"I wish we could hold on for ever," he jerked out, his voice sunk to a note that made her quail.
The force in his hands seemed to be communicating itself to her. She was dominated, absorbed, had forgotten everything but him. He never spoke, but she became aware that he wished her to look at him. She tore away her gaze from the sight of their gripped hands, raised her head, searched his face with pleading eyes.
Their looks met and mingled.
A dull beat was hammering through her senses. Was it his heart or hers, or the pulse of Time itself?
Their faces drew nearer, nearer to each other.
Something was going to happen—something that should explain all life and blaze the answer to every secret ... that was the thought she had as their lips met.
Was it he who bent to her, or was the impulse that drew them mutual?
The blinding sweetness of that kiss was unmarred by any thought of treachery. The world and Lance with it, had simply gone out in the ecstasy of the light that flooded her.
* * * * * * * *
It was over. The world that had stood at gaze like Joshua's moon on Ajalon, swung on once more her dance among the stars.
Melicent stood there, in the fair June evening, at the side of the man who had kissed her. The wind came softly over meadows deep in buttercups, and bent the white lacy sprays of delicate wild parsley which fringed them. High in the blue sky the lark stormed heaven's gate with song.
"Let me go!" she cried, with a stifled sob. "I must go! Don't you see that I must?"
It was a moment before he replied; but when he did, his voice was perfectly composed and cool.
"As soon as you feel the pressure of my hands relax, slip yours downwards," he said.
A moment later she was free.
"There! Oh, why couldn't you do that before?" she cried passionately, as she made a frantic onslaught upon the crumbling side of the pit.
She was up and away in a minute, her white frock soaked, her feet caked in pale yellow mud. She ran across the grass, never stopping to look behind, and met the bewildered Alfred just at the edge of the plantation.
"Hurry to the Captain," she gasped. "The water has started to run and he can't stop it. I must go home and change!"
Her throat was so dry she could hardly speak. In feverish, stumbling haste she mounted her bicycle, and rode down the bumpy grass slope at a dangerous pace. Mercifully the gate into the lane stood wide, and she was through it and back at the cottage in a couple of minutes.
Alfred found his master up to the knees in what looked like weak tea with cream in it. Between them they managed to re-fix the tap, connect the long hose, and set the liquid flowing into Melicent's fish-pond.
Emerging from the pit, the Captain looked at his legs—he was wearing a cool, summer suit of light grey flannel.
"The wash-tub, Alfred, is the place for me," he said resignedly.
"Yessir!" said Alfred, who had prudently removed his own smart leg-wear before venturing to the rescue.
"Joseph was better off than I am, Alfred. His pit was dry—there was no water in it."
"Yessir! Miss Lutwyche, she was drenched, sir."
"I hope she won't take cold," said the Captain, with polite solicitude; "but fortunately the day is warm. Get on your boots, Alfred. I'll let this thing run all night, and perhaps there'll be something to show for it in the morning. There must have been something in the pipe, and the force of the water dislodged it, I suppose."
Melicent, lying upon her bed with hidden face, heard the cart go past the cottage. The beat of the hoofs was not interrupted; they passed by without stopping; and the tension of her strained nerves relaxed.
"Escape me?Never—Beloved!While I am I and you are you,So long as the world contains us both,Me the loving and you the loth,While the one eludes must the other pursue."—ROBERT BROWNING.
The delicate veil of sapphire which June calls night was drawn across the splendour of the sky; and it was like the device of a beauty who wears a transparent gauze to enhance the glitter of her diamonds.
In the north still lingered a supernal glow, the hint of the day that has no night.
The fragrance of unseen cottage gardens was all about Hubert as he walked slowly up the lane from the inn. There was no moon. The glimmer of starshine made mysterious radiance, yet left a soft, velvet dusk, without the clean-cut lights and shades of moonlight.
He had bathed, changed, dined. Now he was coming to ascertain the result of his daring experiment. Had he succeeded, as he hoped, in showing Melicent her own heart?
He had no remorse. The thing was necessary; it had to be done. Could he stand by and see a proud girl wreck three lives?
It was very dark among the lilacs by the cottage gate. Peering through the thick boughs, he started; for there was no lamplight, either in the parlour or the room above it. And he believed that she had fled from him.
This gave a jolt to the pleasing elation of his spirits. Walking on the grass, he approached the open door without noise. Then he halted.
The casements of the parlour were wide open to the summer night. On the window-sill lay a girl's abased head, the fair hair just touched by the star-glimmer, the face hidden in her arms.
She lay very still, and was apparently not weeping. He went up to her, resisting with firmness his great desire to lay his hand upon her hair. For the first time in years he spoke the name that stood for all his ambitions.
"Millie," he said softly.
She sat up quickly. He hardly knew what expression he had expected to see; but the indignation of her eyes was a surprise.
"Oh, I wonder how you dare come near me!" she cried.
"I won't come near you. I'll stay outside here," he said hastily, with a bewildered sense of having lost the thread of the situation.
"You certainly won't come in at my invitation."
"No, of course," he said meekly, his head fairly spinning with wonder; "but I thought you would see I had to come and beg your pardon."
She stood up, withdrawing herself into the room, as if she meant to escape.
"There are things that are unpardonable," she said coldly.
He contemplated this idea. "Do you mean that you never can forgive me?"
"Perhaps I mean that I never can forgive myself," she said chokingly. "You—you have humbled my pride to the dust. Lance ... trusts me, and I have ... How am I to face him?"
"Then you mean to stick to that—to go on with your engagement—to marry Lancelot—in spite of what happened to-day?" he asked hastily.
She stood up straight in a long, loose, pale-coloured gown, half lost, half seen in the faint light. The glint of the stars swam in her eyes.
"May I ask what else you expected?"
He was at a loss. Ready enough had he been to console her, to tell her that Fate was too strong for her, to urge her to correct her mistake before it was too late. Her present attitude stunned him, and bereft him of words. The dashing of the high hopes with which he had come bred in him a sudden sense of being wronged.
"Millie," he expostulated, "do you know what you said—up there when the water rushed out upon you? You called out: 'Bert! Bert!'"
There was silence. He saw her start.
"Did I say that?" she said slowly. "Then it is I who have betrayed myself, and you—are not so much to blame as I thought. I can believe that it excited you a little to find that I knew you, and made you think of old times." She hesitated, seeming at a loss what to say or do; her embarrassment was obvious, her distress manifest. Then, with sudden determination, she came near the window again. "If that is true, I suppose I must forgive you," she said stiffly, "and we must both forget a mad moment."
He could hardly believe his ears. "Is that all you have to say?" he demanded harshly.
"The less we either of us say the better, surely, concerning such an affair."
The man drew in his breath sharply. "After all that has come and gone?" he panted.
"Captain Brooke, for a moment this afternoon I allowed myself and you to forget that I am engaged to your friend. I must remind you of it now."
"I wish to God that I had let him drown in the drift!" he flung out. "Or that I had drowned myself—!"
"I don't wish to be hard or unkind, but I cannot listen to you. I am going to close the window."
He inserted his shoulder, so that she could not close it. The expression of his eyes was such that she dare not face him.
"Answer me one question," he commanded brusquely. There was a growl in his voice that she knew of old as a storm-signal. "I have a right to ask it, and you ought to answer—youshallanswer! When I kissed you to-day ...was it against your will?"
Her expression made him feel as if he had slashed her across the face. Had she accepted defeat in that moment—said anything to appease the man's mounting wrath—he might have kept his head. But pain or insult had never the effect of softening Melicent, but only of stiffening her. His taunt stung her to real anger, and, in the midst of her stifled consciousness that she was fighting a losing battle, she clutched at her indignation as at a blade with which she might wound. She had moved towards the door with the intention of escape, but now she returned to the window.
"You think you have the right to ask me that?" she said, with the same ruthless arrogance that she might have used to him in Africa. "You say that to me—you, who hope to turn into something that people may take for an English gentleman! ... You did that this afternoon to get a hold over me! I know your threat! You needn't say it! You mean that, if I don't tell Lance, you will! ... And you suppose I care if you do, or what you do, or anything about you...!"
Before she had got so far, Bert had flung his leg over the sill and vaulted lightly into the room. He came quite close to her, but spoke quietly, under his breath, with an air of desperately holding himself in.
"All right!" he said. "You say you don't care, do you? Well, then, if you say so, I say you lie! You lie, do you hear me?"
"You had better go away before you grow unpardonable," said the girl coldly.
"I'll go when I've said what I'm going to say, and not before. I'm going to tell you the cold truth here and now. The Brooke farce is played out, we know each other, and you shall hear what I have to say!You—kissed—meto-day!—great God! do you suppose I don'tknowthat you did?—and you did it because—"
Slight things decide momentous issues. Even then an appeal, the smallest sign of surrender on the girl's part, would have brought him crouching to her feet. But she flung back her head, and looked him in the eyes to show how little she feared him; and she laughed.
That let loose the tempest. All in a moment he broke off his husky, difficult words. All in a moment he had her by the waist, crushing her to him as if holding her against an army. There was no love in the fierce hold, only the determination that she should hear the cruel words that he spoke into her ear:
"Because you love me! Because you love me! Because you're mine—mine—mine!"
She disdained to struggle, as she disdained to plead. She made no effort to fling him off. Her silent, passive contempt brought him to himself in a flash.
The girl who, that golden afternoon had yielded to his spell, had weakened, had been as it were his to take, now lay like a lifeless thing in his ungentle hold. He realised what he had done.
When he let her go, she did, by an effort, stand alone. Her laugh of scorn was quenched. She lifted one hand to hide the quivering of her mouth, but did not move at once, perhaps because she feared to fall. He turned away from the still, silent, accusing figure with a kind of roar of helpless strength, of baffled will.
"The same, the same as ever," he said. "The woman's way! To make me feel a great, rough brute, when all the time it's you that are cruel. Yes! As cruel as a fiend."
To and fro he paced, to and fro upon the floor; then, with sense of defeat in overwhelming bitterness, got to his knees at her feet.
He knew that his fatal moment of uncontrolled temper had undone all that the past weeks had gained so painfully and slowly. Beneath his shame was an undercurrent of conviction that he was right and she wrong. But what was right or justice in face of Melicent's inflexibility?
"I'm sorry. I'm a brute. But it's your fault. You know what you can do with me," he said chokingly.
"Get up!" said her exhausted voice. "Get up, do! Go away. You see you are ... impossible. I thought you had improved, but you see it's all ... just as bad as ever."
"Millie!"
"Don't touch me."
"You know I am not such a hound as to think I have any hold ... or to use it, if I had?"
"What does it matter to me?" She moved: he held a fold of her gown. "Are you going to detain me?" she asked. "Because if so, I shall call Mrs. Barrett. This is not love—oh, no, nor anything like it; it's simply your fixed determination to have your own way. I've always known it, all these years—that you were not beaten, that you meant to try again. Not for love of me, but simply because to conquer me is your fixed idea. And this afternoon you thought you had succeeded. Well, you haven't, that's all."
He got to his feet, utterly humbled, reduced to abject pleading:
"Millie, see me again! Don't let it end here! I've lost my head, and don't know what I am saying. Give me a chance to talk things out—"
"Never, never, never!" she shuddered, making for the door. There she turned upon him. "You are a savage! If you knew how I hate savagery! You are a Boer! If you knew how I hate the Boers! I'll marry a man who knows how to treat a woman, not one whose civilisation is only skin-deep." He took two maddened strides towards her. "Has that hurt you? Very well, then, you can kill me, you know. I wonder you don't."
He passed a hand over his hair like one pushing a veil from his eyes.
"I can tell you why I don't," he said, in tones that rapped out sharp as a rapier thrust. "It's because you're not worth it."
Almost before he had spoken, he had turned about, sprung from the window, and disappeared. The starshine glimmered in the silent room where a moment ago had been such storm and stress.
Melicent stood alone, in possession of the field. The suddenness of the withdrawal of the besieging forces took her breath. The Parthian shot, fired in the moment of flight, reached her heart and quivered there.
She gave a strangled low cry, as if physically hurt.
At last, it seemed, the long struggle was over. Not because Bert realised that she was out of reach, but because suddenly he had awoke from his dream to find her not worth fighting for.
She told herself that, whatever the means, the thing was done, and finally done now. There would be no more vehement assaults for her to dread.
Yet something unpleasantly like remorse was gnawing at her heart. She knew she had said things she did not mean; in the heat of battle she had caught up every missile....
Well, now it was over. Silence and solitude were profound. The air which had vibrated to Bert's rage and Bert's repentance was so still that the nightingale's song sounded too loud in her ears.
"All over!" she said aloud; and the words sounded strange and horrible.
"All over!" She crept upstairs to a sleepless night; but this of late had been no rare thing with her.
* * * * * * * *
In the early morning she went away to London, choosing a route to the station which should not take her past the inn.
And for weeks the grey walls of Lone Ash rose higher in their dignified beauty, unseen by the eyes of her for whom they were being raised, and whose genius had called them into being.
"Embrace me then, ye hills, and close me in;Now in the dear and open day I feelYour guardianship; I take it to my heart;'Tis like the solemn shelter of the night."—WORDSWORTH (The Recluse).
The wedding-day was fixed, and Melicent lived in an atmosphere of wedding presents and dressmakers.
Since herfiancé'sreturn she had altered noticeably, both in appearance and manner. She was paler than usual, large-eyed and languid; and she had grown strangely gentle and yielding. She deferred to Lancelot in everything; and since two people cannot possibly continue to kneel at each other's feet, and as Melicent persistently adopted the lowly posture formerly monopolised by her lover, he had, as a result, grown the least bit dictatorial.
Theoretically, of course, the change pleased him; but as a matter of fact, he had found his lady-love more interesting when she was remote and prickly. Her new meekness was purely passive; it did not make her more demonstrative. She submitted to be caressed, but it was always obvious that it was mere submission.
Brenda was very unhappy about her. She was sure that she was suffering mentally. She knew she did not sleep. However, girls just before marriage are often restless and unsettled, and there was nothing which she could definitely take notice of.
At the end of July the Fransdale Sports took place, an annual event of the highest local importance. They were held in a meadow near the head of the Dale, not far below the Vicarage. The meadow sloped violently, but the fact was accepted by the natives as part of an inexorable law of Nature. All fields sloped; you might as well quarrel with the grass for being green.
From early morning the little heathery tracks leading down from the Riggs were black with a crawling line of folks, descending Indian file by devious ways to the scene of action. Traps of all kinds, crowded with passengers, began to arrive, and to distribute themselves in all the neighbouring stable-yards, which were soon filled to overflowing.
Streams of fine plough-horses, yearlings, hunters and little fluffy foals, moved slowly along various radii to the centre. On the ground, the chief farmers' wives were preparing a "ham tea" of vast proportions in a large tent.
As the day wore on, the whole scene was alive with colour. Exhibits of butter, eggs, vegetables and fruit, were being solemnly appraised by business-like judges. There was a cackle of fowls, a cooing of doves, the outraged cries of lordly rams tethered to stakes and with coloured ribbons round their horns.
And the band! One of the visitors remarked that it was worth coming far, if only to see that band!
The musicians sat upon boards in the large hay-cart in which they had been conveyed to the festal scene, and from which the horses had been removed. Their broad and solid backs, in every hue of weather-stained fustian, formed a study for the eye of the humorously inclined.
Then, of course, there were cocoa-nut shies and gingerbread stalls, and a wheel of fortune. For this one day in the year the austere solitude of the moorland was broken through, and Fransdale was actually noisy and crowded.
Among the throng, which grew thicker as the day wore into afternoon, was a sprinkling of gentry, conspicuous among whom were the Burmesters. Sir Joseph took a genuine interest in all the exhibits, and gave many valuable prizes. There was naturally great interest among all the natives over Lancelot's engagement. Melicent was a most popular person, and glances of affectionate admiration followed her to-day.
She wore a white lace gown, with La France roses, and her white sunshade was lined with rose colour. Brenda thought she had never seen her look so pretty, nor so sad.
"The Ayres' party are here," said Lance, strolling up to where his mother stood, with Mrs. Helston and Melicent, watching the first heats of a race run off. "They've brought their tame crowd of convalescents with them."
"Did you know," said Lady Burmester, "that the Ayres' offered their house for a Convalescent Home for wounded officers? That will arouse enthusiasm, won't it, Lance? The people will cheer, if they know there are African heroes about."
"They exhausted their enthusiasm when Lance came home," smiled Brenda. "What a pity Captain Brooke is not here, then we should have all the African contingent."
"Oh," said Lance, "I forgot to tell you, Mrs. Helston, I have at last persuaded the obstinate old beggar to leave his beloved house to build itself for a few weeks, and to come up here for a bit of rest."
"Oh, well done!" said Brenda, with animation. "I should have been so sorry for him not to have been at the wedding."
"He won't promise that, even now. You know, I wanted him to be best man. He says weddings are not at all in his line. But when we get him here, perhaps you and Melicent can persuade him."
"He ought to be here pretty soon," said Lady Burmester. "He's coming in his motor, by road all the way, I believe, and he promised to try and arrive in time for the sports. I told him they were a sight he ought not to miss."
Melicent was possessed by a most remarkable sensation, as if she were drowning. Fortunately, for a few minutes nobody noticed her; and just as the waters were about to close over her head, they began to recede again, and she drew a deep breath and made a vehement effort to collect her thoughts.
But it was not possible. He was coming. Why, why, in wonder's name, had he changed his plainly expressed intention of keeping away?
She felt sure something must have happened to cause him to reconsider his decision. Had he come to the conclusion that it was right that Lance should know their story—hers and his? Had he resolved to tell it?
If so, they must have another tussle, he and she; for somehow she felt sure that he would do nothing without giving her fair warning.
Every nerve in her quivered at the thought of seeing him. The few short words in which he had expressed his newly-born contempt said themselves over and over in her mind continually. How would he look? What should she say? What would happen?
"They're judging the foals. Such funny little rats! Come and see them run round," said Lance's voice, close to her.
She looked up at him almost pitifully, as if searching his face for visible assurance of love. He was not looking at her, nor thinking much of her apparently. His visit to Russia had been a pleasant experience for a clever young fellow—he had had his fill of flattery and attention from the Englishcoterieat St. Petersburg. He was very fond of Millie, but the idea did cross his mind now and then that she hardly seemed conscious enough of the really fine match she was making. To-day, his attention was by no means hers. It was all concentrated upon the live stock.
She crossed the grass at his side, and stood by the rope enclosure, among the friendly faces of the Dalesmen. There was Alfred Dow, still unmarried, handsome as ever, if more solid; by his side, talking to him, the demure figure of her cousin Barbara. So even the Vicarage was beginning to march with the times! There was the farmer who was reckoned the best judge of horse-flesh in the horse-loving shire, and who might have served as a model for the typical John Bull, as he stood in his gaiters and beaver hat, watching the paces of the candidates. Melicent was watching them too, with real interest, when it seemed to her as though a touch were laid on her heart. Without raising her eyes, she knew who had drawn near. She shivered as she turned, and saw the Captain waiting to be greeted.
She said, "How do you do," without daring to meet his eyes; yet she longed to know how they stood, and on what terms this man was once again at her side.
"O, come ye in peace or come ye in war,Or to dance at my bridal, thou young Lochinvar?"
As once before, at Lone Ash, she became sensible that he wished her to look at him. She knew he must read the signs of confusion on her face. The news of his coming had been too recent for her to have recovered from it. But she could not lift her eyes. Lance's cheerful greetings more than covered her silence; he was sincerely glad to see his friend. After a minute's chat, however, he was called away. He was much in request that day, and had to go off with his father and judge rams, deputing Melicent to "show Brooke round."
Alone with Hubert, her courage turned to water. For a long minute they two stood there, unnoticed in the crowd, holding their breath, dizzy, overwhelmed by the mere fact of each other's presence.
He spoke at last. "You're not looking at all well," he said.
To which she naturally replied in a hurry:
"Oh, I am particularly well, thanks, only a little tired to-day."
"How do you think I look?" he asked quietly.
She dared not refuse the challenge. Her eyes, when she lifted them, held a piteous appeal.
But it was relief of which she was sensible as she met his gaze. It was kind and gentle. He looked ill; so ill that she wondered that Lance had not cried out upon him. He was like a man who has passed through some shattering experience, she thought. There were dark marks below his eyes, he had lost flesh, and he was pale, though so tanned that this was not obvious. But in his face was no shadow of the contempt she had feared to see, and had winced from the thought of.
In her relief she smiled up at him wistfully, as a child smiles at his mother, to make sure she is no longer displeased. When he smiled in answer, it was like sunshine breaking out over a cloudy landscape. It brought all her heart to her lips, it made her inclined to say:
"Oh, I must tell you my doubts and fears, and how I have tortured myself since last I saw you!"
The words were trembling on her tongue. In blind terror of self-betrayal, she said the first safe thing that came into her head; an inquiry after the progress at Lone Ash.
"They are roofing it," he said. "The roof goes on this week."
She coloured with pleasure.
"Oh, do tell me what the effect is! Do tell me how it looks from the road below the gate!"
"It is beautiful!" he answered quietly. "It grips me afresh every time I see it. Mayne, too, admires it immensely. Did you know I have had Mayne staying with me for the past month?"
"No, indeed; but I am glad to hear it," she cried. "He was so interested in the house; and then, he is quite an authority on gardens, isn't he? You must have found him a great help."
"Yes," said Hubert absently. "That's very true; he has been a great help."
She sent a sidelong glance at him, and noted afresh the marked change in his expression. There was a look upon the mouth that went to her heart in an indescribable way. It made her long to beg his pardon for the things she had said to him that night. The indefensibility of her own conduct throughout smote upon her in quite a new way. Never before in all her life had she felt the salutary self-reproach which now reddened her cheek, tied her tongue, and seemed to leave her helpless before him.
"Oh," she thought, "if he knew how much stronger he is when he looks like that than when he is in one of those awful rages."
He was speaking, and she collected herself with a tremendous effort to listen.
"The effect of those middle windows, with the transoms, which we had such doubt about, is awfully good, to my thinking. It only needs one thing."
"One thing?"
"Which I must consult you about. I have come here on purpose to talk of it I feel, perhaps, as if my presence here may—to you—want a little explaining. I have come because I thought I ought to. When can you give me a few minutes?"
It was true then: there had, as she guessed, been a specific reason for his appearance. Strangely enough, she had never thought that it would be anything in connection with Lone Ash. Yet what more natural?
She looked alarmed. "Is it important?"
"Very."
"You had better come over to Glen Royd to-morrow morning. I do hope it's not—any mistake I've made?"
He hesitated.
"Well, I'm afraid that's just what it is. But I don't think it's irretrievable."
She was filled with consternation.
"Oh, don't tell me it's structural! We managed that thrust of the wall on the north so splendidly with the buttress."
"It's nothing structural," said Hubert.
They had moved away, talking together, from the foals' enclosure, and were crossing the grass slowly, not knowing whither they went. Sybil Ayres approached them, with two or three gentlemen, some of her military convalescents. She bowed to Melicent, whom she cordially disliked, and was passing on, when one of her companions cried:
"Why, surely that must be Miss Lutwyche! How d'ye do? Didn't expect to see me here, did you?"
And Melicent was looking into the humorous, relentless hatchet face of Amurrica. His eye wandered over her, noting every detail of her appearance and costume; from her to her companion; and Melicent, with her faculties sharpened by the emergency, saw with delight that he did not recognise Bert. Her expression did not change.
"I am afraid you are mistaken," she said politely. "I do not think we are acquainted."
"I'm making no mistakes. My name's Otis. 'Amurrica' they used to call me in Slabbert's Poort, as I've been explainin' to these ladies. You're Millie Lutwyche, ain't you?"
"I am. I remember, there was someone of your name in the place. But I do not remember that we were ever acquainted. I did not know any of the diamond miners."
"I'm a diamond major now," cried Amurrica, with an unpleasant laugh. "Look here, Miss Lutwyche, we shall be obliged to refresh your memory a little. D'you remember your father's funeral? I was there."
"The whole town was there," said Millie, with indifference. Then, with an air of stopping the conversation, she said to Miss Ayres: "Have you been in the tents? Is it worth while taking Captain Brooke to see the fruit?"
Then, receiving a dubious answer, she inclined her head in leave-taking, and walked away.
As soon as they were out of earshot, she looked up at Hubert with an altered expression—a look of comradeship—her late nervousness chased away.
"You see! He didn't know you a bit!" she cried.
"Not a bit," he answered. "Just as big a beast as ever! But do you mind my saying I think it was unwise to cut him? You've made him savage, and he may be rude."
"Let him," said Millie contemptuously. "It is quite true that I never knew him. You know, I never would speak to him. How could he be rude?"
"He might say things about you—to other people."
"Well, he can't say anything I'm ashamed of," said Millie coolly.
"You always did despise your enemies."
"Well, I haven't got any enemies now," was the careless answer.
"God grant it!" he replied, thinking of things said to him by Mrs. Cooper and her daughters one day when he went to tennis at the Vicarage.
I? What I answered? As I liveI never fancied such a thingAs answer possible to give.—COUNT GISMOND.
Lancelot, returning from what he called distinguishing between the rams and the he-goats, was intercepted by Sybil Ayres.
"Oh, Mr. Burmester, it is so interesting! Here is a gentleman who knows all about Miss Lutwyche! Not only that, but what do you think? Her brother is his servant!"
Lance stared blankly.
"Some mistake, Miss Ayres," he said pleasantly. "Miss Lutwyche has no brother."
"Well, if I'm tellin' lies, you can easily prove it, you know," said Amurrica jocosely. "The young lady's got a short memory, but I daresay it can be refreshed."
"Do let me introduce Major Otis," said Sybil. "He is so interested to meet Miss Lutwyche'sfiancé."
Otis took Lance by the hand, and shook it impressively.
"I'm proud to meet a man of generosity and insight—I say, of generosity and insight," said he solemnly. "Insight to see that the gal's real grit, in spite of her family; and generosity to overlook the things in her past that are better not talked about."
"Look here!" said Lance, in a fury. "I don't know whether this is the latest variety of American humour, but whatever it is, it's deuced bad form, and you'll find you had better keep your head shut in England. Kindly choose some other subject of conversation than Miss Lutwyche, unless you want me to punch your head."
"You could easily do that," said Otis pensively. "I'm in quite the early stages of my convalescence. However, there's no need. Of course I withdraw all I said. Naturally, I thought you must know all about—well, well! Keep your hair on! Sorry I spoke. Can't say more than that, can I? Only this one thing I must say. My boy, Arnie Lutwyche, has lived in hopes of finding his sister when he got to England. Are you goin' to prevent his speakin' to her?"
"There's some absurd error," said Lance, in a rage. "I tell you Miss Lutwyche has no brothers. I also warn you, Major Otis, that there are libel laws in England."
He raised his hat and hurried off, afraid to trust himself.
Just as he departed, Madeline and Theo, who had been for a long time hanging around, in hopes of being introduced to some officers, ventured to come up, and found themselves welcomed by Miss Ayres with quite unwonted cordiality.
"Oh, do come here! Miss Lutwyche is your cousin, isn't she?" she cried. "You must be introduced to an old friend of hers!"
The girls listened spellbound to the piquant story of the presence in England of a Boer boy who was Millie's brother. "A regular, sulky Boer," giggled Sybil, "who only speaks very broken English."
They looked at each other.
"Why," said Madeline, "then I expect the Major could tell us all about Millie before she came to England—what we have always wanted to know—how she got her arm broken, and so on."
"I can tell you that, certainly. She broke her arm scrambling out through a skylight to meet her lover, when her stepmother had locked her in."
"That we can easily believe," cried Theo. "Father sent her away from the Vicarage for that very same thing—getting out of her bedroom window at night! And then she tried to fix the blame on Gwen."
Sybil Ayres listened with eyes starting from her head.
"Do you suppose Mr. Burmester knows all this?" she cried.
"If he don't, he oughter," said Otis, whose English was apt to fray, as it were, when he grew familiar or confidential. "The person that told him would be doin' him a kindness. Look here! I ought to know something about that gal, since I was engaged to marry her, with her mother's consent."
"To marry her! She was only sixteen!" cried Theo.
"We were short of gals in Slabbert's Poort," said Amurrica, with that irresistible dry grin which always fascinated people. "But the day her father was buried, Mestaer, the feller she was carryin' on with, picked a quarrel with me, fought me, pounded me into a jelly, and carried off my gal that night."
Madeline grew very red. The seriousness of this accusation was more than she had contemplated. After all, Melicent was a Cooper!
"You must mean he tried to carry her off," she said faintly.
Major Otis took out the cigar he was smoking—one of General Ayres' best—and touched her sleeve lightly with one finger.
"Cousin of yours?" He looked round at Sybil with raised eyebrows. "Better not. This pretty young English lady don't know the sorter thing her cousin came out of."
"Having gone so far, you ought to speak out, I think," said Madeline.
He shook his head, and looked sympathetic.
"This young lady is going to be married, I hear—to make what's called a good match?"
They all assented.
"Well then, why spoil her chances?" He shrugged his shoulders and replaced his cigar.
"Why, there are the Burmesters to think of," cried Sybil Ayres indignantly. "And the Helstons, whom she has deceived all these years."
"That's so," said Amurrica slowly. "That's so, certainly."
"You had better tell us what you know; we are her cousins," said Theo.
"Well, what I'm tellin' you now, I'm prepared to swear to, before any magistrate in this county," he replied, as if reluctantly. "It's simply this. Mestaer carried off Millie Lutwyche to his house and kept her there. After some days he deserted her, went off and enlisted—and the chaplain chipped in, and sent her home to her friends. Arnie Lutwyche will tell you all whether that's true or not, and you must decide whether Burmester ought to be told."
Madeline and Theo stood looking at one another.
"And she pretended to be so honest, and so disgusted with us for doing things on the quiet!" gasped Madeline at last. "Father ought to be told. Go, Theo, tell him to come at once and hear what Major Otis has to say."
Meanwhile Lance, in white heat, made his way to where his party were standing.
"Melicent," he said, "do you know there's a brute of a chap called Otis here to-day—a fellow that was notorious in Africa for all kinds of rascality—telling everybody that he knows you, and has got a brother of yours over here with him as his servant. What does he mean by such cheek?"
Melicent turned quickly to him. "What does he say? He has one of the Lutwyche boys here?"
"The Lutwyche boys? Who are they?" cried Lance, in stupefaction.
"Why, Tante Wilma's children," said Millie disgustedly; "my half-brothers and sisters."
There was a silence. Lady Burmester turned a look of blank astonishment upon Mrs. Helston.
"Do I understand that Lance will have a family of half Boer brothers-in-law?" she said.
"But I thought you knew my father married a Boer woman after my mother died. I thought everyone knew it," said Millie. "Surely Mr. Mayne told you; he knows all about it. It was he who got me away from Tante Wilma after my father died."
Lance cleared his throat.
"Perhaps," he said, "before I again encounter Major Otis, it will be as well for you to give me further family information."
"It would have been better had it been given before," echoed his mother, very stiffly.
Melicent dared not look at Bert. She held up her little head proudly.
"I was under the impression that everyone knew," she said. "Pater and Mater certainly do, and I assumed they had told you long ago. Please believe that I have never had the least intention of sailing under false colours."
There flashed across Lancelot's mind a memory of a chance word spoken by Harry Helston the first time he saw Melicent upon Tod's Trush: "It's not a pretty story, and I daresay would do the poor child no good in a narrow, provincial circle?"
There were passages in Millie's life of which he knew nothing, but of which, apparently, the odious Otis knew much. It was a rankling thought.
Captain Brooke broke the silence.
"There is one consolation," he observed coolly. "Otis is such a wholesale liar, he'll soon get found out. It might be doing him a kindness if I gave him a hint to keep himself in the background. I know enough about him to make General Ayres regret his hospitality. Whatever you do, keep clear of him, Lady Burmester. If I may count myself enough your friend to give you a hint, avoid being introduced to the fellow. He's not fit to mix with ladies."
"Really, Captain Brooke? I am extremely obliged," said Lady Burmester gratefully.
"Keep clear of the Ayres party, mother," said Lance. "Brooke's right, he's a beast. Come, Melicent, I am going to start the sports now."
He spoke irritably, and Melicent silently walked away with him, conscious of a burning, fiery resentment against him, his mother, herself, and Fate generally.
Her pride was cruelly wounded, and her conscience reiterated, "Serve you right!" She knew that had she really loved Lancelot she would have known no peace until she had told him all about Hubert. She ought to have done so. Now some kind of explanation was unavoidable. It was impossible but that Lance should return to the subject. She now felt certain that Otis would tell everybody who would listen some garbled version of her flight from her stepmother's house. Vaguely she began to realise how far it was in his power to injure her; and she knew that, had Lance been in possession of the actual facts, he would have had no power to injure her at all. She had left her lover in the position of being unable to contradict effectively anything that might be said.
The figure she must cut was not a dignified one. If she broke off the engagement, it could but seem that she did so because she was found out, and dreaded further revelations. If she confessed to Lance, he must feel that she did so only because concealment was no longer practicable, to say nothing of the suspicions which she must arouse by the mere fact of not having spoken before. She saw that, whatever she did, she must lower herself, perhaps fatally, in the eyes of her lover. She positively shrank from the abyss before her. She could not see how she could avoid public humiliation, and what was worse, she must sink in the eyes of the Helstons too. They had loved, shielded, trusted her. She had wilfully gone her own way, keeping from them all that most nearly concerned her, locking her heart, hiding it away from them....
It was human nature that, at the moment, Lance's regard should seem to her more precious than ever before. No woman is ready to resign her lover because she has ceased to be pleasing in his sight.
She stood by his side, watching, with eyes that swam in tears, the great raw-boned Dalesmen slouching round the sloping, bumpy course with limbs all abroad, yet keeping up a pace that was undeniable, as they completed lap after lap of the walking race, which was the great event of the day, a professional champion from another county being entered for it.
Outwardly she maintained her pride and spirit. She smiled and chatted to Lance so naturally that he began to forget his uneasiness.
"Curious," he observed to her presently, "that I never heard of your father's children."
"Vrouw Lutwyche cast me off," said Millie. "She repudiated me. I never expected to hear of her again. They are well-to-do; there seemed no reason why they should trouble themselves; they only wanted to be rid of me."
"Still, they are your father's children."
"Oh," she said, in her hardest voice, "I suppose so; but nobody could think it. They are all Boer, through and through. I could not love them. I am a cold person, as you know. I should have told you of them, if I had not made quite sure you knew."
He did not reply for a moment; when he did, what he said startled her.
"It at least shows how far we have been from perfect confidence."
She looked at him astonished, taken aback. He was studying the race card.
The invitations to the wedding were actually written. It seemed to Melicent that her marriage was as final a thing as the fact that autumn follows summer. She was frightened, shaken.
"Surely," she faltered, "perfect confidence is a thing that comes by degrees?"
"I think it ought to come before marriage, don't you?" said Lance.
She felt as if he had opened an oubliette at her feet. How could she tell him what ought to be told? But evidently she must either do that or lose him. She firmly believed that, in his wholesome, out-of-doors life, were no dark corners concealed from her.
However far she was from passion, she liked Lance dearly. The idea of his contempt was extremely painful.
All her life she had prided herself upon her honesty!
And her attempt to assert her independence of spirit had led her into thisimpasse!
"We build with strength the deep tower-wallThat shall be shattered thus and thus.And fair and great are court and hall;But how fair—this is not for us,Who know the lack that lurks in all.
"... the yearsInterpret everything aright,And crown with weeds our pride of towers,And warm our marble through with sun,And break our pavements through with flowers,With an Amen when all is done."—MRS. MEYNELL.
Sybil Ayres, who was animated by a very lively desire to pay out Lancelot for being about to marry someone else, manœuvred repeatedly to approach the Burmester party, and fling her fire-brand into their midst. But in some unaccountable way they seemed to elude her. After a time she appealed to Captain Brooke, who happened to be passing by.
"Captain Brooke, do persuade Miss Lutwyche to come this way! Her brother is here, and wants to see her."
"What, one of the Boer boys? He had better go and call upon her to-morrow at Glen Royd, I should think. This is a public sort of meeting-place; and as you see, she is leaving the ground now with Lady Burmester's party."
"It looks just as if Miss Lutwyche was avoiding him," tittered Miss Ayres.
"It is Major Otis whom they are all avoiding, by my advice," said the Captain gravely.
"Because he knows all about Miss Lutwyche's African life? That looks as if there were something to be ashamed of, doesn't it?" said the girl impertinently.
"Not on that account, but because—you will pardon my speaking so of the General's guest—with my consent, no woman of my acquaintance should speak to such a man."
"Captain Brooke!"
"I will say the same to Otis himself, if you wish. He has no business in any gentleman's house, and he knows it. Whatever he told me, I should be sure was a lie, merely because Otis said it."
"But—but—" stammered Sybil, crimson, "the vicar says that all Major Otis tells him is borne out by his own knowledge, only the real facts were kept from him by Mr. Mayne. The Major says he is prepared to swear before any magistrate that all he says is true."
"Then he has actually presumed to make charges against Miss Lutwyche?" asked the Captain, his eyes like blue fire. "You can tell him from me that wilful perjury's a serious matter in England."
"Oh, Captain Brooke, do you really think that what he says about Miss Lutwyche is untrue? Because the vicar is gone to lay the matter before Sir Joseph. He felt it his duty. Major Otis says Miss Lutwyche, if asked, can't, and won't deny it."
"Deny what?" asked Brooke, in a tone that, as Sybil afterwards declared, sent cold shivers down her back.
"If—if it's true, Miss Lutwyche ought not— But I couldn't possibly tell you!"
"Yet you could listen," he broke in. "You could stand by while that coward dared to mishandle the name of a girl you have known for years! You could believe his vile accusations! Well, now, he has chosen to do this thing in public, and I'll make him regret it to the last day he lives. I'll just trouble Major Otis to repeat his lies to me! Excuse plain speaking. But I know this man, and you don't."
The Burmester party, including the vicar and the Helstons, were just driving away as he strode with his long, firm stride, across the field to where the Major stood, a cluster of eager listeners around him. His hand rested on the shoulder of a big, slouching boy, swarthy, with high cheek-bones and little black eyes, who seemed about as unlike what one would imagine Melicent's brother as anything could be.
"This boy can tell you it's all true," he was saying, "and so could Mestaer, if he hadn't got shot as a spy later on, in the campaign."
"I knew Mestaer," said the Captain, in a carrying voice. "Perhaps the fact may serve as an introduction between us, Major. Now you tell me, straight out, the truth about him and Miss Lutwyche, just as you have been telling these friends of ours, will you?"
Eager faces, wearing expressions of various kinds, pressed nearer as Otis, wholly unsuspicious, repeated his version of Millie's flight from her father's house.
Alfred Dow was close to Bert; Mrs. Cooper and her daughters not far off.
The Captain listened with perfect calmness. When it was done, he said quietly: "That all?"
"That's all; and if I were Burmester, I'd think it enough," he said, laughing brutally.
"Well," said Bert, "then my turn comes. You have had no scruple in saying this abominable thing out before ladies, which alone might have opened their eyes as to the kind of refuse you are; so I have no scruple in telling you, before ladies, that you lie. You lie, sir, as a Boer traitor might be expected to do. Yes, grin! Show them all the false teeth you wear in place of those Mestaer knocked down your throat on the day you laid your plans against Miss Lutwyche! Hold your tongue! You've had your innings this afternoon; now I'm going to have mine! You lied again when you said Mestaer was shot. He is alive, as you probably know. What you don't know is that he is in England. The Bishop of Pretoria is in England too. Both these witnesses can prove the untruth of your story, as you know; and I both can and will produce them—not here, but in open court, unless you confess yourself a malicious liar, and offer a public apology. If you don't withdraw every word you have said against Miss Lutwyche this afternoon, you shall pay such swingeing damages as shall exhaust the last of the loot you stole when you were in the Boer Irish Brigade, before the taking of Kroonstadt. Ha, you see, I know!"
He had spoken without a pause. The white intensity of his rage had carried him along, and the silent sympathy of the excited audience seemed to make itself felt. Amurrica had several times tried to break in, but in vain. But now he uttered a howl of rage, and fuming, turned to those about him.
"He thinks to frighten me! He thinks he can— By the—— Who are you, sir? Who are you to take up the cudgels for this young lady?"
"I have the privilege to be a friend of Miss Lutwyche," said Hubert, raising his hat as he spoke with a quiet grace which gave the effect of saluting her name. "I also know the Orange Colony like the palm of my hand. There's not a man in that colony that would believe you on your oath. If I allowed this gathering to disperse without knowing you for the scoundrel you are, I should be failing in my duty to this country. Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard the slander uttered by this renegade. I shall now tell you the truth, in as few words as possible. Miss Lutwyche was left an orphan at the age of sixteen, in a Boer village which a year or two before had got filled with sweepings from other parts of Africa, come there in search of diamonds. This man, who had long cast eyes on her, paid her stepmother a sum of money to hand her over to him on her father's death. But Mr. Mayne, the chaplain, had been left her guardian, which interfered with their design. Mayne had to go away on urgent business connected with the will. In his absence it was plotted that Otis should go through a form of marriage with the girl at the hands of the Boer Predikant. But, as they knew the indomitable spirit of Miss Lutwyche, the Boer woman thrashed her within an inch of her life to reduce her to a proper state of submission. In escaping from her torturers, she fell down a ladder, and dislocated her arm. That seems to have frightened them somewhat, for they let her creep away to her garret to die. Mestaer, who had been asked by Mayne to keep watch, went to the house, found her lying in a pool of blood, and carried her to his home. Where else could he have taken her? He put her in charge of his housekeeper, fetched a doctor at once, and mounted guard until Mayne's return, when he went off to the war. Now, you ask that boy there, whether this is true or no. Here, boy! did your mother sjambok your sister?"
All eyes were turned upon the uncouth lad. He lifted his eyes to his questioner with a very curious look; he did not seem to notice Otis, who still kept a heavy hand on his shoulder.
"Yes, she did," he replied sulkily.
"Was it done at Otis's suggestion?"
Here the boy shook off the Major's touch, and stood up.
"Yes; to make her go quiet; only mother was drunk, and she done too much."
There was a kind of growl all round among the listening Dalesmen. Otis grew green, and clenched his fist.
"You shall pay for this!" he muttered to the boy.
"Had Otis paid your mother to arrange the matter?" went on Bert relentlessly.
"Yes."
"And this is the cur," said Hubert, between his teeth, "who has dared to slander a young innocent girl before you all this day."
Otis was literally foaming at the mouth. His mortification was choking him.
"I said what was true!" he screamed. "Mestaer did carry her off! I said no more! She was in his house! That's all I said."
"Yes, and that's what you'll go to hell for saying!" shouted Dow, cracking a formidable whip he held, and stamping with excitement. "It isn't a sjambok, Captain, but let me lay it round him once or twice! Let me just give him the feel of it! Do now!"
Bert waved him back.
"If it wasn't for his health," he said, "I would be inclined to let you do as you liked with him. But he's ill, Dow, and he mustn't be touched. But if there's a soul present will let him inside his doors after this, I shall be surprised. You're a discredited traitor," he said fiercely to the livid Otis. "How you got your commission is one of the many mysteries of the late campaign. Having come through so far, you might have had the common decency to lie low and keep your poisonous tongue quiet!"
Otis appealed, gasping in his rage, to General Ayres; but the General turned his back upon him.
"We took our convalescents on trust," he said coldly. "That trust the War Office has betrayed. I will send your luggage to any address you like to give me."
"But look here—is this justice, bare justice? His word against mine, that's all you've got, except for this lying little Boer—"
"We all know and respect Captain Brooke," said the General, bowing to Hubert. "I may add, we all know and admire Miss Lutwyche." He raised his hat, as Hubert had done. "Gentlemen, may I venture to suggest—three cheers for Miss Lutwyche?"
The field rang again. The hurrahs rolled away across the Dale, and Brenda remarked, as they drove silently."
"That must have been a close race! Hark, how they are cheering the winner!"
* * * * * * * *
"You rat—you little viper!" hissed Amurrica, as he hastened, with Arnie at his side, to get the dog-cart from the farm where it was put up, and drive away from the scene of his disgrace, "why in thunder did you give me away like that?"
It was a long time before the sullen answer came:
"Always was afraid of him."
"Afraid of me?"
"No fear," said Arnie, with a laugh. "Not much. But I always have been feared of Bert Mestaer."
"What?" Otis gave a kind of jump into the air. "Mestaer? That? Mestaer coming the county gentleman? And I never knew it! You little devil, why didn't you tell me?"
"Thought you'd know him."
Otis stood still in the dusty lane. He went from red to pale, and almost to purple again.
"If he thinks he's done with me, he makes a mistake, that's all," he growled; and he snarled like a wild beast.
"Well, I have played and lost. But that is best.Where was my right to win and keep such glory?Now I will let the book of living rest.Closed is my story."—ALICE HERBERT.
Hubert's motor traversed the distance from the sports to Ilbersdale at a rate so far beyond the police limit as to make limits seem ridiculous.
On his way he encountered Mr. Cooper, pushing his bicycle up hill. The seething excitement which had gripped him that afternoon had not yet expended itself; and he pulled up.
"Good evening, Vicar. Just a word! I hope you have not been to the Burmesters with any of those awful lies about your niece that Otis was getting off his chest in that field?"
The vicar assumed his most stony aspect. His cold eye said eloquently, "Beware!" Aloud his reply was: "I fear I do not understand you, Captain Brooke."
"Sorry; it's my slang makes me difficult to follow. I drop into it when I'm excited. You see, I happen to know all about Otis, and I've just been enlightening the bystanders a bit. There isn't enough of him left to make a War Office clerk! They've hissed him off the ground, General Ayres has washed his hands of him, and I've given him twelve hours to choose between a libel action and a written apology."
"It is a—surely—a somewhat extraordinary proceeding on your part to talk of libel actions on behalf of a young lady who has her own relatives to protect her," said the vicar, fastening, in the whirl of his mind, upon a breach of conventionalities which he might legitimately resent.
"Her own relatives didn't seem to me to be doing much protecting this afternoon," observed Bert drily. "However, Mrs. Cooper and your daughters will be able to tell you all about it. They saw the brute knocked out of time."
The vicar began to be anxious to get home.
"I fancy you are under a misapprehension," he said. "I have just been to Ilbersdale to correct a misunderstanding. I own I was disturbed this afternoon to find that Mr. and Mrs. Helston had allowed the engagement between Mr. Burmester and my niece to take place, without informing the bridegroom's relatives of the serious family disabilities of the bride. I was anxious to assure Lady Burmester that, had the affair rested with me, I should have been quite frank; but that I naturally imagined that Miss Lutwyche's adopted parents had supplied all the facts."
"That was very thoughtful of you. But if you were, as you say, in possession of the facts, how is it that you did not contradict the horrible misstatements made by Otis up at the field?"
The vicar grew still more stony.
"I have never been made acquainted with the exact truth concerning my niece's injuries at the time of her father's death."
"Injuries?" echoed Bert. "Injuries, indeed! But I've seen her righted. She was the darling of the Dale before; she'll be its idol now! Did you hear them cheering her?"
The vicar stood amazed. "Cheering my niece?"
Hubert laughed mischievously.
"And who may you be, to have the intimate knowledge which I lack concerning this young lady?" inquired the vicar.
"Hubert Brooke, late Captain in Lacy's Brigade," laughed Bert, as he drove away.
Mr. Cooper pursued his road, in much wrath and discomfiture. His reception at Ilbersdale had affronted him, his encounter with Bert bewildered him. He remounted the bicycle which he was pushing at the time of his meeting, and rode home with what speed he might.
By the Vicarage gate two men were awaiting him—Otis and the unattractive Boer boy. Evidently they meant to speak with him.
Otis approached with the easy confidence and winning smile that he could assume at will. He begged pardon for troubling, but he had unthinkingly mixed himself up in what looked to him like a local scandal of formidable dimensions, and he had come to the vicar for advice. Mr. Cooper's anger was not altogether proof against the insidious appeal. He was used to being ignored and left out of things, and, to one whose own idea of his own importance, both socially and parochially, was enormous, the way this man approached him was a salve to a wound always more or less smarting.
After a short parley, understanding that Otis had material facts to communicate, he invited him in.
Mrs. Cooper and her daughters were at tea; and there was a flutter of consternation among them for they had seen the exit of Otis from the Fransdale sports. Mrs. Cooper became unspeakably coy, blushing like a girl, and dismissing her brood, with their tea half done, on the flimsiest of pretexts.
"This is not surprisin', Mrs. Cooper," said Otis sadly. "I was a stranger up there, and nobody knew me. It was my word against that of a bad and dangerous man, who is sailin' among you all under false colours. These young ladies heard him givin' me the lie up there. In justice, I should like to have them hear what I want to tell you now. You may have heard Mr. Mayne or Miss Lutwyche talk of the man Mestaer?"
"Yes, yes," gasped Madeline, at the door. "She had one letter from him after she got here—you remember, mother, the letter she would not show you. She said he wanted to marry her!"
"She wouldn't show you his letter?" slowly said Otis, standing by the table, and turning his hat round in his hand as if on the point of taking leave. "Has she ever told you that he goes now under the name of Brooke?"
"What's that you say?" sharply asked the vicar.
"He's well disguised," replied Otis. "He bluffed me, I own it. But Arnie here, he knew him from the first; didn't you, boy?"
Arnold looked at the three tall, full-blown girls, blushed admiringly and assented.
Surprise deprived them all of speech.
"Now, I'm told," said Otis, "that this fine Captain Brooke is buildin' himself a house, and that Miss Lutwyche is his—architect." He gave a little chuckle, "Excuse me: I really got to laff," he drawled humorously. "The idea of him an' his architect is a bit too thick—eh?"
"Miss Lutwyche is duly qualified," began the vicar, in his stateliest manner.
"Do I doubt it? No, sir! But I hear she has been stayin' down in the shires with him pretty near all summer, gettin' this house ready while her lover's in Russia. Now, I couldn't help just wonderin'—we really couldn't help it, Arnie and me—whether young Burmester knows that Brooke's her old lover."
"Why, do you thinksheknows?" cried Theo excitedly.
Otis bent on her the sliest, most waggish look, and slowly closed one eye.
"Dear young ladies, you live in Arcadia," he said. "You remind me of three hedge-roses; an' you're doubtless as simple as you're sweet. But your cousin, Miss Lutwyche, she wasn't born yesterday, you know. She knows a thing or two, you may take my word for that."
The vicar was silent, struggling with mortification. That day he had broken through his lifelong rule to do nothing hurriedly. He had gone straight from hearing Otis's revelations to be first with Lady Burmester. He felt sure that what was said must ultimately come to her ears. He thought his duty was plain.
But if he had only waited! If he had only gone to Millie, armed with this fact! If he could have charged her with knowing who Bert was, and concealing her knowledge, how differently things might have gone!
He looked at his wife, who seemed to be still blushing. She rose from table.
"As you say, Mr. Otis," said she, with archness which was unutterably comic upon her middle-aged, substantial personality, "my dear girls are very unsophisticated. They have been carefully brought up, as English girls usually are. I will leave you to discuss this serious matter with Mr. Cooper, and take them away. Come, my darlings."
* * * * * * * *
Meanwhile Bert drove straight to the Grange, inquired for Lance, and found him alone in the smoking-room, sunk in profound gloom and a large arm-chair.
"Burmester," he said abruptly, "I've come to talk to you—to tell you something that will perhaps sever our friendship for ever. Confession is good, they say; but I funk mine." He sank down in the opposite chair, drawing out his cigar-case. "I funk it; make it as easy as you can, old man."