Philippa and Helen met in the drawing-room, a few minutes before eight that evening. Philippa was wearing a new black dress, a model of simplicity to the untutored eye, but full of that undefinable appeal to the mysterious which even the greatest artist frequently fails to create out of any form of colour. Some fancy had induced her to strip off her jewels at the last moment, and she wore no ornaments save a band of black velvet around her neck. Helen looked at her curiously.
“Is this a fresh scheme for conquest, Philippa?” she asked, as they stood together by the log fire.
Philippa unexpectedly flushed.
“I don't know what I was thinking about, really,” she confessed. “Is that the exact time, I wonder?”
“Two minutes to eight,” Helen replied.
“Mr. Lessingham is always so punctual,” Philippa murmured. “I wonder if Captain Griffiths would dare!”
“We've done our best to warn him,” Helen reminded her friend. “The man is simply pig-headed.”
“I can't help feeling that he's right,” Philippa declared, “when he argues that they couldn't really prove anything against him.”
“Does that matter,” Helen asked anxiously, “so long as he is an enemy, living under a false name here?”
“You don't think they'd—they'd—”
“Shoot him?” Helen whispered, lowering her voice. “They couldn't do that! They couldn't do that!”
The clock began to chime. Suddenly Philippa, who had been listening, gave a little exclamation of relief.
“I hear his voice!” she exclaimed. “Thank goodness!”
Helen's relief was almost as great as her companion's. A moment later Mills ushered in their guest. He was still wearing his bandage, but his colour had returned. He seemed, in fact, almost gay.
“Nothing has happened, then?” Philippa demanded anxiously, as soon as the door was closed.
“Nothing at all,” he assured them. “Our friend Griffiths is terribly afraid of making a mistake.”
“So afraid that he wouldn't come and dine. Never mind, you'll have to take care of us both,” she added, as Mills announced dinner.
“I'll do my best,” he promised, offering his arm.
If the sword of Damocles were indeed suspended over their heads, it seemed only to heighten the merriment of their little repast. Philippa had ordered champagne, and the warmth of the pleasant dining room, the many appurtenances of luxury by which they were surrounded, the glow of the wine, and the perfume of the hothouse flowers upon the table, seemed in delicious contrast to the fury of the storm outside. They all three appeared completely successful in a strenuous effort to dismiss all disconcerting subjects from their minds. Lessingham talked chiefly of the East. He had travelled in Russia, Persia, Afghanistan, and India, and he had the unusual but striking gift of painting little word pictures of some of the scenes of his wanderings. It was half-past nine before they rose from the table, and Lessingham accompanied them into the library. With the advent of coffee, they were for the first time really alone. Lessingham sat by Philippa's side, and Helen reclined in a low chair close at hand.
“I think,” he said, “that I can venture now to tell you some news.”
Helen put down her work. Philippa looked at him in silence, and her eyes seemed to dilate.
“I have hesitated to say anything about it,” Lessingham went on, “because there is so much uncertainty about these things, but I believe that it is now finally arranged. I think that within the next week or ten days—perhaps a little before, perhaps a little later—your brother Richard will be set at liberty.”
“Dick? Dick coming home?” Philippa cried, springing up from her reclining position.
“Dick?” Helen faltered, her work lying unheeded in her lap. “Mr. Lessingham, do you mean it? Is it possible?”
“It is not only possible,” Lessingham assured them, “but I believe that it will come to pass. I have had to exercise a little duplicity, but I fancy that it has been successful. I have insisted that without help from an influential person in Dreymarsh, I cannot bring my labours here to a satisfactory conclusion, and I have named as the price of that help, Richard's absolute and immediate freedom. I heard only this morning that there would be no difficulty.”
Helen snatched up her work and groped her way towards the door.
“I will come back in a few minutes,” she promised, her voice a little broken.
Lessingham, who had opened the door for her, returned to his place. There were no tears in Philippa's brilliant eyes, but there was a faint patch of colour in her cheeks, and her lips were not quite steady. She caught at his hands.
“Oh, my dear, dear friend!” she said. “If only that little nightmare part of you did not exist. If only you could be just what you seem, and one could feel that you were there in our lives for always! I feel that I want to talk to you so much, to you and not the sham you. What shall I call you?”
“Bertram, please,” he whispered.
“Then Bertram, dear,” she went on, “for my sake, because you have really become dear to me, because my heart aches at the thought of your danger, and because—see how honest I am—I am a little afraid of myself—will you go away? The thought of your danger is like a nightmare to me. It all seems so absurd and unreasonable—I mean that the danger which I fear should be hanging over you. But I think that there is just a little something back of your brain of which you have never spoken, which it was your duty to keep to yourself, and it is just that something which brings the danger.”
“I am not afraid for myself, Philippa,” he told her. “I took a false step in life when I came here. What it was that attracted me I do not know. I think it was the thought of that wild ride amongst the clouds, and the starlight. It seemed such a wonderful beginning to any enterprise. And, Philippa, for one part of my adventure, the part which concerns you, it was a gorgeous prelude, and for the other—well, it just does not count because I have no fear. I have faith in my fortune, do you know that? I believe that I shall leave this place unharmed, but I believe that if I leave it without you, I shall go back to the worst hell in which a man could ever...”
“Bertram,” she pleaded, “think of it all. Even if I cared enough—and I don't—there is something unnatural about it. Doesn't it strike you as horrible? My brother, my cousins, my father, are all fighting the men of the nation whose cause you have espoused! There is a horrible, eternal cloud of hatred which it will take generations to get rid of, if ever it disappears. How can we two speak of love! What part of the world could we creep into where people would not shrink away from us? I may have lost a little of my heart to you, Bertram, I may miss you when you go away, I may waste weary hours thinking, but that is all. Oh, you know that it must be all!”
“I do not,” he answered stubbornly.
“Oh, you must be reasonable,” she begged, with a little break in her voice. “You know very well that I ought not to listen to you. I ought not to welcome you here. I ought to be strong and close my ears.”
“But you will not do that!”
“No!” she faltered. “Please don't come any nearer. I—”
She broke off suddenly. The struggle in her face was ended, her expression transformed. Her finger was held up as though to bid him listen. With her other hand she clutched the back of the couch. Her eyes were fixed upon the door. The little patch of wonderful colour faded from her cheeks.
“Listen!” she cried, with a note of terror in her voice. “That was the front door! Some one has come! Can't you hear them?”
Lessingham's hand stole suddenly to his pocket. She caught the glitter of something half withdrawn, and shrank back with a half-stifled moan.
“Not before you, dear,” he promised. “Please do not be afraid. If this is the end, leave me alone with Griffiths. I shall not hurt him. I shall not forget. And if by any chance,” he added, “this is to be our farewell, Philippa, you will remember that I love you as the flowers of the world love their sun. Courage!”
The door facing them was opened.
“Captain Griffiths,” Mills announced.
Through the open door they caught a vision of two other soldiers and Inspector Fisher. Griffiths came into the room alone, however, and waited until the door was closed before he spoke. He carried himself as awkwardly as ever, but his long, lean face seemed to have taken to itself a new expression. He had the air of a man indulging in some strange pleasure.
“Lady Cranston,” he said, “I am very sorry to intrude, but my visit here is official.”
“What is it?” she asked hoarsely.
“I have received confirmatory evidence in the matter of which I spoke to you this afternoon,” he went on. “I am sorry to disturb you at such an hour, but it is my duty to arrest this man on a charge of espionage.”
Lessingham to all appearance remained unmoved.
“A most objectionable word,” he remarked.
“A most villainous profession,” Captain Griffiths retorted. “Thank heaven that in this country we are learning the art of dealing with its disciples.”
“This is all a hideous mistake,” Philippa declared feverishly. “I assure you that Mr. Lessingham has visited my father's house, that he was well-known to me years ago.”
“As the Baron Maderstrom! What arguments he has used, Lady Cranston, to induce you to accept him here under his new identity, I do not know, but the facts are very clear.”
“He seems quite convinced, doesn't he?” Lessingham remarked, turning to Philippa. “And as I gather that a portion of the British Army, assisted by the local constabulary, is waiting for me outside, perhaps I had better humour him.”
“It would be as well, sir,” Captain Griffiths assented grimly. “I am glad to find you in the humour for jesting.”
Lessingham turned once more to Philippa. This time his tone was more serious.
“Lady Cranston,” he begged, “won't you please leave us?”
“No!” she answered hysterically. “I know why you want me to, and I won't go! You have done no harm, and nothing shall happen to you. I will not leave the room, and you shall not—”
His gesture of appeal coincided with the sob in her throat. She broke down in her speech, and Captain Griffiths moved a step nearer.
“If you have any weapon in your possession, sir,” he said, “you had better hand it over to me.”
“Well, do you know,” Lessingham replied, “I scarcely see the necessity. One thing I will promise you,” he added, with a sudden flash in his eyes, “a single step nearer—a single step, mind—and you shall have as much of my weapon as will keep you quiet for the rest of your life. Remember that so long as you are reasonable I do not threaten you. Help me to persuade Lady Cranston to leave us.”
Captain Griffiths was out of his depths. He was not a coward, but he had no hankering after death, and there was death in Lessingham's threat and in the flash of his eyes. While he hesitated, there was a knock upon the door. Mills came silently in. He carried a telegram upon a salver.
“For you, sir,” he announced, addressing Captain Griffiths. “An orderly has just brought it down.”
Griffiths looked at the pink envelope and frowned. He tore it open, however, without a word. As he read, his long, upper teeth closed in upon his lip. So he stood there until two little drops of blood appeared.
Then he turned to Mills.
“There is no answer,” he said.
The man bowed and left the room. He walked slowly and he looked back from the doorway. It was scarcely possible for even so perfectly trained a servant to escape from the atmosphere of tragedy.
“Something tells me,” Lessingham remarked coolly, as soon as the door was closed, “that that message concerns me.”
The Commandant made no immediate reply. He straightened out the telegram and read it once more under the lamplight, as though to be sure there was no possible mistake. Then he folded it up and placed it in his waistcoat pocket.
“The notion of your arrest, sir,” he said to Lessingham harshly, “is apparently distasteful to some one at headquarters who has not digested my information. I am withdrawing my men for the present.”
“You're not going to arrest him?” Philippa cried.
“I am not,” Captain Griffiths answered. “But,” he added, turning to Lessingham, “this is only a respite. I have more evidence behind all that I have offered. You are Baron Bertram Maderstrom, a German spy, living here in a prohibited area under a false name. That I know, and that I shall prove to those who have interfered with me in the execution of my duty. This is not the end.”
He left the room without even a word or a salute to Philippa. Lessingham looked after him for a moment, thoughtfully. Then he shrugged his shoulders.
“I am quite sure that I do not like Captain Griffiths,” he declared. “There is no breeding about the fellow.”
Philippa, even for some moments after the departure of Captain Griffiths and his myrmidons, remained in a sort of nerveless trance. The crisis, with its bewildering denouement, had affected her curiously. Lessingham rose presently to his feet.
“I wonder,” he asked, “if I could have a whisky and soda?”
She stamped her foot at him in a little fit of hysterical passion.
“You're not natural!” she cried. “Whisky and soda!”
“Well, I don't know,” he protested mildly, helping himself from the table in the background. “I rather thought I was being particularly British. When in doubt, take a drink. That is Richard all the world over, you know.”
She broke into a little mirthless laugh.
“I shall begin to think that you are a poseur!” she exclaimed.
He crossed the room towards her.
“Perhaps I am, dear,” he confessed. “I want you just to sit up and lose that unnatural look. I am not really full of cheap bravado, but I am a philosopher. Something has happened to postpone—the end. Good luck to it, I say!”
He raised his tumbler to his lips and set it down empty. Philippa rose to her feet and walked restlessly to the window and back.
“I'll try and be reasonable too,” she promised, resuming her seat. “I was right, you see. Captain Griffiths has discovered everything. Can you tell me what possible reason any one in London could have had for interference?”
“I seem to have got a friend up there without knowing it, don't I?” he observed.
“This is aging me terribly,” Philippa declared, throwing herself back into her seat. “All my life I have hated mysteries. Here I am face to face with two absolutely insoluble ones. Captain Griffiths has assured me that there is here in Dreymarsh something of sufficient importance to account for the presence of a foreign spy. You have confirmed it. I have been torturing my brain about that for the last twenty-four hours. Now there happens something more inexplicable still. You are arrested, and you are not arrested. Your identity is known, and Captain Griffiths is forbidden to do his duty.”
“It seems puzzling, does it not?” Lessingham agreed. “I shouldn't worry about the first, but this last little episode takes some explaining.”
“If anything further happens this evening, I think I shall go mad,” Philippa sighed.
“And something is going to happen,” Lessingham declared, rising to his feet. “Did you hear that?”
Above even the roar of the wind they heard the brazen report of a gun from almost underneath the window. The room was suddenly lightened by a single vivid flash.
“A mortar!” Lessingham exclaimed. “And that was a rocket, unless I'm mistaken.”
“The signal for the lifeboat!” Philippa announced. “I wonder if we can see anything.”
She hastened towards the window, but paused at the abrupt opening of the door. Nora burst in, followed more sedately by Helen.
“Mummy, there's a wreck!” the former cried in excitement. “I heard something an hour ago, and I got up, and I've been sitting by the window, watching. I saw the lifeboat go out, and they're signalling now for the other one.”
“It's quite true, Philippa,” Helen declared. “We're going to try and fight our way down to the beach.”
“I'll go, too,” Lessingham decided. “Perhaps I may be of use.”
“We'll all go,” Philippa agreed. “Wait while I get my things on. What is it, Mills?” she added, as the door opened and the latter presented himself.
“There is a trawler on the rocks just off the breakwater, your ladyship,” he announced. “They have just sent up from the beach to know if we can take some of the crew in. They are landing them as well as they can on the line.”
“Of course we can,” was the prompt reply. “Tell them to send as many as they want to. We will find room for them, somehow. I'll go upstairs and see about the fires. You'll all come back?” she added, turning around.
“We will all come back,” Lessingham promised.
They fought their way down to the beach. At first the storm completely deafened all sound. The lanterns, waved here and there by unseen hands, seemed part of some ghostly tableau, of which the only background was the raging of the storm. Then suddenly, with a startling hiss, another rocket clove its way through the darkness. They had an instantaneous but brilliant view of all that was happening,—saw the trawler lying on its side, apparently only a few yards from the shore, saw the line stretched to the beach, on which, even at that moment, a man was being drawn ashore, licked by the spray, his strained face and wind-tossed hair clearly visible. Then all was darkness again more complete than ever. They struggled down on to the shingle, where the little cluster of fishermen were hard at work with the line. Almost the first person they ran across was Jimmy Dumble. He was standing on the edge of the breakwater with a great lantern in his hand, superintending the line, and, as they drew near, Lessingham, who was a little in advance, could hear his voice above the storm. He was shouting towards the wreck, his hand to his mouth.
“Send the master over next, you lubbers, or we'll cut the line. Do you hear?”
There was no reply or, if there was, it was drowned in the wind. Lessingham gripped the fisherman by the arm.
“Whom do you mean by 'master'?” he demanded. Dumble scarcely glanced at his interlocutor.
“Why, Sir Henry Cranston, to be sure,” was the agitated answer. “These lubbers of sea hands are all coming off first, and the line won't stand for more than another one or two,” he added, dropping his voice.
Then the thrill of those few minutes' excitement unrolled itself into a great drama before Lessingham's eyes. Sir Henry was on that ship as near as any man might wish to be to death.
“'Ere's the next,” Jimmy muttered, as they turned the windlass vigorously. “Gosh, 'e's a heavy one, too!”
Then came a cry which sounded like a moan and above it the shrill fearful yell of a man who feels himself dropping out of the world's hearing. Lessingham raised the lantern which stood on the beach by Jimmy's side. The line had broken. The body of its suspended traveller had disappeared! And just then, strangely enough, for the first time for over an hour, the heavens opened in one great sheet of lightning, and they could see the figure of one man left on the ship, clinging desperately to the rigging.
“Tie the line around me,” Jimmy shouted. “Let her go. Get the other end on the windlass.”
They paid out the rope through their hands. Jimmy kicked off his boots and plunged into the cauldron. He swam barely a dozen strokes before he was caught on the top of an incoming wave, tossed about like a cork and flung back upon the beach, where he lay groaning. There was a little murmur amongst the fisherman, who rushed to lean over him.
“Swimming ain't no more use than trying to walk on the water,” one of them declared.
Lessingham raised the lantern which he was carrying, and flashed it around.
“Where are the young ladies?” he asked.
“Gone up to the house with two as we've just taken off the wreck,” some one informed him.
Lessingham stooped down. Willing hands helped him unfasten the cord from Jimmy's waist. He tore off his own coat and waistcoat and boots. Some helped, other sought to dissuade him, as he secured the line around his own waist.
“We've sent for more rockets,” one man shouted in his ear. “The man will be back in half an hour.”
Lessingham pushed them on one side. He stood on the edge of the beach and, borrowing a lantern, watched for his opportunity. Then suddenly he vanished. They looked after him. They could see nothing but the rope slipping past their feet, inch by inch. Sometimes it was stationary, sometimes it was drawn taut. The first great wave that came flung a yard or so of slack amongst them. Then, after the roar of its breaking had died away, they saw the rope suddenly tighten, and pass rapidly out, and the excitement began to thicken.
“That 'un didn't get him, anyway,” one of them muttered.
“He'll go through the next, with luck,” another declared hopefully.
Lessingham, fighting for his consciousness, deafened and half stunned by the roar of the waters about him, still felt the exhilaration of that great struggle. He looked once into seas which seemed to touch the clouds, drew himself stiff, and plunged into the depths of a mountain of foaming waters, whose summit seemed to him like one of those grotesque and nightmare-distorted efforts of the opium-eating brain. Then the roar sounded all behind him, and he knew that he was through the breakers. He swam to the side of the ship and clutched hold of a chain. It was Sir Henry's out-stretched hand which pulled him on to the deck.
“My God, that was a swim!” the latter declared, as he pulled his rescuer up, not in the least recognising him. “Let's have the end of that cord, quick! So!” he went on, paying it out through his fingers until the end of the rope appeared. “You'd better get your breath, young man, and then over you go. I'll follow.”
“I'm damned if I do!” was the vigorous reply. “You start off while I get my breath.”
They were suddenly half drowned with a shower of spray. Sir Henry held Lessingham in a grip of iron, or he would have been swept overboard.
“Get one arm through the chains, man,” he shouted. “My God!” he added, peering through the gloom. “Lessingham!”
“Well, don't stop to worry about that,” was the fierce reply. “Let's get on with our job.”
Sir Henry threw off his oilskins and his underneath coat.
“Follow me when they wave the lantern twice,” he directed. “If we either of us get the knock—well, thanks!”
Lessingham felt the grip of Sir Henry's hand as he passed him and went overboard into the darkness. Then, with one arm through the chains, he drew towards him by means of his heel the coat which Sir Henry had thrown upon the deck. Gradually it came within reach of his disengaged hand. He seized it, shook it out, and dived eagerly into the breast pocket. There were several small articles which he threw ruthlessly away, and then a square packet, wrapped in oilcloth, which bent to his fingers. Another breaking wave threw him on his back. One arm was still through the chain, the other gripped what some illuminating instinct had already convinced him was the chart! As soon as he had recovered his breath, a grim effort of humour parted his lips. He lay there for a moment and laughed till the spray, this time with a rush of green water underneath, very nearly swept him from his place.
They were waving a lantern on the beach when he struggled again to his feet.
He slipped the little packet down his clothes next to his skin, and groped about to find the end of the line which Sir Henry and he had fastened to a staple below the chains. Then he drew a long breath, gripped the rope and shouted. A second or two later he was back in the cauldron.
As they pulled him on to the beach, he had but one idea. Whatever happened, he must not lose consciousness. The packet was still there against the calf of his leg. It must be his own hands which removed his clothes. It seemed to him that those few bronzed faces, those half a dozen rude lanterns, had become magnified and multiplied a hundredfold. It was an army of blue-jerseyed fishermen which patted him on the back and welcomed him, lanterns like the stars flashing everywhere around. He set his teeth and fought against the buzzing in his ears. He tried to speak, and his voice sounded like a weak, far away whisper.
“I am all right,” he kept on saying.
Then he felt himself leaning on two brawny arms. His feet followed the mesmeric influence of their movement. Was he going into the clouds, he wondered? They stopped to open a gate, the gate leading to the gardens of Mainsail Haul. How did he get there? He had no idea. More movements of his feet, and then unexpected warmth. He looked around him. There were voices. He listened. The one voice? The one face bending over his, her eyes wet with tears, her whispers an incoherent stream of broken words. Then the warmth seemed to come back to his veins. He sat up and found himself on the couch in the library, the rain dripping from him in little pools, and he knew that he had succeeded. He had not fainted.
“I am all right,” he repeated. “What a mess I am making!”
The voices around him were still a little tangled, but the hand which held a steaming tumbler to his lips was Philippa's.
“Drink it all,” she begged.
He felt the tears come into his eyes, felt the warm blood streaming through his body, felt a little wet patch at the back of the calf of his leg, and the hand which set down the empty tumbler was almost steady.
“There's a hot bath ready,” Philippa told him; “some dry clothes, and a bedroom with a fire in. Do let Mills show you the way.”
He rose at once, prepared to follow her. His feet were not quite so steady as he would have wished, but he made a very presentable show. Mills, with a little apology, held out his arm. Philippa walked by his other side.
“As soon as you have finished your bath and got into some dry clothes,” Philippa whispered, “please ring, or send Mills to let us know.”
He was even able to smile at her.
“I am quite all right,” he assured her once more.
Philippa, unusually early on the following morning, glanced at the empty breakfast table with a little air of disappointment, and rang the bell.
“Mills,” she enquired, “is no one down?”
“Sir Henry is, I believe, on the beach, your ladyship,” the man answered, “and Miss Helen and Miss Nora are with him.”
“And Mr. Lessingham?”
“Mr. Lessingham, your ladyship,” Mills continued, looking carefully behind him as though to be sure that the door was closed, “has disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” Philippa repeated. “What do you mean, Mills?”
“I left Mr. Lessingham last night, your ladyship,” Mills explained, “in a suit of the master's clothes and apparently preparing for bed—I should say this morning, as it was probably about two o'clock. I called him at half past eight, as desired, and found the room empty. The bed had not been slept in.”
“Was there no note or message?” Philippa asked incredulously.
“Nothing, your ladyship. One of the maid servants believes that she heard the front door open at five o'clock this morning.”
“Ring up the hotel,” Philippa instructed, “and see if he is there.”
Mills departed to execute his commission. Philippa stood looking out of the window, across the lawn and shrubbery and down on to the beach. There was still a heavy sea, but it was merely the swell from the day before. The wind had dropped, and the sun was shining brilliantly. Sir Henry, Helen, and Nora were strolling about the beach as though searching for something. About fifty yards out, the wrecked trawler was lying completely on its side, with the end of one funnel visible. Scattered groups of the villagers were examining it from the sands. In due course Mills returned.
“The hotel people know nothing of Mr. Lessingham, your ladyship, beyond the fact that he did not return last night. They received a message from Hill's Garage, however, about half an hour ago, to say that their mechanic had driven Mr. Lessingham early this morning to Norwich, where he had caught the mail train to London, The boy was to say that Mr. Lessingham would be back in a day or so.”
Philippa pushed open the windows and made her way down towards the beach. She leaned over the rail of the promenade and waved her hand to the others, who clambered up the shingle to meet her.
“Scarcely seen you yet, my dear, have I?” Sir Henry observed.
He stooped and kissed her forehead, a salute which she suffered without response. Helen pointed to the wreck.
“It doesn't seem possible, does it,” she said, “that men's lives should have been lost in that little space. Two men were drowned, they say, through the breaking of the rope. They recovered the bodies this morning.”
“Everything else seems to have been washed on shore except my coat,” Sir Henry grumbled. “I was down here at daylight, looking for it.”
“Your coat!” Philippa repeated scornfully. “Fancy thinking of that, when you only just escaped with your life!”
“But to tell you the truth, my dear,” Sir Henry explained, “my pocketbook and papers of some value were in the pocket of that coat. I can't think how I came to forget them. I think it was the surprise of seeing that fellow Lessingham crawl on to the wreck looking like a drowned rat. Jove, what a pluck he must have!”
“The fishermen can talk of nothing else,” Nora put in excitedly. “Mummy, it was simply splendid! Helen and I had gone up with two of the rescued men, but I got back just in time to see them fasten the rope round his waist and watch him plunge in.”
“How is he this morning?” Helen asked.
“Gone,” Philippa replied.
They all looked at her in surprise.
“Gone?” Sir Henry repeated. “What, back to the hotel, do you mean?”
“His bed has not been slept in,” Philippa told them. “He must have slipped away early this morning, gone to Hill's Garage, hired a car, and motored to Norwich. From there he went on to London. He has sent word that he will be back in a few days.”
“I hope to God he won't!” Sir Henry muttered.
Philippa swung round upon him.
“What do you mean by that?” she demanded. “Don't you want to thank him for saving your life?”
“My dear, I certainly do,” Sir Henry replied, “but just now—well, I am a little taken aback. Gone to London, eh? Tore away without warning in the middle of the night to London! And coming back, too—that's the strange part of it!”
One would think, from Sir Henry's expression, that he was finding food for much satisfaction in this recital of Lessingham's sudden disappearance.
“He is a wonderful fellow, this Lessingham,” he added thoughtfully. “He must have—yes, by God, he must have—In that storm, too!”
“If you could speak coherently, Henry,” Philippa observed, “I should like to say that I am exceedingly anxious to know why Mr. Lessingham has deserted us so precipitately.”
Sir Henry would have taken his wife's arm, but she avoided him. He shrugged his shoulders and plodded up the steep path by her side.
“The whole question of Lessingham is rather a problem,” he said. “Of course, you and Helen have seen very much more of him than I have. Isn't it true that people have begun to make curious remarks about him?”
“How did you know that, Henry?” Philippa demanded.
“Well, one hears things,” he replied. “I should gather, from what I heard, that his position here had become a little precarious. Hence his sudden disappearance.”
“But he is coming back again,” Philippa reminded her husband.
“Perhaps!”
Philippa signified her desire that her husband should remain a little behind with her. They walked side by side up the gravel path. Philippa kept her hands clasped behind her.
“To leave the subject of Mr. Lessingham for a time,” she began, “I feel very reluctant to ask for explanations of anything you do, but I must confess to a certain curiosity as to why I should find you lunching at the Canton with two very beautiful ladies, a few days ago, when you left here with Jimmy Dumble to fish for whiting; and also why you return here on a trawler which belongs to another part of the coast?”
Sir Henry made a grimace.
“I was beginning to wonder whether curiosity was dead,” he observed good-humouredly. “If you wouldn't mind giving me another—well, to be on the safe side let us say eight days—I think I shall be able to offer you an explanation which you will consider satisfactory.”
“Thank you,” Philippa rejoined, with cold surprise; “I see no reason why you should not answer such simple questions at once.”
Sir Henry sighed deprecatingly, and made another vain attempt to take his wife's arm.
“Philippa, be a little brick,” he begged. “I know I seem to have been playing the part of a fool just lately, but there has been a sort of reason for it.”
“What reason could there possibly be,” she demanded, “which you could not confide in me?”
He was silent for a moment. When he spoke again there was a new earnestness in his tone.
“Philippa,” he said, “I have been working for some time at a little scheme which isn't ripe to talk about yet, not even to you, but which may lead to something which I hope will alter your opinion. You couldn't see your way clear to trust me a little longer, could you?” he begged, with rather a plaintive gleam in his blue eyes. “It would make it so much easier for me to say no more but just have you sit tight.”
“I wonder,” she answered coldly, “if you realise how much I have suffered, sitting tight, as you call it, and waiting for you to do something!”
“My fishing excursions,” he went on desperately, “have not been altogether a matter of sport.”
“I know that quite well,” she replied. “You have been making that chart you promised your miserable fishermen. None of those things interest me, Henry. I fear—I am very much inclined to say that none of your doings interest me. Least of all,” she went on, her voice quivering with passion, “do I appreciate in the least these mysterious appeals for my patience. I have some common sense, Henry.”
“You're a suspicious little beast,” he told her.
“Suspicious!” she scoffed. “What a word to use from a man who goes off fishing for whiting, and is lunching at the Carlton, some days afterwards, with two ladies of extraordinary attractions!”
“That was a trifle awkward,” Sir Henry admitted, with a little burst of candour, “but it goes in with the rest, Philippa.”
“Then it can stay with the rest,” she retorted, “exactly where I have placed it in my mind. Please understand me. Your conduct for the last twelve months absolves me from any tie there may be between us. If this explanation that you promise comes—in time, and I feel like it, very well. Until it does, I am perfectly free, and you, as my husband, are non-existent. That is my reply, Henry, to your request for further indulgence.”
“Rather a foolish one, my dear,” he answered, patting her shoulder, “but then you are rather a child, aren't you?”
She swung away from him angrily.
“Don't touch me!” she exclaimed. “I mean every word of what I have said. As for my being a child—well, you may be sorry some day that you have persisted in treating me like one.”
Sir Henry paused for a moment, watching her disappearing figure. There was an unusual shade of trouble in his face. His love for and confidence in his wife had been so absolute that even her threats had seemed to him like little morsels of wounded vanity thrown to him out of the froth of her temper. Yet at that moment a darker thought crossed his mind. Lessingham, he realised, was not a rival, after all, to be despised. He was a man of courage and tact, even though Sir Henry, in his own mind, had labelled him as a fool. If indeed he were coming back to Dreymarsh, what could it be for? How much had Philippa known about him? He stood there for a few moments in indecision. A great impulse had come to him to break his pledge, to tell her the truth. Then he made his disturbed way into the breakfast room.
“Where's your mother, Nora?” he asked, as Helen took Philippa's place at the head of the table.
“She wants some coffee and toast sent up to her room.” Nora explained. “The wind made her giddy.”
Sir Henry breakfasted in silence, rang the bell, and ordered his car.
“You going away again, Daddy?” Nora asked.
“I am going to London this morning,” he replied, a little absently.
“To London?” Helen repeated. “Does Philippa know?”
“I haven't told her yet.”
Helen turned towards Nora.
“I wish you'd run up and see if your mother wants any more coffee, there's a dear,” she suggested.
Nora acquiesced at once. As soon as she had left the room, Helen leaned over and laid her hand upon Sir Henry's arm.
“Don't go to London, Henry,” she begged.
“But my dear Helen, I must,” he replied, a little curtly.
“I wouldn't if I were you,” she persisted. “You know, you've tried Philippa very high lately, and she is in an extremely emotional state. She is all worked up about last night, and I wouldn't leave her alone if I were you.”
Sir Henry's blue eyes seemed suddenly like points of steel as he leaned towards her.
“You think that she is in love with that fellow Lessingham?” he asked bluntly.
“No, I don't,” Helen replied, “but I think she is more furious with you than you believe. For months you have acted—well, how shall I say?”
“Oh, like a coward, if you like, or a fool. Go on.”
“She has asked for explanations to which she is perfectly entitled,” Helen continued, “and you have given her none. You have treated her like something between a doll and a child. Philippa is as good and sweet as any woman who ever lived, but hasn't it ever occurred to you that women are rather mysterious beings? They may sometimes do, out of a furious sense of being wrongly treated, out of a sort of aggravated pique, what they would never do for any other reason. If you must go, come back to-night, Henry. Come back, and if you are obstinate, and won't tell Philippa all that she has a right to know, tell her about that luncheon in town.”
Sir Henry frowned.
“It's all very well, you know, Helen,” he said, “but a woman ought to trust her husband.”
“I am your friend, remember,” Helen replied, “and upon my word, I couldn't trust and believe even in Dick, if he behaved as you have done for the last twelve months.”
Sir Henry made a grimace.
“Well, that settles it, I suppose, then,” he observed. “I'll have one more try and see what I can do with Philippa. Perhaps a hint of what's going on may satisfy her.”
He climbed the stairs, meeting Nora on her way down, and knocked at his wife's door. There was no reply. He tried the handle and found the door locked.
“Are you there, Philippa?” he asked.
“Yes!” she replied coldly.
“I am going to London this morning. Can I have a few words with you first?”
“No!”
Sir Henry was a little taken aback.
“Don't be silly, Philippa,” he persisted. “I may be away for four or five days.”
There was no answer. Sir Henry suddenly remembered another entrance from a newly added bathroom. He availed himself of it and found Philippa seated in an easy-chair, calmly progressing with her breakfast. She raised her eyebrows at his entrance.
“These are my apartments,” she reminded him.
“Don't be a little fool,” he exclaimed impatiently.
Philippa deliberately buttered herself a piece of toast, picked up her book, and became at once immersed in it.
“You don't wish to talk to me, then?” he demanded.
“I do not,” she agreed. “You have had all the opportunities which any man should need, of explaining certain matters to me. My curiosity in them has ended; also my interest—in you. You say you are going to London. Very well. Pray do not hurry home on my account.”
Sir Henry, as he turned to leave the room, made the common mistake of a man arguing with a woman—he attempted to have the last word.
“Perhaps I am better out of the way, eh?”
“Perhaps so,” Philippa assented sweetly.