almost pleading gaze. Perhaps she read there his instinct of self-abnegation.
“I am in command of the situation,” she continued, a little more lightly. “Every one must please obey me. I shan't be more than five minutes.”
She left the room, waving back Lessingham's attempt to open the door for her. He stood for a moment looking at the place where she had vanished. Then he turned round.
“Major Felstead's description,” he said quietly, “did not do his sister justice.”
“Philippa is a dear,” Helen declared enthusiastically. “Just for a moment, though, I was terrified. She has a wonderful will.”
“How long has she been married?”
“About six years.”
“Are there—any children?”
Helen shook her head.
“Sir Henry had a daughter by his first wife, who lives with us.”
“Six years!” Lessingham repeated. “Why, she seems no more than a child. Sir Henry must be a great deal her senior.”
“Sixteen years,” Helen told him. “Philippa is twenty-nine. And now, don't be inquisitive any more, please, and come with me. I want to show you where to change your clothes.”
She opened a door on the other side of the room, and pointed to a small apartment across the passage.
“If you'll wait in there,” she begged, “I'll bring the clothes to you directly they come. I am going to telephone now.”
“So many thanks,” he answered. “I should like a pleasant bedroom and sitting room, and a bathroom if possible. My luggage you will find already there. A friend in London has seen to that.”
She looked at him curiously.
“You are very thorough, aren't you?” she remarked.
“The people of the country whom it is my destiny to serve all are,” he replied. “One weak link, you know, may sometimes spoil the mightiest chain.”
She closed the door and took up the telephone.
“Number three, please,” she began. “Are you the hotel? The manager? Good! I am speaking for Lady Cranston. She wishes a sitting-room, bedroom and bath-room reserved for a friend of ours who is arriving to-day—a Mr. Hamar Lessingham. You have his luggage already, I believe. Please do the best you can for him.—Certainly.—Thank you very much.”
She set down the receiver. The door was quickly opened and shut. Philippa reappeared, carrying an armful of clothes.
“Why, you've brought his grey suit,” Helen cried in dismay, “the one he looks so well in!”
“Don't be an idiot,” Philippa scoffed. “I had to bring the first I could find. Take them in to Mr. Lessingham, and for heaven's sake see that he hurries! Henry's train is due, and he may be here at any moment.”
“I'll tell him,” Helen promised. “I'll smuggle him out of the back way, if you like.”
Philippa laughed a little drearily.
“A nice start that would be, if any one ever traced his arrival!” she observed. “No, we must try and get him away before Henry comes, but, if the worst comes to the worst, we'll have him in and introduce him. Henry isn't likely to notice anything,” she added, a little bitterly.
Helen disappeared with the clothes and returned almost immediately, Philippa was sitting in her old position by the fire.
“You're not worrying about this, dear, are you?” the former asked anxiously.
“I don't know,” Philippa replied, without turning her head. “I don't know what may come of it, Helen. I have a queer sort of feeling about that man.”
Helen sighed. “I suppose,” she confessed, “I am the narrowest person on earth. I can think of one thing, and one thing only. If Mr. Lessingham keeps his word, Dick will be here perhaps in a month, perhaps six weeks—certainly soon!”
“He will keep his word,” Philippa said quietly. “He is that sort of man.”
The door on the other side of the room was softly opened. Lessingham's head appeared.
“Could I have a necktie?” he asked diffidently. Philippa stretched out her hand and took one from the basket by her side.
“Better give him this,” she said, handing it over to Helen. “It is one of Henry's which I was mending.—Stop!”
She put up her finger. They all listened.
“The car!” Philippa exclaimed, rising hastily to her feet. “That is Henry! Go out with Mr. Lessingham, Helen,” she continued, “and wait until he is ready. Don't forget that he is an ordinary caller, and bring him in presently.”
Helen nodded understandingly and hurried out.
Philippa moved a few steps towards the other door. In a moment it was thrown open. Nora appeared, with her arm through her father's.
“I went to meet him, Mummy,” she explained. “No uniform—isn't it a shame!”
Sir Henry patted her cheek and turned to greet his wife. There was a shadow upon his bronzed, handsome face as he watched her rather hesitating approach.
“Sorry I couldn't catch your train, Phil,” he told her. “I had to make a call in the city so I came down from Liverpool Street. Any luck?”
She held his hands, resisting for the moment his proffered embrace.
“Henry,” she said earnestly, “do you know I am so much more anxious to hear your news.”
“Mine will keep,” he replied. “What about Richard?”
She shook her head.
“I spent the whole of my time making enquiries,” she sighed, “and every one was fruitless. I failed to get the least satisfaction from any one at the War Office. They know nothing, have heard nothing.”
“I'm ever so sorry to hear it,” Sir Henry declared sympathetically. “You mustn't worry too much, though, dear. Where's Helen?”
“She is in the gun room with a caller.”
“With a caller?” Nora exclaimed. “Is it any one from the Depot? I must go and see.”
“You needn't trouble,” her stepmother replied. “Here they are, coming in.”
The door on the opposite side of the room was suddenly opened, and Hamar Lessingham and Helen entered together. Lessingham was entirely at his ease,—their conversation, indeed, seemed almost engrossing. He came at once across the room on realising Sir Henry's presence.
“This is Mr. Hamar Lessingham—my husband,” Philippa said. “Mr. Lessingham was at college with Dick, Henry, so of course Helen and he have been indulging in all sorts of reminiscences.”
The two men shook hands.
“I found time also to examine your Leech prints,” Lessingham remarked. “You have some very admirable examples.”
“Quite a hobby of mine in my younger days,” Sir Henry admitted. “One or two of them are very good, I believe. Are you staying in these parts long, Mr. Lessingham?”
“Perhaps for a week or two,” was the somewhat indifferent reply. “I am told that this is the most wonderful air in the world, so I have come down here to pull up again after a slight illness.”
“A dreary spot just now,” Sir Henry observed, “but the air's all right. Are you a sea-fisherman, by any chance, Mr. Lessingham?”
“I have done a little of it,” the visitor confessed. Sir Henry's face lit up. He drew from his pocket a small, brown paper parcel.
“I don't mind telling you,” he confided as he cut the string, “that I don't think there's another sport like it in the world. I have tried most of them, too. When I was a boy I was all for shooting, perhaps because I could never get enough. Then I had a season or two at Melton, though I was never much of a horseman. But for real, unadulterated excitement, for sport that licks everything else into a cocked hat, give me a strong sea rod, a couple of traces, just enough sea to keep on the bottom all the time, and the codling biting. Look here, did you ever see a mackerel spinner like that?” he added, drawing one out of the parcel which he had untied. “Look at it, all of you.”
Lessingham took it gingerly in his fingers. Philippa, a little ostentatiously, turned her back upon the two men and took up a newspaper.
“Lady Cranston does not sympathize with my interest in any sort of sport just now,” Sir Henry explained good-humouredly. “All the same I argue that one must keep one's mind occupied somehow or other.”
“Quite right, Dad!” Nora agreed. “We must carry on, as the Colonel says. All the same, I did hope you'd come down in a new naval uniform, with lots of gold braid on your sleeve. I think they might have made you an admiral, Daddy, you'd look so nice on the bridge.”
“I am afraid,” her father replied, with his eyes glued upon the spinner which Lessingham was holding, “that that is a consideration which didn't seem to weigh with them much. Look at the glitter of it,” he went on, taking up another of the spinners. “You see, it's got a double swivel, and they guarantee six hundred revolutions a minute.”
“I must plead ignorance,” Lessingham regretted, “of everything connected with mackerel spinning.”
“It's fine sport for a change,” Sir Henry declared. “The only thing is that if you strike a shoal one gets tired of hauling the beggars in. By-the-by, has Jimmy been up for me, Philippa? Have you heard whether there are any mackerel in?”
Philippa raised her eyebrows.
“Mackerel!” she repeated sarcastically.
“Have you any objection to the fish, dear?” Sir Henry enquired blandly.
Philippa made no reply. Her husband frowned and turned towards Lessingham.
“You see,” he complained a little irritably, “my wife doesn't approve of my taking an interest even in fishing while the war's on, but, hang it all, what are you to do when you reach my age? Thinks I ought to be a special constable, don't you, Philippa?”
“Need we discuss this before Mr. Lessingham?” she asked, without looking up from her paper.
Lessingham promptly prepared to take his departure.
“See something more of you, I hope,” Sir Henry remarked hospitably, as he conducted his guest to the door. “Where are you staying here?”
“At the hotel.”
“Which?”
“I did not understand that there was more than one,” Lessingham replied. “I simply wrote to The Hotel, Dreymarsh.”
“There is only one hotel open, of course, Mr. Lessingham,” Philippa observed, turning towards him. “Why do you ask such an absurd question, Henry? The 'Grand' is full of soldiers. Come and see us whenever you feel inclined, Mr. Lessingham.”
“I shall certainly take advantage of your permission, Lady Cranston,” were the farewell words of this unusual visitor as he bowed himself out.
Sir Henry moved to the sideboard and helped himself to a whisky and soda. Philippa laid down her newspaper and watched him as though waiting patiently for his return. Helen and Nora had already obeyed the summons of the dressing bell.
“Henry, I want to hear your news,” she insisted. He threw himself into an easy-chair and turned over the contents of Philippa's workbasket.
“Where's that tie of mine you were mending?” he asked. “Is it finished yet?”
“It is upstairs somewhere,” she replied. “No, I have not finished it. Why do you ask? You have plenty, haven't you?”
“Drawers full,” he admitted cheerfully. “Half of them I can never wear, though. I like that black and white fellow. Your friend Lessingham was wearing one exactly like it.”
“It isn't exactly an uncommon pattern,” Philippa reminded him.
“Seems to have the family taste in clothes,” Sir Henry continued, stroking his chin. “That grey tweed suit of his was exactly the same pattern as the suit Richard was wearing, the last time I saw him in mufti.”
“They probably go to the same tailor,” Philippa remarked equably.
Sir Henry abandoned the subject. He was once more engrossed in an examination of the mackerel spinners.
“You didn't answer my question about Jimmy Dumble,” he ventured presently.
Philippa turned and looked at him. Her eyes were usually very sweet and soft and her mouth delightful. Just at that moment, however, there were new and very firm lines in her face.
“Henry,” she said sternly, “you are purposely fencing with me. Mr. Lessingham's taste in clothes, or Jimmy Dumble's comings and goings, are not what I want to hear or talk about. You went to London, unwillingly enough, to keep your promise to me. I want to know whether you have succeeded in getting anything from the Admiralty?”
“Nothing but the cold shoulder, my dear,” he answered with a little chuckle.
“Do you mean to say that they offered you nothing at all?” she persisted. “You may have been out of the service too long for them to start you with a modern ship, but surely they could have given you an auxiliary cruiser, or a secondary command of some sort?”
“They didn't even offer me a washtub, dear,” he confessed. “My name's on a list, they said—”
“Oh, that list!” Philippa interrupted angrily. “Henry, I really can't bear it. Couldn't they find you anything on land?”
“My dear girl,” he replied a little testily, “what sort of a figure should I cut in an office! No one can read my writing, and I couldn't add up a column of figures to save my life. What is it?” he added, as the door opened, and Mills made his appearance.
“Dumble is here to see you, sir.”
“Show him in at once,” his master directed with alacrity. “Come in, Jimmy,” he went on, raising his voice. “I've got something to show you here.”
Philippa's lips were drawn a little closer together. She swept past her husband on her way to the door.
“I hope you will be so good,” she said, looking back, “as to spare me half an hour of your valuable time this evening. This is a subject which I must discuss with you further at once.”
“As urgent as all that, eh?” Sir Henry replied, stopping to light a cigarette. “Righto! You can have the whole of my evening, dear, with the greatest of pleasure.—Now then, Jimmy!”
Jimmy Dumble possessed a very red face and an extraordinary capacity for silence. He stood a yard or two inside the room, twirling his hat in his hand. Sir Henry, after the closing of the door, did not for a moment address his visitor. There was a subtle but unmistakable change in his appearance as he stood with his hands in his pockets, and a frown on his forehead, whistling softly to himself, his eyes fixed upon the door through which his wife had vanished. He swung round at last towards the telephone.
“Stand by for a moment, Jimmy, will you?” he directed.
“Aye, aye, sir!”
Sir Henry took up the receiver. He dropped his voice a little, although it was none the less distinct.
“Number one—police-station, please.—Hullo there! The inspector about?—That you, Inspector?—Sir Henry Cranston speaking. Could you just step round?—Good! Tell them to show you straight into the library. You might just drop a hint to Mills about the lights, eh? Thank you.”
He laid down the receiver and turned towards the fisherman.
“Well, Jimmy,” he enquired, “all serene down in the village, eh?”
“So far as I've seen or heard, sir, there ain't been a word spoke as shouldn't be.”
“A lazy lot they are,” Sir Henry observed.
“They don't look far beyond the end of their noses.”
“Maybe it's as well for us, sir, as they don't,” was the cautious reply.
Sir Henry strolled to the further end of the room.
“Perhaps you are right, Jimmy,” he admitted.
“That fellow Ben Oates seems to be the only one with ideas.”
“He don't keep sober long enough to give us any trouble,” Dumble declared. “He began asking me questions a few days ago, and I know he put Grice's lad on to find out which way we went last Saturday week, but that don't amount to anything. He was dead drunk for three days afterwards.”
Sir Henry nodded.
“I'm not very frightened of Ben Oates, Jimmy,” he confided, as he threw open the door of a large cabinet which stood against the further wall. “No strangers about, eh?”
“Not a sign of one, sir.”
Sir Henry glanced towards the door and listened.
“Shall I just give the key a turn, sir?” his visitor asked.
“I don't think it is necessary,” Sir Henry replied. “They've all gone up to change. Now listen to me, Jimmy.”
He leaned forward and touched a spring. The false back of the cabinet, with its little array of flies, spinners, fishing hooks and tackle, slowly rolled back. Before them stood a huge chart, wonderfully executed in red, white and yellow.
“That's a marvellous piece of work, sir,” the fisherman observed admiringly.
“Best thing I ever did in my life,” Sir Henry agreed. “Now see here, Jimmy. We'll sail out tomorrow, or take the motor boat, according to the wind. We'll enter Langley Shallows there and pass Dead Man's Rock on the left side of the waterway, and keep straight on until we get Budden Wood on the church tower. You follow me?”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“We make for the headland from there. You see, we shall be outside the Gidney Shallows, and number twelve will pick us up. Put all the fishing tackle in the boat, and don't forget the bait. We must never lose sight of the fact, Jimmy, that the main object of our lives is to catch fish.”
“That's right, sir,” was the hearty assent.
“We'll be off at seven o'clock sharp, then,” Sir Henry decided.
“The tide'll be on the flow by that time,” Jimmy observed, “and we'll get off from the staith breakwater. That do be a fine piece of work and no mistake,” he added, as the false back of the cabinet glided slowly to its place.
Sir Henry chuckled.
“It's nothing to the one I've got on number twelve, Jimmy,” he said. “I've got the seaweed on that, pretty well. You'll take a drop of whisky on your way out?” he added. “Mills will look after you.”
“I thank you kindly, sir.”
Mills answered the bell with some concern in his face.
“The inspector is here to see you, sir,” he announced. “He did mention something about the lights. I'm sure we've all been most careful. Even her ladyship has only used a candle in her bedroom.”
“Show the inspector in,” Sir Henry directed, “and I'll hear what he has to say. And give Dumble some whisky as he goes out, and a cigar.”
“Wishing you good night, sir,” the latter said, as he followed Mills. “I'll be punctual in the morning. Looks to me as though we might have good sport.”
“We'll hope for it, anyway, Jimmy,” his employer replied cheerfully. “Come in, Inspector.”
The inspector, a tall, broad-shouldered man, saluted and stood at attention. Sir Henry nodded affably and glanced towards the door. He remained silent until Mills and Dumble had disappeared.
“Glad I happened to catch you, Inspector,” he observed, sitting on the edge of the table and helping himself to another cigarette. “Any fresh arrivals?”
“None, sir,” the man reported, “of any consequence that I can see. There are two more young officers for the Depot, and the young lady for the Grange, and Mr. and Mrs. Silvester returned home last night. There was a commercial traveller came in the first train this morning, but he went on during the afternoon.”
“Hm! What about a Mr. Lessingham—a Mr. Hamar Lessingham?”
“I haven't heard of him, sir.”
“Have you had the registration papers down from the hotel yet?”
“Not this evening, sir. I met the Midland and Great Northern train in myself. Her ladyship was the only passenger to alight here.”
“And I came the other way myself,” Sir Henry reflected.
“Now you come to mention the matter, sir,” the inspector continued, “I was up at the hotel this afternoon, and I saw some luggage about addressed to a name somewhat similar to that.”
“Probably sent on in advance, eh?”
“There could be no other way, sir,” the inspector replied, “unless the registration paper has been mislaid. I'll step up to the hotel this evening and make sure.”
“You'll oblige me very much, if you will. By Jove,” Sir Henry added, looking towards the door, “I'd no idea it was so late!”
Philippa, who had changed her travelling dress for a plain black net gown, was standing in the doorway. She looked at the inspector, and for a moment the little colour which she had seemed to disappear.
“Is anything the matter?” she asked breathlessly.
“Nothing in the world, my dear,” her husband assured her. “I am frightfully sorry I'm so late. Jimmy stayed some time, and then the inspector here looked in about our lights. Just a little more care in this room at night, he thinks. We'll see to it, Inspector.”
“I am very much obliged, sir,” the man replied. “Sorry to be under the necessity of mentioning it.”
Sir Henry opened the door.
“You'll find your own way out, won't you?” he begged. “I'm a little late.”
The inspector saluted and withdrew. Sir Henry glanced round.
“I won't be ten minutes, Philippa,” he promised. “I had no idea it was so late.”
“Come here one moment, please,” she insisted.
He came back into the room and stood on the other side of the small table near which she had paused.
“What is it, dear?” he enquired. “We are going to leave our talk till after dinner, aren't we?”
She looked him in the face. There was an anxious light in her eyes, and she was certainly not herself. “Of course! I only wanted to know—it seemed to me that you broke off in what you were saying to the inspector, as I came into the room. Are you sure that it was the lights he came around about? There isn't anything else wrong, is there?”
“What else could there be?” he asked wonderingly.
“I have no idea,” she replied, with well-simulated indifference. “I was only asking you whether there was anything else?”
He shook his head.
“Nothing!”
She threw herself into an easy-chair and picked up a magazine.
“Thank you,” she said. “Do hurry, please. I have a new cook and she asked particularly whether we were punctual people.”
“Six minutes will see me through it,” Sir Henry promised, making for the door. “Come to think of it, I missed my lunch. I think I'll manage it in five.”
Sir Henry was in a pleasant and expansive humour that evening. The new cook was an unqualified success, and he was conscious of having dined exceedingly well. He sat in a comfortable easy-chair before a blazing wood fire, he had just lit one of his favourite brand of cigarettes, and his wife, whom he adored, was seated only a few feet away.
“Quite a remarkable change in Helen,” he observed. “She was in the depths of depression when I went away, and to-night she seems positively cheerful.”
“Helen varies a great deal,” Philippa reminded him.
“Still, to-night, I must say, I should have expected to have found her more depressed than ever,” Sir Henry went on. “She hoped so much from your trip to London, and you apparently accomplished nothing.”
“Nothing at all.”
“And you have had no letters?”
“None.”
“Then Helen's high spirits, I suppose, are only part of woman's natural inconsistency.—Philippa, dear!”
“Yes?”
“I am glad to be at home. I am glad to see you sitting there. I know you are nursing up something, some little thunderbolt to launch at me. Won't you launch it and let's get it over?”
Philippa laid down the book which she had been reading, and turned to face her husband. He made a little grimace.
“Don't look so severe,” he begged. “You frighten me before you begin.”
“I'm sorry,” she said, “but my face probably reflects my feelings. I am hurt and grieved and disappointed in you, Henry.”
“That's a good start, anyway,” he groaned.
“We have been married six years,” Philippa went on, “and I admit at once that I have been very happy. Then the war came. You know quite well, Henry, that especially at that time I was very, very fond of you, yet it never occurred to me for a moment but that, like every other woman, I should have to lose my husband for a time.—Stop, please,” she insisted, as he showed signs of interrupting. “I know quite well that it was through my persuasions you retired so early, but in those days there was no thought of war, and I always had it in my mind that if trouble came you would find your way back to where you belonged.”
“But, my dear child, that is all very well,” Sir Henry protested, “but it's not so easy to get back again. You know very well that I went up to the Admiralty and offered my services, directly the war started.”
“Yes, and what happened?” Philippa demanded. “You were, in a measure, shelved. You were put on a list and told that you would hear from them—a sort of Micawber-like situation with which you were perfectly satisfied. Then you took that moor up in Scotland and disappeared for nearly six months.”
“I was supplying the starving population with food,” he reminded her genially. “We sent about four hundred brace of grouse to market, not to speak of the salmon. We had some very fair golf, too, some of the time.”
“Oh, I have not troubled to keep any exact account of your diversions!” Philippa said scornfully. “Sometimes,” she continued, “I wonder whether you are quite responsible, Henry. How you can even talk of these things when every man of your age and strength is fighting one way or another for his country, seems marvellous to me. Do you realise that we are fighting for our very existence? Do you realise that my own father, who is fifteen years older than you, is in the firing line? This is a small place, of course, but there isn't a man left in it of your age, with your physique, who has had the slightest experience in either service, who isn't doing something.”
“I can't do more than send in applications,” he grumbled. “Be reasonable, my dear Philippa. It isn't the easiest thing in the world to find a job for a sailor who has been out of it as long as I have.”
“So you say, but when they ask me what you are doing, as they all did in London this time, and I reply that you can't get a job, there is generally a polite little silence. No one believes it. I don't believe it.”
“Philippa!”
Sir Henry turned in his chair. His cigar was burning now idly between his fingers. His heavy eyebrows were drawn together.
“Well, I don't,” she reiterated. “You can be angry, if you will—in fact I think I should prefer you to be angry. You take no pains at the Admiralty. You just go there and come away again, once a year or something like that. Why, if I were you, I wouldn't leave the place until they'd found me something—indoors or outdoors, what does it matter so long as your hand is on the wheel and you are doing your little for your country? But you—what do you care? You went to town to get a job—and you come back with new mackerel spinners! You are off fishing to-morrow morning with Jimmy Dumble. Somewhere up in the North Sea, to-day and to-morrow and the next day, men are giving their lives for their country. What do you care? You will sit there smoking your pipe and catching dabs!”
“Do you know you are almost offensive, Philippa?” her husband said quietly.
“I want to be,” she retorted. “I should like you to feel that I am. In any case, this will probably be the last conversation I shall hold with you on the subject.”
“Well, thank God for that, anyway!” he observed, strolling to the chimneypiece and selecting a pipe from a rack. “I think you've said about enough.”
“I haven't finished,” she told him ominously.
“Then for heaven's sake get on with it and let's have it over,” he begged.
“Oh, you're impossible!” Philippa exclaimed bitterly. “Listen. I give you one chance more. Tell me the truth? Is there anything in your health of which I do not know? Is there any possible explanation of your extraordinary behaviour which, for some reason or other, you have kept to yourself? Give me your whole confidence.”
Sir Henry, for a moment, was serious enough. He stood looking down at her a little wistfully.
“My dear,” he told her, “I have nothing to say except this. You are my very precious wife. I have loved you and trusted you since the day of our marriage. I am content to go on loving and trusting you, even though things should come under my notice which I do not understand. Can't you accept me the same way?”
Philippa, momentarily uneasy, was nevertheless rebellious.
“Accept you the same way? How can I! There is nothing in my life to compare in any way with the tragedy of your—”
She paused, as though unwilling to finish the sentence. He waited patiently, however, for her to proceed.
“Of my what?”
Philippa compromised.
“Lethargy,” she pronounced triumphantly.
“An excellent word,” he murmured.
“It is too mild a one, but you are my husband,” she remarked.
“That reminds me,” he said quietly. “You are my wife.”
“I know it,” she admitted, “but I am also a woman, and there are limits to my endurance. If you can give me no explanation of your behaviour, Henry, if you really have no intention of changing it, then there is only one course left open for me.”
“That sounds rather alarming—what is it?” he demanded.
Philippa lifted her head a little. This was the pronouncement towards which she had been leading.
“From to-day,” she declared, “I cease to be your wife.”
His fingers paused in the manipulation of the tobacco with which he was filling his pipe. He turned and looked at her.
“You what?”
“I cease to be your wife.”
“How do you manage that?” he asked.
“Don't jest,” she begged. “It hurts me so. What I mean is surely plain enough. I will continue to live under your roof if you wish it, or I am perfectly willing to go back to Wood Norton. I will continue to bear your name because I must, but the other ties between us are finished.”
“You don't mean this, Philippa,” he said gravely.
“But I do mean it,” she insisted. “I mean every word I have spoken. So far as I am concerned, Henry, this is your last chance.”
There was a knock at the door. Mills entered with a note upon a salver. Sir Henry took it up, glanced questioningly at his wife, and tore open the envelope.
“There will be no answer, Mills,” he said.
The man withdrew. Sir Henry read the few lines thoughtfully:—