"Well, then, look here, Tommy," said Mr. Freshfield, with engaging familiarity, "the vicar must jolly well not be told. See? I hear from all those girls what a trump you are."
Under this pressure, Tommy yielded. But to the surprise of all, Millie declined it altogether.
"If you are sure Uncle Edmund would not like it, I shall not do it," she said simply. "I am always doing what he doesn't like unintentionally, but I won't do it on purpose."
She quietly went indoors to old Mrs. Dow, whose dignity and good sense had attracted her. This was a nature she could understand, a woman who thought no household work beneath her. Mrs. Dow, flattered, offered to show her the dairy. She had made no doubt that so small and pale a thing was town-bred, and was soon filled with astonishment at the knowledge and capacity displayed by the girl. Alfred, coming in, found them discussing the rival methods of African and English farms with much vigour. He came to ask Millie to go and look at some new plantations which, just now, were his particular delight. But as soon as they were out of hearing, he turned to her as if seizing a chance, and said:
"Should you be angry if I ask whether there's anything between your cousin and young Freshfield?"
"I'm not angry," said Millie; "but I know nothing about it. I can't tell you anything."
He took off his cap to run his fingers through his curls, which was a habit Millie had seen her cousins mimic.
"I had a mind to ask you to warn her; think she'd take it?" he asked. "Warn her that he's not in earnest; he's just playing. She's raw and doesn't see over-many young men. But I know for a fact that he's engaged to a girl with a bit o' money."
"Then why does he flirt with Gwen?"
"From something he let drop—something I heard him say—I think he has a bit of a grudge against the vicar. Thinks vicar looks down on him. Would like to put a spoke in his wheel."
Melicent made a small sound of dismay. "What a cad!" she said.
"That's what I think."
"It shows my uncle to have been right in holding a low opinion of him," was the contemptuous verdict.
"Eh, but you hit straight!" he returned, in admiration. "Only, if he'd been better treated the cur wouldn't bite."
They had no chance to say more, for two of the girls, all shyness now wholly cast aside, came charging down the path, and with shrieks warned them to make a dash for home.
Melicent was left in great discomfort. She had knowledge which she could not tell what to do with. She felt, rather than knew, that to warn Gwen would be worse than futile; especially now, when her refusal to play hide-and-seek had irritated all the girls against her, as well as Tommy, whose conscience was sore, and who consequently was for once downright ill-tempered.
Melicent had a dreary walk home. She would have been utterly discouraged but for the fact that she was to see the Helstons again on Monday; and some chance there must be that day for her to tell her friends all that was in her heart.
Life at the Vicarage was too aimless. She had one hundred pounds of her very own, and she was determined somehow to make this yield her two years' good schooling.
"And I, so young then, was not sullen. SoonI used to get up early, just to sitAnd watch the morning quicken in the grey,And hear the silence open like a flower,Leaf after leaf—and stroke with listless handThe woodbine through the window."—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
Melicent's little bedroom was her sole refuge; and this her aunt, in her petty tyranny, denied her as often as she could. It was her theory that solitude was bad for girls. She liked them to be always herded together, under the eye of Tommy or one of their parents. Melicent must work, write, read, in the constant babble and racket of the schoolroom. The first time she found her niece curled up in the window-seat of her own room with a book, she swooped upon her with her sweetest smile, to see what the volume was. On discovering it to be "Alison's History of Europe," she shifted her attack from the reading to the spot where it took place. It was a draughty window; dear Melicent had better go into the warm schoolroom.
Melicent felt her tongue tingle to resent this aimless autocracy. The window of her little room was dear to her. It overlooked the grey stable-yard, with the glowing copper of autumn beeches, the dazzling gold of birches, peeping over the further wall, flanked by black Scotch firs, whose trunks seemed to glow red-hot when the sun was in the west; and behind them lay the long purple ridge—Weary Ridge—that fenced Fransdale away from the world on the eastern side.
The window was quite close to one inner corner of the quadrangle formed by the house and outbuildings. At right angles to it was the warm, dry, stone barn, on the upper floor of which the old mare's fodder was stored. There was a door, the upper half of which had a wooden shutter, on a level with Melicent's casement; and running up to this, one of those exterior flights of stone steps, so common in Cleveshire stable-yards.
Melicent felt sure that it would not be difficult, if there were something to hold by, to swing herself out of the window, upon the rectangular slab of stone, which was only a little to the left. In this way she could get out, if ever her longing for a solitary ramble overcame her. The gate of the yard was locked at night, but she knew were the key hung; and at times her longing to be free and away on the magical moors was like a voice calling, or a force drawing her.
There were only four windows overlooking the stable-yard; one was on the landing, one was her own, and the remaining two belonged to the boys' room, which was of course, during term, untenanted.
On Thursday night, her head full of what Mr. Dow had said about Gwen, she found herself unable to sleep, and actually carried out her plan. There was a staple, securely fixed in the wall, just by her window. To this she firmly attached a bit of rope's end with a loop. Sitting on the sill, and jumping lightly to the left, she alighted on the verge of the stone slab, and, holding firmly to her rope, swung herself round, got her balance, and stood safely. It was easy to slip round the two dark sides of the yard and open the gate. When it was shut behind her, and she stood under the wall, in the grass of the church meadow, she felt herself swallowed up in the immensity of the night.
For an hour she wandered in the little wood, and sat by the side of the tributary beck, rushing noisily over its stony bed to join the trout stream below. Then, no longer restless, she quietly returned, accomplished, not without difficulty, her re-entry, and creeping into bed, was instantly asleep.
It so happened that she mentioned her exploit in the course of the following day to her cousins. They were all cross and out of sorts, their mother having forbidden a walk to Bensdale that day—Bensdale, where there awaited them an instalment of a new serial—Phyllis and the Duke having been duly united by an archbishop in the bonds of matrimony, amid a blaze of splendour and a pageant of ancestral halls.
"We might just as well live in a prison," grumbled Maddie.
"Prisons are not so easy to get out of," replied Melicent: "If you dislike it so, why don't you run away, and decline to come back unless they make terms?"
"Run away!" they all cried; and Gwen added, with a sneer: "Why don't you try, if it's so easy?"
Melicent answered in all good faith:
"Because I don't want to seem ungrateful. I know it was good of Uncle Edmund to ask me here. Only, you see, I don't fit, and I never shall, because I don't want to be the kind of person that Aunt Minna wants to make me. So I shall not stay; but I don't want to run away in the night, as though they ill-treated me."
The girls clamoured to know how she would set about running away, if it came to that; and she simply told them that she had been out the night before, and explained how she managed it. They listened with deep interest.
"Shall you tell them you went?" they asked.
"No; not unless I am asked. I don't think myself bound to account to them for every minute of my time."
"Yet you played the Pharisee yesterday, and would not join our game."
"I think that's different. To do what we were specially told not to do, in front of other people, is publicly to shame Uncle Edmund and Aunt Minna. Now my going for a breath of air was quite private; there was nobody to be scandalised."
"Well," observed Babs, "if you had been seen, half the village would have been scandalised."
"That's true," said Melicent thoughtfully. "I think I had better not do it any more; but it was very tempting, just to try."
On the following day, Gwen had neuralgia, and was in great pain.
"It's her bed," said Maddie, "it's in such a draught; and mine's no better. Mother says it's all right if we keep the window shut, but we can't sleep with the window shut, so we always get up and open it, after she has been in. I wonder we're not both blown away! I tell you what, Millie, I wish you'd let her sleep in your bed just for one night, to get rid of it. We don't want to tell mother, or she'll keep her indoors, and perhaps stop her from going to Clairvaulx on Monday."
"Why, of course I will!"
"Yes; but remember, we mustn't change till after mother has been round last thing."
"All right; Gwen had better slip in when the coast's clear," said Melicent unsuspiciously.
The change was duly effected, without detection, and next morning there was no doubt that Gwen's neuralgia was cured.
It was Sunday morning—a warm, sunny, October day, and the golden light streamed into the Vicarage breakfast-room. The girls were all assembled, waiting for breakfast, with newly brushed hair and clean frocks. All looked healthy, cheerful and glad. But the vicar's face, as he walked in, was in sharp contrast to the gay morning. More than the customary hush descended on his entrance.
"Melicent," he said, greeting nobody, "oblige me by taking your breakfast into the study. Eat it there, and wait till I come."
Melicent stood up, staring in surprise. "Why do you say this? What have I done?"
"What you have done cannot be so much as alluded to before your young cousins. Leave the room at once."
Melicent drew herself up. She looked round at all the furtively dropped eyes—at Gwen's cheeks, oddly suffused with sudden scarlet—then at her uncle.
"I have done nothing to deserve to be so spoken to," said she. "When you find out the truth, I hope you will apologise to me."
"We wish to hear nothing from you, Melicent. Go in silence."
Tommy behind the tea-tray, and her pupils seated round, were well-nigh paralysed with terror. What had been found out? Were they implicated? Would Melicent obey?
She took up her cup and plate, tossed back her hair, and walked out, white and speechless. The vicar shut the door, sat down in the dire silence, and began his breakfast. They all chewed their way through chunks of pork-pie in unbroken gloom.
When his daughters had filed away to learn their collects, their father betook himself to his study and the culprit.
Melicent had finished her breakfast, and stood by the window. He sat down at his table, and fixed his eyes upon her.
"Well," said he, "I suppose, before condemning you, it is only right to ask you what you have to say."
"I don't know what you mean," said Melicent. "I have nothing to say. I am waiting for you to explain why you treat me in this manner."
"Unfortunately," he said, "all is known. You will hardly deny that you got out of the window of your bedroom, when I happened to see you do it."
"I do not deny that I did," she returned quietly.
"Perhaps you will tell me why you did so?"
"It was partly that I wanted to see whether I could, and partly that I was restless. I am used to be out of doors a great deal more than Aunt Minna likes me to be."
"When I tell you, Melicent, that I know what happened last night, you should see how much worse you are making things by quibbling like this."
"Last night! But—"
"We are speaking of last night."
"I am not. The only time I got out of the window was on Thursday night."
"Do you seriously mean to tell me that you did not get out of the window last night?"
"Certainly! I did not."
He sat staring; and in the pause that followed, enlightenment came to Melicent, and she wondered at her own blindness. Gwen had asked to sleep in her room, in order to get out of the window!
That being so, she could not clear herself without incriminating her cousin; and in a flash she saw that if she said Gwen and she had changed beds the previous night, the others would all deny it. Her mind, travelling with the speed that comes in moments of crisis, discerned the strength of the case against her. Even Tommy did not know of last night's escapade. Both she and Mrs. Cooper could say with confidence that all the girls were in their own beds at half-past ten on Saturday night. She wondered at herself for being deceived by the flimsy pretext of the toothache, when she thought how unlikely the story would sound.
The girls must deny everything. They had no other course. They had to go on living at home, and such a thing, if known, would make life impossible, and turn their prison into a veritable dungeon keep.
She, on the contrary, had no intention of remaining where she was. Her uncle had already a bad opinion of her. To allow it to grow worse seemed the only course in the dilemma so suddenly developed.
After long thought, her uncle spoke, in a gentler tone than he had ever used to her.
"Confession, Melicent," he said, "is the only possible way to lessen my extreme displeasure. Last night, or to be more correct, at two o'clock this morning, I heard a casement flapping in the wind. I got up, believing it to be the landing window, and left my room without a light, to shut it. I found it closed, and was on the point of pushing it open, to look out, and see whence the noise came, when a movement in the yard below caught my eye. Two people were seated, side by side, upon the stone steps near your window, the window of which was no doubt causing the disturbance. One was a man, the other was my niece. I saw that the man had his arm round your waist. His face I could not distinguish, but in the light of recent events, I consider myself justified in supposing it to have been Alfred Dow."
The girl's short, indignant laugh, naturally increased her uncle's idea of her shamelessness.
"I saw you"—he went on—"I saw you escort him to the gate, shut and lock it after him, return and scramble in, by means of a piece of rope, into your bedroom. I stood there, broad awake, and saw all this. After hearing my story, will you persist in your denial?"
"No," she said, after a minute's thought; "I do not persist in it."
"You admit," he said, with righteous indignation blazing under the even surface of his voice, "that you did all this?"
"No," said the girl; "I do not admit it. If you saw it, there is no question of my denying it or admitting it Either the thing is certain, or you have made a great mistake."
"Why not confess openly, Melicent?"
"I have nothing to confess."
"This is mere quibbling," he said, still temperately. "But what you have said I consider tantamount to a confession. One thing, and one alone, you can do to lessen your guilt. Give me the name of the man who has violated my home, insulted my office and degraded my niece."
She was silent
"You will not?"
"I cannot."
"You mean you will not."
"I mean that I cannot."
He almost wished that she were a boy, and could be caned.
"I believe you to be wilful and undisciplined," he said, almost appealingly, "but I am most anxious not to judge you too harshly, Melicent, for I know what your bringing up has been. I will not make too much of what I hope and pray may have been merely a wild, rebellious prank. If you will tell me frankly what you did, and the man's name—"
"I can't do either."
"Then, Melicent, most unwillingly, I must require of you that you remain in the schoolroom while we are at church. Think things over, and by the time we return, God grant you may be of a better mind. Come with me, please."
Melicent followed him without a word.
"She said sometimes: 'Aurora, have you doneYour task this morning? Have you read that book?And are you ready for the crochet here?'As if she said: 'I know there's something wrong;I know I have not ground you down enoughTo flatten and bake you to a wholesome crustFor household uses and proprieties.'"—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
The schoolroom was empty. Tommy and her brood were preparing to go to church. The vicar laid a little book upon the table and addressed a few sincere words to the girl. Narrow he was, prejudiced be might be; but a man who, however mistaken, is quite sincere, has always some power. Melicent felt that, had she been to blame, she might have repented at his bidding.
It was not expected that the party from the Grange would be at Fransdale Church that day. Mrs. Cooper was inly disconcerted when she saw that they were there. She found their inquiries after Melicent, when service was over, difficult to parry.
"A littledisagreement?" she murmured, smiling, meaningly, and speaking as though taking Mrs. Helston into special confidence—always her manner when she was not telling the truth—"just a little question of discipline between dear Melicent and her uncle. We must hope for the best; but it needs much patience and kindness to eradicate the results of such training."
Mrs. Helston, though furious, realised that no indignation on her part would help Melicent's cause. She longed to ask questions, but knew she had no right to interfere in the matter at all. Mrs. Cooper, smiling and chattering, got away with adroitness on which she prided herself, with no questions asked as to whether Melicent would be allowed to go to the picnic next day.
Meanwhile Tommy and her pupils were in a terrible panic. They dared not guess what had been found out. Gwen, on considering the matter, could not believe it possible that it could be her last night's escapade, because, if her father had by some mysterious means seen anything, she felt sure that he would have taken the culprit in the act. By no means a student of character, she forgot that he never took action in the heat of the moment. They all crept home from church with shaken nerves, fully expecting that the storm would burst on their return. But nothing happened. Whatever Melicent's offence, she had certainly not incriminated them.
They were all so burdened by guilty consciences that, had it been their custom to be natural before their parents, anybody could have seen that something was wrong. However there was nothing unusual, at the Vicarage, in embarrassed, sulky silence, or monosyllabic answers: so all passed off without disturbance, and they were free to stare at one another in the seclusion of the schoolroom, from which the captive was now removed, and ask what could possibly be "up."
Mr. and Mrs. Cooper were meanwhile at a loss. It was certain that they could not keep their niece among their own children, but what other course was feasible? They could not afford to support her at school. She was too young to be turned out to get her own living, not to mention the probability of her disgracing herself and them, wherever they placed her.
Her aunt went in during the afternoon, and tried her blandishments, but was confronted with a steady, cold assertion that the girl had nothing to say.
That night, Melicent slept in another room, with a screwed-down window and a locked door; and in the solitude she broke down utterly, and wept pitifully for her dead father. She yearned for the presence of somebody she knew—somebody that believed in her; she even thought, with a gust of something like tenderness, of Bert Mestaer himself.
But in the morning, when her aunt brought her breakfast, she was self-contained and proud as ever. She heard the waggonette from the Grange drive up to the door, in dazzling sunshine. From her window she saw it pass out of the gate, after a twenty minute's delay caused by Mrs. Cooper's not being ready—saw Maddie, Gwen and Theo, in the new blouses she had made and hats which she had trimmed.
They had not been long gone before the key turned in the lock and Tommy crept in. She looked flurried and eager.
"Oh, my dear," she gasped, "at last I have a moment! Do tell me what has occurred!"
Melicent laid down her book and looked up, "Has Uncle Edmund not told you anything?"
"Not anything!"
"Then of course I can't."
"Really, Melicent, you are an impracticable girl! How can we help you if we don't know the scrape you're in?"
"You can't help me."
"Oh, very well!" huffily. "I came to let you out, and say that of course Babs and Bee and I should not tell, and you might just as well come and sit in the schoolroom with us."
"You are very kind, Miss Lathom, but I shall stay here. I don't cheat."
"I can guess what it is," observed Tommy, with an air of penetration. "Your uncle has found out that you got out of window!"
There was no reply.
"I thought so!" said Tommy triumphantly. "I was sure of it! That would be just the thing to make him angry. But I must say, I think they're punishing you too severely, considering you were shut up all yesterday. However, cheer up, my dear! These things blow over, you know."
"You're very kind," said Melicent wearily, "but I think you'd better go away. I feel sure they told you not to come and talk to me, didn't they?"
Tommy grew red.
"You're an ungrateful little cat," she said. "I come here trying to be kind to you, and I daresay you'll go and tell tales of me!"
"You ought to know by now that I don't tell tales," said Melicent; "but as I can hardly ever speak the truth here without telling tales, the only thing I can do is to hold my tongue."
Miss Lathom flounced out of the room in a rage.
Meanwhile, the Vicarage party met with a very cool reception when they arrived at Clairvaulx.
Lady Burmester clearly showed her displeasure.
"Surely you are too hard upon a girlish fault," she said stiffly. "If Melicent was in punishment all yesterday, you might have relented to-day, when you knew how anxious we all are to have her."
"If you knew the gravity of my niece's fault," said the vicar, in his most distant manner, "you would, I believe, think differently. She has proved herself altogether an unfit companion for innocent girls, and must, I fear, be sent to some institution where the moral sense may be developed by constant supervision."
"Good Lord!" said Sir Joseph.
The six elders were standing together, the girls having strayed off in company with Lancelot and Mr. Freshfield.
Mrs. Helston's cheeks were crimson.
"Will you think we ask too much if we beg to be told what she has done?" she inquired, in a voice that shook.
"Our claim to know is a strong one," put in her husband, "as, if Mr. Mayne consents, we should like to undertake the child's education, and give her a home. We hoped that, as you have plenty of daughters, and we have none, you would perhaps spare her to us, who have grown attached to her. But we ought to be in a position to know what tendencies in her to guard against."
"I presume," said the vicar, "that you would rather that we did not speak before Sir Joseph and Lady Burmester."
Her ladyship laid her hand on her husband's arm, and led him away across the grass.
"If I were a girl," she said, "the very sight of Mrs. Cooper would make me wicked. She makes my flesh creep. I wish somebody would take out her ear-rings."
"You are an ungenerous, ill-regulated woman," said Sir Joseph placidly. "I daresay they've had a sweet time of it, trying to break in Harry's precious African filly. He hints at her having had a past already. I expect she's a bit of a fire-brand in a peaceful parsonage."
The four others strolled in an opposite direction. The vicar, with real reluctance, and with brevity, described what he had seen Melicent do.
"I do not believe it!" cried Brenda Helston hotly.
"Brenda!" cried her husband, while Mrs. Cooper grew pink, and trembled visibly.
"It was one of the maids masquerading," went on Brenda, unheeding. "The very idea of Melicent doing such a thing is outrageous! One of the maids used her window to get out by! I daresay she sleeps soundly."
The vicar had had his moment in which to collect himself.
"Unfortunately," he said, "my niece does not deny it."
"——Many, I believe there are,Who live a life of virtuous decency,Men who can hear the Decalogue, and feelNo self-reproach; who of the moral lawEstablished in the land where they abideAre strict observers; and not negligentIn acts of love to those with whom they dwell,Their kindred and the children of their blood.Praise be to such, and to their slumbers, peace!—But of the poor man ask, the abject poor;Go and demand of him, if there be here,In this cold abstinence from evil deeds;And these inevitable charities,Wherewith to satisfy the human soul."—WORDSWORTH.
It was getting dusk—too dusk to see to read the "History of Europe"; and Melicent, who had scarcely slept all night, stretched herself upon her bed and fell asleep. The flash of a light in her eyes awoke her, and starting up, she saw her uncle come in with a lamp, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Helston.
She gave a low, thrilling cry, like that of a babe who sees its mother. She had not expected this. The vicar had never seen her look as she did when running to her friends' arms. He set down the lamp and left them together.
It was long, however, before they could persuade her to tell them anything. They were obliged to make her clearly understand the serious nature of the charge against her. They showed how essential it was to remove such a stigma. They guessed at once that she was shielding someone; and after much urgent entreaty, she was induced to tell them all, and leave the upshot to their discretion.
"I am sure," she said, when she had related the whole story, "that it would not be the least use to tell them the truth; for two reasons. First, they would think the bare idea of Gwen's behaving like that simply ridiculous. Aunt Minna thinks they are all babies, and talks to them as if they could hardly understand what she says; and they mimic her afterwards. Second, because all the girls would deny it. It would be my word against Maddie and Gwen. Which do you think they would take?"
"There would be somebody else," observed Harry Helston firmly. "Young Freshfield. I know Sir Joseph has been dissatisfied lately, and he will have about settled his hash if any of this gets about. The thing is—how to trap him? There will be no more chance for Gwen to use that window, I take it?"
"He would still go on writing to her at Bensdale under cover to Tommy, I expect—but oh, you must not say anything about it! You don't know how awful it would be! Tommy would be sent away; they would lead the most weary life—wear chains on their ankles, I should think."
"But, dear," said Brenda gently, "what is to happen if this is allowed to go on? Gwen does not know what she is doing. Suppose she came to harm, what should we feel, who had never warned them of her danger? Now I think of it, I noticed little things between her and that man once or twice to-day. But she is so unformed, and—to me—so unattractive, that I never thought of such a thing."
"She's rather a handsome girl," said her husband.
And now Melicent exhausted her eloquence to implore them not to say anything.
"You see, it will only make them worse," she said. "If they were trusted, they would be all right; if they were given credit for good sense and good feeling, they would be quite different. But they are treated like fools, who would be knaves if they were allowed their own way, and it just makes them treacherous—they must have an outlet! It's only for adventure and frolic that Gwen did it—it's the only thing they have to think about—they're not allowed to read or think, or do anything but just vegetate; how can such a life content them? And now, if this is known, they will be all the more shut in and tied up, and crushed down, and I shouldn't wonder if it drove them to do something really wrong."
This view of the subject constituted a real difficulty. Revelation would merely tighten the prison-bars, and would so increase the very evil it was intended to remove. A more perplexing problem had never been offered to the Helstons.
They put it resolutely away from them for a time, in order to tell Melicent about their own plans for her future. They told her that they hoped to receive, in about a fortnight's time, Carol Mayne's formal permission to take charge of her for the present.
They had some private means, but did not consider themselves rich enough to justify them in adopting her entirely. In all respects, they thought it would be doing her a truer kindness to educate her with a view to making her independent. Harry Helston, artist and dreamer by temperament, was architect by profession. He had spent so much time in travelling the world, and absorbing the idea of all the masterpieces of his great profession, that his fortune was by no means made. It was perhaps a drawback to him professionally, that of him it might be said as of a certain statesman who "thought in continents," that he, Harry Helston, "thought in cathedrals." The ornamental suburban residence, with its nurseries chopped away in chunks to make the external elevation picturesque, was his pet abomination. He would do no work, where cheapness was to be the marring key-note. Simplicity and the best craftsmanship were his mottoes. His work lay in London, where he and his wife, after their travels, were about to take a flat. But he was also now determined to fulfil his youthful ambitions, and build for himself the house of his dreams in Fransdale itself.
Sir Joseph, who was a byword in the district for his stern refusal to sell or lease land for building purposes, had relented in his case; and the home of his imagination was to arise in a level meadow half-way down the Dale—a pleasure house for holiday hours—a final refuge for old age.
For the austere mystery of the North had made him as completely a captive as was Melicent herself.
The girl could hardly believe that she was to visit every year, in the company of those she loved best, the Dale which had gripped her fancy so powerfully. The Helstons were to rent, until their own house should be built, the tiny cottage upon which Melicent had looked down, when she sat upon Tod's Trush. The darkness of her misery was all changed into pure joy by the time her friends took leave.
Before Mr. Helston lay the formidable necessity of seeing Mr. Cooper. He was fairly perplexed. Should he speak, or not? He found himself wondering what advice Mr. Hall, of Ilberston, would be likely to give. But there was no time for reflection. He left his wife still with Melicent, and found himself in the study without having made up his mind as to his duty. His intention flickered to and fro like a candle in the wind. Was he shirking truth because it was disagreeable? Or was he contemplating an unwarrantable interference into another man's affairs? Was he justified in giving information which would result in deeper mismanagement of those unaccountable beings, young girls? Or if he stood aloof, was he guilty of Cain-like indifference to his brother's peril?
He sat down in more discomfort than he ever remembered to have suffered before. His indignation that Melicent should suffer under any kind of stigma made another powerful factor in his desires; and he did not know for how much he ought to let it weigh. As he looked at Mr. Cooper's cold, dark face, he was conscious of a desire to demand that, as it had been publicly announced that Melicent was in disgrace, so it should be publicly known that she was cleared. But he felt pretty sure of the difficulty there would be in establishing the truth. He saw a distinct likeness between the vicar and his niece; he had seen the same hard glint in Melicent's eye when she was on the defensive. The Coopers gave him the idea of being always on the defensive—on the watch to parry and frustrate any attempts upon their confidence or their intimacy.
"I shall be glad to hear that you have elicited any information that may tend to Melicent's rehabilitation," said the vicar, in tones wholly devoid of expectancy.
Helston found himself speaking without having in the least determined what he meant to say.
"Melicent has told us what she knows," he said. "We think it clears her. But we respect her motive for silence, and are inclined to think that no good end could be served by telling you what she told us."
The vicar looked stony. "But I think I must ask to hear it," he said.
"It was told us in confidence. Melicent is—is content to feel that we know it. I—I am not sure that I am entitled to let it go further."
The cold, blue eye still fixed him.
"You convey to me the idea that Melicent is shielding someone else. Is this so?"
Helston twirled his soft hat idly in his hands, and looked at the ground.
"I do not feel at liberty to say," he said at length.
"If that be so, the person shielded must be a member of my household," said the vicar, in a voice which sounded to Helston like the crackling of ice in a hard frost. "I suppose you can scarcely be venturing to insinuate that it was one of my daughters?"
"I insinuate nothing; I do not know who it was. It was not Melicent."
"Far be it from me," said Mr. Cooper, after reflection, "to traduce or speak ill of my sister's child; but if she has resorted to the desperate expedient of trying to fasten blame upon one of my poor girls, I must reluctantly lower still further my opinion of her. I fear you and Mrs. Helston are altogether deceived in her."
"We are willing to take the risk," said Helston immediately, "and to relieve you of the charge of her to-morrow, if you are willing." His eyes twinkled as he added: "We have no daughters to be contaminated."
"Had it not been so, I could not in honour have allowed you to undertake the charge of her. I am quite frank with you. I tell you plainly that I will in no case keep her among my own girls; and I do not know how to meet the cost of maintaining her elsewhere. If you, knowing what you know, are willing to take her, my feelings can but be those of gratitude and relief."
"Then we may consider it settled!" cried Helston, rising.
Perhaps his haste betrayed how he was yearning to get away, for a look of suspicion crossed the vicar's face.
"Do you not think I have a right to ask you to be more explicit?" he said.
His visitor looked down, and it was after an interval that he slowly said:
"You have a right. I ask you to waive it. What I have heard rests wholly upon Melicent's word, which, I understand, you do not trust."
The vicar could not say that he did.
"You would not take her word against that of your own children?"
"Certainly not!"
"That is natural enough; but it convinces me that there is no more to be said."
The vicar looked down, thinking deeply. Then abruptly, and perhaps with the deliberate idea of taking the other by surprise, he demanded:
"She would not tell you the name of the man?"
"There is no man in the world to whom she would accord a clandestine meeting."
"Perhaps you forget that I was an eye-witness, Mr. Helston."
"Would you swear in a court of law that the girl whom you saw was Melicent?"
The vicar hesitated.
"Why," asked Helston, "did you not at once enter her room, and convince yourself?"
"I never act in haste; besides, there is no doubt. She wore Melicent's hat—a kind of broad, flat cap which she wears in the garden; and she entered her room! Mr. Helston, I fear I must ask you to be explicit. You have said too much, or not enough. What is it you suggest?"
"I suggest nothing, for I know nothing, except the fact, of which I am sure, that the girl you saw was not Melicent. Had you gone to her room, and confronted her then and there, you would have known more than I do at this moment."
"I think you are bound to tell me what my niece has told you," said the vicar; and a new uneasiness was in his voice.
"No; I am not bound to, and I have no wish to. But there is a further question, as to whether I ought to. I—I can't speak without inflicting great pain, which I am very loath to do. But I can't get away from the feeling that perhaps I ought not to allow you to go on in ignorance of the true state of affairs. Perhaps I have said enough to put you on your guard. Let us leave it so."
"No;" the answer came at once and firmly. "We cannot leave it so. You must tell me the tale which my niece has poured into your ears, in simple justice to me and mine. If Melicent has slandered her cousins, she should be punished."
"Equally, if they have allowed her to suffer for them, they should be punished," said Helston, stung at last. "May I ask if you have made any sort of inquiry among them?"
"Decidedly not. I have not allowed them even to know the way this misguided girl has behaved."
Helston hardly knew whether most to pity or be enraged at such blindness. He turned away and walked to the window. The girls were just passing through the garden on their way from feeding their rabbits. They all glanced in a furtive way at the study windows, and Gwendolen met his eyes fully. She averted her face in confusion, and hurried on. The visitor turned abruptly to the vicar and took leave. He could not trust himself to say another word. Mr. Cooper accompanied him to the hall door, and they found themselves suddenly face to face with Gwen, coming in.
Her father, in a marked way, encircled her with his arm, as if to show his confidence. The girl was trembling, scarlet, deeply moved. She turned upon Helston.
"Then she held her tongue?" she gulped out. "She has not split, even now?"
Helston's face lit up.
"Does that touch you, Miss Cooper?" he asked kindly.
"It does. I'm most things that are bad, but I simply can't be such a sneak as this. Father! It was I, not Melicent, whom you saw in the yard! And you may thrash me, or starve me, or do what you like with me, but I will never tell you the name of the man who was with me! Oh, Melicent isn't the only person in this house with any sense of honour! She's—she's—taught me a lesson! You tell her from me, Mr. Helston, that if I'm ever any good in this world, it'll be all owing to her."
The vicar had not said one word. He stood where he was, the arm which his daughter had shaken off rigid against his side. His face grew bloodless, his expression a marvellous exhibition of self-control.
It seemed to Helston kindest to say good-bye and leave the house hurriedly. His admiration for Gwendolen was great; after what Melicent had told him, he could partly guess the effort it needed to make her confession—a confession which must expose not only her own wrong-doing, but the whole working of a long system of deceit; for the matter could now hardly be allowed to rest where it stood.
Contact with Melicent's honesty and courage had stimulated this girl to show herself honest and courageous. He felt very hopeful of her future, though he himself winced at the ordeal now before her.
"Day of days! Unmarked it rose,In whose hours we were to meet;And forgotten passed. Who knows,Was earth cold, or sunny, sweet,At the coming of your feet?"—MRS. MEYNELL.
As her visitor departed, Brenda Helston turned from the door and let herself sink into an easy-chair by the fire with a gratified laugh.
Five years had not changed her, except that her soft, abundant hair was whiter. No wrinkles marred her smooth pink cheeks, her eyes were still bright, though her forty-fifth birthday stared her in the face.
The room in which she sat—the drawing-room of her flat in Collis Square—was an unusual room. Harry Helston strongly held the theory that Londoners must live inside their walls. The pictures which hung on these were all originals and all good. A line of bookshelves encircled the room like a dado, the top forming a shelf for the reception of rare bits of pottery, brass,cloisonnéand curios. In one corner the line of books was broken for the admission of a large secretaire. With this exception, and that of a roomy writing-table near the fire, the room contained no furniture but chairs of every variety of comfort, and small solid tables, holding no ornaments, but convenient for the reception of cups, books or papers. There were flowers in every place where they could be put without risk of being knocked over.
The visitor who had just left the room had gone unwillingly, but gladdened by a cordial invitation to return later. His hostess thought of him with pleasure and satisfaction. He was immensely improved by his term of foreign service, and it was gratifying that his first visit on reaching London should have been to her. She had always liked Lance Burmester; and the fact of his having proved himself so emphatically all that a Special Correspondent ought to be—of his having chosen to have a profession, and to work hard at it, being, as he was, the eldest son of a wealthy man—had by no means lessened her good opinion.
She rang the bell, gave some orders to the maid who answered it, and was still in reverie—perhaps building castles in the air—when her husband came in, chuckling.
He held an evening paper in his hand.
"Brenda, here's something that will amuse you," he said, stooping to kiss her affectionately.
She looked up eagerly.
"I have news for you, Harry! Guess who has been here to-day!"
"I'll guess afterwards, but first I must read you this. It's about Melicent. Won't she be furious? She did think she had dodged the halfpenny interviewer." He unfolded his copy of theHauberkand read aloud:
"'THE LADY ARCHITECT
"'The decision of Miss Lutwyche, three years ago, to complete her course of architectural training by acquiring a practical knowledge of building, caused a considerable flutter of the dove-cotes at the Polytechnic when she applied personally to be enrolled. There was no rule, however, by which she could be excluded, and she has been ever since, the only lady among six hundred male students.
"'Having completed her course, she is now taking steps to set up for herself, and is to begin by superintending the erection of two labourers cottages from her own designs, upon the Cleveshire estates of Sir Joseph Burmester. Miss Lutwyche has an intimate knowledge of the tastes and requirements of the natives of the district in question, and it is understood that she is strongly of opinion that the question of the housing of the poor will ultimately be successfully tackled by women and not by men.
"'Simplicity, durability and convenience are the keynotes of her work. It is known that she had much to do with the erection of the wonderful house which her adopted father, Mr. Helston, F.R.I.B.A., has just completed in Fransdale, which has been described as the most imaginative specimen of domestic architecture produced by an Englishman during the last three hundred years. It has been seriously suggested that the house in question may revolutionise the idea of the English country house, and that the day of gables, barge-boards, rough-casting and timbering is over.'"
They looked at each other in mischievous amusement.
"Shewillbe angry," said Brenda; and, after a moment's silence, burst out laughing.
"Think I'd better not show it?"
"Oh, you must let her see it; because, if you don't, someone else will—inevitably."
Helston leaned back in his chair, with reminiscent eyes fixed on the glowing fire.
"You and I were right, Brenda, when we believed her to be above the average: she ought to go far."
"Never for a moment have I doubted it," his wife answered. "She has power! Her smallness, her silence, her strength—it is a wonderful combination. Many a time I have thanked God for her."
"I fancy," said Harry reflectively, "that Mrs. Cooper to this day believes that we shall repent, and that it was Melicent who corrupted her entire household, girls, maids, governess, all in the space of two or three weeks."
"If she does, the vicar knows better," returned his wife, "and is glad enough for Gwen and Theo to come to us whenever they can."
"I believe we made one mistake," thoughtfully pursued the man. "I have often wished that I had not complied with the vicar's written request that the Burmesters should be told nothing. I don't want them to think there is anything to conceal, as far as Millie is concerned. You see, Mayne doesn't like the circumstances of her leaving Africa talked about, and Cooper doesn't like the circumstances of her leaving the Vicarage talked about. At this rate, it seems to me that she may become a Woman with a Past, if we don't take care."
"Oh, pooh," said Brenda; "don't make a fuss about nothing. Everybody knows what the Coopers are."
As she spoke, a gay voice, a dog's bark, a scuffle, was heard without; and the girl they both loved whisked in, waving a roll of vellum in her hand.
"Behold," said she, "the result of my labours! A certificate about the size of an ordinary table-cloth, signed by about a dozen men whom nobody ever heard of. If that doesn't convince people of my competency nothing ever will!"
She tossed the document in Brenda's lap, and sat down on the fender-stool, a little out of breath.
She had not changed greatly since her early teens; but she had improved. She was still small, though not too small; still pale, but with the clear, rose pallor of a Malmaison carnation. Her soft, fair hair was becomingly arranged, her movements graceful, her manner decidedly good.
"It's going to snow," cried she. "March is going out like a lion! Pater, I hope the wind won't nip our crocuses."
"A Cleveshire crocus laughs at frost," said Helston. "But will a Cleveshire maiden laugh at an impertinent newspaper paragraph?"
"Paragraph! You don't tell me! Where? After all my trouble!" She stopped short, indignant, her cheeks suddenly rose-colour. "Well, I don't care," she concluded defiantly. "Ne'er a reporter of them all shall flout me out of my humour."
"Shall I read it?"
"Certainly!"
Helston did so, not without relish. When he had done, the girl made a sound of disdain.
"Charming!" she said. "But what does it matter? Does anybody whose opinion I value form that opinion upon theHauberk?"
"If you will start doing what nobody has done before,—"
"Well, somebody must start," said Melicent composedly, "or nobody would ever get anywhere. After all, these things matter so little. People very soon forget; and one is not nearly so important as one believes."
"Your common-sense and self-possession are getting quite odious, miss," said Brenda languidly.
Melicent was thoughtful.
"Very likely it is true what they say—that a business woman has got to sacrifice something. But I always was practical, you know."
"So little do we know ourselves," gasped Helston.
"Why? Am I not practical?"
"Dreamer, idealist, dweller in Utopia, believer in the Fourth dimension and in the sum of the really important things that nobody can classify—go to!" said he gravely. "Tell that to the reporters, but not to the unfortunate pater who had to hold you in when designing a house! 'Bridling the Tweed with a curb o' stane' would have just been an interval for light refreshment."
Melicent, her arms about her knees, laughed blithely.
"For sheer power of vituperation, you are hard to beat," she said. "Well, mater, what have you been doing all day?"
"When you have done railing at each other, you shall hear. I have news of a really exciting character, but I shall not tell it until there is a suitable demand."
Melicent whirled round and clutched her.
"What has happened? Speak instantly! Something nice? Something to take out the taste of that par.?"
"I have heard news and received a visitor: who but Lance Burmester?"
She had no reason to complain of lack of interest in her hearers. They rained questions upon her.
"He is in town for one night only," said she. "Goes down to Ilbersdale to-morrow; so I implored him to come back and dine. He demurred, on the ground that he had two friends with him, whom he could not desert One is a Captain Brooke, a friend picked up in Africa. The other is—guess, Melicent!"
There was a peculiar intonation in her voice.
Melicent looked up quickly, and met a mischievous look; and suddenly colour flooded the girl's face. Quite unexpectedly to herself, she did what she was never wont to do—she blushed; and she felt as though the blush covered her like a garment to the very feet.
The sensation made her furious. Why should she blush? At the memory of a period of her life now so incredibly remote that it seemed like a previous incarnation? She sometimes felt, in the infrequent moments when she recalled her amatory experiences, as though she had merely dreamed the savagery, the bestiality, of her African days; as though she had first awakened to life when her uncle drove her out upon the high heathery Nab that overlooked the moorlands.
Brenda's hint evoked a rushing stream of unpleasant, importunate memories. Was it possible that Bert had bridged the five years' silence? That he was still in pursuit—still claiming the promise made in a half-delirious moment?
Her inmost being sickened. It could not be! Not now, on the very threshold of her career—now that she had grown used to happiness and love and England. Disgust was so acute that she grew actually faint.
With a craving for air she sprang from her low seat by the fire, stood up, drew a long breath, flung back her head. What useless panic! She was free: no promise could be said to bind her! Why should she fear?
The shock, the overwhelming spasm of apprehension, passed away so quickly that the Helstons had barely time to wonder what was amiss when she took calmly on her lips the name that haunted her.
"Do you really mean that it is Bert Mestaer?"
Brenda laughed.
"Bert Mestaer! What a notion! You would hardly expect Mr. Burmester to make friends with him! Oh, no; it is someone whom you will really like to see—surely you can guess!"
"Mr. Mayne?"
"Of course!"
The relief, the reaction, were extraordinary. Melicent's head swam. With more demonstration of feeling than was usual to her, she clapped her hands.
"Oh, that is good! I am pleased! What a pity he did not get back in time for my twenty-first birthday last spring! I wonder whether he will think that I have changed!"
"Your wonder will be speedily set at rest. As it appeared that Lance was inseparable from his friends, and that this was his only night, I told him to bring them both back to dinner at eight. I sent Elizabeth for fish and cream, and I wish you would go into the dining-room on your way upstairs, and see that the flowers on the table are all right."
"Well!" cried Melicent, and heaved a sigh. "Things are happening to-night in the bosom of this peaceful family. Pater, just put away that odious newspaper in the table drawer, so that nobody can see it. To think of Mr. Mayne being in England! Why didn't he write and say he was coming?"
"I fancy he only quite suddenly found that he could get away. You see, all his plans are changed. He is to be Bishop of Pretoria."
"Bishop! Oh, lucky Pretoria!"
Melicent paused again, her eyes full of memories. She saw an open grave, a long black procession of uncouth people winding down the rough fields, past the Kaffir huts—the sun blazing down on Carol Mayne's sharp-cut, ascetic face.
"I am the Resurrection and the Life. He that believeth on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."
The thought of what her heart had been then, torn with hatred, racked with grief, savage, sullen, lonely, arose in sharp contrast with the thought of all that had been since, all that she had come to understand, believe and hope, in these full years of growth that lay between.
Moved by a rare impulse, she stooped and tenderly kissed Brenda's forehead, before going to inspect the flowers upon the dinner-table.
"What man would risk the danger twice,Nor quake from head to heel?Whom would not one such test suffice?"—A. C. SWINBURNE.
Not Melicent herself looked forward to the moment of meeting with more eagerness than did the Bishop elect of Pretoria. He had been through many anxieties during his first months of guardianship; and his gratitude to the Helstons was immense. It was most natural that he should look forward with interest to a sight of the girl he had saved.
She was not present in the drawing-room when the three men arrived, but the cordiality of the Helstons' reception was delightful. Lance was grateful to them for including his friend, a big, silent man, who had been with much difficulty persuaded to come. Brenda assured him that six was a far better number than five, and made him welcome with sincerity which could not fail to please.
"But he wouldn't have come at all; he would have held out obstinately," said Lance gaily, "but for one thing, one mysterious reason, which will transpire later. You needn't blush, Brooke."
"Haven't the least intention of it; don't play the fool, Burmester. I suppose it was natural for an outsider to feel that he was intruding on a party of friends who were meeting after long separation."
"Just as well for you to become acquainted now, for you'll be sure to meet at Fransdale," said Lance easily. "I suppose you are going up for Easter, Mrs. Helston, and I am taking Brooke and the Bishop to Ilbersdale."
As he spoke, the door opened, and all three men turned to watch Melicent as she came in.
She had rather more colour than usual, and her expression was strangely arresting. Her evening gown was white, and trailed over the soft carpet with a delicate rustling. She walked straight up to Carol Mayne, her eyes shining, her two hands outstretched: and he caught them in his, meeting her glance with the piercing, deep-set eyes she remembered so well of old.
"Well!" he cried. "So this is you! How thankful I ought to be that my responsibilities are over! Ah, well, I don't think I should have known you, if I had met you in the street, but I am beginning to recognise the eyes, the brow! The smile is new. I never saw that in Africa; did I, Miss Lutwyche?"
She looked up gravely, but with a certain kindled enthusiasm, far more impressive than a girl's laughter.
"Miss Lutwyche!" she said reproachfully. "I shall not allow that. As for you, you are not a bit changed. I should know you anywhere—Bond Street, or darkest Africa."
"What about me, Miss Lutwyche?" cried Lance pleadingly.
"You have improved," she said, with an air of critical appraisement. "You are not nearly so—lady-like as you used to be."
They all laughed.
"Are you still a crack shot, as you used to be?" he cried.
"I shoot every autumn. I have improved," she replied demurely.
When Captain Brooke had been presented, they all sat down, and the talk hung fire a little.
"It is too big," said Melicent, with a little sigh. "There is so much to say, we don't know where to begin. Mr. Mayne, I know, is thinking of me with my hair in a pig-tail, and a calico frock, slouching across the yard with a copper bucket; and Mr. Burmester is thinking of a time when I was locked up in disgrace in the Vicarage schoolroom, and not allowed to go to a picnic; and Captain Brooke is thinking how disagreeable it is of people to have reminiscences he cannot share."
Captain Brooke smiled a little.
"I am thinking that it is hard to fancy you in a calico dress with a copper bucket," he said.
Melicent was suddenly grave.
"People who have always lived in England don't realise," she said absently. "We dwell in a kind of Garden of Eden here, and nobody appreciates it. They should go to some place such as I was brought up in, and learn what thorns and briars lie outside the garden gates."
"I saw a good deal of it during the campaign," the soldier answered. "A good deal of outer darkness, I mean."
"Does England seem good after it?" she asked.
"Exactly what you say. Like the Garden of Eden."
At the moment dinner was announced, and they went into the dining-room.
"I suppose," said Melicent, who was seated next Mr. Mayne, "that it is of no use to ask you after old acquaintance? It is so long since you left Slabbert's Poort?"
"Well," he answered, "I have kept up with one or two of the folks there. But the general scatter, when the war broke out, made great changes, though, as you know, the place was never in the line of march. Marten Brandt still owns the Vierkleur."
"I often meant to ask you in my letters what became of Otis?"
"The great Amurrica? It is reported that he made himself notorious in the Boer Irish brigade, but later on—after the capture of Kroonstadt—he turned up on the British side, got a commission in a scallywag corps, how I know not, and is quite a great person now."
"Not sure he ain't a colonel; I knocked up against the beast," said Lance. "Remember hearing about Gouverneur J. Otis, eh Brooke? Remember the story of Sal's Drift and the stampede of the gun mules?"
The two men laughed, as at a common memory.
"Worst of him was, the brute was so witty," said Lance. "I believe all our officers knew he was not to be trusted, but they made no end of a fuss with him. Daresay he'll be turning up in England soon, in some swell house that's been lent as a convalescent home, and flirt with all the titled girls as bold as you please."
"Let's see; he was the chap who got his head punched by Millie's Boer champion, wasn't he?" asked Mr. Helston.
His wife gave him a warning glance. Young Burmester was present, and he knew nothing of the girl's vicissitudes, nor was it desirable that he should. Besides, there was a stranger among them. She could see, by the way he instantly began to speak, that Mayne was as desirous as she to turn the subject; but Lance had caught the word.
"Hallo, Miss Lutwyche! had you begun breaking heads and hearts, even before you came over?" he asked gaily, across the table.
"Boers don't trouble about hearts," said the girl, with composure. "We were a pastoral people, and never did anything interesting. It is you from whom we expect tales of prowess. Did you never escape in a goods train, or scale a prison wall, or—"
"As to that," said Lance, "I've a magnificent yarn, all ready for telling, only this beggar"—indicating his friend, who sat next to him and opposite Millie—"tried, before he would come here to-night, to get me to promise not to tell."
Melicent had wholly succeeded in turning away the subject. The silent captain reddened, looked morose, and was heard to murmur that Burmester was a rotter.
"I hope you were not so rash as to make the promise in question?" cried Brenda.
"Well, do you know, as far as to-night goes, I'm afraid I did!" owned Lance.
"You did," said Brooke distinctly.
"But the fact of it is," said Lance lightly, "that he saved my life. Ever heard it said that if you save a man's life, he's sure to do you a bad turn? Look out for me, Brooke."
"I'll look out for myself," was the unamiable reply.
"But it's only if you save from drowning that the proverb applies," said the host.
"Well, this was drowning. River suddenly rose while the column was crossing; and the last men got washed away. But this is spoiling my yarn. I'll keep it for when Brooke isn't about."
"I told you I should spoil sport if I came," said Brooke grimly.
Melicent looked at him with some amusement
He was a fair man, severely tanned by exposure. He was clean-shaven, and the salient feature of his face was his large, finely-cut, strong yet delicate mouth: a mouth which lifted his otherwise rough-hewn face up to a different level, and made it full of possibilities. With such a mouth a man might be a poet, a soldier, a statesman; but whatever he was, that he would thoroughly be. He was also shy, to an extent that was amusing in such a Hercules. When he spoke, he muttered: and he hardly ever raised his eyes.
The gentlemen did not linger over their wine. Mayne was anxious to talk to Melicent of her future, and Lancelot was astonished at himself for the anxiety he felt to return to the drawing-room. He remembered a day when he had seen a slip of a girl seated on Tod's Trush, and how he had said to Helston: "One is conscious of a personality." He was vividly conscious of it now. It was the "indefinable something" that Melicent possessed. She never spoke much, but always gave the fascinating impression of vast reserves behind, of a boundless store from which she could give more, and always more.
He was vexed with Mrs. Helston for engaging him at some length in talk, which she did advisedly, to allow Carol to talk to the girl.
It was with interest and satisfaction that Mayne listened to her, and found out how soon she hoped to be self-supporting, and how close were the ties that bound her to her friends. There seemed no cloud upon her horizon; life, which had begun so stormily seemed, like many a rainy English morn, to be breaking out into a cloudless sky.
"But there is one thing I want to ask you about," said Melicent presently. "I have one wrinkle among my rose-leaves. It is only a little thing, yet at times I fear it I have a constant dread that ... you know who ... may turn up. I expect it is very silly of me. Men soon forget these things; and in so long a time, he is sure to have forgotten. But I have wished to see you, to make sure. I didn't like to write about it. I can't help a dreadful kind of feeling rushing over me at times, that he..." she looked round. Nobody was in hearing but Captain Brooke, idly turning over music on the piano; she dropped her voice—"that Bert Mestaer—may still think he has a claim on me."
There was a silence, which the chat of the group by the fire did not seem to break. Captain Brooke earnestly studied the song he was reading.
"That idea—the idea that Mestaer might still think of you—would not be pleasant to you?" asked Mayne.
"Pleasant?" the word was a gasp. "But you see the life that is mine now," she said tremulously. "You remember the house of bondage—the darkness and shadow of death."
"Bert Mestaer wanted to loose your bonds."
"Oh, no! Only to bind me to another master!"
"I think you wrong him there, Melicent."
She turned towards him, put out one hand, and laid it on his.
"It was you who saved me; you delivered my soul from the snare of the hunter," she said. "If Mestaer let me go, you were the only man that could have persuaded him. You know it; we need not discuss it. What I want you to tell me is, whether you have seen or heard anything of him; whether he is alive or dead."
"He was certainly alive when I left Africa. He did splendidly during the war. I believe he is considered the finest scout in the British army. I feel sure I may take it upon myself to say, on his behalf, that he will never make himself obnoxious to you. You need be in no fear of him."
"He has forgotten all that nonsense about me?"
"I don't exactly know what you mean by nonsense, Millie. If you mean his love for you, I don't think I can truly say that he has forgotten."