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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/36079-8.txt b/36079-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..46ed050 --- /dev/null +++ b/36079-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11105 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Love and hatred, by Marie Belloc Lowndes + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Love and hatred + +Author: Marie Belloc Lowndes + +Release Date: May 11, 2011 [EBook #36079] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE AND HATRED *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Ernest Schaal, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + + LOVE AND HATRED + + By MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES + + Author of + "Lilla," "Good Old Anna," "The Chink in the Armour," + "The End of Her Honeymoon," etc. + + + "_Alas! The love of Woman! It is known + To be a lovely and a fearful thing._"--BYRON. + + + [Decoration] + + + NEW YORK + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1917, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + LOVE AND HATRED + + PART ONE + + CHAPTER I + + +"Oh, but this is terrible----" + +Laura Pavely did not raise her voice, but there was trembling pain, as +well as an almost incredulous surprise, in the way she uttered the five +words which may mean so much--or so little. + +The man whose sudden, bare avowal of love had drawn from her that low, +protesting cry, was standing just within the door of the little +summer-house, and he was looking away from her, straight over the +beautiful autumnal view of wood and water spread out before him. + +He was telling himself that five minutes ago--nay, was it as long as +five minutes?--they had been so happy! And yet, stop--_he_ had not been +happy. Even so he cursed himself for having shattered the fragile, to +him the already long perished, fabric, of what she no doubt called their +"friendship." + +It was she--it always is the woman--who, quite unwittingly, had provoked +the words which now could never be unsaid. She had not been thinking at +all of him when she did so--she had spoken out of her heart, the heart +which some secret, sure instinct bade him believe capable of depths of +feeling, which he hoped, with a fierce hope, no man had yet plumbed.... + +What had provoked his avowal had been the most innocent, in a sense the +most beautiful, feeling of which a woman is capable--love for her child. + +"The doctor says Alice ought to have a change, that she ought to go to +the sea, for a little while. I asked Godfrey if I might take her, but he +said he didn't think it necessary." She had added musingly, "It's odd, +for he really is devoted to the child." + +They had been walking slowly, sauntering side by side, very close to one +another, for the path was only a narrow track among the trees, towards +the summerhouse where they were now--she sitting and he standing. + +He had answered in what, if she had been less absorbed in herself and +her own concerns, she might have realised was a dangerously still voice: +"I think I can persuade Godfrey to let her go. Apart from the child +altogether, you ought to have a change." And then--then she had said, +rather listlessly, not at all bitterly, "Oh, it doesn't matter about +me!" + +Such a simple phrase, embodying an obvious truth, yet they had forced +from him the words: "I think it does matter about you, Laura. At least I +know it matters a good deal to me, for, as of course you know by now, I +love you." + +And if his voice had remained quite low and steady, she had seen the +blazing, supplicating eyes.... + +But he had looked away, at once, when he had uttered those irrevocable +words; and after a few moments, which had seemed to him an eternity, had +come that low, heart-felt cry, "Oh, but this is terrible----" + + * * * * * + +"Terrible? Why, Laura?" He crossed his arms, and turning, gazed straight +down at her bowed figure. + +Again there came a long, unnatural pause. + +And then she lifted up her face, and under the shadow cast by her +wide-brimmed garden hat he saw that even her forehead was flushed. There +was an anguished look in the large, deeply blue eyes, which were to him +the most exquisite and revealing feature of her delicately drawn face. + +"Perhaps I ought not to have said 'terrible,'" she said at last in a low +voice, "but--but degrading, ignoble, _hateful_, Oliver." She added, her +false calm giving way, "And to me such a bitter, bitter disappointment!" + +"Why?" he asked harshly. "Why a disappointment, Laura? Most women, nay, +all wise human beings, value love--any kind of love offered by even the +most unworthy--as the most precious thing in the world!" + +His face had become expressionless, and the measured, carefully chosen +words made her feel suddenly ashamed, but with a shame merged in an +eager hope that she had cruelly misunderstood her--friend. + +She stood up and took a step towards him. "Oliver," she said +diffidently; "forgive me! I was stupid not to understand. Of course we +love one another," she was on firm ground now. "All friends love one +another, and you've been such a good friend to me, and more, far more, +than a good friend to my poor brother--to Gillie." + +He withdrew his gaze from her beseeching eyes, and looked away once +more. Now was his chance to play the hypocrite, to eat the words which +had given her so much offence.... + +Hardly knowing that he spoke aloud, he muttered hoarsely, "I can't!" And +then he turned to her: "Listen, Laura. I owe you the truth. I have loved +you, yes, and in the sense you think so ignoble and so degrading, almost +from the first day we met. As time went on, I thought it impossible that +you did not know that." + +"I did not know it! I trusted you absolutely! I thought that we were all +three, friends,--you and I and Godfrey! It was the very first time that +Godfrey and I had ever had a friend in common, and it made me so happy." + +"Did it indeed?" His words cut like a whip. + +"But it's true that you are Godfrey's friend?" she spoke a little +wildly. "I've never known him as fond of any man as he is now of you, +Oliver." + +"His fondness is not returned." + +"Then it ought to be!" she cried. "For you've made him like you, +Oliver." + +She hardly knew what she was saying, distressed, humiliated, wounded as +she was in her pride and sense of personal dignity. But what was he +saying--this challenging, wrathful stranger who, but a few moments ago, +had been her dear, dear friend? + +"I would rather, Laura, that you did not bring your husband into this +matter." + +"But I must bring him in!" She became suddenly aware that here ready to +her hand was a weapon with which she could hurt and punish this man who +was looking at her with so inscrutable a look--was it a look of love or +of hatred? + +"I'm sorry now," she went on rapidly, "bitterly, bitterly sorry and +ashamed that I ever said a word to you of Godfrey and his--his rather +tiresome ways. I ought not to have done it. It was disloyal. I've never +spoken of Godfrey to any other man--but somehow I thought _you_ were +different from other men." + +"Different?" he interjected. "How so, Laura? What right had you to think +me different from other men?" + +"Because I trusted you," she said inconsequently. "Because somehow you +seemed really to care for me--" her voice broke, but she forced herself +to go on: "You're not the first man, Oliver, who's made love to me since +I married--" she covered her face with her hands. + +It seemed to her that some other woman was being driven to make these +intimate confidences--not the fastidious, refined, reserved Laura +Pavely, who had an almost morbid dislike of the betrayal of any violent +or unseemly emotion. But this other woman, who spoke through her lips, +had been, was being, wantonly insulted.... + +Hanging her head as a child might have done, she said defiantly: "I +suppose you're surprised?" + +"No, I'm not surprised. Why should I be? Go on--" He clenched his hands +together. What was it she was going to tell him? + +Speaking in short, broken sentences, she obeyed him: + +"It was when we used to go about much more than we do now--in the first +two or three years after our marriage. I suppose that every woman--who +isn't quite happy with her husband--is exposed to that kind of thing. I +used to loathe it when I saw it coming. I used to try and fend it off. +Sometimes I succeeded--more often I failed. But I never, never expected +anything of the sort to happen with you, Oliver. We were such +friends--such good, happy friends--you and I and my little Alice," and +then she burst into a passion of weeping. + +And at that what self-control Oliver Tropenell had retained departed. A +flood of burning, passionate words burst from his lips--of endearment, +of self-abasement, and promises which he intended, come what might, +should be kept. + +And she listened shrinkingly, with averted face, absorbed in her own +bewildered pain and disappointment. + +"I must go back to the house," she said at last. "The doctor will be +here in half an hour." And she forced herself to add: "Perhaps you'll be +coming over this afternoon?" (How often she had said these words in the +last three months--but in how different a tone!). + +"I think not. My mother said something about wishing me to stay in +to-day--Lord St. Amant may be coming over." As she made no comment, he +concluded quietly, "Well, I suppose I had better be going now. Good-bye, +Laura." + +"Good-bye," she said. And without taking her hand he left her. + +She watched his tall figure making its way quickly down through the +rough ground to the wood where, ultimately, he would find a path which +would lead him to his mother's house. + + * * * * * + +It was late in the afternoon of the same day. From where she was +sitting, under a great cedar tree, Mrs. Tropenell at last saw her son +Oliver and Godfrey Pavely come out of Freshley Manor. + +Though the glory and warmth of the summer were now over, Mrs. Tropenell +still spent many hours of each day in her garden. She had always been an +out-of-door woman from the days when she was an eager, impetuous, +high-spirited girl, till now, when youth had gone, though something of +the eager impetuosity of youth remained with her concealed from +strangers by a manner marked by a strong sense of personal dignity. + +The two men began walking, slowly, down the grass path leading to the +beech avenue which was the glory of Freshley Manor, as well as a short +cut to Lawford Chase, Godfrey Pavely's larger property. + +It was more than an hour since a servant had come out to say that Mr. +Pavely was waiting to see Mr. Tropenell in the library. The man had +added that Mr. Pavely had had tea before leaving the Bank, and only +wanted to see Mr. Tropenell for a few minutes on his way home. And +Oliver, with "I don't think he'll keep me long, mother; I suppose you'll +still be here when I come back?" had stridden off with a certain +reluctance towards the house. + +It had always been his mother's joy, but now for many years past her +infrequent joy, to fall in with even the least reasonable of her son's +wishes, and so she had gone on sitting out there, waiting for him to +come back, long after the tea-things had been taken away. There was a +book on the low garden table by her side--such a book as she loved, +telling of great adventure by one of the adventurers--but she left it +where it was. + +Mrs. Tropenell felt a vague, exasperating sense of restlessness and +unease. At the back of her heart--that heart which, if no longer that of +a young woman, could still thrill with many varied emotions and a very +passion of maternal love--was the dull ache of a secret, unacknowledged +sense of fear and pain. + +She had every reason to be happy to-day--not only happy in her son's +company, but in the coming back, after a long absence on the Continent, +of her old friend, Lord St. Amant. To him she could, perhaps, bring +herself to say something of what was touching her so deeply, and he, she +knew, would reassure her and make light of her fears. St. Amant was what +is called in ordinary parlance a man of the world--the last man, that +is, to be horrified, still less frightened, by a tale of illicit love, +especially when, as the mother honestly believed, it was a love likely +to remain unrequited. + +Yes, she would tell her one trusted friend of these besetting fears, of +her more than suspicion that her son Oliver was deep in love with Laura +Pavely, and St. Amant would laugh at her, persuade her maybe to laugh +with him. + +And yet? Yet, even so, she asked herself again and again during that +long time of waiting, what these two men who, if of life-long +acquaintanceship and now at any rate nominally intimate friends, were so +unlike the one to the other, could have to talk about, indoors, for +over an hour? Godfrey Pavely and Oliver Tropenell met very often--too +often to her thinking--so why should Godfrey have pursued Oliver home +to-day, just when Oliver had had an hour to spare for his mother? + +It was now Thursday, and her son had already dined with the Pavelys +twice this week. To-morrow night Godfrey Pavely was to be in London, and +it had been arranged that his wife, Laura, should spend the evening +here. But that, or so Mrs. Tropenell had quickly reminded herself, had +been Laura's usual custom, long before Oliver had come home from Mexico +for the holiday which had now already lasted nearly four months. In her +long life Mrs. Tropenell had only had one beloved woman friend, and that +friend, that more than sister, had been Laura's mother. + +Even now Godfrey Pavely did not seem eager to go home. The two men were +close to the furthest edge of the wide lawn, but they were still talking +earnestly. + +Mrs. Tropenell gazed across, with a painful scrutiny, at her son's +visitor. + +Godfrey Pavely was a neatly made, neatly dressed, neatly mannered +man--in a way not ill-looking. His reddish-brown hair toned in oddly +with his light, ginger-coloured eyes. He had become rather particular +about his health of late, and went to some trouble to keep himself fit, +and in good condition. Yet he looked more like a townsman than like the +countryman he certainly was. For if the fortunate inheritor of a +successful county banking business, which so far he had managed with +such skill as to save it from any thought of amalgamation, he was also +the owner of a fine old property. + +Lawford Chase had belonged to Mrs. Tropenell's ancestors for +centuries--for almost as many centuries as the years in which he, +Godfrey, had owned it. But her father had been careless and extravagant +during his long, happy life, so the owner of Pavely's Bank had bought up +the mortgages on Lawford Chase, and finally foreclosed. + +All this was ancient history now, and Mrs. Tropenell felt no bitterness +on that account. Indeed, she had rejoiced, with a sense of real joy, +when her friend's daughter had become mistress of her own old home. + +The two men whom she was watching went on talking for what seemed to the +onlooker a very long time; but, at last, Godfrey Pavely, turning on his +heel, walked on, to be at once engulfed by the dark green arch formed by +the high beech trees. Then Mrs. Tropenell saw her son, all her heart +welcoming him, come striding towards her across the long stretch of +short, green turf. + +Once more she asked herself what possible link there could be between +men so utterly unlike. Her Oliver--more hers now, she felt, than ever +before, and that though for the first time he was making her secretly, +miserably jealous--was a creature of light and air, of open spaces, if +need be of great waters. He was built, like herself, on a big and +powerful plan; and yet so tall, so spare, so sinewy, that though he was +broad he looked slim, and though four-and-thirty years of age he might +have been taken, even at this small distance from where she sat, for a +long-limbed youth. His life for the last twelve years had been one that +often ages a man--but it had not aged him. His vigour was unbroken, his +vitality--the vitality which had made him so successful, and which +attracted men and women of such very different types--unimpaired. + +Mrs. Tropenell had been touched, perhaps in her secret heart little +surprised, at the pleasure--one might almost have said the +enthusiasm--with which her neighbours for miles round had welcomed +Oliver home again, after what had been so long an absence from England. +The fact that he had come back a very wealthy man, and that during those +years of eclipse he had managed to do some of them good turns, of course +counted in his popularity, and she was too open-eyed a woman not to be +well aware of that. + +The mother knew that her son was not the downright, rather transparent, +good-natured fellow that he was now taken to be. No man she had ever +known--and she had ever been one of those women of whom men make a +confidant--could keep his own or another's secrets more closely than +could Oliver. He had once written to her the words: "You are the only +human being, mother, to whom I ever tell anything," and she had +instinctively known this to be true. + +Yet their relationship was more like that of two friends than of mother +and son. She knew all there was to know of his thoughts, and of his +doubts, concerning many of the great things which trouble and disturb +most thinking modern men. Of the outward life he led in the Mexican +stretch of country of which he had become the administrator and +practical ruler, she also knew a great deal, indeed surprisingly much, +for he wrote by each mail long, full letters; and the romance of his +great business had become an ever continuous source of interest, of +amusement, and of pride to the mother who now only lived for him. + +But of those secret things which had moved his heart, warred with his +passions, perchance seared his conscience, he had never told her +anything. Only once had the impenetrable mist of reserve been lightened, +as it were pierced for a moment--and that was now a long time ago, on +his second visit home five years before. He had then come to England +meaning to stay a month. But at the end of ten days he had received a +telegram--what he called, in the American fashion, a cable--and within +an hour he had gone, saying as he kissed his mother good-bye, "A friend +of mine--a woman who has been ill a long time--is now dying. I must go, +even if I'm not in time to see her alive." + +In the letters which had followed his return to Mexico, there had been +no word more--nothing even implying sorrow, or a sense of loss--only a +graver note, of which the mother might have remained unaware but for +that clue he had left to sink deep in her mother-heart. + + * * * * * + +He was now close to her, looking down out of his dark, compelling +eyes--eyes which were so like her own, save that now hers shone with a +softer light. + +"Pavely stayed a long time," he said abruptly. "Are you tired? D'you +want to go in yet, mother?" + +She shook her head. "I'd rather stay out here till it's time to dress." + +As she spoke she lifted her face to his, and he told himself what a +beautiful, and noble face it was, though each delicate, aquiline feature +had thickened, and the broad low forehead was now partially concealed +by thick bands of whitening hair. It was a lined, even a ravaged +face--the face of a woman who had lived, had loved, had suffered. But of +that Oliver was only dimly conscious, for his mother's nature if +impetuous and passionate was almost as reserved and secretive as was his +own. + +It may be doubted, even, if Oliver Tropenell knew how much his mother +loved him, for it may be doubted if any son ever knows how much his +mother--even if she appear placid or careless--loves him. One thing +Oliver did know, or confidently believed he knew, and that was that his +mother loved him more than she had ever loved anything in the world. +There he was quite content to leave it. + +"Pavely wants me to become trustee to Laura's marriage settlement, in +succession to old Mr. Blackmore." + +When with Godfrey Pavely, Oliver Tropenell always called the other man +by his Christian name, but behind his back he always spoke of him as +"Pavely." + +As his mother remained silent, he went on, a little hurriedly: "The +powers vested in the trustee are very wide, and it seems that money +which was later added to the trust--a matter of seventeen thousand +pounds or so--is invested in some queer form of security." + +They both smiled--he a little drily, she with a kind of good-humoured +contempt. + +"He's cautious and successful--in spite of that odd, gambling +propensity," she spoke a little defensively. Then, "I suppose you've +consented to act?" + +She waited anxiously for his answer; and at last it came, uttered in a +tone of elaborate unconcern: "I said I'd think it over. But I think +I'll take it on, mother. Pavely made rather a personal favour of +it--after all, there's some kind of relationship." + +"Yes," agreed Mrs. Tropenell, "yes, there is certainly a connection, +hardly a relationship, between ourselves and Laura." + +Her son sat down. He began poking about an invisible stone, lying in +among the grass, with his stick. + +"You cared for Laura's mother as if she had been your sister--didn't +you, mother? And yet I can't imagine you with a great woman friend, I +mean, of course, a friend of your own age." + +She turned and looked at him. "Ah, my dear,--those are the friends that +count!" and she nearly added, "Don't _you_ find it so?" But, instead, +she went on quickly, "Yes, I loved Laura's mother dearly, dearly--and it +was for her sake that I asked you to be good to her son, to Gillie." + +"Laura's extraordinarily fond of Gillie----" There always came a curious +change over Oliver Tropenell's voice when he uttered the name "Laura." +It became as it were softer, infused with feeling--or so his mother +thought. + +She waited a moment; then answered slowly, "Women generally are fond of +their only brothers." + +"Oh, but it's more than that!" + +As she remained silent, he went on musingly: "And Gillie, in his queer +way, is very fond of Laura--though I don't believe he writes to her once +in three months!" + +"I suppose Gillie still hates Godfrey?" she said hesitatingly. "Godfrey +behaved so--so--well, not so much badly perhaps, as meanly and even +stupidly--about that unfortunate affair." It was almost as if Mrs. +Tropenell were speaking to herself. Her son turned and looked at her +squarely. + +"Yes! Gillie still hates Pavely. And yet, mother, since I came home this +time I've wondered sometimes if Pavely was so very unreasonable about it +after all. You see, Gillie must have been about the most troublesome +and--well, the most dangerous brother-in-law an unlucky country banker +could well have had!" + +"And but for you he'd be so still," she said quietly. "From something +Godfrey said the other day I gather that he's really grateful to you, +Oliver?" + +Oliver Tropenell got up. "Yes," he said shortly, "he's certainly +grateful. In fact, he seems to think I've limitless power of getting +people out of scrapes----" there was an undercurrent of triumph in his +deep, even tones. + +"I suppose the real reason he came to-day was that he's afraid to let a +stranger be Laura's trustee?" There was only the slightest touch of +interrogation in Mrs. Tropenell's voice, and she went on: "Perhaps he'd +be kinder to poor Gillie _now_--" a curious smile played round her +mouth. It was a full-lipped, generous mouth, but it was the least +refined feature of her face. + +"No, no. It's not as bad as that! But well, yes, Pavely _has_ used this +portion of Laura's fortune in a way he had no business to do, knowing it +was trust money." + +"And you----?" + +"Oh, I'm going to buy out her interest in the concern." + +"Will that cost you seventeen thousand pounds?" + +"Yes, it will. But I don't mind--it's quite a likely gamble. Have you +ever heard of Greville Howard?" + +"You mean the great money-lender?" + +"He's retired now. But Pavely and he seem to be in a kind of secret +partnership--queer isn't it? Pavely's a clever chap about money, but oh, +mother! he's such an insufferable cad!" + +Mrs. Tropenell felt a sudden tremor of fear sweep over her. She had +lately come to what she now realised was a quite wrong conclusion--she +had believed, that is, that Oliver, in a queer, contemptuous way, had +grown fond of Godfrey, as Godfrey had certainly grown fond of Oliver. +But now, all at once, her son had opened a dark window into his soul--or +was it into his heart? There was an under-current of hatred, as well as +of the contempt to which she was accustomed, in the way Oliver had just +spoken of his "friend"--of the man, at once fortunate and unfortunate, +who was Laura Pavely's husband. + +She stood up, and put her hand through her son's arm. "It's getting very +cold," she said, and shivered. + +He turned on her with quick concern: "I left you too long! I ought to +have sent him away before--but he was such a long time getting it out--" +under his breath he muttered "Damn him!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Mother and son dined alone together, and then, rather early, Mrs. +Tropenell went upstairs. + +For a while, perhaps as long as an hour, she sat up in bed, reading. At +last, however, she turned off the switch of her electric reading lamp, +and, lying back in her old-fashioned four-post bed, she shut her eyes +for a few moments. Then she opened them, widely, on to her moonlit room. + +Opposite to where she lay the crescent-shaped bow-window was still open +to the night air and the star-powdered sky. On that side of Freshley +Manor the wide lawn sloped down to a belt of water meadows, and beyond +the meadows there rose steeply a high, flat-topped ridge. + +Along this ridge Oliver Tropenell was now walking up and down smoking. +Now and again his mother saw the shadow-like figure move across the line +of her vision. + +At one moment, last winter, she had feared that he would not be able to +come back this year, as troubles had arisen among his cattle-men. But, +as was Oliver's way, he had kept his promise. That he had been able to +so do was in no small measure owing to his partner, Gilbert Baynton. + +Gilbert Baynton--_Laura Pavely's brother_? Of that ne'er-do-weel Oliver +had made from a failure a success; from a waster--his brother-in-law, +Godfrey Pavely, would have called him by a harsher name--an acute and a +singularly successful man of business. + +Lying there, her brain working quickly in the darkness, Oliver's mother +told herself that the Pavelys, both Godfrey and Laura, had indeed reason +to be grateful, not only to Oliver, but to her, Oliver's mother! It was +to please her, not them, that Oliver, long years ago, had accepted the +dubious gift of Gilbert Baynton, and the small sum Gilbert's +brother-in-law had reluctantly provided to rid himself of an intolerable +incubus and a potential source of disgrace. Godfrey Pavely was certainly +grateful, and never backward in expressing it. And Laura? Laura was one +of your silent, inarticulate women, but without doubt Laura must be +grateful too. + + * * * * * + +At last Oliver left the ridge, and Mrs. Tropenell went on gazing at the +vast expanse of luminous sky which merged into the uplands stretching +away for miles beyond the boundaries of her garden. + +She lay, listening intently, and very soon she heard the cadence of his +firm footfalls on the stone path below the window. Then came the quiet +unlatching of the garden door. Now he was coming upstairs. + +Her whole heart leapt out to him--and perchance it was this strong shaft +of wordless longing that caused Oliver Tropenell's feet to linger as he +was going past his mother's door. + +Following a sudden impulse, she, who had trained herself to do so few +things on impulse, called out, "Is that you, my darling?" + +The door opened. "Yes, mother. Here I am. May I come in?" + +He turned and shut out the bright electric light on the landing, and +walked, a little slowly and uncertainly in the darkness, towards where +he knew the bed to be. For a moment she wondered whether she should turn +on the lamp which was at her elbow, then some sure, secret instinct made +her refrain. + +She put out her hand, and pulled him down to her, and he, so chary of +caress, put his left arm round her. + +"Mother?" he said softly. "This dear old room! It's years since I've +been in this room--and yet from what I can see, it's exactly the same as +it always was!" + +And, as if answering an unspoken question, she spoke in very low tones, +"Hardly altered at all since the day you were born here, my dearest, on +the happiest day of my life." + +His strong arm tightened about her a little, and, still looking straight +before her, but leaning perhaps a little closer into the shelter of his +arm, she said tremulously, inconsequently it might have seemed: "Oliver? +Are you going to accept Lord St. Amant's invitation?" + +With a sharp shoot of hidden pain she felt his movement of recoil, but +all he said was, very quietly, "I've not quite made up my mind, mother." + +"It would give me pleasure if you were to do so. He has been a very good +and loyal friend to me for a long, long time, my dear." + +"I know that." + +She waited a moment, then forced herself to go on: "You were never quite +fair to St. Amant, Oliver." + +"I--I feared him, mother." + +And then, as she uttered an inarticulate murmur of pain and of protest, +he went on quickly, "The fear didn't last very long--perhaps for two or +three years. You see I was so horribly afraid that you were going to +marry him." In the darkness he was saying something he had never meant, +never thought to say. + +And she answered, "It was a baseless fear." + +"Was it? I wonder if it was! Oh, of course I know you are telling me the +truth as you see it now--but, but surely, mother?" + +"Surely no, Oliver. It is true that St. Amant wished, after his wife's +death, that I should marry him, but he soon saw that I did not wish it, +that nothing was further from my wish--then." + +"_Then?_" he cried. "What do you mean, mother? Lady St. Amant only died +when I was fifteen!" + +"I would like to tell you what I mean. And after I have told you, I wish +never to speak of this subject to you again. But I owe it to myself as +well as to you, to tell you the truth, Oliver. Where is your hand?" she +said, "let me hold it while I tell you." + +And then slowly and with difficulty she began speaking, with a +hesitation, a choosing of her words, which were in sharp contrast to her +usual swift decision. + +"I want to begin by telling you," her voice was very low, "that +according to his lights--the lights of a man of the world and of, well +yes, of an English gentleman--St. Amant behaved very well as far as I +was concerned. I want you to understand that, Oliver, to understand it +thoroughly, because it's the whole point of my story. If St. Amant had +behaved less well, I should have nothing to tell--you." + +She divined the quiver of half-shamed relief which went through her son. +It made what she wished to say at once easier and more difficult. + +"As I think you know, I first met St. Amant when I was very young, in +fact before I was 'out,' and he was the first really clever, really +attractive, and, in a sense, really noted man I had ever met. And +then"--she hesitated painfully. + +"And then, mother?" Oliver's voice was hard and matter-of-fact. He was +not making it easy for her. + +"Well, my dear, very very soon, he made of me his friend, and I was of +course greatly flattered, but at that time, in the ordinary sense of the +word, St. Amant never made love to me." She went on more firmly. "Of +course I soon came to know that he cared for me in a way he did not care +for the other women with whom his name was associated. I knew very soon +too, deep in my heart, that if his wife--his frivolous, mean-natured, +tiresome wife--died, he certainly would wish to marry me, and for years, +Oliver, for something like six years, I daily committed murder in my +heart." + +And then something happened which troubled and greatly startled the +woman who was making this painful confession. Her son gave a kind of +cry--a stifled cry which was almost a groan. "God! How well I understand +that!" he said. + +"Do you, Oliver--do you? And yet I, looking back, cannot understand it! +All that was best, indeed the only good that was in St. Amant to give I +had then, and later, after I became a widow, I had it again." + +"I suppose he was much the same then as later, or--or was he different +then, mother?" + +She knew what he meant. "He was the same then," she said quietly, "but +somehow I didn't care! Girls were kept so ignorant in those days. But of +course the whole world knew he was a man of pleasure, and in time I +grew to know it too. But still it wasn't that which made me unhappy, for +I did not realise what the phrase meant, still less what was implied by +it. But even so, as time went on I was very unhappy. Mine was a false +position--a position which hurt my pride, and, looking back, I suppose +that there must have soon been a certain amount of muffled talk. If I +was not jealous, other women were certainly jealous of me." + +She waited for a few moments; the stirring of these long-dead embers was +hurting her more than she would have thought possible. + +At last she went on: "Sometimes months would pass by without our +meeting, but he wrote to me constantly, and on his letters--such +amusing, clever, and yes, tender letters--I lived. My aunt, my father, +both singularly blind to the state of things, were surprised and annoyed +that I didn't marry, and, as for me, I grew more and more unhappy." + +"Poor mother!" muttered Oliver. And she sighed a sigh of rather piteous +relief. She had not thought he would understand. + +"I don't know what I should have done but for two people, your father, +who of course was living here then, our nearest neighbour, and, what +meant very much more to me just then, Laura's mother, Alice Tropenell. +Though she was only a very distant relation, she was like a daughter in +this house. Alice was my one friend. She knew everything about me. She +was--well, Oliver, I could never tell you what she was to me then!" + +"I suppose," he said slowly, "that Laura is like her?" + +"Laura?" Mrs. Tropenell could not keep the surprise out of her low +voice. "Oh no, my dear, Laura is not in the least like her mother. But +Laura's child is very like Alice--even now." + +"Laura's child?" Oliver Tropenell visioned the bright, high-spirited, +merry little girl, who somehow, he could not have told her why, seemed +often to be a barrier between himself and Laura. + +"Alice--my friend Alice--was full of buoyancy, of sympathy for every +living thing. She possessed what I so much lacked in those days, and +still alas! lack--sound common-sense. And yet she, too, had her ideals, +ideals which did not lead her into a very happy path, for Robert +Baynton, high-minded though he may have been, was absorbed in +himself--there was no room for any one else." Had she been telling her +story to any one but her son, Mrs. Tropenell would have added, "Laura is +very like him." + +Instead, she continued, "No one but Alice would have made Robert Baynton +happy, or have made as good a thing of the marriage as she did--for +happy they were. I think it was the sight of their happiness that made +me at last long for something different, for something more normal in my +life than that strange, unreal tie with St. Amant. So at last, when I +was four-and-twenty, I married your father." Oliver remained silent, and +she said a little tremulously, "He was very, very good to me. He made me +a happy woman. He gave me _you_." + +There was a long, long pause. Mrs. Tropenell had now come to what was +the really difficult part of the task she had set herself. + +"You are thinking, my boy, of _afterwards_." And as she felt him move +restlessly, she went on pleadingly, "As to that, I ask you to remember +that I was very lonely after your father died. Still, if you wish to +know the real truth"--she would be very honest now--"that friendship +which you so much disliked stood more in the way of your having a +stepfather than anything else could have done." + +"I see that now," he said sombrely, "but I did not see it then, mother." + +"Even if Lady St. Amant had not lived on, as she did, all those years, I +should not have married St. Amant--I think I can say that in all +sincerity. So you see, Oliver, you need not have been afraid, when at +last he became free." + +She sighed a long, unconscious sigh of relief. + +"I gather you still see him very often when he's at Knowlton Abbey?" + +"Yes, it's become a very comfortable friendship, Oliver. But for St. +Amant I should often feel very lonely, my dear." + +She longed to go on--to tell Oliver how hard it had been for her to +build up her life afresh--after he had finally decided to stay on in +Mexico. But she doubted if he would understand.... + +Suddenly he turned and kissed her. + +"Good-night," he said. "I'm grateful to you for having told me all--all +that you have told me, mother." + + * * * * * + +Oliver Tropenell hurried up the silent house. By his own wish the large +garret to which he had removed all his own treasures and boyish +belongings after a delicate childhood spent in a room close to his +mother's, was still in his room, and it had been very little altered. + +It was reached by a queer, narrow, turning staircase across which at a +certain point a beam jutted out too low. Tropenell never forgot to duck +his head at that point--indeed he generally remembered as he did so how +proud he had been the first time he had found himself to be too tall to +pass under it straightly! But, strange to say, to-night he did +forget--and for a moment he saw stars.... Fool! Fool that he was to +allow his wits to go wool-gathering in this fashion! + +With eyes still smarting, he leapt up the last few steps to the little +landing which he shared with no one else. Opening the door he turned the +switch of the lamp on the writing-table which stood at a right angle to +the deep-eaved window. + +Then he shut the door and locked it, and, after a moment of indecision, +walked across to the book-case which filled up the space between the +fireplace and the inner wall of the long, rafted room. + +He did not feel in the mood to go to bed, and idly he let his eyes run +over the long rows of books which he had read, in the long ago, again +and again, for like most lonely boys he had been a great reader. They +were a good selection, partly his mother's, partly his own, partly Lord +St. Amant's. He knew well enough--he had always known, albeit the +knowledge gave him no pleasure, that he had owed a great deal, as boy +and man, to his mother's old friend. Lord St. Amant had really fine +taste. It was he who had made Oliver read Keats, Blake, Byron, Poe, +among poets; he who had actually given him _Wuthering Heights_, _Vanity +Fair_, _The Three Musketeers_, _Ali Baba of Ispahan_. There they were +all together. + +He had not taken his books with him when he had first gone to Mexico, +for he had not meant to stay there. But at last he had written home to a +great London bookseller and ordered fresh copies of all his old books at +home. The bookseller had naturally chosen good editions, in some cases +rare first editions. But those volumes had never been read, as some of +these had been read, over and over and over again. + +But now, to-night, he did not feel as if he could commune with any +comfort even with one of these comfortable, unexacting friends. He felt +too restless, too vividly alive. So suddenly he turned away from the +bookcase, and looked about him. A large French box-bed had taken the +place of the narrow, old-fashioned bedstead of his youth; and his mother +had had moved up to this room a narrow writing-table from the study on +the ground floor which no one ever used. + +He walked over to that writing-table now, and sat down. On it, close to +his left hand, stood a large despatch-box. He opened and took out of it +a square sheet of paper on which was embossed his Mexican address. +Drawing two lines across that address, and putting in the present date, +September 19th, he waited, his pen poised in his hand for a full minute. + +Then he began writing rather quickly, and this is what he wrote:-- + + "MY DEAR LAURA,--Godfrey suggests that I should act as your + trustee, in succession to Mr. Blackmore. Am I to understand + that this suggestion has your approval? If yes, I will of + course consent to act. But please do not think I shall be + offended if you decide otherwise. You may prefer some woman + of your acquaintance. Women, whatever Godfrey may tell you, + make excellent men of business. They are, if anything, + over-prudent, over-cautious where money is concerned; but + that is a very good fault in a trustee." + +His handwriting was small and clear, but he had left large spaces +between the lines, and now he was at the end of the sheet of paper. +There was just room for another sentence and his signature. He waited, +hesitating and of two minds, till the ink was dry, and then he began +again, close to the bottom of the sheet:-- + + "Before we meet again I wish to say one further thing." + +He put this first sheet aside, and took another of the same size from +the box by his side:-- + + "You said something to-day which affected me painfully. You + spoke as if what I have done for your brother caused you to + carry a weight of almost intolerable gratitude. So far as + any such feeling should exist between us, the gratitude + should be on my side. In sober truth Gillie has been + invaluable to me. + + "I remain, + "Yours sincerely," + +Then very rapidly Oliver Tropenell made an "O" and a "T," putting the T +across the O so that any one not familiar with his signature would be +hard put to it to know what the two initials were. + +He read over the words he had just written. They seemed poor, +inadequate, and he felt strongly tempted to write the letter again, and +word it differently. Then he shook his head--no, let it stand! + +Slowly he put the second sheet of the letter aside, and placed the first +one, on which the ink was dry, before him. Then he looked round, with a +queer, furtive look, and, getting up, made sure the door was locked. + +Coming back to the writing-table, he took out of the despatch-box lying +there a small, square, crystal-topped flagon of the kind that fits into +an old-fashioned dressing-case. The liquid in it was slightly, very +slightly, coloured, and looked like some delicate scent. + +From the despatch-box also he now brought out a crystal penholder with a +gold nib. He dipped it in the flagon, and began to write in between the +lines of the letter he had just written. As the liquid dried, the slight +marks made by the pen on the paper vanished, for Oliver Tropenell was +writing in invisible ink. + + "The decks are cleared between us, Laura, for you know now + that I love you. You said, 'Oh, but this is terrible!' Yes, + Laura, love is terrible. It is not only cleansing, + inspiring, and noble, it is terrible also. Why is it that + you so misunderstand, misjudge, the one priceless gift, the + only bit of Heaven which God or Nature--I care not + which--has given to man and woman? What you, judging by + your words to-day, take to be love is as little like that + passion as a deep draught of pure cold water to a man dying + of thirst, is like the last glass of drugged beer imbibed + by some poor sot already drunk." + +Oliver Tropenell waited awhile. There were still two spaces, before the +bottom of the page of notepaper was reached, and again he dipped the pen +into the strange volatile liquid. + + "God bless you, my dear love," he wrote, "and grant you the + peace which seems the only thing for which you crave." + +He waited till the words had quite vanished, and then he took up the two +sheets of paper, folded them in half, and put them in a large envelope +which fitted the paper when so folded. He wrote on the outside, "Mrs. +Pavely, Lawford Chase." + +And then, turning out the light with a quick, nervous gesture, he got up +and went over to the long, low, garret window. + +For a few moments he saw nothing but darkness, then the familiar scene +unrolled below him and took dim shape in the starlit night. + +Instinctively his sombre eyes sought the place where, far away to the +right, was a dark patch of wood. It was there, set amidst a grove of +high trees, that stood Lawford Chase, the noble old house which had been +his mother's early home, and which now contained Laura Pavely, the woman +to whom he had just written two such different letters, and who for +nearly three months had never been out of his waking thoughts. + +As his eyes grew more and more accustomed to the luminous darkness, he +saw the group of elms under which this very day a word had unsealed the +depths of his heart, and where he had had the agony of seeing Laura +shrink, shudder, wilt as does a flower in a breath of hot, foetid air, +under his avowal of love. + +Violently he put that memory from him, and staring out into the +splendour of this early autumn night, he tried to recapture the mixture +of feelings with which he had regarded Laura Pavely the first time they +had met since her marriage--the first time indeed since she had been a +shy, quiet little girl, and he an eager, highly vitalised youth, five +years older than herself. + +Looking back now he realised that what had predominated in his mind on +that hot, languorous June afternoon was astonishment at her utter +unlikeness to her brother, his partner, Gillie Baynton. It was an +astonishment which warred with the beckoning, almost uncanny, +fascination which her gentle, abstracted, aloof manner effortlessly +exercised over him. And yet she had been (he knew it now, he had not +known it then) amazingly forthcoming--for her! As Mrs. Tropenell's son +he would have had a right to Laura Pavely's regard, but he knew now that +what had set ajar the portals of her at once desolate and burdened heart +had been his kindness to, even his business relationship with, her +brother. + +Gillie Baynton? Yes, it was to that disconcerting and discordant human +chord that their two natures--his and Laura's--had perforce vibrated and +mingled. Remembering this, Oliver Tropenell reproved himself for his +past discontent with the partner who, whatever his failings, had always +shown him both gratitude and a measure of such real affection as a man +seldom shows another in a business relationship. In spite of Gillie's +faults--nay, vices--he, Tropenell, now often found himself favourably +comparing Laura's brother with Laura's husband. + +Oliver Tropenell was acutely, intolerably, jealous of Godfrey +Pavely--jealous in the burning, scorching sense which is so often the +terrible concomitant of such a passion as that which now possessed him. +Godfrey Pavely's presence in his own house, his slightly tyrannical, +often possessive attitude to Laura, the perpetual reminder that he was, +after all, the father of the child Laura had borne, and who seemed to +fill her heart to the exclusion of all else--all this was for this man +who loved her an ever-recurring ordeal which might well have satisfied +the sternest moralist. + +That night Oliver Tropenell dreamt of Laura. He thought that he was +pursuing her through a maze of flowering shrubs and trees. She was +fleeing from him, yet now and again she would turn, and beckon.... + +His first waking thought was that they would meet to-night--here, in his +mother's house. But before that happened a long day would have to be +lived through, for he had made up his mind not to go to The Chase till +Laura again asked him to do so. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The door of Mrs. Tropenell's long low drawing-room opened very quietly, +and Laura Pavely came through into the room. + +She had left a brightly lighted hall for a room of which the only +present illumination radiated from a shaded reading lamp standing on a +little table behind which sat her hostess. Thus, for perhaps as long as +half a minute, Laura thought herself alone. + +During that half minute Mrs. Tropenell, with eyes well accustomed to the +shaded light, gazed at her visitor with an eager, searching look, the +look of one who wishes to see more, and to see further, than she has +ever seen before. + +But what she saw--all she saw--was the Laura she knew with a knowledge +that was at once so superficially close, and so little intimate. A woman +whose stillness of manner--a manner which at times made her appear +almost inanimate--covered, as Mrs. Tropenell had secret reason to know, +an extraordinary force of negative will power. It was a force which had +even pierced Godfrey Pavely's complacency, and shattered his firm belief +in all the rights that English law bestows on the man who has the good +or ill fortune to be a husband. + +As Laura advanced into the room her hostess saw that her visitor's +beautifully shaped head, set proudly and freely on the slender +shoulders, was thrown back in a characteristic gesture of attention, +and, with a touch of reluctance, she admired afresh the masses of fair, +_cendré_ hair drawn back from the forehead in a way which to most women +would have been trying, yet which to this woman lent an air of +eighteenth-century charm and distinction. + +There was no colour in Laura Pavely's face, but her eyes, heavy-lidded, +and fringed with eyelashes darker than her hair, were deeply blue. + +To-night she was wearing a very simple evening dress, a white chiffon +tea-gown with a long black lace coat. The under dress was almost high to +the throat, but beneath the black lace the wearer's arms, soft, dimpled, +and rounded, were bare to the shoulder, and gleamed palely, revealingly. + +Mrs. Tropenell wondered whether Laura knew that her arms were unusually +lovely; then, for she was a very honest woman, her conscience rebuked +her. Laura's faults with regard to men were faults of omission, not of +commission. Of course she was aware--she could not help being +aware--that she was a singularly attractive and distinguished-looking +creature. But she had always taken her own beauty, her own distinction, +just as she did the rare, distinctive features of her garden, and the +perhaps over-studied charm of her house--as something to be tended and +kept beautiful, but also to be guarded from alien indifferent eyes. + +Perhaps because in these days every intelligent woman claims to be +picturesque and witty--beauty, sheer beauty, is somewhat under the +weather. Laura Pavely, to use the current jargon of her day, was not a +"success." She was thought to be affected, "deep," prudish, whereas she +was simply indifferent to the more commonplace human elements about her. + +Her marriage had withdrawn her from the circle of the old friends and +neighbours among whom she had been brought up, in a measure because none +of them could "do," excepting in a very casual and cursory sense, with +Godfrey Pavely. The world of his youth, the little world in and about +the country town of Pewsbury, to which he had introduced her as a bride +with such exultant complacency, found her not only disagreeably +superior, but also dull. Besides, during the early days of her marriage +she had been too bewildered by the conditions of her new life, and of +her relationship with her husband, to trouble about making new friends, +or even new acquaintances. + +And so it was that in any intimate sense Mrs. Tropenell was still +Laura's only close friend, but the younger woman was rather pathetically +aware of how little she really possessed of the older woman's heart, how +constantly she was compared, and ever to her detriment, to her dead +mother, even how unconscious a rival in the older woman's favour was +Laura's own child--merry, cheerful, loving little Alice. + + * * * * * + +"Aunt Letty? I didn't see you were there." + +Laura Pavely had a delightful voice--low, clear, vibrating. It was a +voice which sometimes seemed to promise more depth of feeling than its +owner ever chose to betray. + +As she stooped to kiss Mrs. Tropenell, Laura let herself slide down on +to the floor. She knelt there for a moment, and the light gleamed on her +fair hair and upturned face. "Alice sent you her love," she said +softly, "heaps of love. She's better to-night, though not quite well +yet!" And then, as there came a sound of quick footsteps across the +hall, she rose, and drew herself up to her full height, with the grace +of movement and the absence of flurry which were both so characteristic +of her. + +Mrs. Tropenell looked up quickly. Had Laura flushed, as she sometimes +did flush, with a deep, unbecoming reddening of her pale face, when +moved or startled? No, she seemed, if anything, paler, more impassive +than usual, and Oliver's mother asked herself, yet again, what of late +she had so often asked herself--if Laura was capable of _any_ feeling, +_any_ passion, save a feeling of horror, a passion of repugnance, for +aught which seemed to smirch her own fastidious physical and spiritual +entity. + +That she loved her child, the high-spirited, happy-natured little girl, +whose presence alone made life sweet and normal at Lawford Chase, Mrs. +Tropenell could not doubt--she had had proof of how deeply Laura loved +her child on the only occasion danger had come near to Alice--during a +bout of some childish ailment, when for a few hours the little creature +had been in danger of death. She, the older woman, had been frightened, +awed, by Laura's terrible, dry-eyed agony.... + +Oliver Tropenell opened the door, and as he walked across the room, his +mother's heart quivered with jealous pain, and even with a feeling of +secret, impotent anger, as she saw the eager, rapt look which lighted up +his dark face. + +Laura held out her ringless right hand, but he only just touched it. +"I'm sorry I'm late!" he exclaimed. "As a matter of fact I was reading +a letter just come, by the second post, from Gillie." + +"I've written to Gillie to-day," Laura said quietly. It seemed such a +long, long time since yesterday morning. She felt as if the +extraordinary thing which had happened then had been blotted out. + +"Have you sent your letter off?" + +"No, not yet," she was surprised at the question. + +And then there fell a curious silence on those three people, till at +last the door opened, and dinner was announced. + +"Oliver! Take in Laura," said Mrs. Tropenell. + +On the last occasion when the three had dined alone together there had +been a little smiling discussion as to the order in which they should go +into the dining-room. But that had been many weeks ago. They were not in +such a light mood to-night, and yet--and yet, why should they not be? +The hostess knew of no reason. + +The two paired off together, and Oliver's mother asked herself, for +perhaps the thousandth time in the last three months, why she had +allowed this--this friendship between her son and Laura Pavely to come +about? It would have been so easy to arrange that she and her son should +spend the summer abroad! When he had first come home there had been a +talk of their going away together to Italy, or to France--France, which +they had both loved when he was a clever, ardent, headstrong boy, with a +strength of brain and originality of mind too big for his boyish boots. + +But the harm, what harm there was--sometimes she hoped it was not so +very much harm after all--had been done quickly. By the end of that +first month at home, Oliver had lost all wish to leave Freshley. + +In those early days--or was it that already he was being unconsciously +hypocritical as men are wont to be when in such case as that in which he +now found himself?--he had seemed to have formed an even closer +friendship with Godfrey Pavely than with Godfrey Pavely's wife. They had +even made a joint business expedition to town together, Godfrey as +Oliver's guest, staying in one of those luxurious hotels which seem +equally attractive to the millionaire and the adventurer. But Oliver had +at last thrown off, when alone with his mother, any pretence of liking, +far less of respecting, Godfrey Pavely. Yet when with the other man he +still kept up the sinister fiction. She knew that. + + * * * * * + +The three sat down in the pretty, octagon-shaped dining-room, and the +mother and son talked, Laura saying very little, and never giving, +always accepting--in that sense, perhaps, an elemental woman after all! +Even so, she showed, when she did rouse herself to express an opinion, +that there was a good deal of thought and of intelligence in her small, +beautiful head. + +Mrs. Tropenell, sitting at the top of the oval table, told herself that +in a primeval sense such a woman as Laura might well be the complement +of such a man as was Oliver. He had strength, passion, idealism, enough +to furnish forth half a dozen ordinary human beings. And he had patience +too--patience which is but another name for that self-control in the +secret things of passion which often brings men's desires to fruition. +It was patience and self-control which had been so lacking in Godfrey +Pavely during those early days when Laura had at least desired to fulfil +her duty as a wife. + +And yet again and again during that uncomfortable half-hour Mrs. +Tropenell caught herself wishing that Godfrey Pavely was there, sitting +on her right hand. Godfrey always had plenty to say for himself, +especially in that house, and when he felt secure of the discretion of +those about him, he would often tell much that he ought, in his +character of banker, to have left unsaid. He knew the private business +of every one, gentle or simple, for miles round, and took an easy, +unaffected interest in it all. It was only when he touched on wider +matters, especially on politics, that he grew unbearably tedious and +prosy. But then the only person whom Mrs. Tropenell ever listened to +with pleasure on such subjects was her old friend, Lord St. Amant, who +always knew what he was talking about, and always salted what he knew +with happy flashes of wit and humour. + +Oliver accompanied the two ladies back into the drawing-room, and his +mother did not know whether to be glad or sorry that she had not had a +few minutes alone with the younger woman. Sometimes it seemed as if she +and Laura never were alone together now. Was it possible that of late +Laura was deliberately avoiding her? As this half suspicion came into +Mrs. Tropenell's mind she looked up and saw her son's eyes fixed on her +face. + +There was something imperious, imploring, commanding, in the look he +bent on her. She saw that he was willing her to go away--to leave him, +alone, with Laura.... + +Under the spell of that look she got up. "I must go upstairs for my +work," she said quietly. "And I have a letter to write too. I shan't be +very long." + +It was as if Oliver made but one swift step to the door, and, as he held +it open, his mother turned her head away, lest he should see that tears +had come into her eyes--tears of pain, and yes, of fear. + +How was all this to end? + +After walking slowly forward into the square brightly lighted hall she +suddenly stayed her steps, and clasped her hands together. + +A terrible temptation--terrible, almost unbelievable to such a woman as +was Letitia Tropenell--held her in its grip. She longed with a fearful, +gasping longing, to go back and listen at the door which had just closed +behind her. + +So strong was this temptation that she actually visualised herself +walking across to a certain corner, turning down the electric light +switch, then, in the darkness, creeping to the drawing-room door, and +there gently, gently--pushing it open, say half an inch, in order to +hear what those two were now saying, the one to the other.... + +At last, thrusting the temptation from her, she again began walking +across the brightly lighted hall, and so, slowly, made her way up the +staircase which led to her bedroom. + + * * * * * + +What Mrs. Tropenell would have heard, had she yielded to that ignoble +temptation, would not have told her anything of what she had so longed +to know. + +After he had shut the door on his mother, Oliver Tropenell walked back +to the place where he had stood a moment ago. But he did not come any +nearer than he had been before to his guest, and his manner remained +exactly what it had been when they had been three, instead of being, as +they were now, two, in that dimly lighted room. + +Still, both he and Laura, in their secret, hidden selves, were +profoundly conscious that Mrs. Tropenell's absence made a great, if an +intangible, difference. It was the first time they had been alone that +day, for it was the first day for many weeks past that Oliver had not +walked over to The Chase, either in the morning or in the afternoon or, +as was almost always the case, both after breakfast and about teatime. + +At last, when the silence had become almost oppressive, he spoke, with a +certain hard directness in his voice. + +"In the letter I received from Gillie to-day he tells me that he can +easily be spared for a few weeks, and I've already telephoned a cable +telling him to start at once. I've said that if he thinks it advisable I +myself will leave for Mexico as soon as I hear from him." + +"Oh, but I don't want you to do that!" Laura Pavely looked up at him +dismayed. "I thought you meant to stay in England right up to +Christmas?" + +"Yes, so I did, and I feel almost certain that he won't think it +necessary for me to go back. But the important thing is Gillie's and +your holiday. Why shouldn't he take you and Alice to France or Italy for +a month?" + +He saw her face, the face in which there had been a certain rigid, +suffering gravity, light up, soften, and then become overcast again. +Moving a little nearer to the low chair on which she was sitting--"Yes?" +he asked, looking down at her. "What is it you wish to say, Laura?" + +"Only that Godfrey would never let me go away with Gillie." She spoke in +a sad, low voice, but she felt far more at her ease than she had yet +felt this evening. + +The last time she and Oliver had been alone, they had parted as enemies, +but now there was nothing to show that he remembered their interchange +of bitter, passionate words. + +He answered quietly, + +"I wonder why you feel so sure of that? I believe that if it were put to +Godfrey in a reasonable way, he could not possibly object to your going +abroad with your brother. It's time they made up that foolish old +quarrel." + +"Ah, if only I could get away with Gillie and my little Alice!" + +Laura looked up as she spoke, and Oliver Tropenell was moved, almost +unbearably so, by the look which came over her face. Was it the mention +of her child, of her brother, or the thought of getting away from +Godfrey for a while, which so illumined her lovely, shadowed eyes? + +He went on, still speaking in the quiet, measured tones which made her +feel as if the scene of yesterday had been an evil dream. "I've even +thought of suggesting that Godfrey should come out with me to Mexico, +while your little jaunt with Gillie takes place. We could all be back +here by Christmas!" + +She shook her head. "I'm afraid Godfrey would never go away except in +what he considers his regular holiday time." + +"Not even if I made it worth his while?" + +She looked up, perplexed. And then a wave of hot colour flamed up in her +face. Her conscience, in some ways a very delicate and scrupulous +conscience, smote her. + +Was it her fault that Oliver Tropenell had come so to despise Godfrey? + +But he went on, speaking more naturally, that is quickly, eagerly--more +like his pre-yesterday self, "No, I'm not joking! I think I can put +Godfrey in the way of doing some really good business out there. We've +spoken of it more than once--only yesterday afternoon we spoke of it." + +"You don't mean with Gillie there?" There was a note of incredulity in +Laura's voice. + +"No." They were on dangerous ground now. "Not exactly with Gillie +there--though it seems to me, Laura, that Godfrey ought to make it up +with Gillie." + +Slowly, musingly, as if speaking to herself, she said, "If Godfrey ever +goes to Mexico I think he would want me to come too--he always does." +And this was true, for Godfrey Pavely in some ways was curiously +uxorious. Little as they were to one another, Laura's husband never +allowed her to go away by herself, or even with her child, for more than +a very few days. + +"You come too--to Mexico?" There was surprise, doubt, in Oliver +Tropenell's voice, and suddenly Laura did a strange thing, imprudent, +uncalled-for in the circumstances in which she found herself with this +man; yet she did it with no trace of what is ordinarily called +coquetry. Lifting up her head, she said rather plaintively, "Surely you +wouldn't mind my coming too, Oliver?" + +"Does that mean that you've forgiven me?" he asked. + +She got up from the low chair where she had been sitting, and, facing +him, exclaimed impulsively, "I want us both to forget what happened +yesterday! I was wrong, very wrong, in saying what I did about Godfrey," +her voice faltered, and slowly she added, "But with you, who seemed to +somehow understand everything without being told, I felt, I felt----" + +He raised a warning hand, for his ears had caught the sound of light +footfalls in the hall. "Mother's coming back," he said abruptly. "Don't +say anything to her of my cable to Gillie." And at once, without any +change in his voice, he went on: "There's a great deal that would +interest you, quite as much as Godfrey, out there----" + +The door opened, and he turned round quickly. "I'm trying to persuade +Laura to come out to Mexico," he exclaimed. "Godfrey has practically +promised to pay me a visit, and I don't see why she shouldn't come too!" + +Mrs. Tropenell made no answer. She knew, and she believed that both the +people standing there knew as well as she did, that such an expedition +could never take place so long as Gilbert Baynton was Oliver's partner. +Baynton and Pavely were bitter enemies. There had never been even the +semblance of a reconciliation between them. + +But as her son bent his eyes on her as if demanding an answer, she +forced herself to say lightly: "I expect they both will, some day, and +while they are away I can have my dear little Alice!" + +When, a little later, Mrs. Tropenell accompanied Laura out into the +hall, she said, "Do come in to-morrow or Sunday, my dear. I seem to see +so little of you now." + +"I will--I will!" and as she kissed the older woman, Laura murmured, +"You're so good to me, Aunty Letty--you've always been so very, very +good to me!" + +Oliver opened wide the door giving into the garden. He was now obviously +impatient to get Laura once more alone to himself.... + +After she went back to her drawing-room, Mrs. Tropenell walked straight +across to a window, and there, holding back the heavy curtain, she +watched the two figures moving in the bright moonlight across the lawn, +towards the beech avenue which would presently engulf them. + +What were their real relations the one to the other? Was Laura as blind +to the truth as she seemed to be, or was she shamming--as women, God or +the devil helping them--so often sham? + +Slowly, feeling as if she had suddenly become very, very old, Mrs. +Tropenell dropped the curtain, and walking back to her usual place, her +usual chair, took up her knitting. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Laura and Oliver Tropenell walked across the grass in silence, and still +in silence they passed through under the great dark arch formed by the +beech trees. + +Laura was extraordinarily moved and excited. Her brother, her dear, dear +Gillie, coming home? She had taken the surprising news very quietly, but +it had stirred her to the depths of her nature. Without even telling her +of what he was going to do, the man now walking by her side had brought +about the thing that for years she had longed should come to pass. + +In her husband Laura had become accustomed to a man who was cautious and +deliberate to a fault, and who, as so often happens, carried this +peculiarity even more into the affairs of his daily life than into his +business. Often weeks would go by before Godfrey would make up his mind +to carry out some small, necessary improvement connected with the +estate. + +Yet here was Oliver, who, without saying a word to her about it, had +decided that Gillie should come to England just to see the sister he had +not seen for seven years! Laura began to think it possible that after +all Godfrey _would_ make it up with her brother. Oliver Tropenell had an +extraordinary influence over Godfrey Pavely; again and again, as +regarded small matters, he had, as it were, made Godfrey's mind up for +him. + +A feeling of deep gratitude welled up in her heart for the silent man +by her side. She longed for him to speak now, as he had spoken to her, +kindly, conciliatingly, but a few minutes ago, in the drawing-room. + +But Oliver stalked along dumbly in the intense darkness. + +And then suddenly she remembered, with a miserable feeling of +discomfort, and yes, of shame, that she could hardly expect him to be as +usual. And so it was she who, making a great effort, at last broke the +unnatural silence. + +"I've never thanked you for your letter," she said nervously. "But I'm +very much obliged to you, Oliver, for consenting to be my trustee. And I +know that Godfrey will be! I hope it won't give you much trouble--the +trusteeship, I mean. I know that Mr. Blackmore, for years past, left it +all to Godfrey." + +He answered slowly, meditatively, and to her intense relief, quite in +his old way. "Yes, I think Godfrey will be pleased. To tell you the +truth, Laura, I thought I would take advantage of his pleasure to +suggest that plan about Gillie--I mean that you and Gillie and Alice +should all go abroad together." + +"If only you can persuade Godfrey to let me have Gillie here for a +while, I shall be more than content!" She spoke with a rather piteous +eagerness. + +They were walking very, very slowly. Oliver had now turned on his +electric torch, and it threw a bright patch of light on the path +immediately before them, making all the darkness about them the blacker +and the more intense. + +In a hard voice he exclaimed: "Of course Gillie must come here, and stay +here! His being anywhere else would be preposterous----" And then, once +more, he fell into that strange, disconcerting silence. + +The last time they two had walked down under the beeches at night had +been some three weeks ago. Laura and Godfrey had dined with the +Tropenells, and then Godfrey had said that he had to go home and do some +work, leaving her to stay on, for nearly an hour, with the mother and +son. + +Oliver's torch had gone out that evening, and he had suggested, a little +diffidently, that Laura should take his arm; smiling, she had laid the +tips of her fingers lightly on his sleeve. She had felt so happy then, +so happy, and absolutely at her ease, with her companion.... + +Tears welled up in her eyes. She was grateful for the darkness, but her +trembling voice betrayed her as she exclaimed, "Oliver? I do again ask +you to forget what happened yesterday, and to forgive me for the things +I said. I'm very sorry that I spoke as I did." + +He stopped walking, and put out his torch. "Don't be sorry," he said, in +a low, constrained voice. "It's far better that I should know exactly +how you feel. Of course I was surprised, for I'd always had a notion +that women regarded love from a more ideal standpoint than men seem able +to do. But I see now that I was mistaken." Some of the bitterness with +which his heart was still full and overflowing crept into his measured +voice. "I think you will believe me when I say that I did not mean to +insult you----" + +He was going on, but she interrupted him. + +"--I'm sorry--sorry and ashamed too, Oliver, of what I said. +Please--please forget what happened----" + +He turned on her amid the dark shadows. + +"If _I_ forget, will _you_?" he asked sombrely. + +And she answered, "Yes, yes--indeed I will! But before we put what +happened yesterday behind us forever, do let me tell you, Oliver, that I +_am_ grateful, deeply grateful, for your----" she hesitated painfully, +and then murmured "your affection." + +But Oliver Tropenell did not meet her half-way, as she had perhaps +thought he would. He was torn by conflicting feelings, cursing himself +for having lost his self-control the day before, and yet, even so, deep +in his subtle, storm-tossed mind, not altogether sorry for what had +happened. + +And so it was she who went on, speaking slowly and with difficulty: "I +know that I have been to blame! I know that I ought never to have spoken +of Godfrey as I have sometimes allowed myself to do to you. According to +his lights, he is a good husband, and I know that I have been--that I +am--a bitter disappointment to him." + +He muttered something--she did not hear what it was, and she hurried on: +"What I have wanted--and oh, Oliver, I have wanted it so much--is a +friend," almost he heard the unspoken words, "not a lover." + +She put out her hand in the darkness and laid it, for a moment, on his +arm. And then, suddenly, in that moment of, to him, exquisite, +unhoped-for contact, Oliver Tropenell swore to himself most solemnly +that he would rest satisfied with what she would, and could, grant him. +And so-- + +"I know that," he said in measured, restrained tones. "And I have made +up my mind to be that friend, Laura. We will both forget what happened +yesterday. If you are ashamed, I am a hundred times more so! And do +believe me when I tell you that what you said about Godfrey--why, I've +forgotten it already--had nothing to do with my outburst. I'm a lonely +man, my dear, and somehow, without in the least meaning it, I know, you +crept into my heart and filled it all. But already, since yesterday, +I've come to a more reasonable frame of mind." + +He waited a moment, despising himself for uttering such lying words, and +then he went on, this time honestly meaning what he said: "Henceforth, +Laura, I swear that I'll never again say a word to you that all the +world might not hear. I never did, till yesterday----" + +"I know, I know," she said hurriedly. "And that was why I was so +surprised." + +"Let's put it all behind us and go back to 'as we were'!" He was +speaking now with a sort of gruff, good-humoured decision, and +Laura sighed, relieved, and yet--so unreasonable a being is +woman--unsatisfied. + +The light from his torch flashed again, and they walked on, under the +dark arch of leaves and branches, till they were close to the open road. + +And there Laura said, "I wish you would leave me here, Oliver. I feel +sure that Aunt Letty is waiting up for you." + +He answered her at once. "It won't make more than five minutes' +difference. I'll only walk as far as the lodge. It's a lonely little +stretch of road." + +"Lonely?" she repeated. "Why, there isn't a bit of it that isn't within +hail of Rosedean!" + +And then, determined to go back to their old easy companionship, that +companionship which had lately become so easy and so intimate that when +with him she had often spoken a passing thought aloud, "Katty came home +to-day. I must try and see her to-morrow. She's a plucky creature, +Oliver! I wish that Aunt Letty liked her better than she does." + +He answered idly, "There's nothing much either to like or dislike in +Mrs. Winslow--at least so it always seems to me." + +But she answered quickly, defensively, "There's a great deal to like in +her--when I think of Katty Winslow I feel ashamed of myself. I've known +her do such kind things! And then she's so good about Godfrey--I don't +know what Godfrey would do without her. They knew each other as +children. It's as if she was his sister. All that little Pewsbury world +which bores me so, is full of interest to them both. I'm always glad +when she's at Rosedean. I only wish she didn't go away so often--Godfrey +does miss her so!" + +"Yes, I know he does," he said drily. + +They walked on in silence till they were close to the low lodge. + +Laura Pavely held out her hand, and Oliver Tropenell took it in his +cool, firm grasp for a moment. + +"Good-night," he said. "I suppose we shall meet some time to-morrow?" + +She answered eagerly. "Yes, do come in, any time! Alice and I shall be +gardening before lunch. Godfrey won't be back till late, for he's sure +to go straight to the Bank from the station. He'll be so much obliged to +you about that trusteeship, Oliver. It's really very good of you to take +so much trouble." + +Oliver Tropenell answered slowly, "Yes, I think Godfrey will be +pleased; and as I've already told you, I'll certainly take advantage of +his pleasure, Laura, to suggest the plan about Gillie." + +Once more she exclaimed: "If only you can persuade Godfrey to let me +have Gillie at The Chase for a while, I shall be more than content!" + +There was a thrill of excitement, of longing, in her low voice, as, +without waiting for an answer, she walked away, leaving him looking +after her. The patch of whiteness formed by the hem of her gown moved +swiftly along--against the moonlit background of grass, trees, and sky. +He stood and watched the moving, fluttering bit of whiteness till it +vanished in the grey silvery haze. Then, slowly, he turned on his heel +and made his way back home. + + * * * * * + +It was nearly a quarter of a mile from the lodge to The Chase, as the +house was always called, but there was a rather shorter way across the +grass, through trees; and Laura, when she came to where she knew the +little path to be, left the carriage way, and stepped up on to the +grass. + +She felt oppressed, her soul filled with a piteous lassitude and +weariness of life, in spite of the coming return home of her only +brother. She had been moved and excited, as well as made acutely +unhappy, by what had happened yesterday morning. Mrs. Tropenell, as +almost always happens in such a case, was not fair to Laura Pavely. +Laura had been overwhelmed with surprise--a surprise in which +humiliation and self-rebuke were intolerably mingled--and yes, a certain +proud anger. + +The words Oliver had said, and alas! that it should be so, the bitter, +scornful words she had uttered in reply, had, she felt, degraded them +both--she far, far more than him. At the time she had been too deeply +hurt, too instinctively anxious to punish him, to measure her words. And +now she told herself that she had spoken yesterday in a way no man would +ever forget, and few, very few men would ever forgive. Though he had +been kind to-night--very, very kind--his manner had altered, all the +happy ease had gone. + +Tears came into Laura Pavely's eyes; they rolled down her cheeks. +Suddenly she found herself sobbing bitterly. + +She stopped walking, and covered her face with her hands. With a depth +of pain, unplumbed till now, she told herself that she would never, +never be able to make Oliver understand why she had said those cruel +stinging words. Without a disloyalty to Godfrey of which she was +incapable, she could not hope to make him understand why she had so +profound a distaste, ay, and contempt, for that which, if he had spoken +truly yesterday, he thought the greatest thing in the world. With sad, +leaden-weighted conviction she realised that there must always be +between a man and a woman, however great their friendship and mutual +confidence, certain barriers that nothing can force or clear. + +She had believed, though as a matter of fact she had not thought very +much about it, that Oliver Tropenell, in some mysterious way, was unlike +ordinary men. As far as she knew, he had never "fallen in love." Women, +who, as she could not help knowing, had always played so great a part in +her brother Gillie's life, seemed not to exist--so far as Oliver +Tropenell was concerned. He had never even seemed attracted, as almost +every man was, by pretty Katty Winslow, the innocent _divorcée_ now +living at his very gates. So she, Laura, had allowed herself to slip +into a close, intimate relationship which, all unknowingly to her, had +proved most dangerous to him.... + +Still crying bitterly, she told herself that she had been too happy all +this summer. Godfrey had been kinder, less, less--she shrank from +putting it into words--but yes, less ill-tempered, mean, and tiresome +than usual. Oliver had had such a good effect on Godfrey, and she had +honestly believed that the two were friends. + +But how could they be friends if--if it was true that Oliver loved her? +Laura Pavely knew nothing of the well-worn byways of our poor human +nature. + +Suddenly she threw her head back and saw the starlit sky above her. +Somehow that wonderful ever-recurring miracle of impersonal, unearthly +beauty calmed and comforted her. Drying her eyes, she told herself that +something after all had survived out of yesterday's wreck. Her friend +might be a man--a man as other men were; but he was noble, and +singularly selfless, for all that. On the evening of the very day on +which she had grievously offended and wounded him, he had written her a +kindly letter, offering to be her trustee. + +There had been moments to-day when she had thought of writing Mrs. +Tropenell a note to say she did not feel well--and that she would not +dine at Freshley that night. But oh, how glad she was now that a mixture +of pride and feminine delicacy had prompted her to behave just as if +nothing had happened, as if words which could never be forgotten had +not been uttered between herself and Oliver! She had thought he would +punish her this evening by being sulky and disagreeable--that was her +husband's invariable method of showing displeasure. But with the +exception of a word or two uttered very quietly, and more as if she, +rather than he, had something to forgive, he had behaved as if yesterday +had never been. He had heaped coals of fire upon her head, making it +plain that even now he was only thinking of her--of her and of Gillie, +of how he could pleasure them both by securing her a holiday with her +only brother. + +Every word of that restrained, not very natural, conversation held just +now under the beech trees re-echoed in her ears. She seemed to hear +again the slowly uttered, measured words, "I am going to be your friend, +Laura".... + +And then there came over Laura Pavely an extraordinary sensation of +moral and mental disturbance. Once more everything which had happened +to-day was blotted out, and she went back to yesterday morning. Again +she lived through those moments during which Oliver Tropenell had +offered her what was to him the greatest thing man has it in him to +bestow--love, even if illicit, unsanctified. And she had rejected the +gift with a passion of scorn, spurning it as she would have done a base +and unclean thing. + +Years and years ago, in her quiet, shadowed youth, she too had believed +love to be the most precious, beautiful thing in life. Then, with +marriage to Godfrey Pavely had come the conviction that love was not +beautiful, but very, very ugly--at its best one of those dubious gifts +to man by which old Dame Nature works out certain cunning designs of her +own. And yet, when something of what she believed to be the truth had +been uttered by her during that terrible tense exchange of words, she +had seen how she, in her turn, had shocked, and even repelled, Oliver +Tropenell. + +Once more sobs welled up from her throat, once more she covered her face +with her hands.... + +At last, feeling worn out with the violence of an emotion which, unknown +to her, vivified her whole being, she walked on till the fine Tudor +front of the old house which was at once so little and so much her home, +rose before her. It was an infinite comfort to know that Godfrey would +not be there waiting for her, and that she would be able to make her way +up alone through the sleeping house to the room which opened into her +child's nursery. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Mrs. Tropenell, waiting for Oliver to come back, lost count of time, and +yet not much more than half an hour had gone by before she heard the +sound of a glazed door, which opened on to the garden from a distant +part of the house, burst open. + +In that sound she seemed to hear all the impatience, all the pain, all +the frustrated longing she divined in her son. + +She got up from her chair and stood listening. Would he go straight +upstairs--as she, in her stormy, passionate youth, would have done in +his place? + +But no--with a feeling of rushing, unreasoning joy she heard him coming +across the hall. A moment later he walked through into the room and came +and stood before her. + +"Mother," he said, "it's a beautiful night. Would you care to come into +the garden for a few minutes?" + +As soon as they had stepped out of the French window into the darkness, +she took his arm. + +"You don't feel it cold?" he asked solicitously. + +"Oh no," she said, surprised. "I'm so little cold, Oliver, that I +shouldn't at all mind going over to the blue bench, and sitting down." + +They went across the grass, to a curious painted Italian bench which had +been a gift of the woman who was so much in both their thoughts. + +And there, "I want to ask you a question," he said slowly. "What led to +the marriage of Laura Baynton and Godfrey Pavely? From something she +once said to me, I gather she thinks that you approved of it." + +She felt as if his eyes were burning her in the darkness, and as she +hesitated, hardly knowing what to say, he went on, and in his voice +there was something terribly accusing. + +"Did _you_ make the marriage, mother? Did you really advise her to take +that fellow?" + +The questions stung her. "No," she answered coldly. "I did nothing of +the kind, Oliver. If you wish to know the truth, the person who was most +to blame was your friend Gillie, Laura's brother. Laura adored her +brother. There was nothing in the world she wouldn't have done for him, +and she married Godfrey--it seems a strange thing to look back on +now--to please Gillie." + +"But she met Pavely here?" + +"Yes, of course she did. As you know, she very often stayed with me +after her father died, and when Gillie Baynton, instead of making a home +for her, was getting into scrape after scrape, spending her money as +well as his own." + +He muttered, "Gillie knew she was to have money later." + +She went on: "And then Godfrey Pavely in love is a very different person +from Godfrey Pavely--well, out of love. He was set on marrying Laura, +and that over years. He first asked her when she was seventeen, and they +married when she was twenty-one. In the interval he had done Gillie many +good turns. In fact Godfrey bought Laura from Gillie. That, Oliver, is +the simple truth." + +She waited for him to make some kind of comment, but he said nothing, +and she went on, a tinge of deep, yearning sadness in her voice, "Don't +let your friends, or rather their incompatibility of temper--" she +hesitated, and then rather solemnly ended her sentence with the words, +"affect _our_ relations, my son." + +"I'm sorry, mother." Tropenell's voice altered, softened. "Forgive me +for the way I spoke just now! I had got it into my head--I didn't know +quite exactly why--that you had promoted the marriage. I see now that +you really had nothing to do with it." + +"I won't say that! It's difficult to remember exactly what did happen. +Godfrey never wearied in his slow, inexorable pursuit of Laura. I think +that at last she was touched by his constancy. She knew nothing then of +human nature--she knows nothing of it now." + +He muttered, "Poor girl! Poor unfortunate girl!" and his way of uttering +the commonplace words hurt his mother shrewdly. + +Suddenly she made up her mind to say at least one true thing to him. It +was a thing she knew well no one but herself would ever say to Oliver. + +"I am in a position to know," she said, "and I want you to believe it +when I tell you, that if Laura is to be as much pitied as you believe +her to be--so too, I tell you, Oliver, is Godfrey! If I had known before +the marriage, even an hour before the actual wedding, what I learnt +afterwards--I mean as to their amazingly different ideals of life--I +would have done _anything_ to stop it!" + +"What d'you mean exactly, mother, by different ideals of life?" + +As he asked the question he moved away from her a little, but he turned +round and bent his eyes on to her face--dimly, whitely, apparent in the +starlit, moonlit night. + +She did not speak at once. It seemed to her that the question answered +itself, and yet she felt that he was quivering with impatience for her +answer. + +"The French," she said in a low voice, "have a very good phrase to +describe the kind of man Godfrey is. Godfrey Pavely is a _le moyen homme +sensuel_--the typical man of his kind and class, Oliver--the +self-satisfied, stolid, unimaginative upper middle-class. Such men feel +that the world, their English world at any rate, has been made for them, +built up by the all-powerful entity they call God in their personal +interest. They know scarcely anything of what is going on, either above +or below them, and what is more, they do not really care, as long as +they and their like prosper." + +Oliver nodded impatiently. He knew all that well enough! + +His mother went on: "Godfrey Pavely ought to have married some rather +clever, rather vulgar-natured, rather pretty girl, belonging to his own +little world of Pewsbury. Then, instead of being what he now is, an +uncomfortable, not over contented man, he would have been, well--what +his worthy father was before him. That odd interest in queer, +speculative money dealings, is the unfortunate fellow's only outlet, +Oliver, for what romance is in him." + +"I wonder if you're right, mother?" + +"I'm sure I am." + +There came a long silence between them. + +Mrs. Tropenell could see her son in outline, as it were, his +well-shaped head, and long, lean, finely proportioned body. He was +sitting at the further end of the bench, and he was now staring right +before him. She found it easier--far easier--to speak of Godfrey than of +Laura. And so, musingly, she went on: + +"Looking back a dozen years, I can think of several young women whom +Godfrey would have done well to consider----" + +"I can certainly think of one, mother," he said, and in the darkness +there came a bitter little smile over his face. + +"You mean Katty Winslow? Yes--I think you're right, my dear. When +Godfrey turned from Katty to Laura, he made a terrible mistake. Katty, +in the old days, had very much the same ambitions, and the same social +aspirations, as himself. She was really fond of him too! She would have +become--what's the odious word?--'smart.' And Godfrey would have been +proud of her. By now he would have stood for Parliament, and then, in +due course, would have come a baronetcy. Yes, if the gods had been kind, +Godfrey Pavely would have married poor little Katty--he didn't behave +over well to her, you know!" + +"It seems to me that Mrs. Winslow has made quite a good thing of her +life, mother." + +"Do you really think that, Oliver?" + +"Yes, I do. She managed very cleverly, so I'm told, to get rid of that +worthless husband of hers, and now she's got that pretty little house, +and that charming little garden, and as much of Godfrey as she seems to +want." He spoke with a kind of hard indifference. + +"Katty's not the sort of woman to be really satisfied with a pretty +little house, a charming little garden, and a platonic share in another +woman's husband." + +"Then she'll marry again. People seem to think her very attractive." + +There was a long pause. + +"Mother?" + +"Yes, my dearest." + +"To return to Laura--what should have been _her_ fate had the gods been +kind?" + +She left his question without an answer so dangerously long as to create +a strange feeling of excitement and strain between them. Then, +reluctantly, she answered it. "Laura might have been happiest in not +marrying at all, and in any case she should have married late. As to +what kind of man would have made her happy, of course I have a theory." + +"What is your theory?" He leant towards her, breathing rather quickly. + +"I think," she said hesitatingly, "that Laura might have been happy with +a man of the world, older than herself, who would have regarded his wife +as a rare and beautiful possession. Such a man would have understood the +measure of what she was willing and able to give--and to withhold. I can +also imagine Laura married to a young idealist, the kind of man whose +attitude to his wife is one of worship, whose demands, if indeed they +can be called demands, are few, infrequent----" + +Mrs. Tropenell stopped abruptly. What she had just said led to a path +she did not mean to follow. But she soon realised with dismay that she +had said too much, or too little. + +"Do you mean," said Oliver hoarsely, "that Pavely--that Pavely----" he +left his question unfinished, but she knew he meant to exact an answer +and she did not keep him waiting long for it. Still she chose her words +very carefully. + +"I think that Godfrey Pavely, in the matter of his relations to his +wife, is a very unfortunate, and, some would say, a very ill-used man, +Oliver." + +Oliver Tropenell suddenly diminished the distance between his mother and +himself. The carefully chosen, vague words she had just uttered had been +like balm poured into a festering and intolerably painful wound. + +"Poor devil!" he said contemptuously, and there was a rather terrible +tone of triumph, as well as of contempt, in the muttered exclamation. + +Mrs. Tropenell was startled and, what she seldom was, frightened. She +felt she was face to face with an elemental force--the force of hate. + +She repeated his last words, but in how different a spirit, in how +different a tone! "Poor devil? Yes, Oliver, Godfrey is really to be +pitied, and I ask you to believe me, my son, when I say that he does do +his duty by Laura according to his lights." + +"Mother?" He put out his hand in the darkness and just touched hers. +"Why is it that Laura is so much fonder of you than you are of Laura? +You don't respect--or even like--Godfrey?" + +She protested eagerly. "But I _am_ fond of Laura--very, very fond, +Oliver! But though, as you say, I neither really like nor respect +Godfrey, I can't help being sorry for him. He once said to me--it's a +long time ago--'I thought I was marrying a woman, but I've married a +marble statue. I'm married to something like _that_'--and he pointed to +'The Wingless Victory' your father brought me, years ago, from Italy. +Godfrey is an unhappy man, Oliver--come, admit that you know that?" + +"I think she's far, far more unhappy than he is! No man with so +thoroughly good an opinion of himself is ever _really_ unhappy. Still, +it's a frightful tangle." + +He stopped short for a moment, then in a very low voice, he asked her, +"Is there no way of cutting it through, mother?" Suddenly he answered +his own question in a curiously musing, detached tone. "I suppose the +only way in which such a situation is ever terminated is by death." + +"Yes," she said slowly, "but it's not a usual termination. Still, I have +known it happen." More lightly she went on: "If Laura died, Godfrey +wouldn't escape Katty a second time. And one must admit that she would +make him an almost perfect wife." + +"_And if Godfrey died, mother?_" + +Mrs. Tropenell felt a little tremor of fear shoot through her burdened +heart. This secret, intimate conversation held in the starry night was +drifting into strange, sinister, uncharted channels. But her son was +waiting for an answer. + +"I don't know how far Laura's life would alter for the better if Godfrey +died. I suppose she would go on much as she does now. And, Oliver----" + +"Yes, mother." + +"I should pity and--rather despise the man who would waste his life in +an unrequited devotion." + +He made an impatient movement. "Then do you regard response as essential +in every relationship between a man and a woman?" + +"I have never yet known a man who did not regard it as essential," she +said quietly, "and that, however he might consciously or unconsciously +pretend to be satisfied with--nothing." + +"I once knew a man," he said, in a low, tense voice, "who for years +loved a woman who seemed unresponsive, who forced him to be content with +the merest crumbs of--well, _she_ called it friendship. And yet, mother, +that man was happy in his love. And towards the end of her life the +woman gave all that he had longed for, all he had schooled himself to +believe it was not in her to give--but it had been there all the time! +She had suffered, poor angel, more than he--" his voice broke, and his +mother, turning towards him, laid for a moment her hand on his, as she +whispered, "Was that woman at all like Laura, my darling?" + +"Yes--as far as a Spaniard, and a Roman Catholic, can be like Laura, she +was like Laura." + +Even as he spoke he had risen to his feet, and during their short walk, +from the bench where they had been sitting through the trees and across +the lawn, neither spoke to the other. But, as he opened the house door, +he said, "Good-night. I'm not coming in now; I'm going for a walk. I +haven't walked all day." He hesitated a moment: "Don't be worried--I +won't say don't be frightened, for I don't believe, mother, that +anything could ever frighten you--if you hear me coming in rather late. +I've got to think out a rather difficult problem--something connected +with my business." + +"I hope Gillie hasn't been getting into any scrape since you've come +home?" + +But she only spoke by way of falling in with his humour. Nothing +mattered to her, or to him, just now, except--Laura. + +He said hastily, "Oh no, things have been going very well out there. You +must remember, mother, that Baynton's scrapes never affect his work." + +He spoke absently, and she realised that he wanted to be away, by +himself, to think over some of the things she had said to him, and so +she turned and went slowly up the staircase, and passed through into her +own bedroom without turning up the light. + +Walking over to her window, she gazed down into the moonlit space +beneath. But she could see no moving shadow, hear no sound. Oliver had +padded away across the grass, making for the lonely downs which +encircled, on three sides, the house. + +Before turning away from her window, Mrs. Tropenell covered her face +with her hands; she was fearfully moved, shaken to the depths of her +heart. For the first time Oliver had bared his soul before her. She +thrilled with pride in the passionate, wayward, in a measure nobly +selfless and generous human being whom she had created. + +How strange, how amazing that Laura made no response to that ardent, +exalted passion! But if amazing, then also, from what ought to be every +point of view, how fortunate! And yet, unreasonable though it was, Mrs. +Tropenell felt sharply angered with Laura, irritated by that enigmatic, +self-absorbed, coldness of hers. What a poor maimed creature, to be so +blind, so imperceptive, to the greatest thing in the world! Dislike, a +physical distaste for the unlucky Godfrey which seemed sometimes to +amount to horror, were this beautiful woman's nearest approach to +passion. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +At Rosedean, the small, mid-Victorian house which every one going to and +fro between Freshley Manor and Lawford Chase was bound to pass by, Mrs. +Winslow sat in her drawing-room waiting for Godfrey Pavely. + +He was coming in to see her on his way home from Pewsbury, where, at the +Bank, he spent each day at least six of his waking hours. + +All the summer, up to to-day, Mrs. Winslow had always had tea in the +garden, but there was now a freshness in the air, and she thought they +would find it more comfortable indoors than out. Still, she had opened +wide the long French window, and the wind blew in, laden with pungent +autumnal scents. + +Katty--the old childish name still clung to her--was a very clever +woman. She possessed the power of getting the utmost out of the people +round her, whether they were friends, acquaintances, or servants. Her +little garden was exquisitely kept, and there was no month of the year +when it did not look charming. Her little house, so far as was possible +on very limited means, was perfectly ordered. + +Perhaps one secret of her success lay in the fact that she was able to +do everything herself that she asked others to do for her. Katty was a +good gardener, an excellent cook, and an exceptionally clever +dressmaker. Yet she was the last woman to make the mistake so many +clever people make--of keeping a dog and doing the barking oneself. +Katty was willing to show those she employed exactly how she wanted a +thing done, but she expected them to learn how to do it quickly and +intelligently. She had no use for the idle or the stupid. + +Katty Winslow was thirty-one, but she looked much younger. She was an +exceedingly pretty woman, with brown eyes, a delicately clear, white and +pink complexion, and curling chestnut hair. She took great pains with +her appearance, and with her health. Thus she ate and drank to rule, and +almost walked to rule. + +Early this last summer a bit of cruel bad luck had befallen Mrs. +Winslow. She had caught scarlet fever while on a visit, and for some +days had been very ill. But, perhaps as a result of the long, dull +convalescence, she now looked even prettier, and yes, younger, than she +had done before. + +The only daughter of a well-connected but exceedingly poor half-pay +officer, Katherine Fenton, during a girlhood which lasted till she was +four-and-twenty, had been undisputed belle of Pewsbury, and of a +country-side stretching far beyond the confines of that fine old county +town. Like all beauties, she had had her triumphs and her +disappointments; and then, rather suddenly, she had made what had seemed +the irretrievable mistake of an unhappy marriage. + +Bob Winslow had been weak, vain, ill-tempered, and, to a certain extent, +vicious. Thus his relations had welcomed his marriage to a clever, +capable young woman, who it was supposed would make, and keep, him +straight. The fact that she had no fortune had been regarded as +unimportant--indeed, Bob Winslow had made on his bride what was regarded +in the Pewsbury world as the splendid marriage settlement of twelve +thousand pounds. + +Four and a half per cent, on that sum was now Mrs. Winslow's only +income, and out of that income there were still being paid off heavy +divorce costs, for Bob Winslow, when it had come to the point, had put +up a great fight for his Katty. Not only had he defended the case, but +he had brought on his side vague counter-charges. The Judge, rather +unkindly, had observed that the petitioner had been "somewhat +imprudent," but even so Katty had come out of the painful ordeal very +well--so much was universally allowed, even by the few people in +Pewsbury who had always disliked her, and who did not think she had +treated her husband well. + +Godfrey and Laura Pavely had both been very kind to Katty over the +matter of the divorce--indeed, Mrs. Winslow had actually stayed at +Lawford Chase for many weeks during that troubled time, and Laura's +countenance had been of great value to her. This was now three years +ago, and, though they had nothing in common, the two women remained good +friends, as well as what is sometimes less usual, good neighbours. + +In nothing had Katty shown herself cleverer than in her management of +Laura. In Laura Pavely's imagination Katty Winslow had her fixed place +as a friend of Godfrey's childhood, and that though he was nine years +older. Mrs. Pavely regarded Mrs. Winslow much as she would have done a +pleasant-natured sister-in-law, and she had been glad to do all that she +could for her. When some one had suggested that Katty should become +Godfrey Pavely's tenant at Rosedean, Laura had thought it an excellent +idea. + +It was the fashion to call Rosedean ugly. The house had been built in +the 'sixties, by a retired butcher and grazier, and was of red brick +with white facings. But it was well built, and had far more real +distinction of appearance than the Queen Anne villas which now +surrounded Pewsbury. Also, Rosedean had been built on the site of an old +farmhouse, and Katty's lawn was fringed with some fine old trees, while +a grand old holly hedge concealed a well-stocked kitchen garden. On the +other side of the house were stabling for two horses, a coach-house, and +a paddock. + +Katty had devoted a great deal of successful thought to the arrangement +of her dwelling. She knew she could neither compete with the stately +beauty of Laura's Tudor mansion, nor with the old-fashioned +eighteenth-century charm of Mrs. Tropenell's house, so she wisely made +up her mind that her surroundings should be simply bright, pretty and +cosy. Her drawing-room was in its way a delightful room, and those +walking through into it, from the rather dark, early Victorian hall, +gained an instant impression of coolness in summer, of warmth in winter, +of cheerfulness and comfort at all times. + +No one but Katty herself knew the trouble to which she had been to get +the exact pattern of calendered chintz which she had made up her mind to +obtain. Katty also kept to herself the amount which she had spent, out +of her small reserve, on the thoroughly good, comfortable easy-chairs, +of varying shape, height, and depth, which played such an important, if +unobtrusive, part in the comfort of her visitors. + +Every chair in Katty's sitting-room was an easy chair, with the +exception of two gilt ones which were of their kind good, and which she +had bought at a sale. They, however, were never moved away from the +places where they stood, flanking a quaint, old-fashioned cabinet now +filled with some beautiful old china which had come to Katty from a +grandmother. + +Yet another peculiarity of Katty's sitting-room was the absence of +pictures. Their place was taken by mirrors. Above the mantelpiece on +which stood six delicately charming Dresden china figures was a +looking-glass of curious octagonal shape, framed in rosewood. Opposite +the French window which opened into the garden was fixed a long, narrow +mirror with a finely carved gilt wood frame. This mirror gave an air of +distinction to the room which would otherwise have been lacking, and it +also enabled Katty to see at any moment how she was looking, whether her +burnished chestnut-brown hair was quite tidy, and her gown fresh-looking +and neat. + +There had been a time in her life when Katty Winslow had been +passionately fond of beautiful clothes, and able to indulge her taste. +Now, all she could hope to attain was freshness and neatness. That she +achieved these was to her credit, for they too cost, if not money, then +a good deal of thought and time, on the part of their possessor. + + * * * * * + +Godfrey Pavely had walked out from Pewsbury. From the Bank in the High +Street to Rosedean was rather over two miles, and he had gone along at a +steady, jog-trot pace till he had come in sight of the little house. +Then he quickened his footsteps, and a feeling of pleasurable +anticipation came over him. + +The banker was very, very fond of his old friend and sometime +sweetheart. He believed it to be a straightforward, honest affection, +though he could not but be aware, deep in his heart, that "to it" was +just that little touch of sentiment which adds salt and savour to most +of the close friendships formed between a man and a woman. + +As a matter of fact, Godfrey Pavely was now happier in Katty Winslow's +company than he was in that of any one else. Not only did she ply him +with a good deal of delicate flattery, which caused him always to feel +better pleased with himself when at Rosedean than when he was at The +Chase, but a great and real bond between them was their mutual interest +in all the local happenings and local gossip of the neighbourhood. + +Laura was frankly indifferent to all that concerned the town of Pewsbury +and the affairs of those whom Mrs. Tropenell called the Pewsburyites. +She was not disagreeable about it; she simply didn't care. Katty, in +spite of her frequent absences, for she was a popular visitor with a +large circle of acquaintances, always came home full of an eager wish to +learn all that had happened while she had been away. + +Little by little, imperceptibly as regarded himself, the banker had +fallen into the way of telling this woman, who had so oddly slipped back +into his life, everything which concerned and interested himself, every +detail of his business, and even, which he had no right to do, the +secrets of his clients. + +But to this entire confidence there was one outstanding exception. +Godfrey Pavely never discussed with Katty Winslow his relations with his +wife. Laura's attitude to himself caused him, even now, sharp, almost +intolerable, humiliation. Only to Mrs. Tropenell did he ever say a word +of his resentment and soreness--and that only because she had been the +unwilling confidant of both husband and wife during that early time in +their married life when the struggle between Godfrey and Laura had been, +if almost wordless, at its sharpest and bitterest. + +On one occasion, and on one only, when with Katty Winslow, had Pavely +broken his guarded silence. He had been talking, in a way which at once +fascinated and tantalised Katty, of his growing wealth, and suddenly he +had said something as to his having no son to inherit his fortune. "It's +odd to think that some day there will come along a man, a stranger to +me, who will benefit by everything I now do----" and as she had looked +up at him, at a loss for his meaning, he had gone on, slowly, "I mean +the man whom Mrs. Tropenell and Laura between them will select for my +girl's husband." + +Katty, looking at him very straight out of her bright brown eyes, had +exclaimed, "You may have a son yet, Godfrey!" + +She had been startled by the look of pain, of rage, and of humiliation +that had come into his sulky, obstinate-looking face, as he answered +shortly, "I think that's very unlikely." + +Had Godfrey Pavely been a more imaginative man, he would probably by now +have come to regret, with a deep, voiceless regret, that he had not +married Katty instead of Laura--but being the manner of man he was, he +had, so far, done nothing of the sort. And yet? And yet, at one time, +say fifteen years ago, he had very nearly married Katty. It was a fact +which even now he would have denied, but which she never forgot. + +In those days Godfrey Pavely had been a priggish, self-important young +man of twenty-six, with perhaps not so good an opinion of women as he +had now, for a man's opinion of women always alters, one way or another, +as he grows older. + +Katty, at eighteen, had enjoyed playing on the cautious, judgematical +Godfrey's emotions. So well had she succeeded that at one time he could +hardly let a day go by without trying to see and to be with her alone. +But, though strongly attracted by her instinctive, girlish wiles, he was +also, quite unknowingly to her, repelled by those same wiles. + +Poor Katty had made herself, in those days that now seemed to both of +them so very, very long ago, a little too cheap. Her admirer, to use a +good old word, knew that her appeal was to a side of his nature which it +behooved him to keep in check, if he was not "to make a fool of +himself." And so, just when their little world--kindly, malicious, +censorious, as the case might be--was expecting to hear of their +engagement, Godfrey Pavely suddenly left Pewsbury to spend a year in a +great Paris discount house. + +The now staid country banker did not look back with any pride or +pleasure to that year in France; he had worked, but he had also ignobly +played, spending, rather joylessly, a great deal of money in the +process. Then, having secretly sown his wild oats, he had come home and +settled down to a further time of banking apprenticeship in London, +before taking over the sound family business. + +Almost at once, on his return to England, he had made up his mind to +marry the beautiful, reserved, the then pathetically young Laura +Baynton, who was so constantly with Mrs. Tropenell at Freshley Manor. + +Time went on, and Laura held out; but little by little, perhaps because +he saw her so seldom, he broke down her resistance. His father had +bought the Lawford Chase estate as a great bargain, many years before, +and had been content to let it on a long lease. Godfrey, on becoming his +own master at thirty, determined to live there, and his marriage to +Laura followed a year later. + +During their honeymoon in Paris--a honeymoon which was curiously and +painfully unlike what Godfrey had supposed his honeymoon would and must +be--he saw in a paper a notice of Katty Fenton's engagement. Though not +given to impulsively generous actions, he went out and bought for Katty, +in the Rue de la Paix, a jewelled pendant Laura had just refused to +allow him to buy for her. In return he had received what had seemed at +the time a delightful letter of thanks, to which was the following +postscript, "There's no harm in my saying _now_, that you, dear Godfrey, +were my first love! I've always wanted you to know that. I've always +been afraid that you only thought me a sad little flirt." + +The confession, and the shrewd thrust, which was so much truer than he +thought Katty knew, moved him, and he had told himself sorely that +Katty's husband at any rate would be a very lucky fellow. + +Then once more he had forgotten Katty till one day, years later, "Mrs. +Winslow" had suddenly been shown into his private room at the Bank. + +Looking, as he had at once become aware, even prettier and more +attractive than when he had last seen her, she had said quietly, "I'm in +great trouble, Godfrey, and I've come down from London to consult you +about it. Your father and mine were friends" (a rather exaggerated +statement that--but Pavely was in no mood to cavil), "and I don't know +who else to go to." + +Shortly and simply she had described the dreadful existence she had led +since her marriage--then, suddenly, she had rolled up her right sleeve +and shown the livid bruises made by Bob Winslow the night before, in a +fit of drunken anger, on the slender, soft, white arm. + +Unwontedly moved, the more so that this now unfamiliar Katty seemed to +make no excessive demand either on his pity or on his emotions, Godfrey +Pavely had thrown himself into the complicated, unsavoury business, and +very soon his old-new friend had brought him to advise her in the sense +she wished. But it was Laura who had suggested that poor Mrs. Winslow +should come and stay with them during the divorce proceedings, and while +she had been at Lawford Chase, Katty had avoided, rather than sought +out, the master of the house. + +In the matter of Rosedean the banker had behaved in what he himself +considered a very handsome manner. Not only had he let the house to +Katty for about a third of what he could have got for it in the open +market, but he had allowed her a hundred pounds for "doing it up." He +believed himself to have also suggested the arrangement by which she +obtained the free services, for a certain number of half-days each week, +of a very intelligent Scotch under-gardener who was in his employ. + +He had never had reason to regret his kindness. On the contrary, he and +Katty had become, as time went on, closer and closer friends, and more +and more had he come to miss her during her frequent absences from home. + +Some months ago he had even ventured to tell her that he thought she +gadded about a bit too much! Why couldn't she be content to stay quietly +at Rosedean? "Look at me and Laura," he had exclaimed. "We hardly ever +go away for a holiday, and we very seldom pay a visit!" Katty had shaken +her pretty head playfully: "Ah, but you don't know how lonely I am +sometimes! Laura is most dear and kind to me, but you know, Godfrey, I +don't see her often----" + +He had not liked to remind her that he very often did. + +Then something happened which quite curiously quickened Godfrey Pavely's +unavowed feeling for Katty. Oliver Tropenell, a virtual stranger to them +all, came home from Mexico to spend the summer in England with his +mother. And three times, during Oliver's first fortnight in England, +Godfrey arrived at Rosedean to find the then stranger there. On these +three occasions each man had tried to sit the other out, and finally +they had left the house together. As a result of these meetings Godfrey +soon caught himself wondering with a mixture of feelings he did not care +to analyse, whether Tropenell could possibly be thinking of marrying +Katty? + +He found the notion intolerable. + +Then came a strange turn to the situation. Katty had gone away, on one +of those tiresome little visits she was so fond of paying, and +Providence, which means women, especially any woman placed in an +ambiguous position, to stay quietly at home, had caught her out! She had +fallen ill, when on a visit, of scarlet fever, and she had been +compelled to stay away six weeks. During those weeks he, Godfrey Pavely, +and Oliver Tropenell had become friends--on more intimate terms of +friendship than Pavely had ever expected to find himself with any man. +This was, of course, partly owing to the fortunate fact that Laura liked +Oliver too, and didn't seem to mind how often he came and went to The +Chase. + +But Godfrey Pavely had a tenacious memory. He did not forget that for a +little while, at any rate, Oliver had seemed to enjoy being in Katty's +company. And when Laura, more than once since Mrs. Winslow's return to +Rosedean, had suggested asking Katty in to dinner to meet Oliver, her +husband coldly vetoed the proposal. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Only Harber, the woman who, after having been maid to Katty during her +troubled married life, had stayed on with her as house-parlourmaid and +general factotum, was aware of how very often Mr. Pavely called at +Rosedean on his daily walk home from Pewsbury. To-day he had hardly +pressed the bell-knob before the front door opened. It was almost as if +Harber had been waiting for him in the hall. + +As he put down his hat and stick he was conscious of feeling very glad +that he was going to see Katty. Mrs. Winslow had again been away, was it +for four days, or five? It's true that for part of that time he himself +had been to London, and very busy, but even so the time had seemed long. +He told himself that he had a hundred things to say to her, and he even +felt a little thrill of excitement as he followed the servant through +the hall. + +And Katty? Katty, who the moment she had heard the front-door bell had +quietly begun making the tea--she always made tea herself, with the help +of a pretty spirit lamp--Katty also felt a queer little thrill, but for +a very different reason. Since they had last met she had come to a +certain resolution with regard to Godfrey Pavely, and though she did not +mean to say anything to-day even remotely bearing on it, still it +affected her, made her regard him with rather different eyes. + +It is a great mistake to think that coldness and calculation always go +together. Katty Winslow was calculating, but she was not cold. For once +she had been quite honest when writing that odd little postscript to her +letter of thanks for Godfrey Pavely's wedding present. Godfrey had, in +very truth, been her first love, and she had suffered acutely in her +heart, as well as in her pride, when he had run away. Even now, she felt +as if there were a strong, secret, passionate link between them, and +there was no day when she did not tell herself that she would have made +the banker a perfect, and yes--a very happy wife. + + * * * * * + +Godfrey came into the drawing-room with a pleased, eager look on his +face. He took his hostess's hand in his, and held it for perhaps a +thought longer than he would have held, say, Mrs. Tropenell's hand. But +the hand he now held was a soft, malleable little hand, not thin and +firm, like that of Oliver's mother. + +Katty was smiling at him, such a bright, friendly, pretty smile. "Sit +down," she said softly. "And before we begin talking, take a cup of tea. +You look very tired--and you're late, too, Godfrey. I was beginning to +think that you weren't coming at all!" + +And then he said something which surprised her, but which somehow chimed +in quite surprisingly with what had been filling her busy, active brain +of late. + +"Jim Beath has been with me most of the afternoon," he spoke wearily, +complainingly. "I had to ask him to lunch at the Club, and he stayed on +and on." + +Now the Beaths were by way of being intimate friends of Katty Winslow, +and Jim Beath was a client of Godfrey Pavely. + +"Oh, but that's very interesting!" she cried. "I've been wondering so +much how that affair is going on--I do so hope it will be all right!" + +And then, as she saw a shocked look come over her visitor's narrow, +rather fleshy face, she said in a low voice, "You know how I feel about +the divorce laws, Godfrey. I can't help it. They're horribly +unfair--so--so ridiculous, in fact!" + +As he remained silent, she went on, insisting on her own point of view +far more than was her usual way when talking to her self-opinionated +friend: "Don't you realise how hard it is that two people utterly +unsuited to one another should have to go through that sort of horrid +farce just in order to get free?" + +He looked at her uncomfortably. Sometimes, even now, Katty startled him +by the things she said. But how pretty she looked to-day, bending over +the tea-things! Her burnished hair was dressed in thick soft coils, her +white, well-manicured hand busily engaged in pouring him out just the +cup of tea he liked, with the exact proportions of milk, cream, and +sugar that were right--and which Laura never remembered. + +So it was mildly that he answered: "I don't think the Beaths ought to +want to get what you call 'free.' Divorce was not instituted to meet a +case like theirs--" he hesitated, and then with a certain effort he went +on: "Divorce was instituted to meet a case like yours, Katty." + +Godfrey Pavely was weary of the Beaths and of their divorce plot--for so +he called it to himself. There were other things he wanted to talk to +Katty about. Besides, he did not think that that sort of affair was a +nice subject of discussion between a man and a woman, however intimate. +In some ways Godfrey Pavely was very old-fashioned. + +But she wouldn't let it alone. "Divorce _ought_ to meet a case like +theirs," she went on obstinately. + +"My dear Katty! What would happen to the country if all the married +people who didn't get on with one another were to separate?" + +And then, looking at her defiant face, a most extraordinary and +disagreeable suspicion darted into Godfrey Pavely's mind. Was it +possible, conceivable, that Katty was thinking of Jim Beath as a second +husband for herself? The thought shook him with anger and with +repugnance. He felt he must have that out--here and now. + +"Do you like Jim Beath?" he asked slowly; "I know you've been seeing a +great deal of them this last year. In fact, he mentioned you to-day." + +She could read him like a book, and she remained silent long enough to +make him feel increasingly suspicious and uncomfortable. + +But to-day Katty was not in the mood for a cat-and-mouse game, so she +answered deliberately: "No, Godfrey, I can't say that I do like Jim +Beath! I've tried to like him. But--well, I do thoroughly understand +Nita's feeling towards him. He's so sarcastic--so hard and +unsympathetic!" She waited a moment, then added significantly: "Still, I +think he's behaving awfully well now. He'd have been quite willing to go +on--he told me that himself. But when he saw that Nita was _really_ +unhappy, and that she was getting fond of another man, he made up his +mind that he would do all he could to make her free." + +Katty was playing rather nervously with the edge of the pretty +tea-cloth, and Pavely wondered whether she was telling him the whole +truth. She was flushed, and she looked unwontedly moved. + +"It's a very odd thing for a man to do," he said coldly. "I mean a man +being willing to give up his wife to another man." + +"Why shouldn't he? When he doesn't love her, and when she positively +dislikes him! Nita never understood Jim Beath--she was always afraid of +him, and of his sharp, clever tongue. Of course it's sad about their +little boy. But they've made a very good arrangement--they're going to +share him. Jim will have the child half the year, and Nita the other +half, till he goes to school--when they will have him for alternate +holidays." + +"You talk as if it was all settled!" Katty's visitor exclaimed crossly. +"If they say as much to other people as they seem to do to you, they +will never get their divorce--the King's Proctor is sure to intervene!" + +Katty gave a quick, curious look at her visitor. Godfrey went too +far--sometimes. + +The thought flashed through her mind that she was wasting her life, her +few remaining years of youth, on a man who would never be more to her +than he was now, unless--unless, that is, she could bring him to the +point of putting himself imaginatively, emotionally into Jim Beath's +shoes. _Then_ everything might be changed. But was there any hope of +such a thing coming to pass? + +But all she said, in a constrained tone, was, "Of course I ought not to +have said anything of the matter to you at all. But I'm afraid, Godfrey, +that I often do tell you things I ought to keep to myself. You must try +and forget what I said." + +He was surprised, bewildered, by the sudden steely coldness of her tone. +"Of course you can say anything you like to say to me. Why, Katty, I +tell you all my secrets!" + +"Do you?" She glanced over at him rather sharply. "I don't think you +tell me _all_ your secrets, Godfrey." + +He looked at her puzzled. "You _know_ that I do," he said in a low +voice. "Come, Katty, you're not being fair! It's because I have such a +high regard for you, that I feel sorry when you talk as you've been +talking just now--as if, after all, the marriage bond didn't matter." + +But even as he said these words, Godfrey Pavely felt a wild impulse to +throw over the pretty little gimcrack tea-table, take Katty in his arms, +and kiss her, kiss her, kiss her! He came back, with an inward start, to +hear her exclaim, + +"I don't consider the peculiar relations which exist between Nita and +Jim Beath a marriage at all! They have nothing in common the one with +the other. What interests him doesn't interest her----" + +She waited a moment, saw that he was reddening uncomfortably, and then +hurried on, driven by some sudden instinct that she was at last playing +on the hidden chord she had so often longed to find and strike in +Godfrey Pavely's sore heart: "Nita can't bear Jim to touch her--she will +hardly shake hands with him! Do you call _that_ a marriage?" + +As he remained silent, she suddenly said in a voice so low as to be +almost a whisper, "Forgive me, Godfrey. I--I ought not have said that to +you." + +He answered loudly, discordantly, "I don't know what you mean, Katty! +Why shouldn't you say anything you like about these people? They are +nothing, and less than nothing to me, and I don't suppose they're very +much to you." + +Even as he spoke he had got up out of the easy chair into which he had +sunk with such happy content a few minutes before. "I must be going +now," he said heavily, "Oliver Tropenell's coming in for a game of +tennis at six." + +She made no effort to keep him, though she longed to say to him: "Oliver +Tropenell's been in your house, and in your garden, all afternoon. Both +he and Laura would be only too pleased if you stayed on here till +dinner-time." + +But instead of saying that, she got up, and silently accompanied him to +the front door. + +There poor Godfrey did linger regretfully. He felt like a child who has +been baulked of some promised treat--not by his own fault, but by the +fault of those about him. "Will you be in to-morrow?" he asked abruptly. +"I think I might come in a little earlier to-morrow, Katty." + +"Yes, do come to-morrow! I seem to have a hundred things to say to you. +I'm sorry we wasted the little time we had to-day in talking over those +tiresome people and their matrimonial affairs." + +There was also a look of regret in her face, and suddenly he told +himself that he might have been mistaken just now, and that she had +meant nothing--nothing in the least personal or--or probing, in what she +had said. "Look here!" he said awkwardly. "If there's anything you +really want to say--you said you had a hundred things to tell me--would +you like me to come back for a few minutes? There's no great hurry, you +know--I mean about Tropenell and his game." + +She shook her head, and to his moved surprise, the tears came into her +pretty brown eyes. "No, not now. I'm tired, Godfrey. It's rather absurd, +but I haven't really got over my journey yet; I think I shall have to +take your advice, and stay at home rather more." + +For a long moment they advanced towards one another as if something +outside themselves was drawing them together. Then Godfrey Pavely put +out his hand, and grasped hers firmly. It was almost as if he was +holding her back--at arm's length. + +Katty laughed nervously. She shook her hand free of his, opened the door +wide, and exclaimed: "Well! Good-bye till to-morrow then. My love to +Laura." + +He nodded, and was gone. + +She shut the door behind him, and, turning, went slowly upstairs. She +felt tired, weak, upset--and, what she did not often feel, restless and +unhappy as well. It irritated her--nay, it did more than irritate, it +hurt her shrewdly--to think of those three people who were about to +spend a pleasant couple of hours together. She could so easily, so +safely, have made a fourth at their constant meetings. + +If only Laura Pavely were a little less absorbed in herself, a little +more what ordinary people called good-natured! It would have been so +natural for Laura, when she knew that Oliver Tropenell was coming to +dinner, to send across to Rosedean, and ask her, Katty, to make a +fourth. It was not as if Laura was at all jealous. She was as little +jealous of Godfrey and of Katty--and at that thought Katty gave a queer, +bitter little laugh which startled her, for she had laughed aloud--as +was Godfrey of Laura and Oliver! With as little or as much reason? Katty +would have given a great deal to be able to answer her own question. She +thought she knew half the answer--but it was, alas! by far the less +important half. + +She opened the door of her bedroom, went through into it, and without +troubling to take off her pretty blouse and freshly ironed linen skirt, +walked deliberately to her bed, lay down, and shut her eyes--not to +sleep but to think. + + * * * * * + +What had been forced upon Katty Winslow's notice during the last few +weeks had created a revolution in her mind and in her plans. + +For a while, after her return from that dreary period of convalescence +in a seaside home, she, who was generally so positive, had doubted the +evidence of her own eyes and senses. But gradually that which she would +have deemed the last thing likely to happen had emerged, startlingly +clear. Oliver Tropenell, to use Katty's own expression, had fallen madly +in love with Laura Pavely. No woman could doubt that who saw them +together. When Katty had left Rosedean, there had been the beginnings +of--well, not exactly a flirtation, but a very pleasant friendship +between Tropenell and herself. Now he hardly seemed to know that she +existed. + +But if it was only too plain to see how matters stood with Oliver, this +was far from being the case as regarded Laura. Katty owned herself quite +ignorant of Laura's real nature, and, as is so often the case with +those who know nothing, she was inclined to believe that there was +nothing to know. + +Perhaps, after all, it was only because this man was the son of her +friend that Laura allowed him to be always with her. They were always +together--not always alone, for Oliver seemed to be at The Chase quite +as much when Godfrey was at home, as at other times. But with Katty, she +being the manner of woman she was, it was the other times which +impressed her imagination. In the six short weeks she, Katty, had been +away, Oliver Tropenell had evidently become a component part of Laura +Pavely's life. + +She knew, vaguely, how the two spent their time, and the knowledge irked +her--the more that it suggested nothing of their real relations. Thus +gardening was one of Laura's favourite occupations and few pleasures; +and Oliver, who could never have gardened before--what gardening could +there be to do in Mexico?--now spent hours out of doors with Laura, +carrying out her behests, behaving just as an under-gardener would +behave, when working under his mistress's directions. + +And Godfrey, instead of objecting to this extraordinary state of things, +seemed quite pleased. Oliver, so much was clear, had become Godfrey +Pavely's friend almost as much as he was Laura's. + +As she lay there, straight out on her bed, Katty told herself with +terrible bitterness that it was indeed an amazing state of things to +which she had come back--one which altered her own life in a strange +degree. She had not realised, till these last few weeks, how much +Godfrey Pavely was to her, and how jealous she could become even of +such an affection as his cordial liking of Oliver Tropenell. + +Yet when Godfrey was actually with her, she retained all her old +ascendency over him; in certain ways it had perhaps even increased. It +was as if his unsuspecting proximity to another man's strong, secret +passion warmed his sluggish, cautious nature. + +But that curious fact had not made his friend Katty's part any the more +easy of late. Far from it! There was no pleasing Godfrey in these days. +He was hurt if she was cold; shocked, made uneasy in his conscience, if +she responded in ever so slight a way to the little excursions in +sentiment he sometimes half-ashamedly permitted himself. + +Tears came into her eyes, and rolled slowly down her cheeks, as she +recalled what had happened a few moments ago in the hall. He had been +aching to take her in his arms and kiss her--kiss her as he had been +wont to do, in the old days, in the shabby little lodging where she +lived with her father. Poor little motherless girl, who had thought +herself so clever. At that time she had believed herself to be as good +as engaged to "young Mr. Pavely," as the Pewsbury folk called him. Even +now she could remember, as if it had happened yesterday, the bitter +humiliation, as well as the pain which had shaken her, when she had +learnt, casually, of his sudden disappearance from Pewsbury. + +What hypocrites men were! The fact that often they were unconscious +hypocrites afforded Katty little consolation. + +It was plain that Godfrey was quite unaware of Oliver's growing +absorption in Laura, but that surely was not to his credit. A man of +his age, and with his experience of life, ought to have known, ought to +have guessed, ought to have seen--by now! Instead, he remained absorbed +in himself, in the tiresome little business interests of his prosperous +life, in his new friendship for Oliver Tropenell, and--in that +ambiguous, tantalising friendship with herself. + +Again she told herself that she was wasting what remained to her of +youth and of vitality over a thoroughly unsatisfactory state of things, +and painfully she determined that, if what she had gradually come to +plan since her return home did not come to pass, she would leave +Rosedean, and make another life for herself elsewhere. + + * * * * * + +The things Katty toiled and schemed for had a way of coming to pass. She +had planned her divorce long before it had actually taken place, at a +time indeed when it seemed impossible to believe that it ever could take +place. Bob Winslow had been adoringly, slavishly devoted to her for more +than two-thirds of their married life, and it had taken her trouble and +time to drive him into the courses it was necessary he should pursue to +procure her freedom. + +She had no doubt--there could be no doubt--that were Godfrey free he +would turn to her instinctively at once. She was well aware of her power +over him, and till lately she had been virtuously proud of what she +imagined to be her loyalty to Laura. Also she had had no wish to make +her own position at Rosedean untenable. + +Even as it was, Godfrey came far too often to see her. Had she lived +nearer to Pewsbury, even a mile nearer, his frequent calls on her would +have meant a flood of ill-natured gossip in the little town. + +Yes, the situation, from Katty's point of view, was thoroughly +unsatisfactory, and, as far as she was concerned, it was time it was +ended or mended. And then, once more, for the hundredth time, her +restless, excited mind swung back to what was to her just now the real +mystery, the all-important problem--the relations between Oliver +Tropenell and Laura Pavely. + +Of course it was possible--though Katty thought not likely--that +Tropenell was still unaware of his passion for Laura. Perhaps he still +disguised it under the name of "friendship." But even if that were so, +such a state of things could not endure for very long. Any day some +trifling happening might open his eyes, and, yes--why not?--Godfrey's. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Godfrey Pavely was standing in his private room at Pavely's Bank. It was +only a little after ten, and he had not been in the room many minutes, +yet already he had got up from his writing-table and moved over to the +middle one of the three windows overlooking the prim, exquisitely kept +walled garden, which even nowadays reminded him of his early childhood. +He had gazed out of the window for a few moments, but now he stood with +his back to the window, staring unseeingly before him, a piece of note +paper crushed up in his hand. + +For close on a hundred years his well-to-do careful-living forbears had +passed their pleasant, uneventful lives in this spacious Georgian house, +set in the centre of the wide High Street of the prosperous market town +of Pewsbury. + +What was now known as "Mr. Pavely's own room" had been the dining-room +of his grandparents. He himself had always known it as part of the Bank, +but it still had some of the characteristics of a private living-room. +Thus, on the dark green walls hung a number of quaint family portraits, +his great-grandfather, his grandfather and grandmother, two uncles who +had died in youth, and a presentation portrait of his own father. These +were arranged about and above the mantelpiece, opposite the place where +stood his wide, leather-topped writing-table. + +Taking up most of the wall opposite the windows was a bookcase of +really distinguished beauty. Godfrey Pavely had been gratified to learn, +some five or six years ago, that this piece of furniture was of very +considerable value, owing to the fact that it was supposed to have been, +in a special sense, the work and design of Chippendale himself. But just +now, at this moment, he felt as if he hated the substantial old house +and everything in it. + +He had come into this room, twenty minutes ago, to find the usual pile +of open letters on the table. On the top of the pile was an unopened +envelope marked _Private_, and it was the contents of that envelope that +he now held crushed up--not torn up--in his hand. + +And as he stood there, staring before him unseeingly at the bookcase, +there suddenly flashed into his mind a vision of the first time he had +brought Laura here, to his own room at the Bank. They had only just +became engaged, and he was still feeling an almost oppressive joy of +having compassed that which he had so steadfastly desired. + +He could see her graceful figure walking through the mahogany door, he +could almost hear her exclaim, "What a charming room, Godfrey! I can't +help wishing that we were going to live here, in Pewsbury!" + +She had gone over and stood exactly where he was standing now, and then +she had turned and gazed into the walled garden, at that time brilliant +with tulips and wallflowers. Coming round behind her, he had put his +arm, a little awkwardly, round her shoulders. At once she had slipped +from beneath his grasp, but not unkindly--only with a gentle word that +at any moment some one might come in, and he, poor fool that he had +been, had admired her maidenly delicacy.... + +He glanced down at the piece of notepaper he held in his hand, and, +smoothing it out, he read it through for the tenth or twelfth time. +Then, as there came a knock at the door, he hastily thrust it into his +pocket. + +"Come in!" he cried impatiently; and his head clerk came into the room. + +Mr. Privet had a delicate, refined, thoughtful face. He was very much +respected in the town, and regarded as an important, integral part of +Pavely's Bank. He was one of the very few people in the world who were +really attached to Godfrey Pavely, and he perceived at once that there +was something wrong. + +"We promised to send over to Mr. Johnson to say when you would be ready +to see him, sir. Shall I send over now?" + +"Yes--no. Tell him I'll be ready in half an hour. And, Privet?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"I've a rather important letter to write. Will you see that I'm not +disturbed till I ring?" + +The old man shut the door quietly, and Godfrey Pavely drew irresolutely +towards his writing-table, the table where he did so much hard, good, +and profitable work each day. + +But he did not sit down at once; instead, he took the letter he had been +so nearly caught reading out of his pocket, and once more he read it +through-- + + "This is to warn you that there is a great deal of talk + going on in Pewsbury and the surrounding neighbourhood + about your wife and a certain gentleman who is a near + neighbour of yours. It is well not to be jealous, but + confidence may be carried too far. Try going home when you + are not expected, and you will surely find them together. + + "A WELL-WISHER TO THE + "PAVELY FAMILY." + +The words had been written, or rather printed, in ink, on a very common +sheet of notepaper--the kind of notepaper which is sold in penny packets +in every village and small sweetstuff shop in the kingdom. + +Now in theory there is nothing easier than to despise and disregard an +anonymous letter. But in practice such a missive as Godfrey Pavely had +just received, however vulgar, and even, as in this case, obviously +written by a malicious person, invariably produces a horrible sensation +of discomfort and acute uneasiness. For one thing, the fact that some +unknown human being has devoted so much unwonted thought and spiteful +interest to one's private affairs is in itself an ugly revelation. + +In theory again, most people, if asked what they would do if they +received an anonymous letter, would reply (1) that they would put it +straight in the fire, or (2) go straight with it to the police. But in +practice an anonymous letter, unless the recipient at once guesses with +certainty the identity of the writer, is the only clue to what may +contain the germ of some ugly plot, or conspiracy to harm or injure the +innocent. So it is surely foolish to destroy what may become evidence. +As for going to the police, that is, for obvious reasons, the last thing +any man would care to do if the anonymous communication deals with the +character of a woman near and dear to him. Indeed, the thought of going +to the police did not even enter Godfrey Pavely's mind, though it was +probably the advice he would have given _to any one else_ who had come +to consult him about such a matter. + +As he looked at the letter closely, turning it this way and that, he +suddenly told himself that it did not read like the work of an +illiterate person. Godfrey, and Laura too, were in their different ways +very good employers; besides, they had not dismissed any one lately. No, +no--it was far more likely to be some one living in Pewsbury, probably +with whom he was scarcely acquainted. There were, as the banker could +not but be aware, a good many people in the little town who had reason +to dislike him--not personally perhaps, but as the one money-dealer of +the place. + +At last he sat down at his writing-table and drew an envelope towards +him. On it he wrote, "To be destroyed, unopened, in case of my death," +and then he placed the poisonous little sheet of common notepaper in the +envelope, and, fastening it down, put it in one of his inner pockets. + +He intended to dismiss the whole thing from his mind, at any rate during +this morning, but he found it very difficult, not to say impossible, to +do that. + +Laura and Oliver Tropenell? His thin lips curled at the thought. + +Why, Oliver liked him, Godfrey, far better than he did Laura! He +regarded that as certain. And Laura? He could have laughed aloud at the +absurd suggestion. Laura was not only the coldest, she was also the most +upright, of women. + +Early in their married life, when they had gone about together far more +than they had done recently, he, Godfrey, had never felt even a twinge +of jealousy with regard to her. And yet--and yet in those days Laura had +certainly excited a good deal of admiration. There are men who +passionately admire that kind of proud, passionless beauty in a woman. +Pavely himself had once been such a man. So he knew. + +He looked up from the letter he was writing, and all at once, to his own +surprise, his thoughts took quite another turn. He told himself suddenly +that Tropenell's rather exceptional intimacy with them both might, after +all, excite remark, in such a damned censorious, gossiping place as was +Pewsbury. He, Godfrey Pavely, was well aware of what a nest of gossip a +country town could be, and often is. He had experienced something of it +years ago, when there had been all that foolish talk concerning the then +Katty Fenton and himself. Once or twice he had felt slightly uneasy lest +his _present_ friendship with Katty should be misunderstood. Indeed, he +had felt this so strongly to give her what he had thought to be a +delicate hint--a hint that she had at once taken--as to the +inadvisability of her coming, when in Pewsbury, to see him in his +private room at the Bank. She had done that rather often at one time, +when she was first his tenant at Rosedean. But now she never came to the +Bank. She did not even keep her account at Pavely's, though it would +have been a convenience to her to do so. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Johnson's call, which at any other time would have been a tiresome +infliction, was welcome, for it enabled the banker to dismiss this odd, +queer, unpleasant business of the anonymous letter from his mind for a +while. + +But after Mr. Johnson had gone, the trouble came back, and the +morning--what was left of it--seemed very long. + +He asked himself whether, after all, it might not be wisest to speak of +that absurd letter to some one. Should he say anything to Mrs. +Tropenell, or well, yes--to Laura? But impatiently he shook his head at +the thought. Not only would such a thing shock and disgust his wife, +but, what was of far more consequence to him, it might make her turn +against Tropenell! Godfrey Pavely had been pleased and surprised at the +way in which Laura had tolerated the other man being so much about the +house. In Pavely's imagination Tropenell was _his_ friend--not Laura's. + +He was glad when he heard a quarter to one chime out from the Parish +Church tower, for it meant that he could now get up and go across to the +Club for luncheon. He put on his hat and went out into the square hall +of the Bank. + +As he did so, his head clerk came down the broad staircase. + +Mr. Privet's room was only a little smaller, and a little less lacking +in dignity, than that of Mr. Pavely himself--indeed, some people thought +it a pleasanter room, for it looked out on to the High Street, and was +on the first floor. + +"If you'd been a minute earlier, sir," said the old man, smiling, "you'd +have seen Mrs. Pavely go by! I think she must have been in Mrs. +Tropenell's motor, for Mr. Tropenell was driving her himself." + +Godfrey Pavely felt a queer little pang of annoyance and surprise. + +"I daresay they're still in the town," he said quickly. "I thought it +quite possible that they might come in this morning." + +But he had thought nothing of the kind. + +Mr. Privet shook his head. "Oh no, sir! They were going home sure +enough--and rather quickly, too. I thought the car _had_ caught that +youngest Sherlock boy, but Mr. Tropenell's a skilful driver, and he +missed the child, but only by a few inches, as far as I could judge!" + +Godfrey Pavely nodded, walked on, and so out and across the High Street. +He could not help feeling a little vexed that Oliver and Laura should +have driven into Pewsbury--this morning, of all mornings. He wondered if +they often did so. It was fortunate that nothing had happened to that +stupid child. It would have been very unpleasant for his wife to be +compelled to give evidence at an inquest.... + +He did not enjoy his luncheon as much as he was wont to do. In a sense +he was king of the old-fashioned County Club; every member of it was +either on good terms with the prosperous banker, or desired to be so. +But try as he might he could not get that odious, absurd, anonymous +letter out of his mind! He told himself again and again that it was +thoughtless and--and yes, unbecoming--of Laura, to drive in and out of +Pewsbury with Oliver Tropenell. Somehow it was the sort of thing he +would never have thought his wife was likely to do. Again he wondered +if she did it often. If yes, such conduct would of course provide ample +reason for low, vulgar gossip. + +When, at last, Godfrey Pavely walked back across to the Bank, he had +come to the point of asking himself whether after all it might not be +best to say just a word of caution to Laura. It need not be more than a +word--he knew her well enough to know that! She was the kind of woman to +shrink with fastidious disgust from the thought of her name being +connected, in any vulgar silly way, with that of a man. + +But his mind swung backwards and forwards, like a pendulum. The +possibility of his agreeable, cordial relations with Oliver Tropenell +being in any way jarred or disturbed so upset him that, finally, he made +up his mind to say nothing to Laura. + +At three o'clock the banker walked up to his head clerk's room. "I think +I'll go home early to-day, Privet," he said. + +The old man got up from his chair. He was not only fond, he was proud +too, of his employer. Mr. Pavely was a model banker, a model worker. He +never went home before four, and often stayed on working till five. + +"Very good, sir. It's a fine afternoon. I often wonder you stay as long +as you do," he said, with that queer touch of affection in his voice +which Godfrey Pavely valued perhaps more than he knew. + +The walk home seemed much longer than usual. Two miles and a bit? He was +proud of the fact that he could do it with ease in five minutes over the +half-hour. To-day, as a matter of fact, he walked so quickly that he did +it in twenty-seven minutes, but he was not aware of that. + +For the first time for months, he passed by Rosedean without as much as +giving Katty a thought, and he took a short cut into The Chase instead +of going on, up through the great park gates, as he was wont to do. And +then, as he went along one of the paths in the walled kitchen garden, he +suddenly heard his wife's voice. + +"I think that it would be best to have a mass of red and purple just +here. Last year we had blues." + +He felt a queer, rather unreasoning, shock of relief, of satisfaction. +Laura was evidently speaking to one of the gardeners. + +Then, as he came round the corner, he saw that the person to whom Laura +was speaking was not a gardener, but Oliver Tropenell himself--Oliver, +with a spud in his hand, kneeling before Laura, a basket of bulbs by his +side. He was looking up eagerly--a jealous onlooker might have said +ardently--into her face. In fact, Tropenell looked, so Godfrey Pavely +told himself with some heat, "damned absurd." But before Godfrey came +right upon the three of them--for little Alice was flitting about behind +her mother--Oliver stood up, with the words, "Then I'd better go and get +those other bulbs, hadn't I? Will you come too, Alice?" + +Godfrey called out "Hullo! Doing some planting?" But his voice sounded +odd to himself. Not so, however, to the others. Laura was honestly +unaware that Godfrey was very much earlier than his wont, or, if aware, +she did not attach any importance to the fact. Still, she felt afraid +that Godfrey would interfere with her gardening scheme, and so she shook +her head. + +As for Oliver Tropenell, no one looking at his dark, set face could have +guessed his thoughts. As a matter of fact, he had heard Pavely's +footsteps some moments before Pavely spoke. And he had wondered, with +quick irritation, why he had come back from Pewsbury--or Rosedean--so +much earlier than usual. + +Alice, dark-haired, rosy-cheeked, quite curiously unlike either her +father or her mother, was the only one of the four who was still happily +at ease. She ran up to her father: "Come and see _my_ garden, father!" +she cried. "I'm growing some mustard and cress specially for you. You +can take it to the Bank in an envelope and have some for your tea!" + +The little girl was aware, deep in her sensitive, affectionate heart, +that her father and mother were not quite like other fathers and +mothers. They were not cosily loving together, as were the father and +mother of the two little girls with whom she sometimes went to tea in +Pewsbury, neither were they on the happy terms of easy comradeship which +even Alice knew was usual with other children's parents. + +But she loved her mother with a passionate, unswerving, admiring love, +and her father with a stout, proprietary affection. For his sake, and +his sake only, she would have liked to be a boy, for then, so she argued +secretly within herself, she could be his office boy at the Bank. Up to +now she had felt for Oliver Tropenell the easy, unquestioning liking +children give to one who comes and goes. But lately she had become dimly +aware that occasionally her mother and Mr. Tropenell were too busy +talking together to take much heed of her, and this threw a little +shadow across her heart. + +For Godfrey Pavely there followed days full of discomfort, unease, and +rising annoyance. The whole course of his life was changed. As he came +and went about the quiet streets of his native town, as he granted +business interviews to the townspeople, he was perpetually asking +himself if the person he was speaking to was concerned with this odious +matter, whether he or she was among those who took his beautiful wife's +name lightly. + +His object each afternoon was now to get home early, and see for himself +what was going on there, and how far Laura was giving cause for low, +vulgar gossip. + +Laura was not a child! She must know, if she ever brought herself to +think of such a thing, that if a married woman allows a man to hang +about her, day after day, in the absence of her husband, there is sure +to be talk. Pavely regarded Tropenell's share in the matter with a +strange toleration--it was his wife whom he blamed with an increasing +severity as the minutes, the hours, and the days went by. + +He still went to see Katty Winslow, but no longer as often as he had +been wont to do. And when in her company he was distrait, uncomfortable, +longing to ask if _she_ thought Oliver's constant presence in his house +odd or--or peculiar. But he kept a prudent guard over his tongue. One +day Katty said something which would have made it easy for him to speak, +and which, as a matter of fact, very nearly did cause him to unburden +his heart to her. It was a little word, and said quite pleasantly, with, +he felt sure, no ulterior motive of any kind. + +"It's odd," she said musingly, "to see what good friends Laura has +become with Oliver Tropenell! Who would have thought that she would ever +like any man as much as she seems to like him? I suppose it's really +owing to the fact that he's in partnership with her brother----" + +She waited, and as he said nothing, she went on, with a smile, "But +then, for the matter of that, you're just as fond of him as she is, +aren't you? I can't see the attraction myself, but I admit that it must +be there, for two people as unlike you and Laura are to each other both +to like him so much." + +"Yes, I do like Tropenell," Godfrey spoke very decidedly. "But I can't +make out why he gets on so well with Gilbert Baynton. Gillie couldn't +run straight if he tried." + +"So I've always understood----" + +Katty looked at him curiously. She had never been told the real story of +the quarrel between the brothers-in-law, but she was clever enough to +have reached a very shrewd notion of the truth. Baynton, so much was +clear, had done something which Pavely could neither tolerate nor +forgive. In the old days, as a girl, Katty had met Gillie Baynton +several times, and he had struck her as a very amusing, agreeable sort +of young man. + +Godfrey had let slip this opportunity of saying anything, and +afterwards, as is usually the case, he was glad that he had kept +silence. Clever and sympathetic as she was, Katty could do nothing to +help him in this horrid, rather degrading business. + +And then, walking into his room at the Bank one morning, he saw on the +top of the pile of his letters another common-looking envelope marked +_Private_. He took it up with a sick feeling of half eager, half +shrinking, expectancy-- + + "A sincere well-wisher wishes once more to inform Mr. + Pavely that all Pewsbury is discussing him and his private + affairs. The lady and gentleman in question are more + together than ever they were. The other day some one who + met them walking together on the downs took them for an + engaged couple." + +This second anonymous letter greatly added to Godfrey Pavely's +wretchedness and discomfort, all the more that it was so moderately +worded. It seemed to confirm, to make certain, the fact of growing +gossip and scandal. + +At last something happened which to a small extent relieved the tension. +Laura quietly informed him one evening that she much wished to go away +for three days to see a friend of her childhood, who had written and +begged her to come, and to bring little Alice with her. + +She was surprised at the eagerness with which Godfrey assented to her +wish. In certain ways Godfrey Pavely, from the modern point of view, was +a tyrannical husband. He very much disliked Laura's paying visits by +herself, and she had long ago given up even suggesting that she should +do so. Also, she on her side much disliked asking him the smallest +favour. + +The day his wife left The Chase was the first happy day Godfrey had had +for three weeks. He spent a pleasant hour with Katty; and on his arrival +home his feeling of satisfaction was increased by a note from Mrs. +Tropenell inviting him to come and spend at Freshley Manor the three +nights Laura was to be away. He wrote accepting with more cordiality of +phrase than was his wont, even with so old a friend as was Oliver's +mother. + +Surely he and Oliver Tropenell, at last alone together, could combine to +put an end to this foolish, vulgar gossip? It would be so much easier to +speak to and consult with Oliver in Laura's absence. + +Once he had made up his mind to speak to the other man, Pavely was able, +almost, to forget the whole hateful business. Still, he said nothing +till the second morning of his visit. Then, at breakfast, he made a +proposal. + +"I feel as if I'd like to take this afternoon off. Would you care for a +good long walk, eh? We might start about half-past two, have tea in +Witanbury, and be back here for dinner." + +Oliver nodded. He was at once glad and sorry that Godfrey was so +entirely unaware of the growing tide of dislike, nay of hatred, that he +felt for him. Secretive as he was by nature, and by the life he had now +led for so long, Oliver Tropenell was yet no hypocrite. He loathed the +part fate had forced on him, that of pretending a cordial friendship for +this man whom he so utterly despised. His mother had invited Godfrey +Pavely to stay with them for three nights without first telling Oliver +that she was thinking of doing so; and then, when she had realised, too +late, his annoyance, she could only explain that Godfrey had always +stayed with her on the very rare occasions when Laura had been away. + +Mother and son were together when Godfrey started off on his daily walk +into Pewsbury. + +"I wonder what he's going to talk to you about?" said Mrs. Tropenell a +little nervously. The thought of the coming afternoon expedition made +her vaguely uneasy. + +"He's never at a loss for a word, though he very seldom says anything +worth hearing." + +Oliver was looking with unhappy, frowning eyes after the other man's +trim, rather jaunty figure. + +All that morning Mrs. Tropenell watched her son with anxious fear. He +wandered restlessly in and out of the house, and though he never +mentioned Laura, his mother knew that he was missing her with an almost +agonised sense of loss. + +Oliver was fighting a losing battle with himself--a battle in which no +help from outside could be of any avail. He no longer spoke of going +away; instead, he had told his mother of his scheme for bringing Gillie +to Europe, and of sending Laura and her brother off to Italy, for a +happy little holiday. She ventured to say that she thought that plan to +be quite out of the question. Godfrey would never allow it--he had not +forgiven Gillie, in spite of the fact that Gillie had now "made good." + +It was nearer three than half-past two, when the two men started out, +and they had been walking for a full hour, with snatches of talk, and +such comfortable intervals of silence as is possible only between +intimates, when suddenly Godfrey Pavely stopped walking. + +Surprised, Tropenell also came to a stand. They were on a stretch of +lonely upland, with nothing save a couple of birds in sight. + +"Look here, Oliver, there's something I want to say to you! I hope you +won't be offended. But we're such good friends, you and I, that I think +you'll understand." + +The colour rushed into Oliver Tropenell's face. He turned and faced the +other squarely, but he felt tense with excitement, and a sense of +challenge. He knew, instinctively, that Pavely was going to say +something about Laura--Laura, and perhaps Gillie, her brother. + +"Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, Godfrey? What is it? I can't imagine your +saying anything to me that would offend me." + +"I want you to read what's inside that," said Godfrey in a low voice, +and he handed Oliver an envelope. + +Oliver was relieved, but he looked down at the envelope suspiciously. + +"But this isn't to be opened till you're dead!" he exclaimed. + +"Open it now," said Godfrey roughly, "I only put that in case I met with +an accident--you'll see why I did it, in a moment." + +With a queer feeling of misgiving Oliver Tropenell drew the common +little sheet of notepaper out of the envelope, and in silence read over +what was written there in those deceitful, printed characters. + +He read it once, twice--thrice. Then he handed the sheet of paper back, +with a look of disgust and contempt on his dark face, to the man +standing by his side. + +"Well!" he exclaimed. "I don't know what you expect me to say? If you'd +had as many anonymous letters as I've had in my time--they rain in +Mexico--you wouldn't give much thought to this kind of garbage!" + +Holding out the letter as if it were something dirty, he handed it back +to the other man. + +"I haven't given much thought to it----" and then Godfrey stopped short. +He felt as if some other man, and not his sober self, were uttering the +lie. + +"No," said Oliver quickly, "I don't suppose you have. But still, I can't +help being rather sorry you kept it, and--and that you showed it to me. +There's nothing to be done! I suppose it's the work of some clerk whom +you've dismissed in the last few weeks?" + +"I've dismissed no one," said Pavely shortly. Somehow Tropenell was not +taking this disagreeable business quite as he had meant him to take it. + +In a rather different voice Oliver went on: "Show me the letter again. I +want to see if there's a date to it." + +"It arrived exactly three weeks ago to-day," said Pavely slowly, "and it +was posted in Pewsbury." + +Light broke in on Tropenell. This, then, was why Godfrey had taken to +coming home at such odd hours, and why he had telephoned several times +from the Bank, sending messages to Laura, and, on at least one occasion, +a message to Tropenell himself! + +He set his lips tightly together, and a flood of bitter wrath welled up +from his heart. + +"Then in my place you would do nothing?" asked Godfrey uncertainly. + +More and more he was disappointed in the other's attitude. He had +thought Oliver would suggest something which might be useful, or at any +rate laugh the matter off. + +But Oliver only looked grim--grim and angry. + +"I don't see that you can do anything. It isn't the sort of thing about +which you would care to go to the local police, and even if you knew who +wrote that infamous scrawl I don't see how you could take action. We +can't have Laura's name dragged into this kind of business." + +Then he asked in a lower voice, "Have you said anything to her?" + +The other shook his head. "I've no intention of saying anything to +Laura. It would distress and disgust her very much." + +He was glad to see that Oliver, hearing these words, looked very much +relieved. + +They walked on a few paces, and then Godfrey exclaimed, "There's one +thing I do think, Oliver--and I hope you won't be angry with me for +saying it! It must be admitted that you've been a great deal at The +Chase alone with Laura, and also, unfortunately, that that sort of thing +always does make talk in a country town." + +Tropenell turned on him sternly: "What sort of thing?" he asked. "I +swear before God that there has never been anything in my attitude to +Laura which should give the slightest rise to comment, or afford the +basest scandalmonger excuse for a word." + +And he believed every word of what he said. + +"I know that--I know that, my dear fellow!" Godfrey put his hand out, +and for a moment it lay heavily on his friend's shoulder. + +But quickly, silently, Tropenell shook himself free of the other's +touch. "If you know that," he was breathing hard now, not trying to +disguise his anger, "then why did you allude just now to the fact that I +am a good deal in your house? Does that mean you wish that I should give +up coming to The Chase?" + +"No, of course I don't mean that! You're the one real friend I've +made--well, since I got to man's estate," said Pavely ruefully. + +Everything was going wrong. The conversation was taking a turn he had +never thought of or conceived as possible. "What I mean is that +Laura----" + +Tropenell stopped him with a passionate gesture: "Cannot we keep Laura's +name out of our discussion?" + +Godfrey stared at him, genuinely astonished. + +"How can we keep Laura's name out of our discussion? The whole thing +centres about Laura! This letter mentions Laura--ay, and I've had +another letter, which I hadn't meant to show you, but which on second +thoughts I should like you to see." + +He began fumbling in another pocket. + +"I don't want to see it!" cried Oliver. "I'd rather not see it!" + +"But I'd rather you saw it," said Godfrey obstinately. + +Tropenell read the second anonymous letter through, and then handed it +back, without comment. + +Silently they both turned about, and walked quickly, in almost complete +silence, back to Freshley. "We've come home to tea, after all, mother," +said Oliver shortly, "we are neither of us in condition for a +fifteen-mile walk." + +Neither man referred again to the matter which when they were together +filled both their minds, and on the day of Laura's return to The Chase, +Oliver Tropenell went up to town, without having seen her. Four days +later his mother received a rather cryptic telegram: "Arriving to-night +with a friend." + +A friend? Some sure, sombre instinct told Mrs. Tropenell that this would +be Gillie Baynton. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +"Godfrey can't eat me! Besides, he'll have to see me some time. Not that +I want to see anything of the fellow--I always hated him! Still, as +things are, it's far better I should take him by surprise, in Laura's +house, than go cap in hand, and ask his leave to see my sister." + +It was Gilbert Baynton who was speaking, standing with his legs a little +apart, his fair head thrown back, his hands in his pockets, early in the +afternoon of the day he and Oliver had arrived from London. + +Mother and son were both in the room, but it was really with Mrs. +Tropenell that Baynton was having this rather unpleasant argument. He +and Tropenell had had this all out before. Oliver had wanted Gillie to +write to his sister, but he was set on taking her by surprise, and on +stealing a march on Godfrey Pavely. + +Mrs. Tropenell looked up at the man standing before her. Gillie was two +years older than her Oliver, and she had been the first woman who had +ever seen him, for it was to her that his mother's doctor had handed the +lusty, already screaming baby. His mother had passionately loved +him--loved him and spoilt him, and so had his rather lackadaisical +father. Physically he was a queer mixture of the two. Gillie Baynton had +his father's fair hair, grace of limb and movement, and plainness of +feature, coupled with his mother's abounding vitality, and her charm of +manner--that charm, that coming-on-ness, which his beautiful sister, +born so many years later, had always lacked. + +Gillie had early begun to get into various ugly scrapes, but as a youth +he had always somehow managed to shuffle out of them, for he was +popular, and "had a way with him," as country people say. Also he had +never been lacking in courage of a sort, and courage carries even a +rascal a long way. + +Still, Gillie Baynton had been pretty well done for, as far as his own +country was concerned, when he had been sent out, as a kind of forlorn +hope, to Mexico and Oliver Tropenell.... + +Gillie began speaking again: "I think I know my worthy brother-in-law +quite as well as you do, Mrs. Tropenell. It's much better to take a man +like that by surprise, and not to give him time to think! After all, +he's _got_ to let bygones be bygones." + +And now Oliver interposed, for the first time. "Yes, mother, as things +are, I think Gillie had perhaps better try and see Laura now, at once, +before Godfrey Pavely knows he's in England." + +"I'll go there right now." + +Occasionally, not very often, Gilbert Baynton made use of some little +phrase showing that he lived on the other side of the Atlantic. He had +changed somehow, Mrs. Tropenell could hardly have told you how, for he +had always had a very assured manner. But now Gillie looked what he +was--a very prosperous man of business, though scarcely an English man +of business. The long sojourn in Mexico had not altered her Oliver at +all--not, that is, as far as she could see, but it had altered Gillie +Baynton surprisingly. It had roughened him, and increased his natural +self-assurance. + +"Perhaps Laura and little Alice will come back with you to tea? Godfrey, +too, if he seems in the humour for it," she said. + +And he nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Tropenell. That would be very pleasant." + +He smiled, a good-humoured, triumphant smile, and was gone. + +The other two looked at each other rather doubtfully. And then Oliver, +as if answering her thought, exclaimed, "I don't think he'll stay on at +The Chase till Pavely comes out from Pewsbury! Apart from everything +else, Gillie's a restless creature. We may see him again within a very +short time from now." + +"But supposing he and Godfrey do meet?" asked Mrs. Tropenell anxiously. + +"Well, if they do meet, I think it's quite on the cards there'll be a +furious row. But that, after all, would clear the air. As Gillie said +just now, Godfrey Pavely will _have_ to put the past behind him. +Perhaps, once they've had it out, they'll be better friends. There's a +good deal to be said for a row sometimes, mother." + +"Yes," she said uncomfortably. "I agree, there is." + + * * * * * + +Laura was sitting in what was still known as "the boudoir," by the +household of Lawford Chase. It was a beautiful and stately room, +furnished some ninety years ago, at the time of the marriage of Mrs. +Tropenell's grandmother. The late Mr. Pavely's tenants had not cared to +use it, for it was away from the other living-rooms of the house, and so +nothing in the boudoir had been disturbed or renewed when The Chase had +been prepared for the occupation of the strangers who had lived there +for fourteen years. + +The room suited Laura, and Laura suited the room. To-day she had had a +fire lit, for it was beginning to be chilly. Alice had gone off into +Pewsbury to spend the afternoon with two little friends, and now the +mistress of this lovely, old-world room was trying to read a book; but +soon she let the book rest open on her lap, and she stared mournfully, +hopelessly, into the fire. + +Things were not going well with Laura Pavely. They had begun going ill +about a month ago, just after that--that unfortunate outburst on +Oliver's part. Yet she had felt so sure, after the talk that she and he +had had together, that they would slip back into their old, easy +relationship! And for a while, perhaps for as long as a week, it had +seemed as if they were going to do so. + +But then there had come a change. Godfrey had fallen into the way of +coming home early. In old days, both before the coming to England of +Oliver Tropenell, and during the months that followed, Godfrey had +generally stayed at the Bank rather late, and then, as often as not, he +had gone in and had a chat with Katty on his way home. Now he always +came back before five, and after his return home he and Oliver would +engage in interminable singles on the big tennis court which had been +Godfrey Pavely's one contribution to the otherwise beautiful gardens of +The Chase. + +Sometimes, and especially had this been true these last few days, Laura +told herself that perhaps after all, the world, the cynical shrewd +world of which she knew so little, was right, and that a close and +confidential friendship between a man and a woman is an impossible +ideal. + +To-day, staring into the fire with dry, unseeing eyes, she felt +miserably unhappy--too troubled and uneasy to occupy herself in any of +her usual ways. More than had ever been the case before, life seemed to +stretch before her in a terrible, dreary, unending monotony. + +Something else had come to pass during the last week, the week during +which Oliver Tropenell had been away in London, which she scarcely liked +to think of, or to make more real by dwelling on. Godfrey had altered in +his manner to her, he had become kinder, and yes, more loverlike than he +had been for years. He hung about her, when he was at home, indoors and +out of doors. In an awkward, clumsy way he actually tried to make +himself pleasant! He had even suggested that she should ask one or two +people to stay at The Chase. But she had protested that she much +preferred being alone, and with a shrug of the shoulders he had given +in. After all, he didn't really care for strangers more than she did. + +Several times during the last dreary week, he had astonished her by +talking to her of Oliver in a rather fretful, complaining way, as if he +thought it odd that the other man was staying on in England with his +mother, instead of going back to Mexico. He had said that he thought it +strange that such a big business as he understood Oliver Tropenell to +have built up, could run by itself. She had answered coldly, "You +forget that my brother is there." And to that he had made no reply. + +Gillie? A pang of pain thrilled through Laura's lonely heart. Oliver had +said nothing more concerning Gillie's visit to Europe. Everything which +had happened, up to, and including, the evening when she and Oliver had +had that curious, intimate conversation when he had promised so solemnly +to be her friend, seemed now like a bright, happy dream compared with +the drab reality of to-day. + +And now, in a few minutes, Godfrey would be coming in, and she would +have to rouse herself to listen and to answer, while they had tea +together in the cedar drawing-room, for Godfrey did not care for the +boudoir. + +Suddenly she heard uttered in the corridor, outside the door, the eager +words, "Is Mrs. Pavely there? You're sure? All right--I'll go straight +in!" And before she could gather her mind together, the door opened, and +her brother--the brother she had not seen for years, but of whom she had +just been thinking--walked forward into the room, exclaiming heartily, +resonantly: "Well, Laura? Well, little girl? Here I am again!" + +She started up, and with a cry of welcoming, wondering delight, threw +herself into his arms, half laughing, half crying, "Oh, +Gillie--Gillie--Gillie! How glad I am to see you! Somehow I thought we +were never going to meet again! Have you only just come? Has Oliver +Tropenell seen you? Why didn't you wire?" + +Gillie was as touched and flattered as it was in him to be, for he +remembered his sister as having been always quiet and restrained. And +when they had parted, just before he had gone out to Mexico, she had +seemed almost inanimate with--had it been vicarious?--shame and pain. + +"I thought I'd take you by surprise." He looked round him with a +pleased, measuring look. "Nothing altered!" he exclaimed, "and you've +got a fire? That's good! I feel it awfully cold here, I mean in England. +They haven't started fires yet, over at Freshley." + +He repeated, "Nothing's altered--you least of all, Laura. Why, you don't +look a day older!" + +She sighed. "I feel," she said, "a lifetime older." + +"I don't!" he cried briskly, "I feel younger. And Godfrey?" His voice +altered, becoming just a little graver. "Time stood still with Godfrey +too, eh?" + +"I don't think Godfrey's altered much----" She was hesitating. And then, +very carefully, she added the words, "Godfrey's quite good to me, you +know, Gillie." + +"Oh, well--of course he always liked you the best!" And then he laughed, +but to them both his laughter sounded just a little hollow. "I gather +that he and Tropenell don't quite hit it off?" + +She turned on him quickly, and he was puzzled at the look of extreme +astonishment which came over her face. "What makes you think that?" she +exclaimed. "They're the greatest friends! Godfrey likes Oliver Tropenell +better than I thought he'd ever like anybody." + +And then, before Gillie Baynton could answer this, to him, surprising +statement, the door opened, and the man of whom they were speaking stood +gazing into the room as if he could not believe in the reality of the +sight before him. + +The brother and sister moved apart, and Gilbert Baynton held out his +hand. + +"Well, Godfrey," he exclaimed, "here I am again! I expect Tropenell told +you that I was thinking of coming to Europe? But I can't be more than a +month in the old country--if as long--unless Tropenell goes back leaving +me behind for a bit. He did make some such suggestion, but I think we're +more likely to go back together." + +As he spoke on, he let his hand slowly drop to his side, for the man he +was addressing had made no answering movement of welcome, or even of +greeting. + +Such a flood of wrath had mounted up into Godfrey Pavely's brain when he +saw Gilbert Baynton standing there, with his arm round Laura's shoulder, +that he was fearful the words he meant to utter would never get +themselves said. He had never felt so angry before, and the sensation +had a curious physical effect on him. He felt, as country folk so +vividly put it, "all of a tremble." + +A curious, ominous, sinister silence fell on the room. Laura, +unconsciously, drew a little nearer to her brother; and Godfrey, who was +staring straight at her, saw the movement, and it intensified the +passion of anger which was working in his brain as wine does in the +body. + +"I must ask you to leave my house at once," he said in a low voice. "I +have had no reason to change my mind as to what I said when you were +last in this house, Gilbert Baynton." + +_"Godfrey!"_ There was a passionate protest and revolt in the way Laura +uttered her husband's name. + +But her brother put up his hand. "Hush, Laura," he said. "It's much +better I should tackle this business alone. In fact, if you don't mind, +you'd better leave the room." + +She shook her head. "No, I mean to stay." + +He shrugged his shoulders, and looked straight at Godfrey Pavely. "Look +here!" he exclaimed, "isn't all this rather--well, highfaluting rot? +It's quite true that when I left here I didn't mean ever to darken your +doors again. But everything's altered now! I've paid you back every cent +of that money--it wasn't even your money, it was my own sister's money. +She didn't mind my having it--I heard her tell you so myself." + +"You forged my signature to obtain it," said Godfrey. He spoke in a very +low voice, almost in a whisper. He was the sort of man who always +suspects servants of listening at the door. + +"Yes, I own I was a damned fool to do that--though as a matter of fact +you goaded me to it! However, it's a long time ago, and I suggest that +we'd better let bygones be bygones. If I don't marry, and I'm not a +marrying man, your child will be my heiress. Laura's my only sister, the +only thing in the world I really care for----" + +Laura put her hand through his arm when she heard him say that. + +And then Godfrey spoke again, his voice a little raised: "That makes no +difference," he said--"I mean your having paid the money back makes no +difference. I won't have you in my house, and if Laura considers my +wishes she won't see you again while you're in England." + +Laura said at once: "I shall not consider your wishes, Godfrey. Of +course I shall see my brother as often as I can." + +But Godfrey went on, still directly addressing Gilbert Baynton, "I can't +prevent Laura seeing you, if she insists upon it. She's a grown-up +woman, and I can't turn the key on her. But she shan't see you in _my_ +house. And, as far as I'm concerned, this is the last time I'll ever set +eyes on your face." + +"Don't you be so sure of that!" Gillie muttered the words between his +teeth. His fair face had turned a deep red-brick colour, his blue eyes +were blazing. + +Again there fell on the three of them that strange, ominous, sinister +silence. + +Then Gilbert Baynton turned to his sister. He actually laughed out loud. +But even Pavely noticed, with bitter satisfaction, that the laughter +sounded very forced. + +"Ha! ha! ha! Godfrey's not a bit changed. He's just the same old +narrow-minded, sanctimonious prig he always was!" + +He took Laura in his arms, and kissed her two or three times very +warmly. "Never mind, little girl," he said. "I shan't make trouble +between you and Godfrey for long! I shan't be in England for more than a +few days. I'm off to Paris next week." + +He disengaged himself gently from Laura's clinging arms, went to the +door, opened it, then shut it very quietly behind him. + +Laura turned away, and stared into the fire. + +Godfrey began, awkwardly, conciliatingly, "Now, my dear Laura----" + +She put up her hand. "Don't speak to me," she said, in what he felt to +be a dreadful voice of aversion and of pain. "I shall never, never +forgive you for this!" + +He shrugged his shoulders, and went out of the room, into the long +corridor. And then he walked quickly through it and so to the hall of +the fine old house, of which, try as he might, he never felt himself, in +any intimate sense, the master. + +The hall was empty. Quietly he opened the front door. Yes, Gillie had +kept his word this time! He really had gone. Pavely could see the alert, +still young-looking figure of the man whom in his mind he always called +"that scoundrel" hurrying down the carriage road which led to the great +gates of The Chase. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Katty Winslow stood by her open gate. She had wandered out there feeling +restless and excited, though she hardly knew why. During the last +fortnight she had spent many lonely hours, more lonely hours than usual, +for Godfrey Pavely came much less often to see her than he had done in +the old, easygoing days. + +And yet, though restless, Katty was on the whole satisfied. She thought +that things were going very much as she wished them to go. It was of +course annoying to know so little, but she was able to guess a good +deal, and she felt quite sure that the leaven was working. + +But the suspense and the uncertainty had got on her nerves, and she had +made up her mind to leave Rosedean perhaps for as long as a fortnight. +Two days ago she had written to various friends who were always glad to +see her. That was why, as she stood at the gate, she was able to tell +herself that she was waiting for the postman. + +She thought it very probable that Godfrey Pavely would be walking past +her house about this time. A couple of days ago he had come in for about +half an hour, but he had been dull and ill at ease, his mind evidently +full of something he was unwilling or ashamed to tell. And she had +watched him with an amused, sympathetic curiosity, wondering how long +his cautious reticence would endure. If she had put her mind to it, +perhaps Katty could have made him speak of that which filled his sore +heart, but she felt that the time was not yet ripe for words between +herself and Godfrey. She was afraid of jarring him, of making him say +something to her which both of them afterwards might regret. No, not any +words of love to herself--of that she was not afraid--but some dogmatic +pronouncement on divorce, and perchance on re-marriage. + +And then, as she stood there, glancing up and down the lonely country +road, she suddenly saw a man walking quickly towards her--not from +Pewsbury, but from the opposite direction, which led only from The +Chase. + +Katty's bright brown eyes were very good eyes, and long before the +stranger could see her she had, as it were, taken stock of him. Somehow +his clothes were not English-looking, and he wore a kind of grey Homburg +hat. + +He was walking at a great pace, and as he came nearer, some vague +feeling of curiosity made Katty step out of the gate, and look straight +up the road towards him. All at once she made up her mind that he was +American--a well-to-do and, according to his lights, a well-dressed +American. + +Now Katty Winslow looked very charming, as she stood out there, in her +heather-mixture tweed skirt, and pale blue flannel blouse--charming, and +also young. And the stranger--to her he seemed entirely a stranger--when +he was quite close up to her, suddenly took off his hat and exclaimed, +"Why, Miss Fenton! It is Miss Fenton, isn't it?" + +He was now smiling broadly into her face, his bold, rather challenging +eyes--the blue eyes which were the best feature of his face, and the +only feature which recalled his beautiful sister--full of cordial +admiration. + +"You don't remember me?" he went on. "Well, that's quite natural, for of +course you made a much deeper impression on me than I did on you!" + +And then all at once it flashed across Katty who this pleasant, +bright-eyed wayfarer must be. It must be, it could only be, Gilbert +Baynton--the peccant Gillie! + +"Mr. Baynton?" she said questioningly, and she also threw a great note +of welcome and cordiality into her voice. + +"Yes," he said. "Gilbert Baynton--very much at your service----?" + +"--Mrs. Winslow," she said hurriedly. "I'm Mrs. Winslow now." She saw +that the name conveyed nothing to him. "Do come in," she went on +pleasantly, "if only for a moment, Mr. Baynton. Though it's early for +tea, perhaps you'll stay and have a cup with me? I had no idea you were +in England! I suppose you're staying with Laura, at The Chase?" + +He shook his head, the smile faded from his face, and Katty, who was +observant, saw that her question was ill-timed. + +"It's delightful--seeing an old friend again, and I was feeling so +bored--all by myself!" + +As he followed her into the house, Gillie told himself that this was +distinctly amusing--quite good fun! It would take the horrible taste of +his interview with that--that _brute_--out of his mouth. + +He looked round the little hall with quick interest and curiosity. +There was no sign of a man about, only a lady's slender walking-stick +and a bright red parasol, in the umbrella-stand. Was pretty little Katty +a widow? Somehow she did not look like a widow! + +She opened a door which gave out of the hall on the left, and called +out, "Harber? I should like tea in about five minutes." + +Then she shut the door, and led the way down the little hall, and +through into her sitting-room. + +Gillie again glanced about him with eager appreciation. This was the +sort of room he liked--cosy, comfortable, bright and smiling like its +attractive mistress. + +"Sit down," she exclaimed, "and tell me everything that's happened to +you since we last met! Why, it must be, let me see, quite twelve years +ago?" + +She took up a china box: "Have a cigarette--I'll have one too." + +He waved the box aside, took out his own case, and held it out to her. +"I think you'll like these," he said. Then he struck a match, and as +their fingers touched, the lighting of her cigarette took quite a little +while. + +"This _is_ jolly!" He sank back into one of Katty's well-cushioned easy +chairs. "You've the prettiest room I've been in since I came to England, +Mrs. Winslow." + +"Oh, then you haven't been into Laura's boudoir?" + +"Yes, I've just come from there." Again his face altered as he spoke, +and this time there came a look of frowning anger over it. Then, almost +as if he read the unspoken question in her mind, he said slowly, "Look +here, Mrs. Winslow, as you seem to know my sister so well, I may as well +tell you the truth. I've just been ordered out of her house by my +brother-in-law, Godfrey Pavely. I suppose you know that he and I had a +row years ago?" He was looking at her rather hard as he spoke, and she +nodded her head. + +"Yes," she said frankly, "I do know that, though I don't know what it +was about." + +He breathed a little more freely. "It was about money," he said +bitterly. "Just what one would expect it to be with a man like Godfrey. +He was furious because I got Laura to lend me some money. It was to pay +a debt of honour, for I was a gambler in those days. But I'm a good boy +now!" + +"Yes," she said, and smiled. "I know you are! You're Oliver Tropenell's +partner, aren't you, Mr. Baynton? He talks awfully nicely of you." + +Gillie--his face was fair, his skin very clear, almost like a +girl's--looked pleased. "Good old Tropenell!" he exclaimed. "Yes, he and +I are tremendous pals. He's been the best friend to me man ever had." + +"I am _so_ sorry for Laura," said Katty gently. + +She was playing with the edge of a piece of Italian embroidery which +covered a small table close to her elbow, and she was thinking--hard. + +At that moment the drawing-room door opened, and the tea appeared. While +the table was being drawn up in front of her, the tray placed on to it, +and a taper put to the spirit lamp, Katty's mind went on working busily. +And by the time the maid was leaving the room, she had come to a +decision. Even to her it was a momentous decision--how momentous to +others she was destined never to know. + +Again she said slowly, impressively, "Yes, Mr. Baynton, I am sorry +indeed for poor Laura." + +"I'm sorry too. Not that it much matters! I didn't want to stay at The +Chase. I always thought it a gloomy place in the old days, when I was a +child--I mean when it still belonged to Mrs. Tropenell's people. Of +course I shall see Laura again--Godfrey can't prevent that! In fact he +admitted that he couldn't." + +There was a little pause. And then Katty, her eyes bent downwards, said, +"I didn't quite mean that, Mr. Baynton. Of course I'm very sorry about +your new row with Mr. Pavely, for it must be so hateful to Laura to feel +she can't have her own brother in her own house. But--well----" She +threw her head back, and gazed straight across at him. "Can you keep a +secret?" she asked. + +"Yes, of course I can!" He looked at her amused. + +"I want you to keep what I'm going to say absolutely to yourself. I +don't want you ever to hint a word of it to Laura--still less to Oliver +Tropenell." + +"Of course I won't!" He looked at her with growing curiosity. What was +it she was going to tell him? + +"I wonder if I ought to tell you," she murmured. + +He laughed outright. "Well, I can't _make_ you tell me!" + +She felt piqued at his indifference. "Yes, I will tell you, though it +isn't _my_ secret!" she exclaimed. "But I feel that you ought to know +it--being Laura's brother. Laura," her voice dropped, she spoke in a +very low voice, "Laura is in love with Oliver Tropenell, Mr. Baynton. +And Oliver is in love with Laura--a thousand times more in love with her +than she is in love with him!" + +She gave him a swift glance across the tea-table. Yes! Her shot had +told indeed. He looked extraordinarily moved and excited. So excited +that he got up from his chair. + +"Good God!" he exclaimed incredulously. "Laura?" And then, "Tropenell? +Are you sure of this, Mrs. Winslow?" + +"Yes," she answered in a quiet, composed voice that carried conviction. +"I am _quite_ sure. They are both very, very unhappy, for they are good, +high-minded people. They wouldn't do anything wrong for the world." + +As he looked at her a little oddly, and with a queer little smile all +over his face, she exclaimed, "I _know_ Laura wouldn't." And he nodded, +a little ashamed of that queer little smile. + +Gilbert Baynton's face stiffened into deep gravity. His eyes were +shining, and he was staring down at the little table, his half-finished +cup of tea forgotten. + +He sat down again. "Has Laura told you this?" he asked abruptly. "Are +you her confidante?" + +Katty hesitated. "No," she said at last. "I don't suppose Laura has +spoken of the matter to any living soul. But if you promise absolutely +not to give me away--I can tell you how you can assure yourself of the +truth. Ask Mrs. Tropenell. _She_ knows. I won't say any more." + +"And Pavely?" he asked. "What part does my fine brother-in-law play? +Does proper Godfrey know? Is priggish Godfrey jealous?" + +She answered slowly: "I think that Mr. Pavely suspects. He and Oliver +Tropenell were great friends till quite lately. But there's a coldness +now. I don't know what happened. But _something_ happened." + +"I see now why Tropenell has stayed here so long. I thought it must be a +woman! I thought some prudish, dull, English girl had got hold of +him----" He waited a moment. + +"Well, I'm eternally grateful to you, Mrs. Winslow, for giving me this +hint! You see, I'm very fond of Tropenell. It's a peculiar kind of +feeling--there's nothing in the world I wouldn't do for him. Good God! I +only wish that he and Laura----" + +He was going to say "would have the pluck to bolt together!" but Katty +supplied a very different ending to his sentence. + +"Ah," she exclaimed, "I only wish that Laura and Oliver _could_ marry. +They're made for one another. You can't see them together without seeing +that!" She went on feelingly, "Laura was dreadfully unhappy with Godfrey +Pavely even before Oliver Tropenell came into her life. She and Mr. +Pavely are quite unsuited to one another." + +There was a queer bitterness in her voice. + +And then Gillie Baynton suddenly remembered--remembered the flood of +gossip there had been at one time concerning those two--pretty Katty +Fenton, as she had been then, and Godfrey Pavely, the man who later +became his own brother-in-law. + +He gave her a queer, shrewd glance, and Mrs. Winslow went on, rather +quickly and breathlessly, + +"You mustn't think that I dislike Godfrey Pavely! He's been very good to +me--as good as Laura. I'm what they call an innocent _divorcée_, Mr. +Baynton, and they both helped me through the trouble. It was pretty bad +at the time, I can tell you. But of course I can't help seeing--no one +could help seeing--that Godfrey and Laura aren't suited to one another, +and that they would each be much, much happier apart." + +At the back of her clever, astute mind was the knowledge that it was +quite on the cards that Oliver, or Oliver's mother, would say something +to Gilbert Baynton concerning herself and her intimacy with Godfrey +Pavely. She must guard against that, and guard against it now. + +So she went on, pensively, "I don't know, to tell you the truth, for +which of them I'm the more sorry--Laura, Godfrey, or Oliver! They're all +three awfully to be pitied. Of course, if they lived in America it would +be quite simple; Laura and Godfrey would be divorced by mutual consent, +and then Laura would be able to be happy with Mr. Tropenell." + +"And is nothing of that sort possible here?" asked Gillie Baynton +curiously. "This old England _has_ stood still!" + +Katty shook her head regretfully. "No, there's nothing of the sort +possible here. Of course there are ways and means----" + +The other fixed his eyes on her. "Yes?" he said interrogatively. + +"I fear that they are not ways and means that Godfrey or Laura would +ever lend themselves to." + +"Then there's no cutting the Gordian knot?" + +But that wasn't quite what Katty meant to imply. "I don't know," she +said hesitatingly. "Godfrey would do almost anything to avoid any kind +of scandal. But then you see one comes up against Laura----" + +He nodded quickly. "Yes, I quite understand that Laura would never do +anything she thought wrong--queer, isn't it?" + +Gilbert Baynton stayed on at Rosedean for quite another half-hour, but +nothing more was said on the subject which was filling his mind and that +of his hostess. They walked about the pretty, miniature garden, talking +in a desultory way over old times, and about some of the people they had +both known years ago. + +And then, at last, she took him to the gate. They looked at one another +like two augurs, and he said under his breath, "Well, it's a pretty +kettle of fish I've come home to, eh? I thought there was some sort of +mystery. I'm very much obliged to you for having put me on the track to +solve the riddle." + +"Ah," she said, "but the riddle isn't solved yet, Mr. Baynton, is it?" + +He answered, gravely for him, "No, those sorts of riddles are very hard +to solve." He hesitated, then exclaimed in a meaning tone, "Still, they +_are_ solved sometimes, Mrs. Winslow." + + * * * * * + +It was late the same night, a warm, St. Martin's summer night, and Mrs. +Tropenell, sitting alone after dinner, made an excuse of a telephone +message to join her son and Gillie Baynton out of doors. + +After Baynton's return from The Chase the two men had gone off for a +long walk together over the downs, and they had come home so late that +dinner had had to be put off for half an hour. Instead of joining her +later, they had gone out again, but this time only into the garden. + +Noiselessly she moved across the grass, and then, just as she was going +to step under the still leaf-draped pergola, she heard her son's +voice--a voice so charged with emotion and pain that, mastered by her +anxiety, she stopped just behind one of the brick arches, and listened. + +"You'll oblige me, Baynton, by keeping your sister's name out of this." + +"Oh, very well! I thought you'd be glad to know what that woman said to +me--I mean Mrs. Winslow." + +"I'm not glad. I'm sorry. Mrs. Winslow is mistaken." + +The short sentence came out with laboured breath as if with difficulty, +and the one who overheard them, the anguished eavesdropper, felt her +heart stirred with bitter impotence. + +How Oliver cared--how much Oliver cared! + +"Why are you so sure of that?" Again she heard Baynton's full, caressing +voice. "Laura's a very reserved woman! I'd rather believe her best +friend--apparently Katty _is_ her best friend--about such a thing as +this. You've admitted that _you_ love her." + +And as the other made no answer, Gillie went on, speaking in a very low +voice, but with every word clearly audible from the place where Mrs. +Tropenell stood listening: "Of course I won't mention Laura--as it +upsets you so much! But after all, my hatred for Pavely and my love for +my sister are the two strongest things in my life. Surely you know that +well enough, Tropenell? I can't bar Laura out!" + +And then came the answer, muttered between the speaker's teeth: "I +understand that, Baynton." + +"I'm sorry I repeated Mrs. Winslow's tale. But of course it did impress +me--it did influence me. I'd _like_ to believe it, Tropenell." + +The secret listener was surprised at the feeling which Gillie's vibrant +voice betrayed. + +Oliver muttered something--was it, "I'd give my soul to know it true"? + +Then, in a lighter tone, Gillie exclaimed, "As to that other matter, I'd +rather keep you out of the business altogether if I could! But I +can't--quite." + +What was it that Oliver answered then? The two men were now walking +slowly away towards the further end of the pergola. Mrs. Tropenell +strained her ears to hear her son's answer: + +"I don't want to keep out of it." Was that what he said, in a very low, +tense voice? + +Gilbert Baynton was speaking again: "It is _my_ idea, _my_ scheme, and I +mean to carry it through! I shan't want much help--only quite a little +help from you." + +And then she heard her son's voice again, and he was speaking more +naturally this time. "Of course we'll go shares, Gillie! What d'you take +me for? Am I to have all the profit, and you all the risk?" + +Mrs. Tropenell breathed more freely. They were off from Laura now, and +on some business affair. She heard Gillie Baynton laugh aloud. "I'm +quite looking forward to it--but it will be a longish job!" + +Oliver answered, "_I'm_ not looking forward to it. You feel quite sure +about this thing, Baynton? There's time to draw back--now." + +"Sure? Of course I'm sure!" There was triumph, a challenge to fate, in +the other's tone. "I've always liked playing for high stakes--you know +that, eh?" + +"Ay, I know that----" + +"And I've never looked back. I've never regretted anything I've done in +my life----" there was a ring of boastful assurance in Gilbert Baynton's +tone. + +"I can't say that of myself--I wish I could." + +"You? Why, you've a milk-white record, compared to mine!" + +Mrs. Tropenell moved away swiftly over the grass, till she stood at the +end of the dark, arched walk. Then, "Oliver!" she called out, "there's a +message from Lord St. Amant. He wants to know if you can go over to the +Abbey next week, from Saturday till Tuesday. He says there'll be some +shooting. I told him you'd ring up before going to bed--I hope that was +right." + +"Yes, mother. Of course I'll ring up. I'll go in and do it now, if you +like. Gillie and I have been having a long business talk." + +And then she heard Gilbert Baynton: "I'll stay out here a bit longer, +Mrs. Tropenell. I'm getting quite used to the cold and damp of the old +country. I don't mind it as much as I did a week ago." + +Mother and son walked across the lawn to the house. + +When they were indoors, he broke silence first: "Gillie had a bad row +with Pavely this afternoon. I don't think it's any use his staying on +here. Pavely won't allow Laura to see him again at The Chase." + +Mrs. Tropenell uttered an exclamation of dismay. + +"Yes, it's unfortunate, I admit. And I don't think it was Gillie's +fault! He's described the scene to me in great detail. He was quite +willing to go as far as I think he could be expected to go in the way of +apology and contrition. But Pavely simply didn't give him a chance. +Pavely's a narrow-minded brute, mother." + +"Is Gillie very upset? Is he much disappointed?" she asked in a low +voice. + +"Yes, I think Gillie is upset--more upset than I should have expected +him to be! He's disappointed, too, at not having seen little Alice. He's +really fond of children, and, as he truly says, Alice is bound to be his +heiress--unless of course he should marry, which is very unlikely." + +Oliver was speaking in a preoccupied, absent voice, as if he was hardly +thinking of what he was saying. "We're thinking, he and I, of going to +the Continent next week. We've got business to do in Paris--rather +important business, too. Of course I'll try and come back here before +leaving for Mexico." + +Mrs. Tropenell felt as if the walls of the room were falling about her. +Oliver had always spoken of late as if he meant to stay on in England +till after Christmas. + +"How long d'you expect to be in France?" + +"I can't tell yet, mother. I might be there a fortnight, or I might be +there six weeks--it all depends on the business we're going to do. No +dates are settled yet." + +He waited a few moments, then said slowly, "I've been wondering whether +you would mind going up with Laura to London for a few days? Somehow I +think Pavely is more likely to let her go if you offer to go too." + +There swept over her a feeling of recoil, but she let her son see +nothing of that. "Very well," she said quietly. "I quite +understand--I'll do my best. I agree that Laura ought to see her +brother again. And what are _you_ thinking of doing, my dear?" + +"Oh, I thought of going up to town, too." He spoke with a detached air. +"You and I could stay in that nice little hotel where we stayed years +ago, mother. Of course I'm only thinking of a few days in town, before +Gillie and I go off to Paris." + +As they came through into the house, she was startled by the expression +on her son's face. He looked as if he had had a shock; he was very pale, +it was as if all the healthy colour had been drained out of his tan +cheeks. + +"Oliver?" she exclaimed. "Do you feel ill, my darling? When you came in +before dinner you looked as if you had caught a chill." + +"It was rather cold on the downs, but I feel very much as usual, thank +you, mother. A talk with Gillie always tires me. I think he's got a +rather----" he hesitated for a word, then found it--"obstreperous +vitality." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +When Godfrey Pavely arrived at the Bank next morning it seemed to him +that days, instead of hours, had gone by, since that hateful and +degrading scene had taken place between himself and his wife's brother. + +Laura had not spoken to him again, except to utter the few sentences +which were necessary to keep up the pretence that they two were on their +usual terms, before the servants, and, what had been more difficult, +before their little daughter. + +After Alice had gone to bed, they had eaten their dinner in silence, +and, in silence also, they had spent the evening reading up to eleven +o'clock. At last Godfrey, getting up, had said in a nervous, +conciliatory tone, "Well, good-night, Laura." But she had not answered +him, for by that time the servants were gone to bed, and there was no +longer any reason for hypocrisy. + +Laura had always been an exceptionally silent woman, but this was the +first time, in the long armed neutrality of their married life, that she +had actually refused to answer when he spoke to her. Feeling acutely +uncomfortable, because curiously helpless, Godfrey Pavely now wondered +how long this state of things was to endure. + +He asked himself whether he had said anything yesterday which could +really justify Laura in this extraordinary attitude. Now and again there +seemed to sound in his ears the voice in which she had uttered the last +words which she had spoken to him of her own free will. "Don't speak to +me," she had exclaimed passionately. "I shall never, never forgive you +for this!" + +Women were so unreasonable--ridiculously, absurdly unreasonable. Laura +knew exactly what Gillie was like, for he, Godfrey, had gone to special +pains to make Laura fully understand the mean, despicable and +_dangerous_ way in which her brother had behaved over the forged +cheque--for forgery it was, though it had been difficult to persuade +Laura of the fact. He remembered now, how, at last, after he had forced +his wife to understand, she had abased herself, imploring him to save +her brother from the consequences of his wicked action. + +Godfrey also remembered sorely how grateful Laura had seemed to be after +everything had been arranged, and Gillie had finally gone off to Mexico, +a ruined and discredited man. He felt a glow of virtuous satisfaction +when he recalled how she had thanked him--her kind, generous +husband--for what he had done! True, the loan then advanced had been +paid back, and Gillie--to use the stupid expression which seems to be +creeping into the British language--had "made good." But that was no +reason why he should come back and thrust himself into his, Godfrey's, +home, and make friends with Godfrey's only child--after he had actually +given an undertaking, in his own, melodramatic words, "never to darken +Godfrey's door again." + +Yet in his innermost heart Godfrey Pavely was sorry now that he had +behaved as he had done yesterday. He had allowed his temper to get the +better of him, always a silly thing for a sensible man to do. By +behaving as he had done he had put a weapon into Laura's hands.... + +At one moment he considered the advisability of going into Freshley +Manor on his way home to-day, to consult Mrs. Tropenell. And then he had +suddenly remembered that his brother-in-law was actually her guest! That +fact alone made a most disagreeable complication. + +As he looked over his letters, and dictated some of the answers to them, +he tried without success to put the matter out of his mind. It had taken +there the place occupied by the unpleasantness connected with those +absurd anonymous letters. For the first time, this morning he forgot +them. + +There came a knock at the door. "A letter, sir, has just been brought by +Mrs. Tropenell's man. He said there was an answer, so he's waiting." + +With quickened pulse, Godfrey Pavely opened the letter. He had long been +familiar with Mrs. Tropenell's clear, flowing handwriting, and he +wondered what she could have to say to him which she preferred to write, +rather than telephone. + +The banker was attached to Mrs. Tropenell. Always she had acted towards +him in a high-minded, straightforward way, and on two occasions he had +had reason to be specially grateful to her, for on each of these +occasions she had intervened, successfully, between Laura and himself, +and made Laura see reason. But she never alluded to the past, even in +the remotest way, and he had come of late years to think and hope she +had forgotten those now distant, painful, active misunderstandings. + +If Mrs. Tropenell was now pleading with him for a reconciliation with +Gilbert Baynton, then he knew that it would be very difficult for him to +say "no" to a woman to whom he owed so much. It would also be a graceful +way of getting out of the difficulty in which he had involved +himself.... + +But the contents of the letter disagreeably surprised him, for they were +quite other than what he had expected them to be-- + + "DEAR GODFREY:--Oliver and Gilbert Baynton have to go to + the Continent on business. I think they will be away for + some time, and Gilbert speaks of going straight back to + Mexico from France. + + "I write to know if you will allow Laura to come up to town + with me for a few days? It would enable her to see something + of her brother, before a separation which may last, as did + their past separation, for years. + + "I hope, dear Godfrey, you will see your way to granting + this request of mine. It is in very truth my request--not + Laura's. + + "Your affectionate old friend, + "LETTICE TROPENELL." + +The unfortunate man--for he was in the full meaning of the words an +unfortunate man--stared down at the letter. + +He felt moved and perplexed by the way it was worded. "Your affectionate +old friend"--what a strange way to sign herself! Mrs. Tropenell had +never signed herself so before. And what exactly did she mean by saying +that it was her request, not Laura's? In spite of those words, he felt +convinced that Laura, too proud to ask this favour of him after the +shameful way she had behaved yesterday, had persuaded Mrs. Tropenell to +ask it for her. + +He sat down and drew a piece of notepaper towards him. He was glad of +the opportunity of showing them all how magnanimous he was--how much of +a _man_. Laura should go to London with his full permission. Of course +he knew quite well, at the back of his mind, that if he refused it she +would probably go just the same. But in all the circumstances it would +be just as well to heap coals of fire on her head. She should go--but +not taking their child with her. His little Alice must not be +contaminated. + +When his daughter was old enough, he, Godfrey, would tell her the truth +about her mother's brother. He did not hold with concealing this sort of +thing from young people. In _his_ family, thank God, there had never +been anything to hide. All had always been honest and above-board. +Besides, if anything happened to him, Alice would be a very wealthy +woman, and Gillie would almost certainly try and get hold of her and of +her money. He, Godfrey, knew that well enough. + + "MY DEAR MRS. TROPENELL:--Certainly it shall be as you + ask----" He could not help adding, "though Laura knows that + in doing this she is disregarding my formal wishes. Still, + I admit that, Gillie being her brother, it is, I suppose, + natural that she should wish to see him again before he + leaves England." + +Then he hesitated--indeed, he kept the messenger for whom he had already +rung waiting for quite a long time. But at last he signed himself: "Your +affectionate, and always grateful, Godfrey Pavely." + +When the banker reached home rather early that afternoon--for he felt +too much upset to go in and spend his usual pleasant hour with Katty at +Rosedean--little Alice met him with the news that "Mummy" had gone to +London, and that she, Alice, was going to be allowed to sit up to dinner +to bear him company. + +It was characteristic of the man that, if relieved, he was also sharply +annoyed. He had hoped to extract from his wife some word of reluctant +thanks for his magnanimity. But no, she had not even left a note telling +him what day she would return! + +Things had not fallen out at The Chase that morning as Godfrey Pavely +had supposed. After breakfast Laura, still in a kind of stupor of pain +and indignation, had gone into the garden. She had not been there a +quarter of an hour when Mrs. Tropenell, who so seldom came to The Chase, +had suddenly appeared, walking with stately, leisurely steps over the +grass, to tell her of Oliver's and Gillie's coming departure for the +Continent. + +It was Mrs. Tropenell who had proposed sending that note to Godfrey, but +Godfrey, who so little understood his wife, either for good or evil, was +right in his belief that she would not have allowed her plans to be +affected by his answer. At once Laura had determined to go to London, +whether Godfrey gave his consent or no. Yet she was relieved when there +came to her from Freshley the news that her husband's answer to Mrs. +Tropenell's request was in the affirmative. + +The message was given to her over the telephone by Oliver Tropenell, and +in giving it he used the allusive form of words which come naturally +when a man knows that what he says may be overheard: "Mother has just +had a note saying that it is quite all right. So we propose to call for +you in time to get the five minutes to one from Langford Junction. Does +that give you enough time?" And she had exclaimed, "Oh, yes, yes! I'm +quite ready now." + +To that he had made no answer, and she had felt a little chill at the +heart. Oliver's voice had sounded curiously cold--but then the telephone +does sometimes alter voices strangely. + +Those eight days in London! Laura was often to live through each of +those long days during the dull weeks which followed her return home. +Yet, when she did look back on that time, she had to admit that she had +not been really happy, though the first hours had been filled with a +sort of excited triumph and sense of victory. It was such a relief, too, +to be away from Godfrey, and spared, even if only for a few days, the +constant, painful irritation of his presence. + +But her brother, for whose sake, after all, she was in London, jarred on +her perpetually. For one thing, Gillie was in extravagant, almost +unnaturally high spirits, set on what he called "having a good time," +and his idea of a good time was, as Oliver once grimly remarked, +slightly monotonous. + +Gillie's good time consisted in an eager round of business interviews, +culminating each evening in a rich dinner at one of the smart +grill-rooms which were then the fashion, followed by three hours of a +musical comedy, and finally supper at some restaurant, the more +expensive the better. + +To his sister, each evening so spent seemed a dreary waste of precious +time. For in the daytime the two ladies, who had taken rooms in an +old-fashioned hotel in a small street off Piccadilly, saw very little of +Gillie and Oliver. Gillie had insisted that Oliver and he should go and +stay at what he considered the smartest and most modern hotel in London, +and though the strangely assorted quartette always lunched together, the +two partners had a good deal to do each morning and most afternoons. + +To Mrs. Tropenell's surprise Oliver apparently had no wish to be with +Laura alone. Was it because he was afraid of giving himself away to his +coarse-minded, jovial partner? Oliver looked stern, abstracted, and, +when at the play, bored. + +She admitted another possible reason for his almost scrupulous avoidance +of Laura. With regard to the bitter feud between the brothers-in-law, +Oliver had spoken to his mother with curious apathy. Perhaps he was +honestly desirous of not taking sides. But on the whole Mrs. Tropenell +swung more often to her first theory, and this view was curiously +confirmed on the one Sunday spent by them in town. + +Gillie, grumbling, a good deal at the dulness of the English Sunday, had +motored off early to the country to spend the day with some people whom +he had known in Mexico. And late that morning Oliver suddenly suggested +that Laura and he should go out for a turn in the Green Park--only a +stone's-throw from the rooms the two ladies were sharing. + +And that hour, which was perhaps fraught with bigger circumstance than +any one, save Oliver himself, was ever to know, did remain in Laura +Pavely's memory as a strange and, in a sense, a delicious oasis, in her +long, arid stay in London. For, as the two walked and talked intimately +together in a solitude all the greater because peopled by the +indifferent and unknown, they seemed to come nearer to one another--and +to meet, for the first time, in an atmosphere of clarity and truth. +Laura, perhaps because she had felt, during these last few days, so +desperately lonely in a spiritual sense, talked more freely, albeit in a +more detached way, to her devoted, considerate, and selfless friend, +than she had ever been able to bring herself to do to any other human +being. + + * * * * * + +For a while, after they had turned and begun pacing together under the +now yellowing plane trees, neither of them spoke. Then Oliver said +abruptly, "So all our schemes have vanished into air--I'm sorry." + +"I'm sorry too," she said. "I always knew that Godfrey would never allow +me to go away with Gillie, but I never, never thought that even he could +behave as he did to my brother the other day----" + +There was a sound of suppressed passion and revolt in her voice that he +had never heard there before. It touched a chord in his own heart, but +all he said, slowly, was, "I suppose Gillie irritated him." + +"No, I don't think so. There wasn't time for Gillie to do anything, for +Godfrey at once refused to shake hands with him. That's how it began." + +"Gillie ought to have written first. My mother begged him not to take +Godfrey by surprise----" + +"Your mother is always right," she said in a low voice. "I've never +known her wrong yet, though her advice isn't always easy to follow, +Oliver." + +"I'm afraid she was right this time, anyhow." + +"I know she was." + +There fell between them a long, pregnant silence. And then Oliver said, +in a low, moved voice, "I'm afraid that this last business has made you +very unhappy, Laura?" + +She answered, "Yes--foolishly so. I ought not to have been surprised, +for by this time I know Godfrey so well." And she believed herself to be +speaking the truth. + +"It's not his fault," she went on painfully, "that he has nothing in +common with me and with my brother, different as we, too, are the one +from the other. Gillie and I might have been born on different planets +from Godfrey." + +Laura had not meant to speak of Godfrey to Oliver. Indeed, she had +formed the resolution never to do so again. But somehow, to-day, she +felt as if she might break that salutary rule. + +His next words seemed to prove to her that she could trust him to +understand, for, "Yes," he said quietly, "you're right there, Laura. You +and Godfrey have nothing in common between you, and that being so, I +suppose there's nothing to be done?" + +"No, there's nothing to be done," she repeated hopelessly. And then once +more she broke her wise resolution: "If it hadn't been for Alice, I +should, even now, be tempted to do what I so nearly did at the time +that Godfrey and Gillie"--she hesitated--"had their first +misunderstanding." + +"What you nearly did then, Laura?" There came an eager, questioning +thrill in her companion's strained voice. + +"Yes--" Why shouldn't she unburden her heart for once? "Yes, at the time +of that first quarrel between my brother and my husband, I nearly left +Godfrey. But for your mother, I should have done so. Alice was a tiny +baby then, and I didn't realise, as I realise now, what an awful +responsibility a woman takes on herself in breaking up a child's happy +home. Only your mother stopped my doing it, and the fact"--she looked at +him with a soundless depth of sadness in her face--"the fact that Gillie +didn't really want me to go and live with him. Of course it was long +before the question of his going to Mexico was raised." + +"And have you never regretted that you did not carry out that purpose?" + +Oliver Tropenell was looking straight before him as he asked the +dangerous question. They were walking, slowly, slowly, along the broad +path which runs just within the railings along the park side of +Piccadilly. Between twelve and one on an autumn Sunday morning this path +is generally deserted. + +She did not answer at once, and he said quickly, "Forgive me! I ought +not to have asked you that." + +"Yes," she said again, "you can ask me anything you like, Oliver. But +it's very difficult to answer such a question truthfully." + +And again there fell between them one of those long silences which +played a curious part in a conversation neither ever forgot. + +At last Laura did answer Oliver's dangerous question. "I have always +known in my heart that your mother was right in making me do what she +did--I mean in persuading me that for my little girl's sake I must go +on. Alice loves her father, though I think, perhaps foolishly, that of +the two she cares for me best----" + +"Of course she does!" he exclaimed. + +"But whether that be so or not, I know what a terrible thing it would +have been for Alice if Godfrey and I had lived apart. I've never doubted +that--I don't doubt it now. But for that I could not go on--after what +happened the other day." + +"Then if, as is of course possible, you and I don't meet again for years +and years, am I to think of you as always going on in exactly the same +way?" he asked. + +Some cruel devil outside himself had seemed to force him to utter the +hopeless question which he had already made up his mind should be, must +be, answered by Fate in the negative. + +They had stopped their slow pacing side by side, and he was now looking +down into her sad, desolate eyes. He saw the word--the one word "Yes," +form itself on her quivering lips. + +"Do you really mean that, Laura? Answer me truly." + +And then suddenly there came over Laura Pavely an extraordinary +sensation. It was as if this man, whose burning eyes were fixed on her +face, were willing her to say aloud something which, however true, were +better left unsaid. "There will never come any change," she answered, +feeling as if the words were being forced out of her, "till, as the +Marriage Service says, 'death us do part.'" + +"Do you ever think of that possibility?" + +He put the probing question in a singularly detached, almost a light, +tone of inquiry. + +But she answered very solemnly, again as if impelled to tell him the +truth--a truth she had never thought to tell to any human being: + +"There was a time before Alice was born when I was so unhappy, largely, +as I can see now, through my own fault, when I felt I could not bear it +any longer, and----" Her voice dropped, and he bent down so that he +might catch the almost whispered words, "I was strongly tempted to--to +kill myself," she said. "I used to go and walk up and down that little +path across the head of the lake, and plan out how I would do it. Even +now I do not think that any one, except perhaps your mother, would ever +have suspected. It would have been so easy to make it appear an absolute +accident." + +He remained silent, and she went on, more composedly: + +"I had got into a selfish, morbid state, Oliver, and yet the temptation +was not wholly selfish, for I knew that Godfrey was miserable too, and +my sense told me that if anything happened to me he would very soon +marry again--some woman who would appreciate his good qualities, who +would be happy with him, who would not be, as I knew I was, a bitter +disappointment." + +Once more her voice had become nearly inaudible, and once more Oliver +bent his dark, convulsed face down to hear what she said. + +Tears were rolling down Laura's face. But suddenly she made an immense +effort over herself, and went on, calmly: + +"It was your mother who helped me over that bad, foolish time. I don't +know what I should have done but for Aunt Letty. I think she's the only +person in the world to whom Godfrey ever listens--who can ever make any +impression on him. It's strange in a way, for I know she doesn't really +like either of us." + +As he uttered a violent expression of dissent, she went on: "It's quite +true, Oliver, and what is more, of the two she likes Godfrey the best. +Why shouldn't she? She thinks I've behaved very unkindly to Godfrey. The +only excuse she can make for me--she told me so once, long ago--is that +I'm inhuman. I suppose in a way I _am_ inhuman?" She looked at him +plaintively, a strange, piteous expression in her beautiful, shadowed +eyes. + +And Oliver Tropenell caught his breath. God--how he loved her! Her +inhumanity--to use that cruelly misleading term which she had just used +herself--only made his passion burn with a purer, whiter flame. The one +thing in the world that mattered to him now was this woman's deliverance +from the awful death-in-life to which her sensitive conscience, and her +moving love for her child, alone condemned her. Yes, Laura's deliverance +was the only thing worth compassing--and that even if the deliverer were +wrecked, soul as well as body, body as well as soul, in the process. + +They began walking again, slowly, slowly, once more enwrapped in a +silence which said so much more than words could have said, even to +Laura's still numb, unawakened heart. + +It was she who at last broke the kind of spell which lay on them both. +They had come almost to the end of the broad path. Opposite to where +they were standing, on the other side of the road, was a huge white and +green building, handsome and showy, looking strangely un-English and out +of place in the famous old London way. + +"They pulled down such a wonderful, delightful house just there," she +said regretfully. "I was once taken to it by my father, when I was quite +a little girl. It was like going right back a hundred years--not only to +another London, but to another England. It's a shame that any one should +have been allowed to pull down such a bit of old London as that." + +And Oliver agreed, absently. + +So, talking of indifferent things, they walked back to the hotel where +Mrs. Tropenell was awaiting them, and the three afterwards spent the +rest of the day peacefully together. But the next day there began again +for them all the same dreary round--that odd, artificial life of "having +a good time," as Gillie jovially put it. + +Somehow Laura did not mind it so much now as she had done before. Her +talk with Oliver had shifted her burden a little, and made her feel as +if he and she had gone back to their old, happy, simple friendship. It +had also deadened her feeling of acute, unreasoning anger with Godfrey. + +At last came the morning when Oliver and Gillie were to go to Paris. +And at the last moment, standing on the platform at Charing Cross, there +took place a rather pathetic, ridiculous little scene. + +Gillie had bought for his sister a beautiful old jewel, and he thrust +it--with a merry little word as to this being the first really nice +present he had ever given her--into her hand. When she opened the case +and saw the emerald and pearl heart, her eyes brimmed over with tears. + +Even Gillie was moved. "There, there!" he exclaimed. "Nothing to cry +about--'Nuff said,' Laura. Perhaps we'll meet again sooner than you +think, my friends the Americans say." + +And she tried to smile. + +Then Gillie turned to Mrs. Tropenell, speaking with much greater +sincerity of feeling than he was wont to do. "I'll never forget your +kindness--in the past and in the present--to my sister and to me, Mrs. +Tropenell. I'm not such a careless brute as I seem to be--I never forget +a kindness--or an injury. Now then, Oliver!" + +Laura felt her hand seized, closed on in a vice-like pressure which +hurt, then dropped. "Good-bye, Laura," said Oliver in an almost +inaudible tone. "Good-bye, till we meet again." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +As so often happens after hours or days of crises, and even of quarrel, +things went better for a while after Laura's return to The Chase. + +True, life was now, even more than before, dull, sad, and difficult. She +missed Oliver Tropenell's constant companionship and stimulating talk, +more than she was willing to acknowledge even to her innermost self. And +yet, when Godfrey spoke of the other man's absence from Freshley with +regret, his words jarred on her, and made her feel vaguely ashamed. Yet +surely, surely she had nothing to reproach herself with in the matter of +Oliver Tropenell? She would so gladly have kept him as Godfrey's friend +as well as her own. + +They had made it up, those two ill-matched people--made it up, that is, +after a fashion. They were now much where they had been six months ago, +just before Oliver Tropenell with his strong, masterful personality had +come into their joint lives. + +And Godfrey? Godfrey Pavely was happier, more complacent than usual, +during those late autumn days. He also was ashamed--though not +unreasonably so--of the absurd importance he had attached to those two +vulgar anonymous letters! He was sorry now that he had spoken of the +matter to Oliver Tropenell, for that odd, rather awkward talk of theirs +on the matter had been perhaps a contributory cause of the other man's +sudden departure. If Oliver came home for Christmas, he, Godfrey, would +"make it all right." + +The banker had yet another reason for feeling life pleasanter than usual +just now. He was engaged in a rather big bit of financial business of a +kind his soul loved, for it was secret, immediately profitable, and with +a gambling risk attached to it. The only person to whom he had said a +word concerning the affair was Katty Winslow, and even to her, for he +was a very prudent man, he had been quite vague. + +With Katty he was becoming daily more intimate. Laura's cold aloofness +made him seek, instinctively, a kinder, warmer, and yes, occasionally, a +tenderer feminine presence. For the first time, lately, Godfrey had +begun to tell himself that Katty would have made an almost perfect +wife.... And Katty could have told you almost the exact moment when that +thought had first flashed upon Godfrey Pavely's brain. But she also knew +that so far he was content, most irritatingly content, with the _status +quo_. Not so she----And one evening Katty tried an experiment which was +on the whole remarkably successful, though its effects were strangely +different from what she had expected. + +While dining alone with Godfrey and Laura at The Chase, she startled her +host and hostess by throwing out a careless word as to the possibility +of her leaving Rosedean--of letting the house furnished, for a year.... + +Laura was astonished to see how much this casual remark of Katty's upset +Godfrey. He uttered an exclamation of deep surprise and annoyance, and +his wife told herself bitterly how strange it was that Godfrey, feeling +so strongly about Katty, should not understand how she, Laura, felt +about Gillie. After all, Gillie was her own brother, and Katty was not +Godfrey's sister--only an old playmate and friend! + +Godfrey was, in very truth, much more than upset at those few careless +words of his old friend--playmate, in the sense that Laura meant, she +had never been. So disturbed and taken aback indeed that he lay awake +much of that night. + +The next morning he broke his walk into Pewsbury by going into Rosedean, +this being the very first time he had ever done such a thing. + +He was kept waiting a few moments--as a matter of fact only a very few +moments--in the familiar little drawing-room, before Katty, wearing a +charming, pale blue dressing-gown, edged with swansdown, joined him. + +As was her way, she began speaking at once. "Why, what's the matter?" +she exclaimed. "Has anything gone wrong, Godfrey?" + +He answered irritably, "No, not that I know of. But I've something to +say to you." He pulled out his big, old-fashioned gold repeater. "It's +twenty to ten--I thought I'd find you down!" + +"I always breakfast upstairs in my own room. But I didn't keep you +waiting long----" + +She was still a little breathless, for she had come down very quickly. + +And then he began, with no preamble: "I want to know if you really meant +what you said last night about letting this house furnished for a year? +I'm by no means sure if the terms of your lease allow for your doing +that; I shall have to look into it after I get to the Bank. Still, I +thought I'd better come and see you first." + +Katty grew very pink. "Oh, Godfrey!" she exclaimed. "Surely you wouldn't +be so unkind----?" + +There came over her pretty face that curious, obstinate look which he +had already seen there often enough to dread. Also she made him feel +ashamed of himself. But how attractive she looked--how fresh and +dainty--like a newly opened rose! Katty had twisted up her hair anyhow, +but that only made her look younger, and more natural. + +"Let's come out into the garden," she said coaxingly. "Surely you can +stay for a few minutes? This is the very first time you've ever been to +see me in the morning! Why not telephone through and say you've been +delayed,--that you can't be at the Bank till eleven?" She was edging him +as she spoke towards the corner where, behind a screen, there stood the +telephone instrument. + +As if compelled to obey, he took up the receiver, and uttered the +familiar words, "Pewsbury 4." And at once there came an answer. + +"Is that you, Privet? What a comfort it is to know that I can always +rely on your being there, whoever else isn't! This is only to say that I +have been delayed, and that I don't expect to be at the Bank till +eleven." + +Then came the calming, comforting answer, "Very good. That'll be all +right, sir. There's nothing much doing this morning, from what I could +make out when I was looking over your letters just now." + +So Godfrey Pavely, feeling rather as if he was being driven along by a +pleasant fate, hung the receiver up, and followed the blue-garbed +figure out of doors, into a little pleasance now filled with exquisite +autumnal colouring, and pungent, searching scents. + +In the furthest corner of the walled garden, which was so much older +than the house itself, was a tiny lawn surrounded by high hedges. There +they could talk without any fear of being overlooked or overheard; and, +before her visitor could stop her, Katty had dragged two cane-seated +easy chairs out of her little summer-house. + +They both sat down, but this time Katty warily remained silent. She was +waiting for her companion to begin. + +"You weren't serious, were you?" he said at last, and she felt the +underlying pain and surprise in his voice. "You don't really mean that +you want to go away, Katty? Where would you go to? What would you do? +Have the Standens asked you to go abroad again--not for a whole year, +surely?" + +"No," she said slowly, "not the Standens. If you must know, I've been +offered a furnished cottage rent-free by those friends of mine, the +Haworths, who live near York. The truth is, I can't afford to keep up +Rosedean! I hate saying this to you, but it's the truth." + +"If you didn't go away so much----" he began irritably. + +But she cut across him sharply, "After all, I've a right to go away if I +like! But it isn't that, Godfrey. I've gone into it all--really I have! +Even if I never left Rosedean I should still be too poor to go on living +here comfortably." + +"How much too poor?" he asked. + +Katty drew a long breath. In a sense she was speaking at random, but no +one would have known it from the tone in which she answered: "About a +hundred a year--a little less, a little more." + +And then Godfrey Pavely said something which very much surprised Katty. +"About that thousand pounds which was left to you the other day," he +said hesitatingly. + +"Well? That'll only bring in thirty-five pounds a year; you made all the +arrangements," she added wearily. "You wouldn't let me have it--as I +wanted you to do." + +"I couldn't, Katty, you know that! I didn't ask your aunt to make me +your trustee." + +"Well, that thirty-five pounds won't make any difference." + +She was sorry now she had told him of the little house on her generous +friends' estate. Perhaps he would offer to let her off the Rosedean +rent. But Katty had quite made up her mind to cut the cable, and make a +fresh start elsewhere. + +"Wait a bit," he said slowly, "women always run on so fast! When I +mentioned that thousand pounds, I was not thinking of giving it you, as +you call it, to spend. I was thinking of that foreign investment I +mentioned to you last week. If you're willing to take the risk, I might +stretch a point, for if things go well that thousand pounds might easily +be trebled in the course of the next two years. I'm so sure of that, +that I'm quite willing to advance you, say, two hundred pounds." + +He knew quite well that his proposal was utterly illogical, and bore, so +to speak, no relation to the fact that the investment he was proposing +might turn up trumps. + +Katty's eyes sparkled. She was very fond of ready money, and it was such +a long, long time since she had had any. "D'you mean you'd really give +me two hundred pounds _now_?" she asked joyfully. + +And Godfrey, with his eyes fixed on the grass, said in a shamed voice, +"Yes--that is what I do mean." + +Somehow it hurt him to feel how that sum of money, so trifling to him, +affected her so keenly. He was better pleased with her next question. + +"What sort of an investment exactly is it?" + +"It's in the nature of a company promotion," he said slowly. "And of +course you must regard anything I tell you about it as absolutely +private." + +"Yes, I quite understand that!" + +He drew a piece of paper out of his pocket. "As a matter of fact I've +got a few facts about it jotted down here." + +She drew her chair rather nearer to his, and Godfrey Pavely, turning his +narrow yet fleshy face towards her, began speaking with far more +eagerness and animation than usual. Katty, who was by no means a fool +where such things were concerned, listened absorbedly while he explained +the rather big bit of financial business in which he was now interested. + +After he had been speaking to her without interruption for some minutes, +Katty exclaimed: "Yes, I think I see now exactly what you mean! There +certainly doesn't seem much risk attached to it--at any rate as regards +the start off, as it were. But what made these French bankers pick _you_ +out, Godfrey? After all, they're doing you a very good turn." + +"I don't exactly know why they picked me out, as you call it----" he +spoke hesitatingly. "But during that year I spent in Paris I came across +a great many of that sort of people. My father got me the best possible +introductions." + +The piece of paper on which he had jotted certain notes and calculations +was a large piece of thin foreign notepaper covered with small +handwriting in the diluted ink which some French business men use. + +"Can you read French?" he asked doubtfully. + +She answered rather sharply, "Yes, of course I can!" and held out her +hand. + +The letter, which bore a Paris address, and the date of a fortnight +back, was from the French banking house of Zosean & Co. It explained at +some length that a client of the bank, a wealthy South American of +Portuguese extraction named Fernando Apra, had become possessed of an +estate on the coast of Portugal to which was attached a gambling +concession. The idea was to make the place a kind of Portuguese Monte +Carlo, and the present possessor was very desirous that English capital +and English brains should be put into the company. The returns promised +were enormous, and there seemed to be little or no risk attached to the +business--if it was run on the right lines. + +"I have gone into the matter very thoroughly," said Godfrey Pavely, "and +I have convinced myself that it's all right. This Fernando Apra already +has a London office. I managed to see him there for a few minutes last +week. His real headquarters are in Paris." + +"And are you finding all the money?" asked Katty eagerly. "Will it be +all your money and _my_ thousand pounds, Godfrey? In that case I +suppose we shall get all the profits?" + +He smiled a little at woman's cupidity. "No," he said, "I haven't been +able to find it all myself. But I've managed to get in a very good man. +Some one with whom I've done business before, Katty." + +"What's his name?" she asked inquisitively. + +Godfrey Pavely waited a moment. "I don't know that I ought to tell +you--" he said uncomfortably. "He doesn't want to appear in the +business." + +"Of course you ought to tell me!" All sorts of strange ideas floated +through Katty's mind. Was he going to say "Oliver Tropenell"? She rather +expected he was. + +"Well, I _will_ tell you," he said, "for I know you can hold your +tongue. The name of the man who's going into this business with me is +Greville Howard." + +"D'you mean the big money-lender?" Katty couldn't help a little tone of +doubt, of rather shocked surprise, creeping into her voice. + +"Yes," he said doggedly, "I do mean the man who was once a great +money-lender. He's retired now--in fact he's living----" and then he +stopped himself. + +"Why, of course!" Katty felt quite excited. "He's living in Yorkshire, +near the Haworths! They've often talked about him to me! They don't know +him--he won't know anybody. He's a rather queer fish, isn't he, +Godfrey?" + +"He's absolutely straight about money," exclaimed Godfrey Pavely +defensively. "I've had dealings with him over many years. In fact he's +the ideal man for this kind of thing. He has all sorts of irons in the +fire--financially I mean--on the Continent. He's a big shareholder in +the company that runs the Dieppe and Boulogne Casinos." + +He got up. "Well, I ought to be going now. It's all right isn't it, +Katty? You won't talk again of going away?" + +"Could you let me have that two hundred pounds this afternoon?" she +asked abruptly. + +Godfrey Pavely looked at her with a curious, yearning, rather sad look. +Somehow he would have preferred that Katty should not be quite +so--so--he hardly formulated the thought to himself--so ready to do +_anything_ for money. "Very well," he said. "Very well, my dear"--he +very seldom called her "my dear," but he had done so once or twice +lately. "I'll bring it this afternoon, in notes." + +"That _will_ be kind of you," she said gratefully. "But look here, +Godfrey, do take it out of my thousand pounds! Put eight hundred in this +thing." + +He shook his head and smiled. Women were queer, curiously unscrupulous +creatures! "That would be right down dishonest of me, Katty." + +They were now walking across the little lawn, which was so securely +tucked away, out of sight of any prying window, and before going through +the aperture which had been cut in the hedge, they both turned round and +clasped hands. "Thank you so--so much," she said softly. "You've been a +dear, kind friend to me always, Godfrey." + +"Have I?" he said. "Have I, Katty? Not always, I fear." + +"Yes, always," and her voice trembled a little. + +He bent down and kissed her on the mouth with a kind of shamed, +passionate solemnity which moved, and, yes, a little amused her. What +_queer_, curiously scrupulous creatures men were! + +"Go now, or you'll be late," she whispered. + +And he went. + + + + +PART TWO + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Certain days become retrospectively memorable, and that however +apparently uneventful they may have seemed at the time. + +To Laura Pavely the 6th of January opened as had done all the other days +during the last few weeks, that is, quietly, dully, and sadly. + +There was one difference, trifling or not as one happened to look at the +matter. Godfrey was away in London. He had been absent for over a +week--since the 28th, and though he had been expected back last night, +there had come a telephone message, late in the afternoon, to say that +his business would keep him away a day longer. + +This morning--it was a Friday morning--Laura, trying hard to shake off +her depression, told herself that she and Alice might as well go for a +ride. It was a beautiful day, and the wind blew soft. They would go +across the downs to a certain lonely spot which Alice loved. + +Laura was already in the hall in her riding habit, waiting for the +child, when there came a telephone message through from Pewsbury. It was +from the Bank asking what time Mr. Pavely would be there. A gentleman +with whom he had made an appointment for ten o'clock, had been waiting +for him since that hour. It was now nearly eleven. + +Laura turned to the servant: "Did Mr. Pavely give you any message to +send on to the Bank?" she asked. + +The man answered, "No, ma'am, not that I understood. Mr. Pavely didn't +come himself to the telephone." + +"What was the message exactly?" Laura was always kind and courteous in +her manner to her servants, and they were all attached to her. + +"It was as how Mr. Pavely was being detained, and could not be home last +night, ma'am. The person who gave the message was in a great hurry--he +cut me off before I could say anything to him." + +"I suppose we ought to have telephoned to the Bank early this morning," +said Laura thoughtfully. But it had never occurred to her that it would +be necessary for her to do so. Her husband was a very exact man of +business. She had taken it as certain that he had also communicated with +the Bank. + +"Who was it telephoned just now?" she asked. + +"I think it was Mr. Privet himself, ma'am. He said he felt sure Mr. +Pavely intended to be back this morning, because of the gentleman he had +arranged to see." + +"Perhaps I had better speak to Mr. Privet myself," said Laura. "Is that +you, Mr. Privet?" + +"I wish you a very good morning, Mrs. Pavely. I didn't mean to put you +to any trouble, but you see the matter is important----" Even through +the telephone she could hear a mysterious tone in the old voice, though +he was speaking in so low a tone that she could scarcely hear. "It's +Lord St. Amant. He's been here since ten o'clock, and he says he can't +stop any longer. Mr. Pavely made an appointment with his lordship over +a week ago. It's very strange he should have forgotten, isn't it, Mrs. +Pavely?" + +"Yes, I think it _is_ strange," she said slowly. "Will you tell his +lordship that I'm exceedingly sorry that word was not sent him. If I had +known of the appointment, of course I would have communicated with him +either by telephone or by a note." + +"Then I'm to put off all Mr. Pavely's appointments for to-day?" + +"Well, yes, Mr. Privet, that seems to me the only thing you can do." + +Laura smiled a little as she left the telephone. Mr. Privet's tone, if +not his words, made it quite clear that he thought Mr. Pavely had +committed a serious solecism, almost the worst solecism a country banker +could commit, in not keeping an appointment with the great man of the +neighbourhood, who was to be the new Lord Lieutenant of the county. + + * * * * * + +An hour and a half later, as mother and child were riding slowly home, +Laura suddenly told herself that it was a long time since Mrs. Tropenell +had seen Alice on pony-back. Why shouldn't they both go on to Freshley? +And if Aunt Letty asked them to stay to lunch, as she very probably +would, so much the better! + +On their way to the front door of the house, they turned into the +stable-yard to find a groom, and then, suddenly, Laura felt a queer, and +to herself an utterly unexpected and new, sensation sweep over her. It +was a sensation of eager, unreasoning joy. + +Oliver Tropenell stood in the middle of the yard, talking to his +mother's old groom. He looked ill and tired--dreadfully tired. But all +at once, as he saw Laura and her child come riding in, a wonderful +change swept over his dark face--there came over it a glowing expression +of welcome and delight. He lifted Alice off her pony. Then he came +forward to help Laura.... + +With a shock of surprise which seemed to make her heart stop beating, +Laura felt her whole being responding to the ardent, and at once +imperious and imploring look with which he gazed up into her eyes. She +was shaken, awed by the passion he threw, perhaps unconsciously, into +that long, beckoning look--stirred to the heart by the feeling of +content his mere presence brought her. + +But even in those few flashing moments, Laura Pavely quickly, almost +fiercely, assured herself that this new, strange sensation of oneness, +of surrender on her part, was "friendship," nothing more. + +Yet her voice faltered in spite of herself, as she said, "Hadn't we +better ride round? I only came in here to find some one to hold the +horses, in case your mother wanted us to come in." + +But with a muttered, "Mother has got Lord St. Amant to luncheon--I know +she would like you both to stay, too," he lifted her off her horse. + +They walked to a door which led into the back part of the house, and so +by a corridor to a small room where Mrs. Tropenell generally sat in the +morning. As they went along, Alice, alone, chattered happily. + +At last Laura, more for the sake of proving to herself that she felt +quite at ease than for anything else, asked suddenly, "I suppose you +didn't see Godfrey on your way through London?" + +Oliver waited a few moments--so long indeed that she wondered if he had +heard her. But she knew in her heart that he had, for his face had +darkened at the mention of her husband's name. At last he answered, very +deliberately, "Is Godfrey away then?" + +"Yes. He went off some days ago. We expected him home yesterday; but he +sent a telephone message to say he wasn't coming back till to-night." + +They were now before the door of Mrs. Tropenell's sitting-room. Her son +opened it quietly, and for a moment the three stood there, gazing into +the panelled, sunlit little room, which was part of the survival of a +much older building than the eighteenth-century manor-house. + +Mrs. Tropenell, sitting upright in a low chair, was looking up into the +face of the man who stood before her, and they were both so absorbed in +what they were saying that neither had heard the door open. + +Laura gazed with new eyes, a new curiosity, at Lord St. Amant. She had +seen him often in this house, though sometimes at comparatively long +intervals, ever since she was a child, and always he had had a fixed +place, in her mind and imagination, as Mrs. Tropenell's one man-friend. + +To-day, seeing the two thus talking eagerly together she felt her +interest oddly quickened. She was asking herself eagerly whether some +such passage as that which had taken place between herself and Oliver +Tropenell three months ago, and which had caused her so much pain, had +ever occurred between those two in the days when Lady St. Amant, a +fretful, selfish invalid whom every one disliked, was still alive. If +yes, then Mrs. Tropenell had evidently known how to retain the +friendship, the warm affections of a man who, younger, had been +notoriously inconstant. + +In Laura's eyes these two had always been old when she thought of them +at all. But to-day she realised, as in a flash, that the man and woman +before her had also been young, and that not so very long ago. + +Even now, Lord St. Amant was a still vigorous and active-looking man. He +was leaning over the back of a chair, looking eagerly into his old +friend's face. Was it true, as some of the gossips said, that he had +remained a widower for that same friend's sake? + +Laura gazed at him with an almost hungry curiosity. She was absurdly +surprised that he looked to-day exactly as he had always looked in her +eyes--a pleasant, agreeable-mannered, amusing man of the world, not at +all her notion of the one-time lover of many women. + +Lord St. Amant's hair had now gone white, but, apart from that he looked +just as he had been wont to look, when he came and went about Freshley +Manor, when she, as a child, had stayed there with her mother. Some +years later, she had become dimly aware--girls always know such +things--that Mrs. Tropenell had had a fleeting notion of marrying her to +Lord St. Amant. But Laura had also known that it was Mrs. Tropenell, not +herself, who was the magnet which then drew him so often to Freshley +Manor. + +They had once, however, had an intimate talk together. It had been on +one of the very rare occasions when Mrs. Tropenell was ill, confined to +bed, upstairs, and she, Laura Baynton, had been left alone to entertain +her Aunt Letty's old friend. And their talk--she remembered it now--had +been all of Oliver: of Oliver and his mother. + +Lord St. Amant had spoken with much heat of Oliver's having settled on +the other side of the world, leaving Mrs. Tropenell lonely. Then he had +smiled a curious little smile: "But that makes no difference. To a +mother 'distance makes the heart grow fonder,' and also 'lends +enchantment to the view.' An only son, Laura, is the most formidable of +rivals." + +The girl had been flattered, touched too, by the implied confidence. + +She had yet another vivid memory of Lord St. Amant. He had sent her, +immediately on hearing of her engagement to Godfrey Pavely, a +magnificent wedding present; also he had come, at some inconvenience, to +her marriage. + +Godfrey had supposed the compliment due to regard for himself and for +his father, but Laura, of course, had known better. Lord St. Amant had +come to her marriage to please Mrs. Tropenell--because he regarded her, +in a sense, as Mrs. Tropenell's adopted daughter. + +Something of all this moved in quick procession through Laura Pavely's +mind, as she stood in the doorway, looking more beautiful, more +animated, more feminine, in spite of--or was it because of?--her riding +dress, than Oliver Tropenell had ever seen her. + +She moved forward into the room, and Lord St. Amant turned quickly +round. + +If Laura looked at Lord St. Amant with a new interest, a new curiosity +in her beautiful eyes, he, on his side, now looked at Laura more +attentively than he had done for a long time. He had been abroad for two +months, and this was the first time he and Mrs. Tropenell had met since +his return. + +They had just had a long talk, and during that talk she had at last told +him something which had amused, surprised, and yes, interested him very +much; for Lord St. Amant, in the evening of his days, found himself +more, not less, tolerant of, and interested in, human nature, and in +human nature's curious kinks and byways, than at the time when he +himself had provided his friends and contemporaries with food for gossip +and scandal. But he had been very comforting in his comments on her +story, and more than once he had made his old friend smile. Mrs. +Tropenell had felt very, very glad to see Lord St. Amant. It was natural +that she should be glad to have once more within easy reach of her the +one human being in the world to whom she could talk freely, and who took +an unaffectedly close, deep interest in all her concerns. + + * * * * * + +Not till they were all sitting at luncheon, was Laura able, in a low +tone, to inquire after her brother. Little Alice knew nothing of her +uncle's visit to England. Godfrey and Laura had tacitly agreed to keep +the child in ignorance of it. But now Laura asked, with some eagerness, +"And Gillie? What's happened to Gillie? Is he still abroad?" + +Olive answered at once, "No, he's gone back to Mexico." And then, as he +saw a look of blank disappointment shadow her face, he added, hastily, +"He gave me a lot of messages for you--I was coming over this afternoon +to deliver them. You know what Gillie's like--he never writes if he can +help it!" + +"Yes," she said, "I know that," and she sighed. "Did he go from a French +port?" she asked. + +Oliver hesitated. It was almost as if he had forgotten. But at last he +answered, "Yes, he went from Havre. I saw him off." + +And then something rather untoward happened. There came a violent +ringing at the front door--a loud, imperious pulling at the big, +old-fashioned iron bell-pull. To the surprise of his mother, Oliver +flushed--a deep, unbecoming brick red. Starting up from table, he pushed +his chair aside, and walked quickly to the door. It was almost as if he +expected some one. "I'll see who it is!" he called out. + +They heard him striding across the hall, and flinging open the front +door.... + +Then he came back slowly, and Mrs. Tropenell saw that there was a look +of immeasurable relief on his face. "It's a man who's brought a parcel +from Pewsbury for one of the servants. He declared he couldn't make any +one hear at the back, and so he came round to the front door--rather +impudent of him, eh?" and he sat down again. + +Coffee was served in the pleasant, low-ceilinged drawing-room, and then +Oliver and Laura went out of doors, with Alice trotting by their side. + +It was quite like old times. And the child voiced their unspoken +feeling, when, slipping her hand into Oliver's, she exclaimed, "This is +jolly! Just like what it used to be when you were here before!" + +And he pressed the little hand which lay so confidingly in his. "Yes," +he said, in a low voice, "the same--but nicer, don't you think so, +Alice?" + +And Alice answered with the downrightness of childhood, "I can't tell +yet! I shall know that after you've been here a little while. We can't +garden as much as we did then, for now the ground is too hard." + +"But we can do other things," said Oliver, smiling down at her. + +And Alice answered doubtfully, "Yes, I suppose we can." + +They did not say very much. Oliver did not talk, as perhaps another man +would have done, of his and Gillie's adventures in France and Italy. And +after a comparatively short time Laura suggested that she and Alice had +better now ride home. + +"Will you come over to tea?" she asked. + +And Oliver said yes, that he would. + +"I daresay Godfrey will be back by then. He often takes the early +afternoon train down from London." + +But to that he made no answer, and Laura, with a rather painful +sensation, saw the light suddenly die out of his face. + +He came round to the stable. "I'll walk a little way with you," he said. + +But she exclaimed rather hurriedly, "No, don't do that, Oliver! Stay +with your mother and Lord St. Amant." + +And without any word of protest he obeyed her. + + * * * * * + +It is strange what a difference the return of a friend may make to life! +Laura Pavely felt another woman as she busied herself that afternoon, +happily waiting for Oliver Tropenell. Honestly she hoped that Godfrey +would come back by the early afternoon train; he, too, would be glad to +see Oliver. + +But the time went by, and there came no message through from London +ordering the car to be sent to the station, and Laura told herself that +perhaps Godfrey had gone straight to the Bank. + +At last, a little after five, Oliver Tropenell came sauntering in, very +much as he used to saunter in, during the long happy summer days when +they had just become friends. + +They had tea in Alice's day-nursery, and after tea, they all three +played games till it was nearly seven. Then, reluctantly, Oliver got up, +and said he must go home. And as he stood there, gazing down into her +face, Laura was struck, as she had been that morning in the first moment +of their meeting, by his look of fatigue and of strain. She, who was so +little apt to notice such things, unless her little girl was in +question, glanced up at him anxiously. "You don't look well," she said, +with some concern. "You don't look as if you'd had a holiday, Oliver." + +"I shall soon get all right," he muttered, "now that I'm here, with +mother." And then, in a lower voice, he added the words, "and with you, +Laura." + +She answered, nervously determined to hark back to what had been their +old, happy condition, "Alice and I have both missed you +dreadfully--haven't we, my darling?" + +And Alice said gaily, "Oh yes, indeed, we have, mother." Then the child +turned, in her pretty, eager way to Oliver, "I hope you'll stay a long, +long time at Freshley. If only it snows, father thinks it may soon, you +and I can make a snow man!" + +And Oliver, after a moment's pause, answered, "Yes, so we can, Alice. +I'm going to stay at home some time now, I hope." + +And again, on hearing those words, Laura felt that new, unreasoning +thrill of joy which she had felt when she had seen Oliver standing in +the middle of his mother's stable-yard. Till that moment, and now +again, just now, she had not known how much she had missed her friend. + +At last, when it was really time for him to go, Laura and Alice both +accompanied their guest to the hall. Then he turned abruptly to Laura: +"How about to-morrow? May I come to-morrow morning?" + +And over Laura there came just a little tremour of misgiving. Surely +Oliver was going to be--reasonable? + +"Yes," she said hesitatingly, "I shall be very glad to see you--though +of course I'm rather busy in the morning. To-morrow Mademoiselle is not +coming. Perhaps I'd better telephone early and tell you our plans for +the day. Godfrey will be so glad to see you, Oliver. He asked only the +other day when Mrs. Tropenell expected you back." + +But to that remark Oliver made no answer. + +After the heavy front door had shut behind her visitor, and when Alice +had already run out of the hall, Laura opened the front door again. + +She called out: "Perhaps you'll meet Godfrey. He may be here any moment +now; if he's been at the Bank, he will walk out from Pewsbury." + +But Oliver did not turn round. He was evidently already out of hearing. + +Feeling strangely restless, Laura walked out a little way, closing the +door partly behind her. There was about a quarter of a mile of carriage +road from the house to the gate, but the night was very clear, the +ground hard and dry. Soon her eyes became accustomed to the darkness; +she could see Oliver's tall figure rapidly growing less and less, dimmer +and dimmer. Every moment she expected to see another, still more +familiar, form emerge from out of the darkness. But, after pacing up and +down for perhaps as long as ten minutes, she went back into the house. +Godfrey was evidently coming home by the last train. + +Moved by an indefinable feeling of peace as well as of contentment, +Laura sat up long that night, waiting for her husband. She had made up +her mind to tell him, not only that Oliver had come back, but also that +her brother was on his way to Mexico. Half ashamedly she asked herself +why they should not all three go back to the happy conditions which had +lasted all the summer? + +But there came neither Godfrey nor news of him, and Laura spent the +evening of a day of which the date was to become memorable, not +unhappily in reading. + +When it came to half-past eleven, she knew that her husband would not be +home that night, but, even so, she sat up till the tall lacquered clock +in the hall struck out the chimes of midnight. Then, a little +reluctantly, she went upstairs, telling herself that if in the morning +there was still no news of Godfrey, she and Alice would stroll along to +Rosedean. Katty might know something of Godfrey's movements, for when +she had been last at The Chase an illusion had been made to a bit of +business he was to do for her in London, which would necessitate some +correspondence. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +There are certain winter days when bed and bath seem to be the only two +tolerable places in the world. + +Katty Winslow, on waking up the next morning, that is, on Saturday, the +seventh of January, knew at once, though she was snuggled down deep in +her warm bed, that it was very much colder than it had been the evening +before. She shivered a little, telling herself that perhaps she was not +in as good condition as usual, for she had only just come back from +spending Christmas and the New Year away. + +The faithful Harber drew back the curtains, letting in gleams of red +winter sun. And then she brought her mistress a nice cup of hot tea, and +a pretty, wadded, pale-blue bed wrap. + +Katty sat up. "I'm not in any hurry to-day," she said. "I'll ring when I +want breakfast." And after having taken her tea she lay down again, and +began to think. + +Oddly, or perhaps naturally, enough, her thoughts turned to Godfrey +Pavely. She wondered vaguely where he was, and if he would be home +to-day. + +There had been a kind of half arrangement between them that they would +travel down from London together on the Thursday afternoon. That would +have meant for Katty the benefit of The Chase motor--a pleasant as well +as an economical plan--and its owner's company as far as Rosedean. + +But Katty had not found Godfrey Pavely at the London station, though she +had lingered about up to the very last moment before taking, +regretfully, a third-class ticket. On arriving at Pewsbury she had also +waited some minutes in the vague hope that Godfrey might have dashed up +just as the train was leaving--not that he was apt to dash at any time, +for he was always very careful of himself, and had a due regard for his +personal dignity. But there was no sign of the familiar figure, and so +Katty had had to take a fly--a slow, smelly, expensive fly--out to +Rosedean. + +Yesterday, Friday, had been a rather tiresome, dull day, spent in +hearing from Harber all the disagreeable things which had happened while +she had been away--how Harber's stupid, untrained girl-help had gone and +broken a rather nice piece of china in the drawing-room, and also how it +had come to pass that there were two slates off the roof. + +Katty had rather expected Godfrey would come in, if only to apologise +for having failed her during the journey. But the afternoon had gone +slowly by, and at last she felt sure, knowing his ways, that he had not +yet come home. Something must have delayed him--something, perhaps, +connected with that pleasant Portuguese gambling concession which was to +bring them both such a lot of money. But if that were so, she would +almost certainly receive from him this morning one of his rather long, +explanatory letters. Of late Godfrey had fallen into the way of writing +to Katty almost every day when they were apart. + +Though Mrs. Winslow meant to keep the fact strictly to herself--for it +was one that might have somewhat surprised even the unsuspicious +Laura--she and Godfrey had actually spent a long day together during +their dual absence from home. + +It had fallen out as such pleasant meetings sometimes do fall out, very +naturally and innocently, just a week ago to-day. + +Katty, on her way from the south to stay with her friends, the Haworths, +had run up against Godfrey Pavely at King's Cross. That had been a +really extraordinary coincidence, and one of which it would have been +foolish not to take advantage. For it turned out that he also was going +to Yorkshire, and on the business in which they were both interested, to +spend a night with the ex-money-lender, Greville Howard. That gentleman, +it seemed, was making certain difficulties about the matter--he wanted +to stay his hand till he had seen the French bankers who were concerned +with the affair. As he spent each spring in the south of France, that +would not be such a difficulty as it seemed. Still, it was a bore, and +the other had felt he had better go and see him. + +After a pleasant journey together, as they were steaming into York +station Godfrey suddenly asked: "Must you go on to your friends at once? +Couldn't you telephone to them to meet you by a later train? I'm in no +hurry." And, smilingly, she had consented. + +Of late Katty's heart had become very soft to her old friend. For one +thing he was being so good to her in the matter of money. That two +hundred pounds he had given to her some weeks ago had been followed by +two fifty-pound notes. And yet, though she knew poor Godfrey was quite +unaware of it, her original purpose--the purpose which had so distressed +him, and which, as she well knew, had induced in him such extraordinary +and unusual generosity--had not faltered at all. Katty still meant to +cut the cable, and start a new life elsewhere. + +Rosedean was all very well; her close friendship with Godfrey Pavely was +all very well; though of late she had been disagreeably aware that +Godfrey was ashamed--ashamed of giving her that money, ashamed of his +increasing fondness for her, ashamed also of--well, of other little +things which sometimes happened, things which Katty thought quite +unimportant, which she regarded as part of the payment due from her to +Godfrey. But she realised more rather than less, as time went on, that +if she wanted to make anything of her life there must come a change. She +would wait a while, wait perhaps till next autumn--so she had told those +kind friends of hers, the Haworths. + +Katty was sometimes surprised to find how sorry she was that things had +not fallen out otherwise. But she had always tried, in all the great +things of life, to look the truth squarely in the face. Only once had +she been caught doing anything else--and that, as we know, had been +years and years ago. She was not likely to make that sort of mistake +now. She had come to see, with a rather painful clearness, that Godfrey +and Laura, however ill they got on together, were not the sort of people +to lend themselves to any kind of juggling with the law to obtain their +liberty. + +But she had been disappointed in Oliver Tropenell. She had felt in him +accumulated forces of that explosive energy which leads to determined +action--also she had thought that Gillie would do something. + +But the two had disappeared together almost immediately after her talk +with Laura's brother. That was over ten weeks ago now, and neither had +given any sign of life since. + +But Katty intended to keep up with Godfrey. For one thing she was keenly +interested in that business in which they were, in a sense, both +engaged. Also one never can tell what life--and death--may not bring +forth. Whatever happened, the link between herself and Godfrey was too +strong ever to be broken. Even if she married again, which she supposed +she would do some time or other, there seemed no reason, to her, at any +rate, why she should not keep up with Godfrey. He was her trustee now, +as well as her oldest friend. + +So it was that she had very willingly assented to do him the trifling +favour of spending some further hours in his company. + +As they wandered about the old city, and lingered awhile in the great +Minster, neither of them said a word that the whole world might not have +overheard. They visited some of the curiosity shops for which York is +famed, and Katty's companion, with that new generosity which sat on him +so strangely, bought a beautiful, and very costly, old cut-glass pendant +for Rosedean. + +They did not meet a soul that either of them knew, excepting, yes, +stop----After they had said goodbye (Godfrey, with a rather shocked +look on his face, for Katty, imprudent, foolish Katty, had woman-like +seemed to expect that he would kiss her in a corner of an empty +waiting-room where at any moment they might have been surprised by some +acquaintance of one or the other of them!)--after, as arranged, they had +said good-bye, and Katty was engaged in taking her ticket for the branch +line station for which she was bound, a curious thing happened. + +She suddenly heard a voice, a man's voice, which sounded pleasantly +familiar. + +Who could it be? The association evoked was wholly agreeable, but Katty +could not place, in the chambers of her memory, the owner of the rather +peculiar accents which were engaged in asking when the next train back +to London would start. + +She had turned round quickly, only to see a small queue of people behind +her, among them surely the owner of that peculiar voice. But no, she did +not know any one there--though among them a man attracted her attention, +for the simple reason that he was staring at her very hard. He was +obviously a foreigner, for his skin was olive-tinted, and he had a +small, black, pointed beard. He stared at Katty with an air of rather +insolent admiration. And then he broke away from the queue, and walked +quickly off, out of the booking-office. + +Katty always enjoyed admiration, whatever its source, and yet a queer +kind of shiver had gone through her when this impertinent stranger's +glance rested full on her face. She had had the odious sensation that +the man saw something to be jeered at, as well as admired, in her neat +and attractive self. + + * * * * * + +At last, reluctantly, Katty got up and went into her well-warmed +comfortable bathroom. It was nice to be home again, at no one's orders +but her own. After she had dressed, she rang, and very soon came her +breakfast, daintily served by the devoted Harber, also the one daily +paper she felt she could afford to take. + +Katty was one of the many women to whom the daily picture-paper supplied +a long-felt, if unconscious, want. It gave her just the amount of news, +and the kind of news, that her busy mind, absorbed in other things, +could assimilate comfortably. She was no reader, though sometimes she +would manage to gallop through some book that all the world was talking +about. But newspapers had always bored her. Still, she had become very +fond of the paper she now held in her hand. It only cost a halfpenny a +day, and Katty liked small, sensible economies. + +That liking of hers was one of the links which bound her to Godfrey +Pavely, but unlike Godfrey, Katty did not care for money for money's +sake. She only liked money for what money could buy. And sometimes, when +she was in a cheerful, mischievous mood, she would tell herself, with a +smile, that if ever her Castle in Spain turned out to have been built on +a solid foundation--if ever, that is, she became Godfrey Pavely's wife, +she would know how to spend the money he had garnered so carefully. She +felt pretty sure, deep in her heart, that should such an unlikely thing +come to pass, she would know how to "manage" Godfrey, and that, if +surprised, he would not really mind what she did. She always got good +value out of everything she acquired, and that would remain true if, +instead of spending pence, she was ever able to spend pounds. + +A little before eleven, just as Katty was beginning to think it was time +for her to finish dressing, she heard the gate of her domain open, and +the voice of little Alice Pavely rise up through the still, frosty air, +mingling with the deeper, gentler tones of Laura. + +It was an odd thing, considering that the two women were at any rate in +theory intimate friends, that Laura very, very seldom came to Rosedean. +In fact Katty could not remember a single time when Laura had come in +the morning, an uninvited, unexpected guest. So suddenly poor Katty felt +a little chill of apprehension; she got up from her chair, and +waited.... + +The front door was opened at once. Then came Harber's hurrying footfalls +on the staircase--and, simultaneously, the garden door at the back of +the house swung to. Laura had evidently sent her little girl out of +doors, into the garden. What could she be coming to say? + +Quickly Katty examined her conscience. No, there was nothing that Laura +could possibly have found out. As to that half day spent with Godfrey in +York, Laura was surely the last woman to mind--and if she did mind, she +was quite the last woman to say anything about it! + +There came a knock at the door: then Harber's voice, "Mrs. Pavely wants +to know, ma'am, if she can come up and speak to you, just for a minute." + +"Ask Mrs. Pavely to come up," said Katty, pleasantly. + +A minute later, Laura walked forward into the room. It was the first +time she had been in Katty's bedroom since Rosedean had been first +furnished. + +She looked round her with a smile. "Why, Katty," she exclaimed, "how +charming and pretty you've made it all! You've added quite a number of +things since I was here last." + +"Only the curtains," said Katty quickly (oh, how relieved she felt!), +"only the curtains, and perhaps that arm-chair, Laura." + +"Yes, I suppose that _is_ all, but somehow it looks more." + +Laura looked exactly as she always looked, rather paler perhaps than +usual, but then Laura was pale. She had that peculiar clear, warm +whiteness of skin that is compared by its admirers to a camellia; this +morning, her lovely, deep blue eyes looked tired, as if she had been +sleeping badly. + +"I've really come to ask if you know where Godfrey is? We expected him +home on Thursday. Then he sent a telephone message saying that he +couldn't be back till yesterday. No time was mentioned, but as he had a +lot of appointments at the Bank we of course thought he would be back +early. I myself sat up for him last night till after the last train, but +now, this morning, I've heard nothing from him--and Mr. Privet has heard +nothing." + +"What an odd thing!" exclaimed Katty. She really did think it very odd, +for Godfrey was the most precise of men. + +She waited a moment, then said truthfully, "No, I haven't the slightest +idea where he is. He wrote me a line late last week about a little +investment of mine. I've got the letter somewhere." + +Katty was trying to make up her mind as to whether she should say +anything concerning that joint journey to York. At last she decided not +to do so. It had nothing to do with Godfrey's absence now. + +"Doesn't Mr. Privet know where he is?" she asked. "That really _is_ very +odd, Laura." + +"Of course Mr. Privet knows where Godfrey was up to Thursday morning. He +stayed where he always does stay when in London, at the Hungerford +Hotel, in Trafalgar Square. He's always stayed there--they know him, and +make him very comfortable. But Mr. Privet telephoned through there +yesterday--as a matter of fact I've only just heard this--and they told +him that Godfrey had left the hotel on Thursday morning. But the +extraordinary thing is," and now Laura really did look somewhat +troubled--"that they were expecting him back there to pack, to leave for +here--at least so the manager understood him to say. He went out in the +morning, and then he didn't come back, as they thought he would do, to +luncheon. All his things are still at the Hungerford Hotel." + +Katty began to feel a little uneasy. "Perhaps he's had an accident," she +said. "After all, accidents _do_ happen. Have you done anything, Laura?" + +Laura shook her head. "What seems to make the theory of an accident +unlikely is that telephone message. You see, he telephoned quite late on +Thursday saying that he would stay in town over the night. But he didn't +send a similar message to the Bank, as any one knowing Godfrey would +certainly have expected him to do, and he didn't let them know at the +Hungerford Hotel that he would be away for the night. It's all rather +mysterious." + +"Yes, it is," said Katty. + +"I wonder--" Laura grew a little pink--"I wonder," she said again, "if +you know on what business Godfrey went up to town? Mr. Privet would +rather like to know that." + +And then Katty grew a little pink, too. She hesitated. "No, I don't know +what business took him away. You forget that I myself have been away for +quite a long time--I only came back on Thursday afternoon." + +"Why, of course!" exclaimed Laura. "I forgot that. You've been away +nearly a fortnight, haven't you?" + +"Yes. First I went right down to the south, and then up to Yorkshire." + +Somehow she felt impelled to say this. + +But Katty's visits were of no interest to Laura at any time, least of +all just now. "Well, I thought I'd come and just ask you on the chance," +she said. + +She got up, and for a moment or two the two young women stood together +not far from the bow window of Katty's bedroom. + +Suddenly Katty exclaimed, "Why, there's Oliver Tropenell! What an +extraordinary thing! I thought he was abroad." + +"He came back yesterday morning," said Laura quietly. + +Katty gave her visitor a quick, searching look. But there was never +anything to see in Laura's face. + +"Hadn't I better call out to him? He's evidently on his way to The +Chase. Hadn't I better say you're here?" + +And, as Laura seemed to hesitate, she threw open the window. "Mr. +Tropenell?" she called out, in her clear, ringing voice. + +The man who was striding past Rosedean, walking very quickly, stopped +rather unwillingly. Then he looked up, and when he saw who it was that +was standing by Mrs. Winslow, he turned in through the gate, and rang +the door-bell. + +"Will you go down to him, Laura? I can't come as I am." + +"I'll wait while you put on your dress. We can tell him to go out into +the garden with Alice." + +She bent over the broad, low bar of the window, and Oliver, gazing up at +her, thought of Rossetti's lines: Heaven to him was where Laura was. + +"Will you go through the house into the garden? Alice is there. We'll be +down soon." + +Katty lingered a little, though she only had to put on her blouse, her +skirt, and a sports coat. "I feel quite anxious about Godfrey," she said +hesitatingly. + +And Laura, in an absent voice, said, "Yes, so do I. But of course by +this time he may be at the Bank. He's quite fond of that very early +morning train. He often took it last summer." + +"Yes, but now he would have had to get up in the dark to take it." + +"I don't think Godfrey would mind that." + +At last the two went downstairs, and out into the garden where Oliver +Tropenell and the child were talking together. + +Oliver turned round, and after shaking hands with Mrs. Winslow, he asked +Laura an abrupt question. "Did Godfrey come back last evening after +all?" + +Katty looked at him inquisitively. Then he had been at The Chase +yesterday? + +Laura shook her head. "No, I sat up for him till midnight. I thought it +almost certain that he'd taken the last train. But we've had no news of +him at all. Perhaps he's at the Bank by now--I'll ring up as soon as I +get home. Come, Alice, my dear." + +Katty heard Oliver Tropenell say in a low voice: "May I walk with you?" + +And then Katty cut in: "You'll let me know, Laura, won't you, if you +have any special news? Of course I don't want you to let me know if +Godfrey's safe at the Bank--I'm not so anxious as all that!" She +laughed, her rather affected, little ringing laugh. "But if there's any +other news--especially if he's had an accident of any sort--well, I +_should_ like to know." + +"Of course I'll send you word." And then Laura roused herself. "Why +shouldn't you come up to lunch, Katty? I wish you would! And then I +could tell you anything I've heard this morning." + +"Thanks, I'd like to do that. I'll follow you in about an hour. I've +things to do, and letters to write, now." + +She saw the three off, and once more, as had so often been the case in +the past, her heart was filled with envy--envy, and a certain +excitement. + +Oliver Tropenell's return home just now was a complication. She felt +sure it would upset Godfrey, but she could not quite tell how much. She +wondered if Gilbert Baynton had come back too. She rather hoped that he +had. + +She wrote her letters, and then, so timing her departure as to arrive +exactly at one o'clock, for at The Chase luncheon was at one, she went +off, meeting, as she expected to do, Oliver Tropenell on his way home to +Freshley. + +"Any news?" she called out. And he shook his head. "No--no news at all." +Then he added slowly: "But I don't see that there's any cause for alarm. +Pavely telephoned the day before yesterday saying he was being detained +in town." + +"Still, it's odd he didn't write to Laura," said Katty meditatively. "As +a rule he writes to Laura every day when he is in London." + +She knew that was one of those half-truths which are more misleading +than a lie. Godfrey was fond of sending home postcards containing +directions as to this or that connected with the house or garden. But +Katty saw the instinctive frown which came over Oliver Tropenell's face, +and she felt pleased. She enjoyed giving this odd, sensitive, secretive +man tiny pin-pricks. She had never really liked him, and now she +positively disliked him. Why had he gone away just when things were +looking promising? And, having gone away for so long, why had he now +come back? + +"How is Mr. Baynton?" she asked, smiling. + +"He's gone back to Mexico." + +And now Katty was really surprised. "Has he indeed?" she exclaimed. "And +without seeing Laura again? I'm rather sorry for _that_!" And as Oliver +made no answer, she went on a trifle maliciously: "I suppose you will be +going off soon, too?" + +He hesitated, a very long time it seemed to her, before he answered, +"Yes, I suppose I shall. But things go on all right over there as long +as one of us is there." + +Then, with a not over civil abruptness, he left her. + +Katty stayed most of that cold wintry Saturday afternoon with Laura, and +as was her way when she chose to do so, she made herself very pleasant +to both the mother and child, and that though little Alice did not like +her. + +A little before four she asked Laura if she might telephone herself to +the Bank, and Laura eagerly assented. + +Explaining that she was really speaking for Mrs. Pavely, Katty had quite +a long chat with Mr. Privet. She and the old head clerk had always been +good friends, though they met seldom. He could remember her as a +beautiful child, and then as the popular, because the always good +humoured and pleasant-spoken, belle of Pewsbury. + +"Yes, I feel very anxious indeed, Mrs. Winslow! I've been wondering +whether it wouldn't be a good thing to communicate with the London +police, if we don't have any news of Mr. Pavely to-morrow. Could you +ascertain for me the exact feelings of Mrs. Pavely?" + +"I agree with you, Mr. Privet, for after all, accidents _do_ happen! +Hold the line a moment. I'll go and inquire." + +She hurried off to Laura's boudoir. "Mr. Privet suggests that the London +police should be communicated with--if we don't have news of Godfrey by +to-morrow morning." + +Laura looked up, startled. "Oh, Katty, don't you think that would make +him very angry--if he's all right, I mean?" + +"Perhaps it would," Katty agreed uncomfortably. + +She went back to the telephone. "Mrs. Pavely thinks we'd better wait a +little longer before saying anything to the police," she called out. + +And thus it was through Laura, as Katty reminded herself in days to +come, that two more precious days were lost. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +"Well, my dear--any more news?" But even as Mrs. Tropenell, looking up +from her breakfast-table, asked the question, she knew what the answer +would be. + +It was the following Monday morning. The post had just come in, and at +once, knowing that the postman called first at The Chase, Oliver had +hurried off to the telephone. He had been there a long time--perhaps as +long as ten minutes--and when he came back into the dining-room his +mother was struck afresh by the look of almost intolerable strain and +anxiety in his face and eyes. + +They had spent a great part of Sunday with Laura, and during that long, +trying day Mrs. Tropenell had felt very much more concerned about her +son than she did about Godfrey Pavely. + +Godfrey, so she told herself, with a touch of unreason not usual with +her, would almost certainly turn up all right--even if, as she was +inclined to believe possible, he had met with some kind of accident. But +Oliver, her beloved, the only human being in the world that really +mattered to her--what was wrong with him? Long after she had gone to bed +each evening she had heard him, during the last three nights, wandering +restlessly about the house. + +After the first almost painful rush of joy which had come over her when +he had suddenly walked into her presence last Thursday night, she had +regretted, with unceasing bitter regret, his return home. It was so +horribly apparent to her, his mother, that Laura, _belle dame sans +merci_, held him in thrall. + +"If you don't mind, mother, I think I shall go up to town to-day and see +the Scotland Yard people. I think--don't you?--it would-be a comfort to +Laura." There was a harassed, questioning note in his voice which +surprised Mrs. Tropenell. As a rule Oliver always knew exactly what he +meant to do. + +She answered slowly, reluctantly (she hated so much his being mixed up +in this odd, mysterious matter of Godfrey's temporary disappearance!): +"Perhaps it would be. Still, I think Laura ought to communicate with +Godfrey's cousins. Of course I know he didn't care for them. Still, +after all, those people are his only near relations." + +"That old Mr. Privet, Pavely's confidential clerk, is going up to town +to-day," observed Oliver inconsequently. "I thought he and I might +travel together, and that while he goes to the hotel, I can go to +Scotland Yard." + +And then Mrs. Tropenell roused herself to try and give what help she +could. + +"Lord St. Amant knows the new Commissioner of Police very well," she +said. "They met in India. Ask him to give you a note of introduction, +Oliver. He's in town just now, you would certainly find him, either at +his rooms or at his club." + +There came a faint flush over her face. By her plate there lay Lord St. +Amant's daily letter. On Mondays London letters always arrived by the +second post, but yesterday her old friend had had a late-fee stamp put +on his letter, so that she might get it the first thing this morning. +He had suggested that Sir Angus Kinross--that was the name of the new +Commissioner--should be approached. He had even offered--and it was good +of him, for he hated taking trouble and he had always disliked Godfrey +Pavely--to go to Scotland Yard himself. + +Oliver was still standing, though his breakfast was only half eaten, and +he was looking at his mother with that rather impatient, strained look +on his face to which she had by now become accustomed. "That's a good +idea," he said. And she felt glad that any idea proposed by her should +seem to be good. Yesterday her son, who was always so kindly, so +respectful in his manner to her, had--yes, snubbed her--when she had +proposed something which it had seemed to her would be of use. + +"I think I'll go over to The Chase now, mother. It's impossible to say +all that one wants to say over the telephone." + +She said nervously, "Won't you finish your breakfast?" and to her +surprise he obeyed her. To her surprise also, when at last he did get up +he seemed in no great hurry to go. + +"Shall I come with you, my darling?" she said. + +He shook his head. "No, mother. I'd rather discuss the matter with her +alone, but I'll make her come over as early as I can. You know she said +she would bring Alice to lunch to-day." And then, looking straight down +into her troubled face, he asked: "Mother? What do _you_ think has +happened to Godfrey Pavely?" + +It was the first time he had asked her the direct question. + +"I don't know what to think! But I suppose the most probable thing +is--that he's had an accident. After all, people do meet with bad +accidents, especially in wintry, foggy weather, in the London streets. +If so, he may be lying unconscious in one of the big hospitals. I can't +think why the London police shouldn't have been told of his +disappearance on Friday--that, as I told Laura yesterday, is the first +thing I should have done myself." + +"Both Mrs. Winslow and Laura seemed to think he would dislike that so +very much," said Oliver slowly. + +There was a defensive note in his voice, for he had made no effort to +back up his mother when she had strongly counselled Laura to communicate +with Scotland Yard. + +"Has it ever occurred to you," he said suddenly, "that Pavely may be +dead, mother?" + +"No, Oliver. That I confess has not occurred to me. In fact, I regard it +as extremely unlikely." + +"Why that?" he asked in a hard voice. "People are often killed in street +accidents." Then, after a minute's pause: "Do you think Laura would mind +much?" + +"I think it would give her a great shock!" She added, hesitatingly. +"They have been getting on rather better than usual--at least so it has +seemed to me." + +"Have they indeed?" + +His words cut like a whip, and she got up and went and stood by him. "My +son," she said very solemnly. "Oh, my darling, don't allow yourself to +wish--to hope--for Godfrey Pavely's death!" + +Looking straight into her face, he exclaimed, "I can't help it, mother! +I do hope, I do wish, for Godfrey Pavely's death--with all the strength, +with all the power that is in me. Why should I be hypocritical--with +you? Am I the first man that has committed murder," he waited a +moment--"in his heart?" + +"If that be really so--then don't let it ever be suspected, Oliver! For +God's sake, try and look differently from what you have looked the last +few days! If your wish is to be granted, your hope satisfied, then don't +let any one suspect that the hope or the wish was ever there!" + +She spoke with an intensity of feeling and passion equal to his own. + +"You're right, mother," he said in a low voice. "I know you're right! +And I promise you that I'll try and follow your advice. No man ever had +a wiser and a better mother than I!" + +He turned round quickly and left the room. + +Mrs. Tropenell did not see her son again till late that night, and then +not alone, for Laura spent the evening at Freshley, and after he had +taken their guest home to The Chase, he did not come in again for hours. + +Old Mr. Privet, Godfrey Pavely's confidential clerk, had been rather +taken aback when he had learnt over the telephone, from Mrs. Pavely, +that he was to have Mr. Oliver Tropenell as his travelling companion to +London. But very soon, being a truly religious man, he came to see how +well and wisely everything had been ordered. To begin with, Mr. +Tropenell called for him at the Bank, thus saving him a very cold, +easterly-wind kind of walk to Pewsbury station, which was some way from +the town. And once there, Mr. Tropenell had taken two first-class +return tickets--that again being the action of a true gentleman, for he, +Mr. Privet, would have been quite content to go by himself third-class. +Also, as it turned out, during the long journey to London they had some +very pleasant and instructive conversation together. + +Quite at first, in answer to a query as to what he thought of this +extraordinary business of Mr. Pavely's disappearance, Mr. Oliver +Tropenell had been perhaps a little short. He had replied that no one +could possibly venture an opinion as to what had happened. But then had +followed between them, in spite of the fact that the noise of the train +was very trying, a most agreeable chat over old times--over those days +when Mr. Godfrey Pavely's father, a fine type of the old country-town +banker, was still alive. + +Mr. Privet, as a younger man, had had a good deal to do with the final +sale and purchase of The Chase, and Mr. Tropenell, as was very natural +in one whose own ancestors had lived there for hundreds of years, had +shown the greatest interest in that old story. Mr. Tropenell had not +been in the least over-curious or indiscreet, but Mr. Privet had been +led on to talk of his companion's grandfather, a gentleman who, if +rather wild, and certainly extravagant and headstrong, had been such a +grand sportsman--quite a hero among the young men of Pewsbury! What had +brought about the poor gentleman's undoing had been his taking over the +hounds, when Lord St. Amant's great-uncle had given them up. + +So pleasant had been that conversation in the first-class carriage +shared by them, that for the first time since Thursday Mr. Privet had +almost forgotten the business on which they two were going to London! +But he had soon remembered it again--for at the station Mr. Oliver +Tropenell had suggested that, instead of going to the Hungerford Hotel, +he, Mr. Privet, should accompany him to Lord St. Amant's club, in order +to get a letter of introduction from that nobleman to the Commissioner +of Police. + +Not long ago Mr. Privet had read an interesting book called _In London +Club Land_. But he had little thought, when he was reading that book, +that he would ever see the famous old political club to which a whole +chapter had been devoted, and to which so many of his own special +political heroes had belonged in their time! + +And then, after Lord St. Amant, who also had treated Mr. Privet with +rather exceptional civility, not to say courtesy, had written the +letter, Mr. Tropenell suggested that they should go straight on to +Scotland Yard--pointing out, what was true enough, that Mr. Privet knew +far more of Mr. Godfrey Pavely's business and habits than any one else. + +And so, together, they had driven off in a taxi--also a new, agreeable +experience to Mr. Privet--to the famous Bastille-like building on the +Thames Embankment. + +But when there, the interview with the pleasant-spoken, genial gentleman +who wielded such immense powers had been disappointing. + +Sir Angus Kinross had listened very carefully to all that he, Mr. +Privet, had had to say, and he had asked a number of acute, clever +questions of both his visitors. But very soon he had observed that he +feared much valuable time had been lost. + +Later on, Mr. Privet, when he thought the interview over, could almost +hear the voice of Sir Angus repeating slowly, inexorably: "Thursday? And +it's now Monday afternoon! What a misfortune it is that Mrs.--ah, +yes--Mrs. Pavely, did not communicate with us at once. If she had +telephoned, here, when she first began to realise that there was +something strange in her husband's prolonged absence, she would almost +certainly have had some sort of news by now." + +And then he, Mr. Privet, had answered quickly, "But we didn't begin to +feel anxious till the Friday, sir." + +"I quite understand that! But if you, Mr.--ah yes--Mr. Privet--had +written then, we could have begun our inquiries on the Saturday morning. +Did it not occur to you to let the London police know of Mr. Pavely's +non-appearance?" + +For a moment Mr. Privet had felt vaguely uncomfortable, for his +questioner had given him such a very odd, keen look, as he asked that +simple question. But he had answered, honestly enough, for after all +'Tho' truth may be blamed, it can never be shamed': "Mr. Pavely, sir, +did not like to be interfered with when he was away on business, and we +thought it would annoy him if we were to make too great a fuss. Once, +many years ago now--Mr. Pavely went over to Paris for some days, and +omitted to leave his address at the Bank. I couldn't help remembering +last week that Mr. Pavely, on that former occasion, had seemed somewhat +put out with me for expressing what I thought at the time a very natural +anxiety, sir." + +They hadn't been very long at Scotland Yard, a little under half an hour +in all, and during the last ten minutes a shorthand writer had made some +notes of the conversation, which, indeed, had been almost entirely +carried on between him, Mr. Privet, and the Commissioner of Police. Mr. +Oliver Tropenell, as was bound to be the case, had had very little to +say, seeing that he was there merely as Mrs. Pavely's representative, +she having her only brother in Mexico. + +After leaving Scotland Yard they had gone on to the Hungerford Hotel, +and there a lot of information had been afforded them. But it hadn't +amounted to very much--when all was said and done! They already knew +that all trace of Mr. Pavely had disappeared after eleven o'clock on the +Thursday morning. His room was even now exactly as he had left it; neat, +for he was always a most particular gentleman, but with nothing put +away. In fact the only news of him after that morning had been that +telephone message to The Chase--a message given by some one, the butler +by now wasn't even sure if it was a man or a woman, who was evidently in +a great hurry. + +One thing the manager of the hotel had done which had rather surprised +and shocked both Mr. Privet and his companion. He had consulted a +detective about the affair, and, at Mr. Tropenell's request, the +detective was sent for. + +Mr. Privet had thought this secret inquiry agent (as he called himself) +a queer kind of chap--in fact he had seemed much more anxious to +ascertain if a reward was going to be offered, than to offer any useful +advice as to this perplexing matter of Mr. Pavely's disappearance. + +He had, however, seemed to think that the Thursday evening telephone +call was very important, and he had asked permission to come down to The +Chase to cross-examine the servant who had taken the message. But +that--so Mr. Tropenell had very properly said--was impossible, now that +the matter had been placed in the hands of Scotland Yard. In answer to +Mr. Privet's natural curiosity as to why the detective thought that +telephone call so important, the man had answered, rather crossly: "You +see, there's no record kept of telephone calls! There's a record kept of +telegrams, so one can always recover the original of a telegram." + +Mr. Tropenell had been quite surprised on hearing this. + +"I should have thought telephone calls quite as important as telegrams?" +he had exclaimed. + +"So they are, with regard to _my_ kind of work," the man had replied. +"But even with regard to trunk-calls you've only got to go into a Post +Office and plank down your money and wait till you're through! Still, +the young woman at your country Exchange would probably have remembered +the call if she had been asked sooner. But it's all such a long time +ago." + +A long time ago? What nonsense! He, Mr. Privet, felt quite put out with +this detective, and he began to see why Mr. Tropenell thought the man +ought not to have been brought into the business at all. It was +certainly rather cool of the hotel manager to have gone and brought +such a person into the affair, without asking Mr. Pavely's friends if he +was at liberty to do so. + +They had managed to catch the six o'clock express back to Pewsbury, and +then Mr. Tropenell very kindly insisted on driving Mr. Privet home. Mr. +and Mrs. Privet owned a pretty, old-fashioned house on the other side of +the town. When Mr. Privet had married--a matter of forty years ago +now--he had made up his mind that it would do him good to be obliged to +take a good walk to and from the Bank every day. + +On their arrival at the house--which, funnily enough, was called +Southbank--Mr. Tropenell, at the request of Mr. Privet, had come in for +a few minutes to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Privet. He had said how +much he liked their house, how much prettier it was, how much more +dignified--that had been his curious word--than the red brick villas +which had sprung up all over the outskirts of their beautiful old town. +And Mr. Privet had been secretly rather pleased, for lately "Mother"--as +he called Mrs. Privet--had become somewhat restless, being impressed by +certain improvements those gimcrack villas possessed, which their house +lacked, and that though he had put in a nice bathroom a matter of twenty +years ago. + +Yes, of the several people who, that day, had been engaged in trying to +probe the mystery of Godfrey Pavely's disappearance, the only one who +found a great deal of natural pleasure and simple enjoyment out of it +all was Mr. Privet; and he, alone of them all, really cared for the +missing man, and, perhaps, alone of them all, had a genuine longing to +see him again. + +Mr. Privet thought it was particularly kind of Mr. Oliver Tropenell to +be taking all this trouble for poor Mrs. Pavely; though of course he, +Mr. Privet, was well aware that Mrs. Pavely's brother was partner to Mr. +Tropenell in Mexico. He knew the sad truth--the sad truth, that is, as +to the disgraceful circumstances under which Gilbert Baynton had had to +leave England. No one else in the Bank had known--at least he and Mr. +Pavely hoped not. It had been very, very fortunate that the forged +signature had been on one of their own cheques. But for that fact, +nothing could have saved that good-for-nothing scoundrel--so Mr. Privet +always called Gillie Baynton in his own mind--from a prosecution. + +Do any of us ever think, reader, of the way in which our most secret +business is known, nay, must be known, to a certain number of people of +whose existence we ourselves are scarcely aware? + +Laura, when she came and talked, as she sometimes did talk, kindly, if a +little indifferently, to her husband's confidential clerk, would have +been disagreeably surprised had she been able to see into Mr. Privet's +heart and mind. As for Godfrey Pavely, nothing would have made him +credit, high as was his opinion of Mr. Privet's business acumen, the +fact that his clerk had a very shrewd suspicion where those three +hundred pounds in notes, lately drawn out by his employer for his own +personal use, had made their way.... + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +It was the morning of the 15th of January, and already Godfrey Pavely's +disappearance had excited more than the proverbial nine days' wonder. + +Laura had gone to her boudoir after breakfast, and she was waiting +there, sitting at her writing-table, feeling wretchedly anxious and +excited, for all last night she had had a curious, insistent +presentiment that at last something was going to happen. She had sent +Alice off to her lessons, for there was no object in allowing the child +to idle as she had idled during that first bewildering week. + +At last she got up, pushed her chair aside, and went and lay down on a +sofa. She felt very, very tired; worn out partly by suspense and +anxiety, partly by the many interviews with strangers she had been +compelled to have during the last ten days. + +Oliver Tropenell was again in London, and since he had left Freshley, +for the second time, it was as though a strong, protecting arm on which +she leant had suddenly been withdrawn from her. And yet she knew that he +was engaged upon her business, upon this extraordinary, unutterably +strange business of her husband's disappearance. + +Oliver wrote to her daily--brief, coldly-worded notes describing what +had been, and was being, done both by the police and by the big firm of +private detectives who were now also engaged in a search for the missing +man. But there was very little to report--so far every one was +completely baffled. + +Against the wish and advice of both Oliver Tropenell and the Scotland +Yard authorities, Laura had offered a reward of a thousand pounds for +any information which would lead to the discovery of Godfrey Pavely, +alive or dead. It had been Katty's suggestion, and Laura, somehow, had +not liked to disregard it. + +But now, to-day, Laura, as she moved restlessly this way and that, told +herself that she was sorry she had assented to a suggestion that Katty +Winslow should come and stay with her during those long days of waiting +which were at once so dreary and so full of excitement and suspense. +Katty had got hopelessly on Laura's nerves. Katty could not keep silent, +Katty could not keep still. + +Mrs. Winslow, in a sense, had taken possession of The Chase. It was she +who saw to everything, who examined every letter, who went and answered +the telephone when the police either at Pewsbury or from London rang up. +She was apparently in a state of great excitement and of great anxiety, +and some of the critics in the servants' wing said to each other with a +knowing smile that Mrs. Winslow might have been Mrs. Pavely, so much did +that lady take Mr. Pavely's disappearance to heart! + +Katty had not seemed as worried as Laura had seemed the first two or +three days, but now she appeared even more upset. Yesterday she had +admitted to sleepless nights, and the hostess had felt greatly relieved +when her guest had at last confessed that if dear Laura would not mind +she would like to stay in bed every morning up to eleven o'clock; +nothing ever happened before then. + +The only person with whom Laura, during those long, dreary days, felt +comparatively at ease was Mrs. Tropenell, for Mrs. Tropenell seemed to +understand exactly what she, poor Laura, was feeling during those +miserable days of waiting for news that did not come. But Laura did not +see very much of the older woman--not nearly as much as she would have +liked to do just now, for Mrs. Tropenell disliked Katty, and avoided +meeting her. + + * * * * * + +The stable clock struck ten. And Laura suddenly heard the sound of firm +steps hurrying down the passage. She got off the sofa, expecting to see +the now disagreeably familiar blue uniform and flat blue cap of the +Pewsbury Police Inspector. He came up to see her almost every day, but +he had never come quite so early as this morning. + +She gathered herself together to answer with calm civility his tiresome, +futile questions. There was nothing--_nothing_--she could say that she +had not said already as to Godfrey's usual habits, and as to his +probable business interests outside Pewsbury. The Inspector had been +surprised, though he had tried to hide the fact, to find that Mrs. +Pavely knew so very little of her husband's business interests and +concerns. The last two times he had been there Katty had been present, +and she had been very useful--useful and tactful. Laura, feeling rather +ashamed of her late uncharitable thoughts concerning Katty, wished that +Katty could be present at the coming interview, but unfortunately Katty +was still in bed. + +The door opened, and she stood up expectantly. + +It was only Preston, the butler. There was a large envelope on the +salver he held in his hand. + +"It's from the Bank, ma'am. Marked 'Urgent,'" he said. + +"Is there an answer?" she asked. + +And he hesitated. "We have kept the messenger, ma'am." + +Laura knew Mr. Privet's small, neat handwriting--if he marked an +envelope "Urgent," then it was urgent. + +There were two enclosures--a note and a letter. + +She first read the note:-- + + "DEAR MRS. PAVELY, + + "I found the enclosed on my arrival at the Bank this + morning. It may be important, so I send it on at once. + + "And let me take this opportunity, dear Madam, of assuring + you of my very sincere sympathy. I, too, have known during + the last few days what it was to feel that hope deferred + maketh the heart sick. + + "Yours respectfully, + "DAVID PRIVET." + +She turned, with only languid interest, to the envelope. The address was +typewritten:-- + + MRS. G. PAVELY, + c/o MESSRS. PAVELY & CO., + BANKERS, + PEWSBURY. + +It was marked "Private," "Immediate," but that, as Laura well knew, +meant very little. A certain number of times, perhaps half a dozen +times in all, during her married life, some unfortunate, humble client +of her husband's had written to her a personal appeal. Each of these +letters had been of a painful and disagreeable nature, often couched in +pitiful, eloquent terms, and Godfrey had not allowed her to answer any +one of them save in the most formal, cold way. + +This typewritten envelope looked as if it might have come from some +distressed tradesman. So she opened the envelope reluctantly, not taking +heed, as a different type of woman would have done, to the postmark on +it. Indeed, without thinking of what she was doing, she threw the +envelope mechanically into the burning fire, and then opened out the +large sheet of thin paper. + +But, as she looked down at the lines of typewriting, she stiffened into +instant, palpitating, horrified attention, for this is what she saw +there: + + "MADAME,--It is with the deepest regret that I acquaint you + with the fact that your esteemed husband, Mr. Godfrey + Pavely, of Messrs. Pavely & Co., Bankers, of Pewsbury, + Wiltshire, is dead. + + "If you will instruct the police to go to Duke House, + Piccadilly, and proceed to Room 18 on the top floor--the + only office which is at present let--they will find there + Mr. Pavely's body. + + "I am connected with important business interests in + Portugal, and for some time I have been in business + relations with Mr. Pavely. This fact you will easily confirm + by searching among his papers. I am also, of course, well + known at Duke House, for I have had an office there for a + considerable number of weeks. + + "The tragedy--for a tragedy it is from my point of view as + well as from that of Mr. Pavely's unfortunate family--fell + out in this wise. + + "Mr. Pavely came to see me (by appointment) on the Thursday + before last. There was a pistol lying on my desk. I + foolishly took it up and began playing with it. I was + standing just behind Mr. Pavely when suddenly the trigger + went off, and to my intense horror the unfortunate man + received the charge. I thought--I hoped--that he was only + wounded, but all too soon I saw that he was undoubtedly + dead--dead by my hand. + + "I at first intended, and perhaps I should have been wise in + carrying out my first intention, to call in the police--but + very urgent business was requiring my presence in Lisbon. + Also I remembered that I had no one who could, in England, + vouch for my respectability, though you will be further able + to judge of the truth of my story by going to the Mayfair + Hotel, where I have sometimes stayed, and by making + inquiries of the agent from whom I took the office in Duke + House. + + "My relations with Mr. Pavely were slight, but entirely + friendly, even cordial, and what has happened is a very + terrible misfortune for me. + + "I came to England in order to raise a loan for a big and + important business enterprise. Some French banking friends + introduced me to Mr. Pavely, and I soon entered on good + relations with him. Our business was on the point of + completion, and in a sense mutually agreeable to us, when + what I may style our fatal interview took place. + + "Yours with respectful sympathy, + "FERNANDO APRA." + +Laura sat down on the sofa. For the first time in her life she felt +faint and giddy, and during the few moments that followed the reading of +the extraordinary letter she still held in her hand, it was, oddly +enough, her peculiar physical state which most absorbed her astonished +and anguished mind. + +Then her brain gradually cleared. Godfrey--dead? The thought was +horrible--horrible! It made her feel like a murderess. She remembered, +with a sensation of terrible self-rebuke and shame, the feeling of +almost hatred she had so often allowed herself to feel for her husband. + +And then, before she had had time to gather her mind together +sufficiently to face the immediate problem as to how she was to deal +with this sinister letter, the door again opened, and Katty Winslow came +into the room. + +Katty looked ill as well as worried. There were dark circles round her +eyes. + +"Laura! Whatever is the matter? Have you heard anything? Have you news +of Godfrey?" + +"I have just had this. Oh, Katty, prepare for bad news!" + +But Katty hardly heard the words. She snatched the tough, thin sheet of +paper out of Laura's hand, and going across to the window she began +reading, her back turned to Laura and the room. + +For what seemed a long time she said nothing. Then, at last, she moved +slowly round. "Well," she said stonily, "what are you going to do about +it? If I were you, Laura, I shouldn't let that stupid Pewsbury inspector +see this letter. I should go straight up to London with it." She glanced +at the clock. "We've time to take the 11.20 train--if you hurry!" + +She felt as if she would like to shake Laura--Laura, standing helplessly +there, looking at her, mute anguish--yes, real anguish, in her deep, +luminous blue eyes. + +"If I were you," repeated Katty in a hoarse, urgent tone, "I should go +straight with this letter to Scotland Yard. It's much too serious to +fiddle about with here! We want to know at once whether what this man +says is true or false--and that's the only way you can find out." + +"Then you wouldn't tell anybody here?" asked Laura uncertainly. + +"No. If I were you I shouldn't tell any one but the London police. It +may be a stupid, cruel hoax." + +Deep in her heart Katty had at once believed the awful, incredible story +contained in the letter she still held in her hand, for she, of course, +was familiar with the name of Fernando Apra, and knew that the man's +account of himself was substantially true. + +But even so, she hoped against hope that it was, as she had just said, a +stupid, cruel hoax--the work perchance of some spiteful clerk of this +Portuguese company promoter, with whose schemes both she and Godfrey had +been so taken--so, so fascinated. + +"Of course I'll go to town with you," she said rapidly. "Let's go up +_now_, and dress at once. I'll order the car." + +There was a kind of driving power in Katty. Her face was now very pale, +as if all the pretty colour was drained out of it. But she was quite +calm, quite collected. She seemed to feel none of the bewildered +oppression which Laura felt, but that, so the other reminded herself, +was natural. Katty, after all, was not Godfrey's wife, or--or was it +widow? + +The two went upstairs, and Katty came in and helped Laura to dress. "It +will only make a fuss and delay if you ring for your maid." She even +found, and insisted on Laura putting on, a big warm fur coat which she +had not yet had out this winter. + +"You'd better just tell the servants here that you think there may be a +clue. It's no good making too great a mystery. They can send on some +message of the sort to the Bank; also, if you like, to Mrs. Tropenell." + +A few moments later Laura found herself in the car, and the two were +being driven quickly to Pewsbury station. + +"Shall I wire to Oliver Tropenell that we are coming?" asked Katty +suddenly. + +And Laura answered, dully, "No. He's in York to-day. They've found out +that Godfrey went to York during that week we know he was in London. I +only heard of that this morning, or I would have told you." + +Laura will never forget that journey to London, that long, strange, +unreal journey, so filled with a sort of terror, as well as pain. +Somehow she could not bring herself to believe that Godfrey was dead. + +When they were about half-way there, Katty suddenly exclaimed, "Let me +look at that letter again!" And then, when Laura had taken it out of +her bag, she asked, "Where's the envelope? The envelope's very +important, you know!" + +Laura looked at her helplessly. "I don't know. I can't remember. I've a +sort of an idea that I threw the envelope into the fire." + +"Oh, Laura! What a very, very foolish thing to do! Don't you see there +must have been a postmark on the envelope? Can't you remember anything +about it? What was the handwriting like?" + +Again she felt she would like to shake Laura. + +"The address was typewritten--I do remember that. I thought--I don't +know what I thought--I can't remember now what I did think. It looked +like a circular, or a bill. But it was marked 'Urgent and +Confidential'--or something to that effect." + +On their arrival in London a piece of good fortune befell Laura Pavely. +Lord St. Amant had been in the same train, and when he saw her on the +platform he at once put himself at her disposal. "Scotland Yard? I'll +take you there myself. But Sir Angus Kinross would be out just now. It's +no good going there till half-past two--at the earliest. I hope you'll +both honour me by coming to luncheon in my rooms." + +Reached by an arch set between two houses in St. James's Street, and +unknown to the majority of the people who daily come and go through that +historic thoroughfare, is a tiny square--perhaps the smallest open space +in London--formed by eight to ten eighteenth-century houses. But for the +lowness of the houses, this curious little spot might be a bit of old +Paris, a backwater of the Temple quarter, beyond the Louvre and the +Hôtel de Ville, which only those tourists who have a passion either for +Madame de Sévigné or for the young Victor Hugo ever penetrate. + +It was there that Lord St. Amant, some forty years back, when he was +still quite a young man, had found a set of four panelled rooms exactly +to his liking. And through the many vicissitudes which had befallen the +funny little square, he had always contrived to preserve these rooms, +though at last, in order to do so, he had had to become the leaseholder +of the house of which they formed a part. But he kept the fact of this +ownership to himself and to his lawyers, and it was through the latter +that the other rooms--the ground floor and the top floor--were let to +various quiet, humble folk. His lawyers also, had found for him the +intelligent couple who acted as his caretakers, and who managed to make +him extremely comfortable during the comparatively short periods he +spent in London each year. + +Although his club was within a minute's walk, Lord St. Amant, very soon +after his first occupancy of these rooms, had so arranged matters that, +when he chose to order it, a cold luncheon or dinner could be sent in at +a quarter of an hour's notice. And to-day the arrangement, of which he +very rarely availed himself, stood him in good stead. + + * * * * * + +There are a certain number of people who go through life instinctively +taking every chance of advancement or of useful friendship offered to +them. Such a person was Katty Winslow. + +Even in the midst of her real sorrow and distress, she did not lose +sight of the fact that Lord St. Amant, with whom her acquaintance up to +the present had been so slight as to be negligible, might prove a very +useful friend in what now looked like her immediately dreary future. She +was well aware that he was probably, nay, almost certainly, prejudiced +against her, for she and Mrs. Tropenell had never been on cordial terms; +but she set herself, even now, with this terrible thing which she +feared, nay, felt almost sure, was true, filling up the whole background +of her mind, to destroy that prejudice. To a certain extent she +succeeded, during the few minutes, the precious ten minutes, she secured +practically alone with her host, in compassing her wish. + +Laura sat down, in the attractive, if rather dark, sitting-room into +which Lord St. Amant had shown her, and, blind to everything about her, +she was now staring into the fire, oppressed, stunned, by the terrible +thing which perchance lay before her. + +Lining the panelled walls, which were painted a deep yellow tint, hung a +series of curious old colour-prints of London, and, on the +writing-table--itself, as Katty's quick eyes had at once realised, a +singularly fine piece of eighteenth-century English lacquer--were two +portraits. The one was a miniature of a lady in the stiff yet becoming +costume of early Victorian days--probably Lord St. Amant's mother; and +the other was a spirited sketch of a girl in an old-fashioned riding +habit--certainly Mrs. Tropenell forty years ago. + +Katty had remained standing, and soon she wandered over to the open door +of the room where, with noiseless celerity, the table was being laid for +luncheon. It was from there that she almost imperceptibly beckoned to +her host. With some prejudice and a good deal of curiosity, he followed +her, and together they went over to the deep embrasured window +overlooking the tiny square. + +There, looking up earnestly into Lord St. Amant's shrewd, kindly face, +she said in a low voice: "I want to ask you, Lord St. Amant, to do me a +kindness--" she waited a moment, "a true kindness! I want you to arrange +that I go to this place, to Duke House, with whoever goes there to find +out if the news contained in that horrible letter is true!" + +And as he looked extremely surprised, she hurried on, with a little +catch in her voice, "Godfrey Pavely was my dear--my very dear, friend. +When we were quite young people, when I was living with my father in +Pewsbury----" + +"I remember your father," said Lord St. Amant, in a softened, kindly +tone, and his mind suddenly evoked the personality of the broken-down, +not very reputable gentleman to whom the surrounding gentry had taken +pains to be kind. + +"In those days," went on Katty rather breathlessly, "Godfrey and I fell +in love and became engaged. But his people were furious, and as a +result--well, he was made to go to Paris for a year, and the whole thing +came to an end. Later, after I had divorced my husband, when I was +living at Rosedean, it--it----" + +She stopped, and tears--the first tears she had shed this terrible +morning--came into her eyes. + +"I quite understand--you mean that it all began again?" + +Lord St. Amant, hardened man of the world though he was, felt moved, +really moved by those hurried, whispered confidences, and by the bright +tears which were now welling up in his guest's brown eyes. + +Katty nodded. "He was unhappy with Laura--Laura had never cared for him, +and lately she, Laura----" Again she broke off what she was saying, and +reddened deeply. + +"Yes?" said Lord St. Amant interrogatively. He felt suddenly on his +guard. Was Mrs. Winslow going to bring in Oliver Tropenell? But her next +words at once relieved and excessively surprised him. + +"You know all about the Beath affair?" + +And it was his turn to nod gravely. + +"Well, there was something of the same kind thought of--between Godfrey +and myself. If--if Laura could have been brought to consent, then I +think I may say, Lord St. Amant, that Godfrey hoped, that I hoped----" + +Once more she broke off short, only to begin again a moment later: "But +I want you to understand--please, _please_ believe me--that neither he +nor I was treacherous to Laura. You can't be treacherous to a person who +doesn't care, can you? I've only told you all this to show you that I +have a right to want to know whether Godfrey is alive or--or dead." + +And then Lord St. Amant asked a question that rather startled Katty--and +put her, in her turn, on her guard. He glanced down at the letter, that +extraordinary typewritten letter, which Laura had handed to him. + +"Have you any reason to suppose that Godfrey Pavely was really +associated in business with this mysterious man?" he asked. + +Looking down into her upturned face he saw a queer little quiver wave +across her mouth, that most revealing feature of the face. But she +eluded the question. "I did not know much of Godfrey's business +interests. He was always very secret about such things." + +"She certainly knows there is such a man as Fernando Apra!" he said to +himself, but aloud he observed kindly: "I presume Mr. Pavely wrote to +you during the early days of his stay in London?" + +Katty hesitated. "Yes," she said at last, "I did have a letter from him. +But it was only about some business he was doing for me. I was not at +Rosedean, Lord St. Amant. I was away on a visit--on two visits." + +And then Katty flushed--flushed very deeply. + +He quickly withdrew his gaze from her now downcast face, and--came to a +quite wrong conclusion. "I see," he said lightly, "you were away +yourself, and probably moving about?" + +"Yes--yes, I was," she eagerly agreed. + +She was feeling a little more comfortable now. Katty knew the great +value of truth, though she sometimes, nay generally, behaved as if truth +were of no value at all. + +In a sense Lord St. Amant had known Katty from her childhood--known her, +that is, in the way in which the great magnate of a country +neighbourhood, if a friendly, human kind of individual, knows every man, +woman and child within a certain radius of his home. He was of course +well aware of Mrs. Tropenell's prejudice against Katty, and, without +exactly sharing it, he did not look at her with the kindly, indulgent +eyes with which most members of his sex regarded the pretty, +unfortunate, innocent _divorcée_, to whom Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Pavely +had been so truly kind. + +But now, as the upshot of Katty's murmured confidences, her present host +certainly acquired a new interest in, and a new sympathy for, Mrs. +Winslow. Of course she had not deceived him as completely as she +believed herself to have done, for he felt certain that she knew more of +Godfrey Pavely's movements, during the early days of his stay in London +a fortnight ago, than she admitted. He was also quite convinced that +they had met secretly during their joint absence from home. + +But Lord St. Amant would have felt a hypocrite indeed had he on that +account thought any the worse of Katty Winslow. He told himself that +after all the poor little woman did not owe him _all_ the truth! If +Godfrey Pavely had indeed come to his death in this extraordinary, +accidental way, then Katty, whatever Mrs. Tropenell might feel, was much +to be pitied; nice women, even so broad-minded a woman as was his own, +close friend, are apt to be hard on a woman who is not perhaps +quite--nice! + +It was therefore with a good deal of curiosity that he watched his two +guests while they ate the luncheon prepared for them. + +Laura practically took nothing at all. She tried to swallow a little of +the delicious, perfectly cooked cold chicken and mousse-au-jambon, but +in the end she only managed to drink the whole of the large glass of +water her host poured out for her. Katty, on the other hand, made a good +meal, and took her full share of a half-bottle of champagne. As a result +she looked, when luncheon was over, more like her usual, pretty, alert +self than she had looked yet. Laura grew paler and paler, and at last +Lord St. Amant, with kindly authority, insisted on her taking a cup of +coffee, and a tiny liqueur glassful of brandy poured into it French +fashion. + +"I'm afraid," he said feelingly, "that you have a very painful ordeal in +front of you, my dear. You won't make it any better by going without +food." + +But she gazed at him as if she had not understood the purport of his +words. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Sir Angus Kinross, Chief Commissioner of Police, stood gazing down, with +a look of frowning perplexity, at the sheet of typewritten paper he held +in his hand. + +For what seemed a very long time to the other three people now present +in the big light room overlooking the Embankment, he remained silent. +But at last he exclaimed, "I think it very probable that this is a +hoax--a stupid, cruel hoax!" And, as no one spoke, he added slowly, +"Whether it be so or not can soon be ascertained." + +He saw a look of almost convulsive relief flash over Laura Pavely's +face. It was Laura who attracted Sir Angus in the little group of people +which now stood before him. He knew that it was this beautiful, +tragic-looking young woman who had insisted, against his strongly +expressed wish and judgment, on offering the reward which had already +brought a swarm of semi-lunatics and adventurers into the case. As for +the other woman there, he only looked upon her as a friend of Mrs. +Pavely. + +Ladies in the painful position of Mrs. Pavely generally bring a sister, +or a close female friend, with them to Scotland Yard. + +Sir Angus was keenly interested in this business of the country banker's +disappearance, more interested than he had been in any other matter of +the kind for a long time. He had all the threads of the affair very +clearly set out in his shrewd, powerful mind, and only that morning he +had learnt something which he believed none of the three people now +standing before him--Mrs. Pavely, Mrs. Winslow, and Lord St. +Amant--knew, or were likely ever to know, except, of course, if certain +eventualities made the fact important. + +Sir Angus had just learnt that Godfrey Pavely had spent some hours of a +day he had passed at York in the company of a woman, and both he and the +very able man he had put in charge of the case, had made up their minds +that here, at last, was the real clue to the banker's disappearance. +Godfrey Pavely, so they argued at "The Yard," was certainly alive, and +either on the Continent, or hidden snugly in some English or Scottish +country town--not alone. + +As so often happens, the fact that Mr. Pavely had been in York with a +lady had come to light in a very simple way. When the fact of the +well-known country banker's disappearance had been announced in the +Press, the manager of the Yorkshire branch of a London bank had written +to Scotland Yard, and stated that on a certain afternoon about a +fortnight ago--he could not remember the exact day, unfortunately--he +had seen Mr. Godfrey Pavely, of Pewsbury, in the company of a lady whom +he, the bank manager, had naturally supposed to be Mrs. Pavely. He had +looked at the banker with a good deal of interest, owing to the fact +that he and Mr. Pavely had for a while worked in the same bank in Paris +about fifteen years ago. + +He had not met the couple face to face, he had seen them pass by from +the window of his private room at the bank. He could swear to Mr. +Pavely, but he had not paid any special attention to the lady--for one +thing, she had had her veil down, and he, feeling sure that she was Mrs. +Pavely, had not troubled to observe her very particularly. + +Sir Angus had sent some one down to York to see this gentleman, but +nothing of further value had been elicited, excepting, yes, that the +lady had struck him as being young and attractive. + +So it was that the extraordinary typewritten letter received by Mrs. +Pavely that morning very much upset the calculations and the theories of +Sir Angus and of his staff. + +With frowning brow he sat down at his table and touched the electric +bell which lay concealed close to his hand. + +"Ask Mr. Dowden to come to me," and a minute later Mr. Dowden came in. + +"I want to know anything you can tell me about Duke House, if indeed +there is such a place as Duke House in Piccadilly. I can't remember the +name." + +But at once the other answered: "It's that big new building they've +erected on the site of St. Andrews House. It fell in to the Crown on the +death of the Duke of St. Andrews, and an American syndicate bought the +site. Duke House, as they call it, was only opened last October. The +lower storeys are big bachelor flats, and the top half of the building +contains offices. Mr. Biddle, the American millionaire, has taken the +first floor, but he hasn't settled in yet, and I don't think any of the +offices have been let at all. They are asking very big rents, and they +are justified, as it's one of the finest sites in the West End." + +"I want you to get through to the porter of Duke House. Find out for me +whether they have got an office let to a man--a Portuguese merchant I +take him to be, of the name of Fernando Apra." He spelt out the name. +"If you have any difficulty in getting the information, just go up there +yourself in a taxi, and find out. But I'd like you to go back into your +own rooms and try by telephone first." + +There followed a long, painful ten minutes, during which Sir Angus, +though as a rule he was a man of few words, tried to while away the time +by explaining to the three people who were there why he thought it +unlikely that the letter was genuine. + +"You'd be amazed," he said, "to know the number of letters we receive +purporting to contain important information which turn out to be false +in every particular. There must be a whole breed of individuals who +spend their time in writing annoying, futile letters, which, even if +signed, are very seldom signed by the writer's real name. Some of those +people are actuated by vulgar, stupid spite; others are hypnotised by +the thought of a reward. And then, again, such letters are often written +by people who have a grudge against the police, or, even more often, by +some one who has a grudge against some ordinary person who has, maybe, +done them a bad turn, or to whom they have done a bad turn! In the last +few days we've had innumerable letters, from all over the kingdom, +concerning Mr. Pavely's disappearance. It is just possible that this +man"--he looked down again at the sheet of typewritten paper--"has an +office in Duke House, but I think it very unlikely that Mr. Godfrey +Pavely was even acquainted with him----" + +The door opened. + +"Yes, sir, the party in question has got an office there right enough, +but he hasn't been at Duke House for some time--some three weeks, the +porter said. He took the office late in October, and for a time he was +there, on and off, a good deal. The porter don't quite know what his +business is, but as far as he knows he gives him a good character. His +office is right at the very top of the house, the only one let on that +floor." + +An unpleasant little trickle of doubt came over Sir Angus's mind. When +he had first read the typewritten letter, he had doubted very much if +there was such a building in existence as Duke House, Piccadilly. Then, +after he had heard that the place was there, after, as a matter of fact, +it had been recalled to his memory by his subordinate, he had fallen +back on the belief that there would be no person of the name of Fernando +Apra to be found in Duke House. + +He now fell back on a third position. Doubtless this extraordinary +letter had been written by some enemy of the man Apra who wished to +cause him the unpleasantness of a visit from the police. + +After a few moments' thought Sir Angus Kinross proposed something which +none of the three people there knew to be a most surprising departure +from his usual rule. + +"What would you say, Lord St. Amant, if you and I were to go up there +now, to Duke House--accompanied, of course, by two of my men? That, at +any rate, would put an end to Mrs. Pavely's suspense. If she doesn't +mind doing so, Mrs. Pavely and her friend can wait here, in my private +room." + +To Lord St. Amant the proposal seemed a most natural one. "I think +that's a very good idea!" he exclaimed, and then he saw Katty's eyes +fixed imploringly on his face. + +Why, of course----! + +He beckoned to Sir Angus, and the two men walked over to the big window +overlooking the Embankment. "If it would not be greatly out of order," +he muttered, "I think it might be a good thing if Mrs. Winslow--that is +Mrs. Pavely's friend--were to go with us to Duke House. She might be +useful--she has known Mr. Godfrey Pavely all her life." + +Sir Angus looked very much surprised. "Of course she could come," he +said hesitatingly. "Mrs. Winslow? I didn't realise that this lady is +Mrs. Winslow. Didn't I see a letter written to her by Mr. Godfrey +Pavely? She has some odd Christian name--if it's the person I have in my +mind." + +"Her Christian name is Katty," said Lord St. Amant quickly. + +"Yes, that was it--'My dear Katty.' I remember now. It was a letter +about an investment, written on the 30th of December, if I'm not +mistaken. Certainly she can come with us. I have my car downstairs--she +could drive in my car, and wait in it while we make the investigation." + +The two came back to where the ladies were sitting, silently waiting. + +"I have suggested to Sir Angus that it might be useful if Mrs. Winslow +came with us--and you too, my dear Laura, if you desire to do so, of +course." + +But Laura shook her head, and an expression of horror came into her +face. "Oh no," she exclaimed. "I would much rather stay here!" + +Katty had already got up, and was drawing on the gloves she had taken +off. She felt strung up, fearfully excited--and very, very grateful to +Lord St. Amant. + +She was quite unaware that for the first time the Commissioner of Police +was looking at her with attention. + + * * * * * + +There were two entrances to Duke House, the one giving access to the +four spacious flats, of which so far only one had been let, while the +other simply consisted of a porter's lodge and a lift shooting straight +up to the offices which were above the flats. + +And now, within ten minutes of their leaving Scotland Yard, they were +all standing just within the second door, filling up the small space in +front of the lift, for Mrs. Winslow at the last moment had begged to be +allowed to get out of the car. "I don't feel as if I _could_ sit +there--waiting," she had exclaimed, and after a moment's hesitation Sir +Angus allowed the plea. + +Lord St. Amant noticed with interest that the Police Commissioner took +no part in the preliminary proceedings. He left everything to the elder +of the two men he had brought with him. Still, he lent a very attentive +ear to what his subordinate was saying to the porter, and to the +porter's answers. + +"I expect that it was you who answered the telephone message I sent half +an hour ago, eh?" + +"Yes, of course I did--you mean about Mr. Apra here? Well, I told you +then everything there is to say about him. He's a foreigner, of +course--but a very pleasant-mannered gentleman. He took an office on the +second day we was open. For a while he was here a good bit most days, +and quite a number of people came to see him on business. Then he went +abroad, I fancy I heard him say, and his office was shut up. He wouldn't +let any one go in, not even to clean it, unless he was there. He +explained as how his business was very secret--something to do with a +Concession. He was nervous lest other folk should get hold of the idea." + +"When was he here last?" + +"Well, it's difficult for me to remember such a thing as that--I can't +be sure that I could say he was here within the last fortnight, or +perhaps ten days ago. Two or three people have called to see him. One +gentleman came by appointment--I do remember that, because he'd been +several times, and mostly this Mr. Apra was in to see him. But I don't +see what call you have to ask me all these questions?" + +The Scotland Yard man bent forward and said something in a low voice, +and the porter exclaimed, with an air of astonishment, "What? You don't +mean to say the gentleman's 'wanted'?" + +Then the detective said something else in a joking way, and the porter +shook his head. "I haven't got a key! He had another lock put on. Lots +of business gentlemen do that." And then he asked anxiously, "D'you see +any objection to my telephoning to Messrs. Drew & Co.--they're the +agents, you know? 'Twould make me more comfortable in my own mind, +because then I shouldn't get blamed--whatever happened. They'd send +some one along in about five minutes--they've got a West End office." + +The Scotland Yard official looked round for instructions from Sir Angus, +and the latter imperceptibly nodded. + +"All right--we'll wait five minutes. I've brought some tools along." + +"Tools?" The porter stared at him. + +"Sometimes, you know, we do find it necessary to burst open a door!" + +The five minutes--it was barely more--seemed the longest time Katty had +ever spent in waiting. + +Lord St. Amant took pity on her obvious unease and anxiety. He walked +out with her to the street, and they paced quickly up and down in the +cold, wintry air. + +"Do you think we shall find anything?" she murmured at last. + +He answered gravely, "I confess that the whole thing looks very queer to +me. I haven't lived to my time of life without becoming aware that +amazing, astounding things _do_ happen. Perhaps I am over-influenced by +the fact that years and years ago, when I was a boy, a school-fellow of +mine, of whom I was very fond, did shoot himself accidentally with a +pistol. He was staying with us, and he had gone on in front of me into +the gun-room--and I--I went in and found him lying on the ground--dead." + +"How horrible!" murmured Katty. "How very horrible!" and her face +blanched. + +As they turned yet once more, a taxi drove quickly up to the door of +Duke Mansion, and a young, clean-shaven man jumped out. + +Instinctively he addressed himself to Sir Angus Kinross: "About this +tenant of ours--Mr. Fernando Apra? To the best of my belief he is a +perfectly respectable man. He gave a very good reference, that of a big +Paris banker, and with us, at any rate, he was quite frank about his +business. He has obtained a gambling concession from this new Portuguese +Government, and he came to London to try and raise money for the +building of a Casino, and so on. He's an optimistic chap, and his notion +is to create a kind of Portuguese Monte Carlo. He told us quite frankly +that he didn't intend to keep the office going here for more than six +months, or possibly a year, and we arranged that he should be able to +surrender his three years' lease--we don't let these rooms under a three +years' agreement--on the payment of a rather substantial fine. I think +the porter is sure to have a key which will admit you into his room--I +understand you want to get into his office?" + +And then, at last, Sir Angus answered, rather drily, "The porter cannot +admit us to the office, for this Mr. Fernando Apra has had a second lock +fitted. It seems he never allowed any one access to the room--unless he +happened to be there himself." + +"Well, he had plans there--plans of this Concession, and he was very +secretive, as are so many foreigners. Still, he impressed both me and my +father more favourably than do most foreigners we come across. As a +matter of fact, we twice lunched with him at the Berkeley. He is a man +with a tremendous flow of good spirits--speaking English very well, +though of course with a foreign accent. Has he got into any trouble?" he +looked curiously at the gentleman standing before him. He was not aware +of Sir Angus Kinross's identity, but he knew that he was from Scotland +Yard. + +"We shall know more about that when we have forced open the door of his +office. I presume you would like to be present?" + +And the young man nodded. A grave, uneasy expression came over his face; +he wondered if he had said too much of his pleasant client, and that +client's private affairs." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +They went up the lift in two parties: Sir Angus Kinross, the house +agent, and the two men from Scotland Yard; then Lord St. Amant and Katty +Winslow alone. + +As they were going up, he said kindly, "Are you sure you are wise in +doing this? I fear--I fear the worst, Mrs. Winslow!" + +With dry lips she muttered, "Yes, so do I. But I would rather come all +the same. I'll wait outside the door." + +Poor Katty! She was telling herself that it was surely +impossible--_impossible_ that Godfrey Pavely should be dead. + +Though his vitality had always been low, he had been intensely +individual. His self-importance, his egoism, his lack of interest in +anything but himself, Katty, and the little world where he played so +important a part--all that had made him a forceful personality, +especially to this woman who had possessed whatever he had had of heart +and passionate feeling. She had felt of late as if he were indeed part +of the warp and woof of her life, and deep in her scheming mind had +grown a kind of superstitious belief that sooner or later their lives +would become one. + +The thought that he might be lying dead in this great new building +filled her with a sort of sick horror. There seemed something at once so +futile and so hideously cruel about so stupid an accident as that +described in the Portuguese financier's letter. + +They stepped out on to a top landing, from which branched off several +narrow corridors. The agent led the way down one of these. "Room No. 18? +This must be it--this _is_ it! Look, there are the two keyholes!" + +The younger and the brawnier of the two plainclothes detectives came +forward. "If you'll just stand aside, gentlemen, for a minute or two, +we'll soon get this door open. It's quite an easy matter." + +He opened his unobtrusive-looking, comparatively small bag. There was a +sound of wrenching wood and metal, and then the door swung backwards +into the room together with a thick green velvet curtain fixed along the +top of the door on a hinged rod. + +A flood of wintry sunshine, thrown by the blinking now setting sun of a +London January afternoon, streamed into the dark passage, and Sir Angus +Kinross strode forward into the room, Lord St. Amant immediately behind +him. + +Katty shrank back and then placed herself by the wall of the passage. +She put her hand over her eyes, as if to shut out a dreadful sight, yet +all there was to see was an open door through which came a shaft of +pallid wintry afternoon light. + +For a space of perhaps thirty seconds, Sir Angus's trained eyes and mind +took in what he supposed to be every detail of the oblong room +overlooking the now bare tree tops of the Green Park. He noted that the +office furniture was extremely good--first-rate of its kind. Also that +the most prominent thing in the room was an American roll-top desk of an +exceptionally large size. + +Placed at right angles right across the office, this desk concealed +nearly half the room. + +In the corner behind the door was a coat stand, on which there hung a +heavy, fur-lined coat, and a silk hat. On the floor was a thick carpet. +The only unbroken space of wall was covered by a huge diagram map of +what looked like a piece of sea shore. + +One peculiar fact also attracted the attention of the Commissioner of +Police. Both the windows overlooking the Park were wide open, fixed +securely back as far as they would go: and on the window seats, +comfortably, nay luxuriously, padded, and upholstered in green velvet, +there now lay a thick layer of grime, the effect of the fog and rain of +the last fortnight. As they stood within the door, in spite of those +widely opened windows, there gradually stole on the senses of the four +men there, a very curious odour, an odour which struck each of them as +horribly significant. + +Yet another thing Sir Angus noted in that quick, initial glance; this +was that the blind of the narrow window which gave on to the street side +of Duke House was drawn down, casting one half of the room in deep +shadow. + +He turned, and addressing Lord St. Amant in a very low voice, almost in +a whisper, he said: "I think we shall find what we have come to seek +over there, behind that desk." + +Walking forward, he edged round by the side of the big piece of walnut +wood furniture. + +Then he started back, and exclaimed under his breath, "Good God! How +horrible!" + +He had thought to see a body lying at full length on the carpet, but +what he did see, sitting upright at the desk, was a stark, immobile +figure, of which the head, partly blown away, was sunk forward on the +breast.... + +Great care had been taken to wedge the dead man securely back in the +arm-chair, and a cursory glance, in the dim light in which that part of +the room was cast, would have given an impression of sleep, not of +death. + +He beckoned to Lord St. Amant. "Come over here," he whispered, "you +needn't go any nearer. Do you recognise that as being the body of +Godfrey Pavely?" + +And Lord St. Amant, hastening forward, stared with a mixture of +curiosity and horror at the still figure, and answered, "Yes. I--I think +there's no doubt about it's being Pavely." + +"Perhaps you'd better go and tell Mrs. Winslow. Get her away as quick as +you can. I must telephone at once for one of our doctors." + +Lord St. Amant turned without a word, and made his way through the still +open door into the queer, rather dark passage. + +Katty's face was still full of the strain and anguish of suspense, but +she knew the truth by now. Had nothing been found, some one would have +come rushing out at once to tell her so. Three or four minutes had +elapsed since she had heard the sudden hush, the ominous silence, which +had fallen over them all, in there. + +Her lips formed the words: "Then--they've found him?" + +And Lord St. Amant nodded gravely. "It looks as if that Portuguese chap +had told the simple truth." + +"The moment that I read the letter this morning I _knew_ that it was +true," she muttered. Then, "I suppose I'd better go away now? They don't +want me here." + +She began walking towards the lift, and Lord St. Amant, following, felt +very sorry for her. "Look here," he said earnestly, "I'm sure you don't +wish to go straight back to poor Laura Pavely? Why should you? 'Twould +only rack you. I suppose----" He stopped a moment, and she looked up at +him questioningly. + +"Yes, Lord St. Amant--what is it you suppose?" + +Katty spoke in a cold, hard voice--all her small affectations had fallen +away from her. + +"I suppose," he said, "that Laura knew very little of your friendship +with poor Godfrey Pavely?" + +And she answered, again in that hard, cold voice, "Yes, Laura did know, +I think, almost everything there was to know. She didn't care--she +didn't mind. Laura has no feeling." + +As he made no reply to that, she went on, rather breathlessly, and with +sudden passion, "You think that I'm unfair--you think that Laura really +cares because she looked so shocked and miserable this morning? But +that's just what she was--_shocked_, nothing else. What is a piece of +terrible, _terrible_ bad luck for me, is good--very good luck for +Laura!" + +There was such concentrated bitterness in her tone that Lord St. Amant +felt repelled--repelled as well as sorry. + +But all he said was: "Would you like to go back to my rooms for an hour +or two? They're quite near here." + +"No, I'd rather face Laura now, at once. After all, I shall have to see +her some time. I'm bound to be her nearest neighbour for a while, at any +rate." + + * * * * * + +Late that same night the awful news was broken to Mrs. Tropenell by her +son. He had sent a message saying he would be down by the last train, +and she had sat up for him, knowing nothing, yet aware that something +had happened that morning which had sent Laura and Katty hurrying up to +town. + +Perhaps because the news he told was so unexpected, so strange, and to +them both of such vital moment, the few minutes which followed Oliver's +return remained stamped, as if branded with white hot iron, on the +tablets of Mrs. Tropenell's memory. + +When she heard his firm, hurried footsteps outside, she ran to let him +in, and at once, as he came into the house, he said in a harsh, cold +voice: "Godfrey Pavely is dead, mother. A foreigner with whom he had +entered into business relations shot him by accident. The man wrote to +Laura a confession of what he had done. She got the letter this morning, +took it up to London to the police--the best thing she could do--and +Pavely's body was found at the place indicated, a business office." + +As Oliver spoke, in quick, jerky sentences, he was taking off his +greatcoat, and hanging up his hat. + +She waited till he had done, and then only said: "I've got a little +supper ready for you, darling. I sent the servants off to bed, so I'm +alone downstairs." + +Oliver sighed, a long, tired sigh of relief--relief that his mother had +asked no tiresome, supplementary questions. And she saw the look of +strain, and of desperate fatigue, smooth itself away, as he followed +her into their peaceful dining-room. + +She sat with him, and so far commanded her nerves as to remain silent +while he ate with a kind of hungry eagerness which astonished her. + +He turned to her at last, and for the first time smiled a rather wry +smile. "I was very hungry! This is my first meal to-day, and I seem to +have lived in the train. I was up at York--we thought there was a clue +there. I think I told you that over the telephone? Then I came back." + +She broke in gently, "To be met with this awful news, Oliver?" + +He looked at her rather strangely, and nodded. + +"Have you seen Laura?" she ventured. + +"Yes, just for a moment. But, mother? She's horribly unhappy. I--I +expected her to be glad." + +"Oliver!" + +There was a tone of horror, more, of reprobation, in Mrs. Tropenell's +low voice. + +Oliver Tropenell was staring straight before him. "Surely one would have +expected her to be glad that the suspense was over? And now I ask +myself----" and indeed he looked as if he was speaking to himself and +not to her--"if it would have been better for Laura if that--that fellow +had been left to rot there till he had been discovered, two months, +three months, perchance four months hence." + +"My dear," she said painfully, "what do you mean exactly? I don't +understand." + +"Pavely's body was found in an empty office, and if the man who shot him +hadn't written to Laura--well, of course the body would have remained +there till it had occurred to some one to force open the door of the +room, and that might not have happened for months." + +"I'm very glad that Laura was told now," said Mrs. Tropenell firmly. +"The suspense was telling on her far more than I should have expected it +to do. Katty, too, became a very difficult element in the situation. I +don't think there's much doubt that poor Katty was very fond of +Godfrey." + +He muttered: "Mean little loves, mean little lives, mean little +souls--they were well matched!" + +Then he got up. + +"Well, mother, I must be off to bed now, as I have to get up early and +go into Pewsbury. Laura, who's staying on in town, asked me to come down +and tell those whom it concerned, the truth. She wants you to tell +Alice. I said I thought you'd have the child here for a while." + +"Certainly I will. She's been here all to-day, poor little girl." + +"Do you really think she's to be pitied, mother?" + +She hesitated, but his stern face compelled an answer. + +"I don't think that Godfrey would have got on with Alice later on--when +she grew to woman's estate. But now, yes, I do think the child's to be +deeply pitied. It will be a painful, a terrible memory--that her father +died like that." + +"I can't see it! A quiet, merciful death, mother--one that many a man +might envy." He waited a few moments, then went on: "Of course there +will be an inquest, and I fear Laura will almost certainly have to give +evidence, in order to prove the receipt of that--that peculiar letter." + +"Have you got a copy of the letter?" asked Mrs. Tropenell rather +eagerly. + +Her son shook his head. "No, the police took possession of it. But I've +seen it of course." + +They were both standing up now. He went to the door, and held it open +for her. And then, with his eyes bent on her face, he asked her a +question which perhaps was not as strange as it sounded, between those +two who were so much to one another, and who thought they understood +each other so well. + +"Mother," he said slowly, "I want to ask you a question.... How long in +England does an unloving widow mourn?" + +"A decent woman, under normal conditions, mourns at least a year," she +answered, and a little colour came into her face. Then, out of her great +love for him, she forced herself to add, "But that does not bar out a +measure of friendship, Oliver. Give Laura time to become accustomed to +the new conditions of her life." + +"How long, mother?" + +"Give her till next Christmas, my dear." + +"I will." + +He put his arms round her. "Mother!" he exclaimed, "I love you the +better for my loving Laura. Do you realise that?" + +"I will believe it if you tell me so, Oliver." + +He strode off, hastened up the staircase without looking round again, +and she, waiting below, covered her face with her hands. A terrible +sense of loneliness swept over and engulfed her; for the first time +there was added a pang of regret that she had not joined her life to +that of the affectionate hedonist who had been her true, devoted friend +for so long. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +And so, in this at once amazing and simple way was solved the mystery of +Godfrey Pavely's disappearance. + +Inquiries made by the police soon elicited the fact that the Portuguese +financier had told the truth as regarded his business in England, for a +considerable number of persons voluntarily came forward to confirm the +account the man had given of himself in his strange letter. + +During his sojourn at the Mayfair Hotel, the now mysterious Fernando +Apra had impressed those who came in contact with him pleasantly rather +than otherwise. It was also remembered there that one morning, about +three weeks ago, he had come in looking agitated and distressed, and +that he had confided to the manager of the hotel that an accident of a +very extraordinary nature had occurred to him. But there his confidences +had stopped--he had not said what it was that had happened to him. A day +or two later, he had gone away, explaining that his business in England +was concluded. + +Laura stayed up in town till the inquest, and so, rather to Laura's +surprise, did Katty Winslow. + +As is always the case when there is anything of the nature of a mystery, +the inquest was largely attended by the ordinary public. But no +sensational evidence was tendered, though person after person went into +the witness-box to prove that they had come in contact with Fernando +Apra, and that under a seal of secrecy he had informed them of his +gambling concession and of the scheme for developing what he believed +would be a hugely profitable undertaking. In fact, he had spoken to more +than one man of business of a possible two hundred per cent. profit. + +It also became clear, for the first time, why Mr. Pavely had gone to +York. A gentleman who bore the aristocratic name of Greville Howard, and +who was in too poor a state of health to come up to the inquest, +volunteered the information that Fernando Apra had come to see him, +Greville Howard, with an introduction from Mr. Godfrey Pavely. Further, +that he, Mr. Howard, having gone into the matter of the proposed +gambling concession, had suggested that the three should meet and have a +chat over the business. As a result, a rather odd thing had happened. +Mr. Apra did not accept the invitation, but Mr. Pavely, whom he had +known for some years, had come to see him, and they had discussed the +project. Then he, Greville Howard, had heard nothing more till he had +seen in a daily paper a casual allusion to the fact of Mr. Godfrey +Pavely's disappearance! + +But, though so much was cleared up, two rather important questions +remained unanswered. There was no proof, through any of the shipping +companies, that Fernando Apra had left England under his own name. Also, +while there were apparently several men of that same rather common name +in Lisbon, the Portuguese police seemed unable to give any clue as to +this particular man's identity. But a plausible explanation of this was +to be found in the fact that Portugal had lately changed her form of +government. + +Though the mystery was now in no sense any longer a mystery, a rather +peculiar verdict was returned. The foreman of the jury, a tiresome, +self-opinionated man, declared that he and his fellow jurymen were not +really satisfied as to how Godfrey Pavely had come by his death, and +they added a strong rider to their verdict, expressing an earnest hope +that every effort would be made to find Fernando Apra. + +The inquest lasted two days, and as Laura insisted on being present the +whole time, the ordeal for her was severe. She was, however, supported +by the companionship and presence of Mrs. Tropenell, who had come up on +purpose to be with her. + + * * * * * + +After having put Mrs. Tropenell and Laura in a carriage, Lord St. Amant +and Sir Angus Kinross walked away from the building where the inquest +had been held. For a while neither man said anything. + +Then, suddenly, Lord St. Amant exclaimed: "I don't know what _you_ think +about it, but in spite of all we have heard, I can't help having a +suspicion that that man Fernando Apra's story is a bit too thin. I take +it that he and Pavely may have had a quarrel--it's even possible that +this Portuguese fellow may have wanted to get Pavely out of this +exceedingly profitable business. But no man, least of all a man +accustomed to carrying firearms, would play about with a pistol quite +close to the back of another man's head!" + +"I've known stranger things than that happen," said Sir Angus slowly. +"But in any case this Portuguese fellow is an uncommonly clever chap. +He's clean covered up his tracks." + +He hesitated a moment--and then added "I can tell you one queer thing, +St. Amant. This man Pavely's pockets were very thoroughly gone through +by whoever shot him. One side of his coat had the lining ripped open." + +"Yet quite a good bit of money was found on him," observed Lord St. +Amant. + +"Whoever went through his pockets wasn't looking for money." Sir Angus +spoke significantly. + +He went on: "Though it was implied to-day that no papers or letters were +discovered on the body, there was, as a matter of fact, an envelope +found in an inner pocket. It was one of those inner pockets which some +men have put into the inner lining of a waistcoat, the kind of pocket +which is practically impossible to find--especially if you're in a +hurry, and don't suspect its existence." + +Lord St. Amant's curiosity was sharply aroused. He ventured a question: +"And the contents of the envelope?" + +"Well, between ourselves, the contents of the envelope astonished me +very much. The envelope, stamped with the name of Pavely's Bank, +contained two rather scurrilous anonymous letters. To me, the curious +thing consisted in the fact that Pavely had thought it worth while to +keep them. I should have destroyed them at once in his place." + +"Do they throw any light on the mystery?" + +"No, of course not, or they would have been produced in evidence to-day. +But still, one never can tell. Of course we are keeping them." He added +significantly, "They were not letters I should have cared to hand back +to Mr. Pavely's widow." + +And then the Commissioner of Police added something which very much +surprised his companion: "By the way, talking of Mr. Pavely's widow, I +do earnestly beg you to try and dissuade Mrs. Pavely from continuing +that thousand pounds reward." + +"Surely the reward has lapsed now? The only person entitled to it would +be this man, Fernando Apra himself." + +"Ah, but Mrs. Pavely--or so Mr. Tropenell tells me--is quite determined +to keep the offer of the reward open. Whereas before the discovery of +Mr. Pavely's body the reward was offered for any information leading to +his discovery dead or alive, that same sum is now to be offered to any +one who can bring us into communication with this Portuguese fellow +himself. I'm bound to say that Mr. Tropenell saw at once all the +inconvenience of such a course, and he has done his best to dissuade +Mrs. Pavely. But she's quite set on it! I fancy she's been persuaded to +go on with it by Mrs. Winslow." + +"Ah!" said Lord St. Amant. "I can't say that that surprises me. Mrs. +Winslow----" + +Then he stopped short, and the other looked quickly round at him, and +exclaimed: "I wish you'd tell me a little more than I've been able to +find out about this Mrs. Winslow. What exactly was her position in the +Pavely _ménage_?" + +Lord St. Amant hesitated. He felt bound to stand up for poor Katty. So, +"Only that she and poor Godfrey Pavely were very old friends--friends +from childhood," he answered slowly. "And since the time she divorced +her husband Mrs. Winslow has lived close to The Chase--in fact, she was +their tenant." + +"Then Mrs. Winslow was Pavely's rather than Mrs. Pavely's friend?" + +"Yes--if you care to put it that way." + +"I've very little doubt--in fact I feel quite sure, St. Amant, that Mrs. +Winslow knows a great deal more about the whole affair than she has +chosen to reveal. When she and I talked the whole thing over, I brought +her to admit that she _had_ heard something of this secret business +arrangement between Pavely and Fernando Apra. But if she was speaking +the truth--and I think she was--there was a reason for her having been +told. She was herself investing a small sum in the concern." + +"The devil she was!" Lord St. Amant was very much surprised. + +"Yes, and on Pavely's advice, of course. I take it that he was on more +confidential terms with this lady than he was with his own wife?" + +The other nodded, reluctantly. "Well, you must know by this time almost +as well as I did that the Pavelys were not on very--well, happy terms, +together!" + +Sir Angus went on: "D'you remember something I told you concerning Mr. +Pavely's day at York? Even before we knew all you have heard to-day, we +felt quite convinced that he'd gone down there to see the old rascal who +calls himself Greville Howard. But some further information about that +journey to York is in our possession." + +Lord St. Amant again nodded. There came a rather uneasy look over his +face. He thought he knew the nature of the further confidence which was +about to be made to him. He had never had any doubt in his own mind +that Godfrey Pavely had not gone alone to Yorkshire. + +"We feel quite certain that Mrs. Winslow was with Pavely in York. He was +seen there, in the company of a lady, by a business acquaintance. We've +ascertained that Mrs. Winslow went, on that same day, to stay with some +rather well-known people in the neighbourhood. Mind you, I'm not for a +moment suggesting that there was anything wrong." + +"I wonder," said Lord St. Amant suddenly, "why Mrs. Winslow still +desires the reward to be offered." + +"I think I can tell you why." + +The Commissioner of Police looked straight into the other man's eyes. +"Mrs. Winslow wishes this reward to be offered because she has vague +hopes of earning it herself." + +Lord St. Amant uttered an exclamation of extreme astonishment. + +The other smiled. "Yes--queer, isn't it? But, mind you, that's by no +means an uncommon trait in the type of woman to which Mrs. Winslow +belongs. Their motives are almost always mixed. They're subtle little +devils for the most part, St. Amant. Mrs. Winslow was quite sufficiently +fond of this unfortunate man to wish to avenge his death, and she also +would be very glad suddenly to receive an addition to her fortune--which +is, I understand, very small--of even a thousand pounds." + +He added, in a graver tone: "It seems to me that the one chance we have +of influencing Mrs. Pavely is through you. And then again, the mere fact +that you are one of her trustees may make a difference. Would you not +have it in your power to _prevent_ her continuing this reward?" + +Lord St. Amant shook his head very decidedly. "No, I should not feel +justified in doing that, even if I had the power. As a matter of fact, +she has a certain amount of money at her own absolute disposal. I may +tell you that I did my best to dissuade her from offering the reward +when she first made up her mind to do so--you will remember when I +mean?" + + * * * * * + +As Lord St. Amant made his way back to his own rooms, the rooms where he +knew Mrs. Tropenell and Laura Pavely were now waiting for him, his mind +was in a whirl of surprise and conjecture. + +Katty Winslow acting the part of amateur detective? What an +extraordinary notion! Somehow it was one which would never have crossed +his mind. That, no doubt, was the real reason why she had been so +determined to attend the inquest. But she had not sat with Mrs. Pavely, +Mrs. Tropenell, and himself. She had chosen a place in a kind of little +gallery behind the jurymen, and by her side, through the whole +proceedings, had sat, with his arms folded, Oliver Tropenell. + +Tropenell, since the discovery of Godfrey Pavely's body, had kept +himself very much apart from the others. He had gone down to Pewsbury, +and had broken the sad news to Mr. Privet--this by Laura's direct +request and desire. But he had not shown even the discreet interest Lord +St. Amant would have expected him to show in the newly-made widow and +her affairs, and there was something enigmatic and reserved in his +attitude. + +One thing he had done. He had made a great effort to prevent Laura +Pavely's being put into the witness-box. He had discovered that she +shrank with a kind of agonised horror from the ordeal, and he had begged +Lord St. Amant to join him in trying to spare her. But of course their +efforts had been of no avail. Laura, in one sense, was the principal +witness. But for her receipt of the letter, the body of her husband +might not have been discovered for weeks, maybe for months. Fernando +Apra would only have had to send a further instalment of rent, with the +proviso that his room should not be entered till he returned, for the +mystery to remain a mystery for at any rate a long time. + +The funeral of Godfrey Pavely was to take place the next day in the old +Parish Church of Pewsbury, where the Pavely family had a vault. The +arrangements had all been left to Mr. Privet, and the only time Lord St. +Amant had seen Oliver Tropenell smile since the awful discovery had been +made, had been in this connection. + +"I'm very glad we thought of it," he said, "I mean that Mrs. Pavely and +myself thought of it. Poor old Privet! He was one of the very few people +in the world who was ever really attached to Godfrey Pavely. And the +fact that all the arrangements have been left to him is a great +consolation, not to say pleasure, to the poor old fellow." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +It was the day of Godfrey Pavely's funeral, and more than one present at +the great gathering observed, either to themselves or aloud to some +trusted crony or acquaintance, that the banker would certainly have been +much gratified had he seen the high esteem in which he was held by both +the gentle and simple of the surrounding neighbourhood. + +Even Lord St. Amant was a good deal impressed by the scene. Every blind +in the High Street was down--a striking mark of respect indeed towards +both the dead banker and his widow. Apart from that fact, the town +looked as if it was in the enjoyment of a public holiday, but even that +was in its way a tribute. The streets were full of people, and round the +entrance to the churchyard was a huge crowd. As for the churchyard +itself, it was overflowing, and presented a remarkable rather than a +touching scene. Only a few of the town-folk were still allowed to be +buried in the mediæval churchyard which lay just off the High Street, so +a funeral actually taking place there was a very rare event. + +The circumstances of Mr. Pavely's death had been so strange that the +local paper had printed a verbatim report of the inquest, as well as a +very flowery account of the departed, who had been, it was explained, so +true and so loyal a townsman of Pewsbury. Yet, even so, there were those +present at his funeral who muttered that Mr. Pavely had met his death +just as might have been expected, through his love of money. It was +also whispered that the job in which this queer foreigner had been +associated with the banker had not been of the most reputable kind. This +Fernando Apra--every one knew his queer name because of the big +reward--had wanted to raise money for a kind of glorified gambling hell; +that was the long and the short of it, after all, so much the shrewder +folk of Pewsbury had already found out, reading between the lines of the +evidence offered at the inquest. + +In an official sense the chief mourners were two distant cousins of +Godfrey Pavely--men with whom he had quarrelled years ago--but in a +real, intimate sense, the principal mourners were old Mr. Privet, Lord +St. Amant, who, though he was so fond of travel, never neglected the +duties entailed by his position in the county, and last but by no means +least Mr. Oliver Tropenell, who, as every one present was well aware, +had during the last few months become the one intimate friend of the +dead man. Among the women there were several who knew that at this very +moment Mrs. Pavely was being comforted by Mr. Oliver Tropenell's mother, +a lady who stood high in public esteem, and with whom Mrs. Pavely as a +girl, had spent much of her youth, and from whose house, picturesque +Freshley Manor, she had been married to the man whom they were now +engaged in burying. + +Another person present who aroused even more interest among the good +folk of Pewsbury than either Lord St. Amant or Oliver Tropenell, was +Mrs. Winslow. + +The older townspeople looked at Katty with a good deal of rather excited +sympathy, for they remembered the gossip and talk there had been about +pretty Katty Fenton and the dead man, and of how unkind old Mrs. Pavely, +now dead many a year, had shown herself to the lovely, motherless girl. + +There were even some there who whispered that poor Godfrey Pavely had +again become very fond of his first love--and that, too, when they were +both old enough to know better! But these busybodies were not encouraged +to say the little they knew. These are things--natural human +failings--which should be forgotten at a man's funeral. + +Mrs. Winslow did not look unreasonably upset. There were no tears in her +bright brown eyes, and her black frock, sable plumed hat, and beautiful +black furs, intensified the brilliant pink and white of her complexion. +Indeed, many of the people who gazed at Katty that day thought they had +never seen her looking so attractive. The world belongs to the +living--not to the dead, and poor Godfrey Pavely, with his big, +prosperous one-man business, and his almost uncanny cleverness in the +matter of making money, belonged henceforth very decidedly to the past. +So it was that among the men and women who stared with eager curiosity +and respectful interest at the group of mourners, several noticed that +Mr. Oliver Tropenell seemed to pay special attention to Mrs. Winslow. + +Once he crossed over, and stood close to her for a minute or two by the +still open grave, and his dark handsome face showed far more trace of +emotion than did hers. + +After the funeral, Lord St. Amant dropped Mrs. Winslow at the gate of +Rosedean, and, on parting with Katty, he patted her hand kindly, telling +himself that she was certainly a very pretty woman. Lord St. Amant, +like most connoisseurs in feminine beauty, preferred seeing a pretty +woman in black. + +"You must try and forget poor Godfrey Pavely," he said feelingly. + +He was startled and moved by the intensity with which she answered +him:--"I wish I could--but I can't. I feel all the time as if he was +there, close to me, trying to tell me something! I believe that he was +murdered, Lord St. Amant." + +"I'm sure you're mistaken. You must never think that!" + +"Ah, but I do think so. I'm certain of it!" + + * * * * * + +Following the old custom, Godfrey Pavely's will was to be read after his +burial, and Laura had written to Lord St. Amant asking him if he would +be present. + +In the great dining-room of The Chase, a dining-room still lined with +the portraits of Mrs. Tropenell's ancestors, were two tables, one large +long table which was never used, and a round table in the bow-window. +To-day it was about the big table that there were gathered the five men +and the one woman who were to be present at the reading of the will. +Laura was the one woman. The men were Godfrey Pavely's lawyer, the dead +man's two cousins--who had perhaps a faint hope of legacies, a hope +destined to be disappointed, Oliver Tropenell, present as Laura Pavely's +trustee, and Lord St. Amant, who had been a trustee to her marriage +settlement. + +Laura, in her deep black, looked wan, sad and tired, but perfectly calm. +All the men there, with one exception, glanced towards her now and +again with sympathy. The exception was Oliver Tropenell. He had shut her +out, as far as was possible, from his mind, and he seemed hardly aware +of her presence. He stared straight before him, a look of rather +impatient endurance on his face--not at all, so argued Lord St. Amant to +himself, the look of a man from whose path a hitherto impassable +obstacle has just been removed. + +Though rather ashamed of letting his mind dwell on such thoughts at such +a time, Lord St. Amant told himself that Mrs. Tropenell had doubtless +been mistaken as to what she had confided to him on his return from +abroad. Mothers are apt to be jealous where only sons are concerned, and +Letty--his dear, ardent-natured friend Letty--had always been romantic. + +Lord St. Amant was confirmed in this view by the fact that that very +morning Mrs. Tropenell had told him that Oliver was going back to Mexico +almost at once. To her mind it confirmed what she believed to be true. +But her old friend and some-time lover had smiled oddly. Lord St. Amant +judged Oliver by himself--and he had always been a man of hot-foot +decisions. It was inconceivable to him that any lover could act in so +cold-blooded, careful a fashion as this. No, no--if Oliver cared for +Laura as his mother believed he cared, he would not now go off to the +other end of the world, simply to placate public opinion. + +To those who had known the man, Godfrey Pavely's will contained only one +surprise, otherwise it ran on the most conventional lines. Practically +the whole of his very considerable fortune was left, subject to Laura's +life interest--an interest which lapsed on re-marriage--in trust for his +only child. + +The surprise was the banker's substantial legacy to Mrs. Winslow. That +lady was left Rosedean, the only condition attaching to the legacy being +that, should she ever wish to sell the little property, the first offer +must be made to Alice Pavely's trustees. Also, rather to the +astonishment of some of those present, it was found that the will had +only been made some two months ago, and the lawyer who read it out was +aware that in some important particulars it had been modified and +changed. In the will made by Godfrey Pavely immediately after his +marriage he had left his wife sole legatee. After Alice was born the +banker had naturally added a codicil, but he had still left Laura in a +far greater position of responsibility in regard to the estate than in +this, his final will. + +After the will had been read, Lord St. Amant spent a few moments alone +with Laura. He felt he had a rather disagreeable task before him, and he +did not like disagreeable tasks. Still he faced this one with +characteristic courage. + +"I've been asked by Sir Angus Kinross to undertake a rather unpleasant +duty, my dear Laura--that of persuading you to withdraw the reward you +are offering for the discovery of Fernando Apra. He points out that if +Apra's story is true, it might easily mean that you would simply be +giving a present of a thousand pounds to the person who killed your +husband." + +Laura heard him out without interruption. Then she shook her head. "I +feel it is my duty to do it," she said in a low voice. "Katty, who was +Godfrey's greatest friend, says he would have wished it--and I think +she's right. It isn't going to be paid out of the estate, you know. _I_ +will pay it--if ever it is earned." + +She went on painfully. "I am very unhappy, Lord St. Amant. Godfrey and I +were not suited to one another, but still I feel that I was often +needlessly selfish and unkind." + +Lord St. Amant began to see why Oliver Tropenell was going back to +Mexico so soon. + + + + +PART THREE + +CHAPTER XXI + +Those winter and spring months which followed the tragic death of +Godfrey Pavely were full of difficult, weary, and oppressive days to his +widow Laura. Her soul had become so used to captivity, and to being +instinctively on the defensive, that she did not know how to use her +freedom--indeed, she was afraid of freedom. + +Another kind of woman would have gone away to the Continent, alone or +with her child, taking what in common parlance is described as a +thorough change. But Laura went on living quietly at The Chase, feeling +in a queer kind of way as if Godfrey still governed her life, as if she +ought to do exactly what Godfrey would wish her to do, all the more so +because in his lifetime she had not been an obedient or submissive wife. + +As the Commissioner of Police had foretold, the large reward offered by +Mrs. Pavely had brought in its train a host of tiresome and even +degrading incidents. A man of the name of Apra actually came from the +Continent and tried to make out that _he_ had been the banker's +unwitting murderer! But his story broke down under a very few minutes' +cross-examination at Scotland Yard. Even so, Laura kept the offer of the +thousand pounds in being. It seemed to be the only thing that she could +still do for Godfrey. + +Though she was outwardly leading the quiet, decorously peaceful life of +a newly-made widow, Laura's soul was storm-tossed and had lost its +bearings. Her little girl's company, dearly as she loved the child, no +longer seemed to content her. For the first time in her life, she longed +consciously for a friend of her own age, but with the woman living at +her gate, with Katty Winslow, she became less, rather than more, +intimate. + +Also, hidden away in the deepest recess of her heart, was an +unacknowledged pain. She had felt so sure that Oliver Tropenell would +stay on with his mother through the winter and early spring! But, to her +bewildered surprise, he had left for Mexico almost at once. He had not +even sought a farewell interview to say good-bye to her alone, and their +final good-bye had taken place in the presence of his mother. + +Together he and Mrs. Tropenell had walked over to The Chase one late +afternoon, within less than a week of Godfrey's funeral, and he had +explained that urgent business was recalling him to Mexico at once. He +and Laura had had, however, three or four minutes together practically +alone; and at once he had exclaimed, in a voice so charged with emotion +that it recalled those moments Laura now shrank from remembering--those +moments when he had told her of his then lawless love--"You'll let me +know if ever you want me? A cable would bring me as quickly as I can +travel. You must not forget that I am your trustee." + +And she had replied, making a great effort to speak naturally: "I will +write to you, Oliver, often--and I hope you will write to me." + +And he had said: "Yes--yes, of course I will! Not that there's much to +say that will interest you. But I can always give you news of Gillie." + +He had said nothing as to when they were to meet again. But after he was +gone Mrs. Tropenell had spoken as if he intended to come back the +following Christmas. + +Oliver had so far kept his promise that he had written to Laura about +once a fortnight. They were very ordinary, commonplace letters--not +long, intimate, and detailed as she knew his letters to his mother to +be. Mostly he wrote of Gillie, and of whatever work Gillie at the moment +was engaged upon. + +On her side, she would write to him of little Alice, of the child's +progress with her lessons, of the funny little things that Alice said. +Occasionally she would also force herself to put in something about +Godfrey, generally on some matter connected with the estate, and she +would tell him of what she was doing in the garden, or in the house +which had been built by his, Oliver's, forbears. + +She could not tell him, what was yet oddly true, that the spirit of +Godfrey still ruled The Chase. He had inherited from his parents certain +old-fashioned ways and usages, to which he had clung with a sort of +determined obstinacy, and as to such matters, his wife, in the days +which were now beginning to seem so far away and so unreal, had never +even dreamt of gainsaying him. + +One of these usages was the leaving off of fires, however cold the +weather might be, on the first of May, and this year, on the eve of May +Day, Laura remembered, and made up her mind that in this, as in so much +else, she would now be more submissive to the dead than she had ever +been to the living Godfrey. + + * * * * * + +Laura sat up late that night destroying and burning certain papers +connected with her past life. She had come to realise how transitory a +thing is human existence, and she desired to leave nothing behind her +which might later give her child a clue to what sort of unhappy, +unnatural married life she and Godfrey had led. + +But it is always a painful task--that of turning over long-dead embers. + +Sitting there in the boudoir, close to the glowing fire, and with a big +old-fashioned despatch-box at her side, she glanced at the letters which +her husband had written to her during their brief engagement, and then +she tied them up again and inscribed them with names and dates. They +might give Alice pleasure some day, the more so that there was +singularly little else remaining to tell Godfrey's child what he had +been like at his best. She, Laura, only knew--Alice, thank God, would +never know, would never understand--what melancholy memories these +rather formal, commonplace love-letters evoked in the woman who as a +girl had been their recipient. + +The very few letters which her husband had written to her during their +married life, when he happened to be in London or away on business, she +had always destroyed as they came. They had been brief, business-life +communications, generally concerning something he desired to be done on +the estate, or giving her the instructions he wished to have telephoned +to the Bank. + +After glancing absently through them, she burnt many letters which she +now wondered why she had kept--letters for the most part from friends of +her girlhood who had gradually drifted away from her, and the memory of +whom was fraught with pain. She put aside the meagre packet of her +brother's letters, and then, at last she gathered up in her hands the +score or more large envelopes addressed in Oliver Tropenell's clear, +small, masculine handwriting. + +Should she burn these too--or keep them? + +Slowly she took out of its envelope the first of Oliver's letters which +she had kept--that in which he expressed his willingness to become her +trustee. For the first time she forgot little Alice, forgot the day when +her daughter would read all that she found here, in her mother's +despatch-box, with the same eager interest and perchance the same moved +pleasure, which she, Laura, had felt when reading the letters her own +beloved mother had left behind her. + +Consideringly she glanced over the first real letter Oliver Tropenell +had ever written to her. Vividly she remembered the whole circumstances +surrounding the sending and receiving of that letter, for it had +followed close on the scene which, try as she might, she could not, even +now, forget. It was in this letter that she now held open in her hand, +that Oliver had heaped coals of fire on her head, by his quiet, kindly +acceptance of the trusteeship. There was unluckily one passage she felt +Alice should never have a chance of reading--for it concerned Gillie. +So, though she was sorry to destroy the letter, she felt that on the +whole it would be better to burn it, here and now. + +Hesitatingly she held out the large sheet to the bright fire--and as she +was in the act of doing so, quite suddenly there flashed between the +lines of firm, black handwriting other lines--clear, brownish lines--of +the same handwriting. What an extraordinary, amazing, incredible thing! + +Laura slipped down on to the hearthrug from the low arm-chair on which +she had been sitting with her despatch-box beside her, and bent forward, +full of tremulous excitement--her heart beating as it had never beat +before. + + "The decks are cleared between us, Laura, for you know now + that I love you. You said, 'Oh, but this is terrible!' Yes, + Laura, love is terrible. It is not only cleansing, + inspiring, and noble, it is terrible too. Why is it that + you so misunderstand, misjudge, the one priceless gift, the + only bit of Heaven, which God or Nature--I care not + which--has given to man and woman?" + +She stopped reading for a moment, then forced herself to go on, and the +next few lines of that strange, passionate secret letter, burnt +themselves into her brain. + +She let the paper flutter down, and covered her face with her hands. +Could she--should she believe what this man said? + + "What you, judging by your words to-day, take to be love is + as little like that passion as a deep draught of pure cold + water to a man dying of thirst is like the last glass of + drugged beer imbibed by some poor sot already drunk." + +It was a horrible simile, and yet--yes, she felt that it was a true +smile. For the first time Laura Pavely dimly apprehended the meaning of +love in the same sense that Oliver Tropenell understood it. + +She took up the sheet of paper again, and with the tears falling down +her cheeks, she read the postscript which was superposed, as it were, on +to the first. + + "God bless you, my dear love, and grant you the peace which + seems the only thing for which you crave." + +After giving a shamed, furtive look round the empty room, Laura Pavely +pressed the letter to her lips, and then she threw it into the fire, and +watched it vanish into brilliant flame, feeling as if a bit of her heart +were being burnt with it. + +Slowly she got up and went to the door; opening it, she listened for a +while. + +The whole household was asleep, but even so, she locked the door before +coming back to her station by the fire. + +She put more coal on the now glowing embers, and then she took up +another letter Oliver had written to her, a letter written from Paris +just after he and her brother had left London together for that long +holiday on the Continent. Outwardly it was a commonplace letter enough +concerning a change in certain of her investments; but when she held it +to the fire, between the black lines there again started into pulsing +life another message, winged from his soul to hers.... + + "Laura, I have sworn not to speak to you of love, and even + in this letter which you will never see, I will not break + my oath. But as I go in and out of the old Paris churches + (where alone I find a certain measure of solace and peace), + in the women whom I see there praying I often seem to + discover something akin to your spiritual and physical + perfection. + + "It is strange, considering the business on which I am + engaged, that I should feel thus drawn to haunt these old, + dim Paris churches, but there at least I can escape from + Gillie, of Gillie who talks perpetually of Godfrey, your + owner and your tyrant." + +And as she read these last words, there came a cold feeling over Laura's +heart. She realised, for the first time, how Oliver had hated Godfrey. + +She read on: + + "Gillie does not understand the reverence in which I hold + you. Sometimes when he speaks of you--of you and Godfrey--I + feel as if some day I shall strike him on the mouth. + + "But he is your brother, Laura. According to the measure + which is in the man he loves you, aye, and even reverences + you too, in his fashion; but with this reverence is mingled + a touch of pity, of contempt, that you should be what he + calls 'good.'" + +Good? Laura looked up and stared into the now glowing fire. Good in a +narrow, effortless sense she had always been, but to the man who was so +little her owner, though so much at times her tyrant, she had been, +almost from the very first, hard, and utterly lacking in sympathy. + +It was with relief that Laura burnt that letter. + +The notes Oliver Tropenell had written to her in London while he was +conducting the investigation into Godfrey Pavely's disappearance, held, +to her disappointment, no secret writing in between. But the letters she +had received from him since her widowhood all had an invisible +counterpart. + +The first was written on ship-board: + + "Laura, I am now free to speak to you of love. The world + would say that I must wait in spirit as I have waited in + body, but I know at what a cost has been bought the relief + from the vow which I faithfully kept. + + "The past is dead, the future is my own. I look back, dear + love, to the few moments we had by the great window in your + drawing-room, when my mother was talking to Alice over by + the fire. You were so gentle, so sweet, to me then. It was + as if--God forgive me for my presumption--you were + regretting my departure. Till that moment I had felt as if + the man who had once called you wife stood between us, an + angry, menacing shape. But he vanished then, in that house + of which he had never been the real master. And since that + day he has not haunted me as he haunted me during those long + long days of waiting for the news I at once longed for and + dreaded. + + "When I come back I shall not ask you to love me, I shall + only humbly ask you to let me love you." + +Laura went to her writing-table and turned on the light. She moved as +one walking in her sleep, for she was in an extraordinary state of +spiritual and mental exaltation. She drew a sheet of paper towards her, +and before burning the letter she still held in her hand, she copied +out, not all, but a certain part of what had been written there in that +invisible ink which only flashed into being when held up against a +flame. + +Then she went back to the fire, and read the next letter--and the next. +In a sense they were alike--alike in the measureless love, the almost +anguished longing for her presence they expressed, and in their +abhorrence, hatred, contempt for the man who had been her husband. It +was as if Oliver, in spite of his confident words in the letter which +had been written on shipboard, could not forget Godfrey--as if +perpetually he felt the dead man's menacing presence to be there, +between them. + +Laura was amazed, troubled, and yet at the same time profoundly stirred +and excited by Oliver's retrospective jealousy. It seemed to prove to +her as nothing else could have done how passionately, exclusively he +loved her, and had always loved her. + +Though none of those about her were aware of it, the mistress of The +Chase became henceforth a different woman. It was as though she had +suddenly become alive where she had been dead, articulate instead of +dumb. + +Each night, when the house was plunged in darkness and slumber, Laura +would light three candles, and read the words of longing and of love +which Oliver had written in between the formal lines of the last letter +she had received from him. And then, when a new letter came, she would +burn the one that had come before--the one whose contents she had +already long known by heart. + +And as the spring wore into summer the thing that became, apart from her +child, the only real thing in Laura Pavely's life, was her strong, +secret link with this man who she knew was coming back to claim her, on +whatever terms she chose to exact, as his own. And she fell into a deep, +brooding peace--the peace of waiting. She was in no hurry to see Oliver +again--indeed, she sometimes had a disturbing dread that his actual +presence might destroy that amazing sense of nearness she now felt to +him. Unconsciously her own letters to him became more intimate, more +self-revealing; she wrote less of Alice, more of herself. + +The only uneaseful element in Laura Pavely's life now was Katty Winslow. +The two women never met without Katty's making some mention of Godfrey. +And once Laura, when walking away with Katty from Freshley Manor, where +the two had met unexpectedly, was sharply disturbed by something Katty +said. + +"I'm told Oliver Tropenell is coming back at or after Christmas. Somehow +I always associate him with that awful time we had last January. I think +I shall try and be away when he is here--I don't suppose he'll stay +long." + +Katty spoke with a kind of rather terrible hardness in her voice, fixing +her bright eyes on Laura's quivering face. + +"Instead of going away as he did, he ought to have stayed and tried to +clear up the mystery." + +"But the mystery," said Laura in a low voice, "_was_ cleared up, +Katty." + +But Katty shook her head. "To me the mystery is a greater one than +ever," she said decisively. + + * * * * * + +Early in September Laura received a letter written, as were all Oliver's +letters, in sober, measured terms, and yet, even as she opened it, she +felt with a strange, strong instinct that something new was here. And as +she lived through the few hours which separated her from night and +solitude, she grew not only more restless, but more certain, also, of +some coming change in her own life. + +His open letter ran:-- + + "I am writing in my new country house. Years ago, after I + first came out to Mexico, I stumbled across the place by + accident, and at once I made up my mind that some day I + would become its possessor. Over a hundred years old, this + little château, set on a steep hillside, is said to have + been built by a Frenchman of genius who, having got into + some bad scrape in Paris, had to flee the country, while + the old _régime_ was in full fling. + + "When I first came here, the house had stood empty for over + forty years. The garden, beautiful as it was, had fallen + into ruin. The fountains were broken, the water no longer + played, the formal arbours looked like forest trees. White + roses and jasmine mingled with the dense southern + vegetation, fighting a losing fight. + + "For a few brief weeks in '67 it was inhabited by Maximilian + and his young Empress--indeed, it is said that the Emperor + still haunts the cool large rooms on the upper floor--there + are but two storeys. So far I have never met his noble + ghost. I should not be afraid if I did. + + "I am beginning to think that it is time I came back to + Freshley for a while. But my plans are still uncertain." + +At last came solitude, and the luminous darkness of an early autumn +night. Laura locked herself into her room. + +Yes, instinct had not played her false, for the first words of the +secret letter ran:-- + + "Laura, I am coming home. I had meant to linger on here yet + another month or six weeks, but now I ask myself each hour + of the day and night--why wait? + + "The room in which I am sitting writing to you, thinking of + you, longing for you, was the room of those two great + lovers, Maximilian and his Carlotta. The ghost of their love + reminds me of the transience of life. I have just walked + across to the window, thinking, thinking, thinking, my + beloved, of you. For I am haunted ever, Laura, by your + wraith. I walk up and down the terrace wondering if you will + ever be here in the body--as you already seem to be in the + spirit. + + "I am leaving at sunrise, and in three days I shall be upon + the sea. You will receive a cable, and so will my mother. + The thought of seeing you again--ah, Laura, you will never + know what rapture, so intense as to be almost akin to pain, + that thought gives me. Lately your letters have seemed a + thought more intimate, more confiding--I dare not say less + cold. But I have sworn to myself, and I shall keep my oath, + to ask for nothing that cannot be freely given." + +Two days later Laura received a wireless message saying that Oliver +would be at Freshley the next day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +A year ago, almost to a day, Mrs. Tropenell had been sitting where she +was sitting now, awaiting Laura Pavely. Everything looked exactly as it +had looked then in the pretty, low drawing-room of Freshley Manor. +Nothing had been added to, nothing withdrawn from, the room. The same +shaded reading-lamp stood on the little table close to her elbow; the +very chrysanthemums might have been the same. + +And yet with the woman sitting there everything was different! Of all +the sensations--unease, anxiety, foreboding, jealousy--with which her +heart had been filled this time last year, only one survived, and of +that one she was secretly very much ashamed, for it was jealousy. + +And now she was trying with all the force of her nature to banish the +ugly thing from her heart. + +What must be--must be! If Oliver's heart and soul, as well as the whole +of his ardent, virile physical entity, desired Laura, then she, his +mother, must help him, as much as lay within her power, to compass that +desire. + +Since Godfrey Pavely's death, it had been as if Mrs. Tropenell's life +had slipped back two or three years. All these last few months she had +written to Oliver long diary letters, and Oliver on his side had written +to her vivid chronicles of his Mexican life. Perhaps she saw less, +rather than more of Laura than she had done in the old days, for Laura, +since her widowhood, had had more to do. She took her duties as the +present owner of The Chase very seriously. Still, nothing was +changed--while yet in a sense everything had been changed--by the +strange, untoward death of Godfrey Pavely. + +Oliver's letters were no longer what they had been, they were curiously +different, and yet only she, his mother, perchance would have seen the +difference, had one of his letters of two years ago and one of his +letters of to-day been put side by side. + +The love he had borne for the Spanish woman, of whom he had once spoken +with such deep feeling, had not affected his relations with his mother. +But the love he now bore Laura Pavely had. Not long ago Laura had shown +Mrs. Tropenell one of Oliver's letters, and though there was really very +little in it, she had been oddly nervous and queer in her manner, hardly +giving the older woman time to read it through before she had taken it +back out of her hand. + +Laura had become more human since her husband's death; it was as if a +constricting band had been loosened about her heart. Even so, Oliver's +mother often wondered sorely whether Laura would ever welcome Oliver in +any character save that of a devoted, discreet, and selfless friend. She +doubted it. And yet, when he had written and suggested coming back now, +instead of waiting till Christmas, she had not said a word to stop him. +And the moment she had heard that he had reached England, and that he +was to be here late on this very afternoon, she had sent a note to The +Chase and asked Laura to share their first meal. + +One thing had made a great difference to Mrs. Tropenell's life during +the last few months. That was the constant, familiar presence of Lord +St. Amant. Now that he was Lord Lieutenant of the county, he was far +more at Knowlton Abbey than he had been for some years, and +somehow--neither could have told you why--they had become even closer +friends than they had been before. + +It was well understood that any supplicant who had Mrs. Tropenell on his +side could count on Lord St. Amant's help and goodwill. Though she was +of course quite unaware of it, there were again rumours through the +whole of the country-side that soon the mistress of Freshley Manor would +become Lady St. Amant, and that then the Abbey would be opened as that +great house had not been for close on forty years. + +And now, to-night, Mrs. Tropenell suddenly remembered that Lord St. +Amant was coming to dinner--she had forgotten it in the excitement of +Oliver's return. But she told herself, with a kind of eagerness, that +her old friend's presence might, after all, make things easier for them +all! It is always easier to manage a party of four people than of three. +Also, it made less marked the fact of Laura's presence on this, the +first evening, of Oliver's return home. + +Mrs. Tropenell had not been able to discover from her son's manner +whether he was glad or sorry Laura was coming to-night. And sitting +there, waiting for her guests, she anxiously debated within herself +whether Oliver would have preferred to see Laura for the first time +alone. Of course he could have offered to go and fetch her; but he had +not availed himself of that excuse, and his mother knew that she would +be present at their meeting. + +The door opened, quietly, and as had been the case a year ago, Mrs. +Tropenell saw her beautiful visitor before Laura knew that there was any +one in the darkened room. + +Once more Mrs. Tropenell had a curious feeling as if time had slipped +back, and that everything was happening over again. The only difference +was that Laura to-night was all in black, with no admixture of white. +Still, by an odd coincidence the gown she was wearing was made exactly +as had been that other gown last year, and through the thin black folds +of chiffon her lovely white arms shone palely, revealingly.... + +And then, as her guest came into the circle of light, Mrs. Tropenell +realised with a feeling almost of shock that Laura was very much +changed. She no longer had the sad, strained, rather severe look on her +face which had been there last year. She looked younger, instead of +older, and there was an expression of half-eager, half-shrinking +expectation on her face--to-night. + +"Aunt Letty? How good of you to ask me----" But her voice sank away into +silence as the sound of quick footsteps were heard hastening across the +hall. + +The door opened, and Oliver Tropenell came in. + +He walked straight to Laura, and took both her hands in his. "You got my +cable?" he asked. + +And then Laura blushed, overwhelmingly. She had had said nothing of that +cable to Mrs. Tropenell. + +And as they stood there--Oliver still grasping Laura's hands in his--the +mother, looking on, saw with a mixture of joy and of jealous pain that +Laura stood before him as if hypnotised, her heavy-lidded blue eyes +fixed upwards on his dark, glowing face. + +Suddenly they all three heard the at once plaintive and absurd hoot of +Lord St. Amant's motor--and it was as if a deep spell had suddenly been +broken. Slowly, reluctantly, Oliver released Laura's hands, and Mrs. +Tropenell exclaimed in a voice which had a tremor in it: "It's Lord St. +Amant, Oliver. I forgot that he had asked himself to dinner to-night. He +said he could not come till half-past eight, but I suppose he got away +earlier than he expected to do." + +And then with the coming into the room of her old friend, life seemed +suddenly to become again normal, and though by no means passionless, yet +lacking that curious atmosphere of violent, speechless emotion that had +been there a moment or two ago. Of the four it was Laura who seemed the +most moved. She came up and slipped her hand into Mrs. Tropenell's, +holding it tightly, probably unaware that she was doing so. + +After the first few words of welcome to Oliver, Lord St. Amant plunged +into local talk with Mrs. Tropenell, and as he did so, he looked a +little wryly at Laura. Why didn't she move away and talk to Oliver? Why +did she stick close like that to Letty--to Letty, with whom he had hoped +to spend a quiet, cosy, cheerful evening? + +But Laura, for the first time in her life, felt as if she were no longer +in full possession of herself. It was as if she had passed into the +secret keeping of another human being; she had the sensation that her +mind was now in fee to another human mind, her will overawed by another +human will. And there was a side to her nature which rebelled against +this sudden, quick transference of herself. + +With what she now half-realised to have been a kind of self-imposed +hypocrisy, she had told herself often, during the last few months, that +Oliver and she when they again met would become dear, dear friends. He +would be the adorer, she the happy, calm, adored. And that then, after a +long probation, perhaps of years, in any case not for a long, long time, +she might bring herself half reluctantly, and entirely for his sake, to +consider the question of--re-marriage. + +But now? Since Oliver had taken her hands in his, and gazed down +speechlessly into her eyes, she had known that it was he, not she, would +set the pace in their new relationship, and that however sincere his +self-imposed restraint and humility. So it was that Laura instinctively +clung to Mrs. Tropenell's hand. + +The passion of love, which so often makes even quite a young man feel +older, steadier, more responsible, has quite the opposite effect on a +woman. To every woman love brings back youth, and the deeper, the more +instinctive the love, the greater the tremors and the uncertainties +which, according to a hypocritical convention, belong only to youth. + +The years which Laura had spent with Godfrey Pavely seemed obliterated. +Memories of her married life which had been very poignantly present in +the early days of her widowhood, filling her with mingled repugnance, +pain, and yes, remorse, were now erased from the tablets of her mind. +She felt as if it was the young, ignorant Laura--that Laura who had been +so full of high, almost defiant ideals--who was now standing, so full of +confused longing and hope, if yet also a little fearful, on the +threshold of a new, wonderful life.... + + * * * * * + +Good-breeding and the observance of certain long-established, social +usages have an inestimable value in all the great crises of human +existence. To-night each of the other three felt the comfort of Lord St. +Amant's presence among them. His agreeable ease of manner, his pleasant, +kindly deference to the older and the younger lady, all helped to lessen +the tension, and make what each of his companions felt to be a +breathless time of waiting, easier to live through. + +He himself was surprised and shocked by the change he saw in Oliver +Tropenell's face. Oliver looked worn, haggard, yet filled with a kind of +fierce gladness. He appeared to-night not so much the happy, as the +exultant, conqueror of fate. He talked, and talked well, of the +political situation in Mexico, of certain happenings which had taken +place in England during his absence, and though now and again Mrs. +Tropenell joined in the talk, on the whole she, like Laura, was content +to listen to the two men. + +After dinner, while they were still alone in the drawing-room, Laura +began to talk, rather eagerly, of her little Alice. She had begun to +wonder whether it would not be well for the child to go to school as a +weekly boarder. There was such a school within reasonable motoring +distance. Alice was becoming rather too grown-up, and unchildlike. She +had certain little friends in the town of Pewsbury, but they did not +really touch her life. + +But even as Mrs. Tropenell and Laura talked the matter over, they both +felt their talk to be unreal. Each of them knew that Laura's second +marriage, if ever marry she did, would completely alter the whole +situation with regard to Alice. Oliver was not the man to hang up his +hat in another man's house--besides, why should he do so? The Chase +belonged to Alice, even now. + +And then rather suddenly, Laura asked a question: "How long is Oliver +going to stay in England, Aunt Letty?" + +And Mrs. Tropenell quietly answered, "I should think he would stay till +after Christmas. I gather everything is going on quite well out there, +thanks to Gillie." She waited a moment, and then repeated, thoughtfully: +"Yes--I feel sure Oliver means to stay till after the New Year----" + +And then she stopped suddenly. There had come a change over Laura's +face. Laura had remembered what Mrs. Tropenell for the moment had not +done--that early in January Godfrey Pavely would have been dead exactly +a year. + +As ten o'clock struck, the other two came in, still talking eagerly to +one another. + +Lord St. Amant sat down by Laura. + +"I'm going to have a little shooting party later on--not now, but early +in December," he said. "Mrs. Tropenell is coming, and I hope Oliver too. +I wonder if you would do me the great pleasure of being there, Laura? +It's a long, long time since you honoured the Abbey with your +company----" + +He was smiling down at her. "I would ask Alice to come too," he went on, +"but I think she'd be bored! Perhaps you'll be bored too? I'm not having +any very brilliant or wonderful people, just a few of the neighbours +whom I feel I've rather neglected." + +Laura laughed. "Of course I shall enjoy coming!" she exclaimed. + +Oliver was standing by his mother. Suddenly he muttered, "Mother? Ask +Lord St. Amant to come over and speak to you----" + +But before she could obey him, Lord St. Amant got up and quickly came +over to where Mrs. Tropenell was sitting, leaving a vacant place by +Laura. + +With his back to the two younger people he sat down close to Mrs. +Tropenell, and all at once he saw that her dark eyes were full of tears. +He took her hand and patted it gently. "I feel dreadfully _de trop_," he +murmured. "Can't we go off, we two old folk, to your little room, my +dearest? I'm sure you've something you want to show me there, or consult +me about?" + +And while Lord St. Amant was saying this to his old love, the two on the +other side of the room were silent, as if stricken dumb by the nearness +each felt to the other. + +And at last it was Laura who broke the silence. "I think I must be going +home," she said uncertainly. + +She looked across at her hostess. "I don't want to make Lord St. Amant +think he ought to go too. Perhaps I can slip away quietly?" + +"I'll walk back with you." + +Oliver spoke with a kind of dry decision. + +He got up. "Mother? I'm taking Laura home. I shan't be long. Perhaps +Lord St. Amant will stay till I come back. It's quite early." + +He turned to Laura, now standing by his side: "Say good-bye to them +now. I'll fetch your shawl, and we'll go out through the window." + +Laura obeyed, as in a dream. "Good-bye, Aunt Letty. Good-night, Lord St. +Amant--I shall enjoy being at the Abbey." + +She suffered herself to be kissed by the one--her hand pressed by the +other. Then she turned as if in answer to an unseen signal. + +Oliver was already back in the room, her Shetland shawl on his arm. He +put it round her shoulders, taking care not to touch her as he did so; +then he opened the long French window, and stood aside for a moment +while she stepped through into the moonlight, out of doors. + + * * * * * + +They were now in the beech avenue, in a darkness that seemed the more +profound because of the streaks of silvery moonlight which lay just +behind them. But even so, the white shawl Laura was wearing showed dimly +against the depths of shade encompassing her. + +All at once Oliver turned and said so suddenly that she, walking by his +side, started: "Laura? Do you remember this time last year?" + +And as she answered the one word "Yes," he went on: "It was to-night, +just a year ago, that I promised to become your friend. And as long as +you were another man's wife, I kept my promise, at any rate to the +letter. If you tell me to go away for the next three months, I will do +so--to-morrow. If I stay, I must stay, Laura, as your lover." + +As she remained silent, he went on quickly: "Do not misunderstand me. I +only ask for the right to love you--I do not ask for any return." + +She was filled with an exquisite, tremulous joy. But that side of her +nature which was restrained, and which had been so atrophied, was +ignorant of the generosities of love, and shrank from quick surrender. +So all she said, in a voice which sounded very cold to herself, was, +"But that, Oliver, would surely not be fair--to you?" + +"Quite fair!" he exclaimed eagerly--"quite fair. In no case would I ever +wish to obtain what was not freely vouchsafed." + +He muttered, in a voice so low as to be scarcely audible, some further +words which moved her strangely, and vibrated to a chord which had never +before been touched, save to jar and to offend. + +"To me aught else were sacrilege," were the words Oliver Tropenell said. + +By now Laura's eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. She could see +her companion's tall, at once broad-shouldered and lean figure, standing +at rights angles to herself, keeping its distance.... + +Taking a step forward, she put out her right hand a little blindly, and +laid it on the sleeve of his coat. Laura had always been an inarticulate +woman, but with that touch, that fleeting moment of contact between +them, something of what she was feeling took flight from her heart to +his---- + +"Laura?" + +He grasped her hands as he had grasped them three hours ago when they +had first met in his mother's presence. And then again he breathed her +name. But this time the touch of doubting, incredulous joy had passed +into something ardent, exultant, possessive, and she was in his +arms--her self-absorption, her fastidiousness, her lifelong shrinking +from any strong emotion, swept away by a force which she had once only +known sufficiently to abhor and to condemn, but which she now felt to be +divine. + +And then Oliver Tropenell said a strange thing indeed. "To have secured +this immortal moment, I would willingly die a shameful, ignoble death +to-morrow," were the words he whispered, as he strained Laura to his +heart, as his lips sought and found her lips.... + +At last they paced slowly on, and Laura found herself secretly exulting +in the violence of Oliver's emotion, and in the broken, passionate terms +of endearment with which he endowed her. That her response was that of a +girl rather than that of a woman was to her lover an added ecstasy. It +banished the hateful, earthy shade of Godfrey Pavely--that shade which +had haunted Oliver Tropenell all that evening, even in his mother's +house. + +Just as they were about to step out from under the arch of the beech +trees on to the high road, he again took her in his arms. "Laura?" he +whispered. "May I tell my mother?" But as he felt her hesitating: "No!" +he exclaimed. "Forget that I asked you that! We will say nothing yet. +Secrecy is a delicious concomitant of love." She heard the added, +whispered words, uttered as if to his own heart, "At least so I have +ever found it." And they were words which a little troubled Laura. +Surely she was the first woman he had ever loved? + +"Aunt Letty has a right to know," she murmured. "But no one else, +Oliver, must know, till January is past." And then she hung her head, +perchance a little ashamed of this harking back to the conventions of +her everyday life. + +He was surprised to hear her say further and with an effort, "I would +rather Lord St. Amant didn't know. We shall be staying at Knowlton Abbey +together in December." + +"We shall," he said exultantly. "For that I thank God!" + +Then suddenly he released her from out of his strong encompassing arms, +and stooping down very low he kissed the hem of her long black gown.... + +After they had parted Oliver Tropenell waited on and on in the dark +garden till he heard Lord St. Amant's car drive away. Then he walked +quickly across the lawn and back into his mother's drawing-room. + +"Mother?" he said briefly. "Laura and I are going to be married. But we +do not wish any one to know this till--till February." + +Even now he could not wholly banish Godfrey Pavely's intrusive presence +from his Laura-filled heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +To any imaginative mind there is surely something awe-inspiring in the +thought of the constant secret interlocking of lives which seem as +unlikely ever to meet, in a decisive sense, as are two parallel lines. + +How amazed, how bewildered, Laura Pavely would have been could she have +visioned even a hundredth part of the feeling concerning herself which +filled her nearest neighbour, Katty Winslow's, heart! + +Even in the old days Katty had disliked Laura, and had regarded her with +a mixture of contempt and envy. And now that Oliver Tropenell had come +back--now that Katty suspected him of being Laura's potential, if not +actual, lover--she grew to hate the woman who had always been kind to +her with an intense, calculating hate. + +It seemed as if she hardly ever looked out of one of her windows without +seeing Oliver on his way to The Chase, or Laura on her way to +Freshley--and this although the secret lovers behaved with great +discretion, for Oliver was less, rather than more, with Laura than he +used to be in the old days when Godfrey was alive. Also, wherever Laura +happened to be, her child--cheerful, eager little Alice--was sure to be +close by. + +Laura, so much Katty believed herself to have discovered, was now happy, +in her cold, unemotional way, in the possession of a man's ardent +devotion, while she, Katty, who had asked so comparatively little of +life, had been deprived of the one human being who could, and perhaps in +time would, have given her all she wanted. + +Poor Godfrey Pavely! No one ever spoke of him now, in that neighbourhood +where once he had counted for so much. Already it was as if he had never +been. But to Katty Winslow he was still an insistent, dominating +presence. Often she brooded over his untimely death, and sometimes she +upbraided herself for not having made some sort of effort to solve the +mystery. The reward was still in being, but one day, lately, when she +had made some allusion to it in Laura's presence, Laura, reddening, had +observed that she was thinking of withdrawing it. + +"Lord St. Amant and the Scotland Yard people never approved of it," she +said, "and as you know, Katty, it has led to nothing." + +Early in October, Laura, Oliver and Alice, passing by Rosedean one day, +turned in through the gate. "Why shouldn't we go in and ask Katty to +come to tea?" It was Laura's suggestion. Somehow she was sorry for +Katty--increasingly sorry. Yet she could not help feeling glad when +Harber coldly informed her that Mrs. Winslow had left home, and would +not be back for ten days. + + * * * * * + +At the very time that happy little group of people was at her door, +Katty herself was standing in a queue of people waiting to take her +ticket at York station. + +Though Mrs. Winslow would have been honestly surprised had any one told +her she was sentimental, she had actually come down by an earlier train +than was necessary in order that she might retrace the ways that she and +her friend had trodden together a year ago in January. + +She had first gone to the Minster, moving swiftly along the paved +streets where she had walked and talked slowly, pleasantly, with the +dead man. Then she had wandered off to the picturesque thoroughfare +lined with curiosity shops. How kind, how generous Godfrey had been to +her just here! Every time she looked up in her pretty little +drawing-room at Rosedean, his gift met her eye. + +While she was engaged on this strange, painful pilgrimage, there welled +up in Katty's heart a flood of agonised regret and resentment. She told +herself bitterly that Godfrey's death had aged her--taken the spring out +of her. Small wonder indeed that in these last few weeks she should have +come to hate Laura with a steady, burning flame of hate.... + +So it was that Katty Winslow was in a queer mental and physical state +when she returned to the big railway station to complete her journey. +She did not feel at all in the mood to face the gay little houseparty +where she was sure of an uproarious, as well as of an affectionate, +welcome. + +As she stood in the queue of rather rough North-country folk, waiting to +take her third-class ticket, there swept over her a sudden, vivid +recollection of that incident--the hearing of a voice which at the time +had seemed so oddly familiar--which had happened on the day she had +parted from Godfrey Pavely for the last time. + +And then--as in a blinding, yet illuminating flash--there came to her +the conviction, nay, more, the certain knowledge, as to whose voice it +had been that she had heard on the last occasion when she had stood +there, in the large, bare booking office. The voice she had heard--she +was quite, _quite_ sure of it now, it admitted of no doubt in her mind +at all--had been the peculiar, rather high-pitched, voice of Gillie +Baynton.... + +She visualised the arresting appearance of the man who had been the +owner of the voice, and who had gazed at her with that rather impudent, +jeering glance of bold admiration. Of course it was Gillie, but Gillie +disguised--Gillie with his cheeks tinted a curious greenish-orange +colour, Gillie with his fair hair dyed black, Gillie--her brain suddenly +supplied the link she was seeking for feverishly--_exactly answering to +the description of the sinister Fernando Apra--the self-confessed +murderer of Godfrey Pavely_. Katty left the queue in which she was +standing, and walked across to a bench. + +There she sat down, and, heedless of the people about her, put her chin +on her hand and stared before her. + +What did her new knowledge portend? What did it lead to? Was Laura +associated with this extraordinary, bewildering discovery of hers? But +the questions she put to herself remained unanswered. She failed to +unravel even a little strand of the tangled skein. + +Slowly she got up again, and once more took her place in the queue +outside the booking office. It would be folly to lose her train because +of this discovery, astounding, illuminating, as it was. + +She was so shaken, so excited, that she longed to confide in one of the +Haworths, brother or sister, to whose house she was going--but some +deep, secretive instinct caused her to refrain from doing that. Still, +she was so far unlike herself, that after her arrival the members of the +merry party all commented to one another on the change they saw in her. + +"She's as pretty as ever," summed up one of them at last, "but somehow +she looks different." + +All that night Katty lay awake, thinking, thinking--trying to put +together a human puzzle of which the pieces would not fit. Gillie +Baynton, even if he disliked his brother-in-law, had no motive for doing +the awful thing she was now beginning to suspect he had done. She found +herself floating about in a chartless sea of conjectures, of +suspicions.... + +She felt better, more in possession of herself, the next morning. Yet +she was still oppressed with an awful sense of bewilderment and horror, +uncertain, too, as to what use she could make of her new knowledge. + +Should she go straight up to town and tell Sir Angus Kinross of what had +happened to her yesterday? Somehow she shrank from doing that. He would +suspect her of simply trying to snatch the reward. Katty had never been +quite at ease with the Commissioner of Police--never quite sure as to +what he knew, or did not know, of her past relations to Godfrey Pavely. +And yet those relations had been innocent enough, in all conscience! +Sometimes Katty, when thinking of those terrible times last January, had +felt sorry she had not told Sir Angus the truth as to that joint journey +to York. But, having hidden the fact at first, she had been ashamed to +confess it later--and now she would have to confess it. + +She was still in this anxious, debating-within-herself frame of mind +when, at luncheon, something happened which seemed to open a way before +her. + +Her host, Tony Haworth, was talking of the neighbourhood, and he said, +rather ruefully: "Of course a man like that old rascal who calls himself +Greville Howard is worse than no good as a neighbour! For one thing he's +a regular recluse. He hardly ever goes outside his park gates. I suppose +the conscience of a man who's done so many naughty deeds in a good world +is apt to make him feel a bit nervous!" + +"How far off does he live from here?" asked Katty slowly. The scene at +the inquest rose up before her, especially that moment when "Greville +Howard's" affidavit, accompanied by his doctor's certificate, had been +read aloud amid a ripple of amusement from the general public present. + +"About four miles--but no one ever sees him. He's more or less of an +invalid. It's a beautiful old house, and they say he's got some +wonderful pictures and furniture there." + +"Does he live quite alone?" + +Her host hesitated. "Well, yes--but sometimes he has a lady of sorts +there. He brought one back from France last June (he has a villa at +Monte Carlo), and then--" Tony Haworth hesitated again, but Katty was +looking at him eagerly--"then something dreadful happened! The poor +woman died. She got a chill, developed pneumonia, and, to do the old +rascal justice, he got down the biggest man he could from town. But it +was no good--she died just the same! As far as I know, he's quite alone +now--and precious lonely he must find it!" + +Katty was very silent for the rest of the meal, and after luncheon she +drew her host aside. + +"Look here," she said abruptly. "I've something to tell you, Tony. I +want to see that person we were speaking about--I mean Greville Howard. +I want to see him about Godfrey Pavely. You know he is one of the few +people who actually saw the man who killed Godfrey. At the time of the +inquest he was ill, and so couldn't attend--I think the police thought +he shammed illness. Sir Angus Kinross was convinced (and so was Lord St. +Amant) that this Greville Howard knew a great deal more about Fernando +Apra than he was willing to tell." + +Tony Haworth was much taken aback. + +"My dear girl, I don't think there's a chance of your getting at him! +However, of course you shall be driven over as soon as you like. He +_may_ see you--_you're_ not the sort of person he's afraid of." + +He looked at her a little sharply. "You never had any money dealings +with him, had you, Katty? Now, honour bright----" + +"Of course not," she laughed. "Is it likely? My husband may have had, in +the long, long ago--but I, never!" + + * * * * * + +An hour or so later, Katty Winslow, alone in her friend's motor, found +herself before the lodge of the big lonely place where the retired +money-lender--a Yorkshireman by birth--had set up his household gods. +The great gates were closed and locked, but there was a bell, and she +rang it. + +After a certain interval the lodge-keeper came out. + +"I've come to see Mr. Greville Howard," she explained, and smiled +amiably at the man. + +He looked at her doubtfully. "The master don't see no one excepting by +appointment," he said gruffly. + +"I think he'll see me." + +And then an extraordinary piece of luck befell Katty Winslow. While she +was standing there, parleying, she suddenly saw a man inside the park, +walking towards the gates. + +"I think," she said boldly, "that that _is_ Mr. Greville Howard?" and +she saw by the lodgekeeper's face that she was right in her guess. + +Moving gracefully forward, she slid past him, and thus she stood just +within the gates, while slowly there advanced towards her--and, had she +but known it, towards many others--Fate, in the person of a tall, thin, +some would have said a very distinguished-looking, elderly man. + +As he came up, he looked at Katty with a measuring, thoughtful glance, +and his eyes travelled beyond her to the well-appointed motor drawn up +in the lonely country road outside. + +Now this was the sort of situation to amuse and stimulate, rather than +alarm, Katty, the more so that the stranger, who was now close to her, +was looking at her pleasantly rather than otherwise. + +She took a step towards him. + +"Mr. Howard?" she exclaimed, in her full, agreeable voice. "I wonder if +you would be so kind as to grant me a short interview? I want to see you +about the late Mr. Godfrey Pavely. He was a great friend of mine." + +As she uttered the dead banker's name, Greville Howard's face stiffened +into sudden watchfulness. But he said slowly: "May I enquire your name, +madam?" + +"Oh yes," she said eagerly. "My name is Winslow--I am Mrs. Winslow. I +was Godfrey Pavely's oldest friend--we were children together." + +"Ah!" he exclaimed. "Your name comes back to me. I think you were +mentioned at the inquest, Mrs. Winslow? But you did not give any +evidence, if I remember rightly." + +"No, I was not asked to give evidence," she answered. "And you yourself, +Mr. Howard, were too ill to come and say what you knew about--about----" + +"About Mr. Pavely's murderer," he said smoothly. + +They were now walking side by side slowly away from the gate, down a +broad, well-kept carriage road, the lodge-keeper staring after them. + +"Do you know Sir Angus Kinross?" asked Katty's companion suddenly. + +She gave him a curious, side-glance look. "I saw him several times last +winter," she said hesitatingly. "But, Mr. Howard?--I don't like him!" + +"Neither do I." He snapped the words out. "I could have told Scotland +Yard a good deal if Kinross had taken the trouble to be civil to me--but +he sent me down a fellow whose manner I exceedingly resented." + +There followed a long pause. Katty became unpleasantly aware +that this strange-looking man--she wondered how old he +was--sixty-five?--seventy?--was looking at her with a rather +pitiless scrutiny. + +"I can see that you are anxious to know the truth," he observed. He +added: "Are you aware that the reward has just been withdrawn?" + +"No, I didn't know that. But I'm not surprised," she said. + +She glanced at him, puzzled, and a little nervous. His keen eyes, +grey-green in tint, were much younger than the rest of his face. + +"I think I know part of the truth," he went on. "And perhaps you will be +able to supply the other part, Mrs. Winslow. I confess to a certain +curiosity about the matter." + +They were now within sight of a charming-looking old house. It was +charming, and yet there was something forlorn about its very perfection. +The low, oak, nail-studded front door was shut, not hospitably open--as +is generally the case with the door of a Yorkshire country house. But +Mr. Greville Howard pulled the bell, and at once the door was opened by +a respectable-looking manservant. + +"I am taking this lady to my study, and I do not wish to be disturbed +till I ring. When I ring you can bring tea." + +Katty followed her host through a short, vaulted passage into a square +hall. It was a beautiful apartment, in keeping with the delicate, +austere charm of the house outside. And round the hall there were some +fine Dutch easel pictures. + +Out of the hall there opened various doors. Greville Howard pushed open +one, already ajar, and Katty walked through into what she at once +realised was her companion's own habitual living-room. + +With all her cleverness, and her acquaintance with the art-furnishing +jargon of the day, Katty would have been surprised to know the value of +the contents of this comparatively small room. It contained some notable +examples of the best period of early French Empire furniture. This was +specially true of the mahogany and brass inlaid dwarf bookcases which +ran round three sides of the apartment. Above the bookcases, against the +turquoise-blue silk with which the walls were hung, were a number of +Meissonier's paintings of Napoleon. + +On the mantelpiece was a marble bust of the young Cæsar as First Consul, +and above it a delightful portrait of Mademoiselle Georges, by Gérard. +As he briefly informed his visitor of the portrait's identity, Mr. +Greville Howard felt just a little disappointed that Mrs. Winslow did +not seem more interested. + +During the last quarter of an hour he had recaptured what at the time of +the affair had been a very definite impression as to the relations of +his present visitor and the Wiltshire banker. But now, seeing Katty +there before him, looking so much at her ease, so--so ladylike (Mr. +Greville Howard's own word), he hesitated. + +"Pray sit down," he said courteously, "and make yourself comfortable, +Mrs. Winslow. It's getting rather chilly." + +Her host put on another log as he spoke, and pulled a low, easy chair +up close to the fire. And then he himself sat down, at right angles to +his attractive guest, in a curiously-shaped winged chair which had once +been part of the furniture in the Empress Joséphine's music-room at +Malmaison. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +It had been a little after three o'clock when Katty Winslow entered Mr. +Greville Howard's study--and now it was half-past four. The room had +grown gradually darker, but the fire threw out a glimmering light on the +faces of the two sitting there. + +All at once Katty realised, with a sense of acute discomfiture, that as +yet her host had said nothing--nothing, at least, that mattered. He had +drawn out of her, with extraordinary patience, courtesy, and +intelligence, all that _she_ could tell _him_--of what had happened +before, and about the time of, Godfrey Pavely's death. + +She had even told him of the two anonymous letters received by Godfrey +Pavely--but with regard to them she had of course deliberately lied, +stating that Godfrey had shown them to her, and that she still had no +idea from whence they came. + +Her listener had made very few comments, but he had shown, quite early +in their conversation, a special interest in the personality of Oliver +Tropenell. He had even extracted from Katty a physical description of +the man she declared to be now Mrs. Pavely's lover, and probable future +husband. + +At first, say during the first half-hour, she had felt extraordinarily +at ease with the remarkable old man who had listened to her so +attentively, while the fine eyes, which were the most arresting feature +of his delicate, highly intelligent countenance, were fixed on her +flushed face. But now, with the shadows of evening falling, she could +not see him so clearly, and there came a cold feeling about Katty +Winslow's heart. There was very little concerning her own past relations +with Godfrey Pavely that this stranger did not now know. She felt as if +he had uncovered all the wrappings which enfolded her restless, +vindictive, jealous soul. But she herself, so far, had learnt nothing +from him. + +She began to feel very tired, and suddenly, whilst answering one of his +searching, gentle questions, her voice broke, and she burst into tears. + +He leant quickly forward, and laid his thin, delicate right hand on +hers. "My dear Mrs. Winslow, please forgive me! This has been a painful +ordeal for you. I feel like a Grand Inquisitor! But now I am going to +bring you comfort--I ought not to say joy. But before I do so I am going +to make you take a cup of tea--and a little bread and butter. Then, +afterwards, I will show you that I appreciate your generous confidence +in telling me all that you have done." + +He waited a moment, and then said impressively, "I am going to put you +in the way to make it possible for you to avenge your dead friend, I +think I may also say _my_ dead friend, for Mr. Godfrey Pavely and I had +some very interesting and pleasant dealings with one another, and that +over many years." + +She was soothed by the really kind tone of his low voice, even by the +caressing quality of his light touch, and her sobs died down. + +Mr. Howard took his hand away, and pressed a button close to his chair. +A moment later a tray appeared with tea, cake, bread and butter, and a +little spirit lamp on which there stood what looked like a gold +tea-kettle. + +"You can put on the light, Denton," and there came a pleasant glow of +suffused light over the room. + +"Perhaps you will be so kind as to make the tea?" said Mr. Howard in his +full, low voice. + +Katty smiled her assent, and turned obediently towards the little table +which had been placed by her elbow. + +She saw that the kettle was so fixed by a clever arrangement that there +was no fear of accident, though the water in it had been brought in +almost boiling on the lacquer tray--a tray which was as exquisitely +choice in its way as was everything else in the room. + +Katty, as we know, was used to making afternoon tea. Very deftly she put +three teaspoonfuls of tea into the teapot, and then poured out the +boiling water from the bright yellow kettle. She was surprised at its +weight. + +"Yes," said Greville Howard, "it's rather heavy--gold always is. It's +fifteen-carat gold. I bought that kettle years ago, in Paris. It took my +fancy." + +He looked at the clock. "We will give the tea three minutes to draw," he +said thoughtfully. + +And then he began to talk to her about the people with whom she was +staying, the people who had never seen him, but who had so deep--it now +seemed to her so unreasoning and unreasonable--a prejudice against him. +And what he had to say about them amused, even diverted, Katty, so +shrewd were his thrusts, so true his appreciation of the faults and the +virtues of dear Helen and Tony Haworth. But how on earth had he learnt +all that? + +And then, at the end of the three minutes, she poured the tea into the +transparent blue-and-white Chinese porcelain cups. + +"No milk, no sugar, no cream for me," he said. "Only a slice of that +lemon." + +Greville Howard watched Katty take her tea, and eat the bread and butter +and the cake--daintily, but with a good appetite. He watched her with +the pleasant sensations that most men felt when watching Katty do +anything--the feeling that she was not only very pretty, but very +healthy too, and agreeable to look upon, a most satisfactory, satisfying +feminine presence. + +After she had finished, he again touched his invisible button, and the +tray was taken swiftly and noiselessly away. + + * * * * * + +"And now," he said, "I am going to tell you _my_ part of this strange +story, and you will see, Mrs. Winslow, that the two parts--yours and +mine--fit, and that the vengeance for which I see you crave, is in your +hands. I shall further show you how to arrange so that you need not +appear in the matter if Sir Angus Kinross prove kind, as I feel sure he +will be--to you." + +Katty clasped her hands together tightly. She felt terribly moved and +excited. Vengeance? What did this wonderful old man mean? + +"Dealers in money," began Mr. Greville Howard thoughtfully, "have to run +their own international police, and that, my dear young lady, is +especially true of the kind of business which built up what I think I +may truly call my fame, as well as my fortune. During something like +forty years I paid a large subsidy each year to the most noted firm of +private detectives in the world--a firm, I must tell you, who have their +headquarters in Paris. Though I no longer pay them this subsidy, for +mine was a one-man business, I still sometimes have reason to employ +them. They throw out their tentacles all over the world, and their +chief, a most intelligent, cultivated man, is by way of being quite a +good friend of mine. I always thoroughly enjoy a chat with him when I am +going through Paris on my way to my villa in the South of France. It is +to this man that the credit of what I am about to tell you, the credit, +that is, of certain curious discoveries connected with the mystery of +Mr. Godfrey Pavely's death, is due." + +Greville Howard waited a few moments, and then he spoke again. + +"I must begin at the beginning by telling you that when this Fernando +Apra came to see me, I formed two very distinct opinions. The one, which +is now confirmed by what you have told me, was that the man was not a +Portuguese; the other was that he was 'made up.' I felt certain that his +hair was dyed, and the skin of his face, neck and hands tinted. He was a +very clever fellow, and played his part in a capital manner. But I took +him for an adventurer, a man of straw, as the French say, and I believed +that Mr. Godfrey Pavely was being taken in by him. Yet there were +certain things about this Apra that puzzled me--that I couldn't make +out. An adventurer very rarely goes to the pains of disguising himself +physically, for his object is to appear as natural as possible. There +was yet another reason why the adventurer view seemed false. All the +time we were talking, all the time he was enthusing--if I may use a very +ugly modern word--about the prospects of this gambling concession, I had +the increasing conviction that he was not serious, that he was not _out +for business_--that he had come to see me with some other motive than +that of wishing me to take an interest in his scheme." + +Greville Howard leant forward, and gazed earnestly into his visitor's +face. "I felt this so strongly that the thought did actually flash +across me more than once--'Is this man engaged in establishing an +alibi?' When I asked him for the name and address of the French +references to which Mr. Pavely had made an allusion in his letter of +introduction, I saw that he was rather reluctant to give me the names. +Still he did do so at last, the bankers being----" + +"Messrs. Zosean & Co.," exclaimed Katty. "I have sometimes thought of +going to see them." + +"You would have had your journey for nothing. As I shall soon show you, +they were--they still are--an unconscious link in the chain. To return +to Apra, as we must still call him. So little was I impressed by this +peculiar person that I expected to hear nothing more of him or of his +gambling concern. But one day I received a letter from Mr. Godfrey +Pavely, telling me that he himself wished to see me with reference to +the same matter. I saw at once that _he_ really did mean business. He +was very much excited about the prospects of the undertaking." + +Mr. Greville Howard paused. He looked attentively at his visitor, but +Katty's face told him nothing, and he continued: "I cross-examined him +rather carefully about this Fernando Apra, and I discovered that he had +only seen the fellow twice, each time rather late in the evening, and by +artificial light. I then told him of my conviction that Apra was playing +a part, but he scouted the idea. Our unfortunate friend was a very +obstinate man, Mrs. Winslow." + +"Yes," said Katty in a low voice. "That is quite true." + +"And then," went on the other thoughtfully, "Pavely was also exceedingly +susceptible to flattery----" + +Katty nodded. This Mr. Greville Howard knew almost too much. + +"Well, as you know, he came down again to see me--and the next thing I +heard was that he had disappeared! At once--days before Mrs. Pavely +received that very singular letter--I associated Apra with the mystery. +It was, however, no business of mine to teach the police their business, +though I thought it probable that there would come a moment when I +should have to intervene, and reveal the little that I knew. That moment +came when Mr. Pavely's body was discovered in Apra's office at Duke +House." + +Greville Howard straightened himself somewhat in his easy chair. + +"I at once wrote, as I felt in duty bound, to Sir Angus Kinross. I had +met him, under rather unfortunate circumstances, some years ago, before +he became Commissioner of Police. That, doubtless, had given him a +prejudice against me. Be that as it may, instead of taking advantage of +my offer to tell him in confidence all I knew, he sent a most unpleasant +person down to interview me. This man, a pompous, ignorant fellow, came +twice--once before the inquest, once after the inquest. I naturally took +a special pleasure in misleading him, and in keeping to myself what I +could have told. But though I was able to give him the impression I +desired to convey, he was not able to keep anything he knew from _me_; +and, at the end of our second interview, he let out that the police had +very little doubt that two men had been concerned in the actual +murder--for murder the police by then believed it to be--of Mr. Godfrey +Pavely." + +Greville Howard stopped speaking for a moment. + +"Two men?" repeated Katty in a bewildered tone. + +And the other nodded, coolly. "Yes, that is the opinion they formed, +very early in the day, at Scotland Yard. They also made up their minds +that it would be one of those numerous murders of which the perpetrators +are never discovered. And, but for you and me, Mrs. Winslow, the very +clever perpetrators of this wonderfully well planned murder would have +escaped scot-free." + +He touched his invisible bell, and his man answered it. + +"Make up the fire," he said, "--a good lasting fire." + +When this had been done, he again turned to Katty. "We now," he said, +"come to the _really_ exciting part of my story. Up to now, I think I +have told you nothing that you did not know." + +"I had no idea," said Katty in a low, tense voice, "that the police +believed there were _two_ people concerned with Godfrey's death." + +She was trying, desperately, to put the puzzle together--and failing. + +"I crossed to France last March," went on Greville Howard musingly, +"and, inspired I must confess by a mere feeling of idle curiosity, I +stopped in Paris two days in order to see, first, Messrs. Zosean, and +secondly Henri Lutin, the head of the Detective Agency with whom, as I +told you just now, I have long been in such cordial relations. I called +first on Henri Lutin and reminded him of the story of Mr. Pavely's +disappearance, and of the subsequent finding of his body in this +Fernando Apra's office. I also informed him that I would go up to a +certain modest sum in pursuit of independent enquiries if he would +undertake to make them. He consented, and as a preliminary, gave me some +information with regard to Messrs. Zosean. Provided with a good +introduction I called on these bankers, and this is what I learnt. +Messrs. Zosean, with that curious incuriousness which is so very French, +scarcely knew anything of what had happened, though they were vaguely +aware that a man had been found killed by accident in their mysterious +client's office, for Fernando Apra was their client, but only--note +this, for it is important--a client of a few weeks' standing. He had +paid in to their bank, some two months before Mr. Pavely's death, the +very considerable sum of one million francs, forty thousand pounds, on +deposit. One of the junior partners saw him--only once, late in the +afternoon." + +Greville Howard waited a long moment--then he added impressively: "_And +the man whom they to this day believe to be Fernando Apra bore no +physical resemblance at all to the man who visited me here under that +name_. In fact, the description given by the bankers exactly tallies +with that of another man--of a man whom _you_ described to me about an +hour ago." + +"I don't quite understand," faltered Katty. + +"Don't you? Think a little, Mrs. Winslow, and you will agree with me +that the real client of Messrs. Zosean was Oliver Tropenell, the man +whom you believe to be the lover and future husband of Mrs. Pavely." + +Katty uttered an inarticulate exclamation--was it of surprise or of +satisfaction? Her host took no notice of it, and continued his +narrative: + +"One day--I soon found it to have been the day following that on which +the murder of Mr. Pavely was presumably committed--a man who, I feel +sure, was _my_ Fernando Apra, turned up at Messrs. Zosean with a cheque, +the fact that he was coming having been notified to the bank from London +by telephone. He drew out the greater part of the money lodged in the +name of Apra in Messrs. Zosean's bank--not all, mark you, for some eight +thousand pounds was left in, and that eight thousand pounds, Mrs. +Winslow, is still there, undisturbed. I doubt myself if it will ever be +claimed! + +"I then, following the plan laid down for me by Henri Lutin, asked +Messrs. Zosean at what hotel Fernando Apra had stayed. I was given two +addresses. These addresses I handed on to my friend the secret enquiry +agent, and the rest of the story belongs to him, for it was Lutin who +discovered all that I am now going to tell you." + +Greville Howard stopped speaking. He looked thoughtfully at the woman +who sat ensconced in the low arm-chair opposite him. + +He felt rather as a man may be supposed to feel who is about to put a +light to a fuse which will in due course blow up a powder magazine. +There even came over his subtle, tortuous mind a thrill of pity for the +man whom he was about to sacrifice to this pretty woman's desire for +vengeance and--as he could not help seeing--jealous hatred of another +woman who might, for all he knew, be in every way more worthy of his +interest, even of his admiration, than she who sat there looking at him +with gleaming eyes and parted lips. + +But Greville Howard, like all his kind, was a fatalist as well as +something of a philosopher. He could not have lived the life he had led, +and done the work which had built up his great fortune, had he been +anything else, and Katty had come at a very fortunate psychological +moment for him--as well as for herself. Greville Howard was becoming +what he had rarely ever been--bored; he was longing consciously for a +fresh interest and for a new companionship in his life. And so: + +"Perhaps you will be disappointed at the meagreness of what I am about +to tell you, but you may believe me when I say that it is information +which will make the way of Sir Angus Kinross quite clear, and which may +bring one, if not two, men to the gallows." + +Katty gave a little involuntary gasp. But he went on: + +"It did not take my friend Lutin very long to discover that a man of the +name of Apra had stayed at each of the hotels indicated to me by the +bankers. He also discovered that 'Apra' had with him a friend named +Dickinson who put down his birthplace as New York. Do you follow me, +Mrs. Winslow?" + +"Yes, I think so," she replied hesitatingly. + +"At the first hotel, a small, comfortable, rather expensive house in +the Madeleine quarter, Fernando Apra was a tall, dark, good-looking man, +and the other, the New Yorker, was fair and short. Though on the best of +terms they lived very different lives. The American was out a great +deal; he thoroughly enjoyed the gay, lively sides of Paris life. +Fernando Apra on the other hand stayed indoors, reading and writing a +good deal. At last the two men left the hotel, giving out that they were +going to spend the winter in the South of France. But they only stayed a +few days at Lyons and, doubling back to Paris, they settled in the Latin +Quarter on the other side of the river. + +"By that time, my dear Mrs. Winslow, _they had exchanged identities_. +The tall, dark man was now Dickinson, and his fair friend had become +Apra! It was Apra who one day told the manager he was going to a fancy +dress ball and asked him to recommend him a good theatrical costumier. +When Lutin ran that costumier to earth, the man at once remembered the +fact that a client he took to be an Englishman had come and had had +himself made up as a Mexican, purchasing also two bottles of +olive-coloured skin stain. Now Apra was out all night after this +extraordinary transformation in his appearance had taken place, but one +of the waiters at the hotel recognised him that same evening at Mabille. +When the man spoke to him, he appeared taken aback, and explained that +he had made a mistake in the day of the fancy dress ball. The next +morning he left the hotel, distributing lavish tips to everybody. But +Dickinson stayed on for a few days, and during those days he received +each day a telegram from England. One of these telegrams is actually in +my possession." + +Katty's host got up. He went across to a narrow, upright piece of inlaid +mahogany furniture, and unlocking a drawer, took from it an envelope. +Having opened it, he handed Katty a blue strip of paper on which were +printed the words: "Concession going well" and the signature "G." + +Katty stared down at the bit of blue paper, and she flushed. Even she +realised the significance of that "G." + +"I think," said her host quietly, "that if you write down from my +dictation certain notes, and hand them, _together with this telegram_, +to the Commissioner of Police, he may be trusted to do the rest." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Five quiet weeks slipped by--weeks full of outward, as well as of +inward, happiness at The Chase and at Freshley. + +Katty Winslow had come back to Rosedean, and then, without even seeing +Laura, had gone away again almost at once. She was still away when there +took place early in December the gathering together, for the first time +for many years, of a big shooting party at Knowlton Abbey. + +Just before joining that pleasant party, Mrs. Pavely spent a week in +London, and certain Pewsbury gossips, of whose very existence she was +unaware, opined that she had gone up to town to buy clothes! In a little +over a month, Godfrey Pavely would have been dead a year, and some of +these same gossips thought it rather strange that Mrs. Pavely should be +going to stay at the Abbey before her first year of widowhood was over. +But the kinder of the busybodies reminded one another that Lord St. +Amant had known the mistress of The Chase from childhood, and being, as +he was, a very good-natured man, no doubt he had thought it would cheer +up the poor lady to have a little change. + +Yes, Laura, to Mrs. Tropenell's surprise, had gone up alone to London, +and Oliver, after two days, followed her. But he had not waited to +escort her back, as his mother expected him to do. He returned the day +before Laura--in fact she was away a week, he only four days. + +The gossips of Pewsbury had been right. Laura had gone up to town to get +a few new clothes, but she was still wearing unrelieved black, if not +exactly conventional widow's mourning, when she arrived at Knowlton +Abbey. + +Lord St. Amant's shooting party was a great success--a success from the +point of view of the guests, and from that of the host. For the first +time for many years, in fact for the first time since the death of Lady +St. Amant, the house was quite full, for in addition to the neighbours +whom the host specially wished to honour, there had come down certain +more sophisticated folk from London. Among others asked had been Sir +Angus Kinross; but Sir Angus, to his own and Lord St. Amant's regret, +had had to decline. The two men had become intimate since last +winter--each had a real respect, a cordial liking, for the other. + +The housekeeper at the Abbey had been surprised to note his lordship's +interest in every detail. He had himself seen, and at considerable +length, the _chef_ who had come down from London for the week; he had +even glanced over the bedroom list, making certain suggestions as to +where his various guests should sleep. Thus it was by his desire that +Mrs. Tropenell had been given the largest bed-chamber in the house, one +which had never been, in the present housekeeper's reign, occupied by a +visitor. It had been, in the long, long ago, the room of his mother, the +room in fact where his lordship himself had been born some seventy odd +years ago. By his wish, also, there had been arranged for Mrs. +Tropenell's occupation the old-fashioned sitting-room into which the +bedroom opened. + +Mr. Oliver Tropenell had been put nearly opposite Lord St. Amant's own +sleeping apartment, in that portion of the house which was known as "his +lordship's wing." And Mrs. Pavely had been given, in the same part of +the house, but at the further end of the corridor, the room which had +been always occupied, during her infrequent sojourns at the Abbey, by +the late Lady St. Amant. + + * * * * * + +And now the long, though also the all too short, week-end, which had +lasted from Thursday to Tuesday, was over, and all the guests had +departed, with the exception of Lord St. Amant's three intimate +friends--Mrs. Tropenell, that lady's son, and Mrs. Pavely. This smaller +party was staying on for two more days, and then it would break up--Mrs. +Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely returning in the morning to Freshley Manor and +The Chase, while Mr. Tropenell stayed on to accompany his host to +another big shoot in the neighbourhood. + +Though all three had professed sincere regret at the departure of their +fellow guests, each of them felt a certain sense of relief, and yes, of +more than relief, of considerable satisfaction, when they found +themselves alone together. + +There is always plenty to talk about after the breakup of a country +house party, and when at last the four of them found themselves together +at dinner, they all did talk--even Laura, who was generally so silent, +talked and laughed, and exchanged quick, rather shy jests with Oliver. + +Laura and Oliver? Lord St. Amant had of course very soon discovered +their innocent secret. He had taxed Mrs. Tropenell with the truth, and +she had admitted it, while explaining that they desired their +engagement, for obvious reasons, to remain secret for a while. + +During these last few days their host had admired, with a touch of +whimsical surprise, Laura's dignity, and Oliver's self-restraint. Of +course they had managed to be a good deal together, aided by Lord St. +Amant's unobtrusive efforts, and owing to the fact that Mrs. Tropenell's +charming sitting-room upstairs was always at their disposal. + +But no one in the cheerful, light-hearted company had come within miles +of guessing the truth; and Oliver Tropenell had done his full share in +helping Lord St. Amant in the entertainment of his guests. He had also +made himself duly agreeable to the ladies--indeed, Oliver, in a sense, +had been the success of the party, partly because the way of his life in +Mexico enabled him to bring a larger, freer air into the discussions +which had taken place after dinner and in the smoking-room, and also +because of his vitality--a vitality which just now burned with a +brighter glow.... + +Lord St. Amant and Oliver only stayed on at the dining-table a very few +minutes after Mrs. Tropenell and Laura had gone off into the +drawing-room. + +Though now on very cordial terms, the two men never had very much to say +to one another. Yet Lord St. Amant had always been fond of Oliver. Being +the manner of man he was, he could not but feel attached to Letty +Tropenell's child. Still, there had been a time, now many long years +ago, just after the death of his wife, when he had been acutely jealous +of Oliver--jealous, that is, of Mrs. Tropenell's absorption, love, and +pride, in her son. She had made it so very clear that she desired no +closer tie to her old friend--and this had shrewdly hurt his +self-esteem. But he had been too much of a philosopher to bear +_rancune_, and such a friendship as theirs soon became had, after all, +its compensations. + +When Oliver settled in Mexico the time had passed by for a renewal of +the old relations, and for a while the tie which had lasted for so long, +and survived so many secret vicissitudes, appeared to loosen.... + +But now, again, all that was changed. Lord St. Amant had given up his +wanderings on the Continent, and he had come once more very near to Mrs. +Tropenell, during this last year. He and Oliver were also better friends +than they had ever been; this state of things dated from last winter, +for, oddly enough, what had brought them in sympathy had been the death +of Godfrey Pavely. They had been constantly together during the days +which had followed the banker's mysterious disappearance, and they had +worked in close union, each, in a sense, representing Laura, and having +a dual authority from her to do what seemed best. + +Still, to-night, excellent as were the terms on which each man felt with +the other, neither had anything to say that could not be said better in +the company of the ladies. And when in the drawing-room, which now +looked so large and empty with only two, where last night there had been +twelve, women gathered together about the fireplace, the four talked on, +pleasantly, cheerfully, intimately, as they had done at dinner. + +After a while Laura and Oliver slipped away into the smaller +drawing-room, and Lord St. Amant and Mrs. Tropenell, hardly aware that +the other two had left them, went on gossiping--harking back, as they +now so often did, to the old stories, the old human tragedies and +comedies, of the neighbourhood. + +Soon after ten Laura and Oliver came back, walking side by side, and +Oliver's mother looked up with a proud, fond glance. + +They were a striking, well-matched couple--Laura looking more beautiful +than ever to-night, perhaps because she seemed a thought more animated +than usual. + +"I've come to say good-night," she exclaimed. "I feel so sleepy! Oliver +and I had such a glorious walk this afternoon." + +She bent down and kissed Mrs. Tropenell. And then, unexpectedly, she +turned to Lord St. Amant, and put up her face as if she expected him +also to kiss her. + +Amused and touched, he bent and brushed his old lips against her soft +cheek: "My dear," he exclaimed, "this is very kind of you!" + +And then Oliver stepped forward into the circle of light thrown by the +big wood fire. + +He said a little huskily, "My turn next, Laura----" And to the infinite +surprise of his mother and of his host, Laura, with an impulsive, tender +gesture, reached up towards him, and he, too, brushed her soft face with +his lips. + +Then he took her hand, and led her to the door. And Lord St. Amant, +quoting Champmélé, turned to his old love: "'Ah! Madame--quelle jolie +chose qu'un baiser!'" he murmured, and ere the door had quite closed +behind Oliver he, too, had put his arm with a caressing gesture round +her shoulder, and drawn her to him, with the whispered words, +"Letty--don't think me an old fool!" And then, "Oh, Letty! Do you +remember the first time----" And though she made no answer, he knew she +did remember, like himself only too well, the wild, winter afternoon, +nearer forty than thirty years ago, when they two had been caught alone, +far from home, in a great storm--the wild weather responding to their +wild mood. They had taken shelter in a deserted, half-ruined barn, a +survival of the days when England had still great granaries. And there, +throwing everything aside--the insistent promptings of honour, and the +less insistent promptings of prudence--St. Amant had kissed Letty.... + +He remembered, even now, the thrill of mingled rapture, shame, +gratitude, triumph, and stinging self-rebuke, which had accompanied that +first long clinging kiss. + +The next day he had left the Abbey for the Continent, and when, at last, +he had come back, he had himself again well in hand.... + +Only yesterday the shooters had gone by that old seventeenth-century +barn, of which nothing now remained but thick low walls, and as he had +tramped by the spot, so alone with his memories, if outwardly so +companioned, there had swept over his heart, that heart which was still +susceptible to every keen emotion, a feeling of agonised regret for what +had--and what had not been. + +"Ah, Letty," he said huskily, "you've been the best friend man ever had! +Don't you think the time has come for two such old friends as you and I +have been never to part? It isn't as if I had a great deal of time +left." + + * * * * * + +An hour later Lord St. Amant was sitting up in bed, reading the fourth +volume of a certain delightful edition of the Memoirs of the Duc de +Saint Simon. He was feeling happier than he had felt for a very long +time--stirred and touched too, as he had not thought to be again. + +Complacently he reminded himself of the successful, the brilliantly +successful, elderly marriages he had known in his time. 'Twas odd when +one came to think of it, but he couldn't remember one such which had +turned out a failure! + +Dear Letty--who had known how to pass imperceptibly from youth to age +with such a fine, measured dignity, while retaining so much which had +made her as a girl and as an older woman the most delightful and +stimulating of companions. What an agreeable difference her presence +would make to his existence as he went slowly down into the shadows! He +shuddered a little--the thought of old age, of real old age, becoming +suddenly, vividly repugnant. + +Thank God, Letty was very much younger than himself. When he was eighty +she would be sixty-three. He tried to put away that thought, the thought +that some day he would be infirm, as well as old. + +He looked up from his book. + +How odd to think that Letty had never been in this room, where he had +spent so much of his life from boyhood onwards! He longed to show her +some of the things he had here--family miniatures, old political +caricatures, some of his favourite books--they would all interest her. + +He was glad he had arranged that she should have, on this visit, his +dear mother's room. When he had married--close on fifty years ago--his +parents had been alive, and later his wife, as the new Lady St. Amant, +had not cared to take over her predecessor's apartments. She had been +very little here, for soon, poor woman, she had become an invalid--a +most disagreeable, selfish invalid. He told himself that after all he +had had a certain amount of excuse for--well, for the sort of existence +he had led so long. If poor Adelaide had only died twenty years earlier, +and he had married Letty--ah, _then_, he would indeed have become an +exemplary character! Yet he had been faithful to Letty--in his +fashion.... + +No other woman had even approached near the sanctuary where the woman of +whom now, to-night, he was able to think as his future wife, had at once +become so securely enthroned. It had first been a delicious, if a +dangerous, relationship, and, later, a most agreeable friendship. During +the last few months she had become rather to his surprise very necessary +to him, and these last few days he had felt how pleasant it would be to +have Letty always here, at the Abbey, either in his company, or resting, +reading, or writing in the room where everything still spoke to him of +the long-dead mother who had been so dear to him. + +Of course they would wait till Oliver and Laura were married--say, till +some time in February or March: and then, when those two rather tiresome +younger people were disposed of, they, he and Letty, would slip up +quietly to London, and, in the presence of perhaps two or three old +friends, they would be made man and wife. + +He reflected complacently that nothing in his life would be changed, +save that Letty would be there, at the Abbey, as she had been the last +few days, always ready to hear with eager interest anything he had to +say, always with her point of view sufficiently unlike his own to give +flavour, even sometimes a touch of the unexpected, to their +conversation. + + * * * * * + +A knock at the door, and his valet came in, and walked close up to the +bed. + +"It's a telephone message, my lord. From Sir Angus Kinross--private to +your lordship." + +"Yes. What is the message?" + +Lord St. Amant felt a slight tremor of discomfort sweep over him. What +an odd time to send a trunk-call through--at close on midnight. + +"Sir Angus has been trying to get on for some time, my lord; there was a +fault on the line. Sir Angus would be much obliged if you would meet him +at your lordship's rooms at one o'clock to-morrow. He says he's sorry to +trouble your lordship to come up to London, but it's very important. He +came himself to the telephone, my lord. He asked who I was. I did offer +to fetch your lordship, but he said there was no occasion for that--if I +would deliver the message myself." + +"All right, Barrett." + +"Sir Angus begs your lordship not to tell any one that your business +to-morrow is with him." + +"I quite understand that." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +"We have solved the mystery of Godfrey Pavely's death!" + +Such were the words with which Sir Angus Kinross greeted Lord St. Amant, +when the latter, arriving at his rooms, found the Commissioner of Police +already there. + +"D'you mean that you've run Fernando Apra to earth?" + +The speaker felt relieved, and at the same time rather discomfited. He +had not associated the Commissioner of Police's summons with that now +half-forgotten, painful story. Godfrey Pavely had vanished out of his +mind, as he had vanished out of every one else's mind in the +neighbourhood of Pewsbury, and in the last few months when Sir Angus and +Lord St. Amant had met they had seldom alluded to the strange occurrence +which had first made them become friends. + +But now, seeing that the other looked at him with a singular look of +hesitation, there came a slight feeling of apprehension over St. Angus's +host. + +"Have you actually got the man here, in England? If so, I suppose poor +Mrs. Pavely is bound to have a certain amount of fresh trouble in +connection with the affair?" + +"We have not got the man who called himself Fernando Apra, and we are +never likely to have him. In fact, I regard it as certain that we shall +not even be able to connect him directly with the murder--for murder it +certainly was, St. Amant." + +"Murder?" + +Lord St. Amant repeated the word reluctantly, doubtfully. He was +beginning to feel more and more apprehensive. There was something so +strange and so sombre in the glance with which the Commissioner of +Police accompanied his words. + +During that fortnight when they had so constantly seen one another last +year, Sir Angus had never once looked surprised, annoyed--or even put +out! There had been about him a certain imperturbability, both of temper +and of manner. He now looked infinitely more disturbed than he had done +even at the moment when he had first seen Godfrey Pavely's dead body +sitting up in Fernando Apra's sinister-looking office. + +"Yes," he went on in a low, incisive voice, "it was murder right enough! +And we already hold a warrant, which will be executed the day after +to-morrow, this next Friday----" + +He waited a moment, then uttered very deliberately the words: "It is a +warrant for the arrest of Mr. Oliver Tropenell on the charge of having +murdered Mr. Godfrey Pavely on or about the 5th of last January." + +"I--I don't understand what you mean! Surely Oliver Tropenell was not +masquerading as Fernando Apra?" exclaimed Lord St. Amant. "If one can +believe a mass of quite disinterested evidence, the two men were utterly +unlike!" + +"That is so, and there was of course a man who masqueraded, and +masqueraded most successfully, both in Paris and in London, as Fernando +Apra. That man, St. Amant, was----" + +Lord St. Amant bent forward eagerly while his mind, his still vigorous, +intelligent, acute mind, darted this way and that. What name--whose +name--was Sir Angus going to utter? + +He was not long left in suspense. + +"That man," said Sir Angus slowly, impressively, "was Mrs. Pavely's +brother, a certain Gilbert Baynton, who is, we are informed, the +business partner of Mr. Tropenell in Mexico. It was _he_ who masqueraded +as Fernando Apra. But it was not he who actually fired the pistol shot +which killed Godfrey Pavely----" + +When he had heard the name Gilbert Baynton, it was as if a great light +had suddenly burst in on Lord St. Amant's brain. In spite of everything +he felt a sharp thrill of relief. + +"Good God!" he exclaimed. "There's been a terrible mistake--but it's one +that I can set right in a very few minutes. Believe me, you're on the +wrong track altogether! If murder there was--murder, and not +manslaughter, which I venture to think much more probable--then Gilbert +Baynton was Godfrey Pavely's murderer. The two men hated one another. It +all comes back to me--not only had they a quarrel years ago, but that +same quarrel was renewed not long before Godfrey Pavely's disappearance. +Nothing--_nothing_--would induce me to believe that Oliver Tropenell is +a murderer!" + +"I'm afraid you'll soon be brought round to believe it," said Sir Angus +ruefully. "I am of course well aware of what you say concerning Gilbert +Baynton's relations to his brother-in-law. We've already found all that +out, especially as we had a willing witness close to our hand. +Unfortunately--I say unfortunately, St. Amant, for of course I know he +is a thorough bad hat--we have irrefutable evidence that this man +Baynton did _not_ commit the murder. He was certainly in Paris at the +time when Godfrey Pavely was killed in London." + +Sir Angus took a turn up and down the room--then he came back to where +the other man was sitting. + +"You can take it from me, St. Amant, that there has never been, in the +whole history of criminal jurisprudence, so far as I am acquainted with +it, any crime planned out with such infinite care, ingenuity, +and--and--well, yes, I must say it, a kind of almost diabolical cunning. +So true is that that----" He took another turn up and down the room, and +then once more he came and stood before his friend: "Well, I consider +the murderer has a very good sporting chance of getting off--scot free! +He will be able to command the best legal advice as well as the best +intellects at the Criminal Bar--that he himself has no mean intellect he +has proved over this business. Yes, I shouldn't be in the least +surprised if he managed to scrape through! More fortunate than most of +his kind, he has a new country to which he will be able to retire with +the widow of the man he murdered--if she can be brought to believe in +him. And, mind you, women can be brought to believe _anything_ of those +they love, or at any rate, they can be brought to _seem_ to believe +anything!" + +He waited a moment, and then added abruptly, "I formed the opinion that +Mrs. Pavely was a very unusual woman, St. Amant." + +"But you don't think--surely you don't think----" + +"No, no----" Sir Angus was very decided. "I certainly don't think Mrs. +Pavely was in any way concerned in this appalling plot. And mind +you--ill as I think of him, I must admit that Oliver Tropenell's a brave +man. He did the job himself--even if he was helped by his friend." + +He waited a moment. Somehow St. Amant was taking the news far more to +heart than he had expected. + +"I'll tell you everything in time, but it's a long, complicated story; +and of course I'm trusting entirely to your honour in the matter. What I +tell you now must never go beyond these four walls." + +Sir Angus sat down, and Lord St. Amant listened, half of his brain +acutely, sensitively alive to the story that was being told him--the +other half in a kind of stupor of grief, of shame, and of horror. That +second half of his brain was dominated by one name, one thought, one +heart-beat--Letty, the dear, the beloved woman who had just promised to +marry him, to bring him the solace of her care and companionship in the +evening of his days.... + + * * * * * + +"Apart from certain most cleverly devised breaks in the story--to which +I shall make allusion presently--Oliver Tropenell's best chance lies in +the absence of adequate motive. Why should this millionaire wish to +murder a man who, as he will easily be able to prove, was not only an +intimate friend, but also a connection of his own? Our answer to that +question will be to put in these two anonymous letters." + +Sir Angus took out of his pocket the two letters which had caused poor +Godfrey Pavely such acute discomfort just a year before. + +Lord St. Amant read them through, carefully, in silence. + +"Still, as I daresay you know, judges look very much askance at +anonymous letters, and especially in a trial for murder. Also these +prove so _very_ little--the more so that there seems to have been no +talk at all about Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely in the neighbourhood. She +bears, and has always borne, a very high character. As for these +letters, they were evidently written by a woman--and by an educated +woman. Any one familiar with disguised handwriting could tell you _that_ +much. Of course I have my own theory as to who wrote them." + +Lord St. Amant nodded. "Yes, so have I." + +"Still, I'm not bound to give my theory to either side, am I? I foresee +that very probably these letters will remain anonymous. A great many +people who think themselves clever will put them down to some dismissed +servant. + +"The fact that Mr. Tropenell left England for Mexico so soon after the +discovery of Mr. Pavely's body is a good point on his side. The judge +will argue, above all the jury will argue, that if he had been in love +with Mrs. Pavely--if he had loved her, that is, with a guilty +passion--he would not have left her just after she had become a widow. +Nothing compelled him to do so. It has been suggested, but from a person +who does not intend to go into the witness-box if she can help it, that +Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely are now secretly engaged. My answer to that +is--why shouldn't they be? Many a man has married his best friend's +widow without any one supposing that he committed murder in order to +attain that satisfaction!" + +"Have you proof--irrefutable proof--pointing to the guilt of Oliver +Tropenell?" + +"What is irrefutable proof? It can be proved that Oliver Tropenell spent +many weeks on the Continent in the company of the man who undoubtedly +masqueraded as Fernando Apra, and that for a certain portion of that +time the two men exchanged identities. Nothing can shake that portion of +the evidence. But there is no record of the two having met, later, in +London--I mean during the time when the net was certainly being drawn +round Godfrey Pavely. And, as I said before, Gilbert Baynton--_alias_ +Fernando Apra--has an absolute alibi. He was certainly in Paris on the +day when all trace of Pavely was lost. There seems no doubt at all that +the evidence of the London hotel manager was most artfully arranged for. +The man's story was given in good faith, but the incident occurred a +full week before Mr. Pavely was done to death." + +"But where does Tropenell come in?" + +"As to the movements of Mr. Oliver Tropenell, we have not been quite so +fortunate in tracing them. But even so, we have evidence that during the +fateful three days on one of which the murder was certainly committed, +he was staying in London, having just arrived from the Continent. I +personally have no doubt at all that it was on Thursday, January the +5th, that, lured by a cleverly concocted letter signed 'Fernando Apra,' +the hapless Pavely went to Duke House to find Tropenell lying in wait +for him. The two men may have had words--they probably _did_ have +words. But whatever passed--and look at it as you may, St. Amant--it was +deliberate murder." + +Lord St. Amant stood up. His turn had come to astound the Commissioner +of Police. + +"Yes," he said, "yes, if your theory is correct, Kinross, it was +deliberate murder--to me far the more terrible fact, because the +murderer will soon be my stepson. I am to be married to Mrs. Tropenell +by special licence next week." + +And as the Commissioner of Police, transfixed with surprise, remained +silent, the other went on, speaking rather quietly and coldly, "It is +only fair on my part to tell you this. Indeed, perhaps I ought to have +told you at once--I mean when I first gathered the purport of what you +wished to say to me." + +Sir Angus shook his head. He was filled with a great pity, as well as a +great admiration, for the man--who now looked such an old man--standing +there facing him. + +"Look here," he said slowly. "I oughtn't perhaps to make such a +suggestion to you--but we've become friends, St. Amant. That is why I +venture to advise you that before this next Friday you should get these +two unfortunate ladies, Mrs. Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely, out of the +country. Take them away--hide them away--in France or in Spain! If you +do that they will be spared a fathomless measure of anguish and of +shame. The presence of neither of them is essential to the course of +justice, and if they remain in England they will certainly each be +called as witnesses, in which case Mrs. Pavely will go through--well, I +can only describe it as _hell_. It is not as if the presence of either +of them would be really beneficial to Oliver Tropenell." + +"Can you say that quite truly about his mother?" asked Lord St. Amant +searchingly. + +Sir Angus looked up with a very troubled expression of face. + +"No, I fear I can't," he answered, frankly, "for if Mrs. Tropenell can +bring herself to believe her son absolutely innocent, then, in the hands +of a skilful counsel, I have to admit that her evidence might be of +great sentimental value to Tropenell. But the same cannot be said of +Mrs. Pavely's presence in the witness-box. Whichever way you look at it, +Mrs. Pavely's presence is bound to be, in a judicial sense, detrimental +to the man in the dock. She is, if I may say so, St. Amant, a singularly +attractive woman, and ten out of every twelve of the men in Court would +probably regard her as providing a very adequate 'motive'!" + +There was a pause, and then Sir Angus began again: + +"What would you say to our persuading Mrs. Pavely to leave England for a +while, leaving only Mrs. Tropenell to face the music?" + +"Mrs. Pavely," said Lord St. Amant thoughtfully, "would probably refuse +to leave England. I think, I fear, that she loves Oliver +Tropenell--passionately." + +He added abruptly, "Are you having him watched?" + +Sir Angus cleared his throat. "Well, no, not exactly _watched_. We are +of course aware that he has been staying with you for the past week, and +that he is going back to Freshley Manor--is it to-morrow, or the day +after to-morrow? I take it that he would probably prefer to be arrested +in his mother's house." + +A feeling of sick horror came over the other man's heart. "I--I suppose +so," he muttered. + +And then Sir Angus Kinross dropped his voice: "You really know this man +and I don't. Do you think it advisable that he should be prepared for +what is coming--that _you_, for instance, St. Amant----" + +"Do you mean," exclaimed Lord St. Amant, "that I may--warn him?" + +The other nodded. "Yes, that is what I suggest that you should do. I +take it that we can be quite sure that he will do nothing mad or +foolish--that he will not try to get away, for instance? It would be +quite useless, and I need hardly point out that it would ruin his +chances--later. I think you are at liberty to tell him, as from yourself +of course, that you have reason to think he has a sporting chance, St. +Amant. But I am trusting, not only to your honour, but to your secrecy +and--and discretion." + +The other nodded gravely. "Tropenell's not the sort of man to run away." + +"No, I don't think he is--once he knows the game is up," answered the +Commissioner of Police a trifle grimly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +It was now early, very early in the morning after the return of Lord St. +Amant to the Abbey. Dead dark, and dead quiet too, in the great sleeping +house. Not dead cold, however, in his lordship's comfortable bedroom, +for he had built up the fire, as he sat on and on, still fully dressed, +reading, or trying to read--his bed exactly in the same state as when he +had gone upstairs from the drawing-room about eleven. + +It was years and years since Lord St. Amant had last stayed up all +night, but though he had made a great effort to forget himself in those +ever fresh, even if familiar, memoirs of Saint Simon, he had found it +impossible to banish from his mind--even for a few moments--the awful +thing which he knew would, in a sense, never leave his mind again. + +For the tenth time he put his book down, marking the page with a tiny +strip of green watered ribbon, on a low table by his side, and then, +staring into the fire, his memory lingered--not over his talk with Sir +Angus Kinross, he was sick of thinking _that_ over--but over the +incidents which had marked the evening before. + +He had returned from London only just in time to dress for dinner, and +so he had not seen his guests till just before a quarter-past eight. +Then had followed an hour passed, outwardly at least, peacefully and +pleasantly. + +But while he had been eating mechanically the food put before him, in +very truth not knowing what it was, terrible thoughts had gone through +his mind in a terrible sequence. + +Once or twice he had caught, or thought he had caught, Oliver +Tropenell's penetrating eyes fixed searchingly on his face, but he, the +host, had avoided looking at his guest. Somehow he could neither look at +Oliver, nor even think of Oliver--with Oliver and Laura there, the one +sitting opposite to him, the other next him. + +Laura? Laura, on Lord St. Amant's left, had looked lovely last night. +She was wearing a white dress, almost bridal in its dead whiteness--a +rather singular fact considering that she had till to-day worn +unrelieved black. Looking back, her host could not get her out of his +mind. To think that she, proud, reserved, Laura Pavely was to be the +heroine of a frightful tragedy which would bring not only shame and +disgrace on herself and on the man whom Lord St. Amant had every reason +to suppose she now loved, but--what was of so very much more concern to +him--on that man's mother. + +Looking at Laura, seeing that strange, haunting Mona Lisa smile on her +lovely face, it had seemed incredible that she should be the central +figure of such a story. But how could she escape being the central +figure, the heroine of the story, at any rate in the imagination of all +those, one might almost count them by millions, rather than thousands, +who in a few days or a few weeks would be as familiar with the name +"Mrs. Pavely" as they once had been with the names of--of Mrs. Bravo and +Mrs. Maybrick? + +Yes, Lord St. Amant, staring into the fire, told himself, that that +three-quarters of an hour spent in his own dining-room had been the most +painful time he had ever lived through in his long life. He felt as if +every moment of it was indelibly stamped on his brain. And yet he had +completely forgotten what the talk had been about! He supposed they had +talked. Silence would have seemed so strange, so unnatural. Yet he could +not remember a single thing which had been said. + +But his vision of the three who had sat at table with him remained +horribly clear. + +Now he was haunted specially by Oliver. And then, after a while, Oliver +left him, and he was haunted by his poor friend, soon to be his poor +wife. + +Mrs. Tropenell had been more silent than usual--so much he did remember. +And he wondered uneasily if he had given her any cause for thinking, +from his appearance or his manner, that there was anything wrong? + +The thought of what was going to happen to Mrs. Tropenell on the day +which was now to-morrow, became suddenly so intolerable to Lord St. +Amant that he got up from his chair, and walked twice round the large, +shadowed bedroom. + +Then he sat down again, and groaned aloud. + +It was as though a bridge had been thrown over the chasm of nearly forty +years. His withered heart became vivified. Something of the passion +which he had left for the high-spirited and innocent, yet +ardent-natured, girl whom he had loved, and whom he had saved from +herself, stirred within him. Secretly, voicelessly, he had always been +very proud of what he had, done--and left undone. It was the one good, +nay, the one selfless, action of his long, agreeable, selfish life. + +But he could not save her now! Some little shelter and protection he +would be able to afford her, but what would it avail against the +frightful cloud of shame and anguish which was about to envelop her? + +He told himself suddenly what he had already told himself when with Sir +Angus--namely, that he and Letty must be married at once. She would +certainly acquiesce in any course which would benefit Oliver. Yes, Letty +would think of nothing but her son, and, the world being what it is, +Oliver would of course benefit by the fact that Lord St. Amant was his +stepfather. It would add yet another touch of the unusual and the +romantic to the story.... + +Once more his mind swung back to last evening. He and Oliver had stayed +alone together some ten minutes after the ladies had gone into the +drawing-room, and there had come over Lord St. Amant a wild, unreasoning +impulse to unburden his heart. But of course he had checked, battened +down resolutely, that foolish almost crazy impulse. As soon as Letty and +Laura were safely gone tomorrow morning he must, of course, tackle the +terrible task. And then he tried, as he had tried so often during the +last twelve hours, to put himself in Oliver Tropenell's place. + +He recalled the younger man's easy, assured manner, and what a real +help, nay, more than help, he had been when the house was full of +guests. More than one of their neighbours there had spoken warmly, with +evident admiration, of Tropenell. "How well he's turned out! He was +thought to be such a queer chap as a boy." + +A queer chap? Oliver was certainly _that_. + +Lord St. Amant forced himself to consider the man whom his intellect, if +not his heart, was compelled to recognise as a cold-blooded murderer. + +What had been his and Laura's real attitude to one another during +Godfrey Pavely's lifetime? Was Laura absolutely innocent? Or, had she +played with Tropenell as women sometimes do play with men--as a certain +kind of beautiful, graceful, dignified cat sometimes plays with a mouse? +He was still inclined to think _not_,--before yesterday he would +certainly have said not. But one never can tell--with a woman.... + +And what was going to happen now? Oliver had always been a fighter--no +doubt Oliver would be prepared to take the "sporting chance." + +When he and his guest had gone into the drawing-room last evening, Laura +and Oliver had almost at once passed through into the smaller +drawing-room. They had moved away unconcernedly, as if it was quite +natural that they should desire to be by themselves, rather than in the +company of Oliver's mother and Laura's host; and Lord St. Amant, looking +furtively at Mrs. Tropenell, had felt a sudden painful constriction of +the heart as he had noted the wistful glance she had cast on the two +younger people. It had been such a touching look--the look of the mother +who gives up her beloved to the woman who has become his beloved. + +At ten o'clock tea had been brought in--an old-fashioned habit which +was, perhaps, the only survival of the late Lady St. Amant's reign at +the Abbey, and, to the surprise of Mrs. Tropenell, her companion had +poured himself out a cup and had drunk it off absently. + +She had smiled, exclaiming, "You shouldn't have done that! You know you +never can take tea and coffee so near together!" And he had said, "Can't +I? No, of course I can't. How stupid of me!" + +And Laura, hearing the opening and the shutting of doors, had come back, +and said that she felt sleepy. They had had another glorious walk, she +and Oliver.... + +Yes, that had been how the evening had worn itself out, so quiet and +pleasant, so peaceful--outwardly. It was, indeed, outwardly just the +kind of evening which Lord St. Amant had promised himself only yesterday +should be repeated many times, after his marriage to his old friend. But +now he knew that that had been the last apparently pleasant, peaceful +evening that was ever likely to fall to his share in this life. Even if +Oliver Tropenell, aided by his great wealth and shrewd intellect, +escaped the legal consequences of his wicked deed, his mother would ever +be haunted by the past--if indeed the fiery ordeal did not actually kill +her. + +The old man, sitting by the fire, began to feel very, very tired--tired, +yet excited, and not in the least sleepy. He turned and looked over at +his bed, and then he shook his head. Yet he would have to get into that +bed and pretend that he had slept in it, before his valet came into the +room at half-past seven. + +It was years, years, _years_ since he had last tried to make an +unslept-in bed look as if it had been slept in. + +He told himself fretfully that it was odd how unwilling he felt to go +over in his own mind the amazing story told him by Sir Angus Kinross. He +had thought of nothing else on his long journey from London, but since +he had arrived at the Abbey, since he had seen Oliver, he could not bear +to think over the details of the sinister story. He forced himself to +glance at them, as it were obliquely, for a moment. Yes, he could quite +see what Sir Angus meant! Oliver certainly had a sporting chance, backed +with the power of commanding the best legal advice and the highest +talent at the Bar, coupled with the kind of sympathy which is aroused, +even in phlegmatic England, by what the French call a _crime passionel_. + + * * * * * + +Once more Lord St. Amant took up the little faded red leather-bound +volume, but he had hardly pushed aside the green ribbon which marked his +place in it, when there struck on his ears the metallic sound of an +alarum clock--one which he judged to have been carefully muffled and +deadened, yet which must be quite sufficiently audible to fulfil its +purpose of awakening any sleeper in the room where it happened to be. + +Now, on hearing that sound, Lord St. Amant was exceedingly surprised, +for, as far as he knew, only one other room was occupied on this side of +the corridor. That room was that which his late wife had chosen in +preference to the one which had been his mother's, and by an odd whim he +had assigned it to Laura Pavely. + +He turned slightly round in his chair, and glanced at the travelling +clock which was on his dressing-table. + +It was half-past five. + +Why should Laura, or any one else in that great house for the matter of +that, wish to be awakened on a winter's morning at such an hour? + +While he was thinking this over, he heard the sound of a key turning +quietly in a lock, and then there came that of the slow opening of a +door on to the corridor. + +He stood up, uncertain what to do, and feeling his nerves taut. + +Though he was now an old man, his limbs had not lost all their +suppleness, and after a moment of hesitation he sprang to his door and +opened it. + +Yes! He could hear the firm tread of footsteps coming down the corridor +towards him, to his left. + +He flung his door wide open, and into the stream of light thrown by his +powerful reading lamp into the corridor, there suddenly appeared Oliver +Tropenell---- + +For a flashing moment the tall figure loomed out of the darkness, and +then was engulfed again.... + +Lord St. Amant shut the door and hurried back to the fireplace. He +cursed the impulse, bred half of genuine alarm, half of eager curiosity, +which had made him the unwilling sharer in another man's--and +woman's--secret. + +Laura? Laura?--_Laura?_ He was so taken aback, so surprised, so utterly +astounded, and yes, so shocked, that for a moment he forgot the terrible +thing which had now filled his mind without ceasing for so many hours. +Then it came back, a thousand-fold more vivid and accusing. + +Laura? Good God, how mistaken he had been in her! Manlike, he told +himself, most unfairly, that somehow what he had now learnt made +everything--anything possible. + +But before he had time to sit down, the door opened again, and Oliver +Tropenell walked into the room. + +"I wish you to know," he began, without any preamble, "that Laura and I +were married a week ago in London. She wished to wait--in fact it had +been arranged that we should wait--till February or March. But to please +me--only to please me, St. Amant--she put her own wishes, her own +scruples aside. If there is any blame--the blame is entirely, _entirely_ +mine." He waited a moment, and then went on rapidly: + +"As far as the rest of the world--the indifferent world--is concerned, +it will believe that Laura and I were married when of course we should +have been, after Godfrey Pavely had been dead a year. But Laura would +like my mother to know. In fact she intends, I believe, to tell my +mother to-morrow." + +Lord St. Amant found himself debating, with a kind of terrible +self-questioning, whether now was the moment to speak to Oliver. + +"Of course I understand," he said shakily. "And I think Laura did quite +right. But even so I suggest that nothing is said to your mother--yet. I +have a very serious reason for asking you to beg Laura to keep your +marriage absolutely secret." + +He was looking earnestly, painfully into the face of the younger man. + +Oliver Tropenell's countenance suddenly stiffened. It assumed a +terrible, mask-like expression. + +"Had your journey to London," he asked slowly, "anything to do with my +affairs? I thought so once--at dinner. Did Sir Angus Kinross send for +you?" + +Lord St. Amant could not, did not, speak. But at last he bent his head. + +Then Oliver asked another question, quickly, in a matter-of-fact tone: +"How many hours have I left?" + +"Till to-morrow, I mean till Friday, morning," the other answered in a +stifled voice. + +He longed to go on, to tell the man standing by his side what Sir Angus +had said as to his having "a sporting chance." But there was something +in the expression of the rigid, mask-like face which forbade his saying +that. + +And then Oliver Tropenell turned round and grasped his host's hand. + +"I owe you a lot of kindness," he muttered. "I used not to be grateful, +but I am grateful, _now_. We'll get Laura and mother off--and then +you'll tell me what I have to know." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Mrs. Tropenell stood by the window of the pretty, old-fashioned +sitting-room which she had now occupied for over a week, and which she +knew would be, in a special sense, her own room, after she had became +Lady St. Amant. + +She was already dressed for the drive home with Laura Pavely. It was +nearly twelve o'clock, and the car would be round in a few minutes. But +she was waiting on, up here, for her son, for after breakfast Oliver had +said casually: "I'll come up to your room for a moment, mother--I mean +before you start for Freshley." + +She looked round the room consideringly. Nothing in it had been altered +for something like fifty years. Above the Italian marble chimney-piece +was a good portrait, in oils, of Lord St. Amant's father, and on either +side of the fireplace were crayon drawings of St. Amant as a little boy, +and of his two sisters as little girls. Everything here epitomised the +placid, happy life of the good and fortunate woman who had been Lord St. +Amant's mother. + +But the pretty, old-fashioned, peaceful-looking room told also of the +strange transience of human life. With the exception of that early +Victorian crayon drawing of the stalwart little boy, almost everything +in the nature of a relic or memento spoke of some human being long dead. + +Mrs. Tropenell felt curiously at peace. There was something almost +final about the feeling which possessed her. Up to last night she had +been anxious, restless, full of a secret, painful doubt as to whether +she was doing right in marrying Lord St. Amant. + +But now, this morning, her doubts had gone, partly owing to a very +trifling thing, a quick perception of how well St. Amant and Oliver got +on together--now. She had been alone with them at breakfast, and they +had talked eagerly together, passing quickly from one subject to +another, with no intervals of silence. When, at last, Oliver had got up, +St. Amant also had risen, and put his arm with an affectionate gesture +round the younger man's shoulder, and she had caught a strange look, a +look of moved gratitude, on Oliver's dark face.... + +She had dreaded telling her son of her resolve--but the dread had left +her, and she made up her mind to tell him this morning--not to wait, as +she had half thought of doing, till he was at home again. + +St. Amant and Oliver were going to shoot this afternoon over land +belonging to little Alice Pavely. Laura had let The Chase shooting to a +neighbour, and the neighbour, whose name was Buckhurst, had invited the +other two to join his shooting party to-day, and to-morrow also. Oliver +was coming home to Freshley in between.... + +The door opened. "Mother, may I come in?" + +She turned quickly, all her heart, as always, welcoming him. With a +little, unacknowledged pang she told herself that Oliver was growing +older, that he was losing the look of buoyancy that he had kept so long. +But what a fine, strong, vigorous-looking man he looked!--as he stood +there, smiling rather gravely at her. + +"Oliver?" she exclaimed, suddenly making up her mind to rush her +fence--it was a simile which still often occurred to her--"Oliver, my +dear, I want to tell you something. I have promised Lord St. Amant to +marry him." + +He looked moved and surprised--perhaps more than she had expected him to +be. But his answer came instantly: "I am glad, mother. I'm very, very +glad! I want to tell you, I've meant to tell you for some time, that I +felt I've been very churlish in this matter of Lord St. Amant. He's +always been good to me! Very, very good. I owed him a great deal as a +boy. Lately, well, mother, you must have noticed it yourself, we've +become really friends." + +He looked swiftly round the pretty room. Till this morning he had always +been here alone with Laura, having eyes only for her. He saw now what a +charming room it was--so warm, so cosy too, on this chilly, wintry +December day. + +He exclaimed: "It will be good to think of you here--wherever I may +be----" + +She felt a tremor go through her. Somehow she had thought that he meant +to settle down in England; he had never said anything about it, but she +had thought that that was his intention. + +"Is Laura willing to spend a part of every year in Mexico, my dearest?" + +He nodded, rather absently, as if the question hardly required an +answer. + +She moved closer to him. "You are very happy, are you not, Oliver?" she +asked in a low voice, and looking up into his face. + +And again he answered at once, almost as though he had seen the question +in her eyes before she uttered it: "Very, very happy, mother! I don't +suppose any man has ever been happier than I have been." + +Again she put an intimate, probing question, wondering at her own +courage, her own temerity, in doing so. "Laura wholly satisfies you?" +she asked, allowing nothing of the doubt which was still in her heart to +creep into her voice. + +"Wholly," he said, again in that strong, confident voice. "And, +mother--?" he waited a moment, and then, in a voice suddenly tense with +emotion, he muttered--"what she is to me, I, all unworthy though I be, +am to her. Do you know what--what response means to a man?" + +"I think I do," she said in a low voice. + +They remained silent. She felt as if she were, for the first time, fused +in intense spiritual communion with her son. + +He broke the spell. "There's something I want you to know," he said. And +then he stopped short, and, looking away, exclaimed, "Laura shall tell +you!" The carriage gong echoed through the great house. He opened the +door, she passed through it, and so together they walked down to the +large, rather bare hall. There they waited a few moments in silence, +till there came the sound of light footsteps--Laura running downstairs, +a small fur cap on her beautiful head. + +She hurried towards them, smiling, and Mrs. Tropenell turned away--a +twinge of jealous pain, of which she was ashamed, in her heart--and +stared into the big log fire. + +She heard Oliver exclaim, in accents at once imploring and imperious: +"Laura? Come over here a moment." + +At last she, the mother, turned slowly round, to see, through the +half-open door of Lord St. Amant's study, the two standing together, +locked in each other's arms, Laura looking up into Oliver's face with an +expression of rapt devotion, of entire absorption, in her blue, +heavy-lidded eyes. As their lips met, Mrs. Tropenell looked quickly +away. She asked herself if this exalted passion could last, and whether, +after all, Oliver were not happier now than he could ever hope to be +again? + +Laura was very silent during the first half of their homeward drive, but +at last she amazed Mrs. Tropenell by suddenly saying: "I want you to +know--I feel I must tell you--that Oliver and I were married, in London, +ten days ago. And I think--oh, Aunt Letty, I do think that he is +happy--at last!" + +She said the words very simply, and Mrs. Tropenell felt extraordinarily +moved. This then was what Oliver had wanted her to know, and man-like +had felt too--too shy to tell her. + +"I am very grateful to you for what you have done," she exclaimed, and +held the younger woman's hand tightly clasped in hers for a moment. + +That was all. But before they parted Laura gave his mother a message +from Oliver. It was quite an unimportant message, simply that on his way +home he meant to look in at The Chase. + +"You don't mind, do you?" Laura asked, a little hesitatingly. And +Oliver's mother smiled. + +"Of course not, my dear--I'm glad he should! Perhaps you'd like to come +back with him, and stay on for dinner?" + +But Laura, reddening with one of her rather rare, vivid blushes, shook +her head. "I think I ought to stay at home the first evening," she said, +"and put Alice to bed. She loves my putting her to bed. I don't want +Alice ever to feel jealous." + +But this time Mrs. Tropenell made no answer. Poor little Alice! It would +be strange indeed if the child did not feel a little jealous as time +went on--if, that is, Laura went on being, as she seemed to be, almost +mystically absorbed in this wonderful, glowing thing which had come into +her life. + + * * * * * + +It was the afternoon of the same day, and Mrs. Tropenell, after dealing +with the various matters which had accumulated during her week's +absence, had gone up to her room to rest before Oliver's return. Lying +on her bed, in the fast-gathering twilight, thinking over all that had +happened, and all that was happening, to herself and to those she loved, +Mrs. Tropenell dozed off for a few moments. Then, in a long flash which +seemed to contain æons of sensation, she went through an amazing and +terrifying experience! + +On the dead stillness which reigned both within and without the house +there suddenly rang out a shot. At the same moment, if not indeed +before, her whole being seemed to be bracing itself up to endure a great +ordeal. It was as if her spirit, vanquishing a base, secret, physical +terror of the unknown, was about to engage on a great adventure. + +With a stifled cry she sat up, and then she realised, with a gasp of +relief, that she had been dreaming, only dreaming--but her heart went on +beating for a long time with the excitement, the mingled terror and +exaltation of spirit, she had just gone through. + +At last, feeling curiously languid and shaken, she went downstairs, and +had tea in the drawing-room. + +It was only a little after five; probably Oliver would not come in till +just before it was time to dress for dinner. + +The stillness of the house oppressed her. She got up, and moved +restlessly about the room. The curtains had been drawn and the fire made +up while she had been upstairs. She went across to one of the windows, +and, behind the closed curtains, opened it widely. And as she opened the +window, and stood by it, breathing in the cold, moist air, she heard the +sound of branches being pushed aside across a little-used path which was +even a shorter cut to The Chase than was the beech-wood avenue. + +Then Oliver was coming home earlier than Laura had thought he would? + +She stepped out quickly into the open air, on to the flagged path. + +She could hear quick footsteps now--but they were not Oliver's +footsteps. It was probably a maid coming back from the village which lay +beyond The Chase. But even so there crept a slight feeling of anxiety +over her heart. "Who's there?" she called out. + +Close out of the twilit darkness there came the instant hoarse answer: +"It's Laura, Aunt Letty." + +"Laura? Oh, my dear, you'll catch cold!" for Laura, without hat or +cloak, was now there, before her. + +"Aunt Letty? I've brought bad news--there's been an accident." + +"To Oliver?" But she knew, even as she asked the question, what the +answer would be. + +"Yes--Oliver. They went on too long in the twilight--he stumbled, and +his gun went off. They're bringing him home--now." + +Laura was staring before her, her eyes veiled, glassy, like those of a +blind woman. + +"They wanted to bring him to The Chase. But there was a doctor there, +and he said nothing would be of any use. So I told them to bring him +home--to you." + +Both women waited in the grateful darkness, dry-eyed and still. + +At last Mrs. Tropenell said uncertainly: "Come indoors, Laura." + +But Laura shook her head. "No, I'd rather stay out here, if you don't +mind, Aunt Letty." + +Not quite knowing what she was doing or why, Mrs. Tropenell walked +forward and opened the door into the hall. There she took down a cloak, +and coming out again, she put it round Laura. And they stood there +waiting--till there broke on their ears the heavy tramp of men's feet +carrying a burden. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +It was arranged between Lord St. Amant and the coroner--who was his +lordship's own medical attendant (when he required a medical attendant, +which was seldom)--that the inquest should be held at Freshley Manor. + +The body had been placed in Mrs. Tropenell's own room, that is, in the +very room, as the cook, who had been in the house close on thirty-five +years, explained to some of the members of the jury, where poor Mr. +Oliver had been born. + +So it was there, in that peaceful, old-fashioned, lady's bedchamber, +that the twelve good men and true of Pewsbury had to view the body. It +was remembered afterwards that the expression on the dead man's face +showed how completely he had been taken by surprise: it bore an +expression of absolute serenity--almost as if he had died in his sleep. + +Rather to the disapproval of some of the Pewsbury people, but with the +sympathetic understanding of others, Mrs. Tropenell, by her own desire, +was present at the inquest; and, supporting her on the painful occasion, +was her nearest neighbour and almost daughter, Mrs. Pavely. + +The chief witness was Mr. Robert Buckhurst, the gentleman who had been +host to the ill-fated shooting party. + +His evidence was quite simple and straightforward--indeed, there was +nothing at all strange or mysterious about the sad affair. + +"Lord St. Amant shot a bird," he said, "and we hunted for it for some +time. We were engaged in beating up the next field, when some one said, +'Where is Tropenell?' Just at that moment I heard a shot." He waited a +moment, and then went on: "It sounded as if it were fifty yards away." + +Again the witness paused, and then he continued gravely: "I said in +jest, 'I hope he has not shot himself!' And Lord St. Amant said, 'Hold +my gun, Buckhurst, and I'll walk along behind the hedge, and see if I +can find him.' He got through a gap, and he could only have gone a very +few yards before we heard him call out. 'Come at once! He's shot!' With +this we got through a gap, and ten paces on we saw Mr. Oliver Tropenell +lying on his back, parallel with the hedge. The gun was lying across his +body, the muzzle towards the hedge. At first we could not find the +wound, but soon we discovered that he had been shot through the heart." + +In reply to various questions, the witness explained how he raised Mr. +Oliver Tropenell's left hand, fancying he could detect a slight flutter +of the pulse. He called out for Dr. Turner, who happened to be a member +of the party. That gentleman came up, and after a brief examination, +said that Mr. Tropenell was certainly dead. The charge had gone through +the heart, and death must have been practically instantaneous. Some one, +probably the keeper, opened the breech of Mr. Tropenell's gun, and found +that the cartridge in the right-hand chamber had been exploded. + +At this point, in answer to a word from a juryman, Mr. Buckhurst said +very decidedly that there could be no doubt at all that the shot had +been fired by Mr. Tropenell's own gun. If he might venture to give an +informal opinion, it was perfectly plain what had happened. The ground +was rough just there, and twilight was falling. Without doubt Mr. +Tropenell, on getting through the hedge, had stumbled heavily, the gun +had fallen forward, and then had occurred one of those accidents which +occasionally do happen out shooting, and which no amount of care or +experience can prevent. + +There was some little doubt as to what had been the exact position of +the body, and while this was being discussed every one felt particularly +sorry for the dead man's mother. + +Following Mr. Buckhurst, Lord St. Amant went into the witness-box, and +then some inquisitive juryman asked his lordship a question as to the +mental condition of the deceased. In answer to that question, Lord St. +Amant explained, with a good deal of emotion, that just before he and +Mr. Tropenell had started out on their fatal expedition they had had a +pleasant little talk together, during which Mr. Tropenell had seemed +particularly well and cheerful. Further, the witness threw in, as an +after-thought, the statement that the deceased gentleman had expressed +considerable gratification at the fact that his mother, Mrs. Tropenell, +and he, Lord St. Amant, had just entered together into an engagement of +marriage. + +This announcement of a forthcoming alliance which so closely touched the +whole neighbourhood naturally overshadowed the rest of the purely formal +medical evidence at the inquest. Very soon there remained nothing for +the jury to do but to return a verdict of "death by misadventure," and +to express the deepest sympathy with Mr. Tropenell's mother. + +A great deal of deep, unaffected sympathy, more sincere in this case +perhaps than a great deal of the sympathy which is lavished on the +bereaved in this world, was felt for Mrs. Tropenell. + +Her son had not only been the most devoted and excellent of sons, but he +had been such a success, such a man to be proud of! It was also +remembered that he had done many a kindly turn to the good folk of +Pewsbury in the last eighteen months or so, since he had come home to +make the first long stay he had made in their neighbourhood for over ten +years. His manner, if reserved, was always kindly and pleasant, without +any touch of that patronage which is sometimes irritating in gentlemen +of his sort. The townspeople recalled, too, the dead man's intimacy with +the late Mr. Godfrey Pavely, and the more sober among them did not fail +to remind one another how curious it was that in under a year those two +men, still both young as youth is counted nowadays, had been gathered to +their fathers. + +And then, before Pewsbury had had time to recover from the excitement of +poor Oliver Tropenell's tragic end, and from the announcement, given +under such painful and dramatic circumstances, of his mother's +forthcoming marriage to Lord St. Amant, yet another thrilling sensation +was provided for the inhabitants of the little town. This was the +surprising news that Mrs. Winslow had married again! + +The fortunate man was, it seemed, a certain Mr. Greville Howard, one of +the largest subscribers to the Prince of Wales's Hospital Fund, a +gentleman, therefore, of evident social standing and wealth. + +The ceremony had taken place at St. James's, Piccadilly, in the presence +of a few friends of the bridegroom, and the happy pair had gone straight +off to Mr. Howard's villa in the South of France. There Harber, Mrs. +Winslow's faithful factotum, was to join her mistress as soon as she had +made the necessary arrangements for the disposal, by auction, of the +furniture at Rosedean. Of that furniture two objects were at the last +moment withdrawn from the sale--one was a china cabinet, and the other a +rather curious-looking old chandelier, both associated, so it was +understood, with the new Mrs. Greville Howard's youth. + +The auctioneer regretted these omissions from the catalogue, for by bad +luck they were the only objects in the house which a big London dealer +had come specially down to see, and for which he had intimated that he +was prepared to give a very good price. + + + + +THE END + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Repeated part titles have been deleted. + +Obsolete spellings and alternate spellings of words (e.g., dulness) have +been retained. + +Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_. + +On page 36, the [oe] ligature was replaced with "oe". + +On page 137, "Bayton" was replaced with "Baynton". + +On page 148, a period was added after "drew a piece of notepaper towards +him". + +On page 159, "kindess" was replaced with "kindness". + +On page 160, "contributary" was replaced with "contributory". + +On page 239, "wainting" was replaced with "waiting". + +On page 279, "lov" was replaced with "love". + +On page 300, "affectionte" was replaced with "affectionate". + +On page 329, "whispred" was replaced with "whispered". + +On page 352, "Olive" was replaced with "Oliver". + +On page 355, "a great deal as as" was replaced with "a great deal as". + +On page 361, "expresson" was replaced with "expression". + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Love and hatred, by Marie Belloc Lowndes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE AND HATRED *** + +***** This file should be named 36079-8.txt or 36079-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/0/7/36079/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Ernest Schaal, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Love and hatred + +Author: Marie Belloc Lowndes + +Release Date: May 11, 2011 [EBook #36079] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE AND HATRED *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Ernest Schaal, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.png" alt="Book cover" title="Book cover" /> +</div> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<h1>LOVE AND HATRED</h1> + +<p class="h2a">MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/tp.png" alt="LOVE AND HATRED + +By MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES + +Author of +"Lilla," "Good Old Anna," "The Chink in the Armour," +"The End of Her Honeymoon," etc. + +"Alas! The love of Woman! It is known +To be a lovely and a fearful thing. +"--BYRON. + +NEW YORK +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY" +title="LOVE AND HATRED + +By MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES + +Author of +"Lilla," "Good Old Anna," "The Chink in the Armour," +"The End of Her Honeymoon," etc. + +"Alas! The love of Woman! It is known +To be a lovely and a fearful thing."--BYRON. + +NEW YORK +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY" /> +</div> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p class="cnobmargin">COPYRIGHT, 1917,</p> +<p class="cnotmargin">BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p> </p> + +<p class="center">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<h1>PART ONE</h1> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 7]</span></p> + +<h2>LOVE AND HATRED</h2> + +<p class="h2a">PART ONE</p> + +<p class="h2a">CHAPTER I</p> + +<p class="cap">OH, but this is terrible——"</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura Pavely did not raise her voice, but there +was trembling pain, as well as an almost incredulous +surprise, in the way she uttered the five words which +may mean so much—or so little.</p> + +<p class="indent">The man whose sudden, bare avowal of love had +drawn from her that low, protesting cry, was standing +just within the door of the little summer-house, +and he was looking away from her, straight over the +beautiful autumnal view of wood and water spread +out before him.</p> + +<p class="indent">He was telling himself that five minutes ago—nay, +was it as long as five minutes?—they had been so +happy! And yet, stop—<i>he</i> had not been happy. Even +so he cursed himself for having shattered the fragile, +to him the already long perished, fabric, of what she +no doubt called their "friendship."</p> + +<p class="indent">It was she—it always is the woman—who, quite unwittingly, +had provoked the words which now could +never be unsaid. She had not been thinking at all +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 8]</span> +of him when she did so—she had spoken out of her +heart, the heart which some secret, sure instinct bade +him believe capable of depths of feeling, which +he hoped, with a fierce hope, no man had yet +plumbed....</p> + +<p class="indent">What had provoked his avowal had been the most +innocent, in a sense the most beautiful, feeling of +which a woman is capable—love for her child.</p> + +<p class="indent">"The doctor says Alice ought to have a change, that +she ought to go to the sea, for a little while. I asked +Godfrey if I might take her, but he said he didn't +think it necessary." She had added musingly, "It's +odd, for he really is devoted to the child."</p> + +<p class="indent">They had been walking slowly, sauntering side by +side, very close to one another, for the path was only +a narrow track among the trees, towards the summerhouse +where they were now—she sitting and he standing.</p> + +<p class="indent">He had answered in what, if she had been less absorbed +in herself and her own concerns, she might +have realised was a dangerously still voice: "I think I +can persuade Godfrey to let her go. Apart from the +child altogether, you ought to have a change." And +then—then she had said, rather listlessly, not at all +bitterly, "Oh, it doesn't matter about me!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Such a simple phrase, embodying an obvious truth, +yet they had forced from him the words: "I think it +does matter about you, Laura. At least I know it +matters a good deal to me, for, as of course you know +by now, I love you."</p> + +<p class="indent">And if his voice had remained quite low and steady, +she had seen the blazing, supplicating eyes....</p> + +<p class="indent">But he had looked away, at once, when he had uttered +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 9]</span> +those irrevocable words; and after a few moments, +which had seemed to him an eternity, had come +that low, heart-felt cry, "Oh, but this is terrible——"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">"Terrible? Why, Laura?" He crossed his arms, +and turning, gazed straight down at her bowed figure.</p> + +<p class="indent">Again there came a long, unnatural pause.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then she lifted up her face, and under the +shadow cast by her wide-brimmed garden hat he saw +that even her forehead was flushed. There was an +anguished look in the large, deeply blue eyes, which +were to him the most exquisite and revealing feature +of her delicately drawn face.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Perhaps I ought not to have said 'terrible,'" she +said at last in a low voice, "but—but degrading, ignoble, +<i>hateful</i>, Oliver." She added, her false calm giving +way, "And to me such a bitter, bitter disappointment!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Why?" he asked harshly. "Why a disappointment, +Laura? Most women, nay, all wise human beings, +value love—any kind of love offered by even the +most unworthy—as the most precious thing in the +world!"</p> + +<p class="indent">His face had become expressionless, and the measured, +carefully chosen words made her feel suddenly +ashamed, but with a shame merged in an eager hope +that she had cruelly misunderstood her—friend.</p> + +<p class="indent">She stood up and took a step towards him. +"Oliver," she said diffidently; "forgive me! I was +stupid not to understand. Of course we love one another," +she was on firm ground now. "All friends +love one another, and you've been such a good friend +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 10]</span> +to me, and more, far more, than a good friend to my +poor brother—to Gillie."</p> + +<p class="indent">He withdrew his gaze from her beseeching eyes, and +looked away once more. Now was his chance to play +the hypocrite, to eat the words which had given her +so much offence....</p> + +<p class="indent">Hardly knowing that he spoke aloud, he muttered +hoarsely, "I can't!" And then he turned to her: +"Listen, Laura. I owe you the truth. I have loved +you, yes, and in the sense you think so ignoble and +so degrading, almost from the first day we met. As +time went on, I thought it impossible that you did not +know that."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I did not know it! I trusted you absolutely! I +thought that we were all three, friends,—you and I +and Godfrey! It was the very first time that Godfrey +and I had ever had a friend in common, and it made +me so happy."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Did it indeed?" His words cut like a whip.</p> + +<p class="indent">"But it's true that you are Godfrey's friend?" she +spoke a little wildly. "I've never known him as fond +of any man as he is now of you, Oliver."</p> + +<p class="indent">"His fondness is not returned."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Then it ought to be!" she cried. "For you've made +him like you, Oliver."</p> + +<p class="indent">She hardly knew what she was saying, distressed, +humiliated, wounded as she was in her pride and sense +of personal dignity. But what was he saying—this +challenging, wrathful stranger who, but a few moments +ago, had been her dear, dear friend?</p> + +<p class="indent">"I would rather, Laura, that you did not bring your +husband into this matter."</p> + +<p class="indent">"But I must bring him in!" She became suddenly +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 11]</span> +aware that here ready to her hand was a weapon with +which she could hurt and punish this man who was +looking at her with so inscrutable a look—was it a +look of love or of hatred?</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'm sorry now," she went on rapidly, "bitterly, bitterly +sorry and ashamed that I ever said a word to +you of Godfrey and his—his rather tiresome ways. I +ought not to have done it. It was disloyal. I've never +spoken of Godfrey to any other man—but somehow +I thought <i>you</i> were different from other men."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Different?" he interjected. "How so, Laura? +What right had you to think me different from other +men?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Because I trusted you," she said inconsequently. +"Because somehow you seemed really to care for +me—" her voice broke, but she forced herself to go +on: "You're not the first man, Oliver, who's made love +to me since I married—" she covered her face with +her hands.</p> + +<p class="indent">It seemed to her that some other woman was being +driven to make these intimate confidences—not the +fastidious, refined, reserved Laura Pavely, who had +an almost morbid dislike of the betrayal of any violent +or unseemly emotion. But this other woman, who +spoke through her lips, had been, was being, wantonly +insulted....</p> + +<p class="indent">Hanging her head as a child might have done, she +said defiantly: "I suppose you're surprised?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"No, I'm not surprised. Why should I be? Go +on—" He clenched his hands together. What was +it she was going to tell him?</p> + +<p class="indent">Speaking in short, broken sentences, she obeyed +him:</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 12]</span> +"It was when we used to go about much more than +we do now—in the first two or three years after our +marriage. I suppose that every woman—who isn't +quite happy with her husband—is exposed to that +kind of thing. I used to loathe it when I saw it coming. +I used to try and fend it off. Sometimes I succeeded—more +often I failed. But I never, never expected +anything of the sort to happen with you, Oliver. +We were such friends—such good, happy friends—you +and I and my little Alice," and then she burst into +a passion of weeping.</p> + +<p class="indent">And at that what self-control Oliver Tropenell had +retained departed. A flood of burning, passionate +words burst from his lips—of endearment, of self-abasement, +and promises which he intended, come what +might, should be kept.</p> + +<p class="indent">And she listened shrinkingly, with averted face, absorbed +in her own bewildered pain and disappointment.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I must go back to the house," she said at last. +"The doctor will be here in half an hour." And she +forced herself to add: "Perhaps you'll be coming over +this afternoon?" (How often she had said these words +in the last three months—but in how different a tone!).</p> + +<p class="indent">"I think not. My mother said something about +wishing me to stay in to-day—Lord St. Amant may +be coming over." As she made no comment, he concluded +quietly, "Well, I suppose I had better be going +now. Good-bye, Laura."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Good-bye," she said. And without taking her hand +he left her.</p> + +<p class="indent">She watched his tall figure making its way quickly +down through the rough ground to the wood where, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 13]</span> +ultimately, he would find a path which would lead +him to his mother's house.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">It was late in the afternoon of the same day. From +where she was sitting, under a great cedar tree, Mrs. +Tropenell at last saw her son Oliver and Godfrey +Pavely come out of Freshley Manor.</p> + +<p class="indent">Though the glory and warmth of the summer were +now over, Mrs. Tropenell still spent many hours of +each day in her garden. She had always been an out-of-door +woman from the days when she was an eager, +impetuous, high-spirited girl, till now, when youth +had gone, though something of the eager impetuosity +of youth remained with her concealed from strangers +by a manner marked by a strong sense of personal +dignity.</p> + +<p class="indent">The two men began walking, slowly, down the grass +path leading to the beech avenue which was the glory +of Freshley Manor, as well as a short cut to Lawford +Chase, Godfrey Pavely's larger property.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was more than an hour since a servant had come +out to say that Mr. Pavely was waiting to see Mr. +Tropenell in the library. The man had added that +Mr. Pavely had had tea before leaving the Bank, +and only wanted to see Mr. Tropenell for a few minutes +on his way home. And Oliver, with "I don't +think he'll keep me long, mother; I suppose you'll +still be here when I come back?" had stridden off +with a certain reluctance towards the house.</p> + +<p class="indent">It had always been his mother's joy, but now for +many years past her infrequent joy, to fall in with +even the least reasonable of her son's wishes, and so +she had gone on sitting out there, waiting for him to +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 14]</span> +come back, long after the tea-things had been taken +away. There was a book on the low garden table +by her side—such a book as she loved, telling of great +adventure by one of the adventurers—but she left it +where it was.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell felt a vague, exasperating sense of +restlessness and unease. At the back of her heart—that +heart which, if no longer that of a young woman, +could still thrill with many varied emotions and a very +passion of maternal love—was the dull ache of a secret, +unacknowledged sense of fear and pain.</p> + +<p class="indent">She had every reason to be happy to-day—not only +happy in her son's company, but in the coming back, +after a long absence on the Continent, of her old +friend, Lord St. Amant. To him she could, perhaps, +bring herself to say something of what was touching +her so deeply, and he, she knew, would reassure her +and make light of her fears. St. Amant was what is +called in ordinary parlance a man of the world—the +last man, that is, to be horrified, still less frightened, +by a tale of illicit love, especially when, as the mother +honestly believed, it was a love likely to remain unrequited.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yes, she would tell her one trusted friend of these +besetting fears, of her more than suspicion that her +son Oliver was deep in love with Laura Pavely, and +St. Amant would laugh at her, persuade her maybe to +laugh with him.</p> + +<p class="indent">And yet? Yet, even so, she asked herself again +and again during that long time of waiting, what these +two men who, if of life-long acquaintanceship and +now at any rate nominally intimate friends, were so +unlike the one to the other, could have to talk about, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 15]</span> +indoors, for over an hour? Godfrey Pavely and +Oliver Tropenell met very often—too often to her +thinking—so why should Godfrey have pursued Oliver +home to-day, just when Oliver had had an hour to +spare for his mother?</p> + +<p class="indent">It was now Thursday, and her son had already dined +with the Pavelys twice this week. To-morrow night +Godfrey Pavely was to be in London, and it had +been arranged that his wife, Laura, should spend the +evening here. But that, or so Mrs. Tropenell had +quickly reminded herself, had been Laura's usual custom, +long before Oliver had come home from Mexico +for the holiday which had now already lasted nearly +four months. In her long life Mrs. Tropenell had +only had one beloved woman friend, and that friend, +that more than sister, had been Laura's mother.</p> + +<p class="indent">Even now Godfrey Pavely did not seem eager to go +home. The two men were close to the furthest edge +of the wide lawn, but they were still talking earnestly.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell gazed across, with a painful +scrutiny, at her son's visitor.</p> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey Pavely was a neatly made, neatly dressed, +neatly mannered man—in a way not ill-looking. His +reddish-brown hair toned in oddly with his light, +ginger-coloured eyes. He had become rather particular +about his health of late, and went to some trouble +to keep himself fit, and in good condition. Yet he +looked more like a townsman than like the countryman +he certainly was. For if the fortunate inheritor +of a successful county banking business, which so far +he had managed with such skill as to save it from any +thought of amalgamation, he was also the owner of a +fine old property.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 16]</span> +Lawford Chase had belonged to Mrs. Tropenell's +ancestors for centuries—for almost as many centuries +as the years in which he, Godfrey, had owned it. But +her father had been careless and extravagant during +his long, happy life, so the owner of Pavely's Bank +had bought up the mortgages on Lawford Chase, and +finally foreclosed.</p> + +<p class="indent">All this was ancient history now, and Mrs. Tropenell +felt no bitterness on that account. Indeed, she had +rejoiced, with a sense of real joy, when her friend's +daughter had become mistress of her own old home.</p> + +<p class="indent">The two men whom she was watching went on talking +for what seemed to the onlooker a very long time; +but, at last, Godfrey Pavely, turning on his heel, +walked on, to be at once engulfed by the dark green +arch formed by the high beech trees. Then Mrs. +Tropenell saw her son, all her heart welcoming him, +come striding towards her across the long stretch of +short, green turf.</p> + +<p class="indent">Once more she asked herself what possible link +there could be between men so utterly unlike. Her +Oliver—more hers now, she felt, than ever before, +and that though for the first time he was making her +secretly, miserably jealous—was a creature of light +and air, of open spaces, if need be of great waters. +He was built, like herself, on a big and powerful plan; +and yet so tall, so spare, so sinewy, that though he +was broad he looked slim, and though four-and-thirty +years of age he might have been taken, even at this +small distance from where she sat, for a long-limbed +youth. His life for the last twelve years had been +one that often ages a man—but it had not aged him. +His vigour was unbroken, his vitality—the vitality +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 17]</span> +which had made him so successful, and which attracted +men and women of such very different types—unimpaired.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell had been touched, perhaps in her +secret heart little surprised, at the pleasure—one might +almost have said the enthusiasm—with which her +neighbours for miles round had welcomed Oliver home +again, after what had been so long an absence from +England. The fact that he had come back a very +wealthy man, and that during those years of eclipse +he had managed to do some of them good turns, of +course counted in his popularity, and she was too open-eyed +a woman not to be well aware of that.</p> + +<p class="indent">The mother knew that her son was not the downright, +rather transparent, good-natured fellow that he +was now taken to be. No man she had ever known—and +she had ever been one of those women of whom +men make a confidant—could keep his own or another's +secrets more closely than could Oliver. He +had once written to her the words: "You are the only +human being, mother, to whom I ever tell anything," +and she had instinctively known this to be true.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet their relationship was more like that of two +friends than of mother and son. She knew all there +was to know of his thoughts, and of his doubts, concerning +many of the great things which trouble and +disturb most thinking modern men. Of the outward +life he led in the Mexican stretch of country of which +he had become the administrator and practical ruler, +she also knew a great deal, indeed surprisingly much, +for he wrote by each mail long, full letters; and the +romance of his great business had become an ever +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 18]</span> +continuous source of interest, of amusement, and of +pride to the mother who now only lived for him.</p> + +<p class="indent">But of those secret things which had moved his +heart, warred with his passions, perchance seared his +conscience, he had never told her anything. Only +once had the impenetrable mist of reserve been lightened, +as it were pierced for a moment—and that was +now a long time ago, on his second visit home five +years before. He had then come to England meaning +to stay a month. But at the end of ten days he had +received a telegram—what he called, in the American +fashion, a cable—and within an hour he had gone, +saying as he kissed his mother good-bye, "A friend +of mine—a woman who has been ill a long time—is +now dying. I must go, even if I'm not in time to see +her alive."</p> + +<p class="indent">In the letters which had followed his return to Mexico, +there had been no word more—nothing even implying +sorrow, or a sense of loss—only a graver note, +of which the mother might have remained unaware +but for that clue he had left to sink deep in her +mother-heart.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">He was now close to her, looking down out of his +dark, compelling eyes—eyes which were so like her +own, save that now hers shone with a softer light.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Pavely stayed a long time," he said abruptly. "Are +you tired? D'you want to go in yet, mother?"</p> + +<p class="indent">She shook her head. "I'd rather stay out here till +it's time to dress."</p> + +<p class="indent">As she spoke she lifted her face to his, and he told +himself what a beautiful, and noble face it was, though +each delicate, aquiline feature had thickened, and the +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 19]</span> +broad low forehead was now partially concealed by +thick bands of whitening hair. It was a lined, even +a ravaged face—the face of a woman who had lived, +had loved, had suffered. But of that Oliver was only +dimly conscious, for his mother's nature if impetuous +and passionate was almost as reserved and secretive +as was his own.</p> + +<p class="indent">It may be doubted, even, if Oliver Tropenell knew +how much his mother loved him, for it may be doubted +if any son ever knows how much his mother—even +if she appear placid or careless—loves him. One +thing Oliver did know, or confidently believed he knew, +and that was that his mother loved him more than +she had ever loved anything in the world. There he +was quite content to leave it.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Pavely wants me to become trustee to Laura's +marriage settlement, in succession to old Mr. Blackmore."</p> + +<p class="indent">When with Godfrey Pavely, Oliver Tropenell always +called the other man by his Christian name, but +behind his back he always spoke of him as "Pavely."</p> + +<p class="indent">As his mother remained silent, he went on, a little +hurriedly: "The powers vested in the trustee are very +wide, and it seems that money which was later added +to the trust—a matter of seventeen thousand pounds +or so—is invested in some queer form of security."</p> + +<p class="indent">They both smiled—he a little drily, she with a kind +of good-humoured contempt.</p> + +<p class="indent">"He's cautious and successful—in spite of that odd, +gambling propensity," she spoke a little defensively. +Then, "I suppose you've consented to act?"</p> + +<p class="indent">She waited anxiously for his answer; and at last +it came, uttered in a tone of elaborate unconcern: +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 20]</span> +"I said I'd think it over. But I think I'll take it on, +mother. Pavely made rather a personal favour of it—after +all, there's some kind of relationship."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," agreed Mrs. Tropenell, "yes, there is certainly +a connection, hardly a relationship, between +ourselves and Laura."</p> + +<p class="indent">Her son sat down. He began poking about an invisible +stone, lying in among the grass, with his stick.</p> + +<p class="indent">"You cared for Laura's mother as if she had been +your sister—didn't you, mother? And yet I can't imagine +you with a great woman friend, I mean, of +course, a friend of your own age."</p> + +<p class="indent">She turned and looked at him. "Ah, my dear,—those +are the friends that count!" and she nearly +added, "Don't <i>you</i> find it so?" But, instead, she went +on quickly, "Yes, I loved Laura's mother dearly, dearly—and +it was for her sake that I asked you to be good +to her son, to Gillie."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Laura's extraordinarily fond of Gillie——" There +always came a curious change over Oliver Tropenell's +voice when he uttered the name "Laura." It became +as it were softer, infused with feeling—or so his +mother thought.</p> + +<p class="indent">She waited a moment; then answered slowly, +"Women generally are fond of their only brothers."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Oh, but it's more than that!"</p> + +<p class="indent">As she remained silent, he went on musingly: "And +Gillie, in his queer way, is very fond of Laura—though +I don't believe he writes to her once in three +months!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I suppose Gillie still hates Godfrey?" she said hesitatingly. +"Godfrey behaved so—so—well, not so +much badly perhaps, as meanly and even stupidly—about +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 21]</span> +that unfortunate affair." It was almost as if +Mrs. Tropenell were speaking to herself. Her son +turned and looked at her squarely.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes! Gillie still hates Pavely. And yet, mother, +since I came home this time I've wondered sometimes +if Pavely was so very unreasonable about it after all. +You see, Gillie must have been about the most troublesome +and—well, the most dangerous brother-in-law +an unlucky country banker could well have had!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"And but for you he'd be so still," she said quietly. +"From something Godfrey said the other day I gather +that he's really grateful to you, Oliver?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver Tropenell got up. "Yes," he said shortly, +"he's certainly grateful. In fact, he seems to think +I've limitless power of getting people out of +scrapes——" there was an undercurrent of triumph +in his deep, even tones.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I suppose the real reason he came to-day was that +he's afraid to let a stranger be Laura's trustee?" +There was only the slightest touch of interrogation +in Mrs. Tropenell's voice, and she went on: "Perhaps +he'd be kinder to poor Gillie <i>now</i>—" a curious smile +played round her mouth. It was a full-lipped, generous +mouth, but it was the least refined feature of her +face.</p> + +<p class="indent">"No, no. It's not as bad as that! But well, yes, +Pavely <i>has</i> used this portion of Laura's fortune in a +way he had no business to do, knowing it was trust +money."</p> + +<p class="indent">"And you——?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Oh, I'm going to buy out her interest in the concern."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Will that cost you seventeen thousand pounds?"</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 22]</span> +"Yes, it will. But I don't mind—it's quite a likely +gamble. Have you ever heard of Greville Howard?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"You mean the great money-lender?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"He's retired now. But Pavely and he seem to be +in a kind of secret partnership—queer isn't it? Pavely's +a clever chap about money, but oh, mother! +he's such an insufferable cad!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell felt a sudden tremor of fear sweep +over her. She had lately come to what she now realised +was a quite wrong conclusion—she had believed, +that is, that Oliver, in a queer, contemptuous way, +had grown fond of Godfrey, as Godfrey had certainly +grown fond of Oliver. But now, all at once, +her son had opened a dark window into his soul—or +was it into his heart? There was an under-current +of hatred, as well as of the contempt to which she +was accustomed, in the way Oliver had just spoken +of his "friend"—of the man, at once fortunate and +unfortunate, who was Laura Pavely's husband.</p> + +<p class="indent">She stood up, and put her hand through her son's +arm. "It's getting very cold," she said, and shivered.</p> + +<p class="indent">He turned on her with quick concern: "I left you +too long! I ought to have sent him away before—but +he was such a long time getting it out—" under +his breath he muttered "Damn him!"</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 23]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p class="cap">MOTHER and son dined alone together, and then, +rather early, Mrs. Tropenell went upstairs.</p> + +<p class="indent">For a while, perhaps as long as an hour, she sat +up in bed, reading. At last, however, she turned off +the switch of her electric reading lamp, and, lying +back in her old-fashioned four-post bed, she shut her +eyes for a few moments. Then she opened them, +widely, on to her moonlit room.</p> + +<p class="indent">Opposite to where she lay the crescent-shaped bow-window +was still open to the night air and the star-powdered +sky. On that side of Freshley Manor the +wide lawn sloped down to a belt of water meadows, +and beyond the meadows there rose steeply a high, +flat-topped ridge.</p> + +<p class="indent">Along this ridge Oliver Tropenell was now walking +up and down smoking. Now and again his mother +saw the shadow-like figure move across the line of +her vision.</p> + +<p class="indent">At one moment, last winter, she had feared that he +would not be able to come back this year, as troubles +had arisen among his cattle-men. But, as was Oliver's +way, he had kept his promise. That he had been able +to so do was in no small measure owing to his partner, +Gilbert Baynton.</p> + +<p class="indent">Gilbert Baynton—<i>Laura Pavely's brother</i>? Of +that ne'er-do-weel Oliver had made from a failure a +success; from a waster—his brother-in-law, Godfrey +Pavely, would have called him by a harsher name—an +acute and a singularly successful man of business.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 24]</span> +Lying there, her brain working quickly in the darkness, +Oliver's mother told herself that the Pavelys, +both Godfrey and Laura, had indeed reason to be +grateful, not only to Oliver, but to her, Oliver's +mother! It was to please her, not them, that Oliver, +long years ago, had accepted the dubious gift of +Gilbert Baynton, and the small sum Gilbert's brother-in-law +had reluctantly provided to rid himself of an intolerable +incubus and a potential source of disgrace. +Godfrey Pavely was certainly grateful, and never +backward in expressing it. And Laura? Laura was +one of your silent, inarticulate women, but without +doubt Laura must be grateful too.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">At last Oliver left the ridge, and Mrs. Tropenell +went on gazing at the vast expanse of luminous sky +which merged into the uplands stretching away for +miles beyond the boundaries of her garden.</p> + +<p class="indent">She lay, listening intently, and very soon she heard +the cadence of his firm footfalls on the stone path +below the window. Then came the quiet unlatching of +the garden door. Now he was coming upstairs.</p> + +<p class="indent">Her whole heart leapt out to him—and perchance +it was this strong shaft of wordless longing that +caused Oliver Tropenell's feet to linger as he was +going past his mother's door.</p> + +<p class="indent">Following a sudden impulse, she, who had trained +herself to do so few things on impulse, called out, "Is +that you, my darling?"</p> + +<p class="indent">The door opened. "Yes, mother. Here I am. May +I come in?"</p> + +<p class="indent">He turned and shut out the bright electric light on +the landing, and walked, a little slowly and uncertainly +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 25]</span> +in the darkness, towards where he knew the bed to be. +For a moment she wondered whether she should turn +on the lamp which was at her elbow, then some sure, +secret instinct made her refrain.</p> + +<p class="indent">She put out her hand, and pulled him down to her, +and he, so chary of caress, put his left arm round her.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Mother?" he said softly. "This dear old room! +It's years since I've been in this room—and yet from +what I can see, it's exactly the same as it always was!"</p> + +<p class="indent">And, as if answering an unspoken question, she +spoke in very low tones, "Hardly altered at all since +the day you were born here, my dearest, on the happiest +day of my life."</p> + +<p class="indent">His strong arm tightened about her a little, and, +still looking straight before her, but leaning perhaps +a little closer into the shelter of his arm, she said tremulously, +inconsequently it might have seemed: "Oliver? +Are you going to accept Lord St. Amant's invitation?"</p> + +<p class="indent">With a sharp shoot of hidden pain she felt his +movement of recoil, but all he said was, very quietly, "I've +not quite made up my mind, mother."</p> + +<p class="indent">"It would give me pleasure if you were to do so. +He has been a very good and loyal friend to me for +a long, long time, my dear."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I know that."</p> + +<p class="indent">She waited a moment, then forced herself to go +on: "You were never quite fair to St. Amant, Oliver."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I—I feared him, mother."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then, as she uttered an inarticulate murmur of +pain and of protest, he went on quickly, "The fear +didn't last very long—perhaps for two or three years. +You see I was so horribly afraid that you were going +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 26]</span> +to marry him." In the darkness he was saying something +he had never meant, never thought to say.</p> + +<p class="indent">And she answered, "It was a baseless fear."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Was it? I wonder if it was! Oh, of course I +know you are telling me the truth as you see it now—but, +but surely, mother?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Surely no, Oliver. It is true that St. Amant wished, +after his wife's death, that I should marry him, but +he soon saw that I did not wish it, that nothing was +further from my wish—then."</p> + +<p class="indent">"<i>Then?</i>" he cried. "What do you mean, mother? +Lady St. Amant only died when I was fifteen!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I would like to tell you what I mean. And after +I have told you, I wish never to speak of this subject +to you again. But I owe it to myself as well as to +you, to tell you the truth, Oliver. Where is your +hand?" she said, "let me hold it while I tell you."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then slowly and with difficulty she began +speaking, with a hesitation, a choosing of her words, +which were in sharp contrast to her usual swift decision.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I want to begin by telling you," her voice was +very low, "that according to his lights—the lights +of a man of the world and of, well yes, of an English +gentleman—St. Amant behaved very well as far as +I was concerned. I want you to understand that, +Oliver, to understand it thoroughly, because it's the +whole point of my story. If St. Amant had behaved +less well, I should have nothing to tell—you."</p> + +<p class="indent">She divined the quiver of half-shamed relief which +went through her son. It made what she wished to +say at once easier and more difficult.</p> + +<p class="indent">"As I think you know, I first met St. Amant when +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 27]</span> +I was very young, in fact before I was 'out,' and he +was the first really clever, really attractive, and, in a +sense, really noted man I had ever met. And then"—she +hesitated painfully.</p> + +<p class="indent">"And then, mother?" Oliver's voice was hard and +matter-of-fact. He was not making it easy for her.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Well, my dear, very very soon, he made of me +his friend, and I was of course greatly flattered, but +at that time, in the ordinary sense of the word, St. +Amant never made love to me." She went on more +firmly. "Of course I soon came to know that he +cared for me in a way he did not care for the other +women with whom his name was associated. I knew +very soon too, deep in my heart, that if his wife—his +frivolous, mean-natured, tiresome wife—died, he +certainly would wish to marry me, and for years, Oliver, +for something like six years, I daily committed +murder in my heart."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then something happened which troubled and +greatly startled the woman who was making this painful +confession. Her son gave a kind of cry—a stifled +cry which was almost a groan. "God! How well I +understand that!" he said.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Do you, Oliver—do you? And yet I, looking +back, cannot understand it! All that was best, indeed +the only good that was in St. Amant to give I had +then, and later, after I became a widow, I had it +again."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I suppose he was much the same then as later, or—or +was he different then, mother?"</p> + +<p class="indent">She knew what he meant. "He was the same then," +she said quietly, "but somehow I didn't care! Girls +were kept so ignorant in those days. But of course +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 28]</span> +the whole world knew he was a man of pleasure, and +in time I grew to know it too. But still it wasn't that +which made me unhappy, for I did not realise what +the phrase meant, still less what was implied by it. +But even so, as time went on I was very unhappy. +Mine was a false position—a position which hurt my +pride, and, looking back, I suppose that there must +have soon been a certain amount of muffled talk. If +I was not jealous, other women were certainly jealous +of me."</p> + +<p class="indent">She waited for a few moments; the stirring of these +long-dead embers was hurting her more than she +would have thought possible.</p> + +<p class="indent">At last she went on: "Sometimes months would +pass by without our meeting, but he wrote to me +constantly, and on his letters—such amusing, clever, and +yes, tender letters—I lived. My aunt, my father, both +singularly blind to the state of things, were surprised +and annoyed that I didn't marry, and, as for me, I +grew more and more unhappy."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Poor mother!" muttered Oliver. And she sighed +a sigh of rather piteous relief. She had not thought +he would understand.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I don't know what I should have done but for two +people, your father, who of course was living here +then, our nearest neighbour, and, what meant very +much more to me just then, Laura's mother, Alice +Tropenell. Though she was only a very distant relation, +she was like a daughter in this house. Alice +was my one friend. She knew everything about me. +She was—well, Oliver, I could never tell you what +she was to me then!"</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 29]</span> +"I suppose," he said slowly, "that Laura is like +her?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Laura?" Mrs. Tropenell could not keep the surprise +out of her low voice. "Oh no, my dear, Laura +is not in the least like her mother. But Laura's child +is very like Alice—even now."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Laura's child?" Oliver Tropenell visioned the +bright, high-spirited, merry little girl, who somehow, +he could not have told her why, seemed often to be +a barrier between himself and Laura.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Alice—my friend Alice—was full of buoyancy, of +sympathy for every living thing. She possessed what +I so much lacked in those days, and still alas! lack—sound +common-sense. And yet she, too, had her ideals, +ideals which did not lead her into a very happy path, +for Robert Baynton, high-minded though he may have +been, was absorbed in himself—there was no room +for any one else." Had she been telling her story +to any one but her son, Mrs. Tropenell would have +added, "Laura is very like him."</p> + +<p class="indent">Instead, she continued, "No one but Alice would +have made Robert Baynton happy, or have made as +good a thing of the marriage as she did—for happy +they were. I think it was the sight of their happiness +that made me at last long for something different, +for something more normal in my life than that +strange, unreal tie with St. Amant. So at last, when +I was four-and-twenty, I married your father." Oliver +remained silent, and she said a little tremulously, +"He was very, very good to me. He made me a happy +woman. He gave me <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p class="indent">There was a long, long pause. Mrs. Tropenell had +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 30]</span> +now come to what was the really difficult part of the +task she had set herself.</p> + +<p class="indent">"You are thinking, my boy, of <i>afterwards</i>." And +as she felt him move restlessly, she went on pleadingly, +"As to that, I ask you to remember that I +was very lonely after your father died. Still, if you +wish to know the real truth"—she would be very honest +now—"that friendship which you so much disliked +stood more in the way of your having a stepfather +than anything else could have done."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I see that now," he said sombrely, "but I did not +see it then, mother."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Even if Lady St. Amant had not lived on, as she +did, all those years, I should not have married St. +Amant—I think I can say that in all sincerity. So +you see, Oliver, you need not have been afraid, when +at last he became free."</p> + +<p class="indent">She sighed a long, unconscious sigh of relief.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I gather you still see him very often when he's at +Knowlton Abbey?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, it's become a very comfortable friendship, +Oliver. But for St. Amant I should often feel very +lonely, my dear."</p> + +<p class="indent">She longed to go on—to tell Oliver how hard it +had been for her to build up her life afresh—after +he had finally decided to stay on in Mexico. But she +doubted if he would understand....</p> + +<p class="indent">Suddenly he turned and kissed her.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Good-night," he said. "I'm grateful to you for +having told me all—all that you have told me, mother."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">Oliver Tropenell hurried up the silent house. By his +own wish the large garret to which he had removed all +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 31]</span> +his own treasures and boyish belongings after a delicate +childhood spent in a room close to his mother's, +was still in his room, and it had been very little altered.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was reached by a queer, narrow, turning staircase +across which at a certain point a beam jutted +out too low. Tropenell never forgot to duck his head +at that point—indeed he generally remembered as he +did so how proud he had been the first time he had +found himself to be too tall to pass under it straightly! +But, strange to say, to-night he did forget—and for +a moment he saw stars.... Fool! Fool that he was +to allow his wits to go wool-gathering in this fashion!</p> + +<p class="indent">With eyes still smarting, he leapt up the last few +steps to the little landing which he shared with no one +else. Opening the door he turned the switch of the +lamp on the writing-table which stood at a right angle +to the deep-eaved window.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then he shut the door and locked it, and, after a +moment of indecision, walked across to the book-case +which filled up the space between the fireplace and the +inner wall of the long, rafted room.</p> + +<p class="indent">He did not feel in the mood to go to bed, and idly +he let his eyes run over the long rows of books which +he had read, in the long ago, again and again, for like +most lonely boys he had been a great reader. They +were a good selection, partly his mother's, partly his +own, partly Lord St. Amant's. He knew well enough—he +had always known, albeit the knowledge gave +him no pleasure, that he had owed a great deal, as +boy and man, to his mother's old friend. Lord St. +Amant had really fine taste. It was he who had made +Oliver read Keats, Blake, Byron, Poe, among poets; +he who had actually given him <i>Wuthering Heights</i>, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 32]</span> +<i>Vanity Fair</i>, <i>The Three Musketeers</i>, <i>Ali Baba of Ispahan</i>. +There they were all together.</p> + +<p class="indent">He had not taken his books with him when he had +first gone to Mexico, for he had not meant to stay +there. But at last he had written home to a great London +bookseller and ordered fresh copies of all his old +books at home. The bookseller had naturally chosen +good editions, in some cases rare first editions. But +those volumes had never been read, as some of these +had been read, over and over and over again.</p> + +<p class="indent">But now, to-night, he did not feel as if he could +commune with any comfort even with one of these +comfortable, unexacting friends. He felt too restless, +too vividly alive. So suddenly he turned away +from the bookcase, and looked about him. A large +French box-bed had taken the place of the narrow, +old-fashioned bedstead of his youth; and his mother +had had moved up to this room a narrow writing-table +from the study on the ground floor which no one ever +used.</p> + +<p class="indent">He walked over to that writing-table now, and sat +down. On it, close to his left hand, stood a large +despatch-box. He opened and took out of it a square +sheet of paper on which was embossed his Mexican +address. Drawing two lines across that address, and +putting in the present date, September 19th, he waited, +his pen poised in his hand for a full minute.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then he began writing rather quickly, and this is +what he wrote:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"<span class="smcap">My dear Laura</span>,—Godfrey suggests that I should +act as your trustee, in succession to Mr. Blackmore. +Am I to understand that this suggestion has your +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 33]</span> +approval? If yes, I will of course consent to act. +But please do not think I shall be offended if you +decide otherwise. You may prefer some woman of +your acquaintance. Women, whatever Godfrey may +tell you, make excellent men of business. They are, +if anything, over-prudent, over-cautious where money +is concerned; but that is a very good fault in a trustee."</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">His handwriting was small and clear, but he had +left large spaces between the lines, and now he was at +the end of the sheet of paper. There was just room +for another sentence and his signature. He waited, +hesitating and of two minds, till the ink was dry, and +then he began again, close to the bottom of the sheet:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"Before we meet again I wish to say one further +thing."</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">He put this first sheet aside, and took another of the +same size from the box by his side:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"You said something to-day which affected me painfully. +You spoke as if what I have done for your +brother caused you to carry a weight of almost intolerable +gratitude. So far as any such feeling should +exist between us, the gratitude should be on my side. +In sober truth Gillie has been invaluable to me.</p> + +<p class="margin-left8">"I remain,</p> + +<p class="margin-left16">"Yours sincerely,"</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">Then very rapidly Oliver Tropenell made an "O" +and a "T," putting the T across the O so that any one +not familiar with his signature would be hard put to +it to know what the two initials were.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 34]</span> +He read over the words he had just written. They +seemed poor, inadequate, and he felt strongly tempted +to write the letter again, and word it differently. Then +he shook his head—no, let it stand!</p> + +<p class="indent">Slowly he put the second sheet of the letter aside, +and placed the first one, on which the ink was dry, +before him. Then he looked round, with a queer, furtive +look, and, getting up, made sure the door was +locked.</p> + +<p class="indent">Coming back to the writing-table, he took out of +the despatch-box lying there a small, square, crystal-topped +flagon of the kind that fits into an old-fashioned +dressing-case. The liquid in it was slightly, very +slightly, coloured, and looked like some delicate scent.</p> + +<p class="indent">From the despatch-box also he now brought out a +crystal penholder with a gold nib. He dipped it in the +flagon, and began to write in between the lines of the +letter he had just written. As the liquid dried, the +slight marks made by the pen on the paper vanished, +for Oliver Tropenell was writing in invisible ink.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"The decks are cleared between us, Laura, for you +know now that I love you. You said, 'Oh, but this is +terrible!' Yes, Laura, love is terrible. It is not only +cleansing, inspiring, and noble, it is terrible also. Why +is it that you so misunderstand, misjudge, the one +priceless gift, the only bit of Heaven which God or +Nature—I care not which—has given to man and +woman? What you, judging by your words to-day, +take to be love is as little like that passion as a deep +draught of pure cold water to a man dying of thirst, +is like the last glass of drugged beer imbibed by some +poor sot already drunk."</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 35]</span> +Oliver Tropenell waited awhile. There were still +two spaces, before the bottom of the page of notepaper +was reached, and again he dipped the pen into +the strange volatile liquid.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"God bless you, my dear love," he wrote, "and grant +you the peace which seems the only thing for which +you crave."</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">He waited till the words had quite vanished, and +then he took up the two sheets of paper, folded them +in half, and put them in a large envelope which fitted +the paper when so folded. He wrote on the outside, +"Mrs. Pavely, Lawford Chase."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then, turning out the light with a quick, nervous +gesture, he got up and went over to the long, low, +garret window.</p> + +<p class="indent">For a few moments he saw nothing but darkness, +then the familiar scene unrolled below him and took +dim shape in the starlit night.</p> + +<p class="indent">Instinctively his sombre eyes sought the place where, +far away to the right, was a dark patch of wood. It +was there, set amidst a grove of high trees, that stood +Lawford Chase, the noble old house which had been +his mother's early home, and which now contained +Laura Pavely, the woman to whom he had just written +two such different letters, and who for nearly +three months had never been out of his waking +thoughts.</p> + +<p class="indent">As his eyes grew more and more accustomed to the +luminous darkness, he saw the group of elms under +which this very day a word had unsealed the depths +of his heart, and where he had had the agony of seeing +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 36]</span> +Laura shrink, shudder, wilt as does a flower in a +breath of hot, fœtid air, under his avowal of love.</p> + +<p class="indent">Violently he put that memory from him, and staring +out into the splendour of this early autumn night, he +tried to recapture the mixture of feelings with which +he had regarded Laura Pavely the first time they had +met since her marriage—the first time indeed since she +had been a shy, quiet little girl, and he an eager, highly +vitalised youth, five years older than herself.</p> + +<p class="indent">Looking back now he realised that what had predominated +in his mind on that hot, languorous June +afternoon was astonishment at her utter unlikeness to +her brother, his partner, Gillie Baynton. It was an +astonishment which warred with the beckoning, almost +uncanny, fascination which her gentle, abstracted, +aloof manner effortlessly exercised over him. And +yet she had been (he knew it now, he had not known +it then) amazingly forthcoming—for her! As Mrs. +Tropenell's son he would have had a right to Laura +Pavely's regard, but he knew now that what had set +ajar the portals of her at once desolate and burdened +heart had been his kindness to, even his business relationship +with, her brother.</p> + +<p class="indent">Gillie Baynton? Yes, it was to that disconcerting +and discordant human chord that their two natures—his +and Laura's—had perforce vibrated and mingled. +Remembering this, Oliver Tropenell reproved himself +for his past discontent with the partner who, whatever +his failings, had always shown him both gratitude and +a measure of such real affection as a man seldom shows +another in a business relationship. In spite of Gillie's +faults—nay, vices—he, Tropenell, now often found +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 37]</span> +himself favourably comparing Laura's brother with +Laura's husband.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver Tropenell was acutely, intolerably, jealous +of Godfrey Pavely—jealous in the burning, scorching +sense which is so often the terrible concomitant of such +a passion as that which now possessed him. Godfrey +Pavely's presence in his own house, his slightly tyrannical, +often possessive attitude to Laura, the perpetual +reminder that he was, after all, the father of the child +Laura had borne, and who seemed to fill her heart to +the exclusion of all else—all this was for this man +who loved her an ever-recurring ordeal which might +well have satisfied the sternest moralist.</p> + +<p class="indent">That night Oliver Tropenell dreamt of Laura. He +thought that he was pursuing her through a maze of +flowering shrubs and trees. She was fleeing from him, +yet now and again she would turn, and beckon....</p> + +<p class="indent">His first waking thought was that they would meet +to-night—here, in his mother's house. But before +that happened a long day would have to be lived +through, for he had made up his mind not to go to +The Chase till Laura again asked him to do so.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 38]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p class="cap">THE door of Mrs. Tropenell's long low drawing-room +opened very quietly, and Laura Pavely +came through into the room.</p> + +<p class="indent">She had left a brightly lighted hall for a room of +which the only present illumination radiated from a +shaded reading lamp standing on a little table behind +which sat her hostess. Thus, for perhaps as long as +half a minute, Laura thought herself alone.</p> + +<p class="indent">During that half minute Mrs. Tropenell, with eyes +well accustomed to the shaded light, gazed at her visitor +with an eager, searching look, the look of one who +wishes to see more, and to see further, than she has +ever seen before.</p> + +<p class="indent">But what she saw—all she saw—was the Laura she +knew with a knowledge that was at once so superficially +close, and so little intimate. A woman whose +stillness of manner—a manner which at times made +her appear almost inanimate—covered, as Mrs. Tropenell +had secret reason to know, an extraordinary force +of negative will power. It was a force which had even +pierced Godfrey Pavely's complacency, and shattered +his firm belief in all the rights that English law bestows +on the man who has the good or ill fortune to +be a husband.</p> + +<p class="indent">As Laura advanced into the room her hostess saw +that her visitor's beautifully shaped head, set proudly +and freely on the slender shoulders, was thrown back +in a characteristic gesture of attention, and, with a +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 39]</span> +touch of reluctance, she admired afresh the masses of +fair, <i>cendré</i> hair drawn back from the forehead in a +way which to most women would have been trying, +yet which to this woman lent an air of eighteenth-century +charm and distinction.</p> + +<p class="indent">There was no colour in Laura Pavely's face, but her +eyes, heavy-lidded, and fringed with eyelashes darker +than her hair, were deeply blue.</p> + +<p class="indent">To-night she was wearing a very simple evening +dress, a white chiffon tea-gown with a long black lace +coat. The under dress was almost high to the throat, +but beneath the black lace the wearer's arms, soft, dimpled, +and rounded, were bare to the shoulder, and +gleamed palely, revealingly.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell wondered whether Laura knew that +her arms were unusually lovely; then, for she was a +very honest woman, her conscience rebuked her. +Laura's faults with regard to men were faults of +omission, not of commission. Of course she was +aware—she could not help being aware—that she was +a singularly attractive and distinguished-looking creature. +But she had always taken her own beauty, her +own distinction, just as she did the rare, distinctive +features of her garden, and the perhaps over-studied +charm of her house—as something to be tended and +kept beautiful, but also to be guarded from alien indifferent +eyes.</p> + +<p class="indent">Perhaps because in these days every intelligent +woman claims to be picturesque and witty—beauty, +sheer beauty, is somewhat under the weather. Laura +Pavely, to use the current jargon of her day, was not +a "success." She was thought to be affected, "deep," +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 40]</span> +prudish, whereas she was simply indifferent to the +more commonplace human elements about her.</p> + +<p class="indent">Her marriage had withdrawn her from the circle +of the old friends and neighbours among whom she +had been brought up, in a measure because none of +them could "do," excepting in a very casual and cursory +sense, with Godfrey Pavely. The world of his +youth, the little world in and about the country town +of Pewsbury, to which he had introduced her as a +bride with such exultant complacency, found her not +only disagreeably superior, but also dull. Besides, during +the early days of her marriage she had been too +bewildered by the conditions of her new life, and of +her relationship with her husband, to trouble about +making new friends, or even new acquaintances.</p> + +<p class="indent">And so it was that in any intimate sense Mrs. Tropenell +was still Laura's only close friend, but the younger +woman was rather pathetically aware of how little she +really possessed of the older woman's heart, how constantly +she was compared, and ever to her detriment, +to her dead mother, even how unconscious a rival in +the older woman's favour was Laura's own child—merry, +cheerful, loving little Alice.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">"Aunt Letty? I didn't see you were there."</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura Pavely had a delightful voice—low, clear, +vibrating. It was a voice which sometimes seemed +to promise more depth of feeling than its owner ever +chose to betray.</p> + +<p class="indent">As she stooped to kiss Mrs. Tropenell, Laura let +herself slide down on to the floor. She knelt there for +a moment, and the light gleamed on her fair hair and +upturned face. "Alice sent you her love," she said +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 41]</span> +softly, "heaps of love. She's better to-night, though +not quite well yet!" And then, as there came a sound +of quick footsteps across the hall, she rose, and drew +herself up to her full height, with the grace of movement +and the absence of flurry which were both so +characteristic of her.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell looked up quickly. Had Laura +flushed, as she sometimes did flush, with a deep, unbecoming +reddening of her pale face, when moved or +startled? No, she seemed, if anything, paler, more +impassive than usual, and Oliver's mother asked herself, +yet again, what of late she had so often asked +herself—if Laura was capable of <i>any</i> feeling, <i>any</i> +passion, save a feeling of horror, a passion of repugnance, +for aught which seemed to smirch her own fastidious +physical and spiritual entity.</p> + +<p class="indent">That she loved her child, the high-spirited, happy-natured +little girl, whose presence alone made life +sweet and normal at Lawford Chase, Mrs. Tropenell +could not doubt—she had had proof of how deeply +Laura loved her child on the only occasion danger +had come near to Alice—during a bout of some childish +ailment, when for a few hours the little creature +had been in danger of death. She, the older woman, +had been frightened, awed, by Laura's terrible, dry-eyed +agony....</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver Tropenell opened the door, and as he walked +across the room, his mother's heart quivered with +jealous pain, and even with a feeling of secret, impotent +anger, as she saw the eager, rapt look which +lighted up his dark face.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura held out her ringless right hand, but he only +just touched it. "I'm sorry I'm late!" he exclaimed. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 42]</span> +"As a matter of fact I was reading a letter just come, +by the second post, from Gillie."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I've written to Gillie to-day," Laura said quietly. +It seemed such a long, long time since yesterday morning. +She felt as if the extraordinary thing which had +happened then had been blotted out.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Have you sent your letter off?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"No, not yet," she was surprised at the question.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then there fell a curious silence on those three +people, till at last the door opened, and dinner was +announced.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Oliver! Take in Laura," said Mrs. Tropenell.</p> + +<p class="indent">On the last occasion when the three had dined alone +together there had been a little smiling discussion as +to the order in which they should go into the dining-room. +But that had been many weeks ago. They +were not in such a light mood to-night, and yet—and +yet, why should they not be? The hostess knew of +no reason.</p> + +<p class="indent">The two paired off together, and Oliver's mother +asked herself, for perhaps the thousandth time in the +last three months, why she had allowed this—this +friendship between her son and Laura Pavely to come +about? It would have been so easy to arrange that +she and her son should spend the summer abroad! +When he had first come home there had been a talk +of their going away together to Italy, or to France—France, +which they had both loved when he was a +clever, ardent, headstrong boy, with a strength of +brain and originality of mind too big for his boyish +boots.</p> + +<p class="indent">But the harm, what harm there was—sometimes she +hoped it was not so very much harm after all—had +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 43]</span> +been done quickly. By the end of that first month at +home, Oliver had lost all wish to leave Freshley.</p> + +<p class="indent">In those early days—or was it that already he was +being unconsciously hypocritical as men are wont to +be when in such case as that in which he now found +himself?—he had seemed to have formed an even +closer friendship with Godfrey Pavely than with Godfrey +Pavely's wife. They had even made a joint business +expedition to town together, Godfrey as Oliver's +guest, staying in one of those luxurious hotels which +seem equally attractive to the millionaire and the adventurer. +But Oliver had at last thrown off, when +alone with his mother, any pretence of liking, far +less of respecting, Godfrey Pavely. Yet when with +the other man he still kept up the sinister fiction. She +knew that.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">The three sat down in the pretty, octagon-shaped +dining-room, and the mother and son talked, Laura +saying very little, and never giving, always accepting—in +that sense, perhaps, an elemental woman after +all! Even so, she showed, when she did rouse herself +to express an opinion, that there was a good deal of +thought and of intelligence in her small, beautiful +head.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell, sitting at the top of the oval table, +told herself that in a primeval sense such a woman +as Laura might well be the complement of such a man +as was Oliver. He had strength, passion, idealism, +enough to furnish forth half a dozen ordinary human +beings. And he had patience too—patience which is +but another name for that self-control in the secret +things of passion which often brings men's desires to +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 44]</span> +fruition. It was patience and self-control which had +been so lacking in Godfrey Pavely during those early +days when Laura had at least desired to fulfil her duty +as a wife.</p> + +<p class="indent">And yet again and again during that uncomfortable +half-hour Mrs. Tropenell caught herself wishing that +Godfrey Pavely was there, sitting on her right hand. +Godfrey always had plenty to say for himself, especially +in that house, and when he felt secure of the +discretion of those about him, he would often tell +much that he ought, in his character of banker, to +have left unsaid. He knew the private business of +every one, gentle or simple, for miles round, and took +an easy, unaffected interest in it all. It was only +when he touched on wider matters, especially on politics, +that he grew unbearably tedious and prosy. But +then the only person whom Mrs. Tropenell ever listened +to with pleasure on such subjects was her old +friend, Lord St. Amant, who always knew what he +was talking about, and always salted what he knew +with happy flashes of wit and humour.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver accompanied the two ladies back into the +drawing-room, and his mother did not know whether +to be glad or sorry that she had not had a few minutes +alone with the younger woman. Sometimes it +seemed as if she and Laura never were alone together +now. Was it possible that of late Laura was deliberately +avoiding her? As this half suspicion came into +Mrs. Tropenell's mind she looked up and saw her +son's eyes fixed on her face.</p> + +<p class="indent">There was something imperious, imploring, commanding, +in the look he bent on her. She saw that +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 45]</span> +he was willing her to go away—to leave him, alone, +with Laura....</p> + +<p class="indent">Under the spell of that look she got up. "I must go +upstairs for my work," she said quietly. "And I +have a letter to write too. I shan't be very long."</p> + +<p class="indent">It was as if Oliver made but one swift step to the +door, and, as he held it open, his mother turned her +head away, lest he should see that tears had come into +her eyes—tears of pain, and yes, of fear.</p> + +<p class="indent">How was all this to end?</p> + +<p class="indent">After walking slowly forward into the square +brightly lighted hall she suddenly stayed her steps, +and clasped her hands together.</p> + +<p class="indent">A terrible temptation—terrible, almost unbelievable +to such a woman as was Letitia Tropenell—held her +in its grip. She longed with a fearful, gasping longing, +to go back and listen at the door which had just +closed behind her.</p> + +<p class="indent">So strong was this temptation that she actually +visualised herself walking across to a certain corner, +turning down the electric light switch, then, in the +darkness, creeping to the drawing-room door, and +there gently, gently—pushing it open, say half an +inch, in order to hear what those two were now saying, +the one to the other....</p> + +<p class="indent">At last, thrusting the temptation from her, she +again began walking across the brightly lighted hall, +and so, slowly, made her way up the staircase which +led to her bedroom.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">What Mrs. Tropenell would have heard, had she +yielded to that ignoble temptation, would not have told +her anything of what she had so longed to know.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 46]</span> +After he had shut the door on his mother, Oliver +Tropenell walked back to the place where he had +stood a moment ago. But he did not come any nearer +than he had been before to his guest, and his manner +remained exactly what it had been when they had +been three, instead of being, as they were now, two, in +that dimly lighted room.</p> + +<p class="indent">Still, both he and Laura, in their secret, hidden +selves, were profoundly conscious that Mrs. Tropenell's +absence made a great, if an intangible, difference. +It was the first time they had been alone that +day, for it was the first day for many weeks past that +Oliver had not walked over to The Chase, either in +the morning or in the afternoon or, as was almost +always the case, both after breakfast and about teatime.</p> + +<p class="indent">At last, when the silence had become almost oppressive, +he spoke, with a certain hard directness in his +voice.</p> + +<p class="indent">"In the letter I received from Gillie to-day he tells +me that he can easily be spared for a few weeks, and +I've already telephoned a cable telling him to start at +once. I've said that if he thinks it advisable I myself +will leave for Mexico as soon as I hear from him."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Oh, but I don't want you to do that!" Laura +Pavely looked up at him dismayed. "I thought you +meant to stay in England right up to Christmas?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, so I did, and I feel almost certain that he +won't think it necessary for me to go back. But the +important thing is Gillie's and your holiday. Why +shouldn't he take you and Alice to France or Italy +for a month?"</p> + +<p class="indent">He saw her face, the face in which there had been +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 47]</span> +a certain rigid, suffering gravity, light up, soften, and +then become overcast again. Moving a little nearer to +the low chair on which she was sitting—"Yes?" he +asked, looking down at her. "What is it you wish +to say, Laura?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Only that Godfrey would never let me go away +with Gillie." She spoke in a sad, low voice, but she +felt far more at her ease than she had yet felt this +evening.</p> + +<p class="indent">The last time she and Oliver had been alone, they +had parted as enemies, but now there was nothing to +show that he remembered their interchange of bitter, +passionate words.</p> + +<p class="indent">He answered quietly,</p> + +<p class="indent">"I wonder why you feel so sure of that? I believe +that if it were put to Godfrey in a reasonable way, +he could not possibly object to your going abroad with +your brother. It's time they made up that foolish old +quarrel."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Ah, if only I could get away with Gillie and my +little Alice!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura looked up as she spoke, and Oliver Tropenell +was moved, almost unbearably so, by the look which +came over her face. Was it the mention of her child, +of her brother, or the thought of getting away from +Godfrey for a while, which so illumined her lovely, +shadowed eyes?</p> + +<p class="indent">He went on, still speaking in the quiet, measured +tones which made her feel as if the scene of yesterday +had been an evil dream. "I've even thought of suggesting +that Godfrey should come out with me to Mexico, +while your little jaunt with Gillie takes place. We +could all be back here by Christmas!"</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 48]</span> +She shook her head. "I'm afraid Godfrey would +never go away except in what he considers his regular +holiday time."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Not even if I made it worth his while?"</p> + +<p class="indent">She looked up, perplexed. And then a wave of hot +colour flamed up in her face. Her conscience, in +some ways a very delicate and scrupulous conscience, +smote her.</p> + +<p class="indent">Was it her fault that Oliver Tropenell had come +so to despise Godfrey?</p> + +<p class="indent">But he went on, speaking more naturally, that is +quickly, eagerly—more like his pre-yesterday self, +"No, I'm not joking! I think I can put Godfrey in +the way of doing some really good business out there. +We've spoken of it more than once—only yesterday +afternoon we spoke of it."</p> + +<p class="indent">"You don't mean with Gillie there?" There was +a note of incredulity in Laura's voice.</p> + +<p class="indent">"No." They were on dangerous ground now. "Not +exactly with Gillie there—though it seems to me, +Laura, that Godfrey ought to make it up with Gillie."</p> + +<p class="indent">Slowly, musingly, as if speaking to herself, she said, +"If Godfrey ever goes to Mexico I think he would +want me to come too—he always does." And this was +true, for Godfrey Pavely in some ways was curiously +uxorious. Little as they were to one another, Laura's +husband never allowed her to go away by herself, or +even with her child, for more than a very few days.</p> + +<p class="indent">"You come too—to Mexico?" There was surprise, +doubt, in Oliver Tropenell's voice, and suddenly Laura +did a strange thing, imprudent, uncalled-for in the +circumstances in which she found herself with this +man; yet she did it with no trace of what is ordinarily +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 49]</span> +called coquetry. Lifting up her head, she said rather +plaintively, "Surely you wouldn't mind my coming +too, Oliver?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Does that mean that you've forgiven me?" he +asked.</p> + +<p class="indent">She got up from the low chair where she had been +sitting, and, facing him, exclaimed impulsively, "I +want us both to forget what happened yesterday! I +was wrong, very wrong, in saying what I did about +Godfrey," her voice faltered, and slowly she added, +"But with you, who seemed to somehow understand +everything without being told, I felt, I felt——"</p> + +<p class="indent">He raised a warning hand, for his ears had caught +the sound of light footfalls in the hall. "Mother's +coming back," he said abruptly. "Don't say anything +to her of my cable to Gillie." And at once, without +any change in his voice, he went on: "There's a great +deal that would interest you, quite as much as Godfrey, +out there——"</p> + +<p class="indent">The door opened, and he turned round quickly. +"I'm trying to persuade Laura to come out to Mexico," +he exclaimed. "Godfrey has practically promised to +pay me a visit, and I don't see why she shouldn't come +too!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell made no answer. She knew, and +she believed that both the people standing there knew +as well as she did, that such an expedition could never +take place so long as Gilbert Baynton was Oliver's +partner. Baynton and Pavely were bitter enemies. +There had never been even the semblance of a reconciliation +between them.</p> + +<p class="indent">But as her son bent his eyes on her as if demanding +an answer, she forced herself to say lightly: "I expect +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 50]</span> +they both will, some day, and while they are away +I can have my dear little Alice!"</p> + +<p class="indent">When, a little later, Mrs. Tropenell accompanied +Laura out into the hall, she said, "Do come in to-morrow +or Sunday, my dear. I seem to see so little of +you now."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I will—I will!" and as she kissed the older woman, +Laura murmured, "You're so good to me, Aunty Letty—you've +always been so very, very good to me!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver opened wide the door giving into the garden. +He was now obviously impatient to get Laura +once more alone to himself....</p> + +<p class="indent">After she went back to her drawing-room, Mrs. Tropenell +walked straight across to a window, and +there, holding back the heavy curtain, she watched +the two figures moving in the bright moonlight across +the lawn, towards the beech avenue which would presently +engulf them.</p> + +<p class="indent">What were their real relations the one to the other? +Was Laura as blind to the truth as she seemed to +be, or was she shamming—as women, God or the devil +helping them—so often sham?</p> + +<p class="indent">Slowly, feeling as if she had suddenly become +very, very old, Mrs. Tropenell dropped the curtain, +and walking back to her usual place, her usual chair, +took up her knitting.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 51]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p class="cap">LAURA and Oliver Tropenell walked across the +grass in silence, and still in silence they passed +through under the great dark arch formed by the +beech trees.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura was extraordinarily moved and excited. Her +brother, her dear, dear Gillie, coming home? She +had taken the surprising news very quietly, but it had +stirred her to the depths of her nature. Without even +telling her of what he was going to do, the man now +walking by her side had brought about the thing +that for years she had longed should come to pass.</p> + +<p class="indent">In her husband Laura had become accustomed to +a man who was cautious and deliberate to a fault, +and who, as so often happens, carried this peculiarity +even more into the affairs of his daily life than into +his business. Often weeks would go by before Godfrey +would make up his mind to carry out some small, +necessary improvement connected with the estate.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet here was Oliver, who, without saying a word +to her about it, had decided that Gillie should come to +England just to see the sister he had not seen for +seven years! Laura began to think it possible that +after all Godfrey <i>would</i> make it up with her brother. +Oliver Tropenell had an extraordinary influence over +Godfrey Pavely; again and again, as regarded small +matters, he had, as it were, made Godfrey's mind up +for him.</p> + +<p class="indent">A feeling of deep gratitude welled up in her heart +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 52]</span> +for the silent man by her side. She longed for him +to speak now, as he had spoken to her, kindly, conciliatingly, +but a few minutes ago, in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p class="indent">But Oliver stalked along dumbly in the intense darkness.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then suddenly she remembered, with a miserable +feeling of discomfort, and yes, of shame, that she +could hardly expect him to be as usual. And so it was +she who, making a great effort, at last broke the unnatural +silence.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I've never thanked you for your letter," she said +nervously. "But I'm very much obliged to you, Oliver, +for consenting to be my trustee. And I know that +Godfrey will be! I hope it won't give you much trouble—the +trusteeship, I mean. I know that Mr. Blackmore, +for years past, left it all to Godfrey."</p> + +<p class="indent">He answered slowly, meditatively, and to her intense +relief, quite in his old way. "Yes, I think Godfrey +will be pleased. To tell you the truth, Laura, I +thought I would take advantage of his pleasure to +suggest that plan about Gillie—I mean that you and +Gillie and Alice should all go abroad together."</p> + +<p class="indent">"If only you can persuade Godfrey to let me have +Gillie here for a while, I shall be more than content!" +She spoke with a rather piteous eagerness.</p> + +<p class="indent">They were walking very, very slowly. Oliver had +now turned on his electric torch, and it threw a bright +patch of light on the path immediately before them, +making all the darkness about them the blacker and +the more intense.</p> + +<p class="indent">In a hard voice he exclaimed: "Of course Gillie +must come here, and stay here! His being anywhere +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 53]</span> +else would be preposterous——" And then, once +more, he fell into that strange, disconcerting silence.</p> + +<p class="indent">The last time they two had walked down under the +beeches at night had been some three weeks ago. +Laura and Godfrey had dined with the Tropenells, and +then Godfrey had said that he had to go home and +do some work, leaving her to stay on, for nearly an +hour, with the mother and son.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver's torch had gone out that evening, and he +had suggested, a little diffidently, that Laura should +take his arm; smiling, she had laid the tips of her +fingers lightly on his sleeve. She had felt so happy +then, so happy, and absolutely at her ease, with her +companion....</p> + +<p class="indent">Tears welled up in her eyes. She was grateful for +the darkness, but her trembling voice betrayed her as +she exclaimed, "Oliver? I do again ask you to forget +what happened yesterday, and to forgive me for the +things I said. I'm very sorry that I spoke as I did."</p> + +<p class="indent">He stopped walking, and put out his torch. "Don't +be sorry," he said, in a low, constrained voice. "It's +far better that I should know exactly how you feel. +Of course I was surprised, for I'd always had a notion +that women regarded love from a more ideal standpoint +than men seem able to do. But I see now that +I was mistaken." Some of the bitterness with which +his heart was still full and overflowing crept into his +measured voice. "I think you will believe me when +I say that I did not mean to insult you——"</p> + +<p class="indent">He was going on, but she interrupted him.</p> + +<p class="indent">"—I'm sorry—sorry and ashamed too, Oliver, +of what I said. Please—please forget what happened——"</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 54]</span> +He turned on her amid the dark shadows.</p> + +<p class="indent">"If <i>I</i> forget, will <i>you</i>?" he asked sombrely.</p> + +<p class="indent">And she answered, "Yes, yes—indeed I will! But +before we put what happened yesterday behind us forever, +do let me tell you, Oliver, that I <i>am</i> grateful, +deeply grateful, for your——" she hesitated painfully, +and then murmured "your affection."</p> + +<p class="indent">But Oliver Tropenell did not meet her half-way, +as she had perhaps thought he would. He was torn +by conflicting feelings, cursing himself for having lost +his self-control the day before, and yet, even so, +deep in his subtle, storm-tossed mind, not altogether +sorry for what had happened.</p> + +<p class="indent">And so it was she who went on, speaking slowly +and with difficulty: "I know that I have been to +blame! I know that I ought never to have spoken of +Godfrey as I have sometimes allowed myself to do +to you. According to his lights, he is a good husband, +and I know that I have been—that I am—a bitter +disappointment to him."</p> + +<p class="indent">He muttered something—she did not hear what it +was, and she hurried on: "What I have wanted—and +oh, Oliver, I have wanted it so much—is a friend," +almost he heard the unspoken words, "not a lover."</p> + +<p class="indent">She put out her hand in the darkness and laid it, +for a moment, on his arm. And then, suddenly, in +that moment of, to him, exquisite, unhoped-for contact, +Oliver Tropenell swore to himself most solemnly +that he would rest satisfied with what she would, and +could, grant him. And so—</p> + +<p class="indent">"I know that," he said in measured, restrained tones. +"And I have made up my mind to be that friend, +Laura. We will both forget what happened yesterday. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 55]</span> +If you are ashamed, I am a hundred times more +so! And do believe me when I tell you that +what you said about Godfrey—why, I've forgotten +it already—had nothing to do with my outburst. I'm +a lonely man, my dear, and somehow, without in the +least meaning it, I know, you crept into my heart and +filled it all. But already, since yesterday, I've come +to a more reasonable frame of mind."</p> + +<p class="indent">He waited a moment, despising himself for uttering +such lying words, and then he went on, this time +honestly meaning what he said: "Henceforth, Laura, +I swear that I'll never again say a word to you that +all the world might not hear. I never did, till yesterday——"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I know, I know," she said hurriedly. "And that +was why I was so surprised."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Let's put it all behind us and go back to 'as we +were'!" He was speaking now with a sort of gruff, +good-humoured decision, and Laura sighed, relieved, +and yet—so unreasonable a being is woman—unsatisfied.</p> + +<p class="indent">The light from his torch flashed again, and they +walked on, under the dark arch of leaves and branches, +till they were close to the open road.</p> + +<p class="indent">And there Laura said, "I wish you would leave +me here, Oliver. I feel sure that Aunt Letty is waiting +up for you."</p> + +<p class="indent">He answered her at once. "It won't make more +than five minutes' difference. I'll only walk as far +as the lodge. It's a lonely little stretch of road."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Lonely?" she repeated. "Why, there isn't a bit +of it that isn't within hail of Rosedean!"</p> + +<p class="indent">And then, determined to go back to their old easy +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 56]</span> +companionship, that companionship which had lately +become so easy and so intimate that when with him +she had often spoken a passing thought aloud, "Katty +came home to-day. I must try and see her to-morrow. +She's a plucky creature, Oliver! I wish that +Aunt Letty liked her better than she does."</p> + +<p class="indent">He answered idly, "There's nothing much either +to like or dislike in Mrs. Winslow—at least so it always +seems to me."</p> + +<p class="indent">But she answered quickly, defensively, "There's a +great deal to like in her—when I think of Katty Winslow +I feel ashamed of myself. I've known her do +such kind things! And then she's so good about Godfrey—I +don't know what Godfrey would do without +her. They knew each other as children. It's as if she +was his sister. All that little Pewsbury world which +bores me so, is full of interest to them both. I'm always +glad when she's at Rosedean. I only wish she +didn't go away so often—Godfrey does miss her so!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, I know he does," he said drily.</p> + +<p class="indent">They walked on in silence till they were close to +the low lodge.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura Pavely held out her hand, and Oliver Tropenell +took it in his cool, firm grasp for a moment.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Good-night," he said. "I suppose we shall meet +some time to-morrow?"</p> + +<p class="indent">She answered eagerly. "Yes, do come in, any time! +Alice and I shall be gardening before lunch. Godfrey +won't be back till late, for he's sure to go straight to +the Bank from the station. He'll be so much obliged +to you about that trusteeship, Oliver. It's really very +good of you to take so much trouble."</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver Tropenell answered slowly, "Yes, I think +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 57]</span> +Godfrey will be pleased; and as I've already told you, +I'll certainly take advantage of his pleasure, Laura, +to suggest the plan about Gillie."</p> + +<p class="indent">Once more she exclaimed: "If only you can persuade +Godfrey to let me have Gillie at The Chase +for a while, I shall be more than content!"</p> + +<p class="indent">There was a thrill of excitement, of longing, in +her low voice, as, without waiting for an answer, she +walked away, leaving him looking after her. The +patch of whiteness formed by the hem of her gown +moved swiftly along—against the moonlit background +of grass, trees, and sky. He stood and watched the +moving, fluttering bit of whiteness till it vanished in +the grey silvery haze. Then, slowly, he turned on his +heel and made his way back home.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">It was nearly a quarter of a mile from the lodge +to The Chase, as the house was always called, but there +was a rather shorter way across the grass, through +trees; and Laura, when she came to where she knew +the little path to be, left the carriage way, and stepped +up on to the grass.</p> + +<p class="indent">She felt oppressed, her soul filled with a piteous lassitude +and weariness of life, in spite of the coming +return home of her only brother. She had been moved +and excited, as well as made acutely unhappy, by +what had happened yesterday morning. Mrs. Tropenell, +as almost always happens in such a case, was not +fair to Laura Pavely. Laura had been overwhelmed +with surprise—a surprise in which humiliation and +self-rebuke were intolerably mingled—and yes, a certain +proud anger.</p> + +<p class="indent">The words Oliver had said, and alas! that it should +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 58]</span> +be so, the bitter, scornful words she had uttered in +reply, had, she felt, degraded them both—she far, far +more than him. At the time she had been too deeply +hurt, too instinctively anxious to punish him, to +measure her words. And now she told herself that +she had spoken yesterday in a way no man would ever +forget, and few, very few men would ever forgive. +Though he had been kind to-night—very, very kind—his +manner had altered, all the happy ease had gone.</p> + +<p class="indent">Tears came into Laura Pavely's eyes; they rolled +down her cheeks. Suddenly she found herself sobbing +bitterly.</p> + +<p class="indent">She stopped walking, and covered her face with +her hands. With a depth of pain, unplumbed till now, +she told herself that she would never, never be able to +make Oliver understand why she had said those cruel +stinging words. Without a disloyalty to Godfrey of +which she was incapable, she could not hope to make +him understand why she had so profound a distaste, +ay, and contempt, for that which, if he had spoken +truly yesterday, he thought the greatest thing in the +world. With sad, leaden-weighted conviction she realised +that there must always be between a man and a +woman, however great their friendship and mutual +confidence, certain barriers that nothing can force or +clear.</p> + +<p class="indent">She had believed, though as a matter of fact she +had not thought very much about it, that Oliver Tropenell, +in some mysterious way, was unlike ordinary +men. As far as she knew, he had never "fallen in +love." Women, who, as she could not help knowing, +had always played so great a part in her brother Gillie's +life, seemed not to exist—so far as Oliver Tropenell +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 59]</span> +was concerned. He had never even seemed attracted, +as almost every man was, by pretty Katty Winslow, +the innocent <i>divorcée</i> now living at his very gates. +So she, Laura, had allowed herself to slip into a close, +intimate relationship which, all unknowingly to her, +had proved most dangerous to him....</p> + +<p class="indent">Still crying bitterly, she told herself that she had +been too happy all this summer. Godfrey had been +kinder, less, less—she shrank from putting it into +words—but yes, less ill-tempered, mean, and tiresome +than usual. Oliver had had such a good effect on +Godfrey, and she had honestly believed that the two +were friends.</p> + +<p class="indent">But how could they be friends if—if it was true +that Oliver loved her? Laura Pavely knew nothing +of the well-worn byways of our poor human nature.</p> + +<p class="indent">Suddenly she threw her head back and saw the +starlit sky above her. Somehow that wonderful ever-recurring +miracle of impersonal, unearthly beauty +calmed and comforted her. Drying her eyes, she +told herself that something after all had survived out +of yesterday's wreck. Her friend might be a man—a +man as other men were; but he was noble, and singularly +selfless, for all that. On the evening of the +very day on which she had grievously offended and +wounded him, he had written her a kindly letter, offering +to be her trustee.</p> + +<p class="indent">There had been moments to-day when she had +thought of writing Mrs. Tropenell a note to say she +did not feel well—and that she would not dine at +Freshley that night. But oh, how glad she was now +that a mixture of pride and feminine delicacy had +prompted her to behave just as if nothing had happened, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 60]</span> +as if words which could never be forgotten had +not been uttered between herself and Oliver! She +had thought he would punish her this evening by being +sulky and disagreeable—that was her husband's +invariable method of showing displeasure. But with +the exception of a word or two uttered very quietly, +and more as if she, rather than he, had something to +forgive, he had behaved as if yesterday had never +been. He had heaped coals of fire upon her head, +making it plain that even now he was only thinking +of her—of her and of Gillie, of how he could pleasure +them both by securing her a holiday with her only +brother.</p> + +<p class="indent">Every word of that restrained, not very natural, +conversation held just now under the beech trees re-echoed +in her ears. She seemed to hear again the +slowly uttered, measured words, "I am going to be +your friend, Laura"....</p> + +<p class="indent">And then there came over Laura Pavely an extraordinary +sensation of moral and mental disturbance. +Once more everything which had happened to-day +was blotted out, and she went back to yesterday morning. +Again she lived through those moments during +which Oliver Tropenell had offered her what was to +him the greatest thing man has it in him to bestow—love, +even if illicit, unsanctified. And she had rejected +the gift with a passion of scorn, spurning it as +she would have done a base and unclean thing.</p> + +<p class="indent">Years and years ago, in her quiet, shadowed youth, +she too had believed love to be the most precious, +beautiful thing in life. Then, with marriage to Godfrey +Pavely had come the conviction that love was +not beautiful, but very, very ugly—at its best one +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 61]</span> +of those dubious gifts to man by which old Dame Nature +works out certain cunning designs of her own. +And yet, when something of what she believed to be +the truth had been uttered by her during that terrible +tense exchange of words, she had seen how she, in +her turn, had shocked, and even repelled, Oliver Tropenell.</p> + +<p class="indent">Once more sobs welled up from her throat, once +more she covered her face with her hands....</p> + +<p class="indent">At last, feeling worn out with the violence of an +emotion which, unknown to her, vivified her whole +being, she walked on till the fine Tudor front of the +old house which was at once so little and so much +her home, rose before her. It was an infinite comfort +to know that Godfrey would not be there waiting +for her, and that she would be able to make her way +up alone through the sleeping house to the room which +opened into her child's nursery.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 62]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<p class="cap">MRS. TROPENELL, waiting for Oliver to come +back, lost count of time, and yet not much more +than half an hour had gone by before she heard the +sound of a glazed door, which opened on to the +garden from a distant part of the house, burst open.</p> + +<p class="indent">In that sound she seemed to hear all the impatience, +all the pain, all the frustrated longing she divined in +her son.</p> + +<p class="indent">She got up from her chair and stood listening. +Would he go straight upstairs—as she, in her stormy, +passionate youth, would have done in his place?</p> + +<p class="indent">But no—with a feeling of rushing, unreasoning joy +she heard him coming across the hall. A moment later +he walked through into the room and came and stood +before her.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Mother," he said, "it's a beautiful night. Would +you care to come into the garden for a few minutes?"</p> + +<p class="indent">As soon as they had stepped out of the French +window into the darkness, she took his arm.</p> + +<p class="indent">"You don't feel it cold?" he asked solicitously.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Oh no," she said, surprised. "I'm so little cold, +Oliver, that I shouldn't at all mind going over to the +blue bench, and sitting down."</p> + +<p class="indent">They went across the grass, to a curious painted +Italian bench which had been a gift of the woman who +was so much in both their thoughts.</p> + +<p class="indent">And there, "I want to ask you a question," he said +slowly. "What led to the marriage of Laura Baynton +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 63]</span> +and Godfrey Pavely? From something she once said +to me, I gather she thinks that you approved of it."</p> + +<p class="indent">She felt as if his eyes were burning her in the darkness, +and as she hesitated, hardly knowing what to +say, he went on, and in his voice there was something +terribly accusing.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Did <i>you</i> make the marriage, mother? Did you +really advise her to take that fellow?"</p> + +<p class="indent">The questions stung her. "No," she answered +coldly. "I did nothing of the kind, Oliver. If you +wish to know the truth, the person who was most to +blame was your friend Gillie, Laura's brother. Laura +adored her brother. There was nothing in the world +she wouldn't have done for him, and she married +Godfrey—it seems a strange thing to look back on +now—to please Gillie."</p> + +<p class="indent">"But she met Pavely here?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, of course she did. As you know, she very +often stayed with me after her father died, and when +Gillie Baynton, instead of making a home for her, +was getting into scrape after scrape, spending her +money as well as his own."</p> + +<p class="indent">He muttered, "Gillie knew she was to have money +later."</p> + +<p class="indent">She went on: "And then Godfrey Pavely in love +is a very different person from Godfrey Pavely—well, +out of love. He was set on marrying Laura, and +that over years. He first asked her when she was +seventeen, and they married when she was twenty-one. +In the interval he had done Gillie many good turns. +In fact Godfrey bought Laura from Gillie. That, +Oliver, is the simple truth."</p> + +<p class="indent">She waited for him to make some kind of comment, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 64]</span> +but he said nothing, and she went on, a tinge of deep, +yearning sadness in her voice, "Don't let your friends, +or rather their incompatibility of temper—" she hesitated, +and then rather solemnly ended her sentence +with the words, "affect <i>our</i> relations, my son."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'm sorry, mother." Tropenell's voice altered, +softened. "Forgive me for the way I spoke just now! +I had got it into my head—I didn't know quite exactly +why—that you had promoted the marriage. I +see now that you really had nothing to do with it."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I won't say that! It's difficult to remember exactly +what did happen. Godfrey never wearied in his +slow, inexorable pursuit of Laura. I think that at +last she was touched by his constancy. She knew +nothing then of human nature—she knows nothing +of it now."</p> + +<p class="indent">He muttered, "Poor girl! Poor unfortunate girl!" +and his way of uttering the commonplace words hurt +his mother shrewdly.</p> + +<p class="indent">Suddenly she made up her mind to say at least one +true thing to him. It was a thing she knew well no +one but herself would ever say to Oliver.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I am in a position to know," she said, "and I +want you to believe it when I tell you, that if Laura +is to be as much pitied as you believe her to be—so +too, I tell you, Oliver, is Godfrey! If I had known +before the marriage, even an hour before the actual +wedding, what I learnt afterwards—I mean as to their +amazingly different ideals of life—I would have done +<i>anything</i> to stop it!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"What d'you mean exactly, mother, by different +ideals of life?"</p> + +<p class="indent">As he asked the question he moved away from her +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 65]</span> +a little, but he turned round and bent his eyes on to +her face—dimly, whitely, apparent in the starlit, moonlit +night.</p> + +<p class="indent">She did not speak at once. It seemed to her that +the question answered itself, and yet she felt that he +was quivering with impatience for her answer.</p> + +<p class="indent">"The French," she said in a low voice, "have a +very good phrase to describe the kind of man Godfrey +is. Godfrey Pavely is a <i>le moyen homme sensuel</i>—the +typical man of his kind and class, Oliver—the self-satisfied, +stolid, unimaginative upper middle-class. +Such men feel that the world, their English world at +any rate, has been made for them, built up by the all-powerful +entity they call God in their personal interest. +They know scarcely anything of what is going +on, either above or below them, and what is more, they +do not really care, as long as they and their like prosper."</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver nodded impatiently. He knew all that well +enough!</p> + +<p class="indent">His mother went on: "Godfrey Pavely ought to +have married some rather clever, rather vulgar-natured, +rather pretty girl, belonging to his own little +world of Pewsbury. Then, instead of being what he +now is, an uncomfortable, not over contented man, +he would have been, well—what his worthy father +was before him. That odd interest in queer, speculative +money dealings, is the unfortunate fellow's only +outlet, Oliver, for what romance is in him."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I wonder if you're right, mother?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'm sure I am."</p> + +<p class="indent">There came a long silence between them.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell could see her son in outline, as it +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 66]</span> +were, his well-shaped head, and long, lean, finely proportioned +body. He was sitting at the further end of +the bench, and he was now staring right before him. +She found it easier—far easier—to speak of Godfrey +than of Laura. And so, musingly, she went on:</p> + +<p class="indent">"Looking back a dozen years, I can think of several +young women whom Godfrey would have done well +to consider——"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I can certainly think of one, mother," he said, and +in the darkness there came a bitter little smile over his +face.</p> + +<p class="indent">"You mean Katty Winslow? Yes—I think you're +right, my dear. When Godfrey turned from Katty to +Laura, he made a terrible mistake. Katty, in the old +days, had very much the same ambitions, and the same +social aspirations, as himself. She was really fond of +him too! She would have become—what's the odious +word?—'smart.' And Godfrey would have been +proud of her. By now he would have stood for Parliament, +and then, in due course, would have come a +baronetcy. Yes, if the gods had been kind, Godfrey +Pavely would have married poor little Katty—he +didn't behave over well to her, you know!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"It seems to me that Mrs. Winslow has made quite +a good thing of her life, mother."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Do you really think that, Oliver?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, I do. She managed very cleverly, so I'm told, +to get rid of that worthless husband of hers, and now +she's got that pretty little house, and that charming +little garden, and as much of Godfrey as she seems +to want." He spoke with a kind of hard indifference.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Katty's not the sort of woman to be really satisfied +with a pretty little house, a charming little garden, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 67]</span> +and a platonic share in another woman's husband."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Then she'll marry again. People seem to think +her very attractive."</p> + +<p class="indent">There was a long pause.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Mother?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, my dearest."</p> + +<p class="indent">"To return to Laura—what should have been <i>her</i> +fate had the gods been kind?"</p> + +<p class="indent">She left his question without an answer so dangerously +long as to create a strange feeling of excitement +and strain between them. Then, reluctantly, she answered +it. "Laura might have been happiest in not +marrying at all, and in any case she should have +married late. As to what kind of man would have +made her happy, of course I have a theory."</p> + +<p class="indent">"What is your theory?" He leant towards her, +breathing rather quickly.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I think," she said hesitatingly, "that Laura +might have been happy with a man of the world, older +than herself, who would have regarded his wife as a +rare and beautiful possession. Such a man would +have understood the measure of what she was willing +and able to give—and to withhold. I can also +imagine Laura married to a young idealist, the kind +of man whose attitude to his wife is one of worship, +whose demands, if indeed they can be called demands, +are few, infrequent——"</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell stopped abruptly. What she had +just said led to a path she did not mean to follow. +But she soon realised with dismay that she had said +too much, or too little.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Do you mean," said Oliver hoarsely, "that Pavely—that +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 68]</span> +Pavely——" he left his question unfinished, but +she knew he meant to exact an answer and she did not +keep him waiting long for it. Still she chose her +words very carefully.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I think that Godfrey Pavely, in the matter of his +relations to his wife, is a very unfortunate, and, some +would say, a very ill-used man, Oliver."</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver Tropenell suddenly diminished the distance +between his mother and himself. The carefully chosen, +vague words she had just uttered had been like balm +poured into a festering and intolerably painful wound.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Poor devil!" he said contemptuously, and there +was a rather terrible tone of triumph, as well as of +contempt, in the muttered exclamation.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell was startled and, what she seldom +was, frightened. She felt she was face to face with +an elemental force—the force of hate.</p> + +<p class="indent">She repeated his last words, but in how different a +spirit, in how different a tone! "Poor devil? Yes, +Oliver, Godfrey is really to be pitied, and I ask you +to believe me, my son, when I say that he does do his +duty by Laura according to his lights."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Mother?" He put out his hand in the darkness +and just touched hers. "Why is it that Laura is so +much fonder of you than you are of Laura? You +don't respect—or even like—Godfrey?"</p> + +<p class="indent">She protested eagerly. "But I <i>am</i> fond of Laura—very, +very fond, Oliver! But though, as you say, I +neither really like nor respect Godfrey, I can't help +being sorry for him. He once said to me—it's a long +time ago—'I thought I was marrying a woman, but +I've married a marble statue. I'm married to something +like <i>that</i>'—and he pointed to 'The Wingless +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 69]</span> +Victory' your father brought me, years ago, from +Italy. Godfrey is an unhappy man, Oliver—come, +admit that you know that?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I think she's far, far more unhappy than he is! +No man with so thoroughly good an opinion of himself +is ever <i>really</i> unhappy. Still, it's a frightful +tangle."</p> + +<p class="indent">He stopped short for a moment, then in a very low +voice, he asked her, "Is there no way of cutting it +through, mother?" Suddenly he answered his own +question in a curiously musing, detached tone. "I +suppose the only way in which such a situation is ever +terminated is by death."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," she said slowly, "but it's not a usual termination. +Still, I have known it happen." More lightly +she went on: "If Laura died, Godfrey wouldn't escape +Katty a second time. And one must admit that +she would make him an almost perfect wife."</p> + +<p class="indent">"<i>And if Godfrey died, mother?</i>"</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell felt a little tremor of fear shoot +through her burdened heart. This secret, intimate +conversation held in the starry night was drifting into +strange, sinister, uncharted channels. But her son +was waiting for an answer.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I don't know how far Laura's life would alter for +the better if Godfrey died. I suppose she would go on +much as she does now. And, Oliver——"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, mother."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I should pity and—rather despise the man who +would waste his life in an unrequited devotion."</p> + +<p class="indent">He made an impatient movement. "Then do you +regard response as essential in every relationship between +a man and a woman?"</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 70]</span> +"I have never yet known a man who did not regard +it as essential," she said quietly, "and that, however +he might consciously or unconsciously pretend to be +satisfied with—nothing."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I once knew a man," he said, in a low, tense voice, +"who for years loved a woman who seemed unresponsive, +who forced him to be content with the merest +crumbs of—well, <i>she</i> called it friendship. And +yet, mother, that man was happy in his love. And +towards the end of her life the woman gave all that he +had longed for, all he had schooled himself to believe +it was not in her to give—but it had been there all the +time! She had suffered, poor angel, more than he—" +his voice broke, and his mother, turning towards him, +laid for a moment her hand on his, as she whispered, +"Was that woman at all like Laura, my darling?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes—as far as a Spaniard, and a Roman Catholic, +can be like Laura, she was like Laura."</p> + +<p class="indent">Even as he spoke he had risen to his feet, and +during their short walk, from the bench where they +had been sitting through the trees and across the lawn, +neither spoke to the other. But, as he opened the +house door, he said, "Good-night. I'm not coming in +now; I'm going for a walk. I haven't walked all day." +He hesitated a moment: "Don't be worried—I won't +say don't be frightened, for I don't believe, mother, +that anything could ever frighten you—if you hear me +coming in rather late. I've got to think out a rather +difficult problem—something connected with my business."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I hope Gillie hasn't been getting into any scrape +since you've come home?"</p> + +<p class="indent">But she only spoke by way of falling in with his +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 71]</span> +humour. Nothing mattered to her, or to him, just +now, except—Laura.</p> + +<p class="indent">He said hastily, "Oh no, things have been going +very well out there. You must remember, mother, +that Baynton's scrapes never affect his work."</p> + +<p class="indent">He spoke absently, and she realised that he wanted +to be away, by himself, to think over some of the +things she had said to him, and so she turned and +went slowly up the staircase, and passed through into +her own bedroom without turning up the light.</p> + +<p class="indent">Walking over to her window, she gazed down into +the moonlit space beneath. But she could see no +moving shadow, hear no sound. Oliver had padded +away across the grass, making for the lonely downs +which encircled, on three sides, the house.</p> + +<p class="indent">Before turning away from her window, Mrs. Tropenell +covered her face with her hands; she was fearfully +moved, shaken to the depths of her heart. For +the first time Oliver had bared his soul before her. +She thrilled with pride in the passionate, wayward, +in a measure nobly selfless and generous human being +whom she had created.</p> + +<p class="indent">How strange, how amazing that Laura made no +response to that ardent, exalted passion! But if amazing, +then also, from what ought to be every point +of view, how fortunate! And yet, unreasonable though +it was, Mrs. Tropenell felt sharply angered with Laura, +irritated by that enigmatic, self-absorbed, coldness of +hers. What a poor maimed creature, to be so blind, so +imperceptive, to the greatest thing in the world! Dislike, +a physical distaste for the unlucky Godfrey which +seemed sometimes to amount to horror, were this +beautiful woman's nearest approach to passion.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 72]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<p class="cap">AT Rosedean, the small, mid-Victorian house which +every one going to and fro between Freshley +Manor and Lawford Chase was bound to pass by, +Mrs. Winslow sat in her drawing-room waiting for +Godfrey Pavely.</p> + +<p class="indent">He was coming in to see her on his way home from +Pewsbury, where, at the Bank, he spent each day at +least six of his waking hours.</p> + +<p class="indent">All the summer, up to to-day, Mrs. Winslow had +always had tea in the garden, but there was now a +freshness in the air, and she thought they would find +it more comfortable indoors than out. Still, she had +opened wide the long French window, and the wind +blew in, laden with pungent autumnal scents.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty—the old childish name still clung to her—was +a very clever woman. She possessed the power of +getting the utmost out of the people round her, +whether they were friends, acquaintances, or servants. +Her little garden was exquisitely kept, and there was +no month of the year when it did not look charming. +Her little house, so far as was possible on very limited +means, was perfectly ordered.</p> + +<p class="indent">Perhaps one secret of her success lay in the fact +that she was able to do everything herself that she +asked others to do for her. Katty was a good gardener, +an excellent cook, and an exceptionally clever +dressmaker. Yet she was the last woman to make the +mistake so many clever people make—of keeping a dog +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 73]</span> +and doing the barking oneself. Katty was willing to +show those she employed exactly how she wanted a +thing done, but she expected them to learn how to do +it quickly and intelligently. She had no use for the +idle or the stupid.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty Winslow was thirty-one, but she looked much +younger. She was an exceedingly pretty woman, with +brown eyes, a delicately clear, white and pink complexion, +and curling chestnut hair. She took great pains +with her appearance, and with her health. Thus she +ate and drank to rule, and almost walked to rule.</p> + +<p class="indent">Early this last summer a bit of cruel bad luck had +befallen Mrs. Winslow. She had caught scarlet fever +while on a visit, and for some days had been very ill. +But, perhaps as a result of the long, dull convalescence, +she now looked even prettier, and yes, younger, than +she had done before.</p> + +<p class="indent">The only daughter of a well-connected but exceedingly +poor half-pay officer, Katherine Fenton, during +a girlhood which lasted till she was four-and-twenty, +had been undisputed belle of Pewsbury, and of a country-side +stretching far beyond the confines of that fine +old county town. Like all beauties, she had had her +triumphs and her disappointments; and then, rather +suddenly, she had made what had seemed the irretrievable +mistake of an unhappy marriage.</p> + +<p class="indent">Bob Winslow had been weak, vain, ill-tempered, +and, to a certain extent, vicious. Thus his relations +had welcomed his marriage to a clever, capable young +woman, who it was supposed would make, and keep, +him straight. The fact that she had no fortune had +been regarded as unimportant—indeed, Bob Winslow +had made on his bride what was regarded in the +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 74]</span> +Pewsbury world as the splendid marriage settlement of +twelve thousand pounds.</p> + +<p class="indent">Four and a half per cent, on that sum was now +Mrs. Winslow's only income, and out of that income +there were still being paid off heavy divorce costs, for +Bob Winslow, when it had come to the point, had +put up a great fight for his Katty. Not only had he +defended the case, but he had brought on his side +vague counter-charges. The Judge, rather unkindly, +had observed that the petitioner had been "somewhat +imprudent," but even so Katty had come out of the +painful ordeal very well—so much was universally +allowed, even by the few people in Pewsbury who had +always disliked her, and who did not think she had +treated her husband well.</p> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey and Laura Pavely had both been very +kind to Katty over the matter of the divorce—indeed, +Mrs. Winslow had actually stayed at Lawford Chase +for many weeks during that troubled time, and Laura's +countenance had been of great value to her. This was +now three years ago, and, though they had nothing +in common, the two women remained good friends, +as well as what is sometimes less usual, good neighbours.</p> + +<p class="indent">In nothing had Katty shown herself cleverer than in +her management of Laura. In Laura Pavely's imagination +Katty Winslow had her fixed place as a +friend of Godfrey's childhood, and that though he +was nine years older. Mrs. Pavely regarded Mrs. +Winslow much as she would have done a pleasant-natured +sister-in-law, and she had been glad to do all +that she could for her. When some one had suggested +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 75]</span> +that Katty should become Godfrey Pavely's tenant +at Rosedean, Laura had thought it an excellent idea.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was the fashion to call Rosedean ugly. The +house had been built in the 'sixties, by a retired butcher +and grazier, and was of red brick with white facings. +But it was well built, and had far more real distinction +of appearance than the Queen Anne villas which +now surrounded Pewsbury. Also, Rosedean had been +built on the site of an old farmhouse, and Katty's +lawn was fringed with some fine old trees, while a +grand old holly hedge concealed a well-stocked kitchen +garden. On the other side of the house were stabling +for two horses, a coach-house, and a paddock.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty had devoted a great deal of successful thought +to the arrangement of her dwelling. She knew she +could neither compete with the stately beauty of +Laura's Tudor mansion, nor with the old-fashioned +eighteenth-century charm of Mrs. Tropenell's house, +so she wisely made up her mind that her surroundings +should be simply bright, pretty and cosy. Her drawing-room +was in its way a delightful room, and those +walking through into it, from the rather dark, early +Victorian hall, gained an instant impression of coolness +in summer, of warmth in winter, of cheerfulness +and comfort at all times.</p> + +<p class="indent">No one but Katty herself knew the trouble to which +she had been to get the exact pattern of calendered +chintz which she had made up her mind to obtain. +Katty also kept to herself the amount which she had +spent, out of her small reserve, on the thoroughly good, +comfortable easy-chairs, of varying shape, height, and +depth, which played such an important, if unobtrusive, +part in the comfort of her visitors.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 76]</span> +Every chair in Katty's sitting-room was an easy +chair, with the exception of two gilt ones which were +of their kind good, and which she had bought at a +sale. They, however, were never moved away from +the places where they stood, flanking a quaint, old-fashioned +cabinet now filled with some beautiful old +china which had come to Katty from a grandmother.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet another peculiarity of Katty's sitting-room was +the absence of pictures. Their place was taken by +mirrors. Above the mantelpiece on which stood six +delicately charming Dresden china figures was a looking-glass +of curious octagonal shape, framed in rosewood. +Opposite the French window which opened +into the garden was fixed a long, narrow mirror with +a finely carved gilt wood frame. This mirror gave +an air of distinction to the room which would otherwise +have been lacking, and it also enabled Katty +to see at any moment how she was looking, whether +her burnished chestnut-brown hair was quite tidy, and +her gown fresh-looking and neat.</p> + +<p class="indent">There had been a time in her life when Katty +Winslow had been passionately fond of beautiful +clothes, and able to indulge her taste. Now, all she +could hope to attain was freshness and neatness. That +she achieved these was to her credit, for they too cost, +if not money, then a good deal of thought and time, +on the part of their possessor.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey Pavely had walked out from Pewsbury. +From the Bank in the High Street to Rosedean was +rather over two miles, and he had gone along at a +steady, jog-trot pace till he had come in sight of the +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 77]</span> +little house. Then he quickened his footsteps, and a +feeling of pleasurable anticipation came over him.</p> + +<p class="indent">The banker was very, very fond of his old friend +and sometime sweetheart. He believed it to be a +straightforward, honest affection, though he could not +but be aware, deep in his heart, that "to it" was just +that little touch of sentiment which adds salt and +savour to most of the close friendships formed between +a man and a woman.</p> + +<p class="indent">As a matter of fact, Godfrey Pavely was now happier +in Katty Winslow's company than he was in that +of any one else. Not only did she ply him with a +good deal of delicate flattery, which caused him always +to feel better pleased with himself when at Rosedean +than when he was at The Chase, but a great and +real bond between them was their mutual interest in +all the local happenings and local gossip of the neighbourhood.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura was frankly indifferent to all that concerned +the town of Pewsbury and the affairs of those whom +Mrs. Tropenell called the Pewsburyites. She was +not disagreeable about it; she simply didn't care. +Katty, in spite of her frequent absences, for she was +a popular visitor with a large circle of acquaintances, +always came home full of an eager wish to learn all +that had happened while she had been away.</p> + +<p class="indent">Little by little, imperceptibly as regarded himself, +the banker had fallen into the way of telling this +woman, who had so oddly slipped back into his life, +everything which concerned and interested himself, +every detail of his business, and even, which he had +no right to do, the secrets of his clients.</p> + +<p class="indent">But to this entire confidence there was one outstanding +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 78]</span> +exception. Godfrey Pavely never discussed with +Katty Winslow his relations with his wife. Laura's +attitude to himself caused him, even now, sharp, almost +intolerable, humiliation. Only to Mrs. Tropenell +did he ever say a word of his resentment and soreness—and +that only because she had been the unwilling +confidant of both husband and wife during that early +time in their married life when the struggle between +Godfrey and Laura had been, if almost wordless, at +its sharpest and bitterest.</p> + +<p class="indent">On one occasion, and on one only, when with Katty +Winslow, had Pavely broken his guarded silence. He +had been talking, in a way which at once fascinated +and tantalised Katty, of his growing wealth, +and suddenly he had said something as to his having +no son to inherit his fortune. "It's odd to think that +some day there will come along a man, a stranger to +me, who will benefit by everything I now do——" and +as she had looked up at him, at a loss for his meaning, +he had gone on, slowly, "I mean the man whom +Mrs. Tropenell and Laura between them will select for +my girl's husband."</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty, looking at him very straight out of her +bright brown eyes, had exclaimed, "You may have a +son yet, Godfrey!"</p> + +<p class="indent">She had been startled by the look of pain, of rage, +and of humiliation that had come into his sulky, obstinate-looking +face, as he answered shortly, "I think +that's very unlikely."</p> + +<p class="indent">Had Godfrey Pavely been a more imaginative man, +he would probably by now have come to regret, with +a deep, voiceless regret, that he had not married Katty +instead of Laura—but being the manner of man he +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 79]</span> +was, he had, so far, done nothing of the sort. And +yet? And yet, at one time, say fifteen years ago, +he had very nearly married Katty. It was a fact +which even now he would have denied, but which she +never forgot.</p> + +<p class="indent">In those days Godfrey Pavely had been a priggish, +self-important young man of twenty-six, with perhaps +not so good an opinion of women as he had now, +for a man's opinion of women always alters, one way +or another, as he grows older.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty, at eighteen, had enjoyed playing on the cautious, +judgematical Godfrey's emotions. So well had +she succeeded that at one time he could hardly let a +day go by without trying to see and to be with her +alone. But, though strongly attracted by her instinctive, +girlish wiles, he was also, quite unknowingly to +her, repelled by those same wiles.</p> + +<p class="indent">Poor Katty had made herself, in those days that +now seemed to both of them so very, very long ago, +a little too cheap. Her admirer, to use a good old +word, knew that her appeal was to a side of his nature +which it behooved him to keep in check, if he +was not "to make a fool of himself." And so, just +when their little world—kindly, malicious, censorious, +as the case might be—was expecting to hear of their +engagement, Godfrey Pavely suddenly left Pewsbury +to spend a year in a great Paris discount house.</p> + +<p class="indent">The now staid country banker did not look back +with any pride or pleasure to that year in France; he +had worked, but he had also ignobly played, spending, +rather joylessly, a great deal of money in the process. +Then, having secretly sown his wild oats, he had come +home and settled down to a further time of banking +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 80]</span> +apprenticeship in London, before taking over the +sound family business.</p> + +<p class="indent">Almost at once, on his return to England, he had +made up his mind to marry the beautiful, reserved, the +then pathetically young Laura Baynton, who was so +constantly with Mrs. Tropenell at Freshley Manor.</p> + +<p class="indent">Time went on, and Laura held out; but little by little, +perhaps because he saw her so seldom, he broke +down her resistance. His father had bought the Lawford +Chase estate as a great bargain, many years +before, and had been content to let it on a long lease. +Godfrey, on becoming his own master at thirty, determined +to live there, and his marriage to Laura followed +a year later.</p> + +<p class="indent">During their honeymoon in Paris—a honeymoon +which was curiously and painfully unlike what Godfrey +had supposed his honeymoon would and must +be—he saw in a paper a notice of Katty Fenton's engagement. +Though not given to impulsively generous +actions, he went out and bought for Katty, in the +Rue de la Paix, a jewelled pendant Laura had just +refused to allow him to buy for her. In return he had +received what had seemed at the time a delightful letter +of thanks, to which was the following postscript, +"There's no harm in my saying <i>now</i>, that you, dear +Godfrey, were my first love! I've always wanted you +to know that. I've always been afraid that you only +thought me a sad little flirt."</p> + +<p class="indent">The confession, and the shrewd thrust, which was +so much truer than he thought Katty knew, moved +him, and he had told himself sorely that Katty's husband +at any rate would be a very lucky fellow.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then once more he had forgotten Katty till one +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 81]</span> +day, years later, "Mrs. Winslow" had suddenly been +shown into his private room at the Bank.</p> + +<p class="indent">Looking, as he had at once become aware, even +prettier and more attractive than when he had last +seen her, she had said quietly, "I'm in great trouble, +Godfrey, and I've come down from London to consult +you about it. Your father and mine were friends" (a +rather exaggerated statement that—but Pavely was +in no mood to cavil), "and I don't know who else to +go to."</p> + +<p class="indent">Shortly and simply she had described the dreadful +existence she had led since her marriage—then, suddenly, +she had rolled up her right sleeve and shown +the livid bruises made by Bob Winslow the night before, +in a fit of drunken anger, on the slender, soft, +white arm.</p> + +<p class="indent">Unwontedly moved, the more so that this now unfamiliar +Katty seemed to make no excessive demand +either on his pity or on his emotions, Godfrey Pavely +had thrown himself into the complicated, unsavoury +business, and very soon his old-new friend had brought +him to advise her in the sense she wished. But it was +Laura who had suggested that poor Mrs. Winslow +should come and stay with them during the divorce +proceedings, and while she had been at Lawford +Chase, Katty had avoided, rather than sought out, the +master of the house.</p> + +<p class="indent">In the matter of Rosedean the banker had behaved +in what he himself considered a very handsome manner. +Not only had he let the house to Katty for about +a third of what he could have got for it in the open +market, but he had allowed her a hundred pounds for +"doing it up." He believed himself to have also suggested +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 82]</span> +the arrangement by which she obtained the free +services, for a certain number of half-days each week, +of a very intelligent Scotch under-gardener who was +in his employ.</p> + +<p class="indent">He had never had reason to regret his kindness. +On the contrary, he and Katty had become, as time +went on, closer and closer friends, and more and more +had he come to miss her during her frequent absences +from home.</p> + +<p class="indent">Some months ago he had even ventured to tell her +that he thought she gadded about a bit too much! +Why couldn't she be content to stay quietly at Rosedean? +"Look at me and Laura," he had exclaimed. +"We hardly ever go away for a holiday, and we very +seldom pay a visit!" Katty had shaken her pretty +head playfully: "Ah, but you don't know how lonely +I am sometimes! Laura is most dear and kind to me, +but you know, Godfrey, I don't see her often——"</p> + +<p class="indent">He had not liked to remind her that he very often +did.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then something happened which quite curiously +quickened Godfrey Pavely's unavowed feeling for +Katty. Oliver Tropenell, a virtual stranger to them +all, came home from Mexico to spend the summer in +England with his mother. And three times, during +Oliver's first fortnight in England, Godfrey arrived +at Rosedean to find the then stranger there. On these +three occasions each man had tried to sit the other +out, and finally they had left the house together. As +a result of these meetings Godfrey soon caught himself +wondering with a mixture of feelings he did +not care to analyse, whether Tropenell could possibly +be thinking of marrying Katty?</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 83]</span> +He found the notion intolerable.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then came a strange turn to the situation. Katty +had gone away, on one of those tiresome little visits +she was so fond of paying, and Providence, which +means women, especially any woman placed in an ambiguous +position, to stay quietly at home, had caught +her out! She had fallen ill, when on a visit, of scarlet +fever, and she had been compelled to stay away six +weeks. During those weeks he, Godfrey Pavely, and +Oliver Tropenell had become friends—on more intimate +terms of friendship than Pavely had ever expected +to find himself with any man. This was, of +course, partly owing to the fortunate fact that Laura +liked Oliver too, and didn't seem to mind how often +he came and went to The Chase.</p> + +<p class="indent">But Godfrey Pavely had a tenacious memory. He +did not forget that for a little while, at any rate, Oliver +had seemed to enjoy being in Katty's company. And +when Laura, more than once since Mrs. Winslow's return +to Rosedean, had suggested asking Katty in to +dinner to meet Oliver, her husband coldly vetoed the +proposal.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 84]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<p class="cap">ONLY Harber, the woman who, after having been +maid to Katty during her troubled married life, +had stayed on with her as house-parlourmaid and +general factotum, was aware of how very often Mr. +Pavely called at Rosedean on his daily walk home from +Pewsbury. To-day he had hardly pressed the bell-knob +before the front door opened. It was almost as +if Harber had been waiting for him in the hall.</p> + +<p class="indent">As he put down his hat and stick he was conscious +of feeling very glad that he was going to see Katty. +Mrs. Winslow had again been away, was it for four +days, or five? It's true that for part of that time he +himself had been to London, and very busy, but even +so the time had seemed long. He told himself that +he had a hundred things to say to her, and he even +felt a little thrill of excitement as he followed the +servant through the hall.</p> + +<p class="indent">And Katty? Katty, who the moment she had heard +the front-door bell had quietly begun making the tea—she +always made tea herself, with the help of a +pretty spirit lamp—Katty also felt a queer little thrill, +but for a very different reason. Since they had last +met she had come to a certain resolution with regard +to Godfrey Pavely, and though she did not mean to +say anything to-day even remotely bearing on it, still +it affected her, made her regard him with rather different +eyes.</p> + +<p class="indent">It is a great mistake to think that coldness and calculation +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 85]</span> +always go together. Katty Winslow was calculating, +but she was not cold. For once she had been +quite honest when writing that odd little postscript to +her letter of thanks for Godfrey Pavely's wedding +present. Godfrey had, in very truth, been her first +love, and she had suffered acutely in her heart, as well +as in her pride, when he had run away. Even now, +she felt as if there were a strong, secret, passionate +link between them, and there was no day when she +did not tell herself that she would have made the +banker a perfect, and yes—a very happy wife.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey came into the drawing-room with a pleased, +eager look on his face. He took his hostess's hand in +his, and held it for perhaps a thought longer than +he would have held, say, Mrs. Tropenell's hand. But +the hand he now held was a soft, malleable little hand, +not thin and firm, like that of Oliver's mother.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty was smiling at him, such a bright, friendly, +pretty smile. "Sit down," she said softly. "And before +we begin talking, take a cup of tea. You look +very tired—and you're late, too, Godfrey. I was beginning +to think that you weren't coming at all!"</p> + +<p class="indent">And then he said something which surprised her, but +which somehow chimed in quite surprisingly with +what had been filling her busy, active brain of late.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Jim Beath has been with me most of the afternoon," +he spoke wearily, complainingly. "I had to +ask him to lunch at the Club, and he stayed on and +on."</p> + +<p class="indent">Now the Beaths were by way of being intimate +friends of Katty Winslow, and Jim Beath was a +client of Godfrey Pavely.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 86]</span> +"Oh, but that's very interesting!" she cried. "I've +been wondering so much how that affair is going on—I +do so hope it will be all right!"</p> + +<p class="indent">And then, as she saw a shocked look come over +her visitor's narrow, rather fleshy face, she said in +a low voice, "You know how I feel about the divorce +laws, Godfrey. I can't help it. They're horribly unfair—so—so +ridiculous, in fact!"</p> + +<p class="indent">As he remained silent, she went on, insisting on her +own point of view far more than was her usual way +when talking to her self-opinionated friend: "Don't +you realise how hard it is that two people utterly unsuited +to one another should have to go through that +sort of horrid farce just in order to get free?"</p> + +<p class="indent">He looked at her uncomfortably. Sometimes, even +now, Katty startled him by the things she said. But +how pretty she looked to-day, bending over the tea-things! +Her burnished hair was dressed in thick soft +coils, her white, well-manicured hand busily engaged +in pouring him out just the cup of tea he liked, with +the exact proportions of milk, cream, and sugar that +were right—and which Laura never remembered.</p> + +<p class="indent">So it was mildly that he answered: "I don't think +the Beaths ought to want to get what you call 'free.' +Divorce was not instituted to meet a case like +theirs—" he hesitated, and then with a certain effort +he went on: "Divorce was instituted to meet a case +like yours, Katty."</p> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey Pavely was weary of the Beaths and of +their divorce plot—for so he called it to himself. +There were other things he wanted to talk to Katty +about. Besides, he did not think that that sort of +affair was a nice subject of discussion between a man +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 87]</span> +and a woman, however intimate. In some ways Godfrey +Pavely was very old-fashioned.</p> + +<p class="indent">But she wouldn't let it alone. "Divorce <i>ought</i> to +meet a case like theirs," she went on obstinately.</p> + +<p class="indent">"My dear Katty! What would happen to the +country if all the married people who didn't get on +with one another were to separate?"</p> + +<p class="indent">And then, looking at her defiant face, a most extraordinary +and disagreeable suspicion darted into Godfrey +Pavely's mind. Was it possible, conceivable, that +Katty was thinking of Jim Beath as a second husband +for herself? The thought shook him with anger and +with repugnance. He felt he must have that out—here +and now.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Do you like Jim Beath?" he asked slowly; "I +know you've been seeing a great deal of them this +last year. In fact, he mentioned you to-day."</p> + +<p class="indent">She could read him like a book, and she remained +silent long enough to make him feel increasingly suspicious +and uncomfortable.</p> + +<p class="indent">But to-day Katty was not in the mood for a cat-and-mouse +game, so she answered deliberately: "No, Godfrey, +I can't say that I do like Jim Beath! I've tried +to like him. But—well, I do thoroughly understand +Nita's feeling towards him. He's so sarcastic—so +hard and unsympathetic!" She waited a moment, then +added significantly: "Still, I think he's behaving awfully +well now. He'd have been quite willing to go +on—he told me that himself. But when he saw that +Nita was <i>really</i> unhappy, and that she was getting +fond of another man, he made up his mind that he +would do all he could to make her free."</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty was playing rather nervously with the edge +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 88]</span> +of the pretty tea-cloth, and Pavely wondered whether +she was telling him the whole truth. She was flushed, +and she looked unwontedly moved.</p> + +<p class="indent">"It's a very odd thing for a man to do," he said +coldly. "I mean a man being willing to give up his +wife to another man."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Why shouldn't he? When he doesn't love her, +and when she positively dislikes him! Nita never +understood Jim Beath—she was always afraid of him, +and of his sharp, clever tongue. Of course it's sad +about their little boy. But they've made a very good +arrangement—they're going to share him. Jim will +have the child half the year, and Nita the other half, +till he goes to school—when they will have him for +alternate holidays."</p> + +<p class="indent">"You talk as if it was all settled!" Katty's visitor +exclaimed crossly. "If they say as much to other +people as they seem to do to you, they will never +get their divorce—the King's Proctor is sure to intervene!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty gave a quick, curious look at her visitor. Godfrey +went too far—sometimes.</p> + +<p class="indent">The thought flashed through her mind that she was +wasting her life, her few remaining years of youth, +on a man who would never be more to her than he +was now, unless—unless, that is, she could bring him +to the point of putting himself imaginatively, emotionally +into Jim Beath's shoes. <i>Then</i> everything +might be changed. But was there any hope of such a +thing coming to pass?</p> + +<p class="indent">But all she said, in a constrained tone, was, "Of +course I ought not to have said anything of the matter +to you at all. But I'm afraid, Godfrey, that I +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 89]</span> +often do tell you things I ought to keep to myself. You +must try and forget what I said."</p> + +<p class="indent">He was surprised, bewildered, by the sudden steely +coldness of her tone. "Of course you can say anything +you like to say to me. Why, Katty, I tell you +all my secrets!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Do you?" She glanced over at him rather sharply. +"I don't think you tell me <i>all</i> your secrets, Godfrey."</p> + +<p class="indent">He looked at her puzzled. "You <i>know</i> that I do," +he said in a low voice. "Come, Katty, you're not being +fair! It's because I have such a high regard for +you, that I feel sorry when you talk as you've been +talking just now—as if, after all, the marriage bond +didn't matter."</p> + +<p class="indent">But even as he said these words, Godfrey Pavely +felt a wild impulse to throw over the pretty little gimcrack +tea-table, take Katty in his arms, and kiss her, +kiss her, kiss her! He came back, with an inward +start, to hear her exclaim,</p> + +<p class="indent">"I don't consider the peculiar relations which exist +between Nita and Jim Beath a marriage at all! They +have nothing in common the one with the other. +What interests him doesn't interest her——"</p> + +<p class="indent">She waited a moment, saw that he was reddening +uncomfortably, and then hurried on, driven by some +sudden instinct that she was at last playing on the +hidden chord she had so often longed to find and +strike in Godfrey Pavely's sore heart: "Nita can't bear +Jim to touch her—she will hardly shake hands with +him! Do you call <i>that</i> a marriage?"</p> + +<p class="indent">As he remained silent, she suddenly said in a voice +so low as to be almost a whisper, "Forgive me, Godfrey. +I—I ought not have said that to you."</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 90]</span> +He answered loudly, discordantly, "I don't know +what you mean, Katty! Why shouldn't you say anything +you like about these people? They are nothing, +and less than nothing to me, and I don't suppose +they're very much to you."</p> + +<p class="indent">Even as he spoke he had got up out of the easy +chair into which he had sunk with such happy content +a few minutes before. "I must be going now," he +said heavily, "Oliver Tropenell's coming in for a +game of tennis at six."</p> + +<p class="indent">She made no effort to keep him, though she longed +to say to him: "Oliver Tropenell's been in your house, +and in your garden, all afternoon. Both he and Laura +would be only too pleased if you stayed on here till +dinner-time."</p> + +<p class="indent">But instead of saying that, she got up, and silently +accompanied him to the front door.</p> + +<p class="indent">There poor Godfrey did linger regretfully. He felt +like a child who has been baulked of some promised +treat—not by his own fault, but by the fault of those +about him. "Will you be in to-morrow?" he asked +abruptly. "I think I might come in a little earlier +to-morrow, Katty."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, do come to-morrow! I seem to have a hundred +things to say to you. I'm sorry we wasted the +little time we had to-day in talking over those tiresome +people and their matrimonial affairs."</p> + +<p class="indent">There was also a look of regret in her face, and +suddenly he told himself that he might have been mistaken +just now, and that she had meant nothing—nothing +in the least personal or—or probing, in what she +had said. "Look here!" he said awkwardly. "If +there's anything you really want to say—you said you +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 91]</span> +had a hundred things to tell me—would you like me to +come back for a few minutes? There's no great hurry, +you know—I mean about Tropenell and his game."</p> + +<p class="indent">She shook her head, and to his moved surprise, the +tears came into her pretty brown eyes. "No, not now. +I'm tired, Godfrey. It's rather absurd, but I haven't +really got over my journey yet; I think I shall have +to take your advice, and stay at home rather more."</p> + +<p class="indent">For a long moment they advanced towards one another +as if something outside themselves was drawing +them together. Then Godfrey Pavely put out his +hand, and grasped hers firmly. It was almost as if he +was holding her back—at arm's length.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty laughed nervously. She shook her hand free +of his, opened the door wide, and exclaimed: "Well! +Good-bye till to-morrow then. My love to Laura."</p> + +<p class="indent">He nodded, and was gone.</p> + +<p class="indent">She shut the door behind him, and, turning, went +slowly upstairs. She felt tired, weak, upset—and, +what she did not often feel, restless and unhappy as +well. It irritated her—nay, it did more than irritate, +it hurt her shrewdly—to think of those three people +who were about to spend a pleasant couple of hours +together. She could so easily, so safely, have made a +fourth at their constant meetings.</p> + +<p class="indent">If only Laura Pavely were a little less absorbed in +herself, a little more what ordinary people called good-natured! +It would have been so natural for Laura, +when she knew that Oliver Tropenell was coming to +dinner, to send across to Rosedean, and ask her, Katty, +to make a fourth. It was not as if Laura was at all +jealous. She was as little jealous of Godfrey and of +Katty—and at that thought Katty gave a queer, bitter +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 92]</span> +little laugh which startled her, for she had laughed +aloud—as was Godfrey of Laura and Oliver! With +as little or as much reason? Katty would have given +a great deal to be able to answer her own question. +She thought she knew half the answer—but it was, +alas! by far the less important half.</p> + +<p class="indent">She opened the door of her bedroom, went through +into it, and without troubling to take off her pretty +blouse and freshly ironed linen skirt, walked deliberately +to her bed, lay down, and shut her eyes—not to +sleep but to think.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">What had been forced upon Katty Winslow's notice +during the last few weeks had created a revolution +in her mind and in her plans.</p> + +<p class="indent">For a while, after her return from that dreary period +of convalescence in a seaside home, she, who was +generally so positive, had doubted the evidence of her +own eyes and senses. But gradually that which she +would have deemed the last thing likely to happen had +emerged, startlingly clear. Oliver Tropenell, to use +Katty's own expression, had fallen madly in love with +Laura Pavely. No woman could doubt that who saw +them together. When Katty had left Rosedean, there +had been the beginnings of—well, not exactly a flirtation, +but a very pleasant friendship between Tropenell +and herself. Now he hardly seemed to know that she +existed.</p> + +<p class="indent">But if it was only too plain to see how matters stood +with Oliver, this was far from being the case as regarded +Laura. Katty owned herself quite ignorant +of Laura's real nature, and, as is so often the case +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 93]</span> +with those who know nothing, she was inclined to +believe that there was nothing to know.</p> + +<p class="indent">Perhaps, after all, it was only because this man was +the son of her friend that Laura allowed him to be +always with her. They were always together—not always +alone, for Oliver seemed to be at The Chase +quite as much when Godfrey was at home, as at other +times. But with Katty, she being the manner of +woman she was, it was the other times which impressed +her imagination. In the six short weeks she, Katty, +had been away, Oliver Tropenell had evidently become +a component part of Laura Pavely's life.</p> + +<p class="indent">She knew, vaguely, how the two spent their time, +and the knowledge irked her—the more that it suggested +nothing of their real relations. Thus gardening +was one of Laura's favourite occupations and +few pleasures; and Oliver, who could never have gardened +before—what gardening could there be to do +in Mexico?—now spent hours out of doors with +Laura, carrying out her behests, behaving just as an +under-gardener would behave, when working under his +mistress's directions.</p> + +<p class="indent">And Godfrey, instead of objecting to this extraordinary +state of things, seemed quite pleased. Oliver, +so much was clear, had become Godfrey Pavely's +friend almost as much as he was Laura's.</p> + +<p class="indent">As she lay there, straight out on her bed, Katty +told herself with terrible bitterness that it was indeed +an amazing state of things to which she had come back—one +which altered her own life in a strange degree. +She had not realised, till these last few weeks, how +much Godfrey Pavely was to her, and how jealous she +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 94]</span> +could become even of such an affection as his cordial +liking of Oliver Tropenell.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet when Godfrey was actually with her, she retained +all her old ascendency over him; in certain +ways it had perhaps even increased. It was as if his +unsuspecting proximity to another man's strong, secret +passion warmed his sluggish, cautious nature.</p> + +<p class="indent">But that curious fact had not made his friend +Katty's part any the more easy of late. Far from it! +There was no pleasing Godfrey in these days. He was +hurt if she was cold; shocked, made uneasy in his +conscience, if she responded in ever so slight a way to +the little excursions in sentiment he sometimes half-ashamedly +permitted himself.</p> + +<p class="indent">Tears came into her eyes, and rolled slowly down +her cheeks, as she recalled what had happened a few +moments ago in the hall. He had been aching to +take her in his arms and kiss her—kiss her as he had +been wont to do, in the old days, in the shabby little +lodging where she lived with her father. Poor little +motherless girl, who had thought herself so clever. +At that time she had believed herself to be as good as +engaged to "young Mr. Pavely," as the Pewsbury +folk called him. Even now she could remember, as +if it had happened yesterday, the bitter humiliation, as +well as the pain which had shaken her, when she had +learnt, casually, of his sudden disappearance from +Pewsbury.</p> + +<p class="indent">What hypocrites men were! The fact that often +they were unconscious hypocrites afforded Katty little +consolation.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was plain that Godfrey was quite unaware of +Oliver's growing absorption in Laura, but that surely +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 95]</span> +was not to his credit. A man of his age, and with his +experience of life, ought to have known, ought to have +guessed, ought to have seen—by now! Instead, he +remained absorbed in himself, in the tiresome little +business interests of his prosperous life, in his new +friendship for Oliver Tropenell, and—in that ambiguous, +tantalising friendship with herself.</p> + +<p class="indent">Again she told herself that she was wasting what +remained to her of youth and of vitality over a thoroughly +unsatisfactory state of things, and painfully +she determined that, if what she had gradually come +to plan since her return home did not come to pass, +she would leave Rosedean, and make another life for +herself elsewhere.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">The things Katty toiled and schemed for had a way +of coming to pass. She had planned her divorce long +before it had actually taken place, at a time indeed +when it seemed impossible to believe that it ever could +take place. Bob Winslow had been adoringly, slavishly +devoted to her for more than two-thirds of their +married life, and it had taken her trouble and time to +drive him into the courses it was necessary he should +pursue to procure her freedom.</p> + +<p class="indent">She had no doubt—there could be no doubt—that +were Godfrey free he would turn to her instinctively at +once. She was well aware of her power over him, and +till lately she had been virtuously proud of what she +imagined to be her loyalty to Laura. Also she had +had no wish to make her own position at Rosedean untenable.</p> + +<p class="indent">Even as it was, Godfrey came far too often to see +her. Had she lived nearer to Pewsbury, even a mile +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 96]</span> +nearer, his frequent calls on her would have meant a +flood of ill-natured gossip in the little town.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yes, the situation, from Katty's point of view, was +thoroughly unsatisfactory, and, as far as she was +concerned, it was time it was ended or mended. And +then, once more, for the hundredth time, her restless, +excited mind swung back to what was to her just +now the real mystery, the all-important problem—the +relations between Oliver Tropenell and Laura Pavely.</p> + +<p class="indent">Of course it was possible—though Katty thought +not likely—that Tropenell was still unaware of his +passion for Laura. Perhaps he still disguised it under +the name of "friendship." But even if that were so, +such a state of things could not endure for very long. +Any day some trifling happening might open his eyes, +and, yes—why not?—Godfrey's.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 97]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<p class="cap">GODFREY PAVELY was standing in his private +room at Pavely's Bank. It was only a little after +ten, and he had not been in the room many minutes, +yet already he had got up from his writing-table and +moved over to the middle one of the three windows +overlooking the prim, exquisitely kept walled garden, +which even nowadays reminded him of his early childhood. +He had gazed out of the window for a few +moments, but now he stood with his back to the window, +staring unseeingly before him, a piece of note +paper crushed up in his hand.</p> + +<p class="indent">For close on a hundred years his well-to-do careful-living +forbears had passed their pleasant, uneventful +lives in this spacious Georgian house, set in the +centre of the wide High Street of the prosperous +market town of Pewsbury.</p> + +<p class="indent">What was now known as "Mr. Pavely's own room" +had been the dining-room of his grandparents. He +himself had always known it as part of the Bank, but +it still had some of the characteristics of a private living-room. +Thus, on the dark green walls hung a number +of quaint family portraits, his great-grandfather, +his grandfather and grandmother, two uncles who +had died in youth, and a presentation portrait of his +own father. These were arranged about and above +the mantelpiece, opposite the place where stood his +wide, leather-topped writing-table.</p> + +<p class="indent">Taking up most of the wall opposite the windows +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 98]</span> +was a bookcase of really distinguished beauty. Godfrey +Pavely had been gratified to learn, some five or +six years ago, that this piece of furniture was of very +considerable value, owing to the fact that it was supposed +to have been, in a special sense, the work and +design of Chippendale himself. But just now, at this +moment, he felt as if he hated the substantial old +house and everything in it.</p> + +<p class="indent">He had come into this room, twenty minutes ago, +to find the usual pile of open letters on the table. On +the top of the pile was an unopened envelope marked +<i>Private</i>, and it was the contents of that envelope that +he now held crushed up—not torn up—in his hand.</p> + +<p class="indent">And as he stood there, staring before him unseeingly +at the bookcase, there suddenly flashed into his +mind a vision of the first time he had brought Laura +here, to his own room at the Bank. They had only +just became engaged, and he was still feeling an almost +oppressive joy of having compassed that which +he had so steadfastly desired.</p> + +<p class="indent">He could see her graceful figure walking through +the mahogany door, he could almost hear her exclaim, +"What a charming room, Godfrey! I can't +help wishing that we were going to live here, in Pewsbury!"</p> + +<p class="indent">She had gone over and stood exactly where he was +standing now, and then she had turned and gazed into +the walled garden, at that time brilliant with tulips +and wallflowers. Coming round behind her, he had +put his arm, a little awkwardly, round her shoulders. +At once she had slipped from beneath his grasp, but +not unkindly—only with a gentle word that at any +moment some one might come in, and he, poor fool +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 99]</span> +that he had been, had admired her maidenly delicacy....</p> + +<p class="indent">He glanced down at the piece of notepaper he held +in his hand, and, smoothing it out, he read it through +for the tenth or twelfth time. Then, as there came a +knock at the door, he hastily thrust it into his pocket.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Come in!" he cried impatiently; and his head clerk +came into the room.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mr. Privet had a delicate, refined, thoughtful face. +He was very much respected in the town, and regarded +as an important, integral part of Pavely's +Bank. He was one of the very few people in the +world who were really attached to Godfrey Pavely, +and he perceived at once that there was something +wrong.</p> + +<p class="indent">"We promised to send over to Mr. Johnson to say +when you would be ready to see him, sir. Shall I +send over now?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes—no. Tell him I'll be ready in half an hour. +And, Privet?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I've a rather important letter to write. Will you +see that I'm not disturbed till I ring?"</p> + +<p class="indent">The old man shut the door quietly, and Godfrey +Pavely drew irresolutely towards his writing-table, +the table where he did so much hard, good, and profitable +work each day.</p> + +<p class="indent">But he did not sit down at once; instead, he took +the letter he had been so nearly caught reading out +of his pocket, and once more he read it through—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"This is to warn you that there is a great deal of +talk going on in Pewsbury and the surrounding neighbourhood +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 100]</span> +about your wife and a certain gentleman +who is a near neighbour of yours. It is well not to +be jealous, but confidence may be carried too far. Try +going home when you are not expected, and you will +surely find them together.</p> + +<p class="margin-left8">"<span class="smcap">A Well-Wisher to the</span></p> + +<p class="margin-left16">"<span class="smcap">Pavely Family.</span>"</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">The words had been written, or rather printed, in +ink, on a very common sheet of notepaper—the kind +of notepaper which is sold in penny packets in every +village and small sweetstuff shop in the kingdom.</p> + +<p class="indent">Now in theory there is nothing easier than to +despise and disregard an anonymous letter. But in +practice such a missive as Godfrey Pavely had just +received, however vulgar, and even, as in this case, +obviously written by a malicious person, invariably +produces a horrible sensation of discomfort and acute +uneasiness. For one thing, the fact that some unknown +human being has devoted so much unwonted +thought and spiteful interest to one's private affairs +is in itself an ugly revelation.</p> + +<p class="indent">In theory again, most people, if asked what they +would do if they received an anonymous letter, would +reply (1) that they would put it straight in the fire, or +(2) go straight with it to the police. But in practice +an anonymous letter, unless the recipient at once +guesses with certainty the identity of the writer, is +the only clue to what may contain the germ of some +ugly plot, or conspiracy to harm or injure the innocent. +So it is surely foolish to destroy what may become +evidence. As for going to the police, that is, +for obvious reasons, the last thing any man would care +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 101]</span> +to do if the anonymous communication deals with the +character of a woman near and dear to him. Indeed, +the thought of going to the police did not even enter +Godfrey Pavely's mind, though it was probably the +advice he would have given <i>to any one else</i> who had +come to consult him about such a matter.</p> + +<p class="indent">As he looked at the letter closely, turning it this way +and that, he suddenly told himself that it did not read +like the work of an illiterate person. Godfrey, and +Laura too, were in their different ways very good employers; +besides, they had not dismissed any one lately. +No, no—it was far more likely to be some one living in +Pewsbury, probably with whom he was scarcely acquainted. +There were, as the banker could not but +be aware, a good many people in the little town who +had reason to dislike him—not personally perhaps, +but as the one money-dealer of the place.</p> + +<p class="indent">At last he sat down at his writing-table and drew +an envelope towards him. On it he wrote, "To be +destroyed, unopened, in case of my death," and then +he placed the poisonous little sheet of common notepaper +in the envelope, and, fastening it down, put it +in one of his inner pockets.</p> + +<p class="indent">He intended to dismiss the whole thing from his +mind, at any rate during this morning, but he found +it very difficult, not to say impossible, to do that.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura and Oliver Tropenell? His thin lips curled +at the thought.</p> + +<p class="indent">Why, Oliver liked him, Godfrey, far better than +he did Laura! He regarded that as certain. And +Laura? He could have laughed aloud at the absurd +suggestion. Laura was not only the coldest, she was +also the most upright, of women.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 102]</span> +Early in their married life, when they had gone +about together far more than they had done recently, +he, Godfrey, had never felt even a twinge of jealousy +with regard to her. And yet—and yet in those days +Laura had certainly excited a good deal of admiration. +There are men who passionately admire that kind of +proud, passionless beauty in a woman. Pavely himself +had once been such a man. So he knew.</p> + +<p class="indent">He looked up from the letter he was writing, and +all at once, to his own surprise, his thoughts took quite +another turn. He told himself suddenly that Tropenell's +rather exceptional intimacy with them both +might, after all, excite remark, in such a damned +censorious, gossiping place as was Pewsbury. He, +Godfrey Pavely, was well aware of what a nest of +gossip a country town could be, and often is. He +had experienced something of it years ago, when there +had been all that foolish talk concerning the then +Katty Fenton and himself. Once or twice he had +felt slightly uneasy lest his <i>present</i> friendship with +Katty should be misunderstood. Indeed, he had felt +this so strongly to give her what he had thought to +be a delicate hint—a hint that she had at once taken—as +to the inadvisability of her coming, when in +Pewsbury, to see him in his private room at the Bank. +She had done that rather often at one time, when she +was first his tenant at Rosedean. But now she never +came to the Bank. She did not even keep her account +at Pavely's, though it would have been a convenience +to her to do so.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">Mr. Johnson's call, which at any other time would +have been a tiresome infliction, was welcome, for it +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 103]</span> +enabled the banker to dismiss this odd, queer, unpleasant +business of the anonymous letter from his +mind for a while.</p> + +<p class="indent">But after Mr. Johnson had gone, the trouble came +back, and the morning—what was left of it—seemed +very long.</p> + +<p class="indent">He asked himself whether, after all, it might not +be wisest to speak of that absurd letter to some one. +Should he say anything to Mrs. Tropenell, or well, +yes—to Laura? But impatiently he shook his head +at the thought. Not only would such a thing shock +and disgust his wife, but, what was of far more consequence +to him, it might make her turn against +Tropenell! Godfrey Pavely had been pleased and +surprised at the way in which Laura had tolerated +the other man being so much about the house. In +Pavely's imagination Tropenell was <i>his</i> friend—not +Laura's.</p> + +<p class="indent">He was glad when he heard a quarter to one chime +out from the Parish Church tower, for it meant that +he could now get up and go across to the Club for +luncheon. He put on his hat and went out into the +square hall of the Bank.</p> + +<p class="indent">As he did so, his head clerk came down the broad +staircase.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mr. Privet's room was only a little smaller, and a +little less lacking in dignity, than that of Mr. Pavely +himself—indeed, some people thought it a pleasanter +room, for it looked out on to the High Street, and +was on the first floor.</p> + +<p class="indent">"If you'd been a minute earlier, sir," said the old +man, smiling, "you'd have seen Mrs. Pavely go by! +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 104]</span> +I think she must have been in Mrs. Tropenell's motor, +for Mr. Tropenell was driving her himself."</p> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey Pavely felt a queer little pang of annoyance +and surprise.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I daresay they're still in the town," he said quickly. +"I thought it quite possible that they might come in +this morning."</p> + +<p class="indent">But he had thought nothing of the kind.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mr. Privet shook his head. "Oh no, sir! They +were going home sure enough—and rather quickly, +too. I thought the car <i>had</i> caught that youngest Sherlock +boy, but Mr. Tropenell's a skilful driver, and he +missed the child, but only by a few inches, as far as +I could judge!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey Pavely nodded, walked on, and so out and +across the High Street. He could not help feeling +a little vexed that Oliver and Laura should have +driven into Pewsbury—this morning, of all mornings. +He wondered if they often did so. It was fortunate +that nothing had happened to that stupid child. It +would have been very unpleasant for his wife to be +compelled to give evidence at an inquest....</p> + +<p class="indent">He did not enjoy his luncheon as much as he was +wont to do. In a sense he was king of the old-fashioned +County Club; every member of it was either +on good terms with the prosperous banker, or desired +to be so. But try as he might he could not get that +odious, absurd, anonymous letter out of his mind! +He told himself again and again that it was thoughtless +and—and yes, unbecoming—of Laura, to drive in +and out of Pewsbury with Oliver Tropenell. Somehow +it was the sort of thing he would never have +thought his wife was likely to do. Again he wondered +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 105]</span> +if she did it often. If yes, such conduct would +of course provide ample reason for low, vulgar gossip.</p> + +<p class="indent">When, at last, Godfrey Pavely walked back across +to the Bank, he had come to the point of asking himself +whether after all it might not be best to say just +a word of caution to Laura. It need not be more +than a word—he knew her well enough to know that! +She was the kind of woman to shrink with fastidious +disgust from the thought of her name being connected, +in any vulgar silly way, with that of a man.</p> + +<p class="indent">But his mind swung backwards and forwards, like +a pendulum. The possibility of his agreeable, cordial +relations with Oliver Tropenell being in any way +jarred or disturbed so upset him that, finally, he made +up his mind to say nothing to Laura.</p> + +<p class="indent">At three o'clock the banker walked up to his head +clerk's room. "I think I'll go home early to-day, +Privet," he said.</p> + +<p class="indent">The old man got up from his chair. He was not +only fond, he was proud too, of his employer. Mr. +Pavely was a model banker, a model worker. He +never went home before four, and often stayed on +working till five.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Very good, sir. It's a fine afternoon. I often +wonder you stay as long as you do," he said, with that +queer touch of affection in his voice which Godfrey +Pavely valued perhaps more than he knew.</p> + +<p class="indent">The walk home seemed much longer than usual. +Two miles and a bit? He was proud of the fact that +he could do it with ease in five minutes over the half-hour. +To-day, as a matter of fact, he walked so +quickly that he did it in twenty-seven minutes, but +he was not aware of that.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 106]</span> +For the first time for months, he passed by Rosedean +without as much as giving Katty a thought, and +he took a short cut into The Chase instead of going +on, up through the great park gates, as he was wont +to do. And then, as he went along one of the paths +in the walled kitchen garden, he suddenly heard his +wife's voice.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I think that it would be best to have a mass of red +and purple just here. Last year we had blues."</p> + +<p class="indent">He felt a queer, rather unreasoning, shock of relief, +of satisfaction. Laura was evidently speaking +to one of the gardeners.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then, as he came round the corner, he saw that the +person to whom Laura was speaking was not a gardener, +but Oliver Tropenell himself—Oliver, with a +spud in his hand, kneeling before Laura, a basket of +bulbs by his side. He was looking up eagerly—a jealous +onlooker might have said ardently—into her face. +In fact, Tropenell looked, so Godfrey Pavely told +himself with some heat, "damned absurd." But before +Godfrey came right upon the three of them—for +little Alice was flitting about behind her mother—Oliver +stood up, with the words, "Then I'd better +go and get those other bulbs, hadn't I? Will you +come too, Alice?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey called out "Hullo! Doing some planting?" +But his voice sounded odd to himself. Not so, however, +to the others. Laura was honestly unaware that +Godfrey was very much earlier than his wont, or, if +aware, she did not attach any importance to the fact. +Still, she felt afraid that Godfrey would interfere +with her gardening scheme, and so she shook her +head.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 107]</span> +As for Oliver Tropenell, no one looking at his dark, +set face could have guessed his thoughts. As a matter +of fact, he had heard Pavely's footsteps some +moments before Pavely spoke. And he had wondered, +with quick irritation, why he had come back from +Pewsbury—or Rosedean—so much earlier than usual.</p> + +<p class="indent">Alice, dark-haired, rosy-cheeked, quite curiously +unlike either her father or her mother, was the only +one of the four who was still happily at ease. She +ran up to her father: "Come and see <i>my</i> garden, +father!" she cried. "I'm growing some mustard and +cress specially for you. You can take it to the Bank +in an envelope and have some for your tea!"</p> + +<p class="indent">The little girl was aware, deep in her sensitive, affectionate +heart, that her father and mother were not +quite like other fathers and mothers. They were not +cosily loving together, as were the father and mother +of the two little girls with whom she sometimes went +to tea in Pewsbury, neither were they on the happy +terms of easy comradeship which even Alice knew +was usual with other children's parents.</p> + +<p class="indent">But she loved her mother with a passionate, unswerving, +admiring love, and her father with a stout, +proprietary affection. For his sake, and his sake +only, she would have liked to be a boy, for then, so +she argued secretly within herself, she could be his +office boy at the Bank. Up to now she had felt for +Oliver Tropenell the easy, unquestioning liking children +give to one who comes and goes. But lately she +had become dimly aware that occasionally her mother +and Mr. Tropenell were too busy talking together to +take much heed of her, and this threw a little shadow +across her heart.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 108]</span> +For Godfrey Pavely there followed days full of +discomfort, unease, and rising annoyance. The whole +course of his life was changed. As he came and went +about the quiet streets of his native town, as he granted +business interviews to the townspeople, he was perpetually +asking himself if the person he was speaking +to was concerned with this odious matter, whether he +or she was among those who took his beautiful wife's +name lightly.</p> + +<p class="indent">His object each afternoon was now to get home +early, and see for himself what was going on there, +and how far Laura was giving cause for low, vulgar +gossip.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura was not a child! She must know, if she +ever brought herself to think of such a thing, that +if a married woman allows a man to hang about her, +day after day, in the absence of her husband, there +is sure to be talk. Pavely regarded Tropenell's share +in the matter with a strange toleration—it was his +wife whom he blamed with an increasing severity as +the minutes, the hours, and the days went by.</p> + +<p class="indent">He still went to see Katty Winslow, but no longer +as often as he had been wont to do. And when in +her company he was distrait, uncomfortable, longing +to ask if <i>she</i> thought Oliver's constant presence in his +house odd or—or peculiar. But he kept a prudent +guard over his tongue. One day Katty said something +which would have made it easy for him to speak, and +which, as a matter of fact, very nearly did cause him +to unburden his heart to her. It was a little word, +and said quite pleasantly, with, he felt sure, no ulterior +motive of any kind.</p> + +<p class="indent">"It's odd," she said musingly, "to see what good +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 109]</span> +friends Laura has become with Oliver Tropenell! +Who would have thought that she would ever like +any man as much as she seems to like him? I suppose +it's really owing to the fact that he's in partnership +with her brother——"</p> + +<p class="indent">She waited, and as he said nothing, she went on, +with a smile, "But then, for the matter of that, you're +just as fond of him as she is, aren't you? I can't +see the attraction myself, but I admit that it must be +there, for two people as unlike you and Laura are +to each other both to like him so much."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, I do like Tropenell," Godfrey spoke very +decidedly. "But I can't make out why he gets on +so well with Gilbert Baynton. Gillie couldn't run +straight if he tried."</p> + +<p class="indent">"So I've always understood——"</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty looked at him curiously. She had never been +told the real story of the quarrel between the brothers-in-law, +but she was clever enough to have reached a +very shrewd notion of the truth. Baynton, so much +was clear, had done something which Pavely could +neither tolerate nor forgive. In the old days, as a +girl, Katty had met Gillie Baynton several times, and +he had struck her as a very amusing, agreeable sort +of young man.</p> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey had let slip this opportunity of saying anything, +and afterwards, as is usually the case, he was +glad that he had kept silence. Clever and sympathetic +as she was, Katty could do nothing to help him in this +horrid, rather degrading business.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then, walking into his room at the Bank one +morning, he saw on the top of the pile of his letters +another common-looking envelope marked <i>Private</i>. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 110]</span> +He took it up with a sick feeling of half eager, half +shrinking, expectancy—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"A sincere well-wisher wishes once more to inform +Mr. Pavely that all Pewsbury is discussing him and +his private affairs. The lady and gentleman in question +are more together than ever they were. The +other day some one who met them walking together +on the downs took them for an engaged couple."</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">This second anonymous letter greatly added to +Godfrey Pavely's wretchedness and discomfort, all +the more that it was so moderately worded. It seemed +to confirm, to make certain, the fact of growing gossip +and scandal.</p> + +<p class="indent">At last something happened which to a small extent +relieved the tension. Laura quietly informed him one +evening that she much wished to go away for three +days to see a friend of her childhood, who had written +and begged her to come, and to bring little Alice +with her.</p> + +<p class="indent">She was surprised at the eagerness with which Godfrey +assented to her wish. In certain ways Godfrey +Pavely, from the modern point of view, was a tyrannical +husband. He very much disliked Laura's paying +visits by herself, and she had long ago given up even +suggesting that she should do so. Also, she on her +side much disliked asking him the smallest favour.</p> + +<p class="indent">The day his wife left The Chase was the first happy +day Godfrey had had for three weeks. He spent +a pleasant hour with Katty; and on his arrival home +his feeling of satisfaction was increased by a note +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 111]</span> +from Mrs. Tropenell inviting him to come and spend +at Freshley Manor the three nights Laura was to be +away. He wrote accepting with more cordiality of +phrase than was his wont, even with so old a friend +as was Oliver's mother.</p> + +<p class="indent">Surely he and Oliver Tropenell, at last alone together, +could combine to put an end to this foolish, +vulgar gossip? It would be so much easier to speak +to and consult with Oliver in Laura's absence.</p> + +<p class="indent">Once he had made up his mind to speak to the +other man, Pavely was able, almost, to forget the +whole hateful business. Still, he said nothing till +the second morning of his visit. Then, at breakfast, +he made a proposal.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I feel as if I'd like to take this afternoon off. +Would you care for a good long walk, eh? We might +start about half-past two, have tea in Witanbury, and +be back here for dinner."</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver nodded. He was at once glad and sorry that +Godfrey was so entirely unaware of the growing tide +of dislike, nay of hatred, that he felt for him. Secretive +as he was by nature, and by the life he had now +led for so long, Oliver Tropenell was yet no hypocrite. +He loathed the part fate had forced on him, that of +pretending a cordial friendship for this man whom he +so utterly despised. His mother had invited Godfrey +Pavely to stay with them for three nights without first +telling Oliver that she was thinking of doing so; and +then, when she had realised, too late, his annoyance, +she could only explain that Godfrey had always stayed +with her on the very rare occasions when Laura had +been away.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 112]</span> +Mother and son were together when Godfrey started +off on his daily walk into Pewsbury.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I wonder what he's going to talk to you about?" +said Mrs. Tropenell a little nervously. The thought +of the coming afternoon expedition made her vaguely +uneasy.</p> + +<p class="indent">"He's never at a loss for a word, though he very +seldom says anything worth hearing."</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver was looking with unhappy, frowning eyes +after the other man's trim, rather jaunty figure.</p> + +<p class="indent">All that morning Mrs. Tropenell watched her son +with anxious fear. He wandered restlessly in and +out of the house, and though he never mentioned +Laura, his mother knew that he was missing her with +an almost agonised sense of loss.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver was fighting a losing battle with himself—a +battle in which no help from outside could be of +any avail. He no longer spoke of going away; instead, +he had told his mother of his scheme for bringing +Gillie to Europe, and of sending Laura and her +brother off to Italy, for a happy little holiday. She +ventured to say that she thought that plan to be quite +out of the question. Godfrey would never allow it—he +had not forgiven Gillie, in spite of the fact that +Gillie had now "made good."</p> + +<p class="indent">It was nearer three than half-past two, when the +two men started out, and they had been walking for +a full hour, with snatches of talk, and such comfortable +intervals of silence as is possible only between +intimates, when suddenly Godfrey Pavely stopped +walking.</p> + +<p class="indent">Surprised, Tropenell also came to a stand. They +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 113]</span> +were on a stretch of lonely upland, with nothing save +a couple of birds in sight.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Look here, Oliver, there's something I want to +say to you! I hope you won't be offended. But +we're such good friends, you and I, that I think you'll +understand."</p> + +<p class="indent">The colour rushed into Oliver Tropenell's face. He +turned and faced the other squarely, but he felt tense +with excitement, and a sense of challenge. He knew, +instinctively, that Pavely was going to say something +about Laura—Laura, and perhaps Gillie, her brother.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, Godfrey? What is +it? I can't imagine your saying anything to me that +would offend me."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I want you to read what's inside that," said Godfrey +in a low voice, and he handed Oliver an envelope.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver was relieved, but he looked down at the envelope +suspiciously.</p> + +<p class="indent">"But this isn't to be opened till you're dead!" he +exclaimed.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Open it now," said Godfrey roughly, "I only put +that in case I met with an accident—you'll see why +I did it, in a moment."</p> + +<p class="indent">With a queer feeling of misgiving Oliver Tropenell +drew the common little sheet of notepaper out of the +envelope, and in silence read over what was written +there in those deceitful, printed characters.</p> + +<p class="indent">He read it once, twice—thrice. Then he handed +the sheet of paper back, with a look of disgust and +contempt on his dark face, to the man standing by +his side.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Well!" he exclaimed. "I don't know what you +expect me to say? If you'd had as many anonymous +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 114]</span> +letters as I've had in my time—they rain in Mexico—you +wouldn't give much thought to this kind of +garbage!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Holding out the letter as if it were something dirty, +he handed it back to the other man.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I haven't given much thought to it——" and then +Godfrey stopped short. He felt as if some other man, +and not his sober self, were uttering the lie.</p> + +<p class="indent">"No," said Oliver quickly, "I don't suppose you +have. But still, I can't help being rather sorry you +kept it, and—and that you showed it to me. There's +nothing to be done! I suppose it's the work of some +clerk whom you've dismissed in the last few weeks?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I've dismissed no one," said Pavely shortly. Somehow +Tropenell was not taking this disagreeable business +quite as he had meant him to take it.</p> + +<p class="indent">In a rather different voice Oliver went on: "Show +me the letter again. I want to see if there's a date +to it."</p> + +<p class="indent">"It arrived exactly three weeks ago to-day," said +Pavely slowly, "and it was posted in Pewsbury."</p> + +<p class="indent">Light broke in on Tropenell. This, then, was why +Godfrey had taken to coming home at such odd hours, +and why he had telephoned several times from the +Bank, sending messages to Laura, and, on at least one +occasion, a message to Tropenell himself!</p> + +<p class="indent">He set his lips tightly together, and a flood of bitter +wrath welled up from his heart.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Then in my place you would do nothing?" asked +Godfrey uncertainly.</p> + +<p class="indent">More and more he was disappointed in the other's +attitude. He had thought Oliver would suggest something +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 115]</span> +which might be useful, or at any rate laugh the +matter off.</p> + +<p class="indent">But Oliver only looked grim—grim and angry.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I don't see that you can do anything. It isn't the +sort of thing about which you would care to go to the +local police, and even if you knew who wrote that infamous +scrawl I don't see how you could take action. +We can't have Laura's name dragged into this kind +of business."</p> + +<p class="indent">Then he asked in a lower voice, "Have you said +anything to her?"</p> + +<p class="indent">The other shook his head. "I've no intention of +saying anything to Laura. It would distress and disgust +her very much."</p> + +<p class="indent">He was glad to see that Oliver, hearing these words, +looked very much relieved.</p> + +<p class="indent">They walked on a few paces, and then Godfrey exclaimed, +"There's one thing I do think, Oliver—and I +hope you won't be angry with me for saying it! It +must be admitted that you've been a great deal at +The Chase alone with Laura, and also, unfortunately, +that that sort of thing always does make talk in a +country town."</p> + +<p class="indent">Tropenell turned on him sternly: "What sort of +thing?" he asked. "I swear before God that there has +never been anything in my attitude to Laura which +should give the slightest rise to comment, or afford the +basest scandalmonger excuse for a word."</p> + +<p class="indent">And he believed every word of what he said.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I know that—I know that, my dear fellow!" Godfrey +put his hand out, and for a moment it lay heavily +on his friend's shoulder.</p> + +<p class="indent">But quickly, silently, Tropenell shook himself free +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 116]</span> +of the other's touch. "If you know that," he was +breathing hard now, not trying to disguise his anger, +"then why did you allude just now to the fact that +I am a good deal in your house? Does that mean +you wish that I should give up coming to The Chase?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"No, of course I don't mean that! You're the one +real friend I've made—well, since I got to man's estate," +said Pavely ruefully.</p> + +<p class="indent">Everything was going wrong. The conversation +was taking a turn he had never thought of or conceived +as possible. "What I mean is that Laura——"</p> + +<p class="indent">Tropenell stopped him with a passionate gesture: +"Cannot we keep Laura's name out of our discussion?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey stared at him, genuinely astonished.</p> + +<p class="indent">"How can we keep Laura's name out of our discussion? +The whole thing centres about Laura! This +letter mentions Laura—ay, and I've had another letter, +which I hadn't meant to show you, but which on +second thoughts I should like you to see."</p> + +<p class="indent">He began fumbling in another pocket.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I don't want to see it!" cried Oliver. "I'd rather +not see it!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"But I'd rather you saw it," said Godfrey obstinately.</p> + +<p class="indent">Tropenell read the second anonymous letter through, +and then handed it back, without comment.</p> + +<p class="indent">Silently they both turned about, and walked quickly, +in almost complete silence, back to Freshley. "We've +come home to tea, after all, mother," said Oliver +shortly, "we are neither of us in condition for a fifteen-mile +walk."</p> + +<p class="indent">Neither man referred again to the matter which +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 117]</span> +when they were together filled both their minds, and +on the day of Laura's return to The Chase, Oliver +Tropenell went up to town, without having seen her. +Four days later his mother received a rather cryptic +telegram: "Arriving to-night with a friend."</p> + +<p class="indent">A friend? Some sure, sombre instinct told Mrs. +Tropenell that this would be Gillie Baynton.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 118]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<p class="cap">"GODFREY can't eat me! Besides, he'll have to see +me some time. Not that I want to see anything +of the fellow—I always hated him! Still, as things +are, it's far better I should take him by surprise, in +Laura's house, than go cap in hand, and ask his leave +to see my sister."</p> + +<p class="indent">It was Gilbert Baynton who was speaking, standing +with his legs a little apart, his fair head thrown back, +his hands in his pockets, early in the afternoon of the +day he and Oliver had arrived from London.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mother and son were both in the room, but it was +really with Mrs. Tropenell that Baynton was having +this rather unpleasant argument. He and Tropenell +had had this all out before. Oliver had wanted Gillie +to write to his sister, but he was set on taking her +by surprise, and on stealing a march on Godfrey +Pavely.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell looked up at the man standing before +her. Gillie was two years older than her Oliver, and +she had been the first woman who had ever seen him, +for it was to her that his mother's doctor had handed +the lusty, already screaming baby. His mother had +passionately loved him—loved him and spoilt him, +and so had his rather lackadaisical father. Physically +he was a queer mixture of the two. Gillie Baynton +had his father's fair hair, grace of limb and movement, +and plainness of feature, coupled with his mother's +abounding vitality, and her charm of manner—that +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 119]</span> +charm, that coming-on-ness, which his beautiful +sister, born so many years later, had always lacked.</p> + +<p class="indent">Gillie had early begun to get into various ugly +scrapes, but as a youth he had always somehow managed +to shuffle out of them, for he was popular, and +"had a way with him," as country people say. Also +he had never been lacking in courage of a sort, and +courage carries even a rascal a long way.</p> + +<p class="indent">Still, Gillie Baynton had been pretty well done for, +as far as his own country was concerned, when he +had been sent out, as a kind of forlorn hope, to Mexico +and Oliver Tropenell....</p> + +<p class="indent">Gillie began speaking again: "I think I know my +worthy brother-in-law quite as well as you do, Mrs. +Tropenell. It's much better to take a man like that +by surprise, and not to give him time to think! After +all, he's <i>got</i> to let bygones be bygones."</p> + +<p class="indent">And now Oliver interposed, for the first time. "Yes, +mother, as things are, I think Gillie had perhaps better +try and see Laura now, at once, before Godfrey +Pavely knows he's in England."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'll go there right now."</p> + +<p class="indent">Occasionally, not very often, Gilbert Baynton made +use of some little phrase showing that he lived on +the other side of the Atlantic. He had changed somehow, +Mrs. Tropenell could hardly have told you how, +for he had always had a very assured manner. But +now Gillie looked what he was—a very prosperous +man of business, though scarcely an English man of +business. The long sojourn in Mexico had not altered +her Oliver at all—not, that is, as far as she could +see, but it had altered Gillie Baynton surprisingly. It +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 120]</span> +had roughened him, and increased his natural self-assurance.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Perhaps Laura and little Alice will come back with +you to tea? Godfrey, too, if he seems in the humour +for it," she said.</p> + +<p class="indent">And he nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Tropenell. +That would be very pleasant."</p> + +<p class="indent">He smiled, a good-humoured, triumphant smile, and +was gone.</p> + +<p class="indent">The other two looked at each other rather doubtfully. +And then Oliver, as if answering her thought, +exclaimed, "I don't think he'll stay on at The Chase +till Pavely comes out from Pewsbury! Apart from +everything else, Gillie's a restless creature. We may +see him again within a very short time from now."</p> + +<p class="indent">"But supposing he and Godfrey do meet?" asked +Mrs. Tropenell anxiously.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Well, if they do meet, I think it's quite on the +cards there'll be a furious row. But that, after all, +would clear the air. As Gillie said just now, Godfrey +Pavely will <i>have</i> to put the past behind him. Perhaps, +once they've had it out, they'll be better friends. +There's a good deal to be said for a row sometimes, +mother."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," she said uncomfortably. "I agree, there is."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">Laura was sitting in what was still known as "the +boudoir," by the household of Lawford Chase. It was +a beautiful and stately room, furnished some ninety +years ago, at the time of the marriage of Mrs. Tropenell's +grandmother. The late Mr. Pavely's tenants +had not cared to use it, for it was away from the +other living-rooms of the house, and so nothing in +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 121]</span> +the boudoir had been disturbed or renewed when The +Chase had been prepared for the occupation of the +strangers who had lived there for fourteen years.</p> + +<p class="indent">The room suited Laura, and Laura suited the room. +To-day she had had a fire lit, for it was beginning to +be chilly. Alice had gone off into Pewsbury to spend +the afternoon with two little friends, and now the mistress +of this lovely, old-world room was trying to read +a book; but soon she let the book rest open on her +lap, and she stared mournfully, hopelessly, into the +fire.</p> + +<p class="indent">Things were not going well with Laura Pavely. +They had begun going ill about a month ago, just after +that—that unfortunate outburst on Oliver's part. Yet +she had felt so sure, after the talk that she and he +had had together, that they would slip back into their +old, easy relationship! And for a while, perhaps for +as long as a week, it had seemed as if they were +going to do so.</p> + +<p class="indent">But then there had come a change. Godfrey had +fallen into the way of coming home early. In old +days, both before the coming to England of Oliver +Tropenell, and during the months that followed, Godfrey +had generally stayed at the Bank rather late, and +then, as often as not, he had gone in and had a chat +with Katty on his way home. Now he always came +back before five, and after his return home he and +Oliver would engage in interminable singles on the big +tennis court which had been Godfrey Pavely's one contribution +to the otherwise beautiful gardens of The +Chase.</p> + +<p class="indent">Sometimes, and especially had this been true these +last few days, Laura told herself that perhaps after +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 122]</span> +all, the world, the cynical shrewd world of which she +knew so little, was right, and that a close and confidential +friendship between a man and a woman is +an impossible ideal.</p> + +<p class="indent">To-day, staring into the fire with dry, unseeing eyes, +she felt miserably unhappy—too troubled and uneasy +to occupy herself in any of her usual ways. More +than had ever been the case before, life seemed to +stretch before her in a terrible, dreary, unending +monotony.</p> + +<p class="indent">Something else had come to pass during the last +week, the week during which Oliver Tropenell had +been away in London, which she scarcely liked to +think of, or to make more real by dwelling on. Godfrey +had altered in his manner to her, he had become +kinder, and yes, more loverlike than he had been for +years. He hung about her, when he was at home, +indoors and out of doors. In an awkward, clumsy way +he actually tried to make himself pleasant! He had +even suggested that she should ask one or two people +to stay at The Chase. But she had protested that she +much preferred being alone, and with a shrug of the +shoulders he had given in. After all, he didn't really +care for strangers more than she did.</p> + +<p class="indent">Several times during the last dreary week, he had +astonished her by talking to her of Oliver in a rather +fretful, complaining way, as if he thought it odd that +the other man was staying on in England with his +mother, instead of going back to Mexico. He had +said that he thought it strange that such a big business +as he understood Oliver Tropenell to have built +up, could run by itself. She had answered coldly, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 123]</span> +"You forget that my brother is there." And to that +he had made no reply.</p> + +<p class="indent">Gillie? A pang of pain thrilled through Laura's +lonely heart. Oliver had said nothing more concerning +Gillie's visit to Europe. Everything which had +happened, up to, and including, the evening when she +and Oliver had had that curious, intimate conversation +when he had promised so solemnly to be her +friend, seemed now like a bright, happy dream compared +with the drab reality of to-day.</p> + +<p class="indent">And now, in a few minutes, Godfrey would be +coming in, and she would have to rouse herself to +listen and to answer, while they had tea together in +the cedar drawing-room, for Godfrey did not care for +the boudoir.</p> + +<p class="indent">Suddenly she heard uttered in the corridor, outside +the door, the eager words, "Is Mrs. Pavely there? +You're sure? All right—I'll go straight in!" And +before she could gather her mind together, the door +opened, and her brother—the brother she had not +seen for years, but of whom she had just been thinking—walked +forward into the room, exclaiming heartily, +resonantly: "Well, Laura? Well, little girl? Here +I am again!"</p> + +<p class="indent">She started up, and with a cry of welcoming, wondering +delight, threw herself into his arms, half laughing, +half crying, "Oh, Gillie—Gillie—Gillie! How +glad I am to see you! Somehow I thought we were +never going to meet again! Have you only just +come? Has Oliver Tropenell seen you? Why didn't +you wire?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Gillie was as touched and flattered as it was in him +to be, for he remembered his sister as having been +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 124]</span> +always quiet and restrained. And when they had +parted, just before he had gone out to Mexico, she +had seemed almost inanimate with—had it been vicarious?—shame +and pain.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I thought I'd take you by surprise." He looked +round him with a pleased, measuring look. "Nothing +altered!" he exclaimed, "and you've got a fire? That's +good! I feel it awfully cold here, I mean in England. +They haven't started fires yet, over at Freshley."</p> + +<p class="indent">He repeated, "Nothing's altered—you least of all, +Laura. Why, you don't look a day older!"</p> + +<p class="indent">She sighed. "I feel," she said, "a lifetime older."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I don't!" he cried briskly, "I feel younger. And +Godfrey?" His voice altered, becoming just a little +graver. "Time stood still with Godfrey too, eh?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I don't think Godfrey's altered much——" She +was hesitating. And then, very carefully, she added +the words, "Godfrey's quite good to me, you know, +Gillie."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Oh, well—of course he always liked you the best!" +And then he laughed, but to them both his laughter +sounded just a little hollow. "I gather that he and +Tropenell don't quite hit it off?"</p> + +<p class="indent">She turned on him quickly, and he was puzzled at +the look of extreme astonishment which came over +her face. "What makes you think that?" she exclaimed. +"They're the greatest friends! Godfrey +likes Oliver Tropenell better than I thought he'd ever +like anybody."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then, before Gillie Baynton could answer this, +to him, surprising statement, the door opened, and the +man of whom they were speaking stood gazing into +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 125]</span> +the room as if he could not believe in the reality of +the sight before him.</p> + +<p class="indent">The brother and sister moved apart, and Gilbert +Baynton held out his hand.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Well, Godfrey," he exclaimed, "here I am again! +I expect Tropenell told you that I was thinking of +coming to Europe? But I can't be more than a month +in the old country—if as long—unless Tropenell goes +back leaving me behind for a bit. He did make some +such suggestion, but I think we're more likely to go +back together."</p> + +<p class="indent">As he spoke on, he let his hand slowly drop to his +side, for the man he was addressing had made no answering +movement of welcome, or even of greeting.</p> + +<p class="indent">Such a flood of wrath had mounted up into Godfrey +Pavely's brain when he saw Gilbert Baynton standing +there, with his arm round Laura's shoulder, that he +was fearful the words he meant to utter would never +get themselves said. He had never felt so angry before, +and the sensation had a curious physical effect +on him. He felt, as country folk so vividly put it, +"all of a tremble."</p> + +<p class="indent">A curious, ominous, sinister silence fell on the room. +Laura, unconsciously, drew a little nearer to her +brother; and Godfrey, who was staring straight at +her, saw the movement, and it intensified the passion +of anger which was working in his brain as wine does +in the body.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I must ask you to leave my house at once," he +said in a low voice. "I have had no reason to change +my mind as to what I said when you were last in this +house, Gilbert Baynton."</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 126]</span> +<i>"Godfrey!"</i> There was a passionate protest and +revolt in the way Laura uttered her husband's name.</p> + +<p class="indent">But her brother put up his hand. "Hush, Laura," +he said. "It's much better I should tackle this business +alone. In fact, if you don't mind, you'd better +leave the room."</p> + +<p class="indent">She shook her head. "No, I mean to stay."</p> + +<p class="indent">He shrugged his shoulders, and looked straight at +Godfrey Pavely. "Look here!" he exclaimed, "isn't +all this rather—well, highfaluting rot? It's quite true +that when I left here I didn't mean ever to darken +your doors again. But everything's altered now! I've +paid you back every cent of that money—it wasn't +even your money, it was my own sister's money. She +didn't mind my having it—I heard her tell you so +myself."</p> + +<p class="indent">"You forged my signature to obtain it," said Godfrey. +He spoke in a very low voice, almost in a +whisper. He was the sort of man who always suspects +servants of listening at the door.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, I own I was a damned fool to do that—though +as a matter of fact you goaded me to it! +However, it's a long time ago, and I suggest that we'd +better let bygones be bygones. If I don't marry, and +I'm not a marrying man, your child will be my heiress. +Laura's my only sister, the only thing in the +world I really care for——"</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura put her hand through his arm when she heard +him say that.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then Godfrey spoke again, his voice a little +raised: "That makes no difference," he said—"I mean +your having paid the money back makes no difference. +I won't have you in my house, and if Laura considers +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 127]</span> +my wishes she won't see you again while you're in +England."</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura said at once: "I shall not consider your +wishes, Godfrey. Of course I shall see my brother +as often as I can."</p> + +<p class="indent">But Godfrey went on, still directly addressing Gilbert +Baynton, "I can't prevent Laura seeing you, if +she insists upon it. She's a grown-up woman, and I +can't turn the key on her. But she shan't see you +in <i>my</i> house. And, as far as I'm concerned, this is +the last time I'll ever set eyes on your face."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Don't you be so sure of that!" Gillie muttered the +words between his teeth. His fair face had turned a +deep red-brick colour, his blue eyes were blazing.</p> + +<p class="indent">Again there fell on the three of them that strange, +ominous, sinister silence.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then Gilbert Baynton turned to his sister. He actually +laughed out loud. But even Pavely noticed, with +bitter satisfaction, that the laughter sounded very +forced.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Ha! ha! ha! Godfrey's not a bit changed. He's +just the same old narrow-minded, sanctimonious prig +he always was!"</p> + +<p class="indent">He took Laura in his arms, and kissed her two or +three times very warmly. "Never mind, little girl," +he said. "I shan't make trouble between you and Godfrey +for long! I shan't be in England for more than +a few days. I'm off to Paris next week."</p> + +<p class="indent">He disengaged himself gently from Laura's clinging +arms, went to the door, opened it, then shut it very +quietly behind him.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura turned away, and stared into the fire.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 128]</span> +Godfrey began, awkwardly, conciliatingly, "Now, +my dear Laura——"</p> + +<p class="indent">She put up her hand. "Don't speak to me," she +said, in what he felt to be a dreadful voice of aversion +and of pain. "I shall never, never forgive you for +this!"</p> + +<p class="indent">He shrugged his shoulders, and went out of the +room, into the long corridor. And then he walked +quickly through it and so to the hall of the fine old +house, of which, try as he might, he never felt himself, +in any intimate sense, the master.</p> + +<p class="indent">The hall was empty. Quietly he opened the front +door. Yes, Gillie had kept his word this time! He +really had gone. Pavely could see the alert, still young-looking +figure of the man whom in his mind he always +called "that scoundrel" hurrying down the carriage +road which led to the great gates of The Chase.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 129]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<p class="cap">KATTY WINSLOW stood by her open gate. She +had wandered out there feeling restless and excited, +though she hardly knew why. During the last +fortnight she had spent many lonely hours, more lonely +hours than usual, for Godfrey Pavely came much less +often to see her than he had done in the old, easygoing +days.</p> + +<p class="indent">And yet, though restless, Katty was on the whole +satisfied. She thought that things were going very +much as she wished them to go. It was of course annoying +to know so little, but she was able to guess a +good deal, and she felt quite sure that the leaven was +working.</p> + +<p class="indent">But the suspense and the uncertainty had got on her +nerves, and she had made up her mind to leave Rosedean +perhaps for as long as a fortnight. Two days +ago she had written to various friends who were always +glad to see her. That was why, as she stood +at the gate, she was able to tell herself that she was +waiting for the postman.</p> + +<p class="indent">She thought it very probable that Godfrey Pavely +would be walking past her house about this time. A +couple of days ago he had come in for about half an +hour, but he had been dull and ill at ease, his mind +evidently full of something he was unwilling or +ashamed to tell. And she had watched him with an +amused, sympathetic curiosity, wondering how long +his cautious reticence would endure. If she had put +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 130]</span> +her mind to it, perhaps Katty could have made him +speak of that which filled his sore heart, but she felt +that the time was not yet ripe for words between herself +and Godfrey. She was afraid of jarring him, of +making him say something to her which both of them +afterwards might regret. No, not any words of love +to herself—of that she was not afraid—but some dogmatic +pronouncement on divorce, and perchance on +re-marriage.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then, as she stood there, glancing up and down +the lonely country road, she suddenly saw a man walking +quickly towards her—not from Pewsbury, but +from the opposite direction, which led only from The +Chase.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty's bright brown eyes were very good eyes, and +long before the stranger could see her she had, as it +were, taken stock of him. Somehow his clothes were +not English-looking, and he wore a kind of grey Homburg +hat.</p> + +<p class="indent">He was walking at a great pace, and as he came +nearer, some vague feeling of curiosity made Katty +step out of the gate, and look straight up the road +towards him. All at once she made up her mind that +he was American—a well-to-do and, according to his +lights, a well-dressed American.</p> + +<p class="indent">Now Katty Winslow looked very charming, as she +stood out there, in her heather-mixture tweed skirt, +and pale blue flannel blouse—charming, and also +young. And the stranger—to her he seemed entirely +a stranger—when he was quite close up to her, suddenly +took off his hat and exclaimed, "Why, Miss +Fenton! It is Miss Fenton, isn't it?"</p> + +<p class="indent">He was now smiling broadly into her face, his bold, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 131]</span> +rather challenging eyes—the blue eyes which were the +best feature of his face, and the only feature which +recalled his beautiful sister—full of cordial admiration.</p> + +<p class="indent">"You don't remember me?" he went on. "Well, +that's quite natural, for of course you made a much +deeper impression on me than I did on you!"</p> + +<p class="indent">And then all at once it flashed across Katty who +this pleasant, bright-eyed wayfarer must be. It must +be, it could only be, Gilbert Baynton—the peccant +Gillie!</p> + +<p class="indent">"Mr. Baynton?" she said questioningly, and she +also threw a great note of welcome and cordiality into +her voice.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," he said. "Gilbert Baynton—very much at +your service——?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"—Mrs. Winslow," she said hurriedly. "I'm Mrs. +Winslow now." She saw that the name conveyed +nothing to him. "Do come in," she went on pleasantly, +"if only for a moment, Mr. Baynton. Though +it's early for tea, perhaps you'll stay and have a cup +with me? I had no idea you were in England! I +suppose you're staying with Laura, at The Chase?"</p> + +<p class="indent">He shook his head, the smile faded from his face, +and Katty, who was observant, saw that her question +was ill-timed.</p> + +<p class="indent">"It's delightful—seeing an old friend again, and +I was feeling so bored—all by myself!"</p> + +<p class="indent">As he followed her into the house, Gillie told himself +that this was distinctly amusing—quite good fun! +It would take the horrible taste of his interview with +that—that <i>brute</i>—out of his mouth.</p> + +<p class="indent">He looked round the little hall with quick interest +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 132]</span> +and curiosity. There was no sign of a man about, +only a lady's slender walking-stick and a bright red +parasol, in the umbrella-stand. Was pretty little Katty +a widow? Somehow she did not look like a widow!</p> + +<p class="indent">She opened a door which gave out of the hall on +the left, and called out, "Harber? I should like tea +in about five minutes."</p> + +<p class="indent">Then she shut the door, and led the way down the +little hall, and through into her sitting-room.</p> + +<p class="indent">Gillie again glanced about him with eager appreciation. +This was the sort of room he liked—cosy, +comfortable, bright and smiling like its attractive mistress.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Sit down," she exclaimed, "and tell me everything +that's happened to you since we last met! Why, it +must be, let me see, quite twelve years ago?"</p> + +<p class="indent">She took up a china box: "Have a cigarette—I'll +have one too."</p> + +<p class="indent">He waved the box aside, took out his own case, and +held it out to her. "I think you'll like these," he said. +Then he struck a match, and as their fingers touched, +the lighting of her cigarette took quite a little while.</p> + +<p class="indent">"This <i>is</i> jolly!" He sank back into one of Katty's +well-cushioned easy chairs. "You've the prettiest +room I've been in since I came to England, Mrs. +Winslow."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Oh, then you haven't been into Laura's boudoir?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, I've just come from there." Again his face +altered as he spoke, and this time there came a look +of frowning anger over it. Then, almost as if he +read the unspoken question in her mind, he said slowly, +"Look here, Mrs. Winslow, as you seem to know my +sister so well, I may as well tell you the truth. I've +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 133]</span> +just been ordered out of her house by my brother-in-law, +Godfrey Pavely. I suppose you know that he +and I had a row years ago?" He was looking at her +rather hard as he spoke, and she nodded her head.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," she said frankly, "I do know that, though +I don't know what it was about."</p> + +<p class="indent">He breathed a little more freely. "It was about +money," he said bitterly. "Just what one would expect +it to be with a man like Godfrey. He was furious +because I got Laura to lend me some money. It +was to pay a debt of honour, for I was a gambler in +those days. But I'm a good boy now!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," she said, and smiled. "I know you are! +You're Oliver Tropenell's partner, aren't you, Mr. +Baynton? He talks awfully nicely of you."</p> + +<p class="indent">Gillie—his face was fair, his skin very clear, almost +like a girl's—looked pleased. "Good old Tropenell!" +he exclaimed. "Yes, he and I are tremendous pals. +He's been the best friend to me man ever had."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I am <i>so</i> sorry for Laura," said Katty gently.</p> + +<p class="indent">She was playing with the edge of a piece of Italian +embroidery which covered a small table close to her +elbow, and she was thinking—hard.</p> + +<p class="indent">At that moment the drawing-room door opened, and +the tea appeared. While the table was being drawn +up in front of her, the tray placed on to it, and a +taper put to the spirit lamp, Katty's mind went on +working busily. And by the time the maid was leaving +the room, she had come to a decision. Even to +her it was a momentous decision—how momentous to +others she was destined never to know.</p> + +<p class="indent">Again she said slowly, impressively, "Yes, Mr. +Baynton, I am sorry indeed for poor Laura."</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 134]</span> +"I'm sorry too. Not that it much matters! I didn't +want to stay at The Chase. I always thought it a +gloomy place in the old days, when I was a child—I +mean when it still belonged to Mrs. Tropenell's people. +Of course I shall see Laura again—Godfrey can't +prevent that! In fact he admitted that he couldn't."</p> + +<p class="indent">There was a little pause. And then Katty, her +eyes bent downwards, said, "I didn't quite mean that, +Mr. Baynton. Of course I'm very sorry about your +new row with Mr. Pavely, for it must be so hateful +to Laura to feel she can't have her own brother in +her own house. But—well——" She threw her head +back, and gazed straight across at him. "Can you +keep a secret?" she asked.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, of course I can!" He looked at her amused.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I want you to keep what I'm going to say absolutely +to yourself. I don't want you ever to hint a +word of it to Laura—still less to Oliver Tropenell."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Of course I won't!" He looked at her with growing +curiosity. What was it she was going to tell +him?</p> + +<p class="indent">"I wonder if I ought to tell you," she murmured.</p> + +<p class="indent">He laughed outright. "Well, I can't <i>make</i> you tell +me!"</p> + +<p class="indent">She felt piqued at his indifference. "Yes, I will +tell you, though it isn't <i>my</i> secret!" she exclaimed. +"But I feel that you ought to know it—being Laura's +brother. Laura," her voice dropped, she spoke in a +very low voice, "Laura is in love with Oliver Tropenell, +Mr. Baynton. And Oliver is in love with Laura—a +thousand times more in love with her than she is +in love with him!"</p> + +<p class="indent">She gave him a swift glance across the tea-table. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 135]</span> +Yes! Her shot had told indeed. He looked extraordinarily +moved and excited. So excited that he got +up from his chair.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Good God!" he exclaimed incredulously. "Laura?" +And then, "Tropenell? Are you sure of this, Mrs. +Winslow?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," she answered in a quiet, composed voice that +carried conviction. "I am <i>quite</i> sure. They are both +very, very unhappy, for they are good, high-minded +people. They wouldn't do anything wrong for the +world."</p> + +<p class="indent">As he looked at her a little oddly, and with a queer +little smile all over his face, she exclaimed, "I <i>know</i> +Laura wouldn't." And he nodded, a little ashamed +of that queer little smile.</p> + +<p class="indent">Gilbert Baynton's face stiffened into deep gravity. +His eyes were shining, and he was staring down at +the little table, his half-finished cup of tea forgotten.</p> + +<p class="indent">He sat down again. "Has Laura told you this?" +he asked abruptly. "Are you her confidante?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty hesitated. "No," she said at last. "I don't +suppose Laura has spoken of the matter to any living +soul. But if you promise absolutely not to give me +away—I can tell you how you can assure yourself of +the truth. Ask Mrs. Tropenell. <i>She</i> knows. I won't +say any more."</p> + +<p class="indent">"And Pavely?" he asked. "What part does my +fine brother-in-law play? Does proper Godfrey know? +Is priggish Godfrey jealous?"</p> + +<p class="indent">She answered slowly: "I think that Mr. Pavely suspects. +He and Oliver Tropenell were great friends +till quite lately. But there's a coldness now. I don't +know what happened. But <i>something</i> happened."</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 136]</span> +"I see now why Tropenell has stayed here so long. +I thought it must be a woman! I thought some prudish, +dull, English girl had got hold of him——" He +waited a moment.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Well, I'm eternally grateful to you, Mrs. Winslow, +for giving me this hint! You see, I'm very fond of +Tropenell. It's a peculiar kind of feeling—there's +nothing in the world I wouldn't do for him. Good +God! I only wish that he and Laura——"</p> + +<p class="indent">He was going to say "would have the pluck to bolt +together!" but Katty supplied a very different ending +to his sentence.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Ah," she exclaimed, "I only wish that Laura and +Oliver <i>could</i> marry. They're made for one another. +You can't see them together without seeing that!" +She went on feelingly, "Laura was dreadfully unhappy +with Godfrey Pavely even before Oliver Tropenell +came into her life. She and Mr. Pavely are quite +unsuited to one another."</p> + +<p class="indent">There was a queer bitterness in her voice.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then Gillie Baynton suddenly remembered—remembered +the flood of gossip there had been at one +time concerning those two—pretty Katty Fenton, as +she had been then, and Godfrey Pavely, the man who +later became his own brother-in-law.</p> + +<p class="indent">He gave her a queer, shrewd glance, and Mrs. +Winslow went on, rather quickly and breathlessly,</p> + +<p class="indent">"You mustn't think that I dislike Godfrey Pavely! +He's been very good to me—as good as Laura. I'm +what they call an innocent <i>divorcée</i>, Mr. Baynton, +and they both helped me through the trouble. It was +pretty bad at the time, I can tell you. But of course +I can't help seeing—no one could help seeing—that +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 137]</span> +Godfrey and Laura aren't suited to one another, and +that they would each be much, much happier apart."</p> + +<p class="indent">At the back of her clever, astute mind was the +knowledge that it was quite on the cards that Oliver, +or Oliver's mother, would say something to Gilbert +Baynton concerning herself and her intimacy with Godfrey +Pavely. She must guard against that, and guard +against it now.</p> + +<p class="indent">So she went on, pensively, "I don't know, to tell +you the truth, for which of them I'm the more sorry—Laura, +Godfrey, or Oliver! They're all three awfully +to be pitied. Of course, if they lived in America +it would be quite simple; Laura and Godfrey would +be divorced by mutual consent, and then Laura would +be able to be happy with Mr. Tropenell."</p> + +<p class="indent">"And is nothing of that sort possible here?" asked +Gillie Baynton curiously. "This old England <i>has</i> +stood still!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty shook her head regretfully. "No, there's +nothing of the sort possible here. Of course there +are ways and means——"</p> + +<p class="indent">The other fixed his eyes on her. "Yes?" he said +interrogatively.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I fear that they are not ways and means that Godfrey +or Laura would ever lend themselves to."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Then there's no cutting the Gordian knot?"</p> + +<p class="indent">But that wasn't quite what Katty meant to imply. +"I don't know," she said hesitatingly. "Godfrey +would do almost anything to avoid any kind of +scandal. But then you see one comes up against +Laura——"</p> + +<p class="indent">He nodded quickly. "Yes, I quite understand that +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 138]</span> +Laura would never do anything she thought wrong—queer, +isn't it?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Gilbert Baynton stayed on at Rosedean for quite +another half-hour, but nothing more was said on the +subject which was filling his mind and that of his +hostess. They walked about the pretty, miniature garden, +talking in a desultory way over old times, and +about some of the people they had both known years +ago.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then, at last, she took him to the gate. They +looked at one another like two augurs, and he said +under his breath, "Well, it's a pretty kettle of fish I've +come home to, eh? I thought there was some sort of +mystery. I'm very much obliged to you for having +put me on the track to solve the riddle."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Ah," she said, "but the riddle isn't solved yet, Mr. +Baynton, is it?"</p> + +<p class="indent">He answered, gravely for him, "No, those sorts of +riddles are very hard to solve." He hesitated, then +exclaimed in a meaning tone, "Still, they <i>are</i> solved +sometimes, Mrs. Winslow."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">It was late the same night, a warm, St. Martin's +summer night, and Mrs. Tropenell, sitting alone after +dinner, made an excuse of a telephone message to join +her son and Gillie Baynton out of doors.</p> + +<p class="indent">After Baynton's return from The Chase the two +men had gone off for a long walk together over the +downs, and they had come home so late that dinner +had had to be put off for half an hour. Instead of +joining her later, they had gone out again, but this +time only into the garden.</p> + +<p class="indent">Noiselessly she moved across the grass, and then, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 139]</span> +just as she was going to step under the still leaf-draped +pergola, she heard her son's voice—a voice so charged +with emotion and pain that, mastered by her anxiety, +she stopped just behind one of the brick arches, and +listened.</p> + +<p class="indent">"You'll oblige me, Baynton, by keeping your sister's +name out of this."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Oh, very well! I thought you'd be glad to know +what that woman said to me—I mean Mrs. Winslow."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'm not glad. I'm sorry. Mrs. Winslow is mistaken."</p> + +<p class="indent">The short sentence came out with laboured breath +as if with difficulty, and the one who overheard them, +the anguished eavesdropper, felt her heart stirred with +bitter impotence.</p> + +<p class="indent">How Oliver cared—how much Oliver cared!</p> + +<p class="indent">"Why are you so sure of that?" Again she heard +Baynton's full, caressing voice. "Laura's a very reserved +woman! I'd rather believe her best friend—apparently +Katty <i>is</i> her best friend—about such a +thing as this. You've admitted that <i>you</i> love her."</p> + +<p class="indent">And as the other made no answer, Gillie went on, +speaking in a very low voice, but with every word +clearly audible from the place where Mrs. Tropenell +stood listening: "Of course I won't mention Laura—as +it upsets you so much! But after all, my hatred +for Pavely and my love for my sister are the two +strongest things in my life. Surely you know that +well enough, Tropenell? I can't bar Laura out!"</p> + +<p class="indent">And then came the answer, muttered between the +speaker's teeth: "I understand that, Baynton."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'm sorry I repeated Mrs. Winslow's tale. But of +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 140]</span> +course it did impress me—it did influence me. I'd +<i>like</i> to believe it, Tropenell."</p> + +<p class="indent">The secret listener was surprised at the feeling +which Gillie's vibrant voice betrayed.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver muttered something—was it, "I'd give my +soul to know it true"?</p> + +<p class="indent">Then, in a lighter tone, Gillie exclaimed, "As to +that other matter, I'd rather keep you out of the business +altogether if I could! But I can't—quite."</p> + +<p class="indent">What was it that Oliver answered then? The two +men were now walking slowly away towards the further +end of the pergola. Mrs. Tropenell strained her +ears to hear her son's answer:</p> + +<p class="indent">"I don't want to keep out of it." Was that what +he said, in a very low, tense voice?</p> + +<p class="indent">Gilbert Baynton was speaking again: "It is <i>my</i> idea, +<i>my</i> scheme, and I mean to carry it through! I shan't +want much help—only quite a little help from you."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then she heard her son's voice again, and he +was speaking more naturally this time. "Of course +we'll go shares, Gillie! What d'you take me for? +Am I to have all the profit, and you all the risk?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell breathed more freely. They were +off from Laura now, and on some business affair. She +heard Gillie Baynton laugh aloud. "I'm quite looking +forward to it—but it will be a longish job!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver answered, "<i>I'm</i> not looking forward to it. +You feel quite sure about this thing, Baynton? There's +time to draw back—now."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Sure? Of course I'm sure!" There was triumph, +a challenge to fate, in the other's tone. "I've always +liked playing for high stakes—you know that, eh?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Ay, I know that——"</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 141]</span> +"And I've never looked back. I've never regretted +anything I've done in my life——" there was a ring +of boastful assurance in Gilbert Baynton's tone.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I can't say that of myself—I wish I could."</p> + +<p class="indent">"You? Why, you've a milk-white record, compared +to mine!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell moved away swiftly over the grass, +till she stood at the end of the dark, arched walk. +Then, "Oliver!" she called out, "there's a message +from Lord St. Amant. He wants to know if you can +go over to the Abbey next week, from Saturday till +Tuesday. He says there'll be some shooting. I told +him you'd ring up before going to bed—I hope that +was right."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, mother. Of course I'll ring up. I'll go in +and do it now, if you like. Gillie and I have been +having a long business talk."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then she heard Gilbert Baynton: "I'll stay out +here a bit longer, Mrs. Tropenell. I'm getting quite +used to the cold and damp of the old country. I don't +mind it as much as I did a week ago."</p> + +<p class="indent">Mother and son walked across the lawn to the +house.</p> + +<p class="indent">When they were indoors, he broke silence first: +"Gillie had a bad row with Pavely this afternoon. +I don't think it's any use his staying on here. Pavely +won't allow Laura to see him again at The Chase."</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell uttered an exclamation of dismay.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, it's unfortunate, I admit. And I don't think +it was Gillie's fault! He's described the scene to me +in great detail. He was quite willing to go as far as +I think he could be expected to go in the way of apology +and contrition. But Pavely simply didn't give +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 142]</span> +him a chance. Pavely's a narrow-minded brute, +mother."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Is Gillie very upset? Is he much disappointed?" +she asked in a low voice.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, I think Gillie is upset—more upset than I +should have expected him to be! He's disappointed, +too, at not having seen little Alice. He's really fond +of children, and, as he truly says, Alice is bound to +be his heiress—unless of course he should marry, +which is very unlikely."</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver was speaking in a preoccupied, absent voice, +as if he was hardly thinking of what he was saying. +"We're thinking, he and I, of going to the Continent +next week. We've got business to do in Paris—rather +important business, too. Of course I'll try and come +back here before leaving for Mexico."</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell felt as if the walls of the room were +falling about her. Oliver had always spoken of late +as if he meant to stay on in England till after Christmas.</p> + +<p class="indent">"How long d'you expect to be in France?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I can't tell yet, mother. I might be there a fortnight, +or I might be there six weeks—it all depends +on the business we're going to do. No dates are settled +yet."</p> + +<p class="indent">He waited a few moments, then said slowly, "I've +been wondering whether you would mind going up +with Laura to London for a few days? Somehow I +think Pavely is more likely to let her go if you offer +to go too."</p> + +<p class="indent">There swept over her a feeling of recoil, but she +let her son see nothing of that. "Very well," she +said quietly. "I quite understand—I'll do my best. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 143]</span> +I agree that Laura ought to see her brother again. +And what are <i>you</i> thinking of doing, my dear?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Oh, I thought of going up to town, too." He +spoke with a detached air. "You and I could stay in +that nice little hotel where we stayed years ago, mother. +Of course I'm only thinking of a few days in town, +before Gillie and I go off to Paris."</p> + +<p class="indent">As they came through into the house, she was startled +by the expression on her son's face. He looked +as if he had had a shock; he was very pale, it was as +if all the healthy colour had been drained out of his +tan cheeks.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Oliver?" she exclaimed. "Do you feel ill, my +darling? When you came in before dinner you looked +as if you had caught a chill."</p> + +<p class="indent">"It was rather cold on the downs, but I feel very +much as usual, thank you, mother. A talk with Gillie +always tires me. I think he's got a rather——" he +hesitated for a word, then found it—"obstreperous +vitality."</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 144]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<p class="cap">WHEN Godfrey Pavely arrived at the Bank next +morning it seemed to him that days, instead of +hours, had gone by, since that hateful and degrading +scene had taken place between himself and his wife's +brother.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura had not spoken to him again, except to utter +the few sentences which were necessary to keep up the +pretence that they two were on their usual terms, before +the servants, and, what had been more difficult, +before their little daughter.</p> + +<p class="indent">After Alice had gone to bed, they had eaten their +dinner in silence, and, in silence also, they had spent +the evening reading up to eleven o'clock. At last Godfrey, +getting up, had said in a nervous, conciliatory +tone, "Well, good-night, Laura." But she had not +answered him, for by that time the servants were gone +to bed, and there was no longer any reason for hypocrisy.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura had always been an exceptionally silent +woman, but this was the first time, in the long armed +neutrality of their married life, that she had actually +refused to answer when he spoke to her. Feeling +acutely uncomfortable, because curiously helpless, +Godfrey Pavely now wondered how long this state of +things was to endure.</p> + +<p class="indent">He asked himself whether he had said anything +yesterday which could really justify Laura in this extraordinary +attitude. Now and again there seemed +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 145]</span> +to sound in his ears the voice in which she had uttered +the last words which she had spoken to him of +her own free will. "Don't speak to me," she had exclaimed +passionately. "I shall never, never forgive +you for this!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Women were so unreasonable—ridiculously, absurdly +unreasonable. Laura knew exactly what Gillie +was like, for he, Godfrey, had gone to special pains +to make Laura fully understand the mean, despicable +and <i>dangerous</i> way in which her brother had behaved +over the forged cheque—for forgery it was, though +it had been difficult to persuade Laura of the fact. +He remembered now, how, at last, after he had forced +his wife to understand, she had abased herself, imploring +him to save her brother from the consequences +of his wicked action.</p> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey also remembered sorely how grateful +Laura had seemed to be after everything had been +arranged, and Gillie had finally gone off to Mexico, a +ruined and discredited man. He felt a glow of virtuous +satisfaction when he recalled how she had +thanked him—her kind, generous husband—for what +he had done! True, the loan then advanced had been +paid back, and Gillie—to use the stupid expression +which seems to be creeping into the British language—had +"made good." But that was no reason why +he should come back and thrust himself into his, Godfrey's, +home, and make friends with Godfrey's only +child—after he had actually given an undertaking, in +his own, melodramatic words, "never to darken Godfrey's +door again."</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet in his innermost heart Godfrey Pavely was +sorry now that he had behaved as he had done yesterday. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 146]</span> +He had allowed his temper to get the better +of him, always a silly thing for a sensible man to do. +By behaving as he had done he had put a weapon into +Laura's hands....</p> + +<p class="indent">At one moment he considered the advisability of +going into Freshley Manor on his way home to-day, +to consult Mrs. Tropenell. And then he had suddenly +remembered that his brother-in-law was actually her +guest! That fact alone made a most disagreeable +complication.</p> + +<p class="indent">As he looked over his letters, and dictated some of +the answers to them, he tried without success to put +the matter out of his mind. It had taken there the +place occupied by the unpleasantness connected with +those absurd anonymous letters. For the first time, +this morning he forgot them.</p> + +<p class="indent">There came a knock at the door. "A letter, sir, +has just been brought by Mrs. Tropenell's man. He +said there was an answer, so he's waiting."</p> + +<p class="indent">With quickened pulse, Godfrey Pavely opened the +letter. He had long been familiar with Mrs. Tropenell's +clear, flowing handwriting, and he wondered +what she could have to say to him which she preferred +to write, rather than telephone.</p> + +<p class="indent">The banker was attached to Mrs. Tropenell. Always +she had acted towards him in a high-minded, +straightforward way, and on two occasions he had +had reason to be specially grateful to her, for on each +of these occasions she had intervened, successfully, +between Laura and himself, and made Laura see reason. +But she never alluded to the past, even in the +remotest way, and he had come of late years to think +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 147]</span> +and hope she had forgotten those now distant, painful, +active misunderstandings.</p> + +<p class="indent">If Mrs. Tropenell was now pleading with him for a +reconciliation with Gilbert Baynton, then he knew that +it would be very difficult for him to say "no" to a +woman to whom he owed so much. It would also +be a graceful way of getting out of the difficulty in +which he had involved himself....</p> + +<p class="indent">But the contents of the letter disagreeably surprised +him, for they were quite other than what he had expected +them to be—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"<span class="smcap">Dear Godfrey</span>:—Oliver and Gilbert Baynton have +to go to the Continent on business. I think they will +be away for some time, and Gilbert speaks of going +straight back to Mexico from France.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I write to know if you will allow Laura to come +up to town with me for a few days? It would enable +her to see something of her brother, before a separation +which may last, as did their past separation, for +years.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I hope, dear Godfrey, you will see your way to +granting this request of mine. It is in very truth my +request—not Laura's.</p> + +<p class="margin-left8">"Your affectionate old friend,</p> + +<p class="margin-left16">"<span class="smcap">Lettice Tropenell</span>."</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">The unfortunate man—for he was in the full meaning +of the words an unfortunate man—stared down +at the letter.</p> + +<p class="indent">He felt moved and perplexed by the way it was +worded. "Your affectionate old friend"—what a +strange way to sign herself! Mrs. Tropenell had +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 148]</span> +never signed herself so before. And what exactly +did she mean by saying that it was her request, not +Laura's? In spite of those words, he felt convinced +that Laura, too proud to ask this favour of him after +the shameful way she had behaved yesterday, had +persuaded Mrs. Tropenell to ask it for her.</p> + +<p class="indent">He sat down and drew a piece of notepaper towards +him. He was glad of the opportunity of showing +them all how magnanimous he was—how much +of a <i>man</i>. Laura should go to London with his full +permission. Of course he knew quite well, at the back +of his mind, that if he refused it she would probably +go just the same. But in all the circumstances it +would be just as well to heap coals of fire on her +head. She should go—but not taking their child with +her. His little Alice must not be contaminated.</p> + +<p class="indent">When his daughter was old enough, he, Godfrey, +would tell her the truth about her mother's brother. +He did not hold with concealing this sort of thing +from young people. In <i>his</i> family, thank God, there +had never been anything to hide. All had always been +honest and above-board. Besides, if anything happened +to him, Alice would be a very wealthy woman, +and Gillie would almost certainly try and get hold of +her and of her money. He, Godfrey, knew that well +enough.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"<span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Tropenell</span>:—Certainly it shall +be as you ask——" He could not help adding, +"though Laura knows that in doing this she is disregarding +my formal wishes. Still, I admit that, +Gillie being her brother, it is, I suppose, natural that +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 149]</span> +she should wish to see him again before he leaves +England."</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">Then he hesitated—indeed, he kept the messenger +for whom he had already rung waiting for quite a +long time. But at last he signed himself: "Your affectionate, +and always grateful, Godfrey Pavely."</p> + +<p class="indent">When the banker reached home rather early that +afternoon—for he felt too much upset to go in and +spend his usual pleasant hour with Katty at Rosedean—little +Alice met him with the news that "Mummy" +had gone to London, and that she, Alice, was going +to be allowed to sit up to dinner to bear him company.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was characteristic of the man that, if relieved, he +was also sharply annoyed. He had hoped to extract +from his wife some word of reluctant thanks for his +magnanimity. But no, she had not even left a note +telling him what day she would return!</p> + +<p class="indent">Things had not fallen out at The Chase that morning +as Godfrey Pavely had supposed. After breakfast +Laura, still in a kind of stupor of pain and indignation, +had gone into the garden. She had not been there +a quarter of an hour when Mrs. Tropenell, who so +seldom came to The Chase, had suddenly appeared, +walking with stately, leisurely steps over the grass, to +tell her of Oliver's and Gillie's coming departure for +the Continent.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was Mrs. Tropenell who had proposed sending +that note to Godfrey, but Godfrey, who so little understood +his wife, either for good or evil, was right +in his belief that she would not have allowed her plans +to be affected by his answer. At once Laura had determined +to go to London, whether Godfrey gave his +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 150]</span> +consent or no. Yet she was relieved when there came +to her from Freshley the news that her husband's answer +to Mrs. Tropenell's request was in the affirmative.</p> + +<p class="indent">The message was given to her over the telephone +by Oliver Tropenell, and in giving it he used the allusive +form of words which come naturally when a man +knows that what he says may be overheard: "Mother +has just had a note saying that it is quite all right. So +we propose to call for you in time to get the five minutes +to one from Langford Junction. Does that give +you enough time?" And she had exclaimed, "Oh, +yes, yes! I'm quite ready now."</p> + +<p class="indent">To that he had made no answer, and she had felt +a little chill at the heart. Oliver's voice had sounded +curiously cold—but then the telephone does sometimes +alter voices strangely.</p> + +<p class="indent">Those eight days in London! Laura was often to +live through each of those long days during the dull +weeks which followed her return home. Yet, when +she did look back on that time, she had to admit that +she had not been really happy, though the first hours +had been filled with a sort of excited triumph and +sense of victory. It was such a relief, too, to be away +from Godfrey, and spared, even if only for a few +days, the constant, painful irritation of his presence.</p> + +<p class="indent">But her brother, for whose sake, after all, she was +in London, jarred on her perpetually. For one thing, +Gillie was in extravagant, almost unnaturally high +spirits, set on what he called "having a good time," +and his idea of a good time was, as Oliver once grimly +remarked, slightly monotonous.</p> + +<p class="indent">Gillie's good time consisted in an eager round of +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 151]</span> +business interviews, culminating each evening in a +rich dinner at one of the smart grill-rooms which were +then the fashion, followed by three hours of a musical +comedy, and finally supper at some restaurant, the +more expensive the better.</p> + +<p class="indent">To his sister, each evening so spent seemed a dreary +waste of precious time. For in the daytime the two +ladies, who had taken rooms in an old-fashioned hotel +in a small street off Piccadilly, saw very little of Gillie +and Oliver. Gillie had insisted that Oliver and he +should go and stay at what he considered the smartest +and most modern hotel in London, and though the +strangely assorted quartette always lunched together, +the two partners had a good deal to do each morning +and most afternoons.</p> + +<p class="indent">To Mrs. Tropenell's surprise Oliver apparently had +no wish to be with Laura alone. Was it because he +was afraid of giving himself away to his coarse-minded, +jovial partner? Oliver looked stern, abstracted, +and, when at the play, bored.</p> + +<p class="indent">She admitted another possible reason for his almost +scrupulous avoidance of Laura. With regard to the +bitter feud between the brothers-in-law, Oliver had +spoken to his mother with curious apathy. Perhaps +he was honestly desirous of not taking sides. But on +the whole Mrs. Tropenell swung more often to her +first theory, and this view was curiously confirmed on +the one Sunday spent by them in town.</p> + +<p class="indent">Gillie, grumbling, a good deal at the dulness of the +English Sunday, had motored off early to the country +to spend the day with some people whom he had known +in Mexico. And late that morning Oliver suddenly +suggested that Laura and he should go out for a turn +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 152]</span> +in the Green Park—only a stone's-throw from the +rooms the two ladies were sharing.</p> + +<p class="indent">And that hour, which was perhaps fraught with +bigger circumstance than any one, save Oliver himself, +was ever to know, did remain in Laura Pavely's +memory as a strange and, in a sense, a delicious oasis, +in her long, arid stay in London. For, as the two +walked and talked intimately together in a solitude all +the greater because peopled by the indifferent and unknown, +they seemed to come nearer to one another—and +to meet, for the first time, in an atmosphere +of clarity and truth. Laura, perhaps because she had +felt, during these last few days, so desperately lonely +in a spiritual sense, talked more freely, albeit in a +more detached way, to her devoted, considerate, and +selfless friend, than she had ever been able to bring +herself to do to any other human being.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">For a while, after they had turned and begun pacing +together under the now yellowing plane trees, neither +of them spoke. Then Oliver said abruptly, "So all +our schemes have vanished into air—I'm sorry."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'm sorry too," she said. "I always knew that +Godfrey would never allow me to go away with Gillie, +but I never, never thought that even he could behave +as he did to my brother the other day——"</p> + +<p class="indent">There was a sound of suppressed passion and revolt +in her voice that he had never heard there before. +It touched a chord in his own heart, but all he said, +slowly, was, "I suppose Gillie irritated him."</p> + +<p class="indent">"No, I don't think so. There wasn't time for Gillie +to do anything, for Godfrey at once refused to shake +hands with him. That's how it began."</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 153]</span> +"Gillie ought to have written first. My mother +begged him not to take Godfrey by surprise——"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Your mother is always right," she said in a low +voice. "I've never known her wrong yet, though her +advice isn't always easy to follow, Oliver."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'm afraid she was right this time, anyhow."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I know she was."</p> + +<p class="indent">There fell between them a long, pregnant silence. +And then Oliver said, in a low, moved voice, "I'm +afraid that this last business has made you very unhappy, +Laura?"</p> + +<p class="indent">She answered, "Yes—foolishly so. I ought not to +have been surprised, for by this time I know Godfrey +so well." And she believed herself to be speaking the +truth.</p> + +<p class="indent">"It's not his fault," she went on painfully, "that he +has nothing in common with me and with my brother, +different as we, too, are the one from the other. Gillie +and I might have been born on different planets from +Godfrey."</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura had not meant to speak of Godfrey to Oliver. +Indeed, she had formed the resolution never to +do so again. But somehow, to-day, she felt as if she +might break that salutary rule.</p> + +<p class="indent">His next words seemed to prove to her that she +could trust him to understand, for, "Yes," he said +quietly, "you're right there, Laura. You and Godfrey +have nothing in common between you, and that being +so, I suppose there's nothing to be done?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"No, there's nothing to be done," she repeated hopelessly. +And then once more she broke her wise resolution: +"If it hadn't been for Alice, I should, even +now, be tempted to do what I so nearly did at the +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 154]</span> +time that Godfrey and Gillie"—she hesitated—"had +their first misunderstanding."</p> + +<p class="indent">"What you nearly did then, Laura?" There came +an eager, questioning thrill in her companion's strained +voice.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes—" Why shouldn't she unburden her heart +for once? "Yes, at the time of that first quarrel between +my brother and my husband, I nearly left Godfrey. +But for your mother, I should have done so. +Alice was a tiny baby then, and I didn't realise, as I +realise now, what an awful responsibility a woman +takes on herself in breaking up a child's happy home. +Only your mother stopped my doing it, and the fact"—she +looked at him with a soundless depth of sadness +in her face—"the fact that Gillie didn't really want +me to go and live with him. Of course it was long +before the question of his going to Mexico was +raised."</p> + +<p class="indent">"And have you never regretted that you did not +carry out that purpose?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver Tropenell was looking straight before him +as he asked the dangerous question. They were walking, +slowly, slowly, along the broad path which runs +just within the railings along the park side of Piccadilly. +Between twelve and one on an autumn Sunday +morning this path is generally deserted.</p> + +<p class="indent">She did not answer at once, and he said quickly, +"Forgive me! I ought not to have asked you that."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," she said again, "you can ask me anything +you like, Oliver. But it's very difficult to answer such +a question truthfully."</p> + +<p class="indent">And again there fell between them one of those +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 155]</span> +long silences which played a curious part in a conversation +neither ever forgot.</p> + +<p class="indent">At last Laura did answer Oliver's dangerous question. +"I have always known in my heart that your +mother was right in making me do what she did—I +mean in persuading me that for my little girl's sake +I must go on. Alice loves her father, though I think, +perhaps foolishly, that of the two she cares for me +best——"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Of course she does!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p class="indent">"But whether that be so or not, I know what a terrible +thing it would have been for Alice if Godfrey +and I had lived apart. I've never doubted that—I +don't doubt it now. But for that I could not go on—after +what happened the other day."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Then if, as is of course possible, you and I don't +meet again for years and years, am I to think of you +as always going on in exactly the same way?" he +asked.</p> + +<p class="indent">Some cruel devil outside himself had seemed to +force him to utter the hopeless question which he had +already made up his mind should be, must be, answered +by Fate in the negative.</p> + +<p class="indent">They had stopped their slow pacing side by side, +and he was now looking down into her sad, desolate +eyes. He saw the word—the one word "Yes," form +itself on her quivering lips.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Do you really mean that, Laura? Answer me +truly."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then suddenly there came over Laura Pavely +an extraordinary sensation. It was as if this man, +whose burning eyes were fixed on her face, were willing +her to say aloud something which, however true, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 156]</span> +were better left unsaid. "There will never come any +change," she answered, feeling as if the words were +being forced out of her, "till, as the Marriage Service +says, 'death us do part.'"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Do you ever think of that possibility?"</p> + +<p class="indent">He put the probing question in a singularly detached, +almost a light, tone of inquiry.</p> + +<p class="indent">But she answered very solemnly, again as if impelled +to tell him the truth—a truth she had never +thought to tell to any human being:</p> + +<p class="indent">"There was a time before Alice was born when +I was so unhappy, largely, as I can see now, through +my own fault, when I felt I could not bear it any +longer, and——" Her voice dropped, and he bent +down so that he might catch the almost whispered +words, "I was strongly tempted to—to kill myself," +she said. "I used to go and walk up and down that +little path across the head of the lake, and plan out how +I would do it. Even now I do not think that any one, +except perhaps your mother, would ever have suspected. +It would have been so easy to make it appear +an absolute accident."</p> + +<p class="indent">He remained silent, and she went on, more composedly:</p> + +<p class="indent">"I had got into a selfish, morbid state, Oliver, and +yet the temptation was not wholly selfish, for I knew +that Godfrey was miserable too, and my sense told +me that if anything happened to me he would very +soon marry again—some woman who would appreciate +his good qualities, who would be happy with him, +who would not be, as I knew I was, a bitter disappointment."</p> + +<p class="indent">Once more her voice had become nearly inaudible, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 157]</span> +and once more Oliver bent his dark, convulsed face +down to hear what she said.</p> + +<p class="indent">Tears were rolling down Laura's face. But suddenly +she made an immense effort over herself, and +went on, calmly:</p> + +<p class="indent">"It was your mother who helped me over that bad, +foolish time. I don't know what I should have done +but for Aunt Letty. I think she's the only person in +the world to whom Godfrey ever listens—who can +ever make any impression on him. It's strange in a +way, for I know she doesn't really like either of us."</p> + +<p class="indent">As he uttered a violent expression of dissent, she +went on: "It's quite true, Oliver, and what is more, +of the two she likes Godfrey the best. Why shouldn't +she? She thinks I've behaved very unkindly to Godfrey. +The only excuse she can make for me—she told +me so once, long ago—is that I'm inhuman. I suppose +in a way I <i>am</i> inhuman?" She looked at him +plaintively, a strange, piteous expression in her beautiful, +shadowed eyes.</p> + +<p class="indent">And Oliver Tropenell caught his breath. God—how +he loved her! Her inhumanity—to use that cruelly +misleading term which she had just used herself—only +made his passion burn with a purer, whiter flame. +The one thing in the world that mattered to him now +was this woman's deliverance from the awful death-in-life +to which her sensitive conscience, and her moving +love for her child, alone condemned her. Yes, +Laura's deliverance was the only thing worth compassing—and +that even if the deliverer were wrecked, +soul as well as body, body as well as soul, in the +process.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 158]</span> +They began walking again, slowly, slowly, once +more enwrapped in a silence which said so much more +than words could have said, even to Laura's still +numb, unawakened heart.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was she who at last broke the kind of spell which +lay on them both. They had come almost to the end +of the broad path. Opposite to where they were standing, +on the other side of the road, was a huge white +and green building, handsome and showy, looking +strangely un-English and out of place in the famous +old London way.</p> + +<p class="indent">"They pulled down such a wonderful, delightful +house just there," she said regretfully. "I was once +taken to it by my father, when I was quite a little +girl. It was like going right back a hundred years—not +only to another London, but to another England. +It's a shame that any one should have been allowed +to pull down such a bit of old London as that."</p> + +<p class="indent">And Oliver agreed, absently.</p> + +<p class="indent">So, talking of indifferent things, they walked back +to the hotel where Mrs. Tropenell was awaiting them, +and the three afterwards spent the rest of the day +peacefully together. But the next day there began +again for them all the same dreary round—that odd, +artificial life of "having a good time," as Gillie jovially +put it.</p> + +<p class="indent">Somehow Laura did not mind it so much now as +she had done before. Her talk with Oliver had shifted +her burden a little, and made her feel as if he and +she had gone back to their old, happy, simple friendship. +It had also deadened her feeling of acute, unreasoning +anger with Godfrey.</p> + +<p class="indent">At last came the morning when Oliver and Gillie +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 159]</span> +were to go to Paris. And at the last moment, standing +on the platform at Charing Cross, there took place +a rather pathetic, ridiculous little scene.</p> + +<p class="indent">Gillie had bought for his sister a beautiful old jewel, +and he thrust it—with a merry little word as to this +being the first really nice present he had ever given +her—into her hand. When she opened the case and +saw the emerald and pearl heart, her eyes brimmed +over with tears.</p> + +<p class="indent">Even Gillie was moved. "There, there!" he exclaimed. +"Nothing to cry about—'Nuff said,' Laura. +Perhaps we'll meet again sooner than you think, +my friends the Americans say."</p> + +<p class="indent">And she tried to smile.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then Gillie turned to Mrs. Tropenell, speaking with +much greater sincerity of feeling than he was wont +to do. "I'll never forget your kindness—in the past +and in the present—to my sister and to me, Mrs. +Tropenell. I'm not such a careless brute as I seem +to be—I never forget a kindness—or an injury. Now +then, Oliver!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura felt her hand seized, closed on in a vice-like +pressure which hurt, then dropped. "Good-bye, +Laura," said Oliver in an almost inaudible tone. +"Good-bye, till we meet again."</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 160]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<p class="cap">AS so often happens after hours or days of crises, +and even of quarrel, things went better for a +while after Laura's return to The Chase.</p> + +<p class="indent">True, life was now, even more than before, dull, +sad, and difficult. She missed Oliver Tropenell's constant +companionship and stimulating talk, more than +she was willing to acknowledge even to her innermost +self. And yet, when Godfrey spoke of the other +man's absence from Freshley with regret, his words +jarred on her, and made her feel vaguely ashamed. +Yet surely, surely she had nothing to reproach herself +with in the matter of Oliver Tropenell? She would +so gladly have kept him as Godfrey's friend as well +as her own.</p> + +<p class="indent">They had made it up, those two ill-matched people—made +it up, that is, after a fashion. They were +now much where they had been six months ago, just +before Oliver Tropenell with his strong, masterful +personality had come into their joint lives.</p> + +<p class="indent">And Godfrey? Godfrey Pavely was happier, more +complacent than usual, during those late autumn days. +He also was ashamed—though not unreasonably so—of +the absurd importance he had attached to those two +vulgar anonymous letters! He was sorry now that +he had spoken of the matter to Oliver Tropenell, for +that odd, rather awkward talk of theirs on the matter +had been perhaps a contributory cause of the other +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 161]</span> +man's sudden departure. If Oliver came home for +Christmas, he, Godfrey, would "make it all right."</p> + +<p class="indent">The banker had yet another reason for feeling life +pleasanter than usual just now. He was engaged in +a rather big bit of financial business of a kind his soul +loved, for it was secret, immediately profitable, and +with a gambling risk attached to it. The only person +to whom he had said a word concerning the affair was +Katty Winslow, and even to her, for he was a very +prudent man, he had been quite vague.</p> + +<p class="indent">With Katty he was becoming daily more intimate. +Laura's cold aloofness made him seek, instinctively, a +kinder, warmer, and yes, occasionally, a tenderer feminine +presence. For the first time, lately, Godfrey had +begun to tell himself that Katty would have made an +almost perfect wife.... And Katty could have told +you almost the exact moment when that thought had +first flashed upon Godfrey Pavely's brain. But she +also knew that so far he was content, most irritatingly +content, with the <i>status quo</i>. Not so she——And +one evening Katty tried an experiment which was +on the whole remarkably successful, though its effects +were strangely different from what she had expected.</p> + +<p class="indent">While dining alone with Godfrey and Laura at +The Chase, she startled her host and hostess by throwing +out a careless word as to the possibility of her +leaving Rosedean—of letting the house furnished, for +a year....</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura was astonished to see how much this casual +remark of Katty's upset Godfrey. He uttered an +exclamation of deep surprise and annoyance, and his +wife told herself bitterly how strange it was that Godfrey, +feeling so strongly about Katty, should not understand +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 162]</span> +how she, Laura, felt about Gillie. After all, +Gillie was her own brother, and Katty was not Godfrey's +sister—only an old playmate and friend!</p> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey was, in very truth, much more than upset +at those few careless words of his old friend—playmate, +in the sense that Laura meant, she had never +been. So disturbed and taken aback indeed that he +lay awake much of that night.</p> + +<p class="indent">The next morning he broke his walk into Pewsbury +by going into Rosedean, this being the very first time +he had ever done such a thing.</p> + +<p class="indent">He was kept waiting a few moments—as a matter +of fact only a very few moments—in the familiar little +drawing-room, before Katty, wearing a charming, +pale blue dressing-gown, edged with swansdown, +joined him.</p> + +<p class="indent">As was her way, she began speaking at once. "Why, +what's the matter?" she exclaimed. "Has anything +gone wrong, Godfrey?"</p> + +<p class="indent">He answered irritably, "No, not that I know of. +But I've something to say to you." He pulled out his +big, old-fashioned gold repeater. "It's twenty to ten—I +thought I'd find you down!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I always breakfast upstairs in my own room. But +I didn't keep you waiting long——"</p> + +<p class="indent">She was still a little breathless, for she had come +down very quickly.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then he began, with no preamble: "I want +to know if you really meant what you said last night +about letting this house furnished for a year? I'm +by no means sure if the terms of your lease allow for +your doing that; I shall have to look into it after I +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 163]</span> +get to the Bank. Still, I thought I'd better come and +see you first."</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty grew very pink. "Oh, Godfrey!" she exclaimed. +"Surely you wouldn't be so unkind——?"</p> + +<p class="indent">There came over her pretty face that curious, obstinate +look which he had already seen there often enough +to dread. Also she made him feel ashamed of himself. +But how attractive she looked—how fresh and dainty—like +a newly opened rose! Katty had twisted up +her hair anyhow, but that only made her look younger, +and more natural.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Let's come out into the garden," she said coaxingly. +"Surely you can stay for a few minutes? This is the +very first time you've ever been to see me in the morning! +Why not telephone through and say you've been +delayed,—that you can't be at the Bank till eleven?" +She was edging him as she spoke towards the corner +where, behind a screen, there stood the telephone instrument.</p> + +<p class="indent">As if compelled to obey, he took up the receiver, +and uttered the familiar words, "Pewsbury 4." And +at once there came an answer.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Is that you, Privet? What a comfort it is to know +that I can always rely on your being there, whoever +else isn't! This is only to say that I have been delayed, +and that I don't expect to be at the Bank till +eleven."</p> + +<p class="indent">Then came the calming, comforting answer, "Very +good. That'll be all right, sir. There's nothing much +doing this morning, from what I could make out when +I was looking over your letters just now."</p> + +<p class="indent">So Godfrey Pavely, feeling rather as if he was being +driven along by a pleasant fate, hung the receiver +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 164]</span> +up, and followed the blue-garbed figure out of doors, +into a little pleasance now filled with exquisite autumnal +colouring, and pungent, searching scents.</p> + +<p class="indent">In the furthest corner of the walled garden, which +was so much older than the house itself, was a tiny +lawn surrounded by high hedges. There they could +talk without any fear of being overlooked or overheard; +and, before her visitor could stop her, Katty +had dragged two cane-seated easy chairs out of her +little summer-house.</p> + +<p class="indent">They both sat down, but this time Katty warily remained +silent. She was waiting for her companion to +begin.</p> + +<p class="indent">"You weren't serious, were you?" he said at last, +and she felt the underlying pain and surprise in his +voice. "You don't really mean that you want to go +away, Katty? Where would you go to? What would +you do? Have the Standens asked you to go abroad +again—not for a whole year, surely?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"No," she said slowly, "not the Standens. If you +must know, I've been offered a furnished cottage rent-free +by those friends of mine, the Haworths, who live +near York. The truth is, I can't afford to keep up +Rosedean! I hate saying this to you, but it's the +truth."</p> + +<p class="indent">"If you didn't go away so much——" he began irritably.</p> + +<p class="indent">But she cut across him sharply, "After all, I've a +right to go away if I like! But it isn't that, Godfrey. +I've gone into it all—really I have! Even if I never +left Rosedean I should still be too poor to go on living +here comfortably."</p> + +<p class="indent">"How much too poor?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 165]</span> +Katty drew a long breath. In a sense she was +speaking at random, but no one would have known +it from the tone in which she answered: "About a +hundred a year—a little less, a little more."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then Godfrey Pavely said something which +very much surprised Katty. "About that thousand +pounds which was left to you the other day," he said +hesitatingly.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Well? That'll only bring in thirty-five pounds a +year; you made all the arrangements," she added +wearily. "You wouldn't let me have it—as I wanted +you to do."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I couldn't, Katty, you know that! I didn't ask +your aunt to make me your trustee."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Well, that thirty-five pounds won't make any difference."</p> + +<p class="indent">She was sorry now she had told him of the little +house on her generous friends' estate. Perhaps he +would offer to let her off the Rosedean rent. But +Katty had quite made up her mind to cut the cable, +and make a fresh start elsewhere.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Wait a bit," he said slowly, "women always run +on so fast! When I mentioned that thousand pounds, +I was not thinking of giving it you, as you call it, to +spend. I was thinking of that foreign investment I +mentioned to you last week. If you're willing to take +the risk, I might stretch a point, for if things go well +that thousand pounds might easily be trebled in the +course of the next two years. I'm so sure of that, that +I'm quite willing to advance you, say, two hundred +pounds."</p> + +<p class="indent">He knew quite well that his proposal was utterly +illogical, and bore, so to speak, no relation to the fact +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 166]</span> +that the investment he was proposing might turn up +trumps.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty's eyes sparkled. She was very fond of ready +money, and it was such a long, long time since she had +had any. "D'you mean you'd really give me two hundred +pounds <i>now</i>?" she asked joyfully.</p> + +<p class="indent">And Godfrey, with his eyes fixed on the grass, said +in a shamed voice, "Yes—that is what I do mean."</p> + +<p class="indent">Somehow it hurt him to feel how that sum of +money, so trifling to him, affected her so keenly. He +was better pleased with her next question.</p> + +<p class="indent">"What sort of an investment exactly is it?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"It's in the nature of a company promotion," he +said slowly. "And of course you must regard anything +I tell you about it as absolutely private."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, I quite understand that!"</p> + +<p class="indent">He drew a piece of paper out of his pocket. "As a +matter of fact I've got a few facts about it jotted down +here."</p> + +<p class="indent">She drew her chair rather nearer to his, and Godfrey +Pavely, turning his narrow yet fleshy face towards +her, began speaking with far more eagerness and animation +than usual. Katty, who was by no means a +fool where such things were concerned, listened absorbedly +while he explained the rather big bit of financial +business in which he was now interested.</p> + +<p class="indent">After he had been speaking to her without interruption +for some minutes, Katty exclaimed: "Yes, I +think I see now exactly what you mean! There certainly +doesn't seem much risk attached to it—at any +rate as regards the start off, as it were. But what +made these French bankers pick <i>you</i> out, Godfrey? +After all, they're doing you a very good turn."</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 167]</span> +"I don't exactly know why they picked me out, as +you call it——" he spoke hesitatingly. "But during +that year I spent in Paris I came across a great many +of that sort of people. My father got me the best +possible introductions."</p> + +<p class="indent">The piece of paper on which he had jotted certain +notes and calculations was a large piece of thin foreign +notepaper covered with small handwriting in the diluted +ink which some French business men use.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Can you read French?" he asked doubtfully.</p> + +<p class="indent">She answered rather sharply, "Yes, of course I +can!" and held out her hand.</p> + +<p class="indent">The letter, which bore a Paris address, and the date +of a fortnight back, was from the French banking +house of Zosean & Co. It explained at some length +that a client of the bank, a wealthy South American +of Portuguese extraction named Fernando Apra, had +become possessed of an estate on the coast of Portugal +to which was attached a gambling concession. The +idea was to make the place a kind of Portuguese Monte +Carlo, and the present possessor was very desirous +that English capital and English brains should be put +into the company. The returns promised were enormous, +and there seemed to be little or no risk attached +to the business—if it was run on the right lines.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I have gone into the matter very thoroughly," said +Godfrey Pavely, "and I have convinced myself that +it's all right. This Fernando Apra already has a London +office. I managed to see him there for a few +minutes last week. His real headquarters are in +Paris."</p> + +<p class="indent">"And are you finding all the money?" asked Katty +eagerly. "Will it be all your money and <i>my</i> thousand +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 168]</span> +pounds, Godfrey? In that case I suppose we shall +get all the profits?"</p> + +<p class="indent">He smiled a little at woman's cupidity. "No," he +said, "I haven't been able to find it all myself. But +I've managed to get in a very good man. Some one +with whom I've done business before, Katty."</p> + +<p class="indent">"What's his name?" she asked inquisitively.</p> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey Pavely waited a moment. "I don't know +that I ought to tell you—" he said uncomfortably. +"He doesn't want to appear in the business."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Of course you ought to tell me!" All sorts of +strange ideas floated through Katty's mind. Was he +going to say "Oliver Tropenell"? She rather expected +he was.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Well, I <i>will</i> tell you," he said, "for I know you can +hold your tongue. The name of the man who's going +into this business with me is Greville Howard."</p> + +<p class="indent">"D'you mean the big money-lender?" Katty +couldn't help a little tone of doubt, of rather shocked +surprise, creeping into her voice.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," he said doggedly, "I do mean the man who +was once a great money-lender. He's retired now—in +fact he's living——" and then he stopped himself.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Why, of course!" Katty felt quite excited. "He's +living in Yorkshire, near the Haworths! They've +often talked about him to me! They don't know him—he +won't know anybody. He's a rather queer fish, +isn't he, Godfrey?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"He's absolutely straight about money," exclaimed +Godfrey Pavely defensively. "I've had dealings with +him over many years. In fact he's the ideal man for +this kind of thing. He has all sorts of irons in the fire—financially +I mean—on the Continent. He's a big +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 169]</span> +shareholder in the company that runs the Dieppe and +Boulogne Casinos."</p> + +<p class="indent">He got up. "Well, I ought to be going now. It's +all right isn't it, Katty? You won't talk again of going +away?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Could you let me have that two hundred pounds +this afternoon?" she asked abruptly.</p> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey Pavely looked at her with a curious, yearning, +rather sad look. Somehow he would have preferred +that Katty should not be quite so—so—he +hardly formulated the thought to himself—so ready +to do <i>anything</i> for money. "Very well," he said. +"Very well, my dear"—he very seldom called her "my +dear," but he had done so once or twice lately. "I'll +bring it this afternoon, in notes."</p> + +<p class="indent">"That <i>will</i> be kind of you," she said gratefully. +"But look here, Godfrey, do take it out of my thousand +pounds! Put eight hundred in this thing."</p> + +<p class="indent">He shook his head and smiled. Women were queer, +curiously unscrupulous creatures! "That would be +right down dishonest of me, Katty."</p> + +<p class="indent">They were now walking across the little lawn, +which was so securely tucked away, out of sight of +any prying window, and before going through the +aperture which had been cut in the hedge, they both +turned round and clasped hands. "Thank you so—so +much," she said softly. "You've been a dear, kind +friend to me always, Godfrey."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Have I?" he said. "Have I, Katty? Not always, +I fear."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, always," and her voice trembled a little.</p> + +<p class="indent">He bent down and kissed her on the mouth with a +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 170]</span> +kind of shamed, passionate solemnity which moved, +and, yes, a little amused her. What <i>queer</i>, curiously +scrupulous creatures men were!</p> + +<p class="indent">"Go now, or you'll be late," she whispered.</p> + +<p class="indent">And he went.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<h2>PART TWO</h2> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 173]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<p class="cap">CERTAIN days become retrospectively memorable, +and that however apparently uneventful they may +have seemed at the time.</p> + +<p class="indent">To Laura Pavely the 6th of January opened as had +done all the other days during the last few weeks, that +is, quietly, dully, and sadly.</p> + +<p class="indent">There was one difference, trifling or not as one +happened to look at the matter. Godfrey was away in +London. He had been absent for over a week—since +the 28th, and though he had been expected back last +night, there had come a telephone message, late in the +afternoon, to say that his business would keep him +away a day longer.</p> + +<p class="indent">This morning—it was a Friday morning—Laura, +trying hard to shake off her depression, told herself +that she and Alice might as well go for a ride. It was +a beautiful day, and the wind blew soft. They would +go across the downs to a certain lonely spot which +Alice loved.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura was already in the hall in her riding habit, +waiting for the child, when there came a telephone +message through from Pewsbury. It was from the +Bank asking what time Mr. Pavely would be there. +A gentleman with whom he had made an appointment +for ten o'clock, had been waiting for him since that +hour. It was now nearly eleven.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 174]</span> +Laura turned to the servant: "Did Mr. Pavely give +you any message to send on to the Bank?" she asked.</p> + +<p class="indent">The man answered, "No, ma'am, not that I understood. +Mr. Pavely didn't come himself to the telephone."</p> + +<p class="indent">"What was the message exactly?" Laura was always +kind and courteous in her manner to her servants, and +they were all attached to her.</p> + +<p class="indent">"It was as how Mr. Pavely was being detained, and +could not be home last night, ma'am. The person who +gave the message was in a great hurry—he cut me off +before I could say anything to him."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I suppose we ought to have telephoned to the Bank +early this morning," said Laura thoughtfully. But it +had never occurred to her that it would be necessary +for her to do so. Her husband was a very exact man +of business. She had taken it as certain that he had +also communicated with the Bank.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Who was it telephoned just now?" she asked.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I think it was Mr. Privet himself, ma'am. He +said he felt sure Mr. Pavely intended to be back this +morning, because of the gentleman he had arranged +to see."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Perhaps I had better speak to Mr. Privet myself," +said Laura. "Is that you, Mr. Privet?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I wish you a very good morning, Mrs. Pavely. +I didn't mean to put you to any trouble, but you see +the matter is important——" Even through the telephone +she could hear a mysterious tone in the old +voice, though he was speaking in so low a tone that +she could scarcely hear. "It's Lord St. Amant. He's +been here since ten o'clock, and he says he can't stop +any longer. Mr. Pavely made an appointment with his +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 175]</span> +lordship over a week ago. It's very strange he should +have forgotten, isn't it, Mrs. Pavely?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, I think it <i>is</i> strange," she said slowly. "Will +you tell his lordship that I'm exceedingly sorry that +word was not sent him. If I had known of the appointment, +of course I would have communicated with him +either by telephone or by a note."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Then I'm to put off all Mr. Pavely's appointments +for to-day?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Well, yes, Mr. Privet, that seems to me the only +thing you can do."</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura smiled a little as she left the telephone. Mr. +Privet's tone, if not his words, made it quite clear +that he thought Mr. Pavely had committed a serious +solecism, almost the worst solecism a country banker +could commit, in not keeping an appointment with the +great man of the neighbourhood, who was to be the +new Lord Lieutenant of the county.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">An hour and a half later, as mother and child were +riding slowly home, Laura suddenly told herself that +it was a long time since Mrs. Tropenell had seen Alice +on pony-back. Why shouldn't they both go on to +Freshley? And if Aunt Letty asked them to stay to +lunch, as she very probably would, so much the better!</p> + +<p class="indent">On their way to the front door of the house, they +turned into the stable-yard to find a groom, and then, +suddenly, Laura felt a queer, and to herself an utterly +unexpected and new, sensation sweep over her. It was +a sensation of eager, unreasoning joy.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver Tropenell stood in the middle of the yard, +talking to his mother's old groom. He looked ill and +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 176]</span> +tired—dreadfully tired. But all at once, as he saw +Laura and her child come riding in, a wonderful +change swept over his dark face—there came over it +a glowing expression of welcome and delight. He +lifted Alice off her pony. Then he came forward to +help Laura....</p> + +<p class="indent">With a shock of surprise which seemed to make +her heart stop beating, Laura felt her whole being +responding to the ardent, and at once imperious and +imploring look with which he gazed up into her eyes. +She was shaken, awed by the passion he threw, perhaps +unconsciously, into that long, beckoning look—stirred +to the heart by the feeling of content his mere +presence brought her.</p> + +<p class="indent">But even in those few flashing moments, Laura +Pavely quickly, almost fiercely, assured herself that +this new, strange sensation of oneness, of surrender +on her part, was "friendship," nothing more.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet her voice faltered in spite of herself, as she +said, "Hadn't we better ride round? I only came in +here to find some one to hold the horses, in case your +mother wanted us to come in."</p> + +<p class="indent">But with a muttered, "Mother has got Lord St. +Amant to luncheon—I know she would like you both +to stay, too," he lifted her off her horse.</p> + +<p class="indent">They walked to a door which led into the back +part of the house, and so by a corridor to a small room +where Mrs. Tropenell generally sat in the morning. As +they went along, Alice, alone, chattered happily.</p> + +<p class="indent">At last Laura, more for the sake of proving to herself +that she felt quite at ease than for anything else, +asked suddenly, "I suppose you didn't see Godfrey on +your way through London?"</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 177]</span> +Oliver waited a few moments—so long indeed that +she wondered if he had heard her. But she knew in +her heart that he had, for his face had darkened at +the mention of her husband's name. At last he answered, +very deliberately, "Is Godfrey away then?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes. He went off some days ago. We expected +him home yesterday; but he sent a telephone message +to say he wasn't coming back till to-night."</p> + +<p class="indent">They were now before the door of Mrs. Tropenell's +sitting-room. Her son opened it quietly, and for a +moment the three stood there, gazing into the panelled, +sunlit little room, which was part of the survival of a +much older building than the eighteenth-century manor-house.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell, sitting upright in a low chair, was +looking up into the face of the man who stood before +her, and they were both so absorbed in what they were +saying that neither had heard the door open.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura gazed with new eyes, a new curiosity, at +Lord St. Amant. She had seen him often in this +house, though sometimes at comparatively long intervals, +ever since she was a child, and always he had had +a fixed place, in her mind and imagination, as Mrs. +Tropenell's one man-friend.</p> + +<p class="indent">To-day, seeing the two thus talking eagerly together +she felt her interest oddly quickened. She was asking +herself eagerly whether some such passage as that +which had taken place between herself and Oliver +Tropenell three months ago, and which had caused her +so much pain, had ever occurred between those two in +the days when Lady St. Amant, a fretful, selfish invalid +whom every one disliked, was still alive. If yes, then +Mrs. Tropenell had evidently known how to retain the +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 178]</span> +friendship, the warm affections of a man who, younger, +had been notoriously inconstant.</p> + +<p class="indent">In Laura's eyes these two had always been old when +she thought of them at all. But to-day she realised, as +in a flash, that the man and woman before her had also +been young, and that not so very long ago.</p> + +<p class="indent">Even now, Lord St. Amant was a still vigorous and +active-looking man. He was leaning over the back +of a chair, looking eagerly into his old friend's face. +Was it true, as some of the gossips said, that he had +remained a widower for that same friend's sake?</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura gazed at him with an almost hungry curiosity. +She was absurdly surprised that he looked to-day exactly +as he had always looked in her eyes—a pleasant, +agreeable-mannered, amusing man of the world, not at +all her notion of the one-time lover of many women.</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant's hair had now gone white, but, +apart from that he looked just as he had been wont +to look, when he came and went about Freshley Manor, +when she, as a child, had stayed there with her mother. +Some years later, she had become dimly aware—girls +always know such things—that Mrs. Tropenell had +had a fleeting notion of marrying her to Lord St. +Amant. But Laura had also known that it was Mrs. +Tropenell, not herself, who was the magnet which then +drew him so often to Freshley Manor.</p> + +<p class="indent">They had once, however, had an intimate talk together. +It had been on one of the very rare occasions +when Mrs. Tropenell was ill, confined to bed, upstairs, +and she, Laura Baynton, had been left alone to entertain +her Aunt Letty's old friend. And their talk—she +remembered it now—had been all of Oliver: of Oliver +and his mother.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 179]</span> +Lord St. Amant had spoken with much heat of +Oliver's having settled on the other side of the world, +leaving Mrs. Tropenell lonely. Then he had smiled a +curious little smile: "But that makes no difference. +To a mother 'distance makes the heart grow fonder,' +and also 'lends enchantment to the view.' An only +son, Laura, is the most formidable of rivals."</p> + +<p class="indent">The girl had been flattered, touched too, by the implied +confidence.</p> + +<p class="indent">She had yet another vivid memory of Lord St. +Amant. He had sent her, immediately on hearing of +her engagement to Godfrey Pavely, a magnificent +wedding present; also he had come, at some inconvenience, +to her marriage.</p> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey had supposed the compliment due to regard +for himself and for his father, but Laura, of course, +had known better. Lord St. Amant had come to her +marriage to please Mrs. Tropenell—because he regarded +her, in a sense, as Mrs. Tropenell's adopted +daughter.</p> + +<p class="indent">Something of all this moved in quick procession +through Laura Pavely's mind, as she stood in the doorway, +looking more beautiful, more animated, more +feminine, in spite of—or was it because of?—her +riding dress, than Oliver Tropenell had ever seen her.</p> + +<p class="indent">She moved forward into the room, and Lord St. +Amant turned quickly round.</p> + +<p class="indent">If Laura looked at Lord St. Amant with a new interest, +a new curiosity in her beautiful eyes, he, on his +side, now looked at Laura more attentively than he +had done for a long time. He had been abroad for +two months, and this was the first time he and Mrs. +Tropenell had met since his return.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 180]</span> +They had just had a long talk, and during that +talk she had at last told him something which had +amused, surprised, and yes, interested him very much; +for Lord St. Amant, in the evening of his days, found +himself more, not less, tolerant of, and interested in, +human nature, and in human nature's curious kinks +and byways, than at the time when he himself had provided +his friends and contemporaries with food for +gossip and scandal. But he had been very comforting +in his comments on her story, and more than once he +had made his old friend smile. Mrs. Tropenell had +felt very, very glad to see Lord St. Amant. It was +natural that she should be glad to have once more +within easy reach of her the one human being in the +world to whom she could talk freely, and who took an +unaffectedly close, deep interest in all her concerns.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">Not till they were all sitting at luncheon, was Laura +able, in a low tone, to inquire after her brother. Little +Alice knew nothing of her uncle's visit to England. +Godfrey and Laura had tacitly agreed to keep the child +in ignorance of it. But now Laura asked, with some +eagerness, "And Gillie? What's happened to Gillie? +Is he still abroad?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Olive answered at once, "No, he's gone back to +Mexico." And then, as he saw a look of blank disappointment +shadow her face, he added, hastily, "He +gave me a lot of messages for you—I was coming over +this afternoon to deliver them. You know what Gillie's +like—he never writes if he can help it!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," she said, "I know that," and she sighed. +"Did he go from a French port?" she asked.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver hesitated. It was almost as if he had forgotten. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 181]</span> +But at last he answered, "Yes, he went from +Havre. I saw him off."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then something rather untoward happened. +There came a violent ringing at the front door—a loud, +imperious pulling at the big, old-fashioned iron bell-pull. +To the surprise of his mother, Oliver flushed—a +deep, unbecoming brick red. Starting up from table, +he pushed his chair aside, and walked quickly to the +door. It was almost as if he expected some one. "I'll +see who it is!" he called out.</p> + +<p class="indent">They heard him striding across the hall, and flinging +open the front door....</p> + +<p class="indent">Then he came back slowly, and Mrs. Tropenell saw +that there was a look of immeasurable relief on his +face. "It's a man who's brought a parcel from Pewsbury +for one of the servants. He declared he couldn't +make any one hear at the back, and so he came round +to the front door—rather impudent of him, eh?" and +he sat down again.</p> + +<p class="indent">Coffee was served in the pleasant, low-ceilinged +drawing-room, and then Oliver and Laura went out +of doors, with Alice trotting by their side.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was quite like old times. And the child voiced +their unspoken feeling, when, slipping her hand into +Oliver's, she exclaimed, "This is jolly! Just like what +it used to be when you were here before!"</p> + +<p class="indent">And he pressed the little hand which lay so confidingly +in his. "Yes," he said, in a low voice, "the same—but +nicer, don't you think so, Alice?"</p> + +<p class="indent">And Alice answered with the downrightness of +childhood, "I can't tell yet! I shall know that after +you've been here a little while. We can't garden as +much as we did then, for now the ground is too hard."</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 182]</span> +"But we can do other things," said Oliver, smiling +down at her.</p> + +<p class="indent">And Alice answered doubtfully, "Yes, I suppose +we can."</p> + +<p class="indent">They did not say very much. Oliver did not talk, as +perhaps another man would have done, of his and +Gillie's adventures in France and Italy. And after a +comparatively short time Laura suggested that she +and Alice had better now ride home.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Will you come over to tea?" she asked.</p> + +<p class="indent">And Oliver said yes, that he would.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I daresay Godfrey will be back by then. He often +takes the early afternoon train down from London."</p> + +<p class="indent">But to that he made no answer, and Laura, with a +rather painful sensation, saw the light suddenly die +out of his face.</p> + +<p class="indent">He came round to the stable. "I'll walk a little way +with you," he said.</p> + +<p class="indent">But she exclaimed rather hurriedly, "No, don't do +that, Oliver! Stay with your mother and Lord St. +Amant."</p> + +<p class="indent">And without any word of protest he obeyed her.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">It is strange what a difference the return of a friend +may make to life! Laura Pavely felt another woman +as she busied herself that afternoon, happily waiting +for Oliver Tropenell. Honestly she hoped that Godfrey +would come back by the early afternoon train; he, +too, would be glad to see Oliver.</p> + +<p class="indent">But the time went by, and there came no message +through from London ordering the car to be sent to +the station, and Laura told herself that perhaps Godfrey +had gone straight to the Bank.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 183]</span> +At last, a little after five, Oliver Tropenell came +sauntering in, very much as he used to saunter in, +during the long happy summer days when they had +just become friends.</p> + +<p class="indent">They had tea in Alice's day-nursery, and after tea, +they all three played games till it was nearly seven. +Then, reluctantly, Oliver got up, and said he must go +home. And as he stood there, gazing down into her +face, Laura was struck, as she had been that morning +in the first moment of their meeting, by his look of +fatigue and of strain. She, who was so little apt to +notice such things, unless her little girl was in question, +glanced up at him anxiously. "You don't look well," +she said, with some concern. "You don't look as if +you'd had a holiday, Oliver."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I shall soon get all right," he muttered, "now that +I'm here, with mother." And then, in a lower voice, +he added the words, "and with you, Laura."</p> + +<p class="indent">She answered, nervously determined to hark back to +what had been their old, happy condition, "Alice and +I have both missed you dreadfully—haven't we, my +darling?"</p> + +<p class="indent">And Alice said gaily, "Oh yes, indeed, we have, +mother." Then the child turned, in her pretty, eager +way to Oliver, "I hope you'll stay a long, long time +at Freshley. If only it snows, father thinks it may +soon, you and I can make a snow man!"</p> + +<p class="indent">And Oliver, after a moment's pause, answered, +"Yes, so we can, Alice. I'm going to stay at home +some time now, I hope."</p> + +<p class="indent">And again, on hearing those words, Laura felt that +new, unreasoning thrill of joy which she had felt +when she had seen Oliver standing in the middle of +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 184]</span> +his mother's stable-yard. Till that moment, and now +again, just now, she had not known how much she +had missed her friend.</p> + +<p class="indent">At last, when it was really time for him to go, +Laura and Alice both accompanied their guest to the +hall. Then he turned abruptly to Laura: "How about +to-morrow? May I come to-morrow morning?"</p> + +<p class="indent">And over Laura there came just a little tremour of +misgiving. Surely Oliver was going to be—reasonable?</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," she said hesitatingly, "I shall be very glad +to see you—though of course I'm rather busy in the +morning. To-morrow Mademoiselle is not coming. +Perhaps I'd better telephone early and tell you our +plans for the day. Godfrey will be so glad to see +you, Oliver. He asked only the other day when Mrs. +Tropenell expected you back."</p> + +<p class="indent">But to that remark Oliver made no answer.</p> + +<p class="indent">After the heavy front door had shut behind her +visitor, and when Alice had already run out of the +hall, Laura opened the front door again.</p> + +<p class="indent">She called out: "Perhaps you'll meet Godfrey. He +may be here any moment now; if he's been at the +Bank, he will walk out from Pewsbury."</p> + +<p class="indent">But Oliver did not turn round. He was evidently +already out of hearing.</p> + +<p class="indent">Feeling strangely restless, Laura walked out a little +way, closing the door partly behind her. There +was about a quarter of a mile of carriage road from +the house to the gate, but the night was very clear, +the ground hard and dry. Soon her eyes became accustomed +to the darkness; she could see Oliver's tall +figure rapidly growing less and less, dimmer and dimmer. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 185]</span> +Every moment she expected to see another, still +more familiar, form emerge from out of the darkness. +But, after pacing up and down for perhaps as +long as ten minutes, she went back into the house. +Godfrey was evidently coming home by the last train.</p> + +<p class="indent">Moved by an indefinable feeling of peace as well +as of contentment, Laura sat up long that night, waiting +for her husband. She had made up her mind to +tell him, not only that Oliver had come back, but also +that her brother was on his way to Mexico. Half +ashamedly she asked herself why they should not all +three go back to the happy conditions which had lasted +all the summer?</p> + +<p class="indent">But there came neither Godfrey nor news of him, +and Laura spent the evening of a day of which the +date was to become memorable, not unhappily in reading.</p> + +<p class="indent">When it came to half-past eleven, she knew that +her husband would not be home that night, but, even +so, she sat up till the tall lacquered clock in the hall +struck out the chimes of midnight. Then, a little +reluctantly, she went upstairs, telling herself that if +in the morning there was still no news of Godfrey, +she and Alice would stroll along to Rosedean. Katty +might know something of Godfrey's movements, for +when she had been last at The Chase an illusion had +been made to a bit of business he was to do for her +in London, which would necessitate some correspondence.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 186]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<p class="cap">THERE are certain winter days when bed and +bath seem to be the only two tolerable places in +the world.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty Winslow, on waking up the next morning, +that is, on Saturday, the seventh of January, knew +at once, though she was snuggled down deep in her +warm bed, that it was very much colder than it had +been the evening before. She shivered a little, telling +herself that perhaps she was not in as good condition +as usual, for she had only just come back from spending +Christmas and the New Year away.</p> + +<p class="indent">The faithful Harber drew back the curtains, letting +in gleams of red winter sun. And then she brought +her mistress a nice cup of hot tea, and a pretty, wadded, +pale-blue bed wrap.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty sat up. "I'm not in any hurry to-day," she +said. "I'll ring when I want breakfast." And after +having taken her tea she lay down again, and began +to think.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oddly, or perhaps naturally, enough, her thoughts +turned to Godfrey Pavely. She wondered vaguely +where he was, and if he would be home to-day.</p> + +<p class="indent">There had been a kind of half arrangement between +them that they would travel down from London +together on the Thursday afternoon. That would +have meant for Katty the benefit of The Chase motor—a +pleasant as well as an economical plan—and its +owner's company as far as Rosedean.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 187]</span> +But Katty had not found Godfrey Pavely at the +London station, though she had lingered about up to +the very last moment before taking, regretfully, a +third-class ticket. On arriving at Pewsbury she had +also waited some minutes in the vague hope that Godfrey +might have dashed up just as the train was leaving—not +that he was apt to dash at any time, for he +was always very careful of himself, and had a due regard +for his personal dignity. But there was no sign +of the familiar figure, and so Katty had had to take +a fly—a slow, smelly, expensive fly—out to Rosedean.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yesterday, Friday, had been a rather tiresome, dull +day, spent in hearing from Harber all the disagreeable +things which had happened while she had been +away—how Harber's stupid, untrained girl-help had +gone and broken a rather nice piece of china in the +drawing-room, and also how it had come to pass that +there were two slates off the roof.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty had rather expected Godfrey would come +in, if only to apologise for having failed her during +the journey. But the afternoon had gone slowly by, +and at last she felt sure, knowing his ways, that he +had not yet come home. Something must have delayed +him—something, perhaps, connected with that pleasant +Portuguese gambling concession which was to +bring them both such a lot of money. But if that +were so, she would almost certainly receive from +him this morning one of his rather long, explanatory +letters. Of late Godfrey had fallen into the way of +writing to Katty almost every day when they were +apart.</p> + +<p class="indent">Though Mrs. Winslow meant to keep the fact +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 188]</span> +strictly to herself—for it was one that might have +somewhat surprised even the unsuspicious Laura—she +and Godfrey had actually spent a long day together +during their dual absence from home.</p> + +<p class="indent">It had fallen out as such pleasant meetings sometimes +do fall out, very naturally and innocently, just +a week ago to-day.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty, on her way from the south to stay with her +friends, the Haworths, had run up against Godfrey +Pavely at King's Cross. That had been a really +extraordinary coincidence, and one of which it would +have been foolish not to take advantage. For it +turned out that he also was going to Yorkshire, and +on the business in which they were both interested, +to spend a night with the ex-money-lender, Greville +Howard. That gentleman, it seemed, was making +certain difficulties about the matter—he wanted to +stay his hand till he had seen the French bankers who +were concerned with the affair. As he spent each +spring in the south of France, that would not be +such a difficulty as it seemed. Still, it was a bore, +and the other had felt he had better go and see him.</p> + +<p class="indent">After a pleasant journey together, as they were +steaming into York station Godfrey suddenly asked: +"Must you go on to your friends at once? Couldn't +you telephone to them to meet you by a later train? +I'm in no hurry." And, smilingly, she had consented.</p> + +<p class="indent">Of late Katty's heart had become very soft to her +old friend. For one thing he was being so good to +her in the matter of money. That two hundred +pounds he had given to her some weeks ago had been +followed by two fifty-pound notes. And yet, though +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 189]</span> +she knew poor Godfrey was quite unaware of it, her +original purpose—the purpose which had so distressed +him, and which, as she well knew, had induced +in him such extraordinary and unusual generosity—had +not faltered at all. Katty still meant to +cut the cable, and start a new life elsewhere.</p> + +<p class="indent">Rosedean was all very well; her close friendship +with Godfrey Pavely was all very well; though of +late she had been disagreeably aware that Godfrey +was ashamed—ashamed of giving her that money, +ashamed of his increasing fondness for her, ashamed +also of—well, of other little things which sometimes +happened, things which Katty thought quite unimportant, +which she regarded as part of the payment +due from her to Godfrey. But she realised more +rather than less, as time went on, that if she wanted +to make anything of her life there must come a +change. She would wait a while, wait perhaps till +next autumn—so she had told those kind friends of +hers, the Haworths.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty was sometimes surprised to find how sorry +she was that things had not fallen out otherwise. +But she had always tried, in all the great things of +life, to look the truth squarely in the face. Only +once had she been caught doing anything else—and +that, as we know, had been years and years ago. She +was not likely to make that sort of mistake now. She +had come to see, with a rather painful clearness, that +Godfrey and Laura, however ill they got on together, +were not the sort of people to lend themselves to any +kind of juggling with the law to obtain their liberty.</p> + +<p class="indent">But she had been disappointed in Oliver Tropenell. +She had felt in him accumulated forces of that +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 190]</span> +explosive energy which leads to determined action—also +she had thought that Gillie would do something.</p> + +<p class="indent">But the two had disappeared together almost immediately +after her talk with Laura's brother. That +was over ten weeks ago now, and neither had given +any sign of life since.</p> + +<p class="indent">But Katty intended to keep up with Godfrey. For +one thing she was keenly interested in that business +in which they were, in a sense, both engaged. Also +one never can tell what life—and death—may not +bring forth. Whatever happened, the link between +herself and Godfrey was too strong ever to be broken. +Even if she married again, which she supposed she +would do some time or other, there seemed no reason, +to her, at any rate, why she should not keep up with +Godfrey. He was her trustee now, as well as her +oldest friend.</p> + +<p class="indent">So it was that she had very willingly assented to +do him the trifling favour of spending some further +hours in his company.</p> + +<p class="indent">As they wandered about the old city, and lingered +awhile in the great Minster, neither of them said +a word that the whole world might not have overheard. +They visited some of the curiosity shops for +which York is famed, and Katty's companion, with +that new generosity which sat on him so strangely, +bought a beautiful, and very costly, old cut-glass +pendant for Rosedean.</p> + +<p class="indent">They did not meet a soul that either of them knew, +excepting, yes, stop——After they had said goodbye +(Godfrey, with a rather shocked look on his +face, for Katty, imprudent, foolish Katty, had woman-like +seemed to expect that he would kiss her in a +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 191]</span> +corner of an empty waiting-room where at any moment +they might have been surprised by some acquaintance +of one or the other of them!)—after, as +arranged, they had said good-bye, and Katty was engaged +in taking her ticket for the branch line station +for which she was bound, a curious thing happened.</p> + +<p class="indent">She suddenly heard a voice, a man's voice, which +sounded pleasantly familiar.</p> + +<p class="indent">Who could it be? The association evoked was +wholly agreeable, but Katty could not place, in the +chambers of her memory, the owner of the rather +peculiar accents which were engaged in asking when +the next train back to London would start.</p> + +<p class="indent">She had turned round quickly, only to see a small +queue of people behind her, among them surely the +owner of that peculiar voice. But no, she did not +know any one there—though among them a man attracted +her attention, for the simple reason that he +was staring at her very hard. He was obviously a +foreigner, for his skin was olive-tinted, and he had +a small, black, pointed beard. He stared at Katty +with an air of rather insolent admiration. And then +he broke away from the queue, and walked quickly +off, out of the booking-office.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty always enjoyed admiration, whatever its +source, and yet a queer kind of shiver had gone +through her when this impertinent stranger's glance +rested full on her face. She had had the odious sensation +that the man saw something to be jeered at, +as well as admired, in her neat and attractive self.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">At last, reluctantly, Katty got up and went into +her well-warmed comfortable bathroom. It was nice +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 192]</span> +to be home again, at no one's orders but her own. +After she had dressed, she rang, and very soon came +her breakfast, daintily served by the devoted Harber, +also the one daily paper she felt she could afford to +take.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty was one of the many women to whom the +daily picture-paper supplied a long-felt, if unconscious, +want. It gave her just the amount of news, and the +kind of news, that her busy mind, absorbed in other +things, could assimilate comfortably. She was no +reader, though sometimes she would manage to gallop +through some book that all the world was talking +about. But newspapers had always bored her. Still, +she had become very fond of the paper she now held +in her hand. It only cost a halfpenny a day, and +Katty liked small, sensible economies.</p> + +<p class="indent">That liking of hers was one of the links which +bound her to Godfrey Pavely, but unlike Godfrey, +Katty did not care for money for money's sake. She +only liked money for what money could buy. And +sometimes, when she was in a cheerful, mischievous +mood, she would tell herself, with a smile, that if +ever her Castle in Spain turned out to have been +built on a solid foundation—if ever, that is, she became +Godfrey Pavely's wife, she would know how +to spend the money he had garnered so carefully. +She felt pretty sure, deep in her heart, that should +such an unlikely thing come to pass, she would know +how to "manage" Godfrey, and that, if surprised, +he would not really mind what she did. She always +got good value out of everything she acquired, and +that would remain true if, instead of spending pence, +she was ever able to spend pounds.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 193]</span> +A little before eleven, just as Katty was beginning +to think it was time for her to finish dressing, she +heard the gate of her domain open, and the voice of +little Alice Pavely rise up through the still, frosty air, +mingling with the deeper, gentler tones of Laura.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was an odd thing, considering that the two +women were at any rate in theory intimate friends, +that Laura very, very seldom came to Rosedean. In +fact Katty could not remember a single time when +Laura had come in the morning, an uninvited, unexpected +guest. So suddenly poor Katty felt a little +chill of apprehension; she got up from her chair, and +waited....</p> + +<p class="indent">The front door was opened at once. Then came +Harber's hurrying footfalls on the staircase—and, +simultaneously, the garden door at the back of the +house swung to. Laura had evidently sent her little +girl out of doors, into the garden. What could she +be coming to say?</p> + +<p class="indent">Quickly Katty examined her conscience. No, there +was nothing that Laura could possibly have found +out. As to that half day spent with Godfrey in York, +Laura was surely the last woman to mind—and if she +did mind, she was quite the last woman to say anything +about it!</p> + +<p class="indent">There came a knock at the door: then Harber's +voice, "Mrs. Pavely wants to know, ma'am, if she +can come up and speak to you, just for a minute."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Ask Mrs. Pavely to come up," said Katty, +pleasantly.</p> + +<p class="indent">A minute later, Laura walked forward into the +room. It was the first time she had been in Katty's +bedroom since Rosedean had been first furnished.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 194]</span> +She looked round her with a smile. "Why, Katty," +she exclaimed, "how charming and pretty you've +made it all! You've added quite a number of things +since I was here last."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Only the curtains," said Katty quickly (oh, how +relieved she felt!), "only the curtains, and perhaps +that arm-chair, Laura."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, I suppose that <i>is</i> all, but somehow it looks +more."</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura looked exactly as she always looked, rather +paler perhaps than usual, but then Laura was pale. +She had that peculiar clear, warm whiteness of skin +that is compared by its admirers to a camellia; this +morning, her lovely, deep blue eyes looked tired, as if +she had been sleeping badly.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I've really come to ask if you know where Godfrey +is? We expected him home on Thursday. Then +he sent a telephone message saying that he couldn't +be back till yesterday. No time was mentioned, but +as he had a lot of appointments at the Bank we of +course thought he would be back early. I myself sat +up for him last night till after the last train, but now, +this morning, I've heard nothing from him—and Mr. +Privet has heard nothing."</p> + +<p class="indent">"What an odd thing!" exclaimed Katty. She really +did think it very odd, for Godfrey was the most precise +of men.</p> + +<p class="indent">She waited a moment, then said truthfully, "No, +I haven't the slightest idea where he is. He wrote +me a line late last week about a little investment of +mine. I've got the letter somewhere."</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty was trying to make up her mind as to whether +she should say anything concerning that joint journey +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 195]</span> +to York. At last she decided not to do so. It had +nothing to do with Godfrey's absence now.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Doesn't Mr. Privet know where he is?" she asked. +"That really <i>is</i> very odd, Laura."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Of course Mr. Privet knows where Godfrey was +up to Thursday morning. He stayed where he always +does stay when in London, at the Hungerford +Hotel, in Trafalgar Square. He's always stayed there—they +know him, and make him very comfortable. +But Mr. Privet telephoned through there yesterday—as +a matter of fact I've only just heard this—and +they told him that Godfrey had left the hotel on +Thursday morning. But the extraordinary thing is," +and now Laura really did look somewhat troubled—"that +they were expecting him back there to pack, to +leave for here—at least so the manager understood +him to say. He went out in the morning, and then +he didn't come back, as they thought he would do, +to luncheon. All his things are still at the Hungerford +Hotel."</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty began to feel a little uneasy. "Perhaps he's +had an accident," she said. "After all, accidents <i>do</i> +happen. Have you done anything, Laura?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura shook her head. "What seems to make the +theory of an accident unlikely is that telephone message. +You see, he telephoned quite late on Thursday +saying that he would stay in town over the night. +But he didn't send a similar message to the Bank, as +any one knowing Godfrey would certainly have expected +him to do, and he didn't let them know at +the Hungerford Hotel that he would be away for +the night. It's all rather mysterious."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, it is," said Katty.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 196]</span> +"I wonder—" Laura grew a little pink—"I wonder," +she said again, "if you know on what business +Godfrey went up to town? Mr. Privet would rather +like to know that."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then Katty grew a little pink, too. She hesitated. +"No, I don't know what business took him +away. You forget that I myself have been away +for quite a long time—I only came back on Thursday +afternoon."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Why, of course!" exclaimed Laura. "I forgot +that. You've been away nearly a fortnight, haven't +you?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes. First I went right down to the south, and +then up to Yorkshire."</p> + +<p class="indent">Somehow she felt impelled to say this.</p> + +<p class="indent">But Katty's visits were of no interest to Laura at +any time, least of all just now. "Well, I thought +I'd come and just ask you on the chance," she said.</p> + +<p class="indent">She got up, and for a moment or two the two +young women stood together not far from the bow +window of Katty's bedroom.</p> + +<p class="indent">Suddenly Katty exclaimed, "Why, there's Oliver +Tropenell! What an extraordinary thing! I thought +he was abroad."</p> + +<p class="indent">"He came back yesterday morning," said Laura +quietly.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty gave her visitor a quick, searching look. +But there was never anything to see in Laura's face.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Hadn't I better call out to him? He's evidently +on his way to The Chase. Hadn't I better say you're +here?"</p> + +<p class="indent">And, as Laura seemed to hesitate, she threw open +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 197]</span> +the window. "Mr. Tropenell?" she called out, in her +clear, ringing voice.</p> + +<p class="indent">The man who was striding past Rosedean, walking +very quickly, stopped rather unwillingly. Then he +looked up, and when he saw who it was that was +standing by Mrs. Winslow, he turned in through the +gate, and rang the door-bell.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Will you go down to him, Laura? I can't come +as I am."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'll wait while you put on your dress. We can +tell him to go out into the garden with Alice."</p> + +<p class="indent">She bent over the broad, low bar of the window, +and Oliver, gazing up at her, thought of Rossetti's +lines: Heaven to him was where Laura was.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Will you go through the house into the garden? +Alice is there. We'll be down soon."</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty lingered a little, though she only had to put +on her blouse, her skirt, and a sports coat. "I feel +quite anxious about Godfrey," she said hesitatingly.</p> + +<p class="indent">And Laura, in an absent voice, said, "Yes, so do +I. But of course by this time he may be at the Bank. +He's quite fond of that very early morning train. He +often took it last summer."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, but now he would have had to get up in the +dark to take it."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I don't think Godfrey would mind that."</p> + +<p class="indent">At last the two went downstairs, and out into the +garden where Oliver Tropenell and the child were +talking together.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver turned round, and after shaking hands with +Mrs. Winslow, he asked Laura an abrupt question. +"Did Godfrey come back last evening after all?"</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 198]</span> +Katty looked at him inquisitively. Then he had +been at The Chase yesterday?</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura shook her head. "No, I sat up for him till +midnight. I thought it almost certain that he'd taken +the last train. But we've had no news of him at all. +Perhaps he's at the Bank by now—I'll ring up as +soon as I get home. Come, Alice, my dear."</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty heard Oliver Tropenell say in a low voice: +"May I walk with you?"</p> + +<p class="indent">And then Katty cut in: "You'll let me know, +Laura, won't you, if you have any special news? Of +course I don't want you to let me know if Godfrey's +safe at the Bank—I'm not so anxious as all that!" +She laughed, her rather affected, little ringing laugh. +"But if there's any other news—especially if he's had +an accident of any sort—well, I <i>should</i> like to know."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Of course I'll send you word." And then Laura +roused herself. "Why shouldn't you come up to +lunch, Katty? I wish you would! And then I could +tell you anything I've heard this morning."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Thanks, I'd like to do that. I'll follow you in +about an hour. I've things to do, and letters to write, +now."</p> + +<p class="indent">She saw the three off, and once more, as had so +often been the case in the past, her heart was filled +with envy—envy, and a certain excitement.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver Tropenell's return home just now was a +complication. She felt sure it would upset Godfrey, +but she could not quite tell how much. She wondered +if Gilbert Baynton had come back too. She rather +hoped that he had.</p> + +<p class="indent">She wrote her letters, and then, so timing her departure +as to arrive exactly at one o'clock, for at The +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 199]</span> +Chase luncheon was at one, she went off, meeting, as +she expected to do, Oliver Tropenell on his way home +to Freshley.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Any news?" she called out. And he shook his +head. "No—no news at all." Then he added slowly: +"But I don't see that there's any cause for alarm. +Pavely telephoned the day before yesterday saying +he was being detained in town."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Still, it's odd he didn't write to Laura," said Katty +meditatively. "As a rule he writes to Laura every +day when he is in London."</p> + +<p class="indent">She knew that was one of those half-truths which +are more misleading than a lie. Godfrey was fond +of sending home postcards containing directions as +to this or that connected with the house or garden. +But Katty saw the instinctive frown which came over +Oliver Tropenell's face, and she felt pleased. She +enjoyed giving this odd, sensitive, secretive man tiny +pin-pricks. She had never really liked him, and now +she positively disliked him. Why had he gone away +just when things were looking promising? And, having +gone away for so long, why had he now come +back?</p> + +<p class="indent">"How is Mr. Baynton?" she asked, smiling.</p> + +<p class="indent">"He's gone back to Mexico."</p> + +<p class="indent">And now Katty was really surprised. "Has he +indeed?" she exclaimed. "And without seeing Laura +again? I'm rather sorry for <i>that</i>!" And as Oliver +made no answer, she went on a trifle maliciously: "I +suppose you will be going off soon, too?"</p> + +<p class="indent">He hesitated, a very long time it seemed to her, +before he answered, "Yes, I suppose I shall. But +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 200]</span> +things go on all right over there as long as one of +us is there."</p> + +<p class="indent">Then, with a not over civil abruptness, he left her.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty stayed most of that cold wintry Saturday +afternoon with Laura, and as was her way when +she chose to do so, she made herself very pleasant to +both the mother and child, and that though little +Alice did not like her.</p> + +<p class="indent">A little before four she asked Laura if she might +telephone herself to the Bank, and Laura eagerly +assented.</p> + +<p class="indent">Explaining that she was really speaking for Mrs. +Pavely, Katty had quite a long chat with Mr. Privet. +She and the old head clerk had always been good +friends, though they met seldom. He could remember +her as a beautiful child, and then as the popular, +because the always good humoured and pleasant-spoken, +belle of Pewsbury.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, I feel very anxious indeed, Mrs. Winslow! +I've been wondering whether it wouldn't be a good +thing to communicate with the London police, if +we don't have any news of Mr. Pavely to-morrow. +Could you ascertain for me the exact feelings of Mrs. +Pavely?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I agree with you, Mr. Privet, for after all, accidents +<i>do</i> happen! Hold the line a moment. I'll go +and inquire."</p> + +<p class="indent">She hurried off to Laura's boudoir. "Mr. Privet +suggests that the London police should be communicated +with—if we don't have news of Godfrey by +to-morrow morning."</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura looked up, startled. "Oh, Katty, don't you +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 201]</span> +think that would make him very angry—if he's all +right, I mean?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Perhaps it would," Katty agreed uncomfortably.</p> + +<p class="indent">She went back to the telephone. "Mrs. Pavely +thinks we'd better wait a little longer before saying +anything to the police," she called out.</p> + +<p class="indent">And thus it was through Laura, as Katty reminded +herself in days to come, that two more precious days +were lost.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 202]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<p class="cap">"WELL, my dear—any more news?" But even +as Mrs. Tropenell, looking up from her breakfast-table, +asked the question, she knew what the +answer would be.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was the following Monday morning. The post +had just come in, and at once, knowing that the +postman called first at The Chase, Oliver had hurried +off to the telephone. He had been there a long time—perhaps +as long as ten minutes—and when he came +back into the dining-room his mother was struck +afresh by the look of almost intolerable strain and +anxiety in his face and eyes.</p> + +<p class="indent">They had spent a great part of Sunday with Laura, +and during that long, trying day Mrs. Tropenell had +felt very much more concerned about her son than +she did about Godfrey Pavely.</p> + +<p class="indent">Godfrey, so she told herself, with a touch of unreason +not usual with her, would almost certainly +turn up all right—even if, as she was inclined to believe +possible, he had met with some kind of accident. +But Oliver, her beloved, the only human being +in the world that really mattered to her—what was +wrong with him? Long after she had gone to bed +each evening she had heard him, during the last three +nights, wandering restlessly about the house.</p> + +<p class="indent">After the first almost painful rush of joy which +had come over her when he had suddenly walked into +her presence last Thursday night, she had regretted, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 203]</span> +with unceasing bitter regret, his return home. It was +so horribly apparent to her, his mother, that Laura, +<i>belle dame sans merci</i>, held him in thrall.</p> + +<p class="indent">"If you don't mind, mother, I think I shall go up +to town to-day and see the Scotland Yard people. I +think—don't you?—it would-be a comfort to Laura." +There was a harassed, questioning note in his voice +which surprised Mrs. Tropenell. As a rule Oliver +always knew exactly what he meant to do.</p> + +<p class="indent">She answered slowly, reluctantly (she hated so +much his being mixed up in this odd, mysterious matter +of Godfrey's temporary disappearance!): "Perhaps +it would be. Still, I think Laura ought to communicate +with Godfrey's cousins. Of course I know +he didn't care for them. Still, after all, those people +are his only near relations."</p> + +<p class="indent">"That old Mr. Privet, Pavely's confidential clerk, +is going up to town to-day," observed Oliver inconsequently. +"I thought he and I might travel together, +and that while he goes to the hotel, I can go to Scotland +Yard."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then Mrs. Tropenell roused herself to try and +give what help she could.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Lord St. Amant knows the new Commissioner of +Police very well," she said. "They met in India. +Ask him to give you a note of introduction, Oliver. +He's in town just now, you would certainly find him, +either at his rooms or at his club."</p> + +<p class="indent">There came a faint flush over her face. By her +plate there lay Lord St. Amant's daily letter. On +Mondays London letters always arrived by the second +post, but yesterday her old friend had had a +late-fee stamp put on his letter, so that she might +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 204]</span> +get it the first thing this morning. He had suggested +that Sir Angus Kinross—that was the name of the +new Commissioner—should be approached. He had +even offered—and it was good of him, for he hated +taking trouble and he had always disliked Godfrey +Pavely—to go to Scotland Yard himself.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver was still standing, though his breakfast was +only half eaten, and he was looking at his mother +with that rather impatient, strained look on his face +to which she had by now become accustomed. "That's +a good idea," he said. And she felt glad that any +idea proposed by her should seem to be good. Yesterday +her son, who was always so kindly, so respectful +in his manner to her, had—yes, snubbed her—when +she had proposed something which it had seemed to +her would be of use.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I think I'll go over to The Chase now, mother. +It's impossible to say all that one wants to say over +the telephone."</p> + +<p class="indent">She said nervously, "Won't you finish your breakfast?" +and to her surprise he obeyed her. To her +surprise also, when at last he did get up he seemed +in no great hurry to go.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Shall I come with you, my darling?" she said.</p> + +<p class="indent">He shook his head. "No, mother. I'd rather discuss +the matter with her alone, but I'll make her +come over as early as I can. You know she said she +would bring Alice to lunch to-day." And then, looking +straight down into her troubled face, he asked: +"Mother? What do <i>you</i> think has happened to Godfrey +Pavely?"</p> + +<p class="indent">It was the first time he had asked her the direct +question.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 205]</span> +"I don't know what to think! But I suppose the +most probable thing is—that he's had an accident. +After all, people do meet with bad accidents, especially +in wintry, foggy weather, in the London streets. +If so, he may be lying unconscious in one of the big +hospitals. I can't think why the London police +shouldn't have been told of his disappearance on Friday—that, +as I told Laura yesterday, is the first thing +I should have done myself."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Both Mrs. Winslow and Laura seemed to think he +would dislike that so very much," said Oliver slowly.</p> + +<p class="indent">There was a defensive note in his voice, for he had +made no effort to back up his mother when she had +strongly counselled Laura to communicate with Scotland +Yard.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Has it ever occurred to you," he said suddenly, +"that Pavely may be dead, mother?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"No, Oliver. That I confess has not occurred to +me. In fact, I regard it as extremely unlikely."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Why that?" he asked in a hard voice. "People +are often killed in street accidents." Then, after a +minute's pause: "Do you think Laura would mind +much?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I think it would give her a great shock!" She +added, hesitatingly. "They have been getting on +rather better than usual—at least so it has seemed to +me."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Have they indeed?"</p> + +<p class="indent">His words cut like a whip, and she got up and went +and stood by him. "My son," she said very solemnly. +"Oh, my darling, don't allow yourself to wish—to +hope—for Godfrey Pavely's death!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Looking straight into her face, he exclaimed, "I +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 206]</span> +can't help it, mother! I do hope, I do wish, for +Godfrey Pavely's death—with all the strength, with +all the power that is in me. Why should I be hypocritical—with +you? Am I the first man that has committed +murder," he waited a moment—"in his heart?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"If that be really so—then don't let it ever be +suspected, Oliver! For God's sake, try and look differently +from what you have looked the last few +days! If your wish is to be granted, your hope satisfied, +then don't let any one suspect that the hope or +the wish was ever there!"</p> + +<p class="indent">She spoke with an intensity of feeling and passion +equal to his own.</p> + +<p class="indent">"You're right, mother," he said in a low voice. "I +know you're right! And I promise you that I'll try +and follow your advice. No man ever had a wiser +and a better mother than I!"</p> + +<p class="indent">He turned round quickly and left the room.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell did not see her son again till late +that night, and then not alone, for Laura spent the +evening at Freshley, and after he had taken their +guest home to The Chase, he did not come in again +for hours.</p> + +<p class="indent">Old Mr. Privet, Godfrey Pavely's confidential +clerk, had been rather taken aback when he had learnt +over the telephone, from Mrs. Pavely, that he was +to have Mr. Oliver Tropenell as his travelling companion +to London. But very soon, being a truly religious +man, he came to see how well and wisely +everything had been ordered. To begin with, Mr. +Tropenell called for him at the Bank, thus saving +him a very cold, easterly-wind kind of walk to Pewsbury +station, which was some way from the town. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 207]</span> +And once there, Mr. Tropenell had taken two first-class +return tickets—that again being the action of a +true gentleman, for he, Mr. Privet, would have been +quite content to go by himself third-class. Also, as +it turned out, during the long journey to London +they had some very pleasant and instructive conversation +together.</p> + +<p class="indent">Quite at first, in answer to a query as to what he +thought of this extraordinary business of Mr. Pavely's +disappearance, Mr. Oliver Tropenell had been +perhaps a little short. He had replied that no one +could possibly venture an opinion as to what had happened. +But then had followed between them, in spite +of the fact that the noise of the train was very trying, +a most agreeable chat over old times—over those +days when Mr. Godfrey Pavely's father, a fine type +of the old country-town banker, was still alive.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mr. Privet, as a younger man, had had a good deal +to do with the final sale and purchase of The Chase, +and Mr. Tropenell, as was very natural in one whose +own ancestors had lived there for hundreds of years, +had shown the greatest interest in that old story. Mr. +Tropenell had not been in the least over-curious or +indiscreet, but Mr. Privet had been led on to talk +of his companion's grandfather, a gentleman who, if +rather wild, and certainly extravagant and headstrong, +had been such a grand sportsman—quite a hero +among the young men of Pewsbury! What had +brought about the poor gentleman's undoing had been +his taking over the hounds, when Lord St. Amant's +great-uncle had given them up.</p> + +<p class="indent">So pleasant had been that conversation in the first-class +carriage shared by them, that for the first time +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 208]</span> +since Thursday Mr. Privet had almost forgotten the +business on which they two were going to London! +But he had soon remembered it again—for at the +station Mr. Oliver Tropenell had suggested that, instead +of going to the Hungerford Hotel, he, Mr. +Privet, should accompany him to Lord St. Amant's +club, in order to get a letter of introduction from that +nobleman to the Commissioner of Police.</p> + +<p class="indent">Not long ago Mr. Privet had read an interesting +book called <i>In London Club Land</i>. But he had little +thought, when he was reading that book, that he +would ever see the famous old political club to which +a whole chapter had been devoted, and to which so +many of his own special political heroes had belonged +in their time!</p> + +<p class="indent">And then, after Lord St. Amant, who also had +treated Mr. Privet with rather exceptional civility, +not to say courtesy, had written the letter, Mr. +Tropenell suggested that they should go straight on +to Scotland Yard—pointing out, what was true +enough, that Mr. Privet knew far more of Mr. Godfrey +Pavely's business and habits than any one else.</p> + +<p class="indent">And so, together, they had driven off in a taxi—also +a new, agreeable experience to Mr. Privet—to +the famous Bastille-like building on the Thames +Embankment.</p> + +<p class="indent">But when there, the interview with the pleasant-spoken, +genial gentleman who wielded such immense +powers had been disappointing.</p> + +<p class="indent">Sir Angus Kinross had listened very carefully to +all that he, Mr. Privet, had had to say, and he had +asked a number of acute, clever questions of both his +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 209]</span> +visitors. But very soon he had observed that he +feared much valuable time had been lost.</p> + +<p class="indent">Later on, Mr. Privet, when he thought the interview +over, could almost hear the voice of Sir Angus +repeating slowly, inexorably: "Thursday? And it's +now Monday afternoon! What a misfortune it is +that Mrs.—ah, yes—Mrs. Pavely, did not communicate +with us at once. If she had telephoned, here, +when she first began to realise that there was something +strange in her husband's prolonged absence, she +would almost certainly have had some sort of news +by now."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then he, Mr. Privet, had answered quickly, +"But we didn't begin to feel anxious till the Friday, +sir."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I quite understand that! But if you, Mr.—ah yes—Mr. +Privet—had written then, we could have begun +our inquiries on the Saturday morning. Did it +not occur to you to let the London police know of +Mr. Pavely's non-appearance?"</p> + +<p class="indent">For a moment Mr. Privet had felt vaguely uncomfortable, +for his questioner had given him such a +very odd, keen look, as he asked that simple question. +But he had answered, honestly enough, for after all +'Tho' truth may be blamed, it can never be shamed': +"Mr. Pavely, sir, did not like to be interfered with +when he was away on business, and we thought it +would annoy him if we were to make too great a fuss. +Once, many years ago now—Mr. Pavely went over to +Paris for some days, and omitted to leave his address +at the Bank. I couldn't help remembering last week +that Mr. Pavely, on that former occasion, had seemed +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 210]</span> +somewhat put out with me for expressing what I +thought at the time a very natural anxiety, sir."</p> + +<p class="indent">They hadn't been very long at Scotland Yard, a +little under half an hour in all, and during the last +ten minutes a shorthand writer had made some notes +of the conversation, which, indeed, had been almost +entirely carried on between him, Mr. Privet, and the +Commissioner of Police. Mr. Oliver Tropenell, as +was bound to be the case, had had very little to say, +seeing that he was there merely as Mrs. Pavely's representative, +she having her only brother in Mexico.</p> + +<p class="indent">After leaving Scotland Yard they had gone on to +the Hungerford Hotel, and there a lot of information +had been afforded them. But it hadn't amounted to +very much—when all was said and done! They already +knew that all trace of Mr. Pavely had disappeared +after eleven o'clock on the Thursday morning. +His room was even now exactly as he had left +it; neat, for he was always a most particular gentleman, +but with nothing put away. In fact the only +news of him after that morning had been that telephone +message to The Chase—a message given by +some one, the butler by now wasn't even sure if it +was a man or a woman, who was evidently in a +great hurry.</p> + +<p class="indent">One thing the manager of the hotel had done +which had rather surprised and shocked both Mr. +Privet and his companion. He had consulted a detective +about the affair, and, at Mr. Tropenell's request, +the detective was sent for.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mr. Privet had thought this secret inquiry agent +(as he called himself) a queer kind of chap—in fact +he had seemed much more anxious to ascertain if +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 211]</span> +a reward was going to be offered, than to offer any +useful advice as to this perplexing matter of Mr. +Pavely's disappearance.</p> + +<p class="indent">He had, however, seemed to think that the Thursday +evening telephone call was very important, and +he had asked permission to come down to The Chase +to cross-examine the servant who had taken the message. +But that—so Mr. Tropenell had very properly +said—was impossible, now that the matter had been +placed in the hands of Scotland Yard. In answer +to Mr. Privet's natural curiosity as to why the detective +thought that telephone call so important, the +man had answered, rather crossly: "You see, there's +no record kept of telephone calls! There's a record +kept of telegrams, so one can always recover the +original of a telegram."</p> + +<p class="indent">Mr. Tropenell had been quite surprised on hearing +this.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I should have thought telephone calls quite as +important as telegrams?" he had exclaimed.</p> + +<p class="indent">"So they are, with regard to <i>my</i> kind of work," +the man had replied. "But even with regard to +trunk-calls you've only got to go into a Post Office +and plank down your money and wait till you're +through! Still, the young woman at your country +Exchange would probably have remembered the call +if she had been asked sooner. But it's all such a +long time ago."</p> + +<p class="indent">A long time ago? What nonsense! He, Mr. +Privet, felt quite put out with this detective, and he +began to see why Mr. Tropenell thought the man +ought not to have been brought into the business at +all. It was certainly rather cool of the hotel manager +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 212]</span> +to have gone and brought such a person into the +affair, without asking Mr. Pavely's friends if he +was at liberty to do so.</p> + +<p class="indent">They had managed to catch the six o'clock express +back to Pewsbury, and then Mr. Tropenell very kindly +insisted on driving Mr. Privet home. Mr. and Mrs. +Privet owned a pretty, old-fashioned house on the +other side of the town. When Mr. Privet had married—a +matter of forty years ago now—he had made +up his mind that it would do him good to be obliged +to take a good walk to and from the Bank every day.</p> + +<p class="indent">On their arrival at the house—which, funnily +enough, was called Southbank—Mr. Tropenell, at the +request of Mr. Privet, had come in for a few minutes +to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Privet. He had +said how much he liked their house, how much prettier +it was, how much more dignified—that had been +his curious word—than the red brick villas which +had sprung up all over the outskirts of their beautiful +old town. And Mr. Privet had been secretly +rather pleased, for lately "Mother"—as he called Mrs. +Privet—had become somewhat restless, being impressed +by certain improvements those gimcrack villas +possessed, which their house lacked, and that though +he had put in a nice bathroom a matter of twenty +years ago.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yes, of the several people who, that day, had been +engaged in trying to probe the mystery of Godfrey +Pavely's disappearance, the only one who found a +great deal of natural pleasure and simple enjoyment +out of it all was Mr. Privet; and he, alone of them all, +really cared for the missing man, and, perhaps, alone +of them all, had a genuine longing to see him again.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 213]</span> +Mr. Privet thought it was particularly kind of Mr. +Oliver Tropenell to be taking all this trouble for poor +Mrs. Pavely; though of course he, Mr. Privet, was +well aware that Mrs. Pavely's brother was partner +to Mr. Tropenell in Mexico. He knew the sad truth—the +sad truth, that is, as to the disgraceful circumstances +under which Gilbert Baynton had had to leave +England. No one else in the Bank had known—at +least he and Mr. Pavely hoped not. It had been very, +very fortunate that the forged signature had been +on one of their own cheques. But for that fact, +nothing could have saved that good-for-nothing +scoundrel—so Mr. Privet always called Gillie Baynton +in his own mind—from a prosecution.</p> + +<p class="indent">Do any of us ever think, reader, of the way in +which our most secret business is known, nay, must +be known, to a certain number of people of whose +existence we ourselves are scarcely aware?</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura, when she came and talked, as she sometimes +did talk, kindly, if a little indifferently, to her +husband's confidential clerk, would have been disagreeably +surprised had she been able to see into Mr. +Privet's heart and mind. As for Godfrey Pavely, +nothing would have made him credit, high as was his +opinion of Mr. Privet's business acumen, the fact +that his clerk had a very shrewd suspicion where those +three hundred pounds in notes, lately drawn out by +his employer for his own personal use, had made +their way....</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 214]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<p class="cap">IT was the morning of the 15th of January, and +already Godfrey Pavely's disappearance had excited +more than the proverbial nine days' wonder.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura had gone to her boudoir after breakfast, +and she was waiting there, sitting at her writing-table, +feeling wretchedly anxious and excited, for all +last night she had had a curious, insistent presentiment +that at last something was going to happen. She +had sent Alice off to her lessons, for there was no +object in allowing the child to idle as she had idled +during that first bewildering week.</p> + +<p class="indent">At last she got up, pushed her chair aside, and went +and lay down on a sofa. She felt very, very tired; +worn out partly by suspense and anxiety, partly by +the many interviews with strangers she had been compelled +to have during the last ten days.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver Tropenell was again in London, and since +he had left Freshley, for the second time, it was as +though a strong, protecting arm on which she leant +had suddenly been withdrawn from her. And yet +she knew that he was engaged upon her business, upon +this extraordinary, unutterably strange business of +her husband's disappearance.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver wrote to her daily—brief, coldly-worded +notes describing what had been, and was being, done +both by the police and by the big firm of private detectives +who were now also engaged in a search for the +missing man. But there was very little to report—so +far every one was completely baffled.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 215]</span> +Against the wish and advice of both Oliver +Tropenell and the Scotland Yard authorities, Laura +had offered a reward of a thousand pounds for any information +which would lead to the discovery of Godfrey +Pavely, alive or dead. It had been Katty's suggestion, +and Laura, somehow, had not liked to disregard +it.</p> + +<p class="indent">But now, to-day, Laura, as she moved restlessly +this way and that, told herself that she was sorry she +had assented to a suggestion that Katty Winslow +should come and stay with her during those long days +of waiting which were at once so dreary and so full +of excitement and suspense. Katty had got hopelessly +on Laura's nerves. Katty could not keep silent, +Katty could not keep still.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Winslow, in a sense, had taken possession of +The Chase. It was she who saw to everything, who +examined every letter, who went and answered the +telephone when the police either at Pewsbury or from +London rang up. She was apparently in a state of +great excitement and of great anxiety, and some of +the critics in the servants' wing said to each other +with a knowing smile that Mrs. Winslow might have +been Mrs. Pavely, so much did that lady take Mr. +Pavely's disappearance to heart!</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty had not seemed as worried as Laura had +seemed the first two or three days, but now she appeared +even more upset. Yesterday she had admitted +to sleepless nights, and the hostess had felt greatly +relieved when her guest had at last confessed that if +dear Laura would not mind she would like to stay in +bed every morning up to eleven o'clock; nothing ever +happened before then.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 216]</span> +The only person with whom Laura, during those +long, dreary days, felt comparatively at ease was Mrs. +Tropenell, for Mrs. Tropenell seemed to understand +exactly what she, poor Laura, was feeling during +those miserable days of waiting for news that did not +come. But Laura did not see very much of the older +woman—not nearly as much as she would have liked +to do just now, for Mrs. Tropenell disliked Katty, +and avoided meeting her.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">The stable clock struck ten. And Laura suddenly +heard the sound of firm steps hurrying down the passage. +She got off the sofa, expecting to see the now +disagreeably familiar blue uniform and flat blue cap +of the Pewsbury Police Inspector. He came up to +see her almost every day, but he had never come quite +so early as this morning.</p> + +<p class="indent">She gathered herself together to answer with calm +civility his tiresome, futile questions. There was +nothing—<i>nothing</i>—she could say that she had not +said already as to Godfrey's usual habits, and as to +his probable business interests outside Pewsbury. +The Inspector had been surprised, though he had +tried to hide the fact, to find that Mrs. Pavely knew +so very little of her husband's business interests and +concerns. The last two times he had been there Katty +had been present, and she had been very useful—useful +and tactful. Laura, feeling rather ashamed of +her late uncharitable thoughts concerning Katty, +wished that Katty could be present at the coming +interview, but unfortunately Katty was still in bed.</p> + +<p class="indent">The door opened, and she stood up expectantly.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 217]</span> +It was only Preston, the butler. There was a large +envelope on the salver he held in his hand.</p> + +<p class="indent">"It's from the Bank, ma'am. Marked 'Urgent,'" +he said.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Is there an answer?" she asked.</p> + +<p class="indent">And he hesitated. "We have kept the messenger, +ma'am."</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura knew Mr. Privet's small, neat handwriting—if +he marked an envelope "Urgent," then it was +urgent.</p> + +<p class="indent">There were two enclosures—a note and a letter.</p> + +<p class="indent">She first read the note:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Mrs. Pavely</span>,</p> + +<p class="indent">"I found the enclosed on my arrival at the Bank +this morning. It may be important, so I send it on +at once.</p> + +<p class="indent">"And let me take this opportunity, dear Madam, +of assuring you of my very sincere sympathy. I, +too, have known during the last few days what it +was to feel that hope deferred maketh the heart sick.</p> + +<p class="margin-left8">"Yours respectfully,</p> +<p class="margin-left16">"<span class="smcap">David Privet</span>."</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">She turned, with only languid interest, to the envelope. +The address was typewritten:—</p> + +<p class="smcnomargins"> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Mrs. G. Pavely,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">c/o Messrs. Pavely & Co.,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Bankers,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Pewsbury.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p class="indent">It was marked "Private," "Immediate," but that, +as Laura well knew, meant very little. A certain +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 218]</span> +number of times, perhaps half a dozen times in all, +during her married life, some unfortunate, humble +client of her husband's had written to her a personal +appeal. Each of these letters had been of a +painful and disagreeable nature, often couched in +pitiful, eloquent terms, and Godfrey had not allowed +her to answer any one of them save in the most formal, +cold way.</p> + +<p class="indent">This typewritten envelope looked as if it might +have come from some distressed tradesman. So she +opened the envelope reluctantly, not taking heed, as +a different type of woman would have done, to the +postmark on it. Indeed, without thinking of what +she was doing, she threw the envelope mechanically +into the burning fire, and then opened out the large +sheet of thin paper.</p> + +<p class="indent">But, as she looked down at the lines of typewriting, +she stiffened into instant, palpitating, horrified +attention, for this is what she saw there:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"<span class="smcap">Madame</span>,—It is with the deepest regret that I +acquaint you with the fact that your esteemed husband, +Mr. Godfrey Pavely, of Messrs. Pavely & Co., +Bankers, of Pewsbury, Wiltshire, is dead.</p> + +<p class="indent">"If you will instruct the police to go to Duke +House, Piccadilly, and proceed to Room 18 on the top +floor—the only office which is at present let—they +will find there Mr. Pavely's body.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I am connected with important business interests +in Portugal, and for some time I have been in business +relations with Mr. Pavely. This fact you will +easily confirm by searching among his papers. I am +also, of course, well known at Duke House, for I +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 219]</span> +have had an office there for a considerable number +of weeks.</p> + +<p class="indent">"The tragedy—for a tragedy it is from my point +of view as well as from that of Mr. Pavely's unfortunate +family—fell out in this wise.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Mr. Pavely came to see me (by appointment) on +the Thursday before last. There was a pistol lying +on my desk. I foolishly took it up and began playing +with it. I was standing just behind Mr. Pavely +when suddenly the trigger went off, and to my intense +horror the unfortunate man received the charge. +I thought—I hoped—that he was only wounded, but +all too soon I saw that he was undoubtedly dead—dead +by my hand.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I at first intended, and perhaps I should have been +wise in carrying out my first intention, to call in the +police—but very urgent business was requiring my +presence in Lisbon. Also I remembered that I had +no one who could, in England, vouch for my respectability, +though you will be further able to judge of +the truth of my story by going to the Mayfair Hotel, +where I have sometimes stayed, and by making inquiries +of the agent from whom I took the office in +Duke House.</p> + +<p class="indent">"My relations with Mr. Pavely were slight, but +entirely friendly, even cordial, and what has happened +is a very terrible misfortune for me.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I came to England in order to raise a loan for +a big and important business enterprise. Some +French banking friends introduced me to Mr. Pavely, +and I soon entered on good relations with him. Our +business was on the point of completion, and in a +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 220]</span> +sense mutually agreeable to us, when what I may +style our fatal interview took place.</p> + +<p class="margin-left8">"Yours with respectful sympathy,</p> + +<p class="margin-left16">"<span class="smcap">Fernando Apra.</span>"</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">Laura sat down on the sofa. For the first time in +her life she felt faint and giddy, and during the few +moments that followed the reading of the extraordinary +letter she still held in her hand, it was, oddly +enough, her peculiar physical state which most absorbed +her astonished and anguished mind.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then her brain gradually cleared. Godfrey—dead? +The thought was horrible—horrible! It made +her feel like a murderess. She remembered, with a +sensation of terrible self-rebuke and shame, the feeling +of almost hatred she had so often allowed herself +to feel for her husband.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then, before she had had time to gather her +mind together sufficiently to face the immediate problem +as to how she was to deal with this sinister letter, +the door again opened, and Katty Winslow came into +the room.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty looked ill as well as worried. There were +dark circles round her eyes.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Laura! Whatever is the matter? Have you +heard anything? Have you news of Godfrey?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I have just had this. Oh, Katty, prepare for bad +news!"</p> + +<p class="indent">But Katty hardly heard the words. She snatched +the tough, thin sheet of paper out of Laura's hand, +and going across to the window she began reading, +her back turned to Laura and the room.</p> + +<p class="indent">For what seemed a long time she said nothing. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 221]</span> +Then, at last, she moved slowly round. "Well," she +said stonily, "what are you going to do about it? If +I were you, Laura, I shouldn't let that stupid Pewsbury +inspector see this letter. I should go straight +up to London with it." She glanced at the clock. +"We've time to take the 11.20 train—if you hurry!"</p> + +<p class="indent">She felt as if she would like to shake Laura—Laura, +standing helplessly there, looking at her, mute +anguish—yes, real anguish, in her deep, luminous +blue eyes.</p> + +<p class="indent">"If I were you," repeated Katty in a hoarse, urgent +tone, "I should go straight with this letter to Scotland +Yard. It's much too serious to fiddle about with +here! We want to know at once whether what this +man says is true or false—and that's the only way +you can find out."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Then you wouldn't tell anybody here?" asked +Laura uncertainly.</p> + +<p class="indent">"No. If I were you I shouldn't tell any one but +the London police. It may be a stupid, cruel hoax."</p> + +<p class="indent">Deep in her heart Katty had at once believed the +awful, incredible story contained in the letter she +still held in her hand, for she, of course, was familiar +with the name of Fernando Apra, and knew that the +man's account of himself was substantially true.</p> + +<p class="indent">But even so, she hoped against hope that it was, as +she had just said, a stupid, cruel hoax—the work +perchance of some spiteful clerk of this Portuguese +company promoter, with whose schemes both she and +Godfrey had been so taken—so, so fascinated.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Of course I'll go to town with you," she said +rapidly. "Let's go up <i>now</i>, and dress at once. I'll +order the car."</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 222]</span> +There was a kind of driving power in Katty. Her +face was now very pale, as if all the pretty colour +was drained out of it. But she was quite calm, quite +collected. She seemed to feel none of the bewildered +oppression which Laura felt, but that, so the other +reminded herself, was natural. Katty, after all, was +not Godfrey's wife, or—or was it widow?</p> + +<p class="indent">The two went upstairs, and Katty came in and +helped Laura to dress. "It will only make a fuss +and delay if you ring for your maid." She even +found, and insisted on Laura putting on, a big warm +fur coat which she had not yet had out this winter.</p> + +<p class="indent">"You'd better just tell the servants here that you +think there may be a clue. It's no good making too +great a mystery. They can send on some message +of the sort to the Bank; also, if you like, to Mrs. +Tropenell."</p> + +<p class="indent">A few moments later Laura found herself in the +car, and the two were being driven quickly to Pewsbury +station.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Shall I wire to Oliver Tropenell that we are coming?" +asked Katty suddenly.</p> + +<p class="indent">And Laura answered, dully, "No. He's in York +to-day. They've found out that Godfrey went to +York during that week we know he was in London. +I only heard of that this morning, or I would have +told you."</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura will never forget that journey to London, +that long, strange, unreal journey, so filled with a +sort of terror, as well as pain. Somehow she could +not bring herself to believe that Godfrey was dead.</p> + +<p class="indent">When they were about half-way there, Katty suddenly +exclaimed, "Let me look at that letter again!" +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 223]</span> +And then, when Laura had taken it out of her bag, +she asked, "Where's the envelope? The envelope's +very important, you know!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura looked at her helplessly. "I don't know. I +can't remember. I've a sort of an idea that I threw +the envelope into the fire."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Oh, Laura! What a very, very foolish thing to +do! Don't you see there must have been a postmark +on the envelope? Can't you remember anything +about it? What was the handwriting like?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Again she felt she would like to shake Laura.</p> + +<p class="indent">"The address was typewritten—I do remember +that. I thought—I don't know what I thought—I +can't remember now what I did think. It looked like +a circular, or a bill. But it was marked 'Urgent and +Confidential'—or something to that effect."</p> + +<p class="indent">On their arrival in London a piece of good fortune +befell Laura Pavely. Lord St. Amant had been +in the same train, and when he saw her on the platform +he at once put himself at her disposal. "Scotland +Yard? I'll take you there myself. But Sir +Angus Kinross would be out just now. It's no good +going there till half-past two—at the earliest. I +hope you'll both honour me by coming to luncheon +in my rooms."</p> + +<p class="indent">Reached by an arch set between two houses in St. +James's Street, and unknown to the majority of the +people who daily come and go through that historic +thoroughfare, is a tiny square—perhaps the smallest +open space in London—formed by eight to ten +eighteenth-century houses. But for the lowness of +the houses, this curious little spot might be a bit of +old Paris, a backwater of the Temple quarter, beyond +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 224]</span> +the Louvre and the Hôtel de Ville, which only +those tourists who have a passion either for Madame +de Sévigné or for the young Victor Hugo ever penetrate.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was there that Lord St. Amant, some forty years +back, when he was still quite a young man, had found +a set of four panelled rooms exactly to his liking. +And through the many vicissitudes which had befallen +the funny little square, he had always contrived to +preserve these rooms, though at last, in order to do +so, he had had to become the leaseholder of the house +of which they formed a part. But he kept the fact +of this ownership to himself and to his lawyers, and +it was through the latter that the other rooms—the +ground floor and the top floor—were let to various +quiet, humble folk. His lawyers also, had found for +him the intelligent couple who acted as his caretakers, +and who managed to make him extremely comfortable +during the comparatively short periods he spent +in London each year.</p> + +<p class="indent">Although his club was within a minute's walk, Lord +St. Amant, very soon after his first occupancy of +these rooms, had so arranged matters that, when he +chose to order it, a cold luncheon or dinner could be +sent in at a quarter of an hour's notice. And to-day +the arrangement, of which he very rarely availed himself, +stood him in good stead.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">There are a certain number of people who go +through life instinctively taking every chance of advancement +or of useful friendship offered to them. +Such a person was Katty Winslow.</p> + +<p class="indent">Even in the midst of her real sorrow and distress, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 225]</span> +she did not lose sight of the fact that Lord St. Amant, +with whom her acquaintance up to the present had +been so slight as to be negligible, might prove a very +useful friend in what now looked like her immediately +dreary future. She was well aware that he was +probably, nay, almost certainly, prejudiced against +her, for she and Mrs. Tropenell had never been on +cordial terms; but she set herself, even now, with this +terrible thing which she feared, nay, felt almost sure, +was true, filling up the whole background of her mind, +to destroy that prejudice. To a certain extent she +succeeded, during the few minutes, the precious ten +minutes, she secured practically alone with her host, +in compassing her wish.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura sat down, in the attractive, if rather dark, +sitting-room into which Lord St. Amant had shown +her, and, blind to everything about her, she was now +staring into the fire, oppressed, stunned, by the terrible +thing which perchance lay before her.</p> + +<p class="indent">Lining the panelled walls, which were painted a +deep yellow tint, hung a series of curious old colour-prints +of London, and, on the writing-table—itself, as +Katty's quick eyes had at once realised, a singularly +fine piece of eighteenth-century English lacquer—were +two portraits. The one was a miniature of a +lady in the stiff yet becoming costume of early Victorian +days—probably Lord St. Amant's mother; and +the other was a spirited sketch of a girl in an old-fashioned +riding habit—certainly Mrs. Tropenell +forty years ago.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty had remained standing, and soon she wandered +over to the open door of the room where, with +noiseless celerity, the table was being laid for luncheon. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 226]</span> +It was from there that she almost imperceptibly +beckoned to her host. With some prejudice and a +good deal of curiosity, he followed her, and together +they went over to the deep embrasured window overlooking +the tiny square.</p> + +<p class="indent">There, looking up earnestly into Lord St. Amant's +shrewd, kindly face, she said in a low voice: "I +want to ask you, Lord St. Amant, to do me a kindness—" +she waited a moment, "a true kindness! I +want you to arrange that I go to this place, to Duke +House, with whoever goes there to find out if the +news contained in that horrible letter is true!"</p> + +<p class="indent">And as he looked extremely surprised, she hurried +on, with a little catch in her voice, "Godfrey Pavely +was my dear—my very dear, friend. When we were +quite young people, when I was living with my father +in Pewsbury——"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I remember your father," said Lord St. Amant, +in a softened, kindly tone, and his mind suddenly +evoked the personality of the broken-down, not very +reputable gentleman to whom the surrounding gentry +had taken pains to be kind.</p> + +<p class="indent">"In those days," went on Katty rather breathlessly, +"Godfrey and I fell in love and became engaged. +But his people were furious, and as a result—well, +he was made to go to Paris for a year, and the whole +thing came to an end. Later, after I had divorced +my husband, when I was living at Rosedean, it—it——"</p> + +<p class="indent">She stopped, and tears—the first tears she had shed +this terrible morning—came into her eyes.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I quite understand—you mean that it all began +again?"</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 227]</span> +Lord St. Amant, hardened man of the world though +he was, felt moved, really moved by those hurried, +whispered confidences, and by the bright tears which +were now welling up in his guest's brown eyes.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty nodded. "He was unhappy with Laura—Laura +had never cared for him, and lately she, +Laura——" Again she broke off what she was saying, +and reddened deeply.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes?" said Lord St. Amant interrogatively. He +felt suddenly on his guard. Was Mrs. Winslow going +to bring in Oliver Tropenell? But her next words +at once relieved and excessively surprised him.</p> + +<p class="indent">"You know all about the Beath affair?"</p> + +<p class="indent">And it was his turn to nod gravely.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Well, there was something of the same kind +thought of—between Godfrey and myself. If—if +Laura could have been brought to consent, then I +think I may say, Lord St. Amant, that Godfrey hoped, +that I hoped——"</p> + +<p class="indent">Once more she broke off short, only to begin again +a moment later: "But I want you to understand—please, +<i>please</i> believe me—that neither he nor I was +treacherous to Laura. You can't be treacherous to a +person who doesn't care, can you? I've only told +you all this to show you that I have a right to want +to know whether Godfrey is alive or—or dead."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then Lord St. Amant asked a question that +rather startled Katty—and put her, in her turn, on +her guard. He glanced down at the letter, that extraordinary +typewritten letter, which Laura had +handed to him.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Have you any reason to suppose that Godfrey +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 228]</span> +Pavely was really associated in business with this +mysterious man?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="indent">Looking down into her upturned face he saw a +queer little quiver wave across her mouth, that most +revealing feature of the face. But she eluded the +question. "I did not know much of Godfrey's business +interests. He was always very secret about such +things."</p> + +<p class="indent">"She certainly knows there is such a man as Fernando +Apra!" he said to himself, but aloud he observed +kindly: "I presume Mr. Pavely wrote to you +during the early days of his stay in London?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty hesitated. "Yes," she said at last, "I did +have a letter from him. But it was only about some +business he was doing for me. I was not at Rosedean, +Lord St. Amant. I was away on a visit—on +two visits."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then Katty flushed—flushed very deeply.</p> + +<p class="indent">He quickly withdrew his gaze from her now downcast +face, and—came to a quite wrong conclusion. +"I see," he said lightly, "you were away yourself, and +probably moving about?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes—yes, I was," she eagerly agreed.</p> + +<p class="indent">She was feeling a little more comfortable now. +Katty knew the great value of truth, though she sometimes, +nay generally, behaved as if truth were of no +value at all.</p> + +<p class="indent">In a sense Lord St. Amant had known Katty from +her childhood—known her, that is, in the way in +which the great magnate of a country neighbourhood, +if a friendly, human kind of individual, knows every +man, woman and child within a certain radius of his +home. He was of course well aware of Mrs. Tropenell's +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 229]</span> +prejudice against Katty, and, without exactly +sharing it, he did not look at her with the kindly, +indulgent eyes with which most members of his sex +regarded the pretty, unfortunate, innocent <i>divorcée</i>, +to whom Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Pavely had been so +truly kind.</p> + +<p class="indent">But now, as the upshot of Katty's murmured confidences, +her present host certainly acquired a new +interest in, and a new sympathy for, Mrs. Winslow. +Of course she had not deceived him as completely +as she believed herself to have done, for he felt certain +that she knew more of Godfrey Pavely's movements, +during the early days of his stay in London +a fortnight ago, than she admitted. He was also quite +convinced that they had met secretly during their +joint absence from home.</p> + +<p class="indent">But Lord St. Amant would have felt a hypocrite +indeed had he on that account thought any the worse +of Katty Winslow. He told himself that after all +the poor little woman did not owe him <i>all</i> the truth! +If Godfrey Pavely had indeed come to his death in +this extraordinary, accidental way, then Katty, whatever +Mrs. Tropenell might feel, was much to be pitied; +nice women, even so broad-minded a woman as was +his own, close friend, are apt to be hard on a woman +who is not perhaps quite—nice!</p> + +<p class="indent">It was therefore with a good deal of curiosity that +he watched his two guests while they ate the luncheon +prepared for them.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura practically took nothing at all. She tried +to swallow a little of the delicious, perfectly cooked +cold chicken and mousse-au-jambon, but in the end +she only managed to drink the whole of the large +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 230]</span> +glass of water her host poured out for her. Katty, +on the other hand, made a good meal, and took her +full share of a half-bottle of champagne. As a result +she looked, when luncheon was over, more like her +usual, pretty, alert self than she had looked yet. +Laura grew paler and paler, and at last Lord St. +Amant, with kindly authority, insisted on her taking +a cup of coffee, and a tiny liqueur glassful of brandy +poured into it French fashion.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'm afraid," he said feelingly, "that you have a +very painful ordeal in front of you, my dear. You +won't make it any better by going without food."</p> + +<p class="indent">But she gazed at him as if she had not understood +the purport of his words.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 231]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<p class="cap">SIR ANGUS KINROSS, Chief Commissioner of +Police, stood gazing down, with a look of frowning +perplexity, at the sheet of typewritten paper he +held in his hand.</p> + +<p class="indent">For what seemed a very long time to the other +three people now present in the big light room overlooking +the Embankment, he remained silent. But at +last he exclaimed, "I think it very probable that this +is a hoax—a stupid, cruel hoax!" And, as no one +spoke, he added slowly, "Whether it be so or not +can soon be ascertained."</p> + +<p class="indent">He saw a look of almost convulsive relief flash over +Laura Pavely's face. It was Laura who attracted Sir +Angus in the little group of people which now stood +before him. He knew that it was this beautiful, +tragic-looking young woman who had insisted, against +his strongly expressed wish and judgment, on offering +the reward which had already brought a swarm +of semi-lunatics and adventurers into the case. As +for the other woman there, he only looked upon her +as a friend of Mrs. Pavely.</p> + +<p class="indent">Ladies in the painful position of Mrs. Pavely generally +bring a sister, or a close female friend, with +them to Scotland Yard.</p> + +<p class="indent">Sir Angus was keenly interested in this business +of the country banker's disappearance, more interested +than he had been in any other matter of the +kind for a long time. He had all the threads of the +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 232]</span> +affair very clearly set out in his shrewd, powerful +mind, and only that morning he had learnt something +which he believed none of the three people now standing +before him—Mrs. Pavely, Mrs. Winslow, and +Lord St. Amant—knew, or were likely ever to know, +except, of course, if certain eventualities made the +fact important.</p> + +<p class="indent">Sir Angus had just learnt that Godfrey Pavely had +spent some hours of a day he had passed at York in +the company of a woman, and both he and the very +able man he had put in charge of the case, had made +up their minds that here, at last, was the real clue +to the banker's disappearance. Godfrey Pavely, so +they argued at "The Yard," was certainly alive, and +either on the Continent, or hidden snugly in some +English or Scottish country town—not alone.</p> + +<p class="indent">As so often happens, the fact that Mr. Pavely had +been in York with a lady had come to light in a very +simple way. When the fact of the well-known country +banker's disappearance had been announced in +the Press, the manager of the Yorkshire branch of +a London bank had written to Scotland Yard, and +stated that on a certain afternoon about a fortnight +ago—he could not remember the exact day, unfortunately—he +had seen Mr. Godfrey Pavely, of Pewsbury, +in the company of a lady whom he, the bank +manager, had naturally supposed to be Mrs. Pavely. +He had looked at the banker with a good deal of +interest, owing to the fact that he and Mr. Pavely +had for a while worked in the same bank in Paris +about fifteen years ago.</p> + +<p class="indent">He had not met the couple face to face, he had +seen them pass by from the window of his private +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 233]</span> +room at the bank. He could swear to Mr. Pavely, +but he had not paid any special attention to the lady—for +one thing, she had had her veil down, and he, +feeling sure that she was Mrs. Pavely, had not +troubled to observe her very particularly.</p> + +<p class="indent">Sir Angus had sent some one down to York to +see this gentleman, but nothing of further value had +been elicited, excepting, yes, that the lady had struck +him as being young and attractive.</p> + +<p class="indent">So it was that the extraordinary typewritten letter +received by Mrs. Pavely that morning very much +upset the calculations and the theories of Sir Angus +and of his staff.</p> + +<p class="indent">With frowning brow he sat down at his table and +touched the electric bell which lay concealed close +to his hand.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Ask Mr. Dowden to come to me," and a minute +later Mr. Dowden came in.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I want to know anything you can tell me about +Duke House, if indeed there is such a place as Duke +House in Piccadilly. I can't remember the name."</p> + +<p class="indent">But at once the other answered: "It's that big new +building they've erected on the site of St. Andrews +House. It fell in to the Crown on the death of the +Duke of St. Andrews, and an American syndicate +bought the site. Duke House, as they call it, was +only opened last October. The lower storeys are +big bachelor flats, and the top half of the building +contains offices. Mr. Biddle, the American millionaire, +has taken the first floor, but he hasn't settled in +yet, and I don't think any of the offices have been +let at all. They are asking very big rents, and they +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 234]</span> +are justified, as it's one of the finest sites in the +West End."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I want you to get through to the porter of Duke +House. Find out for me whether they have got an +office let to a man—a Portuguese merchant I take +him to be, of the name of Fernando Apra." He spelt +out the name. "If you have any difficulty in getting +the information, just go up there yourself in a taxi, +and find out. But I'd like you to go back into your +own rooms and try by telephone first."</p> + +<p class="indent">There followed a long, painful ten minutes, during +which Sir Angus, though as a rule he was a man of +few words, tried to while away the time by explaining +to the three people who were there why he thought +it unlikely that the letter was genuine.</p> + +<p class="indent">"You'd be amazed," he said, "to know the number +of letters we receive purporting to contain important +information which turn out to be false in every particular. +There must be a whole breed of individuals +who spend their time in writing annoying, futile letters, +which, even if signed, are very seldom signed +by the writer's real name. Some of those people are +actuated by vulgar, stupid spite; others are hypnotised +by the thought of a reward. And then, again, such +letters are often written by people who have a grudge +against the police, or, even more often, by some one +who has a grudge against some ordinary person who +has, maybe, done them a bad turn, or to whom they +have done a bad turn! In the last few days we've +had innumerable letters, from all over the kingdom, +concerning Mr. Pavely's disappearance. It is just +possible that this man"—he looked down again at +the sheet of typewritten paper—"has an office in Duke +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 235]</span> +House, but I think it very unlikely that Mr. Godfrey +Pavely was even acquainted with him——"</p> + +<p class="indent">The door opened.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, sir, the party in question has got an office +there right enough, but he hasn't been at Duke House +for some time—some three weeks, the porter said. He +took the office late in October, and for a time he was +there, on and off, a good deal. The porter don't +quite know what his business is, but as far as he +knows he gives him a good character. His office is +right at the very top of the house, the only one let +on that floor."</p> + +<p class="indent">An unpleasant little trickle of doubt came over Sir +Angus's mind. When he had first read the typewritten +letter, he had doubted very much if there was +such a building in existence as Duke House, Piccadilly. +Then, after he had heard that the place was +there, after, as a matter of fact, it had been recalled +to his memory by his subordinate, he had fallen back +on the belief that there would be no person of the +name of Fernando Apra to be found in Duke House.</p> + +<p class="indent">He now fell back on a third position. Doubtless +this extraordinary letter had been written by some +enemy of the man Apra who wished to cause him the +unpleasantness of a visit from the police.</p> + +<p class="indent">After a few moments' thought Sir Angus Kinross +proposed something which none of the three people +there knew to be a most surprising departure from his +usual rule.</p> + +<p class="indent">"What would you say, Lord St. Amant, if you and +I were to go up there now, to Duke House—accompanied, +of course, by two of my men? That, at any +rate, would put an end to Mrs. Pavely's suspense. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 236]</span> +If she doesn't mind doing so, Mrs. Pavely and her +friend can wait here, in my private room."</p> + +<p class="indent">To Lord St. Amant the proposal seemed a most +natural one. "I think that's a very good idea!" he +exclaimed, and then he saw Katty's eyes fixed imploringly +on his face.</p> + +<p class="indent">Why, of course——!</p> + +<p class="indent">He beckoned to Sir Angus, and the two men walked +over to the big window overlooking the Embankment. +"If it would not be greatly out of order," he muttered, +"I think it might be a good thing if Mrs. Winslow—that +is Mrs. Pavely's friend—were to go with +us to Duke House. She might be useful—she has +known Mr. Godfrey Pavely all her life."</p> + +<p class="indent">Sir Angus looked very much surprised. "Of course +she could come," he said hesitatingly. "Mrs. Winslow? +I didn't realise that this lady is Mrs. Winslow. +Didn't I see a letter written to her by Mr. Godfrey +Pavely? She has some odd Christian name—if it's +the person I have in my mind."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Her Christian name is Katty," said Lord St. +Amant quickly.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, that was it—'My dear Katty.' I remember +now. It was a letter about an investment, written +on the 30th of December, if I'm not mistaken. Certainly +she can come with us. I have my car downstairs—she +could drive in my car, and wait in it +while we make the investigation."</p> + +<p class="indent">The two came back to where the ladies were sitting, +silently waiting.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I have suggested to Sir Angus that it might be +useful if Mrs. Winslow came with us—and you too, +my dear Laura, if you desire to do so, of course."</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 237]</span> +But Laura shook her head, and an expression of +horror came into her face. "Oh no," she exclaimed. +"I would much rather stay here!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty had already got up, and was drawing on the +gloves she had taken off. She felt strung up, fearfully +excited—and very, very grateful to Lord St. +Amant.</p> + +<p class="indent">She was quite unaware that for the first time the +Commissioner of Police was looking at her with attention.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">There were two entrances to Duke House, the one +giving access to the four spacious flats, of which so +far only one had been let, while the other simply +consisted of a porter's lodge and a lift shooting +straight up to the offices which were above the flats.</p> + +<p class="indent">And now, within ten minutes of their leaving Scotland +Yard, they were all standing just within the +second door, filling up the small space in front of +the lift, for Mrs. Winslow at the last moment had +begged to be allowed to get out of the car. "I don't +feel as if I <i>could</i> sit there—waiting," she had exclaimed, +and after a moment's hesitation Sir Angus +allowed the plea.</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant noticed with interest that the Police +Commissioner took no part in the preliminary +proceedings. He left everything to the elder of the +two men he had brought with him. Still, he lent a +very attentive ear to what his subordinate was saying +to the porter, and to the porter's answers.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I expect that it was you who answered the telephone +message I sent half an hour ago, eh?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, of course I did—you mean about Mr. Apra +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 238]</span> +here? Well, I told you then everything there is to +say about him. He's a foreigner, of course—but a +very pleasant-mannered gentleman. He took an office +on the second day we was open. For a while he was +here a good bit most days, and quite a number of +people came to see him on business. Then he went +abroad, I fancy I heard him say, and his office was +shut up. He wouldn't let any one go in, not even +to clean it, unless he was there. He explained as +how his business was very secret—something to do +with a Concession. He was nervous lest other folk +should get hold of the idea."</p> + +<p class="indent">"When was he here last?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Well, it's difficult for me to remember such a +thing as that—I can't be sure that I could say he +was here within the last fortnight, or perhaps ten +days ago. Two or three people have called to see +him. One gentleman came by appointment—I do remember +that, because he'd been several times, and +mostly this Mr. Apra was in to see him. But I don't +see what call you have to ask me all these questions?"</p> + +<p class="indent">The Scotland Yard man bent forward and said +something in a low voice, and the porter exclaimed, +with an air of astonishment, "What? You don't +mean to say the gentleman's 'wanted'?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Then the detective said something else in a joking +way, and the porter shook his head. "I haven't got +a key! He had another lock put on. Lots of business +gentlemen do that." And then he asked anxiously, +"D'you see any objection to my telephoning to +Messrs. Drew & Co.—they're the agents, you know? +'Twould make me more comfortable in my own mind, +because then I shouldn't get blamed—whatever happened. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 239]</span> +They'd send some one along in about five +minutes—they've got a West End office."</p> + +<p class="indent">The Scotland Yard official looked round for instructions +from Sir Angus, and the latter imperceptibly +nodded.</p> + +<p class="indent">"All right—we'll wait five minutes. I've brought +some tools along."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Tools?" The porter stared at him.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Sometimes, you know, we do find it necessary to +burst open a door!"</p> + +<p class="indent">The five minutes—it was barely more—seemed the +longest time Katty had ever spent in waiting.</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant took pity on her obvious unease +and anxiety. He walked out with her to the street, +and they paced quickly up and down in the cold, wintry +air.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Do you think we shall find anything?" she murmured +at last.</p> + +<p class="indent">He answered gravely, "I confess that the whole +thing looks very queer to me. I haven't lived to my +time of life without becoming aware that amazing, +astounding things <i>do</i> happen. Perhaps I am over-influenced +by the fact that years and years ago, when +I was a boy, a school-fellow of mine, of whom I was +very fond, did shoot himself accidentally with a pistol. +He was staying with us, and he had gone on in +front of me into the gun-room—and I—I went in +and found him lying on the ground—dead."</p> + +<p class="indent">"How horrible!" murmured Katty. "How very +horrible!" and her face blanched.</p> + +<p class="indent">As they turned yet once more, a taxi drove quickly +up to the door of Duke Mansion, and a young, clean-shaven +man jumped out.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 240]</span> +Instinctively he addressed himself to Sir Angus +Kinross: "About this tenant of ours—Mr. Fernando +Apra? To the best of my belief he is a perfectly respectable +man. He gave a very good reference, that +of a big Paris banker, and with us, at any rate, he +was quite frank about his business. He has obtained +a gambling concession from this new Portuguese Government, +and he came to London to try and raise +money for the building of a Casino, and so on. He's +an optimistic chap, and his notion is to create a kind of +Portuguese Monte Carlo. He told us quite frankly +that he didn't intend to keep the office going here for +more than six months, or possibly a year, and we arranged +that he should be able to surrender his three +years' lease—we don't let these rooms under a three +years' agreement—on the payment of a rather substantial +fine. I think the porter is sure to have a key +which will admit you into his room—I understand you +want to get into his office?"</p> + +<p class="indent">And then, at last, Sir Angus answered, rather drily, +"The porter cannot admit us to the office, for this +Mr. Fernando Apra has had a second lock fitted. It +seems he never allowed any one access to the room—unless +he happened to be there himself."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Well, he had plans there—plans of this Concession, +and he was very secretive, as are so many foreigners. +Still, he impressed both me and my father more +favourably than do most foreigners we come across. +As a matter of fact, we twice lunched with him at the +Berkeley. He is a man with a tremendous flow of +good spirits—speaking English very well, though of +course with a foreign accent. Has he got into any +trouble?" he looked curiously at the gentleman standing +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 241]</span> +before him. He was not aware of Sir Angus Kinross's +identity, but he knew that he was from Scotland +Yard.</p> + +<p class="indent">"We shall know more about that when we have +forced open the door of his office. I presume you +would like to be present?"</p> + +<p class="indent">And the young man nodded. A grave, uneasy +expression came over his face; he wondered if he +had said too much of his pleasant client, and that +client's private affairs."</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 242]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<p class="cap">THEY went up the lift in two parties: Sir Angus +Kinross, the house agent, and the two men from +Scotland Yard; then Lord St. Amant and Katty Winslow +alone.</p> + +<p class="indent">As they were going up, he said kindly, "Are you +sure you are wise in doing this? I fear—I fear the +worst, Mrs. Winslow!"</p> + +<p class="indent">With dry lips she muttered, "Yes, so do I. But I +would rather come all the same. I'll wait outside the +door."</p> + +<p class="indent">Poor Katty! She was telling herself that it was +surely impossible—<i>impossible</i> that Godfrey Pavely +should be dead.</p> + +<p class="indent">Though his vitality had always been low, he had +been intensely individual. His self-importance, his +egoism, his lack of interest in anything but himself, +Katty, and the little world where he played so important +a part—all that had made him a forceful personality, +especially to this woman who had possessed +whatever he had had of heart and passionate feeling. +She had felt of late as if he were indeed part of the +warp and woof of her life, and deep in her scheming +mind had grown a kind of superstitious belief that +sooner or later their lives would become one.</p> + +<p class="indent">The thought that he might be lying dead in this +great new building filled her with a sort of sick horror. +There seemed something at once so futile and so +hideously cruel about so stupid an accident as that described +in the Portuguese financier's letter.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 243]</span> +They stepped out on to a top landing, from which +branched off several narrow corridors. The agent led +the way down one of these. "Room No. 18? This +must be it—this <i>is</i> it! Look, there are the two keyholes!"</p> + +<p class="indent">The younger and the brawnier of the two plainclothes +detectives came forward. "If you'll just stand +aside, gentlemen, for a minute or two, we'll soon get +this door open. It's quite an easy matter."</p> + +<p class="indent">He opened his unobtrusive-looking, comparatively +small bag. There was a sound of wrenching wood +and metal, and then the door swung backwards into +the room together with a thick green velvet curtain +fixed along the top of the door on a hinged rod.</p> + +<p class="indent">A flood of wintry sunshine, thrown by the blinking +now setting sun of a London January afternoon, +streamed into the dark passage, and Sir Angus Kinross +strode forward into the room, Lord St. Amant immediately +behind him.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty shrank back and then placed herself by the +wall of the passage. She put her hand over her eyes, +as if to shut out a dreadful sight, yet all there was to +see was an open door through which came a shaft of +pallid wintry afternoon light.</p> + +<p class="indent">For a space of perhaps thirty seconds, Sir Angus's +trained eyes and mind took in what he supposed to be +every detail of the oblong room overlooking the now +bare tree tops of the Green Park. He noted that the +office furniture was extremely good—first-rate of its +kind. Also that the most prominent thing in the room +was an American roll-top desk of an exceptionally +large size.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 244]</span> +Placed at right angles right across the office, this +desk concealed nearly half the room.</p> + +<p class="indent">In the corner behind the door was a coat stand, on +which there hung a heavy, fur-lined coat, and a silk +hat. On the floor was a thick carpet. The only unbroken +space of wall was covered by a huge diagram +map of what looked like a piece of sea shore.</p> + +<p class="indent">One peculiar fact also attracted the attention of the +Commissioner of Police. Both the windows overlooking +the Park were wide open, fixed securely back as +far as they would go: and on the window seats, comfortably, +nay luxuriously, padded, and upholstered in +green velvet, there now lay a thick layer of grime, the +effect of the fog and rain of the last fortnight. As +they stood within the door, in spite of those widely +opened windows, there gradually stole on the senses +of the four men there, a very curious odour, an +odour which struck each of them as horribly significant.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet another thing Sir Angus noted in that quick, initial +glance; this was that the blind of the narrow window +which gave on to the street side of Duke House +was drawn down, casting one half of the room in deep +shadow.</p> + +<p class="indent">He turned, and addressing Lord St. Amant in a very +low voice, almost in a whisper, he said: "I think we +shall find what we have come to seek over there, behind +that desk."</p> + +<p class="indent">Walking forward, he edged round by the side of the +big piece of walnut wood furniture.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then he started back, and exclaimed under his +breath, "Good God! How horrible!"</p> + +<p class="indent">He had thought to see a body lying at full length +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 245]</span> +on the carpet, but what he did see, sitting upright at +the desk, was a stark, immobile figure, of which the +head, partly blown away, was sunk forward on the +breast....</p> + +<p class="indent">Great care had been taken to wedge the dead man +securely back in the arm-chair, and a cursory glance, +in the dim light in which that part of the room was +cast, would have given an impression of sleep, not of +death.</p> + +<p class="indent">He beckoned to Lord St. Amant. "Come over here," +he whispered, "you needn't go any nearer. Do you +recognise that as being the body of Godfrey Pavely?"</p> + +<p class="indent">And Lord St. Amant, hastening forward, stared +with a mixture of curiosity and horror at the still +figure, and answered, "Yes. I—I think there's no +doubt about it's being Pavely."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Perhaps you'd better go and tell Mrs. Winslow. +Get her away as quick as you can. I must telephone +at once for one of our doctors."</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant turned without a word, and made +his way through the still open door into the queer, +rather dark passage.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty's face was still full of the strain and anguish +of suspense, but she knew the truth by now. Had +nothing been found, some one would have come rushing +out at once to tell her so. Three or four minutes had +elapsed since she had heard the sudden hush, the ominous +silence, which had fallen over them all, in there.</p> + +<p class="indent">Her lips formed the words: "Then—they've found +him?"</p> + +<p class="indent">And Lord St. Amant nodded gravely. "It looks as +if that Portuguese chap had told the simple truth."</p> + +<p class="indent">"The moment that I read the letter this morning I +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 246]</span> +<i>knew</i> that it was true," she muttered. Then, "I suppose +I'd better go away now? They don't want me +here."</p> + +<p class="indent">She began walking towards the lift, and Lord St. +Amant, following, felt very sorry for her. "Look +here," he said earnestly, "I'm sure you don't wish to +go straight back to poor Laura Pavely? Why should +you? 'Twould only rack you. I suppose——" He +stopped a moment, and she looked up at him questioningly.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, Lord St. Amant—what is it you suppose?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty spoke in a cold, hard voice—all her small affectations +had fallen away from her.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I suppose," he said, "that Laura knew very little +of your friendship with poor Godfrey Pavely?"</p> + +<p class="indent">And she answered, again in that hard, cold voice, +"Yes, Laura did know, I think, almost everything there +was to know. She didn't care—she didn't mind. +Laura has no feeling."</p> + +<p class="indent">As he made no reply to that, she went on, rather +breathlessly, and with sudden passion, "You think that +I'm unfair—you think that Laura really cares because +she looked so shocked and miserable this morning? +But that's just what she was—<i>shocked</i>, nothing else. +What is a piece of terrible, <i>terrible</i> bad luck for me, is +good—very good luck for Laura!"</p> + +<p class="indent">There was such concentrated bitterness in her tone +that Lord St. Amant felt repelled—repelled as well as +sorry.</p> + +<p class="indent">But all he said was: "Would you like to go back to +my rooms for an hour or two? They're quite near +here."</p> + +<p class="indent">"No, I'd rather face Laura now, at once. After all, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 247]</span> +I shall have to see her some time. I'm bound to be her +nearest neighbour for a while, at any rate."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">Late that same night the awful news was broken +to Mrs. Tropenell by her son. He had sent a message +saying he would be down by the last train, and she +had sat up for him, knowing nothing, yet aware that +something had happened that morning which had sent +Laura and Katty hurrying up to town.</p> + +<p class="indent">Perhaps because the news he told was so unexpected, +so strange, and to them both of such vital moment, +the few minutes which followed Oliver's return remained +stamped, as if branded with white hot iron, +on the tablets of Mrs. Tropenell's memory.</p> + +<p class="indent">When she heard his firm, hurried footsteps outside, +she ran to let him in, and at once, as he came into the +house, he said in a harsh, cold voice: "Godfrey +Pavely is dead, mother. A foreigner with whom he +had entered into business relations shot him by accident. +The man wrote to Laura a confession of what +he had done. She got the letter this morning, took it +up to London to the police—the best thing she could +do—and Pavely's body was found at the place indicated, +a business office."</p> + +<p class="indent">As Oliver spoke, in quick, jerky sentences, he was +taking off his greatcoat, and hanging up his hat.</p> + +<p class="indent">She waited till he had done, and then only said: +"I've got a little supper ready for you, darling. I sent +the servants off to bed, so I'm alone downstairs."</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver sighed, a long, tired sigh of relief—relief that +his mother had asked no tiresome, supplementary questions. +And she saw the look of strain, and of desperate +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 248]</span> +fatigue, smooth itself away, as he followed her into +their peaceful dining-room.</p> + +<p class="indent">She sat with him, and so far commanded her nerves +as to remain silent while he ate with a kind of hungry +eagerness which astonished her.</p> + +<p class="indent">He turned to her at last, and for the first time smiled +a rather wry smile. "I was very hungry! This is +my first meal to-day, and I seem to have lived in the +train. I was up at York—we thought there was a clue +there. I think I told you that over the telephone? +Then I came back."</p> + +<p class="indent">She broke in gently, "To be met with this awful +news, Oliver?"</p> + +<p class="indent">He looked at her rather strangely, and nodded.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Have you seen Laura?" she ventured.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, just for a moment. But, mother? She's horribly +unhappy. I—I expected her to be glad."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Oliver!"</p> + +<p class="indent">There was a tone of horror, more, of reprobation, in +Mrs. Tropenell's low voice.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver Tropenell was staring straight before him. +"Surely one would have expected her to be glad that +the suspense was over? And now I ask myself——" +and indeed he looked as if he was speaking to himself +and not to her—"if it would have been better for +Laura if that—that fellow had been left to rot there +till he had been discovered, two months, three months, +perchance four months hence."</p> + +<p class="indent">"My dear," she said painfully, "what do you mean +exactly? I don't understand."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Pavely's body was found in an empty office, and +if the man who shot him hadn't written to Laura—well, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 249]</span> +of course the body would have remained there +till it had occurred to some one to force open the door +of the room, and that might not have happened for +months."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'm very glad that Laura was told now," said Mrs. +Tropenell firmly. "The suspense was telling on her +far more than I should have expected it to do. Katty, +too, became a very difficult element in the situation. I +don't think there's much doubt that poor Katty was +very fond of Godfrey."</p> + +<p class="indent">He muttered: "Mean little loves, mean little lives, +mean little souls—they were well matched!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Then he got up.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Well, mother, I must be off to bed now, as I have +to get up early and go into Pewsbury. Laura, who's +staying on in town, asked me to come down and tell +those whom it concerned, the truth. She wants you +to tell Alice. I said I thought you'd have the child here +for a while."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Certainly I will. She's been here all to-day, poor +little girl."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Do you really think she's to be pitied, mother?"</p> + +<p class="indent">She hesitated, but his stern face compelled an answer.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I don't think that Godfrey would have got on with +Alice later on—when she grew to woman's estate. +But now, yes, I do think the child's to be deeply pitied. +It will be a painful, a terrible memory—that her father +died like that."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I can't see it! A quiet, merciful death, mother—one +that many a man might envy." He waited a few +moments, then went on: "Of course there will be an +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 250]</span> +inquest, and I fear Laura will almost certainly have to +give evidence, in order to prove the receipt of that—that +peculiar letter."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Have you got a copy of the letter?" asked Mrs. +Tropenell rather eagerly.</p> + +<p class="indent">Her son shook his head. "No, the police took possession +of it. But I've seen it of course."</p> + +<p class="indent">They were both standing up now. He went to the +door, and held it open for her. And then, with his +eyes bent on her face, he asked her a question which +perhaps was not as strange as it sounded, between +those two who were so much to one another, and who +thought they understood each other so well.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Mother," he said slowly, "I want to ask you a +question.... How long in England does an unloving +widow mourn?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"A decent woman, under normal conditions, mourns +at least a year," she answered, and a little colour came +into her face. Then, out of her great love for him, +she forced herself to add, "But that does not bar out a +measure of friendship, Oliver. Give Laura time to +become accustomed to the new conditions of her life."</p> + +<p class="indent">"How long, mother?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Give her till next Christmas, my dear."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I will."</p> + +<p class="indent">He put his arms round her. "Mother!" he exclaimed, +"I love you the better for my loving Laura. Do you +realise that?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I will believe it if you tell me so, Oliver."</p> + +<p class="indent">He strode off, hastened up the staircase without +looking round again, and she, waiting below, covered +her face with her hands. A terrible sense of loneliness +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 251]</span> +swept over and engulfed her; for the first time there +was added a pang of regret that she had not joined +her life to that of the affectionate hedonist who had +been her true, devoted friend for so long.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 252]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<p class="cap">AND so, in this at once amazing and simple way +was solved the mystery of Godfrey Pavely's disappearance.</p> + +<p class="indent">Inquiries made by the police soon elicited the fact +that the Portuguese financier had told the truth as +regarded his business in England, for a considerable +number of persons voluntarily came forward to confirm +the account the man had given of himself in his +strange letter.</p> + +<p class="indent">During his sojourn at the Mayfair Hotel, the now +mysterious Fernando Apra had impressed those who +came in contact with him pleasantly rather than otherwise. +It was also remembered there that one morning, +about three weeks ago, he had come in looking agitated +and distressed, and that he had confided to the manager +of the hotel that an accident of a very extraordinary +nature had occurred to him. But there his confidences +had stopped—he had not said what it was that had +happened to him. A day or two later, he had gone +away, explaining that his business in England was concluded.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura stayed up in town till the inquest, and so, +rather to Laura's surprise, did Katty Winslow.</p> + +<p class="indent">As is always the case when there is anything of +the nature of a mystery, the inquest was largely attended +by the ordinary public. But no sensational evidence +was tendered, though person after person went +into the witness-box to prove that they had come in +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 253]</span> +contact with Fernando Apra, and that under a seal of +secrecy he had informed them of his gambling concession +and of the scheme for developing what he believed +would be a hugely profitable undertaking. In fact, he +had spoken to more than one man of business of a +possible two hundred per cent. profit.</p> + +<p class="indent">It also became clear, for the first time, why Mr. +Pavely had gone to York. A gentleman who bore the +aristocratic name of Greville Howard, and who was in +too poor a state of health to come up to the inquest, +volunteered the information that Fernando Apra had +come to see him, Greville Howard, with an introduction +from Mr. Godfrey Pavely. Further, that he, +Mr. Howard, having gone into the matter of the proposed +gambling concession, had suggested that the +three should meet and have a chat over the business. +As a result, a rather odd thing had happened. Mr. +Apra did not accept the invitation, but Mr. Pavely, +whom he had known for some years, had come to see +him, and they had discussed the project. Then he, +Greville Howard, had heard nothing more till he had +seen in a daily paper a casual allusion to the fact of +Mr. Godfrey Pavely's disappearance!</p> + +<p class="indent">But, though so much was cleared up, two rather +important questions remained unanswered. There was +no proof, through any of the shipping companies, that +Fernando Apra had left England under his own name. +Also, while there were apparently several men of that +same rather common name in Lisbon, the Portuguese +police seemed unable to give any clue as to this particular +man's identity. But a plausible explanation of this +was to be found in the fact that Portugal had lately +changed her form of government.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 254]</span> +Though the mystery was now in no sense any longer +a mystery, a rather peculiar verdict was returned. +The foreman of the jury, a tiresome, self-opinionated +man, declared that he and his fellow jurymen were not +really satisfied as to how Godfrey Pavely had come +by his death, and they added a strong rider to their +verdict, expressing an earnest hope that every effort +would be made to find Fernando Apra.</p> + +<p class="indent">The inquest lasted two days, and as Laura insisted +on being present the whole time, the ordeal for her +was severe. She was, however, supported by the companionship +and presence of Mrs. Tropenell, who had +come up on purpose to be with her.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">After having put Mrs. Tropenell and Laura in a carriage, +Lord St. Amant and Sir Angus Kinross walked +away from the building where the inquest had been +held. For a while neither man said anything.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then, suddenly, Lord St. Amant exclaimed: "I +don't know what <i>you</i> think about it, but in spite of all +we have heard, I can't help having a suspicion that +that man Fernando Apra's story is a bit too thin. I +take it that he and Pavely may have had a quarrel—it's +even possible that this Portuguese fellow may have +wanted to get Pavely out of this exceedingly profitable +business. But no man, least of all a man accustomed +to carrying firearms, would play about with a pistol +quite close to the back of another man's head!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I've known stranger things than that happen," +said Sir Angus slowly. "But in any case this Portuguese +fellow is an uncommonly clever chap. He's +clean covered up his tracks."</p> + +<p class="indent">He hesitated a moment—and then added "I can tell +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 255]</span> +you one queer thing, St. Amant. This man Pavely's +pockets were very thoroughly gone through by whoever +shot him. One side of his coat had the lining +ripped open."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yet quite a good bit of money was found on him," +observed Lord St. Amant.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Whoever went through his pockets wasn't looking +for money." Sir Angus spoke significantly.</p> + +<p class="indent">He went on: "Though it was implied to-day that +no papers or letters were discovered on the body, +there was, as a matter of fact, an envelope found in +an inner pocket. It was one of those inner pockets +which some men have put into the inner lining of a +waistcoat, the kind of pocket which is practically impossible +to find—especially if you're in a hurry, and +don't suspect its existence."</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant's curiosity was sharply aroused. +He ventured a question: "And the contents of the +envelope?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Well, between ourselves, the contents of the envelope +astonished me very much. The envelope, +stamped with the name of Pavely's Bank, contained +two rather scurrilous anonymous letters. To me, the +curious thing consisted in the fact that Pavely had +thought it worth while to keep them. I should have +destroyed them at once in his place."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Do they throw any light on the mystery?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"No, of course not, or they would have been produced +in evidence to-day. But still, one never can tell. +Of course we are keeping them." He added significantly, +"They were not letters I should have cared to +hand back to Mr. Pavely's widow."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then the Commissioner of Police added something +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 256]</span> +which very much surprised his companion: "By +the way, talking of Mr. Pavely's widow, I do earnestly +beg you to try and dissuade Mrs. Pavely from continuing +that thousand pounds reward."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Surely the reward has lapsed now? The only person +entitled to it would be this man, Fernando Apra +himself."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Ah, but Mrs. Pavely—or so Mr. Tropenell tells +me—is quite determined to keep the offer of the reward +open. Whereas before the discovery of Mr. +Pavely's body the reward was offered for any information +leading to his discovery dead or alive, that +same sum is now to be offered to any one who can +bring us into communication with this Portuguese fellow +himself. I'm bound to say that Mr. Tropenell saw +at once all the inconvenience of such a course, and he +has done his best to dissuade Mrs. Pavely. But she's +quite set on it! I fancy she's been persuaded to go +on with it by Mrs. Winslow."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Ah!" said Lord St. Amant. "I can't say that that +surprises me. Mrs. Winslow——"</p> + +<p class="indent">Then he stopped short, and the other looked quickly +round at him, and exclaimed: "I wish you'd tell me +a little more than I've been able to find out about this +Mrs. Winslow. What exactly was her position in the +Pavely <i>ménage</i>?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant hesitated. He felt bound to stand +up for poor Katty. So, "Only that she and poor Godfrey +Pavely were very old friends—friends from childhood," +he answered slowly. "And since the time she +divorced her husband Mrs. Winslow has lived close to +The Chase—in fact, she was their tenant."</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 257]</span> +"Then Mrs. Winslow was Pavely's rather than Mrs. +Pavely's friend?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes—if you care to put it that way."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I've very little doubt—in fact I feel quite sure, St. +Amant, that Mrs. Winslow knows a great deal more +about the whole affair than she has chosen to reveal. +When she and I talked the whole thing over, I brought +her to admit that she <i>had</i> heard something of this secret +business arrangement between Pavely and Fernando +Apra. But if she was speaking the truth—and +I think she was—there was a reason for her having +been told. She was herself investing a small sum +in the concern."</p> + +<p class="indent">"The devil she was!" Lord St. Amant was very +much surprised.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, and on Pavely's advice, of course. I take +it that he was on more confidential terms with this +lady than he was with his own wife?"</p> + +<p class="indent">The other nodded, reluctantly. "Well, you must +know by this time almost as well as I did that the +Pavelys were not on very—well, happy terms, together!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Sir Angus went on: "D'you remember something +I told you concerning Mr. Pavely's day at York? +Even before we knew all you have heard to-day, we +felt quite convinced that he'd gone down there to see +the old rascal who calls himself Greville Howard. But +some further information about that journey to York +is in our possession."</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant again nodded. There came a +rather uneasy look over his face. He thought he knew +the nature of the further confidence which was about +to be made to him. He had never had any doubt in +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 258]</span> +his own mind that Godfrey Pavely had not gone alone +to Yorkshire.</p> + +<p class="indent">"We feel quite certain that Mrs. Winslow was with +Pavely in York. He was seen there, in the company +of a lady, by a business acquaintance. We've ascertained +that Mrs. Winslow went, on that same day, to +stay with some rather well-known people in the neighbourhood. +Mind you, I'm not for a moment suggesting +that there was anything wrong."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I wonder," said Lord St. Amant suddenly, "why +Mrs. Winslow still desires the reward to be offered."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I think I can tell you why."</p> + +<p class="indent">The Commissioner of Police looked straight into +the other man's eyes. "Mrs. Winslow wishes this +reward to be offered because she has vague hopes of +earning it herself."</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant uttered an exclamation of extreme +astonishment.</p> + +<p class="indent">The other smiled. "Yes—queer, isn't it? But, mind +you, that's by no means an uncommon trait in the +type of woman to which Mrs. Winslow belongs. Their +motives are almost always mixed. They're subtle little +devils for the most part, St. Amant. Mrs. Winslow +was quite sufficiently fond of this unfortunate man to +wish to avenge his death, and she also would be very +glad suddenly to receive an addition to her fortune—which +is, I understand, very small—of even a thousand +pounds."</p> + +<p class="indent">He added, in a graver tone: "It seems to me that +the one chance we have of influencing Mrs. Pavely +is through you. And then again, the mere fact that +you are one of her trustees may make a difference. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 259]</span> +Would you not have it in your power to <i>prevent</i> her +continuing this reward?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant shook his head very decidedly. +"No, I should not feel justified in doing that, even +if I had the power. As a matter of fact, she has a +certain amount of money at her own absolute disposal. +I may tell you that I did my best to dissuade +her from offering the reward when she first made up +her mind to do so—you will remember when I mean?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">As Lord St. Amant made his way back to his own +rooms, the rooms where he knew Mrs. Tropenell and +Laura Pavely were now waiting for him, his mind +was in a whirl of surprise and conjecture.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty Winslow acting the part of amateur detective? +What an extraordinary notion! Somehow it +was one which would never have crossed his mind. +That, no doubt, was the real reason why she had been +so determined to attend the inquest. But she had +not sat with Mrs. Pavely, Mrs. Tropenell, and himself. +She had chosen a place in a kind of little gallery behind +the jurymen, and by her side, through the whole +proceedings, had sat, with his arms folded, Oliver +Tropenell.</p> + +<p class="indent">Tropenell, since the discovery of Godfrey Pavely's +body, had kept himself very much apart from the +others. He had gone down to Pewsbury, and had +broken the sad news to Mr. Privet—this by Laura's +direct request and desire. But he had not shown +even the discreet interest Lord St. Amant would have +expected him to show in the newly-made widow and +her affairs, and there was something enigmatic and +reserved in his attitude.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 260]</span> +One thing he had done. He had made a great effort +to prevent Laura Pavely's being put into the witness-box. +He had discovered that she shrank with a +kind of agonised horror from the ordeal, and he had +begged Lord St. Amant to join him in trying to spare +her. But of course their efforts had been of no avail. +Laura, in one sense, was the principal witness. But +for her receipt of the letter, the body of her husband +might not have been discovered for weeks, maybe for +months. Fernando Apra would only have had to send +a further instalment of rent, with the proviso that his +room should not be entered till he returned, for the +mystery to remain a mystery for at any rate a long +time.</p> + +<p class="indent">The funeral of Godfrey Pavely was to take place +the next day in the old Parish Church of Pewsbury, +where the Pavely family had a vault. The arrangements +had all been left to Mr. Privet, and the only +time Lord St. Amant had seen Oliver Tropenell smile +since the awful discovery had been made, had been in +this connection.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'm very glad we thought of it," he said, "I mean +that Mrs. Pavely and myself thought of it. Poor old +Privet! He was one of the very few people in the +world who was ever really attached to Godfrey Pavely. +And the fact that all the arrangements have been left +to him is a great consolation, not to say pleasure, to +the poor old fellow."</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 261]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<p class="cap">IT was the day of Godfrey Pavely's funeral, and +more than one present at the great gathering observed, +either to themselves or aloud to some trusted +crony or acquaintance, that the banker would certainly +have been much gratified had he seen the high +esteem in which he was held by both the gentle and +simple of the surrounding neighbourhood.</p> + +<p class="indent">Even Lord St. Amant was a good deal impressed by +the scene. Every blind in the High Street was down—a +striking mark of respect indeed towards both the +dead banker and his widow. Apart from that fact, +the town looked as if it was in the enjoyment of a +public holiday, but even that was in its way a tribute. +The streets were full of people, and round the entrance +to the churchyard was a huge crowd. As for +the churchyard itself, it was overflowing, and presented +a remarkable rather than a touching scene. Only a few +of the town-folk were still allowed to be buried in the +mediæval churchyard which lay just off the High +Street, so a funeral actually taking place there was a +very rare event.</p> + +<p class="indent">The circumstances of Mr. Pavely's death had been +so strange that the local paper had printed a verbatim +report of the inquest, as well as a very flowery account +of the departed, who had been, it was explained, +so true and so loyal a townsman of Pewsbury. Yet, +even so, there were those present at his funeral who +muttered that Mr. Pavely had met his death just as +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 262]</span> +might have been expected, through his love of money. +It was also whispered that the job in which this queer +foreigner had been associated with the banker had not +been of the most reputable kind. This Fernando Apra—every +one knew his queer name because of the big +reward—had wanted to raise money for a kind of +glorified gambling hell; that was the long and the +short of it, after all, so much the shrewder folk of +Pewsbury had already found out, reading between +the lines of the evidence offered at the inquest.</p> + +<p class="indent">In an official sense the chief mourners were two distant +cousins of Godfrey Pavely—men with whom he +had quarrelled years ago—but in a real, intimate sense, +the principal mourners were old Mr. Privet, Lord St. +Amant, who, though he was so fond of travel, never +neglected the duties entailed by his position in the +county, and last but by no means least Mr. Oliver +Tropenell, who, as every one present was well aware, +had during the last few months become the one intimate +friend of the dead man. Among the women +there were several who knew that at this very moment +Mrs. Pavely was being comforted by Mr. Oliver +Tropenell's mother, a lady who stood high in public +esteem, and with whom Mrs. Pavely as a girl, had +spent much of her youth, and from whose house, picturesque +Freshley Manor, she had been married to the +man whom they were now engaged in burying.</p> + +<p class="indent">Another person present who aroused even more interest +among the good folk of Pewsbury than either +Lord St. Amant or Oliver Tropenell, was Mrs. Winslow.</p> + +<p class="indent">The older townspeople looked at Katty with a good +deal of rather excited sympathy, for they remembered +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 263]</span> +the gossip and talk there had been about pretty Katty +Fenton and the dead man, and of how unkind old Mrs. +Pavely, now dead many a year, had shown herself to +the lovely, motherless girl.</p> + +<p class="indent">There were even some there who whispered that +poor Godfrey Pavely had again become very fond of +his first love—and that, too, when they were both +old enough to know better! But these busybodies +were not encouraged to say the little they knew. These +are things—natural human failings—which should be +forgotten at a man's funeral.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Winslow did not look unreasonably upset. +There were no tears in her bright brown eyes, and her +black frock, sable plumed hat, and beautiful black +furs, intensified the brilliant pink and white of her +complexion. Indeed, many of the people who gazed +at Katty that day thought they had never seen her +looking so attractive. The world belongs to the living—not +to the dead, and poor Godfrey Pavely, with +his big, prosperous one-man business, and his almost +uncanny cleverness in the matter of making money, +belonged henceforth very decidedly to the past. So it +was that among the men and women who stared with +eager curiosity and respectful interest at the group of +mourners, several noticed that Mr. Oliver Tropenell +seemed to pay special attention to Mrs. Winslow.</p> + +<p class="indent">Once he crossed over, and stood close to her for +a minute or two by the still open grave, and his +dark handsome face showed far more trace of emotion +than did hers.</p> + +<p class="indent">After the funeral, Lord St. Amant dropped Mrs. +Winslow at the gate of Rosedean, and, on parting +with Katty, he patted her hand kindly, telling himself +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 264]</span> +that she was certainly a very pretty woman. Lord +St. Amant, like most connoisseurs in feminine beauty, +preferred seeing a pretty woman in black.</p> + +<p class="indent">"You must try and forget poor Godfrey Pavely," +he said feelingly.</p> + +<p class="indent">He was startled and moved by the intensity with +which she answered him:—"I wish I could—but I +can't. I feel all the time as if he was there, close to +me, trying to tell me something! I believe that he was +murdered, Lord St. Amant."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'm sure you're mistaken. You must never think +that!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Ah, but I do think so. I'm certain of it!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">Following the old custom, Godfrey Pavely's will +was to be read after his burial, and Laura had written +to Lord St. Amant asking him if he would be present.</p> + +<p class="indent">In the great dining-room of The Chase, a dining-room +still lined with the portraits of Mrs. Tropenell's +ancestors, were two tables, one large long table which +was never used, and a round table in the bow-window. +To-day it was about the big table that there were gathered +the five men and the one woman who were to be +present at the reading of the will. Laura was the one +woman. The men were Godfrey Pavely's lawyer, the +dead man's two cousins—who had perhaps a faint +hope of legacies, a hope destined to be disappointed, +Oliver Tropenell, present as Laura Pavely's trustee, +and Lord St. Amant, who had been a trustee to her +marriage settlement.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura, in her deep black, looked wan, sad and +tired, but perfectly calm. All the men there, with one +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 265]</span> +exception, glanced towards her now and again with +sympathy. The exception was Oliver Tropenell. He +had shut her out, as far as was possible, from his mind, +and he seemed hardly aware of her presence. He +stared straight before him, a look of rather impatient +endurance on his face—not at all, so argued Lord St. +Amant to himself, the look of a man from whose path +a hitherto impassable obstacle has just been removed.</p> + +<p class="indent">Though rather ashamed of letting his mind dwell +on such thoughts at such a time, Lord St. Amant told +himself that Mrs. Tropenell had doubtless been mistaken +as to what she had confided to him on his return +from abroad. Mothers are apt to be jealous where +only sons are concerned, and Letty—his dear, ardent-natured +friend Letty—had always been romantic.</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant was confirmed in this view by +the fact that that very morning Mrs. Tropenell had +told him that Oliver was going back to Mexico almost +at once. To her mind it confirmed what she believed +to be true. But her old friend and some-time lover +had smiled oddly. Lord St. Amant judged Oliver by +himself—and he had always been a man of hot-foot decisions. +It was inconceivable to him that any lover +could act in so cold-blooded, careful a fashion as this. +No, no—if Oliver cared for Laura as his mother believed +he cared, he would not now go off to the other +end of the world, simply to placate public opinion.</p> + +<p class="indent">To those who had known the man, Godfrey Pavely's +will contained only one surprise, otherwise it ran +on the most conventional lines. Practically the whole +of his very considerable fortune was left, subject to +Laura's life interest—an interest which lapsed on +re-marriage—in trust for his only child.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 266]</span> +The surprise was the banker's substantial legacy to +Mrs. Winslow. That lady was left Rosedean, the +only condition attaching to the legacy being that, +should she ever wish to sell the little property, the +first offer must be made to Alice Pavely's trustees. +Also, rather to the astonishment of some of those +present, it was found that the will had only been made +some two months ago, and the lawyer who read it +out was aware that in some important particulars it +had been modified and changed. In the will made by +Godfrey Pavely immediately after his marriage he +had left his wife sole legatee. After Alice was born +the banker had naturally added a codicil, but he had +still left Laura in a far greater position of responsibility +in regard to the estate than in this, his final will.</p> + +<p class="indent">After the will had been read, Lord St. Amant +spent a few moments alone with Laura. He felt he +had a rather disagreeable task before him, and he did +not like disagreeable tasks. Still he faced this one +with characteristic courage.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I've been asked by Sir Angus Kinross to undertake +a rather unpleasant duty, my dear Laura—that +of persuading you to withdraw the reward you are offering +for the discovery of Fernando Apra. He points +out that if Apra's story is true, it might easily mean +that you would simply be giving a present of a thousand +pounds to the person who killed your husband."</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura heard him out without interruption. Then +she shook her head. "I feel it is my duty to do it," +she said in a low voice. "Katty, who was Godfrey's +greatest friend, says he would have wished it—and I +think she's right. It isn't going to be paid out of +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 267]</span> +the estate, you know. <i>I</i> will pay it—if ever it is +earned."</p> + +<p class="indent">She went on painfully. "I am very unhappy, Lord +St. Amant. Godfrey and I were not suited to one another, +but still I feel that I was often needlessly selfish +and unkind."</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant began to see why Oliver Tropenell +was going back to Mexico so soon.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<h2>PART THREE</h2> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 271]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<p class="cap">THOSE winter and spring months which followed +the tragic death of Godfrey Pavely were full of +difficult, weary, and oppressive days to his widow +Laura. Her soul had become so used to captivity, +and to being instinctively on the defensive, that she +did not know how to use her freedom—indeed, she +was afraid of freedom.</p> + +<p class="indent">Another kind of woman would have gone away to +the Continent, alone or with her child, taking what +in common parlance is described as a thorough change. +But Laura went on living quietly at The Chase, feeling +in a queer kind of way as if Godfrey still governed her +life, as if she ought to do exactly what Godfrey would +wish her to do, all the more so because in his lifetime +she had not been an obedient or submissive wife.</p> + +<p class="indent">As the Commissioner of Police had foretold, the +large reward offered by Mrs. Pavely had brought +in its train a host of tiresome and even degrading +incidents. A man of the name of Apra actually came +from the Continent and tried to make out that <i>he</i> had +been the banker's unwitting murderer! But his story +broke down under a very few minutes' cross-examination +at Scotland Yard. Even so, Laura kept the offer +of the thousand pounds in being. It seemed to be the +only thing that she could still do for Godfrey.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 272]</span> +Though she was outwardly leading the quiet, decorously +peaceful life of a newly-made widow, Laura's +soul was storm-tossed and had lost its bearings. Her +little girl's company, dearly as she loved the child, no +longer seemed to content her. For the first time in her +life, she longed consciously for a friend of her own +age, but with the woman living at her gate, with Katty +Winslow, she became less, rather than more, intimate.</p> + +<p class="indent">Also, hidden away in the deepest recess of her heart, +was an unacknowledged pain. She had felt so sure +that Oliver Tropenell would stay on with his mother +through the winter and early spring! But, to her bewildered +surprise, he had left for Mexico almost at +once. He had not even sought a farewell interview +to say good-bye to her alone, and their final good-bye +had taken place in the presence of his mother.</p> + +<p class="indent">Together he and Mrs. Tropenell had walked over +to The Chase one late afternoon, within less than a +week of Godfrey's funeral, and he had explained that +urgent business was recalling him to Mexico at once. +He and Laura had had, however, three or four minutes +together practically alone; and at once he had exclaimed, +in a voice so charged with emotion that it +recalled those moments Laura now shrank from +remembering—those moments when he had told her of +his then lawless love—"You'll let me know if ever +you want me? A cable would bring me as quickly +as I can travel. You must not forget that I am your +trustee."</p> + +<p class="indent">And she had replied, making a great effort to speak +naturally: "I will write to you, Oliver, often—and +I hope you will write to me."</p> + +<p class="indent">And he had said: "Yes—yes, of course I will! +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 273]</span> +Not that there's much to say that will interest you. +But I can always give you news of Gillie."</p> + +<p class="indent">He had said nothing as to when they were to meet +again. But after he was gone Mrs. Tropenell had +spoken as if he intended to come back the following +Christmas.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver had so far kept his promise that he had +written to Laura about once a fortnight. They were +very ordinary, commonplace letters—not long, intimate, +and detailed as she knew his letters to his mother +to be. Mostly he wrote of Gillie, and of whatever +work Gillie at the moment was engaged upon.</p> + +<p class="indent">On her side, she would write to him of little Alice, +of the child's progress with her lessons, of the funny +little things that Alice said. Occasionally she would +also force herself to put in something about Godfrey, +generally on some matter connected with the estate, +and she would tell him of what she was doing in the +garden, or in the house which had been built by his, +Oliver's, forbears.</p> + +<p class="indent">She could not tell him, what was yet oddly true, +that the spirit of Godfrey still ruled The Chase. He +had inherited from his parents certain old-fashioned +ways and usages, to which he had clung with a sort +of determined obstinacy, and as to such matters, his +wife, in the days which were now beginning to seem +so far away and so unreal, had never even dreamt of +gainsaying him.</p> + +<p class="indent">One of these usages was the leaving off of fires, +however cold the weather might be, on the first of +May, and this year, on the eve of May Day, Laura +remembered, and made up her mind that in this, as +in so much else, she would now be more submissive +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 274]</span> +to the dead than she had ever been to the living Godfrey.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">Laura sat up late that night destroying and burning +certain papers connected with her past life. She +had come to realise how transitory a thing is human +existence, and she desired to leave nothing behind her +which might later give her child a clue to what sort +of unhappy, unnatural married life she and Godfrey +had led.</p> + +<p class="indent">But it is always a painful task—that of turning +over long-dead embers.</p> + +<p class="indent">Sitting there in the boudoir, close to the glowing +fire, and with a big old-fashioned despatch-box at +her side, she glanced at the letters which her husband +had written to her during their brief engagement, +and then she tied them up again and inscribed +them with names and dates. They might give Alice +pleasure some day, the more so that there was singularly +little else remaining to tell Godfrey's child +what he had been like at his best. She, Laura, only +knew—Alice, thank God, would never know, would +never understand—what melancholy memories these +rather formal, commonplace love-letters evoked in the +woman who as a girl had been their recipient.</p> + +<p class="indent">The very few letters which her husband had written +to her during their married life, when he happened +to be in London or away on business, she had +always destroyed as they came. They had been brief, +business-life communications, generally concerning +something he desired to be done on the estate, or giving +her the instructions he wished to have telephoned +to the Bank.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 275]</span> +After glancing absently through them, she burnt +many letters which she now wondered why she had +kept—letters for the most part from friends of her +girlhood who had gradually drifted away from her, +and the memory of whom was fraught with pain. She +put aside the meagre packet of her brother's letters, +and then, at last she gathered up in her hands the +score or more large envelopes addressed in Oliver +Tropenell's clear, small, masculine handwriting.</p> + +<p class="indent">Should she burn these too—or keep them?</p> + +<p class="indent">Slowly she took out of its envelope the first of +Oliver's letters which she had kept—that in which +he expressed his willingness to become her trustee. +For the first time she forgot little Alice, forgot the day +when her daughter would read all that she found here, +in her mother's despatch-box, with the same eager interest +and perchance the same moved pleasure, which +she, Laura, had felt when reading the letters her own +beloved mother had left behind her.</p> + +<p class="indent">Consideringly she glanced over the first real letter +Oliver Tropenell had ever written to her. Vividly +she remembered the whole circumstances surrounding +the sending and receiving of that letter, for +it had followed close on the scene which, try as she +might, she could not, even now, forget. It was in this +letter that she now held open in her hand, that Oliver +had heaped coals of fire on her head, by his quiet, +kindly acceptance of the trusteeship. There was unluckily +one passage she felt Alice should never have a +chance of reading—for it concerned Gillie. So, +though she was sorry to destroy the letter, she felt that +on the whole it would be better to burn it, here and +now.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 276]</span> +Hesitatingly she held out the large sheet to the +bright fire—and as she was in the act of doing so, +quite suddenly there flashed between the lines of +firm, black handwriting other lines—clear, brownish +lines—of the same handwriting. What an extraordinary, +amazing, incredible thing!</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura slipped down on to the hearthrug from the +low arm-chair on which she had been sitting with her +despatch-box beside her, and bent forward, full of +tremulous excitement—her heart beating as it had +never beat before.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"The decks are cleared between us, Laura, for +you know now that I love you. You said, 'Oh, but +this is terrible!' Yes, Laura, love is terrible. It is +not only cleansing, inspiring, and noble, it is terrible +too. Why is it that you so misunderstand, misjudge, +the one priceless gift, the only bit of Heaven, which +God or Nature—I care not which—has given to man +and woman?"</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">She stopped reading for a moment, then forced +herself to go on, and the next few lines of that +strange, passionate secret letter, burnt themselves into +her brain.</p> + +<p class="indent">She let the paper flutter down, and covered her face +with her hands. Could she—should she believe what +this man said?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"What you, judging by your words to-day, take to +be love is as little like that passion as a deep draught +of pure cold water to a man dying of thirst is like +the last glass of drugged beer imbibed by some poor +sot already drunk."</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 277]</span> +It was a horrible simile, and yet—yes, she felt that +it was a true smile. For the first time Laura Pavely +dimly apprehended the meaning of love in the same +sense that Oliver Tropenell understood it.</p> + +<p class="indent">She took up the sheet of paper again, and with +the tears falling down her cheeks, she read the postscript +which was superposed, as it were, on to the +first.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"God bless you, my dear love, and grant you the +peace which seems the only thing for which you +crave."</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">After giving a shamed, furtive look round the empty +room, Laura Pavely pressed the letter to her lips, and +then she threw it into the fire, and watched it vanish +into brilliant flame, feeling as if a bit of her heart +were being burnt with it.</p> + +<p class="indent">Slowly she got up and went to the door; opening it, +she listened for a while.</p> + +<p class="indent">The whole household was asleep, but even so, she +locked the door before coming back to her station by +the fire.</p> + +<p class="indent">She put more coal on the now glowing embers, and +then she took up another letter Oliver had written to +her, a letter written from Paris just after he and +her brother had left London together for that long +holiday on the Continent. Outwardly it was a commonplace +letter enough concerning a change in certain +of her investments; but when she held it to the +fire, between the black lines there again started into +pulsing life another message, winged from his soul +to hers.... +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 278]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"Laura, I have sworn not to speak to you of love, +and even in this letter which you will never see, I will +not break my oath. But as I go in and out of the old +Paris churches (where alone I find a certain measure +of solace and peace), in the women whom I see there +praying I often seem to discover something akin to +your spiritual and physical perfection.</p> + +<p class="indent">"It is strange, considering the business on which +I am engaged, that I should feel thus drawn to haunt +these old, dim Paris churches, but there at least I +can escape from Gillie, of Gillie who talks perpetually +of Godfrey, your owner and your tyrant."</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">And as she read these last words, there came a cold +feeling over Laura's heart. She realised, for the first +time, how Oliver had hated Godfrey.</p> + +<p class="indent">She read on:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"Gillie does not understand the reverence in which +I hold you. Sometimes when he speaks of you—of +you and Godfrey—I feel as if some day I shall strike +him on the mouth.</p> + +<p class="indent">"But he is your brother, Laura. According to the +measure which is in the man he loves you, aye, and +even reverences you too, in his fashion; but with +this reverence is mingled a touch of pity, of contempt, +that you should be what he calls 'good.'"</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">Good? Laura looked up and stared into the now +glowing fire. Good in a narrow, effortless sense she +had always been, but to the man who was so little her +owner, though so much at times her tyrant, she had +been, almost from the very first, hard, and utterly lacking +in sympathy.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 279]</span> +It was with relief that Laura burnt that letter.</p> + +<p class="indent">The notes Oliver Tropenell had written to her in +London while he was conducting the investigation into +Godfrey Pavely's disappearance, held, to her disappointment, +no secret writing in between. But the +letters she had received from him since her widowhood +all had an invisible counterpart.</p> + +<p class="indent">The first was written on ship-board:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"Laura, I am now free to speak to you of love. The +world would say that I must wait in spirit as I have +waited in body, but I know at what a cost has been +bought the relief from the vow which I faithfully +kept.</p> + +<p class="indent">"The past is dead, the future is my own. I look +back, dear love, to the few moments we had by the +great window in your drawing-room, when my mother +was talking to Alice over by the fire. You were so +gentle, so sweet, to me then. It was as if—God forgive +me for my presumption—you were regretting my +departure. Till that moment I had felt as if the man +who had once called you wife stood between us, an +angry, menacing shape. But he vanished then, in +that house of which he had never been the real master. +And since that day he has not haunted me as he +haunted me during those long long days of waiting +for the news I at once longed for and dreaded.</p> + +<p class="indent">"When I come back I shall not ask you to love me, +I shall only humbly ask you to let me love you."</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">Laura went to her writing-table and turned on the +light. She moved as one walking in her sleep, for +she was in an extraordinary state of spiritual and +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 280]</span> +mental exaltation. She drew a sheet of paper towards +her, and before burning the letter she still +held in her hand, she copied out, not all, but a certain +part of what had been written there in that invisible +ink which only flashed into being when held up against +a flame.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then she went back to the fire, and read the next +letter—and the next. In a sense they were alike—alike +in the measureless love, the almost anguished longing +for her presence they expressed, and in their abhorrence, +hatred, contempt for the man who had been +her husband. It was as if Oliver, in spite of his confident +words in the letter which had been written on +shipboard, could not forget Godfrey—as if perpetually +he felt the dead man's menacing presence to be there, +between them.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura was amazed, troubled, and yet at the same +time profoundly stirred and excited by Oliver's retrospective +jealousy. It seemed to prove to her as nothing +else could have done how passionately, exclusively +he loved her, and had always loved her.</p> + +<p class="indent">Though none of those about her were aware of +it, the mistress of The Chase became henceforth a +different woman. It was as though she had suddenly +become alive where she had been dead, articulate +instead of dumb.</p> + +<p class="indent">Each night, when the house was plunged in darkness +and slumber, Laura would light three candles, +and read the words of longing and of love which +Oliver had written in between the formal lines of +the last letter she had received from him. And then, +when a new letter came, she would burn the one that +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 281]</span> +had come before—the one whose contents she had already +long known by heart.</p> + +<p class="indent">And as the spring wore into summer the thing +that became, apart from her child, the only real thing +in Laura Pavely's life, was her strong, secret link with +this man who she knew was coming back to claim her, +on whatever terms she chose to exact, as his own. +And she fell into a deep, brooding peace—the peace +of waiting. She was in no hurry to see Oliver again—indeed, +she sometimes had a disturbing dread that his +actual presence might destroy that amazing sense of +nearness she now felt to him. Unconsciously her own +letters to him became more intimate, more self-revealing; +she wrote less of Alice, more of herself.</p> + +<p class="indent">The only uneaseful element in Laura Pavely's life +now was Katty Winslow. The two women never met +without Katty's making some mention of Godfrey. +And once Laura, when walking away with Katty from +Freshley Manor, where the two had met unexpectedly, +was sharply disturbed by something Katty said.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'm told Oliver Tropenell is coming back at or +after Christmas. Somehow I always associate him +with that awful time we had last January. I think +I shall try and be away when he is here—I don't suppose +he'll stay long."</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty spoke with a kind of rather terrible hardness +in her voice, fixing her bright eyes on Laura's +quivering face.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Instead of going away as he did, he ought to have +stayed and tried to clear up the mystery."</p> + +<p class="indent">"But the mystery," said Laura in a low voice, "<i>was</i> +cleared up, Katty."</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 282]</span> +But Katty shook her head. "To me the mystery +is a greater one than ever," she said decisively.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">Early in September Laura received a letter written, +as were all Oliver's letters, in sober, measured +terms, and yet, even as she opened it, she felt with a +strange, strong instinct that something new was here. +And as she lived through the few hours which separated +her from night and solitude, she grew not only +more restless, but more certain, also, of some coming +change in her own life.</p> + +<p class="indent">His open letter ran:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"I am writing in my new country house. Years +ago, after I first came out to Mexico, I stumbled across +the place by accident, and at once I made up my mind +that some day I would become its possessor. Over a +hundred years old, this little château, set on a steep +hillside, is said to have been built by a Frenchman of +genius who, having got into some bad scrape in Paris, +had to flee the country, while the old <i>régime</i> was in +full fling.</p> + +<p class="indent">"When I first came here, the house had stood empty +for over forty years. The garden, beautiful as it +was, had fallen into ruin. The fountains were broken, +the water no longer played, the formal arbours looked +like forest trees. White roses and jasmine mingled +with the dense southern vegetation, fighting a losing +fight.</p> + +<p class="indent">"For a few brief weeks in '67 it was inhabited by +Maximilian and his young Empress—indeed, it is said +that the Emperor still haunts the cool large rooms +on the upper floor—there are but two storeys. So far +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 283]</span> +I have never met his noble ghost. I should not be +afraid if I did.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I am beginning to think that it is time I came +back to Freshley for a while. But my plans are still +uncertain."</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">At last came solitude, and the luminous darkness +of an early autumn night. Laura locked herself into +her room.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yes, instinct had not played her false, for the first +words of the secret letter ran:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="indent">"Laura, I am coming home. I had meant to linger +on here yet another month or six weeks, but now I ask +myself each hour of the day and night—why wait?</p> + +<p class="indent">"The room in which I am sitting writing to you, +thinking of you, longing for you, was the room of +those two great lovers, Maximilian and his Carlotta. +The ghost of their love reminds me of the transience +of life. I have just walked across to the window, +thinking, thinking, thinking, my beloved, of you. For +I am haunted ever, Laura, by your wraith. I walk up +and down the terrace wondering if you will ever be +here in the body—as you already seem to be in the +spirit.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I am leaving at sunrise, and in three days I shall +be upon the sea. You will receive a cable, and so will +my mother. The thought of seeing you again—ah, +Laura, you will never know what rapture, so intense +as to be almost akin to pain, that thought gives me. +Lately your letters have seemed a thought more intimate, +more confiding—I dare not say less cold. But +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 284]</span> +I have sworn to myself, and I shall keep my oath, to +ask for nothing that cannot be freely given."</p> +</div> + +<p class="indent">Two days later Laura received a wireless message +saying that Oliver would be at Freshley the next day.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 285]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<p class="cap">A YEAR ago, almost to a day, Mrs. Tropenell had +been sitting where she was sitting now, awaiting +Laura Pavely. Everything looked exactly as it had +looked then in the pretty, low drawing-room of Freshley +Manor. Nothing had been added to, nothing withdrawn +from, the room. The same shaded reading-lamp +stood on the little table close to her elbow; the +very chrysanthemums might have been the same.</p> + +<p class="indent">And yet with the woman sitting there everything +was different! Of all the sensations—unease, anxiety, +foreboding, jealousy—with which her heart had been +filled this time last year, only one survived, and of +that one she was secretly very much ashamed, for it +was jealousy.</p> + +<p class="indent">And now she was trying with all the force of her +nature to banish the ugly thing from her heart.</p> + +<p class="indent">What must be—must be! If Oliver's heart and +soul, as well as the whole of his ardent, virile physical +entity, desired Laura, then she, his mother, must help +him, as much as lay within her power, to compass +that desire.</p> + +<p class="indent">Since Godfrey Pavely's death, it had been as if Mrs. +Tropenell's life had slipped back two or three years. +All these last few months she had written to Oliver +long diary letters, and Oliver on his side had written +to her vivid chronicles of his Mexican life. Perhaps +she saw less, rather than more of Laura than +she had done in the old days, for Laura, since her +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 286]</span> +widowhood, had had more to do. She took her duties +as the present owner of The Chase very seriously. +Still, nothing was changed—while yet in a sense +everything had been changed—by the strange, untoward +death of Godfrey Pavely.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver's letters were no longer what they had been, +they were curiously different, and yet only she, his +mother, perchance would have seen the difference, had +one of his letters of two years ago and one of his letters +of to-day been put side by side.</p> + +<p class="indent">The love he had borne for the Spanish woman, of +whom he had once spoken with such deep feeling, had +not affected his relations with his mother. But the +love he now bore Laura Pavely had. Not long ago +Laura had shown Mrs. Tropenell one of Oliver's letters, +and though there was really very little in it, she +had been oddly nervous and queer in her manner, +hardly giving the older woman time to read it through +before she had taken it back out of her hand.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura had become more human since her husband's +death; it was as if a constricting band had been loosened +about her heart. Even so, Oliver's mother often +wondered sorely whether Laura would ever welcome +Oliver in any character save that of a devoted, discreet, +and selfless friend. She doubted it. And yet, +when he had written and suggested coming back now, +instead of waiting till Christmas, she had not said a +word to stop him. And the moment she had heard +that he had reached England, and that he was to be +here late on this very afternoon, she had sent a note +to The Chase and asked Laura to share their first +meal.</p> + +<p class="indent">One thing had made a great difference to Mrs. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 287]</span> +Tropenell's life during the last few months. That was +the constant, familiar presence of Lord St. Amant. +Now that he was Lord Lieutenant of the county, he +was far more at Knowlton Abbey than he had been +for some years, and somehow—neither could have +told you why—they had become even closer friends +than they had been before.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was well understood that any supplicant who +had Mrs. Tropenell on his side could count on Lord +St. Amant's help and goodwill. Though she was of +course quite unaware of it, there were again rumours +through the whole of the country-side that soon the +mistress of Freshley Manor would become Lady St. +Amant, and that then the Abbey would be opened as +that great house had not been for close on forty years.</p> + +<p class="indent">And now, to-night, Mrs. Tropenell suddenly remembered +that Lord St. Amant was coming to dinner—she +had forgotten it in the excitement of Oliver's +return. But she told herself, with a kind of eagerness, +that her old friend's presence might, after all, make +things easier for them all! It is always easier to +manage a party of four people than of three. Also, +it made less marked the fact of Laura's presence on +this, the first evening, of Oliver's return home.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell had not been able to discover from +her son's manner whether he was glad or sorry Laura +was coming to-night. And sitting there, waiting for +her guests, she anxiously debated within herself +whether Oliver would have preferred to see Laura +for the first time alone. Of course he could have +offered to go and fetch her; but he had not availed +himself of that excuse, and his mother knew that +she would be present at their meeting.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 288]</span> +The door opened, quietly, and as had been the case +a year ago, Mrs. Tropenell saw her beautiful visitor +before Laura knew that there was any one in the +darkened room.</p> + +<p class="indent">Once more Mrs. Tropenell had a curious feeling as +if time had slipped back, and that everything was +happening over again. The only difference was that +Laura to-night was all in black, with no admixture of +white. Still, by an odd coincidence the gown she was +wearing was made exactly as had been that other gown +last year, and through the thin black folds of chiffon +her lovely white arms shone palely, revealingly....</p> + +<p class="indent">And then, as her guest came into the circle of light, +Mrs. Tropenell realised with a feeling almost of shock +that Laura was very much changed. She no longer +had the sad, strained, rather severe look on her face +which had been there last year. She looked younger, +instead of older, and there was an expression of half-eager, +half-shrinking expectation on her face—to-night.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Aunt Letty? How good of you to ask me——" +But her voice sank away into silence as the sound of +quick footsteps were heard hastening across the hall.</p> + +<p class="indent">The door opened, and Oliver Tropenell came in.</p> + +<p class="indent">He walked straight to Laura, and took both her +hands in his. "You got my cable?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then Laura blushed, overwhelmingly. She had +had said nothing of that cable to Mrs. Tropenell.</p> + +<p class="indent">And as they stood there—Oliver still grasping +Laura's hands in his—the mother, looking on, saw +with a mixture of joy and of jealous pain that Laura +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 289]</span> +stood before him as if hypnotised, her heavy-lidded +blue eyes fixed upwards on his dark, glowing face.</p> + +<p class="indent">Suddenly they all three heard the at once plaintive +and absurd hoot of Lord St. Amant's motor—and it +was as if a deep spell had suddenly been broken. +Slowly, reluctantly, Oliver released Laura's hands, +and Mrs. Tropenell exclaimed in a voice which had a +tremor in it: "It's Lord St. Amant, Oliver. I forgot +that he had asked himself to dinner to-night. He +said he could not come till half-past eight, but I suppose +he got away earlier than he expected to do."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then with the coming into the room of her old +friend, life seemed suddenly to become again normal, +and though by no means passionless, yet lacking that +curious atmosphere of violent, speechless emotion that +had been there a moment or two ago. Of the four +it was Laura who seemed the most moved. She came +up and slipped her hand into Mrs. Tropenell's, holding +it tightly, probably unaware that she was doing so.</p> + +<p class="indent">After the first few words of welcome to Oliver, +Lord St. Amant plunged into local talk with Mrs. +Tropenell, and as he did so, he looked a little wryly +at Laura. Why didn't she move away and talk to +Oliver? Why did she stick close like that to Letty—to +Letty, with whom he had hoped to spend a quiet, +cosy, cheerful evening?</p> + +<p class="indent">But Laura, for the first time in her life, felt as if +she were no longer in full possession of herself. It +was as if she had passed into the secret keeping of +another human being; she had the sensation that her +mind was now in fee to another human mind, her +will overawed by another human will. And there was +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 290]</span> +a side to her nature which rebelled against this sudden, +quick transference of herself.</p> + +<p class="indent">With what she now half-realised to have been a kind +of self-imposed hypocrisy, she had told herself often, +during the last few months, that Oliver and she when +they again met would become dear, dear friends. He +would be the adorer, she the happy, calm, adored. +And that then, after a long probation, perhaps of +years, in any case not for a long, long time, she might +bring herself half reluctantly, and entirely for his sake, +to consider the question of—re-marriage.</p> + +<p class="indent">But now? Since Oliver had taken her hands in his, +and gazed down speechlessly into her eyes, she had +known that it was he, not she, would set the pace in +their new relationship, and that however sincere his +self-imposed restraint and humility. So it was that +Laura instinctively clung to Mrs. Tropenell's hand.</p> + +<p class="indent">The passion of love, which so often makes even +quite a young man feel older, steadier, more responsible, +has quite the opposite effect on a woman. To +every woman love brings back youth, and the deeper, +the more instinctive the love, the greater the tremors +and the uncertainties which, according to a hypocritical +convention, belong only to youth.</p> + +<p class="indent">The years which Laura had spent with Godfrey +Pavely seemed obliterated. Memories of her married +life which had been very poignantly present in +the early days of her widowhood, filling her with +mingled repugnance, pain, and yes, remorse, were now +erased from the tablets of her mind. She felt as if it +was the young, ignorant Laura—that Laura who had +been so full of high, almost defiant ideals—who was +now standing, so full of confused longing and hope, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 291]</span> +if yet also a little fearful, on the threshold of a new, +wonderful life....</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">Good-breeding and the observance of certain long-established, +social usages have an inestimable value in +all the great crises of human existence. To-night +each of the other three felt the comfort of Lord St. +Amant's presence among them. His agreeable ease of +manner, his pleasant, kindly deference to the older and +the younger lady, all helped to lessen the tension, and +make what each of his companions felt to be a breathless +time of waiting, easier to live through.</p> + +<p class="indent">He himself was surprised and shocked by the change +he saw in Oliver Tropenell's face. Oliver looked +worn, haggard, yet filled with a kind of fierce gladness. +He appeared to-night not so much the happy, +as the exultant, conqueror of fate. He talked, and +talked well, of the political situation in Mexico, of +certain happenings which had taken place in England +during his absence, and though now and again Mrs. +Tropenell joined in the talk, on the whole she, like +Laura, was content to listen to the two men.</p> + +<p class="indent">After dinner, while they were still alone in the +drawing-room, Laura began to talk, rather eagerly, of +her little Alice. She had begun to wonder whether +it would not be well for the child to go to school as +a weekly boarder. There was such a school within +reasonable motoring distance. Alice was becoming +rather too grown-up, and unchildlike. She had certain +little friends in the town of Pewsbury, but they +did not really touch her life.</p> + +<p class="indent">But even as Mrs. Tropenell and Laura talked the +matter over, they both felt their talk to be unreal. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 292]</span> +Each of them knew that Laura's second marriage, if +ever marry she did, would completely alter the whole +situation with regard to Alice. Oliver was not the +man to hang up his hat in another man's house—besides, +why should he do so? The Chase belonged to +Alice, even now.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then rather suddenly, Laura asked a question: +"How long is Oliver going to stay in England, Aunt +Letty?"</p> + +<p class="indent">And Mrs. Tropenell quietly answered, "I should +think he would stay till after Christmas. I gather +everything is going on quite well out there, thanks to +Gillie." She waited a moment, and then repeated, +thoughtfully: "Yes—I feel sure Oliver means to +stay till after the New Year——"</p> + +<p class="indent">And then she stopped suddenly. There had come a +change over Laura's face. Laura had remembered +what Mrs. Tropenell for the moment had not done—that +early in January Godfrey Pavely would have been +dead exactly a year.</p> + +<p class="indent">As ten o'clock struck, the other two came in, still +talking eagerly to one another.</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant sat down by Laura.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'm going to have a little shooting party later on—not +now, but early in December," he said. "Mrs. +Tropenell is coming, and I hope Oliver too. I wonder +if you would do me the great pleasure of being +there, Laura? It's a long, long time since you honoured +the Abbey with your company——"</p> + +<p class="indent">He was smiling down at her. "I would ask Alice +to come too," he went on, "but I think she'd be bored! +Perhaps you'll be bored too? I'm not having any very +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 293]</span> +brilliant or wonderful people, just a few of the neighbours +whom I feel I've rather neglected."</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura laughed. "Of course I shall enjoy coming!" +she exclaimed.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver was standing by his mother. Suddenly he +muttered, "Mother? Ask Lord St. Amant to come +over and speak to you——"</p> + +<p class="indent">But before she could obey him, Lord St. Amant got +up and quickly came over to where Mrs. Tropenell +was sitting, leaving a vacant place by Laura.</p> + +<p class="indent">With his back to the two younger people he sat +down close to Mrs. Tropenell, and all at once he saw +that her dark eyes were full of tears. He took her +hand and patted it gently. "I feel dreadfully <i>de trop</i>," +he murmured. "Can't we go off, we two old folk, +to your little room, my dearest? I'm sure you've +something you want to show me there, or consult me +about?"</p> + +<p class="indent">And while Lord St. Amant was saying this to his +old love, the two on the other side of the room were +silent, as if stricken dumb by the nearness each felt +to the other.</p> + +<p class="indent">And at last it was Laura who broke the silence. "I +think I must be going home," she said uncertainly.</p> + +<p class="indent">She looked across at her hostess. "I don't want to +make Lord St. Amant think he ought to go too. Perhaps +I can slip away quietly?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'll walk back with you."</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver spoke with a kind of dry decision.</p> + +<p class="indent">He got up. "Mother? I'm taking Laura home. +I shan't be long. Perhaps Lord St. Amant will stay +till I come back. It's quite early."</p> + +<p class="indent">He turned to Laura, now standing by his side: +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 294]</span> +"Say good-bye to them now. I'll fetch your shawl, +and we'll go out through the window."</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura obeyed, as in a dream. "Good-bye, Aunt +Letty. Good-night, Lord St. Amant—I shall enjoy +being at the Abbey."</p> + +<p class="indent">She suffered herself to be kissed by the one—her +hand pressed by the other. Then she turned as if in +answer to an unseen signal.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver was already back in the room, her Shetland +shawl on his arm. He put it round her shoulders, taking +care not to touch her as he did so; then he opened +the long French window, and stood aside for a moment +while she stepped through into the moonlight, +out of doors.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">They were now in the beech avenue, in a darkness +that seemed the more profound because of the streaks +of silvery moonlight which lay just behind them. But +even so, the white shawl Laura was wearing showed +dimly against the depths of shade encompassing her.</p> + +<p class="indent">All at once Oliver turned and said so suddenly that +she, walking by his side, started: "Laura? Do you +remember this time last year?"</p> + +<p class="indent">And as she answered the one word "Yes," he went +on: "It was to-night, just a year ago, that I promised +to become your friend. And as long as you were +another man's wife, I kept my promise, at any rate +to the letter. If you tell me to go away for the next +three months, I will do so—to-morrow. If I stay, I +must stay, Laura, as your lover."</p> + +<p class="indent">As she remained silent, he went on quickly: "Do +not misunderstand me. I only ask for the right to +love you—I do not ask for any return."</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 295]</span> +She was filled with an exquisite, tremulous joy. +But that side of her nature which was restrained, and +which had been so atrophied, was ignorant of the +generosities of love, and shrank from quick surrender. +So all she said, in a voice which sounded very cold +to herself, was, "But that, Oliver, would surely not +be fair—to you?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Quite fair!" he exclaimed eagerly—"quite fair. In +no case would I ever wish to obtain what was not +freely vouchsafed."</p> + +<p class="indent">He muttered, in a voice so low as to be scarcely +audible, some further words which moved her +strangely, and vibrated to a chord which had never +before been touched, save to jar and to offend.</p> + +<p class="indent">"To me aught else were sacrilege," were the words +Oliver Tropenell said.</p> + +<p class="indent">By now Laura's eyes had become accustomed to +the darkness. She could see her companion's tall, at +once broad-shouldered and lean figure, standing at +rights angles to herself, keeping its distance....</p> + +<p class="indent">Taking a step forward, she put out her right hand +a little blindly, and laid it on the sleeve of his coat. +Laura had always been an inarticulate woman, but +with that touch, that fleeting moment of contact between +them, something of what she was feeling took +flight from her heart to his——</p> + +<p class="indent">"Laura?"</p> + +<p class="indent">He grasped her hands as he had grasped them three +hours ago when they had first met in his mother's +presence. And then again he breathed her name. But +this time the touch of doubting, incredulous joy had +passed into something ardent, exultant, possessive, and +she was in his arms—her self-absorption, her fastidiousness, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 296]</span> +her lifelong shrinking from any strong emotion, +swept away by a force which she had once only +known sufficiently to abhor and to condemn, but which +she now felt to be divine.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then Oliver Tropenell said a strange thing +indeed. "To have secured this immortal moment, I +would willingly die a shameful, ignoble death to-morrow," +were the words he whispered, as he strained +Laura to his heart, as his lips sought and found her +lips....</p> + +<p class="indent">At last they paced slowly on, and Laura found herself +secretly exulting in the violence of Oliver's emotion, +and in the broken, passionate terms of endearment +with which he endowed her. That her response +was that of a girl rather than that of a woman was +to her lover an added ecstasy. It banished the hateful, +earthy shade of Godfrey Pavely—that shade +which had haunted Oliver Tropenell all that evening, +even in his mother's house.</p> + +<p class="indent">Just as they were about to step out from under the +arch of the beech trees on to the high road, he again +took her in his arms. "Laura?" he whispered. "May +I tell my mother?" But as he felt her hesitating: +"No!" he exclaimed. "Forget that I asked you that! +We will say nothing yet. Secrecy is a delicious concomitant +of love." She heard the added, whispered +words, uttered as if to his own heart, "At least so I +have ever found it." And they were words which a +little troubled Laura. Surely she was the first woman +he had ever loved?</p> + +<p class="indent">"Aunt Letty has a right to know," she murmured. +"But no one else, Oliver, must know, till January is +past." And then she hung her head, perchance a +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 297]</span> +little ashamed of this harking back to the conventions +of her everyday life.</p> + +<p class="indent">He was surprised to hear her say further and with +an effort, "I would rather Lord St. Amant didn't +know. We shall be staying at Knowlton Abbey together +in December."</p> + +<p class="indent">"We shall," he said exultantly. "For that I thank +God!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Then suddenly he released her from out of his +strong encompassing arms, and stooping down very +low he kissed the hem of her long black gown....</p> + +<p class="indent">After they had parted Oliver Tropenell waited on +and on in the dark garden till he heard Lord St. +Amant's car drive away. Then he walked quickly +across the lawn and back into his mother's drawing-room.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Mother?" he said briefly. "Laura and I are going +to be married. But we do not wish any one to +know this till—till February."</p> + +<p class="indent">Even now he could not wholly banish Godfrey +Pavely's intrusive presence from his Laura-filled heart.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 298]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<p class="cap">TO any imaginative mind there is surely something +awe-inspiring in the thought of the constant +secret interlocking of lives which seem as unlikely +ever to meet, in a decisive sense, as are two +parallel lines.</p> + +<p class="indent">How amazed, how bewildered, Laura Pavely would +have been could she have visioned even a hundredth +part of the feeling concerning herself which filled her +nearest neighbour, Katty Winslow's, heart!</p> + +<p class="indent">Even in the old days Katty had disliked Laura, +and had regarded her with a mixture of contempt and +envy. And now that Oliver Tropenell had come back—now +that Katty suspected him of being Laura's potential, +if not actual, lover—she grew to hate the +woman who had always been kind to her with an intense, +calculating hate.</p> + +<p class="indent">It seemed as if she hardly ever looked out of one +of her windows without seeing Oliver on his way to +The Chase, or Laura on her way to Freshley—and +this although the secret lovers behaved with great +discretion, for Oliver was less, rather than more, with +Laura than he used to be in the old days when Godfrey +was alive. Also, wherever Laura happened to +be, her child—cheerful, eager little Alice—was sure +to be close by.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura, so much Katty believed herself to have discovered, +was now happy, in her cold, unemotional +way, in the possession of a man's ardent devotion, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 299]</span> +while she, Katty, who had asked so comparatively +little of life, had been deprived of the one human +being who could, and perhaps in time would, have +given her all she wanted.</p> + +<p class="indent">Poor Godfrey Pavely! No one ever spoke of him +now, in that neighbourhood where once he had counted +for so much. Already it was as if he had never been. +But to Katty Winslow he was still an insistent, dominating +presence. Often she brooded over his untimely +death, and sometimes she upbraided herself for not +having made some sort of effort to solve the mystery. +The reward was still in being, but one day, lately, when +she had made some allusion to it in Laura's presence, +Laura, reddening, had observed that she was thinking +of withdrawing it.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Lord St. Amant and the Scotland Yard people +never approved of it," she said, "and as you know, +Katty, it has led to nothing."</p> + +<p class="indent">Early in October, Laura, Oliver and Alice, passing +by Rosedean one day, turned in through the gate. +"Why shouldn't we go in and ask Katty to come to +tea?" It was Laura's suggestion. Somehow she +was sorry for Katty—increasingly sorry. Yet she +could not help feeling glad when Harber coldly informed +her that Mrs. Winslow had left home, and +would not be back for ten days.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">At the very time that happy little group of people +was at her door, Katty herself was standing in a +queue of people waiting to take her ticket at York +station.</p> + +<p class="indent">Though Mrs. Winslow would have been honestly +surprised had any one told her she was sentimental, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 300]</span> +she had actually come down by an earlier train than +was necessary in order that she might retrace the +ways that she and her friend had trodden together a +year ago in January.</p> + +<p class="indent">She had first gone to the Minster, moving swiftly +along the paved streets where she had walked and +talked slowly, pleasantly, with the dead man. Then +she had wandered off to the picturesque thoroughfare +lined with curiosity shops. How kind, how generous +Godfrey had been to her just here! Every +time she looked up in her pretty little drawing-room +at Rosedean, his gift met her eye.</p> + +<p class="indent">While she was engaged on this strange, painful pilgrimage, +there welled up in Katty's heart a flood of +agonised regret and resentment. She told herself +bitterly that Godfrey's death had aged her—taken +the spring out of her. Small wonder indeed that in +these last few weeks she should have come to hate +Laura with a steady, burning flame of hate....</p> + +<p class="indent">So it was that Katty Winslow was in a queer mental +and physical state when she returned to the big +railway station to complete her journey. She did not +feel at all in the mood to face the gay little houseparty +where she was sure of an uproarious, as well +as of an affectionate, welcome.</p> + +<p class="indent">As she stood in the queue of rather rough North-country +folk, waiting to take her third-class ticket, +there swept over her a sudden, vivid recollection of +that incident—the hearing of a voice which at the +time had seemed so oddly familiar—which had happened +on the day she had parted from Godfrey Pavely +for the last time.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then—as in a blinding, yet illuminating flash—there +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 301]</span> +came to her the conviction, nay, more, the +certain knowledge, as to whose voice it had been +that she had heard on the last occasion when she had +stood there, in the large, bare booking office. The +voice she had heard—she was quite, <i>quite</i> sure of it +now, it admitted of no doubt in her mind at all—had +been the peculiar, rather high-pitched, voice of +Gillie Baynton....</p> + +<p class="indent">She visualised the arresting appearance of the man +who had been the owner of the voice, and who had +gazed at her with that rather impudent, jeering glance +of bold admiration. Of course it was Gillie, but Gillie +disguised—Gillie with his cheeks tinted a curious +greenish-orange colour, Gillie with his fair hair dyed +black, Gillie—her brain suddenly supplied the link she +was seeking for feverishly—<i>exactly answering to the +description of the sinister Fernando Apra—the self-confessed +murderer of Godfrey Pavely</i>. +Katty left the queue in which she was standing, and +walked across to a bench.</p> + +<p class="indent">There she sat down, and, heedless of the people +about her, put her chin on her hand and stared before +her.</p> + +<p class="indent">What did her new knowledge portend? What did +it lead to? Was Laura associated with this extraordinary, +bewildering discovery of hers? But the +questions she put to herself remained unanswered. +She failed to unravel even a little strand of the tangled +skein.</p> + +<p class="indent">Slowly she got up again, and once more took her +place in the queue outside the booking office. It would +be folly to lose her train because of this discovery, +astounding, illuminating, as it was.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 302]</span> +She was so shaken, so excited, that she longed to +confide in one of the Haworths, brother or sister, to +whose house she was going—but some deep, secretive +instinct caused her to refrain from doing that. Still, +she was so far unlike herself, that after her arrival the +members of the merry party all commented to one another +on the change they saw in her.</p> + +<p class="indent">"She's as pretty as ever," summed up one of them +at last, "but somehow she looks different."</p> + +<p class="indent">All that night Katty lay awake, thinking, thinking—trying +to put together a human puzzle of which the +pieces would not fit. Gillie Baynton, even if he disliked +his brother-in-law, had no motive for doing the +awful thing she was now beginning to suspect he had +done. She found herself floating about in a chartless +sea of conjectures, of suspicions....</p> + +<p class="indent">She felt better, more in possession of herself, the +next morning. Yet she was still oppressed with an +awful sense of bewilderment and horror, uncertain, +too, as to what use she could make of her new knowledge.</p> + +<p class="indent">Should she go straight up to town and tell Sir +Angus Kinross of what had happened to her yesterday? +Somehow she shrank from doing that. He +would suspect her of simply trying to snatch the reward. +Katty had never been quite at ease with the +Commissioner of Police—never quite sure as to what +he knew, or did not know, of her past relations to +Godfrey Pavely. And yet those relations had been +innocent enough, in all conscience! Sometimes Katty, +when thinking of those terrible times last January, +had felt sorry she had not told Sir Angus the truth as +to that joint journey to York. But, having hidden the +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 303]</span> +fact at first, she had been ashamed to confess it later—and +now she would have to confess it.</p> + +<p class="indent">She was still in this anxious, debating-within-herself +frame of mind when, at luncheon, something happened +which seemed to open a way before her.</p> + +<p class="indent">Her host, Tony Haworth, was talking of the neighbourhood, +and he said, rather ruefully: "Of course +a man like that old rascal who calls himself Greville +Howard is worse than no good as a neighbour! For +one thing he's a regular recluse. He hardly ever goes +outside his park gates. I suppose the conscience of a +man who's done so many naughty deeds in a good +world is apt to make him feel a bit nervous!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"How far off does he live from here?" asked Katty +slowly. The scene at the inquest rose up before her, +especially that moment when "Greville Howard's" affidavit, +accompanied by his doctor's certificate, had been +read aloud amid a ripple of amusement from the general +public present.</p> + +<p class="indent">"About four miles—but no one ever sees him. He's +more or less of an invalid. It's a beautiful old house, +and they say he's got some wonderful pictures and +furniture there."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Does he live quite alone?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Her host hesitated. "Well, yes—but sometimes he +has a lady of sorts there. He brought one back from +France last June (he has a villa at Monte Carlo), and +then—" Tony Haworth hesitated again, but Katty +was looking at him eagerly—"then something dreadful +happened! The poor woman died. She got a chill, +developed pneumonia, and, to do the old rascal justice, +he got down the biggest man he could from town. But +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 304]</span> +it was no good—she died just the same! As far as +I know, he's quite alone now—and precious lonely he +must find it!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty was very silent for the rest of the meal, +and after luncheon she drew her host aside.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Look here," she said abruptly. "I've something +to tell you, Tony. I want to see that person we were +speaking about—I mean Greville Howard. I want +to see him about Godfrey Pavely. You know he is +one of the few people who actually saw the man who +killed Godfrey. At the time of the inquest he was ill, +and so couldn't attend—I think the police thought he +shammed illness. Sir Angus Kinross was convinced +(and so was Lord St. Amant) that this Greville Howard +knew a great deal more about Fernando Apra +than he was willing to tell."</p> + +<p class="indent">Tony Haworth was much taken aback.</p> + +<p class="indent">"My dear girl, I don't think there's a chance of +your getting at him! However, of course you shall +be driven over as soon as you like. He <i>may</i> see you—<i>you're</i> +not the sort of person he's afraid of."</p> + +<p class="indent">He looked at her a little sharply. "You never had +any money dealings with him, had you, Katty? Now, +honour bright——"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Of course not," she laughed. "Is it likely? My +husband may have had, in the long, long ago—but I, +never!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">An hour or so later, Katty Winslow, alone in her +friend's motor, found herself before the lodge of the +big lonely place where the retired money-lender—a +Yorkshireman by birth—had set up his household +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 305]</span> +gods. The great gates were closed and locked, but +there was a bell, and she rang it.</p> + +<p class="indent">After a certain interval the lodge-keeper came out.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I've come to see Mr. Greville Howard," she explained, +and smiled amiably at the man.</p> + +<p class="indent">He looked at her doubtfully. "The master don't +see no one excepting by appointment," he said gruffly.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I think he'll see me."</p> + +<p class="indent">And then an extraordinary piece of luck befell +Katty Winslow. While she was standing there, parleying, +she suddenly saw a man inside the park, walking +towards the gates.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I think," she said boldly, "that that <i>is</i> Mr. Greville +Howard?" and she saw by the lodgekeeper's face that +she was right in her guess.</p> + +<p class="indent">Moving gracefully forward, she slid past him, and +thus she stood just within the gates, while slowly +there advanced towards her—and, had she but known +it, towards many others—Fate, in the person of a tall, +thin, some would have said a very distinguished-looking, +elderly man.</p> + +<p class="indent">As he came up, he looked at Katty with a measuring, +thoughtful glance, and his eyes travelled beyond +her to the well-appointed motor drawn up in +the lonely country road outside.</p> + +<p class="indent">Now this was the sort of situation to amuse and +stimulate, rather than alarm, Katty, the more so that +the stranger, who was now close to her, was looking +at her pleasantly rather than otherwise.</p> + +<p class="indent">She took a step towards him.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Mr. Howard?" she exclaimed, in her full, agreeable +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 306]</span> +voice. "I wonder if you would be so kind as +to grant me a short interview? I want to see you +about the late Mr. Godfrey Pavely. He was a great +friend of mine."</p> + +<p class="indent">As she uttered the dead banker's name, Greville +Howard's face stiffened into sudden watchfulness. +But he said slowly: "May I enquire your name, +madam?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Oh yes," she said eagerly. "My name is Winslow—I +am Mrs. Winslow. I was Godfrey Pavely's oldest +friend—we were children together."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Ah!" he exclaimed. "Your name comes back to +me. I think you were mentioned at the inquest, Mrs. +Winslow? But you did not give any evidence, if I +remember rightly."</p> + +<p class="indent">"No, I was not asked to give evidence," she answered. +"And you yourself, Mr. Howard, were too +ill to come and say what you knew about—about——"</p> + +<p class="indent">"About Mr. Pavely's murderer," he said smoothly.</p> + +<p class="indent">They were now walking side by side slowly away +from the gate, down a broad, well-kept carriage road, +the lodge-keeper staring after them.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Do you know Sir Angus Kinross?" asked Katty's +companion suddenly.</p> + +<p class="indent">She gave him a curious, side-glance look. "I saw +him several times last winter," she said hesitatingly. +"But, Mr. Howard?—I don't like him!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Neither do I." He snapped the words out. "I +could have told Scotland Yard a good deal if Kinross +had taken the trouble to be civil to me—but he sent +me down a fellow whose manner I exceedingly resented."</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 307]</span> +There followed a long pause. Katty became unpleasantly +aware that this strange-looking man—she +wondered how old he was—sixty-five?—seventy?—was +looking at her with a rather pitiless scrutiny.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I can see that you are anxious to know the truth," +he observed. He added: "Are you aware that the +reward has just been withdrawn?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"No, I didn't know that. But I'm not surprised," +she said.</p> + +<p class="indent">She glanced at him, puzzled, and a little nervous. +His keen eyes, grey-green in tint, were much younger +than the rest of his face.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I think I know part of the truth," he went on. +"And perhaps you will be able to supply the other +part, Mrs. Winslow. I confess to a certain curiosity +about the matter."</p> + +<p class="indent">They were now within sight of a charming-looking +old house. It was charming, and yet there was something +forlorn about its very perfection. The low, oak, +nail-studded front door was shut, not hospitably open—as +is generally the case with the door of a Yorkshire +country house. But Mr. Greville Howard pulled the +bell, and at once the door was opened by a respectable-looking +manservant.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I am taking this lady to my study, and I do not +wish to be disturbed till I ring. When I ring you +can bring tea."</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty followed her host through a short, vaulted +passage into a square hall. It was a beautiful apartment, +in keeping with the delicate, austere charm of +the house outside. And round the hall there were +some fine Dutch easel pictures.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 308]</span> +Out of the hall there opened various doors. Greville +Howard pushed open one, already ajar, and Katty +walked through into what she at once realised was +her companion's own habitual living-room.</p> + +<p class="indent">With all her cleverness, and her acquaintance with +the art-furnishing jargon of the day, Katty would have +been surprised to know the value of the contents of +this comparatively small room. It contained some +notable examples of the best period of early French +Empire furniture. This was specially true of the mahogany +and brass inlaid dwarf bookcases which ran +round three sides of the apartment. Above the bookcases, +against the turquoise-blue silk with which the +walls were hung, were a number of Meissonier's paintings +of Napoleon.</p> + +<p class="indent">On the mantelpiece was a marble bust of the young +Cæsar as First Consul, and above it a delightful portrait +of Mademoiselle Georges, by Gérard. As he +briefly informed his visitor of the portrait's identity, +Mr. Greville Howard felt just a little disappointed +that Mrs. Winslow did not seem more interested.</p> + +<p class="indent">During the last quarter of an hour he had recaptured +what at the time of the affair had been a very +definite impression as to the relations of his present +visitor and the Wiltshire banker. But now, seeing +Katty there before him, looking so much at her ease, +so—so ladylike (Mr. Greville Howard's own word), +he hesitated.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Pray sit down," he said courteously, "and make +yourself comfortable, Mrs. Winslow. It's getting +rather chilly."</p> + +<p class="indent">Her host put on another log as he spoke, and pulled +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 309]</span> +a low, easy chair up close to the fire. And then he +himself sat down, at right angles to his attractive +guest, in a curiously-shaped winged chair which had +once been part of the furniture in the Empress Joséphine's +music-room at Malmaison.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 310]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<p class="cap">IT had been a little after three o'clock when Katty +Winslow entered Mr. Greville Howard's study—and +now it was half-past four. The room had grown +gradually darker, but the fire threw out a glimmering +light on the faces of the two sitting there.</p> + +<p class="indent">All at once Katty realised, with a sense of acute discomfiture, +that as yet her host had said nothing—nothing, +at least, that mattered. He had drawn out +of her, with extraordinary patience, courtesy, and intelligence, +all that <i>she</i> could tell <i>him</i>—of what had +happened before, and about the time of, Godfrey +Pavely's death.</p> + +<p class="indent">She had even told him of the two anonymous letters +received by Godfrey Pavely—but with regard +to them she had of course deliberately lied, stating +that Godfrey had shown them to her, and that she still +had no idea from whence they came.</p> + +<p class="indent">Her listener had made very few comments, but he +had shown, quite early in their conversation, a special +interest in the personality of Oliver Tropenell. He +had even extracted from Katty a physical description +of the man she declared to be now Mrs. Pavely's lover, +and probable future husband.</p> + +<p class="indent">At first, say during the first half-hour, she had felt +extraordinarily at ease with the remarkable old man +who had listened to her so attentively, while the fine +eyes, which were the most arresting feature of his +delicate, highly intelligent countenance, were fixed on +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 311]</span> +her flushed face. But now, with the shadows of evening +falling, she could not see him so clearly, and +there came a cold feeling about Katty Winslow's +heart. There was very little concerning her own past +relations with Godfrey Pavely that this stranger did +not now know. She felt as if he had uncovered all +the wrappings which enfolded her restless, vindictive, +jealous soul. But she herself, so far, had learnt nothing +from him.</p> + +<p class="indent">She began to feel very tired, and suddenly, whilst +answering one of his searching, gentle questions, her +voice broke, and she burst into tears.</p> + +<p class="indent">He leant quickly forward, and laid his thin, delicate +right hand on hers. "My dear Mrs. Winslow, please +forgive me! This has been a painful ordeal for you. +I feel like a Grand Inquisitor! But now I am going +to bring you comfort—I ought not to say joy. But +before I do so I am going to make you take a cup of +tea—and a little bread and butter. Then, afterwards, +I will show you that I appreciate your generous confidence +in telling me all that you have done."</p> + +<p class="indent">He waited a moment, and then said impressively, "I +am going to put you in the way to make it possible +for you to avenge your dead friend, I think I may +also say <i>my</i> dead friend, for Mr. Godfrey Pavely and +I had some very interesting and pleasant dealings +with one another, and that over many years."</p> + +<p class="indent">She was soothed by the really kind tone of his low +voice, even by the caressing quality of his light touch, +and her sobs died down.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mr. Howard took his hand away, and pressed a +button close to his chair. A moment later a tray appeared +with tea, cake, bread and butter, and a little +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 312]</span> +spirit lamp on which there stood what looked like a +gold tea-kettle.</p> + +<p class="indent">"You can put on the light, Denton," and there came +a pleasant glow of suffused light over the room.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Perhaps you will be so kind as to make the tea?" +said Mr. Howard in his full, low voice.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty smiled her assent, and turned obediently towards +the little table which had been placed by her +elbow.</p> + +<p class="indent">She saw that the kettle was so fixed by a clever arrangement +that there was no fear of accident, though +the water in it had been brought in almost boiling +on the lacquer tray—a tray which was as exquisitely +choice in its way as was everything else in the room.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty, as we know, was used to making afternoon +tea. Very deftly she put three teaspoonfuls of tea +into the teapot, and then poured out the boiling water +from the bright yellow kettle. She was surprised at +its weight.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," said Greville Howard, "it's rather heavy—gold +always is. It's fifteen-carat gold. I bought that +kettle years ago, in Paris. It took my fancy."</p> + +<p class="indent">He looked at the clock. "We will give the tea three +minutes to draw," he said thoughtfully.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then he began to talk to her about the people +with whom she was staying, the people who had +never seen him, but who had so deep—it now seemed +to her so unreasoning and unreasonable—a prejudice +against him. And what he had to say about them +amused, even diverted, Katty, so shrewd were his +thrusts, so true his appreciation of the faults and the +virtues of dear Helen and Tony Haworth. But how +on earth had he learnt all that?</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 313]</span> +And then, at the end of the three minutes, she +poured the tea into the transparent blue-and-white Chinese +porcelain cups.</p> + +<p class="indent">"No milk, no sugar, no cream for me," he said. +"Only a slice of that lemon."</p> + +<p class="indent">Greville Howard watched Katty take her tea, and +eat the bread and butter and the cake—daintily, but +with a good appetite. He watched her with the pleasant +sensations that most men felt when watching Katty +do anything—the feeling that she was not only very +pretty, but very healthy too, and agreeable to look +upon, a most satisfactory, satisfying feminine presence.</p> + +<p class="indent">After she had finished, he again touched his invisible +button, and the tray was taken swiftly and +noiselessly away.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">"And now," he said, "I am going to tell you <i>my</i> +part of this strange story, and you will see, Mrs. +Winslow, that the two parts—yours and mine—fit, +and that the vengeance for which I see you crave, is +in your hands. I shall further show you how to arrange +so that you need not appear in the matter if +Sir Angus Kinross prove kind, as I feel sure he will +be—to you."</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty clasped her hands together tightly. She felt +terribly moved and excited. Vengeance? What did +this wonderful old man mean?</p> + +<p class="indent">"Dealers in money," began Mr. Greville Howard +thoughtfully, "have to run their own international +police, and that, my dear young lady, is especially true +of the kind of business which built up what I think I +may truly call my fame, as well as my fortune. During +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 314]</span> +something like forty years I paid a large subsidy +each year to the most noted firm of private detectives +in the world—a firm, I must tell you, who have their +headquarters in Paris. Though I no longer pay them +this subsidy, for mine was a one-man business, I still +sometimes have reason to employ them. They throw +out their tentacles all over the world, and their chief, +a most intelligent, cultivated man, is by way of being +quite a good friend of mine. I always thoroughly +enjoy a chat with him when I am going through Paris +on my way to my villa in the South of France. It +is to this man that the credit of what I am about +to tell you, the credit, that is, of certain curious discoveries +connected with the mystery of Mr. Godfrey +Pavely's death, is due."</p> + +<p class="indent">Greville Howard waited a few moments, and then +he spoke again.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I must begin at the beginning by telling you that +when this Fernando Apra came to see me, I formed +two very distinct opinions. The one, which is now +confirmed by what you have told me, was that the +man was not a Portuguese; the other was that he +was 'made up.' I felt certain that his hair was dyed, +and the skin of his face, neck and hands tinted. He +was a very clever fellow, and played his part in a +capital manner. But I took him for an adventurer, a +man of straw, as the French say, and I believed that +Mr. Godfrey Pavely was being taken in by him. Yet +there were certain things about this Apra that puzzled +me—that I couldn't make out. An adventurer very +rarely goes to the pains of disguising himself physically, +for his object is to appear as natural as possible. +There was yet another reason why the adventurer view +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 315]</span> +seemed false. All the time we were talking, all the +time he was enthusing—if I may use a very ugly modern +word—about the prospects of this gambling concession, +I had the increasing conviction that he was +not serious, that he was not <i>out for business</i>—that he +had come to see me with some other motive than +that of wishing me to take an interest in his scheme."</p> + +<p class="indent">Greville Howard leant forward, and gazed earnestly +into his visitor's face. "I felt this so strongly that +the thought did actually flash across me more than +once—'Is this man engaged in establishing an alibi?' +When I asked him for the name and address of the +French references to which Mr. Pavely had made an +allusion in his letter of introduction, I saw that he +was rather reluctant to give me the names. Still he +did do so at last, the bankers being——"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Messrs. Zosean & Co.," exclaimed Katty. "I have +sometimes thought of going to see them."</p> + +<p class="indent">"You would have had your journey for nothing. +As I shall soon show you, they were—they still are—an +unconscious link in the chain. To return to Apra, +as we must still call him. So little was I impressed +by this peculiar person that I expected to hear nothing +more of him or of his gambling concern. But one day +I received a letter from Mr. Godfrey Pavely, telling +me that he himself wished to see me with reference to +the same matter. I saw at once that <i>he</i> really did mean +business. He was very much excited about the prospects +of the undertaking."</p> + +<p class="indent">Mr. Greville Howard paused. He looked attentively +at his visitor, but Katty's face told him nothing, +and he continued: "I cross-examined him rather +carefully about this Fernando Apra, and I discovered +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 316]</span> +that he had only seen the fellow twice, each time +rather late in the evening, and by artificial light. I +then told him of my conviction that Apra was playing +a part, but he scouted the idea. Our unfortunate +friend was a very obstinate man, Mrs. Winslow."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," said Katty in a low voice. "That is quite +true."</p> + +<p class="indent">"And then," went on the other thoughtfully, "Pavely +was also exceedingly susceptible to flattery——"</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty nodded. This Mr. Greville Howard knew +almost too much.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Well, as you know, he came down again to see me—and +the next thing I heard was that he had disappeared! +At once—days before Mrs. Pavely received +that very singular letter—I associated Apra with the +mystery. It was, however, no business of mine to +teach the police their business, though I thought it +probable that there would come a moment when I +should have to intervene, and reveal the little that I +knew. That moment came when Mr. Pavely's body +was discovered in Apra's office at Duke House."</p> + +<p class="indent">Greville Howard straightened himself somewhat in +his easy chair.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I at once wrote, as I felt in duty bound, to Sir +Angus Kinross. I had met him, under rather unfortunate +circumstances, some years ago, before he became +Commissioner of Police. That, doubtless, had +given him a prejudice against me. Be that as it may, +instead of taking advantage of my offer to tell him in +confidence all I knew, he sent a most unpleasant person +down to interview me. This man, a pompous, +ignorant fellow, came twice—once before the inquest, +once after the inquest. I naturally took a special +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 317]</span> +pleasure in misleading him, and in keeping to myself +what I could have told. But though I was able to give +him the impression I desired to convey, he was not +able to keep anything he knew from <i>me</i>; and, at the +end of our second interview, he let out that the police +had very little doubt that two men had been concerned +in the actual murder—for murder the police by then +believed it to be—of Mr. Godfrey Pavely."</p> + +<p class="indent">Greville Howard stopped speaking for a moment.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Two men?" repeated Katty in a bewildered tone.</p> + +<p class="indent">And the other nodded, coolly. "Yes, that is the +opinion they formed, very early in the day, at Scotland +Yard. They also made up their minds that it +would be one of those numerous murders of which +the perpetrators are never discovered. And, but for +you and me, Mrs. Winslow, the very clever perpetrators +of this wonderfully well planned murder would +have escaped scot-free."</p> + +<p class="indent">He touched his invisible bell, and his man answered +it.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Make up the fire," he said, "—a good lasting fire."</p> + +<p class="indent">When this had been done, he again turned to +Katty. "We now," he said, "come to the <i>really</i> exciting +part of my story. Up to now, I think I have +told you nothing that you did not know."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I had no idea," said Katty in a low, tense voice, +"that the police believed there were <i>two</i> people concerned +with Godfrey's death."</p> + +<p class="indent">She was trying, desperately, to put the puzzle together—and +failing.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I crossed to France last March," went on Greville +Howard musingly, "and, inspired I must confess by a +mere feeling of idle curiosity, I stopped in Paris two +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 318]</span> +days in order to see, first, Messrs. Zosean, and secondly +Henri Lutin, the head of the Detective Agency +with whom, as I told you just now, I have long been +in such cordial relations. I called first on Henri Lutin +and reminded him of the story of Mr. Pavely's disappearance, +and of the subsequent finding of his body in +this Fernando Apra's office. I also informed him +that I would go up to a certain modest sum in pursuit +of independent enquiries if he would undertake to +make them. He consented, and as a preliminary, gave +me some information with regard to Messrs. Zosean. +Provided with a good introduction I called on these +bankers, and this is what I learnt. Messrs. Zosean, +with that curious incuriousness which is so very +French, scarcely knew anything of what had happened, +though they were vaguely aware that a man had been +found killed by accident in their mysterious client's +office, for Fernando Apra was their client, but only—note +this, for it is important—a client of a few weeks' +standing. He had paid in to their bank, some two +months before Mr. Pavely's death, the very considerable +sum of one million francs, forty thousand pounds, +on deposit. One of the junior partners saw him—only +once, late in the afternoon."</p> + +<p class="indent">Greville Howard waited a long moment—then he +added impressively: "<i>And the man whom they to +this day believe to be Fernando Apra bore no physical +resemblance at all to the man who visited me here +under that name</i>. In fact, the description given by +the bankers exactly tallies with that of another man—of +a man whom <i>you</i> described to me about an hour +ago."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I don't quite understand," faltered Katty.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 319]</span> +"Don't you? Think a little, Mrs. Winslow, and +you will agree with me that the real client of Messrs. +Zosean was Oliver Tropenell, the man whom you believe +to be the lover and future husband of Mrs. +Pavely."</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty uttered an inarticulate exclamation—was it +of surprise or of satisfaction? Her host took no notice +of it, and continued his narrative:</p> + +<p class="indent">"One day—I soon found it to have been the day +following that on which the murder of Mr. Pavely +was presumably committed—a man who, I feel sure, +was <i>my</i> Fernando Apra, turned up at Messrs. Zosean +with a cheque, the fact that he was coming having +been notified to the bank from London by telephone. +He drew out the greater part of the money lodged in +the name of Apra in Messrs. Zosean's bank—not all, +mark you, for some eight thousand pounds was left in, +and that eight thousand pounds, Mrs. Winslow, is still +there, undisturbed. I doubt myself if it will ever be +claimed!</p> + +<p class="indent">"I then, following the plan laid down for me by +Henri Lutin, asked Messrs. Zosean at what hotel +Fernando Apra had stayed. I was given two addresses. +These addresses I handed on to my friend +the secret enquiry agent, and the rest of the story belongs +to him, for it was Lutin who discovered all that +I am now going to tell you."</p> + +<p class="indent">Greville Howard stopped speaking. He looked +thoughtfully at the woman who sat ensconced in the +low arm-chair opposite him.</p> + +<p class="indent">He felt rather as a man may be supposed to feel +who is about to put a light to a fuse which will in due +course blow up a powder magazine. There even came +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 320]</span> +over his subtle, tortuous mind a thrill of pity for the +man whom he was about to sacrifice to this pretty +woman's desire for vengeance and—as he could not +help seeing—jealous hatred of another woman who +might, for all he knew, be in every way more worthy +of his interest, even of his admiration, than she who +sat there looking at him with gleaming eyes and parted +lips.</p> + +<p class="indent">But Greville Howard, like all his kind, was a fatalist +as well as something of a philosopher. He could +not have lived the life he had led, and done the work +which had built up his great fortune, had he been +anything else, and Katty had come at a very fortunate +psychological moment for him—as well as for +herself. Greville Howard was becoming what he had +rarely ever been—bored; he was longing consciously +for a fresh interest and for a new companionship in +his life. And so:</p> + +<p class="indent">"Perhaps you will be disappointed at the meagreness +of what I am about to tell you, but you may believe +me when I say that it is information which will +make the way of Sir Angus Kinross quite clear, and +which may bring one, if not two, men to the gallows."</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty gave a little involuntary gasp. But he went +on:</p> + +<p class="indent">"It did not take my friend Lutin very long to discover +that a man of the name of Apra had stayed at +each of the hotels indicated to me by the bankers. He +also discovered that 'Apra' had with him a friend +named Dickinson who put down his birthplace as New +York. Do you follow me, Mrs. Winslow?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes, I think so," she replied hesitatingly.</p> + +<p class="indent">"At the first hotel, a small, comfortable, rather expensive +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 321]</span> +house in the Madeleine quarter, Fernando +Apra was a tall, dark, good-looking man, and the +other, the New Yorker, was fair and short. Though +on the best of terms they lived very different lives. +The American was out a great deal; he thoroughly +enjoyed the gay, lively sides of Paris life. Fernando +Apra on the other hand stayed indoors, reading and +writing a good deal. At last the two men left the +hotel, giving out that they were going to spend the +winter in the South of France. But they only stayed +a few days at Lyons and, doubling back to Paris, they +settled in the Latin Quarter on the other side of the +river.</p> + +<p class="indent">"By that time, my dear Mrs. Winslow, <i>they had +exchanged identities</i>. The tall, dark man was now +Dickinson, and his fair friend had become Apra! It +was Apra who one day told the manager he was going +to a fancy dress ball and asked him to recommend +him a good theatrical costumier. When Lutin ran +that costumier to earth, the man at once remembered +the fact that a client he took to be an Englishman +had come and had had himself made up as a Mexican, +purchasing also two bottles of olive-coloured skin +stain. Now Apra was out all night after this extraordinary +transformation in his appearance had taken +place, but one of the waiters at the hotel recognised +him that same evening at Mabille. When the man +spoke to him, he appeared taken aback, and explained +that he had made a mistake in the day of the fancy +dress ball. The next morning he left the hotel, distributing +lavish tips to everybody. But Dickinson +stayed on for a few days, and during those days he received +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 322]</span> +each day a telegram from England. One of +these telegrams is actually in my possession."</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty's host got up. He went across to a narrow, +upright piece of inlaid mahogany furniture, and unlocking +a drawer, took from it an envelope. Having +opened it, he handed Katty a blue strip of paper on +which were printed the words: "Concession going +well" and the signature "G."</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty stared down at the bit of blue paper, and +she flushed. Even she realised the significance of +that "G."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I think," said her host quietly, "that if you write +down from my dictation certain notes, and hand them, +<i>together with this telegram</i>, to the Commissioner of +Police, he may be trusted to do the rest."</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 323]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<p class="cap">FIVE quiet weeks slipped by—weeks full of outward, +as well as of inward, happiness at The +Chase and at Freshley.</p> + +<p class="indent">Katty Winslow had come back to Rosedean, and +then, without even seeing Laura, had gone away again +almost at once. She was still away when there took +place early in December the gathering together, for +the first time for many years, of a big shooting party +at Knowlton Abbey.</p> + +<p class="indent">Just before joining that pleasant party, Mrs. Pavely +spent a week in London, and certain Pewsbury gossips, +of whose very existence she was unaware, opined that +she had gone up to town to buy clothes! In a little +over a month, Godfrey Pavely would have been dead +a year, and some of these same gossips thought it +rather strange that Mrs. Pavely should be going to +stay at the Abbey before her first year of widowhood +was over. But the kinder of the busybodies reminded +one another that Lord St. Amant had known the mistress +of The Chase from childhood, and being, as he +was, a very good-natured man, no doubt he had +thought it would cheer up the poor lady to have a +little change.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yes, Laura, to Mrs. Tropenell's surprise, had gone +up alone to London, and Oliver, after two days, followed +her. But he had not waited to escort her back, +as his mother expected him to do. He returned the +day before Laura—in fact she was away a week, he +only four days.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 324]</span> +The gossips of Pewsbury had been right. Laura +had gone up to town to get a few new clothes, but +she was still wearing unrelieved black, if not exactly +conventional widow's mourning, when she arrived at +Knowlton Abbey.</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant's shooting party was a great success—a +success from the point of view of the +guests, and from that of the host. For the first time +for many years, in fact for the first time since the +death of Lady St. Amant, the house was quite full, for +in addition to the neighbours whom the host specially +wished to honour, there had come down certain more +sophisticated folk from London. Among others asked +had been Sir Angus Kinross; but Sir Angus, to his +own and Lord St. Amant's regret, had had to decline. +The two men had become intimate since last winter—each +had a real respect, a cordial liking, for the other.</p> + +<p class="indent">The housekeeper at the Abbey had been surprised +to note his lordship's interest in every detail. He had +himself seen, and at considerable length, the <i>chef</i> who +had come down from London for the week; he had +even glanced over the bedroom list, making certain +suggestions as to where his various guests should sleep. +Thus it was by his desire that Mrs. Tropenell had +been given the largest bed-chamber in the house, one +which had never been, in the present housekeeper's +reign, occupied by a visitor. It had been, in the long, +long ago, the room of his mother, the room in fact +where his lordship himself had been born some seventy +odd years ago. By his wish, also, there had been +arranged for Mrs. Tropenell's occupation the old-fashioned +sitting-room into which the bedroom opened.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mr. Oliver Tropenell had been put nearly opposite +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 325]</span> +Lord St. Amant's own sleeping apartment, in that portion +of the house which was known as "his lordship's +wing." And Mrs. Pavely had been given, in the same +part of the house, but at the further end of the corridor, +the room which had been always occupied, during +her infrequent sojourns at the Abbey, by the late Lady +St. Amant.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">And now the long, though also the all too short, +week-end, which had lasted from Thursday to Tuesday, +was over, and all the guests had departed, with +the exception of Lord St. Amant's three intimate +friends—Mrs. Tropenell, that lady's son, and Mrs. +Pavely. This smaller party was staying on for two +more days, and then it would break up—Mrs. Tropenell +and Mrs. Pavely returning in the morning to +Freshley Manor and The Chase, while Mr. Tropenell +stayed on to accompany his host to another big shoot +in the neighbourhood.</p> + +<p class="indent">Though all three had professed sincere regret at +the departure of their fellow guests, each of them felt +a certain sense of relief, and yes, of more than relief, +of considerable satisfaction, when they found themselves +alone together.</p> + +<p class="indent">There is always plenty to talk about after the breakup +of a country house party, and when at last the +four of them found themselves together at dinner, +they all did talk—even Laura, who was generally so +silent, talked and laughed, and exchanged quick, rather +shy jests with Oliver.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura and Oliver? Lord St. Amant had of course +very soon discovered their innocent secret. He had +taxed Mrs. Tropenell with the truth, and she had admitted +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 326]</span> +it, while explaining that they desired their engagement, +for obvious reasons, to remain secret for a +while.</p> + +<p class="indent">During these last few days their host had admired, +with a touch of whimsical surprise, Laura's dignity, +and Oliver's self-restraint. Of course they had managed +to be a good deal together, aided by Lord St. +Amant's unobtrusive efforts, and owing to the fact +that Mrs. Tropenell's charming sitting-room upstairs +was always at their disposal.</p> + +<p class="indent">But no one in the cheerful, light-hearted company +had come within miles of guessing the truth; and +Oliver Tropenell had done his full share in helping +Lord St. Amant in the entertainment of his guests. +He had also made himself duly agreeable to the ladies—indeed, +Oliver, in a sense, had been the success of +the party, partly because the way of his life in Mexico +enabled him to bring a larger, freer air into the discussions +which had taken place after dinner and in the +smoking-room, and also because of his vitality—a +vitality which just now burned with a brighter +glow....</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant and Oliver only stayed on at the +dining-table a very few minutes after Mrs. Tropenell +and Laura had gone off into the drawing-room.</p> + +<p class="indent">Though now on very cordial terms, the two men +never had very much to say to one another. Yet +Lord St. Amant had always been fond of Oliver. Being +the manner of man he was, he could not but feel +attached to Letty Tropenell's child. Still, there had +been a time, now many long years ago, just after the +death of his wife, when he had been acutely jealous +of Oliver—jealous, that is, of Mrs. Tropenell's absorption, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 327]</span> +love, and pride, in her son. She had made it so +very clear that she desired no closer tie to her old +friend—and this had shrewdly hurt his self-esteem. +But he had been too much of a philosopher to bear +<i>rancune</i>, and such a friendship as theirs soon became +had, after all, its compensations.</p> + +<p class="indent">When Oliver settled in Mexico the time had passed +by for a renewal of the old relations, and for a while +the tie which had lasted for so long, and survived so +many secret vicissitudes, appeared to loosen....</p> + +<p class="indent">But now, again, all that was changed. Lord St. +Amant had given up his wanderings on the Continent, +and he had come once more very near to Mrs. Tropenell, +during this last year. He and Oliver were also +better friends than they had ever been; this state of +things dated from last winter, for, oddly enough, what +had brought them in sympathy had been the death of +Godfrey Pavely. They had been constantly together +during the days which had followed the banker's mysterious +disappearance, and they had worked in close +union, each, in a sense, representing Laura, and having +a dual authority from her to do what seemed best.</p> + +<p class="indent">Still, to-night, excellent as were the terms on which +each man felt with the other, neither had anything to +say that could not be said better in the company of +the ladies. And when in the drawing-room, which +now looked so large and empty with only two, where +last night there had been twelve, women gathered together +about the fireplace, the four talked on, pleasantly, +cheerfully, intimately, as they had done at dinner.</p> + +<p class="indent">After a while Laura and Oliver slipped away into +the smaller drawing-room, and Lord St. Amant and +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 328]</span> +Mrs. Tropenell, hardly aware that the other two had +left them, went on gossiping—harking back, as they +now so often did, to the old stories, the old human +tragedies and comedies, of the neighbourhood.</p> + +<p class="indent">Soon after ten Laura and Oliver came back, walking +side by side, and Oliver's mother looked up with +a proud, fond glance.</p> + +<p class="indent">They were a striking, well-matched couple—Laura +looking more beautiful than ever to-night, perhaps +because she seemed a thought more animated than +usual.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I've come to say good-night," she exclaimed. "I +feel so sleepy! Oliver and I had such a glorious walk +this afternoon."</p> + +<p class="indent">She bent down and kissed Mrs. Tropenell. And +then, unexpectedly, she turned to Lord St. Amant, +and put up her face as if she expected him also to +kiss her.</p> + +<p class="indent">Amused and touched, he bent and brushed his old +lips against her soft cheek: "My dear," he exclaimed, +"this is very kind of you!"</p> + +<p class="indent">And then Oliver stepped forward into the circle of +light thrown by the big wood fire.</p> + +<p class="indent">He said a little huskily, "My turn next, Laura——" +And to the infinite surprise of his mother and of his +host, Laura, with an impulsive, tender gesture, reached +up towards him, and he, too, brushed her soft face +with his lips.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then he took her hand, and led her to the door. +And Lord St. Amant, quoting Champmélé, turned to +his old love: "'Ah! Madame—quelle jolie chose qu'un +baiser!'" he murmured, and ere the door had quite +closed behind Oliver he, too, had put his arm with +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 329]</span> +a caressing gesture round her shoulder, and drawn her +to him, with the whispered words, "Letty—don't think +me an old fool!" And then, "Oh, Letty! Do you +remember the first time——" And though she made +no answer, he knew she did remember, like himself +only too well, the wild, winter afternoon, nearer forty +than thirty years ago, when they two had been caught +alone, far from home, in a great storm—the wild +weather responding to their wild mood. They had +taken shelter in a deserted, half-ruined barn, a survival +of the days when England had still great granaries. +And there, throwing everything aside—the insistent +promptings of honour, and the less insistent +promptings of prudence—St. Amant had kissed +Letty....</p> + +<p class="indent">He remembered, even now, the thrill of mingled +rapture, shame, gratitude, triumph, and stinging self-rebuke, +which had accompanied that first long clinging +kiss.</p> + +<p class="indent">The next day he had left the Abbey for the Continent, +and when, at last, he had come back, he had +himself again well in hand....</p> + +<p class="indent">Only yesterday the shooters had gone by that old +seventeenth-century barn, of which nothing now remained +but thick low walls, and as he had tramped +by the spot, so alone with his memories, if outwardly +so companioned, there had swept over his heart, that +heart which was still susceptible to every keen emotion, +a feeling of agonised regret for what had—and +what had not been.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Ah, Letty," he said huskily, "you've been the best +friend man ever had! Don't you think the time has +come for two such old friends as you and I have been +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 330]</span> +never to part? It isn't as if I had a great deal of +time left."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">An hour later Lord St. Amant was sitting up in +bed, reading the fourth volume of a certain delightful +edition of the Memoirs of the Duc de Saint Simon. +He was feeling happier than he had felt for a very +long time—stirred and touched too, as he had not +thought to be again.</p> + +<p class="indent">Complacently he reminded himself of the successful, +the brilliantly successful, elderly marriages he +had known in his time. 'Twas odd when one came to +think of it, but he couldn't remember one such which +had turned out a failure!</p> + +<p class="indent">Dear Letty—who had known how to pass imperceptibly +from youth to age with such a fine, measured +dignity, while retaining so much which had made +her as a girl and as an older woman the most delightful +and stimulating of companions. What an agreeable +difference her presence would make to his existence +as he went slowly down into the shadows! He +shuddered a little—the thought of old age, of real old +age, becoming suddenly, vividly repugnant.</p> + +<p class="indent">Thank God, Letty was very much younger than +himself. When he was eighty she would be sixty-three. +He tried to put away that thought, the thought +that some day he would be infirm, as well as old.</p> + +<p class="indent">He looked up from his book.</p> + +<p class="indent">How odd to think that Letty had never been in this +room, where he had spent so much of his life from +boyhood onwards! He longed to show her some of +the things he had here—family miniatures, old political +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 331]</span> +caricatures, some of his favourite books—they +would all interest her.</p> + +<p class="indent">He was glad he had arranged that she should have, +on this visit, his dear mother's room. When he had +married—close on fifty years ago—his parents had +been alive, and later his wife, as the new Lady St. +Amant, had not cared to take over her predecessor's +apartments. She had been very little here, for soon, +poor woman, she had become an invalid—a most disagreeable, +selfish invalid. He told himself that after +all he had had a certain amount of excuse for—well, +for the sort of existence he had led so long. If poor +Adelaide had only died twenty years earlier, and he +had married Letty—ah, <i>then</i>, he would indeed have +become an exemplary character! Yet he had been +faithful to Letty—in his fashion....</p> + +<p class="indent">No other woman had even approached near the +sanctuary where the woman of whom now, to-night, +he was able to think as his future wife, had at once +become so securely enthroned. It had first been a +delicious, if a dangerous, relationship, and, later, a +most agreeable friendship. During the last few +months she had become rather to his surprise very +necessary to him, and these last few days he had +felt how pleasant it would be to have Letty always +here, at the Abbey, either in his company, or resting, +reading, or writing in the room where everything +still spoke to him of the long-dead mother who had +been so dear to him.</p> + +<p class="indent">Of course they would wait till Oliver and Laura +were married—say, till some time in February or +March: and then, when those two rather tiresome +younger people were disposed of, they, he and Letty, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 332]</span> +would slip up quietly to London, and, in the presence +of perhaps two or three old friends, they would be +made man and wife.</p> + +<p class="indent">He reflected complacently that nothing in his life +would be changed, save that Letty would be there, at +the Abbey, as she had been the last few days, always +ready to hear with eager interest anything he had to +say, always with her point of view sufficiently unlike +his own to give flavour, even sometimes a touch of +the unexpected, to their conversation.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">A knock at the door, and his valet came in, and +walked close up to the bed.</p> + +<p class="indent">"It's a telephone message, my lord. From Sir Angus +Kinross—private to your lordship."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes. What is the message?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant felt a slight tremor of discomfort +sweep over him. What an odd time to send a trunk-call +through—at close on midnight.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Sir Angus has been trying to get on for some +time, my lord; there was a fault on the line. Sir +Angus would be much obliged if you would meet him +at your lordship's rooms at one o'clock to-morrow. +He says he's sorry to trouble your lordship to come +up to London, but it's very important. He came +himself to the telephone, my lord. He asked who +I was. I did offer to fetch your lordship, but he +said there was no occasion for that—if I would +deliver the message myself."</p> + +<p class="indent">"All right, Barrett."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Sir Angus begs your lordship not to tell any one +that your business to-morrow is with him."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I quite understand that."</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 333]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<p class="cap">"WE have solved the mystery of Godfrey Pavely's +death!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Such were the words with which Sir Angus Kinross +greeted Lord St. Amant, when the latter, arriving at +his rooms, found the Commissioner of Police already +there.</p> + +<p class="indent">"D'you mean that you've run Fernando Apra to +earth?"</p> + +<p class="indent">The speaker felt relieved, and at the same time +rather discomfited. He had not associated the Commissioner +of Police's summons with that now half-forgotten, +painful story. Godfrey Pavely had vanished +out of his mind, as he had vanished out of every +one else's mind in the neighbourhood of Pewsbury, +and in the last few months when Sir Angus and Lord +St. Amant had met they had seldom alluded to the +strange occurrence which had first made them become +friends.</p> + +<p class="indent">But now, seeing that the other looked at him with +a singular look of hesitation, there came a slight feeling +of apprehension over St. Angus's host.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Have you actually got the man here, in England? +If so, I suppose poor Mrs. Pavely is bound to have a +certain amount of fresh trouble in connection with the +affair?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"We have not got the man who called himself Fernando +Apra, and we are never likely to have him. +In fact, I regard it as certain that we shall not even +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 334]</span> +be able to connect him directly with the murder—for +murder it certainly was, St. Amant."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Murder?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant repeated the word reluctantly, +doubtfully. He was beginning to feel more and more +apprehensive. There was something so strange and +so sombre in the glance with which the Commissioner +of Police accompanied his words.</p> + +<p class="indent">During that fortnight when they had so constantly +seen one another last year, Sir Angus had never once +looked surprised, annoyed—or even put out! There +had been about him a certain imperturbability, both of +temper and of manner. He now looked infinitely +more disturbed than he had done even at the moment +when he had first seen Godfrey Pavely's dead body +sitting up in Fernando Apra's sinister-looking office.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," he went on in a low, incisive voice, "it was +murder right enough! And we already hold a warrant, +which will be executed the day after to-morrow, +this next Friday——"</p> + +<p class="indent">He waited a moment, then uttered very deliberately +the words: "It is a warrant for the arrest of Mr. +Oliver Tropenell on the charge of having murdered +Mr. Godfrey Pavely on or about the 5th of last January."</p> + +<p class="indent">"I—I don't understand what you mean! Surely +Oliver Tropenell was not masquerading as Fernando +Apra?" exclaimed Lord St. Amant. "If one can believe +a mass of quite disinterested evidence, the two +men were utterly unlike!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"That is so, and there was of course a man who +masqueraded, and masqueraded most successfully, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 335]</span> +both in Paris and in London, as Fernando Apra. That +man, St. Amant, was——"</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant bent forward eagerly while his +mind, his still vigorous, intelligent, acute mind, darted +this way and that. What name—whose name—was +Sir Angus going to utter?</p> + +<p class="indent">He was not long left in suspense.</p> + +<p class="indent">"That man," said Sir Angus slowly, impressively, +"was Mrs. Pavely's brother, a certain Gilbert Baynton, +who is, we are informed, the business partner of +Mr. Tropenell in Mexico. It was <i>he</i> who masqueraded +as Fernando Apra. But it was not he who actually +fired the pistol shot which killed Godfrey Pavely——"</p> + +<p class="indent">When he had heard the name Gilbert Baynton, it +was as if a great light had suddenly burst in on Lord +St. Amant's brain. In spite of everything he felt a +sharp thrill of relief.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Good God!" he exclaimed. "There's been a terrible +mistake—but it's one that I can set right in a +very few minutes. Believe me, you're on the wrong +track altogether! If murder there was—murder, and +not manslaughter, which I venture to think much more +probable—then Gilbert Baynton was Godfrey Pavely's +murderer. The two men hated one another. It all +comes back to me—not only had they a quarrel years +ago, but that same quarrel was renewed not long before +Godfrey Pavely's disappearance. Nothing—<i>nothing</i>—would +induce me to believe that Oliver +Tropenell is a murderer!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'm afraid you'll soon be brought round to believe +it," said Sir Angus ruefully. "I am of course well +aware of what you say concerning Gilbert Baynton's +relations to his brother-in-law. We've already found +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 336]</span> +all that out, especially as we had a willing witness close +to our hand. Unfortunately—I say unfortunately, St. +Amant, for of course I know he is a thorough bad +hat—we have irrefutable evidence that this man +Baynton did <i>not</i> commit the murder. He was certainly +in Paris at the time when Godfrey Pavely was +killed in London."</p> + +<p class="indent">Sir Angus took a turn up and down the room—then +he came back to where the other man was sitting.</p> + +<p class="indent">"You can take it from me, St. Amant, that there +has never been, in the whole history of criminal jurisprudence, +so far as I am acquainted with it, any crime +planned out with such infinite care, ingenuity, and—and—well, +yes, I must say it, a kind of almost diabolical +cunning. So true is that that——" He took +another turn up and down the room, and then once +more he came and stood before his friend: "Well, I +consider the murderer has a very good sporting chance +of getting off—scot free! He will be able to command +the best legal advice as well as the best intellects at the +Criminal Bar—that he himself has no mean intellect +he has proved over this business. Yes, I shouldn't be +in the least surprised if he managed to scrape through! +More fortunate than most of his kind, he has a new +country to which he will be able to retire with the +widow of the man he murdered—if she can be brought +to believe in him. And, mind you, women can be +brought to believe <i>anything</i> of those they love, or at +any rate, they can be brought to <i>seem</i> to believe anything!"</p> + +<p class="indent">He waited a moment, and then added abruptly, "I +formed the opinion that Mrs. Pavely was a very unusual +woman, St. Amant."</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 337]</span> +"But you don't think—surely you don't think——"</p> + +<p class="indent">"No, no——" Sir Angus was very decided. "I +certainly don't think Mrs. Pavely was in any way +concerned in this appalling plot. And mind you—ill +as I think of him, I must admit that Oliver Tropenell's +a brave man. He did the job himself—even if he was +helped by his friend."</p> + +<p class="indent">He waited a moment. Somehow St. Amant was +taking the news far more to heart than he had expected.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I'll tell you everything in time, but it's a long, +complicated story; and of course I'm trusting entirely +to your honour in the matter. What I tell you now +must never go beyond these four walls."</p> + +<p class="indent">Sir Angus sat down, and Lord St. Amant listened, +half of his brain acutely, sensitively alive to the story +that was being told him—the other half in a kind of +stupor of grief, of shame, and of horror. That second +half of his brain was dominated by one name, one +thought, one heart-beat—Letty, the dear, the beloved +woman who had just promised to marry him, to bring +him the solace of her care and companionship in the +evening of his days....</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">"Apart from certain most cleverly devised breaks +in the story—to which I shall make allusion presently—Oliver +Tropenell's best chance lies in the absence of +adequate motive. Why should this millionaire wish +to murder a man who, as he will easily be able to +prove, was not only an intimate friend, but also a connection +of his own? Our answer to that question will +be to put in these two anonymous letters."</p> + +<p class="indent">Sir Angus took out of his pocket the two letters +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 338]</span> +which had caused poor Godfrey Pavely such acute +discomfort just a year before.</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant read them through, carefully, in +silence.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Still, as I daresay you know, judges look very +much askance at anonymous letters, and especially in +a trial for murder. Also these prove so <i>very</i> little—the +more so that there seems to have been no talk at +all about Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely in the neighbourhood. +She bears, and has always borne, a very high +character. As for these letters, they were evidently +written by a woman—and by an educated woman. +Any one familiar with disguised handwriting could +tell you <i>that</i> much. Of course I have my own theory +as to who wrote them."</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant nodded. "Yes, so have I."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Still, I'm not bound to give my theory to either +side, am I? I foresee that very probably these letters +will remain anonymous. A great many people who +think themselves clever will put them down to some +dismissed servant.</p> + +<p class="indent">"The fact that Mr. Tropenell left England for +Mexico so soon after the discovery of Mr. Pavely's +body is a good point on his side. The judge will +argue, above all the jury will argue, that if he had +been in love with Mrs. Pavely—if he had loved her, +that is, with a guilty passion—he would not have left +her just after she had become a widow. Nothing compelled +him to do so. It has been suggested, but from +a person who does not intend to go into the +witness-box if she can help it, that Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely +are now secretly engaged. My answer to that is—why +shouldn't they be? Many a man has married his +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 339]</span> +best friend's widow without any one supposing that +he committed murder in order to attain that satisfaction!"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Have you proof—irrefutable proof—pointing to +the guilt of Oliver Tropenell?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"What is irrefutable proof? It can be proved that +Oliver Tropenell spent many weeks on the Continent +in the company of the man who undoubtedly masqueraded +as Fernando Apra, and that for a certain portion +of that time the two men exchanged identities. +Nothing can shake that portion of the evidence. But +there is no record of the two having met, later, in +London—I mean during the time when the net was +certainly being drawn round Godfrey Pavely. And, as +I said before, Gilbert Baynton—<i>alias</i> Fernando Apra—has +an absolute alibi. He was certainly in Paris on +the day when all trace of Pavely was lost. There +seems no doubt at all that the evidence of the London +hotel manager was most artfully arranged for. The +man's story was given in good faith, but the incident +occurred a full week before Mr. Pavely was done to +death."</p> + +<p class="indent">"But where does Tropenell come in?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"As to the movements of Mr. Oliver Tropenell, +we have not been quite so fortunate in tracing them. +But even so, we have evidence that during the fateful +three days on one of which the murder was certainly +committed, he was staying in London, having +just arrived from the Continent. I personally have +no doubt at all that it was on Thursday, January +the 5th, that, lured by a cleverly concocted letter signed +'Fernando Apra,' the hapless Pavely went to Duke +House to find Tropenell lying in wait for him. The +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 340]</span> +two men may have had words—they probably <i>did</i> have +words. But whatever passed—and look at it as you +may, St. Amant—it was deliberate murder."</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant stood up. His turn had come to +astound the Commissioner of Police.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes," he said, "yes, if your theory is correct, +Kinross, it was deliberate murder—to me far the more +terrible fact, because the murderer will soon be my +stepson. I am to be married to Mrs. Tropenell by +special licence next week."</p> + +<p class="indent">And as the Commissioner of Police, transfixed with +surprise, remained silent, the other went on, speaking +rather quietly and coldly, "It is only fair on my part +to tell you this. Indeed, perhaps I ought to have told +you at once—I mean when I first gathered the purport +of what you wished to say to me."</p> + +<p class="indent">Sir Angus shook his head. He was filled with a +great pity, as well as a great admiration, for the man—who +now looked such an old man—standing there +facing him.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Look here," he said slowly. "I oughtn't perhaps +to make such a suggestion to you—but we've become +friends, St. Amant. That is why I venture to advise +you that before this next Friday you should get these +two unfortunate ladies, Mrs. Tropenell and Mrs. +Pavely, out of the country. Take them away—hide +them away—in France or in Spain! If you do that +they will be spared a fathomless measure of anguish +and of shame. The presence of neither of them is essential +to the course of justice, and if they remain in +England they will certainly each be called as witnesses, +in which case Mrs. Pavely will go through—well, I +can only describe it as <i>hell</i>. It is not as if the presence +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 341]</span> +of either of them would be really beneficial to Oliver +Tropenell."</p> + +<p class="indent">"Can you say that quite truly about his mother?" +asked Lord St. Amant searchingly.</p> + +<p class="indent">Sir Angus looked up with a very troubled expression +of face.</p> + +<p class="indent">"No, I fear I can't," he answered, frankly, "for if +Mrs. Tropenell can bring herself to believe her son +absolutely innocent, then, in the hands of a skilful +counsel, I have to admit that her evidence might be +of great sentimental value to Tropenell. But the same +cannot be said of Mrs. Pavely's presence in the witness-box. +Whichever way you look at it, Mrs. Pavely's +presence is bound to be, in a judicial sense, detrimental +to the man in the dock. She is, if I may say +so, St. Amant, a singularly attractive woman, and ten +out of every twelve of the men in Court would probably +regard her as providing a very adequate 'motive'!"</p> + +<p class="indent">There was a pause, and then Sir Angus began +again:</p> + +<p class="indent">"What would you say to our persuading Mrs. +Pavely to leave England for a while, leaving only +Mrs. Tropenell to face the music?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Mrs. Pavely," said Lord St. Amant thoughtfully, +"would probably refuse to leave England. I think, +I fear, that she loves Oliver Tropenell—passionately."</p> + +<p class="indent">He added abruptly, "Are you having him watched?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Sir Angus cleared his throat. "Well, no, not exactly +<i>watched</i>. We are of course aware that he has +been staying with you for the past week, and that he +is going back to Freshley Manor—is it to-morrow, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 342]</span> +or the day after to-morrow? I take it that he would +probably prefer to be arrested in his mother's house."</p> + +<p class="indent">A feeling of sick horror came over the other man's +heart. "I—I suppose so," he muttered.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then Sir Angus Kinross dropped his voice: +"You really know this man and I don't. Do you +think it advisable that he should be prepared for what +is coming—that <i>you</i>, for instance, St. Amant——"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Do you mean," exclaimed Lord St. Amant, "that +I may—warn him?"</p> + +<p class="indent">The other nodded. "Yes, that is what I suggest +that you should do. I take it that we can be quite +sure that he will do nothing mad or foolish—that +he will not try to get away, for instance? It would +be quite useless, and I need hardly point out that it +would ruin his chances—later. I think you are at +liberty to tell him, as from yourself of course, that +you have reason to think he has a sporting chance, +St. Amant. But I am trusting, not only to your honour, +but to your secrecy and—and discretion."</p> + +<p class="indent">The other nodded gravely. "Tropenell's not the +sort of man to run away."</p> + +<p class="indent">"No, I don't think he is—once he knows the game +is up," answered the Commissioner of Police a trifle +grimly.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 343]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<p class="cap">IT was now early, very early in the morning after +the return of Lord St. Amant to the Abbey. +Dead dark, and dead quiet too, in the great sleeping +house. Not dead cold, however, in his lordship's +comfortable bedroom, for he had built up the fire, +as he sat on and on, still fully dressed, reading, or +trying to read—his bed exactly in the same state as +when he had gone upstairs from the drawing-room +about eleven.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was years and years since Lord St. Amant had +last stayed up all night, but though he had made a +great effort to forget himself in those ever fresh, even +if familiar, memoirs of Saint Simon, he had found it +impossible to banish from his mind—even for a few +moments—the awful thing which he knew would, in +a sense, never leave his mind again.</p> + +<p class="indent">For the tenth time he put his book down, marking +the page with a tiny strip of green watered ribbon, +on a low table by his side, and then, staring into the +fire, his memory lingered—not over his talk with Sir +Angus Kinross, he was sick of thinking <i>that</i> over—but +over the incidents which had marked the evening +before.</p> + +<p class="indent">He had returned from London only just in time to +dress for dinner, and so he had not seen his guests +till just before a quarter-past eight. Then had followed +an hour passed, outwardly at least, peacefully +and pleasantly.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 344]</span> +But while he had been eating mechanically the food +put before him, in very truth not knowing what it +was, terrible thoughts had gone through his mind in a +terrible sequence.</p> + +<p class="indent">Once or twice he had caught, or thought he had +caught, Oliver Tropenell's penetrating eyes fixed +searchingly on his face, but he, the host, had avoided +looking at his guest. Somehow he could neither look +at Oliver, nor even think of Oliver—with Oliver and +Laura there, the one sitting opposite to him, the other +next him.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura? Laura, on Lord St. Amant's left, had +looked lovely last night. She was wearing a white +dress, almost bridal in its dead whiteness—a rather +singular fact considering that she had till to-day worn +unrelieved black. Looking back, her host could not +get her out of his mind. To think that she, proud, +reserved, Laura Pavely was to be the heroine of a +frightful tragedy which would bring not only shame +and disgrace on herself and on the man whom Lord +St. Amant had every reason to suppose she now loved, +but—what was of so very much more concern to him—on +that man's mother.</p> + +<p class="indent">Looking at Laura, seeing that strange, haunting +Mona Lisa smile on her lovely face, it had seemed +incredible that she should be the central figure of such +a story. But how could she escape being the central +figure, the heroine of the story, at any rate in the +imagination of all those, one might almost count them +by millions, rather than thousands, who in a few days +or a few weeks would be as familiar with the name +"Mrs. Pavely" as they once had been with the names +of—of Mrs. Bravo and Mrs. Maybrick?</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 345]</span> +Yes, Lord St. Amant, staring into the fire, told +himself, that that three-quarters of an hour spent in +his own dining-room had been the most painful time +he had ever lived through in his long life. He felt +as if every moment of it was indelibly stamped on his +brain. And yet he had completely forgotten what the +talk had been about! He supposed they had talked. +Silence would have seemed so strange, so unnatural. +Yet he could not remember a single thing which had +been said.</p> + +<p class="indent">But his vision of the three who had sat at table +with him remained horribly clear.</p> + +<p class="indent">Now he was haunted specially by Oliver. And +then, after a while, Oliver left him, and he was +haunted by his poor friend, soon to be his poor wife.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell had been more silent than usual—so +much he did remember. And he wondered uneasily +if he had given her any cause for thinking, from +his appearance or his manner, that there was anything +wrong?</p> + +<p class="indent">The thought of what was going to happen to Mrs. +Tropenell on the day which was now to-morrow, became +suddenly so intolerable to Lord St. Amant that +he got up from his chair, and walked twice round the +large, shadowed bedroom.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then he sat down again, and groaned aloud.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was as though a bridge had been thrown over +the chasm of nearly forty years. His withered heart +became vivified. Something of the passion which he +had left for the high-spirited and innocent, yet ardent-natured, +girl whom he had loved, and whom he had +saved from herself, stirred within him. Secretly, +voicelessly, he had always been very proud of what +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 346]</span> +he had, done—and left undone. It was the one good, +nay, the one selfless, action of his long, agreeable, +selfish life.</p> + +<p class="indent">But he could not save her now! Some little shelter +and protection he would be able to afford her, but +what would it avail against the frightful cloud of +shame and anguish which was about to envelop her?</p> + +<p class="indent">He told himself suddenly what he had already told +himself when with Sir Angus—namely, that he and +Letty must be married at once. She would certainly +acquiesce in any course which would benefit Oliver. +Yes, Letty would think of nothing but her son, and, +the world being what it is, Oliver would of course +benefit by the fact that Lord St. Amant was his stepfather. +It would add yet another touch of the unusual +and the romantic to the story....</p> + +<p class="indent">Once more his mind swung back to last evening. +He and Oliver had stayed alone together some ten +minutes after the ladies had gone into the drawing-room, +and there had come over Lord St. Amant a +wild, unreasoning impulse to unburden his heart. But +of course he had checked, battened down resolutely, +that foolish almost crazy impulse. As soon as Letty +and Laura were safely gone tomorrow morning he +must, of course, tackle the terrible task. And then he +tried, as he had tried so often during the last twelve +hours, to put himself in Oliver Tropenell's place.</p> + +<p class="indent">He recalled the younger man's easy, assured manner, +and what a real help, nay, more than help, he +had been when the house was full of guests. More +than one of their neighbours there had spoken warmly, +with evident admiration, of Tropenell. "How well +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 347]</span> +he's turned out! He was thought to be such a queer +chap as a boy."</p> + +<p class="indent">A queer chap? Oliver was certainly <i>that</i>.</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant forced himself to consider the man +whom his intellect, if not his heart, was compelled +to recognise as a cold-blooded murderer.</p> + +<p class="indent">What had been his and Laura's real attitude to one +another during Godfrey Pavely's lifetime? Was +Laura absolutely innocent? Or, had she played with +Tropenell as women sometimes do play with men—as +a certain kind of beautiful, graceful, dignified cat +sometimes plays with a mouse? He was still inclined +to think <i>not</i>,—before yesterday he would certainly +have said not. But one never can tell—with a +woman....</p> + +<p class="indent">And what was going to happen now? Oliver had +always been a fighter—no doubt Oliver would be prepared +to take the "sporting chance."</p> + +<p class="indent">When he and his guest had gone into the drawing-room +last evening, Laura and Oliver had almost at +once passed through into the smaller drawing-room. +They had moved away unconcernedly, as if it was +quite natural that they should desire to be by themselves, +rather than in the company of Oliver's mother +and Laura's host; and Lord St. Amant, looking furtively +at Mrs. Tropenell, had felt a sudden painful +constriction of the heart as he had noted the wistful +glance she had cast on the two younger people. It +had been such a touching look—the look of the mother +who gives up her beloved to the woman who has become +his beloved.</p> + +<p class="indent">At ten o'clock tea had been brought in—an old-fashioned +habit which was, perhaps, the only survival +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 348]</span> +of the late Lady St. Amant's reign at the Abbey, and, +to the surprise of Mrs. Tropenell, her companion had +poured himself out a cup and had drunk it off absently.</p> + +<p class="indent">She had smiled, exclaiming, "You shouldn't have +done that! You know you never can take tea and +coffee so near together!" And he had said, "Can't +I? No, of course I can't. How stupid of me!"</p> + +<p class="indent">And Laura, hearing the opening and the shutting +of doors, had come back, and said that she felt sleepy. +They had had another glorious walk, she and Oliver....</p> + +<p class="indent">Yes, that had been how the evening had worn itself +out, so quiet and pleasant, so peaceful—outwardly. +It was, indeed, outwardly just the kind of +evening which Lord St. Amant had promised himself +only yesterday should be repeated many times, after +his marriage to his old friend. But now he knew that +that had been the last apparently pleasant, peaceful +evening that was ever likely to fall to his share in this +life. Even if Oliver Tropenell, aided by his great +wealth and shrewd intellect, escaped the legal consequences +of his wicked deed, his mother would ever +be haunted by the past—if indeed the fiery ordeal did +not actually kill her.</p> + +<p class="indent">The old man, sitting by the fire, began to feel very, +very tired—tired, yet excited, and not in the least +sleepy. He turned and looked over at his bed, and +then he shook his head. Yet he would have to get into +that bed and pretend that he had slept in it, before +his valet came into the room at half-past seven.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was years, years, <i>years</i> since he had last tried +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 349]</span> +to make an unslept-in bed look as if it had been slept +in.</p> + +<p class="indent">He told himself fretfully that it was odd how unwilling +he felt to go over in his own mind the amazing +story told him by Sir Angus Kinross. He had +thought of nothing else on his long journey from +London, but since he had arrived at the Abbey, since +he had seen Oliver, he could not bear to think over +the details of the sinister story. He forced himself +to glance at them, as it were obliquely, for a moment. +Yes, he could quite see what Sir Angus meant! Oliver +certainly had a sporting chance, backed with the power +of commanding the best legal advice and the highest +talent at the Bar, coupled with the kind of sympathy +which is aroused, even in phlegmatic England, by +what the French call a <i>crime passionel</i>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">Once more Lord St. Amant took up the little faded +red leather-bound volume, but he had hardly pushed +aside the green ribbon which marked his place in it, +when there struck on his ears the metallic sound of +an alarum clock—one which he judged to have been +carefully muffled and deadened, yet which must be +quite sufficiently audible to fulfil its purpose of awakening +any sleeper in the room where it happened to +be.</p> + +<p class="indent">Now, on hearing that sound, Lord St. Amant was +exceedingly surprised, for, as far as he knew, only +one other room was occupied on this side of the corridor. +That room was that which his late wife had +chosen in preference to the one which had been his +mother's, and by an odd whim he had assigned it to +Laura Pavely.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 350]</span> +He turned slightly round in his chair, and glanced +at the travelling clock which was on his dressing-table.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was half-past five.</p> + +<p class="indent">Why should Laura, or any one else in that great +house for the matter of that, wish to be awakened on +a winter's morning at such an hour?</p> + +<p class="indent">While he was thinking this over, he heard the sound +of a key turning quietly in a lock, and then there came +that of the slow opening of a door on to the corridor.</p> + +<p class="indent">He stood up, uncertain what to do, and feeling his +nerves taut.</p> + +<p class="indent">Though he was now an old man, his limbs had +not lost all their suppleness, and after a moment of +hesitation he sprang to his door and opened it.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yes! He could hear the firm tread of footsteps +coming down the corridor towards him, to his left.</p> + +<p class="indent">He flung his door wide open, and into the stream +of light thrown by his powerful reading lamp into +the corridor, there suddenly appeared Oliver +Tropenell——</p> + +<p class="indent">For a flashing moment the tall figure loomed out of +the darkness, and then was engulfed again....</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant shut the door and hurried back to +the fireplace. He cursed the impulse, bred half of +genuine alarm, half of eager curiosity, which had +made him the unwilling sharer in another man's—and +woman's—secret.</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura? Laura?—<i>Laura?</i> He was so taken aback, +so surprised, so utterly astounded, and yes, so shocked, +that for a moment he forgot the terrible thing which +had now filled his mind without ceasing for so many +hours. Then it came back, a thousand-fold more +vivid and accusing.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 351]</span> +Laura? Good God, how mistaken he had been in +her! Manlike, he told himself, most unfairly, that +somehow what he had now learnt made everything—anything +possible.</p> + +<p class="indent">But before he had time to sit down, the door opened +again, and Oliver Tropenell walked into the room.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I wish you to know," he began, without any preamble, +"that Laura and I were married a week ago +in London. She wished to wait—in fact it had been +arranged that we should wait—till February or March. +But to please me—only to please me, St. Amant—she +put her own wishes, her own scruples aside. If there +is any blame—the blame is entirely, <i>entirely</i> mine." +He waited a moment, and then went on rapidly:</p> + +<p class="indent">"As far as the rest of the world—the indifferent +world—is concerned, it will believe that Laura and I +were married when of course we should have been, +after Godfrey Pavely had been dead a year. But +Laura would like my mother to know. In fact she +intends, I believe, to tell my mother to-morrow."</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant found himself debating, with a +kind of terrible self-questioning, whether now was +the moment to speak to Oliver.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Of course I understand," he said shakily. "And +I think Laura did quite right. But even so I suggest +that nothing is said to your mother—yet. I have a +very serious reason for asking you to beg Laura to +keep your marriage absolutely secret."</p> + +<p class="indent">He was looking earnestly, painfully into the face +of the younger man.</p> + +<p class="indent">Oliver Tropenell's countenance suddenly stiffened. +It assumed a terrible, mask-like expression.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Had your journey to London," he asked slowly, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 352]</span> +"anything to do with my affairs? I thought so once—at +dinner. Did Sir Angus Kinross send for you?"</p> + +<p class="indent">Lord St. Amant could not, did not, speak. But at +last he bent his head.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then Oliver asked another question, quickly, in a +matter-of-fact tone: "How many hours have I left?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"Till to-morrow, I mean till Friday, morning," the +other answered in a stifled voice.</p> + +<p class="indent">He longed to go on, to tell the man standing by +his side what Sir Angus had said as to his having "a +sporting chance." But there was something in the +expression of the rigid, mask-like face which forbade +his saying that.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then Oliver Tropenell turned round and +grasped his host's hand.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I owe you a lot of kindness," he muttered. "I +used not to be grateful, but I am grateful, <i>now</i>. We'll +get Laura and mother off—and then you'll tell me +what I have to know."</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 353]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<p class="cap">MRS. TROPENELL stood by the window of the +pretty, old-fashioned sitting-room which she +had now occupied for over a week, and which she +knew would be, in a special sense, her own room, after +she had became Lady St. Amant.</p> + +<p class="indent">She was already dressed for the drive home with +Laura Pavely. It was nearly twelve o'clock, and the +car would be round in a few minutes. But she was +waiting on, up here, for her son, for after breakfast +Oliver had said casually: "I'll come up to your room +for a moment, mother—I mean before you start for +Freshley."</p> + +<p class="indent">She looked round the room consideringly. Nothing +in it had been altered for something like fifty +years. Above the Italian marble chimney-piece was +a good portrait, in oils, of Lord St. Amant's father, +and on either side of the fireplace were crayon drawings +of St. Amant as a little boy, and of his two sisters +as little girls. Everything here epitomised the +placid, happy life of the good and fortunate woman +who had been Lord St. Amant's mother.</p> + +<p class="indent">But the pretty, old-fashioned, peaceful-looking room +told also of the strange transience of human life. +With the exception of that early Victorian crayon +drawing of the stalwart little boy, almost everything +in the nature of a relic or memento spoke of some +human being long dead.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mrs. Tropenell felt curiously at peace. There was +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 354]</span> +something almost final about the feeling which possessed +her. Up to last night she had been anxious, +restless, full of a secret, painful doubt as to whether +she was doing right in marrying Lord St. Amant.</p> + +<p class="indent">But now, this morning, her doubts had gone, partly +owing to a very trifling thing, a quick perception of +how well St. Amant and Oliver got on together—now. +She had been alone with them at breakfast, and they +had talked eagerly together, passing quickly from one +subject to another, with no intervals of silence. When, +at last, Oliver had got up, St. Amant also had risen, +and put his arm with an affectionate gesture round the +younger man's shoulder, and she had caught a strange +look, a look of moved gratitude, on Oliver's dark +face....</p> + +<p class="indent">She had dreaded telling her son of her resolve—but +the dread had left her, and she made up her +mind to tell him this morning—not to wait, as she +had half thought of doing, till he was at home again.</p> + +<p class="indent">St. Amant and Oliver were going to shoot this +afternoon over land belonging to little Alice Pavely. +Laura had let The Chase shooting to a neighbour, +and the neighbour, whose name was Buckhurst, had +invited the other two to join his shooting party to-day, +and to-morrow also. Oliver was coming home +to Freshley in between....</p> + +<p class="indent">The door opened. "Mother, may I come in?"</p> + +<p class="indent">She turned quickly, all her heart, as always, welcoming +him. With a little, unacknowledged pang +she told herself that Oliver was growing older, that +he was losing the look of buoyancy that he had kept +so long. But what a fine, strong, vigorous-looking +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 355]</span> +man he looked!—as he stood there, smiling rather +gravely at her.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Oliver?" she exclaimed, suddenly making up her +mind to rush her fence—it was a simile which still +often occurred to her—"Oliver, my dear, I want to +tell you something. I have promised Lord St. Amant +to marry him."</p> + +<p class="indent">He looked moved and surprised—perhaps more +than she had expected him to be. But his answer +came instantly: "I am glad, mother. I'm very, very +glad! I want to tell you, I've meant to tell you for +some time, that I felt I've been very churlish in this +matter of Lord St. Amant. He's always been good +to me! Very, very good. I owed him a great deal as +a boy. Lately, well, mother, you must have noticed +it yourself, we've become really friends."</p> + +<p class="indent">He looked swiftly round the pretty room. Till +this morning he had always been here alone with +Laura, having eyes only for her. He saw now what +a charming room it was—so warm, so cosy too, on this +chilly, wintry December day.</p> + +<p class="indent">He exclaimed: "It will be good to think of you +here—wherever I may be——"</p> + +<p class="indent">She felt a tremor go through her. Somehow she +had thought that he meant to settle down in England; +he had never said anything about it, but she had +thought that that was his intention.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Is Laura willing to spend a part of every year in +Mexico, my dearest?"</p> + +<p class="indent">He nodded, rather absently, as if the question +hardly required an answer.</p> + +<p class="indent">She moved closer to him. "You are very happy, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 356]</span> +are you not, Oliver?" she asked in a low voice, and +looking up into his face.</p> + +<p class="indent">And again he answered at once, almost as though +he had seen the question in her eyes before she uttered +it: "Very, very happy, mother! I don't suppose +any man has ever been happier than I have been."</p> + +<p class="indent">Again she put an intimate, probing question, wondering +at her own courage, her own temerity, in doing so. +"Laura wholly satisfies you?" she asked, allowing +nothing of the doubt which was still in her +heart to creep into her voice.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Wholly," he said, again in that strong, confident +voice. "And, mother—?" he waited a moment, and +then, in a voice suddenly tense with emotion, he +muttered—"what she is to me, I, all unworthy though I +be, am to her. Do you know what—what response +means to a man?"</p> + +<p class="indent">"I think I do," she said in a low voice.</p> + +<p class="indent">They remained silent. She felt as if she were, for +the first time, fused in intense spiritual communion +with her son.</p> + +<p class="indent">He broke the spell. "There's something I want +you to know," he said. And then he stopped short, +and, looking away, exclaimed, "Laura shall tell you!" +The carriage gong echoed through the great house. +He opened the door, she passed through it, and so together +they walked down to the large, rather bare +hall. There they waited a few moments in silence, +till there came the sound of light footsteps—Laura +running downstairs, a small fur cap on her beautiful +head.</p> + +<p class="indent">She hurried towards them, smiling, and Mrs. Tropenell +turned away—a twinge of jealous pain, of which +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 357]</span> +she was ashamed, in her heart—and stared into the +big log fire.</p> + +<p class="indent">She heard Oliver exclaim, in accents at once imploring +and imperious: "Laura? Come over here a +moment."</p> + +<p class="indent">At last she, the mother, turned slowly round, to +see, through the half-open door of Lord St. Amant's +study, the two standing together, locked in each other's +arms, Laura looking up into Oliver's face with an +expression of rapt devotion, of entire absorption, in +her blue, heavy-lidded eyes. As their lips met, Mrs. +Tropenell looked quickly away. She asked herself if +this exalted passion could last, and whether, after all, +Oliver were not happier now than he could ever hope +to be again?</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura was very silent during the first half of their +homeward drive, but at last she amazed Mrs. Tropenell +by suddenly saying: "I want you to know—I +feel I must tell you—that Oliver and I were married, +in London, ten days ago. And I think—oh, Aunt +Letty, I do think that he is happy—at last!"</p> + +<p class="indent">She said the words very simply, and Mrs. Tropenell +felt extraordinarily moved. This then was what +Oliver had wanted her to know, and man-like had +felt too—too shy to tell her.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I am very grateful to you for what you have +done," she exclaimed, and held the younger woman's +hand tightly clasped in hers for a moment.</p> + +<p class="indent">That was all. But before they parted Laura gave +his mother a message from Oliver. It was quite an +unimportant message, simply that on his way home he +meant to look in at The Chase.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 358]</span> +"You don't mind, do you?" Laura asked, a little +hesitatingly. And Oliver's mother smiled.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Of course not, my dear—I'm glad he should! +Perhaps you'd like to come back with him, and stay +on for dinner?"</p> + +<p class="indent">But Laura, reddening with one of her rather rare, +vivid blushes, shook her head. "I think I ought to +stay at home the first evening," she said, "and put +Alice to bed. She loves my putting her to bed. I +don't want Alice ever to feel jealous."</p> + +<p class="indent">But this time Mrs. Tropenell made no answer. Poor +little Alice! It would be strange indeed if the child +did not feel a little jealous as time went on—if, that +is, Laura went on being, as she seemed to be, almost +mystically absorbed in this wonderful, glowing thing +which had come into her life.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">It was the afternoon of the same day, and Mrs. +Tropenell, after dealing with the various matters +which had accumulated during her week's absence, +had gone up to her room to rest before Oliver's return. +Lying on her bed, in the fast-gathering twilight, +thinking over all that had happened, and all +that was happening, to herself and to those she loved, +Mrs. Tropenell dozed off for a few moments. Then, +in a long flash which seemed to contain æons of sensation, +she went through an amazing and terrifying experience!</p> + +<p class="indent">On the dead stillness which reigned both within +and without the house there suddenly rang out a +shot. At the same moment, if not indeed before, her +whole being seemed to be bracing itself up to endure +a great ordeal. It was as if her spirit, vanquishing +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 359]</span> +a base, secret, physical terror of the unknown, was +about to engage on a great adventure.</p> + +<p class="indent">With a stifled cry she sat up, and then she realised, +with a gasp of relief, that she had been dreaming, +only dreaming—but her heart went on beating for a +long time with the excitement, the mingled terror and +exaltation of spirit, she had just gone through.</p> + +<p class="indent">At last, feeling curiously languid and shaken, she +went downstairs, and had tea in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was only a little after five; probably Oliver would +not come in till just before it was time to dress for +dinner.</p> + +<p class="indent">The stillness of the house oppressed her. She got +up, and moved restlessly about the room. The curtains +had been drawn and the fire made up while she +had been upstairs. She went across to one of the +windows, and, behind the closed curtains, opened it +widely. And as she opened the window, and stood +by it, breathing in the cold, moist air, she heard the +sound of branches being pushed aside across a little-used +path which was even a shorter cut to The Chase +than was the beech-wood avenue.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then Oliver was coming home earlier than Laura +had thought he would?</p> + +<p class="indent">She stepped out quickly into the open air, on to the +flagged path.</p> + +<p class="indent">She could hear quick footsteps now—but they were +not Oliver's footsteps. It was probably a maid coming +back from the village which lay beyond The Chase. +But even so there crept a slight feeling of anxiety +over her heart. "Who's there?" she called out.</p> + +<p class="indent">Close out of the twilit darkness there came the instant +hoarse answer: "It's Laura, Aunt Letty."</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 360]</span> +"Laura? Oh, my dear, you'll catch cold!" for +Laura, without hat or cloak, was now there, before +her.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Aunt Letty? I've brought bad news—there's been +an accident."</p> + +<p class="indent">"To Oliver?" But she knew, even as she asked the +question, what the answer would be.</p> + +<p class="indent">"Yes—Oliver. They went on too long in the twilight—he +stumbled, and his gun went off. They're +bringing him home—now."</p> + +<p class="indent">Laura was staring before her, her eyes veiled, +glassy, like those of a blind woman.</p> + +<p class="indent">"They wanted to bring him to The Chase. But +there was a doctor there, and he said nothing would +be of any use. So I told them to bring him home—to +you."</p> + +<p class="indent">Both women waited in the grateful darkness, dry-eyed +and still.</p> + +<p class="indent">At last Mrs. Tropenell said uncertainly: "Come indoors, +Laura."</p> + +<p class="indent">But Laura shook her head. "No, I'd rather stay out +here, if you don't mind, Aunt Letty."</p> + +<p class="indent">Not quite knowing what she was doing or why, +Mrs. Tropenell walked forward and opened the door +into the hall. There she took down a cloak, and +coming out again, she put it round Laura. And they +stood there waiting—till there broke on their ears +the heavy tramp of men's feet carrying a burden.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 361]</span></p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<p class="cap">IT was arranged between Lord St. Amant and the +coroner—who was his lordship's own medical attendant +(when he required a medical attendant, which +was seldom)—that the inquest should be held at +Freshley Manor.</p> + +<p class="indent">The body had been placed in Mrs. Tropenell's own +room, that is, in the very room, as the cook, who had +been in the house close on thirty-five years, explained +to some of the members of the jury, where poor Mr. +Oliver had been born.</p> + +<p class="indent">So it was there, in that peaceful, old-fashioned, +lady's bedchamber, that the twelve good men and true +of Pewsbury had to view the body. It was remembered +afterwards that the expression on the dead man's +face showed how completely he had been taken by +surprise: it bore an expression of absolute serenity—almost +as if he had died in his sleep.</p> + +<p class="indent">Rather to the disapproval of some of the Pewsbury +people, but with the sympathetic understanding of +others, Mrs. Tropenell, by her own desire, was present +at the inquest; and, supporting her on the painful +occasion, was her nearest neighbour and almost daughter, +Mrs. Pavely.</p> + +<p class="indent">The chief witness was Mr. Robert Buckhurst, the +gentleman who had been host to the ill-fated shooting +party.</p> + +<p class="indent">His evidence was quite simple and straightforward—indeed, +there was nothing at all strange or mysterious +about the sad affair.</p> + +<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg 362]</span> +"Lord St. Amant shot a bird," he said, "and we +hunted for it for some time. We were engaged in +beating up the next field, when some one said, 'Where +is Tropenell?' Just at that moment I heard a shot." +He waited a moment, and then went on: "It sounded +as if it were fifty yards away."</p> + +<p class="indent">Again the witness paused, and then he continued +gravely: "I said in jest, 'I hope he has not shot himself!' +And Lord St. Amant said, 'Hold my gun, +Buckhurst, and I'll walk along behind the hedge, and +see if I can find him.' He got through a gap, and he +could only have gone a very few yards before we +heard him call out. 'Come at once! He's shot!' With +this we got through a gap, and ten paces on we saw +Mr. Oliver Tropenell lying on his back, parallel with +the hedge. The gun was lying across his body, the +muzzle towards the hedge. At first we could not find +the wound, but soon we discovered that he had been +shot through the heart."</p> + +<p class="indent">In reply to various questions, the witness explained +how he raised Mr. Oliver Tropenell's left hand, fancying +he could detect a slight flutter of the pulse. He +called out for Dr. Turner, who happened to be a member +of the party. That gentleman came up, and after +a brief examination, said that Mr. Tropenell was certainly +dead. The charge had gone through the heart, +and death must have been practically instantaneous. +Some one, probably the keeper, opened the breech of +Mr. Tropenell's gun, and found that the cartridge in +the right-hand chamber had been exploded.</p> + +<p class="indent">At this point, in answer to a word from a juryman, +Mr. Buckhurst said very decidedly that there could be +no doubt at all that the shot had been fired by Mr. +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 363]</span> +Tropenell's own gun. If he might venture to give +an informal opinion, it was perfectly plain what had +happened. The ground was rough just there, and twilight +was falling. Without doubt Mr. Tropenell, on +getting through the hedge, had stumbled heavily, the +gun had fallen forward, and then had occurred one +of those accidents which occasionally do happen out +shooting, and which no amount of care or experience +can prevent.</p> + +<p class="indent">There was some little doubt as to what had been +the exact position of the body, and while this was +being discussed every one felt particularly sorry for +the dead man's mother.</p> + +<p class="indent">Following Mr. Buckhurst, Lord St. Amant went +into the witness-box, and then some inquisitive juryman +asked his lordship a question as to the mental +condition of the deceased. In answer to that question, +Lord St. Amant explained, with a good deal of emotion, +that just before he and Mr. Tropenell had started +out on their fatal expedition they had had a pleasant +little talk together, during which Mr. Tropenell had +seemed particularly well and cheerful. Further, the +witness threw in, as an after-thought, the statement +that the deceased gentleman had expressed considerable +gratification at the fact that his mother, Mrs. +Tropenell, and he, Lord St. Amant, had just entered +together into an engagement of marriage.</p> + +<p class="indent">This announcement of a forthcoming alliance which +so closely touched the whole neighbourhood naturally +overshadowed the rest of the purely formal medical +evidence at the inquest. Very soon there remained +nothing for the jury to do but to return a verdict of +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 364]</span> +"death by misadventure," and to express the deepest +sympathy with Mr. Tropenell's mother.</p> + +<p class="indent">A great deal of deep, unaffected sympathy, more +sincere in this case perhaps than a great deal of the +sympathy which is lavished on the bereaved in this +world, was felt for Mrs. Tropenell.</p> + +<p class="indent">Her son had not only been the most devoted and +excellent of sons, but he had been such a success, such +a man to be proud of! It was also remembered that +he had done many a kindly turn to the good folk of +Pewsbury in the last eighteen months or so, since he +had come home to make the first long stay he had +made in their neighbourhood for over ten years. His +manner, if reserved, was always kindly and pleasant, +without any touch of that patronage which is sometimes +irritating in gentlemen of his sort. The townspeople +recalled, too, the dead man's intimacy with the +late Mr. Godfrey Pavely, and the more sober among +them did not fail to remind one another how curious +it was that in under a year those two men, still both +young as youth is counted nowadays, had been gathered +to their fathers.</p> + +<p class="indent">And then, before Pewsbury had had time to recover +from the excitement of poor Oliver Tropenell's tragic +end, and from the announcement, given under such +painful and dramatic circumstances, of his mother's +forthcoming marriage to Lord St. Amant, yet another +thrilling sensation was provided for the inhabitants +of the little town. This was the surprising news that +Mrs. Winslow had married again!</p> + +<p class="indent">The fortunate man was, it seemed, a certain Mr. +Greville Howard, one of the largest subscribers to +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 365]</span> +the Prince of Wales's Hospital Fund, a gentleman, +therefore, of evident social standing and wealth.</p> + +<p class="indent">The ceremony had taken place at St. James's, Piccadilly, +in the presence of a few friends of the bridegroom, +and the happy pair had gone straight off to +Mr. Howard's villa in the South of France. There +Harber, Mrs. Winslow's faithful factotum, was to +join her mistress as soon as she had made the necessary +arrangements for the disposal, by auction, of the +furniture at Rosedean. Of that furniture two objects +were at the last moment withdrawn from the +sale—one was a china cabinet, and the other a rather +curious-looking old chandelier, both associated, so it +was understood, with the new Mrs. Greville Howard's +youth.</p> + +<p class="indent">The auctioneer regretted these omissions from the +catalogue, for by bad luck they were the only objects +in the house which a big London dealer had come +specially down to see, and for which he had intimated +that he was prepared to give a very good price.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>THE END</h2> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<div class="tnote"> + +<p class="h2a">Transcriber's Notes:</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">Obsolete spellings and alternate spellings of words (e.g., dulness) have +been retained.</p> + +<p class="indent">On page 137, "Bayton" was replaced with "Baynton".</p> + +<p class="indent">On page 148, a period was added after "drew a piece of notepaper towards +him".</p> + +<p class="indent">On page 159, "kindess" was replaced with "kindness".</p> + +<p class="indent">On page 160, "contributary" was replaced with "contributory".</p> + +<p class="indent">On page 239, "wainting" was replaced with "waiting".</p> + +<p class="indent">On page 279, "lov" was replaced with "love".</p> + +<p class="indent">On page 300, "affectionte" was replaced with "affectionate".</p> + +<p class="indent">On page 329, "whispred" was replaced with "whispered".</p> + +<p class="indent">On page 352, "Olive" was replaced with "Oliver".</p> + +<p class="indent">On page 355, "a great deal as as" was replaced with +"a great deal as".</p> + +<p class="indent">On page 361, "expresson" was replaced with "expression".</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Love and hatred, by Marie Belloc Lowndes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE AND HATRED *** + +***** This file should be named 36079-h.htm or 36079-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/0/7/36079/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Ernest Schaal, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Love and hatred + +Author: Marie Belloc Lowndes + +Release Date: May 11, 2011 [EBook #36079] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE AND HATRED *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Ernest Schaal, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + + LOVE AND HATRED + + By MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES + + Author of + "Lilla," "Good Old Anna," "The Chink in the Armour," + "The End of Her Honeymoon," etc. + + + "_Alas! The love of Woman! It is known + To be a lovely and a fearful thing._"--BYRON. + + + [Decoration] + + + NEW YORK + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1917, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + LOVE AND HATRED + + PART ONE + + CHAPTER I + + +"Oh, but this is terrible----" + +Laura Pavely did not raise her voice, but there was trembling pain, as +well as an almost incredulous surprise, in the way she uttered the five +words which may mean so much--or so little. + +The man whose sudden, bare avowal of love had drawn from her that low, +protesting cry, was standing just within the door of the little +summer-house, and he was looking away from her, straight over the +beautiful autumnal view of wood and water spread out before him. + +He was telling himself that five minutes ago--nay, was it as long as +five minutes?--they had been so happy! And yet, stop--_he_ had not been +happy. Even so he cursed himself for having shattered the fragile, to +him the already long perished, fabric, of what she no doubt called their +"friendship." + +It was she--it always is the woman--who, quite unwittingly, had provoked +the words which now could never be unsaid. She had not been thinking at +all of him when she did so--she had spoken out of her heart, the heart +which some secret, sure instinct bade him believe capable of depths of +feeling, which he hoped, with a fierce hope, no man had yet plumbed.... + +What had provoked his avowal had been the most innocent, in a sense the +most beautiful, feeling of which a woman is capable--love for her child. + +"The doctor says Alice ought to have a change, that she ought to go to +the sea, for a little while. I asked Godfrey if I might take her, but he +said he didn't think it necessary." She had added musingly, "It's odd, +for he really is devoted to the child." + +They had been walking slowly, sauntering side by side, very close to one +another, for the path was only a narrow track among the trees, towards +the summerhouse where they were now--she sitting and he standing. + +He had answered in what, if she had been less absorbed in herself and +her own concerns, she might have realised was a dangerously still voice: +"I think I can persuade Godfrey to let her go. Apart from the child +altogether, you ought to have a change." And then--then she had said, +rather listlessly, not at all bitterly, "Oh, it doesn't matter about +me!" + +Such a simple phrase, embodying an obvious truth, yet they had forced +from him the words: "I think it does matter about you, Laura. At least I +know it matters a good deal to me, for, as of course you know by now, I +love you." + +And if his voice had remained quite low and steady, she had seen the +blazing, supplicating eyes.... + +But he had looked away, at once, when he had uttered those irrevocable +words; and after a few moments, which had seemed to him an eternity, had +come that low, heart-felt cry, "Oh, but this is terrible----" + + * * * * * + +"Terrible? Why, Laura?" He crossed his arms, and turning, gazed straight +down at her bowed figure. + +Again there came a long, unnatural pause. + +And then she lifted up her face, and under the shadow cast by her +wide-brimmed garden hat he saw that even her forehead was flushed. There +was an anguished look in the large, deeply blue eyes, which were to him +the most exquisite and revealing feature of her delicately drawn face. + +"Perhaps I ought not to have said 'terrible,'" she said at last in a low +voice, "but--but degrading, ignoble, _hateful_, Oliver." She added, her +false calm giving way, "And to me such a bitter, bitter disappointment!" + +"Why?" he asked harshly. "Why a disappointment, Laura? Most women, nay, +all wise human beings, value love--any kind of love offered by even the +most unworthy--as the most precious thing in the world!" + +His face had become expressionless, and the measured, carefully chosen +words made her feel suddenly ashamed, but with a shame merged in an +eager hope that she had cruelly misunderstood her--friend. + +She stood up and took a step towards him. "Oliver," she said +diffidently; "forgive me! I was stupid not to understand. Of course we +love one another," she was on firm ground now. "All friends love one +another, and you've been such a good friend to me, and more, far more, +than a good friend to my poor brother--to Gillie." + +He withdrew his gaze from her beseeching eyes, and looked away once +more. Now was his chance to play the hypocrite, to eat the words which +had given her so much offence.... + +Hardly knowing that he spoke aloud, he muttered hoarsely, "I can't!" And +then he turned to her: "Listen, Laura. I owe you the truth. I have loved +you, yes, and in the sense you think so ignoble and so degrading, almost +from the first day we met. As time went on, I thought it impossible that +you did not know that." + +"I did not know it! I trusted you absolutely! I thought that we were all +three, friends,--you and I and Godfrey! It was the very first time that +Godfrey and I had ever had a friend in common, and it made me so happy." + +"Did it indeed?" His words cut like a whip. + +"But it's true that you are Godfrey's friend?" she spoke a little +wildly. "I've never known him as fond of any man as he is now of you, +Oliver." + +"His fondness is not returned." + +"Then it ought to be!" she cried. "For you've made him like you, +Oliver." + +She hardly knew what she was saying, distressed, humiliated, wounded as +she was in her pride and sense of personal dignity. But what was he +saying--this challenging, wrathful stranger who, but a few moments ago, +had been her dear, dear friend? + +"I would rather, Laura, that you did not bring your husband into this +matter." + +"But I must bring him in!" She became suddenly aware that here ready to +her hand was a weapon with which she could hurt and punish this man who +was looking at her with so inscrutable a look--was it a look of love or +of hatred? + +"I'm sorry now," she went on rapidly, "bitterly, bitterly sorry and +ashamed that I ever said a word to you of Godfrey and his--his rather +tiresome ways. I ought not to have done it. It was disloyal. I've never +spoken of Godfrey to any other man--but somehow I thought _you_ were +different from other men." + +"Different?" he interjected. "How so, Laura? What right had you to think +me different from other men?" + +"Because I trusted you," she said inconsequently. "Because somehow you +seemed really to care for me--" her voice broke, but she forced herself +to go on: "You're not the first man, Oliver, who's made love to me since +I married--" she covered her face with her hands. + +It seemed to her that some other woman was being driven to make these +intimate confidences--not the fastidious, refined, reserved Laura +Pavely, who had an almost morbid dislike of the betrayal of any violent +or unseemly emotion. But this other woman, who spoke through her lips, +had been, was being, wantonly insulted.... + +Hanging her head as a child might have done, she said defiantly: "I +suppose you're surprised?" + +"No, I'm not surprised. Why should I be? Go on--" He clenched his hands +together. What was it she was going to tell him? + +Speaking in short, broken sentences, she obeyed him: + +"It was when we used to go about much more than we do now--in the first +two or three years after our marriage. I suppose that every woman--who +isn't quite happy with her husband--is exposed to that kind of thing. I +used to loathe it when I saw it coming. I used to try and fend it off. +Sometimes I succeeded--more often I failed. But I never, never expected +anything of the sort to happen with you, Oliver. We were such +friends--such good, happy friends--you and I and my little Alice," and +then she burst into a passion of weeping. + +And at that what self-control Oliver Tropenell had retained departed. A +flood of burning, passionate words burst from his lips--of endearment, +of self-abasement, and promises which he intended, come what might, +should be kept. + +And she listened shrinkingly, with averted face, absorbed in her own +bewildered pain and disappointment. + +"I must go back to the house," she said at last. "The doctor will be +here in half an hour." And she forced herself to add: "Perhaps you'll be +coming over this afternoon?" (How often she had said these words in the +last three months--but in how different a tone!). + +"I think not. My mother said something about wishing me to stay in +to-day--Lord St. Amant may be coming over." As she made no comment, he +concluded quietly, "Well, I suppose I had better be going now. Good-bye, +Laura." + +"Good-bye," she said. And without taking her hand he left her. + +She watched his tall figure making its way quickly down through the +rough ground to the wood where, ultimately, he would find a path which +would lead him to his mother's house. + + * * * * * + +It was late in the afternoon of the same day. From where she was +sitting, under a great cedar tree, Mrs. Tropenell at last saw her son +Oliver and Godfrey Pavely come out of Freshley Manor. + +Though the glory and warmth of the summer were now over, Mrs. Tropenell +still spent many hours of each day in her garden. She had always been an +out-of-door woman from the days when she was an eager, impetuous, +high-spirited girl, till now, when youth had gone, though something of +the eager impetuosity of youth remained with her concealed from +strangers by a manner marked by a strong sense of personal dignity. + +The two men began walking, slowly, down the grass path leading to the +beech avenue which was the glory of Freshley Manor, as well as a short +cut to Lawford Chase, Godfrey Pavely's larger property. + +It was more than an hour since a servant had come out to say that Mr. +Pavely was waiting to see Mr. Tropenell in the library. The man had +added that Mr. Pavely had had tea before leaving the Bank, and only +wanted to see Mr. Tropenell for a few minutes on his way home. And +Oliver, with "I don't think he'll keep me long, mother; I suppose you'll +still be here when I come back?" had stridden off with a certain +reluctance towards the house. + +It had always been his mother's joy, but now for many years past her +infrequent joy, to fall in with even the least reasonable of her son's +wishes, and so she had gone on sitting out there, waiting for him to +come back, long after the tea-things had been taken away. There was a +book on the low garden table by her side--such a book as she loved, +telling of great adventure by one of the adventurers--but she left it +where it was. + +Mrs. Tropenell felt a vague, exasperating sense of restlessness and +unease. At the back of her heart--that heart which, if no longer that of +a young woman, could still thrill with many varied emotions and a very +passion of maternal love--was the dull ache of a secret, unacknowledged +sense of fear and pain. + +She had every reason to be happy to-day--not only happy in her son's +company, but in the coming back, after a long absence on the Continent, +of her old friend, Lord St. Amant. To him she could, perhaps, bring +herself to say something of what was touching her so deeply, and he, she +knew, would reassure her and make light of her fears. St. Amant was what +is called in ordinary parlance a man of the world--the last man, that +is, to be horrified, still less frightened, by a tale of illicit love, +especially when, as the mother honestly believed, it was a love likely +to remain unrequited. + +Yes, she would tell her one trusted friend of these besetting fears, of +her more than suspicion that her son Oliver was deep in love with Laura +Pavely, and St. Amant would laugh at her, persuade her maybe to laugh +with him. + +And yet? Yet, even so, she asked herself again and again during that +long time of waiting, what these two men who, if of life-long +acquaintanceship and now at any rate nominally intimate friends, were so +unlike the one to the other, could have to talk about, indoors, for +over an hour? Godfrey Pavely and Oliver Tropenell met very often--too +often to her thinking--so why should Godfrey have pursued Oliver home +to-day, just when Oliver had had an hour to spare for his mother? + +It was now Thursday, and her son had already dined with the Pavelys +twice this week. To-morrow night Godfrey Pavely was to be in London, and +it had been arranged that his wife, Laura, should spend the evening +here. But that, or so Mrs. Tropenell had quickly reminded herself, had +been Laura's usual custom, long before Oliver had come home from Mexico +for the holiday which had now already lasted nearly four months. In her +long life Mrs. Tropenell had only had one beloved woman friend, and that +friend, that more than sister, had been Laura's mother. + +Even now Godfrey Pavely did not seem eager to go home. The two men were +close to the furthest edge of the wide lawn, but they were still talking +earnestly. + +Mrs. Tropenell gazed across, with a painful scrutiny, at her son's +visitor. + +Godfrey Pavely was a neatly made, neatly dressed, neatly mannered +man--in a way not ill-looking. His reddish-brown hair toned in oddly +with his light, ginger-coloured eyes. He had become rather particular +about his health of late, and went to some trouble to keep himself fit, +and in good condition. Yet he looked more like a townsman than like the +countryman he certainly was. For if the fortunate inheritor of a +successful county banking business, which so far he had managed with +such skill as to save it from any thought of amalgamation, he was also +the owner of a fine old property. + +Lawford Chase had belonged to Mrs. Tropenell's ancestors for +centuries--for almost as many centuries as the years in which he, +Godfrey, had owned it. But her father had been careless and extravagant +during his long, happy life, so the owner of Pavely's Bank had bought up +the mortgages on Lawford Chase, and finally foreclosed. + +All this was ancient history now, and Mrs. Tropenell felt no bitterness +on that account. Indeed, she had rejoiced, with a sense of real joy, +when her friend's daughter had become mistress of her own old home. + +The two men whom she was watching went on talking for what seemed to the +onlooker a very long time; but, at last, Godfrey Pavely, turning on his +heel, walked on, to be at once engulfed by the dark green arch formed by +the high beech trees. Then Mrs. Tropenell saw her son, all her heart +welcoming him, come striding towards her across the long stretch of +short, green turf. + +Once more she asked herself what possible link there could be between +men so utterly unlike. Her Oliver--more hers now, she felt, than ever +before, and that though for the first time he was making her secretly, +miserably jealous--was a creature of light and air, of open spaces, if +need be of great waters. He was built, like herself, on a big and +powerful plan; and yet so tall, so spare, so sinewy, that though he was +broad he looked slim, and though four-and-thirty years of age he might +have been taken, even at this small distance from where she sat, for a +long-limbed youth. His life for the last twelve years had been one that +often ages a man--but it had not aged him. His vigour was unbroken, his +vitality--the vitality which had made him so successful, and which +attracted men and women of such very different types--unimpaired. + +Mrs. Tropenell had been touched, perhaps in her secret heart little +surprised, at the pleasure--one might almost have said the +enthusiasm--with which her neighbours for miles round had welcomed +Oliver home again, after what had been so long an absence from England. +The fact that he had come back a very wealthy man, and that during those +years of eclipse he had managed to do some of them good turns, of course +counted in his popularity, and she was too open-eyed a woman not to be +well aware of that. + +The mother knew that her son was not the downright, rather transparent, +good-natured fellow that he was now taken to be. No man she had ever +known--and she had ever been one of those women of whom men make a +confidant--could keep his own or another's secrets more closely than +could Oliver. He had once written to her the words: "You are the only +human being, mother, to whom I ever tell anything," and she had +instinctively known this to be true. + +Yet their relationship was more like that of two friends than of mother +and son. She knew all there was to know of his thoughts, and of his +doubts, concerning many of the great things which trouble and disturb +most thinking modern men. Of the outward life he led in the Mexican +stretch of country of which he had become the administrator and +practical ruler, she also knew a great deal, indeed surprisingly much, +for he wrote by each mail long, full letters; and the romance of his +great business had become an ever continuous source of interest, of +amusement, and of pride to the mother who now only lived for him. + +But of those secret things which had moved his heart, warred with his +passions, perchance seared his conscience, he had never told her +anything. Only once had the impenetrable mist of reserve been lightened, +as it were pierced for a moment--and that was now a long time ago, on +his second visit home five years before. He had then come to England +meaning to stay a month. But at the end of ten days he had received a +telegram--what he called, in the American fashion, a cable--and within +an hour he had gone, saying as he kissed his mother good-bye, "A friend +of mine--a woman who has been ill a long time--is now dying. I must go, +even if I'm not in time to see her alive." + +In the letters which had followed his return to Mexico, there had been +no word more--nothing even implying sorrow, or a sense of loss--only a +graver note, of which the mother might have remained unaware but for +that clue he had left to sink deep in her mother-heart. + + * * * * * + +He was now close to her, looking down out of his dark, compelling +eyes--eyes which were so like her own, save that now hers shone with a +softer light. + +"Pavely stayed a long time," he said abruptly. "Are you tired? D'you +want to go in yet, mother?" + +She shook her head. "I'd rather stay out here till it's time to dress." + +As she spoke she lifted her face to his, and he told himself what a +beautiful, and noble face it was, though each delicate, aquiline feature +had thickened, and the broad low forehead was now partially concealed +by thick bands of whitening hair. It was a lined, even a ravaged +face--the face of a woman who had lived, had loved, had suffered. But of +that Oliver was only dimly conscious, for his mother's nature if +impetuous and passionate was almost as reserved and secretive as was his +own. + +It may be doubted, even, if Oliver Tropenell knew how much his mother +loved him, for it may be doubted if any son ever knows how much his +mother--even if she appear placid or careless--loves him. One thing +Oliver did know, or confidently believed he knew, and that was that his +mother loved him more than she had ever loved anything in the world. +There he was quite content to leave it. + +"Pavely wants me to become trustee to Laura's marriage settlement, in +succession to old Mr. Blackmore." + +When with Godfrey Pavely, Oliver Tropenell always called the other man +by his Christian name, but behind his back he always spoke of him as +"Pavely." + +As his mother remained silent, he went on, a little hurriedly: "The +powers vested in the trustee are very wide, and it seems that money +which was later added to the trust--a matter of seventeen thousand +pounds or so--is invested in some queer form of security." + +They both smiled--he a little drily, she with a kind of good-humoured +contempt. + +"He's cautious and successful--in spite of that odd, gambling +propensity," she spoke a little defensively. Then, "I suppose you've +consented to act?" + +She waited anxiously for his answer; and at last it came, uttered in a +tone of elaborate unconcern: "I said I'd think it over. But I think +I'll take it on, mother. Pavely made rather a personal favour of +it--after all, there's some kind of relationship." + +"Yes," agreed Mrs. Tropenell, "yes, there is certainly a connection, +hardly a relationship, between ourselves and Laura." + +Her son sat down. He began poking about an invisible stone, lying in +among the grass, with his stick. + +"You cared for Laura's mother as if she had been your sister--didn't +you, mother? And yet I can't imagine you with a great woman friend, I +mean, of course, a friend of your own age." + +She turned and looked at him. "Ah, my dear,--those are the friends that +count!" and she nearly added, "Don't _you_ find it so?" But, instead, +she went on quickly, "Yes, I loved Laura's mother dearly, dearly--and it +was for her sake that I asked you to be good to her son, to Gillie." + +"Laura's extraordinarily fond of Gillie----" There always came a curious +change over Oliver Tropenell's voice when he uttered the name "Laura." +It became as it were softer, infused with feeling--or so his mother +thought. + +She waited a moment; then answered slowly, "Women generally are fond of +their only brothers." + +"Oh, but it's more than that!" + +As she remained silent, he went on musingly: "And Gillie, in his queer +way, is very fond of Laura--though I don't believe he writes to her once +in three months!" + +"I suppose Gillie still hates Godfrey?" she said hesitatingly. "Godfrey +behaved so--so--well, not so much badly perhaps, as meanly and even +stupidly--about that unfortunate affair." It was almost as if Mrs. +Tropenell were speaking to herself. Her son turned and looked at her +squarely. + +"Yes! Gillie still hates Pavely. And yet, mother, since I came home this +time I've wondered sometimes if Pavely was so very unreasonable about it +after all. You see, Gillie must have been about the most troublesome +and--well, the most dangerous brother-in-law an unlucky country banker +could well have had!" + +"And but for you he'd be so still," she said quietly. "From something +Godfrey said the other day I gather that he's really grateful to you, +Oliver?" + +Oliver Tropenell got up. "Yes," he said shortly, "he's certainly +grateful. In fact, he seems to think I've limitless power of getting +people out of scrapes----" there was an undercurrent of triumph in his +deep, even tones. + +"I suppose the real reason he came to-day was that he's afraid to let a +stranger be Laura's trustee?" There was only the slightest touch of +interrogation in Mrs. Tropenell's voice, and she went on: "Perhaps he'd +be kinder to poor Gillie _now_--" a curious smile played round her +mouth. It was a full-lipped, generous mouth, but it was the least +refined feature of her face. + +"No, no. It's not as bad as that! But well, yes, Pavely _has_ used this +portion of Laura's fortune in a way he had no business to do, knowing it +was trust money." + +"And you----?" + +"Oh, I'm going to buy out her interest in the concern." + +"Will that cost you seventeen thousand pounds?" + +"Yes, it will. But I don't mind--it's quite a likely gamble. Have you +ever heard of Greville Howard?" + +"You mean the great money-lender?" + +"He's retired now. But Pavely and he seem to be in a kind of secret +partnership--queer isn't it? Pavely's a clever chap about money, but oh, +mother! he's such an insufferable cad!" + +Mrs. Tropenell felt a sudden tremor of fear sweep over her. She had +lately come to what she now realised was a quite wrong conclusion--she +had believed, that is, that Oliver, in a queer, contemptuous way, had +grown fond of Godfrey, as Godfrey had certainly grown fond of Oliver. +But now, all at once, her son had opened a dark window into his soul--or +was it into his heart? There was an under-current of hatred, as well as +of the contempt to which she was accustomed, in the way Oliver had just +spoken of his "friend"--of the man, at once fortunate and unfortunate, +who was Laura Pavely's husband. + +She stood up, and put her hand through her son's arm. "It's getting very +cold," she said, and shivered. + +He turned on her with quick concern: "I left you too long! I ought to +have sent him away before--but he was such a long time getting it out--" +under his breath he muttered "Damn him!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Mother and son dined alone together, and then, rather early, Mrs. +Tropenell went upstairs. + +For a while, perhaps as long as an hour, she sat up in bed, reading. At +last, however, she turned off the switch of her electric reading lamp, +and, lying back in her old-fashioned four-post bed, she shut her eyes +for a few moments. Then she opened them, widely, on to her moonlit room. + +Opposite to where she lay the crescent-shaped bow-window was still open +to the night air and the star-powdered sky. On that side of Freshley +Manor the wide lawn sloped down to a belt of water meadows, and beyond +the meadows there rose steeply a high, flat-topped ridge. + +Along this ridge Oliver Tropenell was now walking up and down smoking. +Now and again his mother saw the shadow-like figure move across the line +of her vision. + +At one moment, last winter, she had feared that he would not be able to +come back this year, as troubles had arisen among his cattle-men. But, +as was Oliver's way, he had kept his promise. That he had been able to +so do was in no small measure owing to his partner, Gilbert Baynton. + +Gilbert Baynton--_Laura Pavely's brother_? Of that ne'er-do-weel Oliver +had made from a failure a success; from a waster--his brother-in-law, +Godfrey Pavely, would have called him by a harsher name--an acute and a +singularly successful man of business. + +Lying there, her brain working quickly in the darkness, Oliver's mother +told herself that the Pavelys, both Godfrey and Laura, had indeed reason +to be grateful, not only to Oliver, but to her, Oliver's mother! It was +to please her, not them, that Oliver, long years ago, had accepted the +dubious gift of Gilbert Baynton, and the small sum Gilbert's +brother-in-law had reluctantly provided to rid himself of an intolerable +incubus and a potential source of disgrace. Godfrey Pavely was certainly +grateful, and never backward in expressing it. And Laura? Laura was one +of your silent, inarticulate women, but without doubt Laura must be +grateful too. + + * * * * * + +At last Oliver left the ridge, and Mrs. Tropenell went on gazing at the +vast expanse of luminous sky which merged into the uplands stretching +away for miles beyond the boundaries of her garden. + +She lay, listening intently, and very soon she heard the cadence of his +firm footfalls on the stone path below the window. Then came the quiet +unlatching of the garden door. Now he was coming upstairs. + +Her whole heart leapt out to him--and perchance it was this strong shaft +of wordless longing that caused Oliver Tropenell's feet to linger as he +was going past his mother's door. + +Following a sudden impulse, she, who had trained herself to do so few +things on impulse, called out, "Is that you, my darling?" + +The door opened. "Yes, mother. Here I am. May I come in?" + +He turned and shut out the bright electric light on the landing, and +walked, a little slowly and uncertainly in the darkness, towards where +he knew the bed to be. For a moment she wondered whether she should turn +on the lamp which was at her elbow, then some sure, secret instinct made +her refrain. + +She put out her hand, and pulled him down to her, and he, so chary of +caress, put his left arm round her. + +"Mother?" he said softly. "This dear old room! It's years since I've +been in this room--and yet from what I can see, it's exactly the same as +it always was!" + +And, as if answering an unspoken question, she spoke in very low tones, +"Hardly altered at all since the day you were born here, my dearest, on +the happiest day of my life." + +His strong arm tightened about her a little, and, still looking straight +before her, but leaning perhaps a little closer into the shelter of his +arm, she said tremulously, inconsequently it might have seemed: "Oliver? +Are you going to accept Lord St. Amant's invitation?" + +With a sharp shoot of hidden pain she felt his movement of recoil, but +all he said was, very quietly, "I've not quite made up my mind, mother." + +"It would give me pleasure if you were to do so. He has been a very good +and loyal friend to me for a long, long time, my dear." + +"I know that." + +She waited a moment, then forced herself to go on: "You were never quite +fair to St. Amant, Oliver." + +"I--I feared him, mother." + +And then, as she uttered an inarticulate murmur of pain and of protest, +he went on quickly, "The fear didn't last very long--perhaps for two or +three years. You see I was so horribly afraid that you were going to +marry him." In the darkness he was saying something he had never meant, +never thought to say. + +And she answered, "It was a baseless fear." + +"Was it? I wonder if it was! Oh, of course I know you are telling me the +truth as you see it now--but, but surely, mother?" + +"Surely no, Oliver. It is true that St. Amant wished, after his wife's +death, that I should marry him, but he soon saw that I did not wish it, +that nothing was further from my wish--then." + +"_Then?_" he cried. "What do you mean, mother? Lady St. Amant only died +when I was fifteen!" + +"I would like to tell you what I mean. And after I have told you, I wish +never to speak of this subject to you again. But I owe it to myself as +well as to you, to tell you the truth, Oliver. Where is your hand?" she +said, "let me hold it while I tell you." + +And then slowly and with difficulty she began speaking, with a +hesitation, a choosing of her words, which were in sharp contrast to her +usual swift decision. + +"I want to begin by telling you," her voice was very low, "that +according to his lights--the lights of a man of the world and of, well +yes, of an English gentleman--St. Amant behaved very well as far as I +was concerned. I want you to understand that, Oliver, to understand it +thoroughly, because it's the whole point of my story. If St. Amant had +behaved less well, I should have nothing to tell--you." + +She divined the quiver of half-shamed relief which went through her son. +It made what she wished to say at once easier and more difficult. + +"As I think you know, I first met St. Amant when I was very young, in +fact before I was 'out,' and he was the first really clever, really +attractive, and, in a sense, really noted man I had ever met. And +then"--she hesitated painfully. + +"And then, mother?" Oliver's voice was hard and matter-of-fact. He was +not making it easy for her. + +"Well, my dear, very very soon, he made of me his friend, and I was of +course greatly flattered, but at that time, in the ordinary sense of the +word, St. Amant never made love to me." She went on more firmly. "Of +course I soon came to know that he cared for me in a way he did not care +for the other women with whom his name was associated. I knew very soon +too, deep in my heart, that if his wife--his frivolous, mean-natured, +tiresome wife--died, he certainly would wish to marry me, and for years, +Oliver, for something like six years, I daily committed murder in my +heart." + +And then something happened which troubled and greatly startled the +woman who was making this painful confession. Her son gave a kind of +cry--a stifled cry which was almost a groan. "God! How well I understand +that!" he said. + +"Do you, Oliver--do you? And yet I, looking back, cannot understand it! +All that was best, indeed the only good that was in St. Amant to give I +had then, and later, after I became a widow, I had it again." + +"I suppose he was much the same then as later, or--or was he different +then, mother?" + +She knew what he meant. "He was the same then," she said quietly, "but +somehow I didn't care! Girls were kept so ignorant in those days. But of +course the whole world knew he was a man of pleasure, and in time I +grew to know it too. But still it wasn't that which made me unhappy, for +I did not realise what the phrase meant, still less what was implied by +it. But even so, as time went on I was very unhappy. Mine was a false +position--a position which hurt my pride, and, looking back, I suppose +that there must have soon been a certain amount of muffled talk. If I +was not jealous, other women were certainly jealous of me." + +She waited for a few moments; the stirring of these long-dead embers was +hurting her more than she would have thought possible. + +At last she went on: "Sometimes months would pass by without our +meeting, but he wrote to me constantly, and on his letters--such +amusing, clever, and yes, tender letters--I lived. My aunt, my father, +both singularly blind to the state of things, were surprised and annoyed +that I didn't marry, and, as for me, I grew more and more unhappy." + +"Poor mother!" muttered Oliver. And she sighed a sigh of rather piteous +relief. She had not thought he would understand. + +"I don't know what I should have done but for two people, your father, +who of course was living here then, our nearest neighbour, and, what +meant very much more to me just then, Laura's mother, Alice Tropenell. +Though she was only a very distant relation, she was like a daughter in +this house. Alice was my one friend. She knew everything about me. She +was--well, Oliver, I could never tell you what she was to me then!" + +"I suppose," he said slowly, "that Laura is like her?" + +"Laura?" Mrs. Tropenell could not keep the surprise out of her low +voice. "Oh no, my dear, Laura is not in the least like her mother. But +Laura's child is very like Alice--even now." + +"Laura's child?" Oliver Tropenell visioned the bright, high-spirited, +merry little girl, who somehow, he could not have told her why, seemed +often to be a barrier between himself and Laura. + +"Alice--my friend Alice--was full of buoyancy, of sympathy for every +living thing. She possessed what I so much lacked in those days, and +still alas! lack--sound common-sense. And yet she, too, had her ideals, +ideals which did not lead her into a very happy path, for Robert +Baynton, high-minded though he may have been, was absorbed in +himself--there was no room for any one else." Had she been telling her +story to any one but her son, Mrs. Tropenell would have added, "Laura is +very like him." + +Instead, she continued, "No one but Alice would have made Robert Baynton +happy, or have made as good a thing of the marriage as she did--for +happy they were. I think it was the sight of their happiness that made +me at last long for something different, for something more normal in my +life than that strange, unreal tie with St. Amant. So at last, when I +was four-and-twenty, I married your father." Oliver remained silent, and +she said a little tremulously, "He was very, very good to me. He made me +a happy woman. He gave me _you_." + +There was a long, long pause. Mrs. Tropenell had now come to what was +the really difficult part of the task she had set herself. + +"You are thinking, my boy, of _afterwards_." And as she felt him move +restlessly, she went on pleadingly, "As to that, I ask you to remember +that I was very lonely after your father died. Still, if you wish to +know the real truth"--she would be very honest now--"that friendship +which you so much disliked stood more in the way of your having a +stepfather than anything else could have done." + +"I see that now," he said sombrely, "but I did not see it then, mother." + +"Even if Lady St. Amant had not lived on, as she did, all those years, I +should not have married St. Amant--I think I can say that in all +sincerity. So you see, Oliver, you need not have been afraid, when at +last he became free." + +She sighed a long, unconscious sigh of relief. + +"I gather you still see him very often when he's at Knowlton Abbey?" + +"Yes, it's become a very comfortable friendship, Oliver. But for St. +Amant I should often feel very lonely, my dear." + +She longed to go on--to tell Oliver how hard it had been for her to +build up her life afresh--after he had finally decided to stay on in +Mexico. But she doubted if he would understand.... + +Suddenly he turned and kissed her. + +"Good-night," he said. "I'm grateful to you for having told me all--all +that you have told me, mother." + + * * * * * + +Oliver Tropenell hurried up the silent house. By his own wish the large +garret to which he had removed all his own treasures and boyish +belongings after a delicate childhood spent in a room close to his +mother's, was still in his room, and it had been very little altered. + +It was reached by a queer, narrow, turning staircase across which at a +certain point a beam jutted out too low. Tropenell never forgot to duck +his head at that point--indeed he generally remembered as he did so how +proud he had been the first time he had found himself to be too tall to +pass under it straightly! But, strange to say, to-night he did +forget--and for a moment he saw stars.... Fool! Fool that he was to +allow his wits to go wool-gathering in this fashion! + +With eyes still smarting, he leapt up the last few steps to the little +landing which he shared with no one else. Opening the door he turned the +switch of the lamp on the writing-table which stood at a right angle to +the deep-eaved window. + +Then he shut the door and locked it, and, after a moment of indecision, +walked across to the book-case which filled up the space between the +fireplace and the inner wall of the long, rafted room. + +He did not feel in the mood to go to bed, and idly he let his eyes run +over the long rows of books which he had read, in the long ago, again +and again, for like most lonely boys he had been a great reader. They +were a good selection, partly his mother's, partly his own, partly Lord +St. Amant's. He knew well enough--he had always known, albeit the +knowledge gave him no pleasure, that he had owed a great deal, as boy +and man, to his mother's old friend. Lord St. Amant had really fine +taste. It was he who had made Oliver read Keats, Blake, Byron, Poe, +among poets; he who had actually given him _Wuthering Heights_, _Vanity +Fair_, _The Three Musketeers_, _Ali Baba of Ispahan_. There they were +all together. + +He had not taken his books with him when he had first gone to Mexico, +for he had not meant to stay there. But at last he had written home to a +great London bookseller and ordered fresh copies of all his old books at +home. The bookseller had naturally chosen good editions, in some cases +rare first editions. But those volumes had never been read, as some of +these had been read, over and over and over again. + +But now, to-night, he did not feel as if he could commune with any +comfort even with one of these comfortable, unexacting friends. He felt +too restless, too vividly alive. So suddenly he turned away from the +bookcase, and looked about him. A large French box-bed had taken the +place of the narrow, old-fashioned bedstead of his youth; and his mother +had had moved up to this room a narrow writing-table from the study on +the ground floor which no one ever used. + +He walked over to that writing-table now, and sat down. On it, close to +his left hand, stood a large despatch-box. He opened and took out of it +a square sheet of paper on which was embossed his Mexican address. +Drawing two lines across that address, and putting in the present date, +September 19th, he waited, his pen poised in his hand for a full minute. + +Then he began writing rather quickly, and this is what he wrote:-- + + "MY DEAR LAURA,--Godfrey suggests that I should act as your + trustee, in succession to Mr. Blackmore. Am I to understand + that this suggestion has your approval? If yes, I will of + course consent to act. But please do not think I shall be + offended if you decide otherwise. You may prefer some woman + of your acquaintance. Women, whatever Godfrey may tell you, + make excellent men of business. They are, if anything, + over-prudent, over-cautious where money is concerned; but + that is a very good fault in a trustee." + +His handwriting was small and clear, but he had left large spaces +between the lines, and now he was at the end of the sheet of paper. +There was just room for another sentence and his signature. He waited, +hesitating and of two minds, till the ink was dry, and then he began +again, close to the bottom of the sheet:-- + + "Before we meet again I wish to say one further thing." + +He put this first sheet aside, and took another of the same size from +the box by his side:-- + + "You said something to-day which affected me painfully. You + spoke as if what I have done for your brother caused you to + carry a weight of almost intolerable gratitude. So far as + any such feeling should exist between us, the gratitude + should be on my side. In sober truth Gillie has been + invaluable to me. + + "I remain, + "Yours sincerely," + +Then very rapidly Oliver Tropenell made an "O" and a "T," putting the T +across the O so that any one not familiar with his signature would be +hard put to it to know what the two initials were. + +He read over the words he had just written. They seemed poor, +inadequate, and he felt strongly tempted to write the letter again, and +word it differently. Then he shook his head--no, let it stand! + +Slowly he put the second sheet of the letter aside, and placed the first +one, on which the ink was dry, before him. Then he looked round, with a +queer, furtive look, and, getting up, made sure the door was locked. + +Coming back to the writing-table, he took out of the despatch-box lying +there a small, square, crystal-topped flagon of the kind that fits into +an old-fashioned dressing-case. The liquid in it was slightly, very +slightly, coloured, and looked like some delicate scent. + +From the despatch-box also he now brought out a crystal penholder with a +gold nib. He dipped it in the flagon, and began to write in between the +lines of the letter he had just written. As the liquid dried, the slight +marks made by the pen on the paper vanished, for Oliver Tropenell was +writing in invisible ink. + + "The decks are cleared between us, Laura, for you know now + that I love you. You said, 'Oh, but this is terrible!' Yes, + Laura, love is terrible. It is not only cleansing, + inspiring, and noble, it is terrible also. Why is it that + you so misunderstand, misjudge, the one priceless gift, the + only bit of Heaven which God or Nature--I care not + which--has given to man and woman? What you, judging by + your words to-day, take to be love is as little like that + passion as a deep draught of pure cold water to a man dying + of thirst, is like the last glass of drugged beer imbibed + by some poor sot already drunk." + +Oliver Tropenell waited awhile. There were still two spaces, before the +bottom of the page of notepaper was reached, and again he dipped the pen +into the strange volatile liquid. + + "God bless you, my dear love," he wrote, "and grant you the + peace which seems the only thing for which you crave." + +He waited till the words had quite vanished, and then he took up the two +sheets of paper, folded them in half, and put them in a large envelope +which fitted the paper when so folded. He wrote on the outside, "Mrs. +Pavely, Lawford Chase." + +And then, turning out the light with a quick, nervous gesture, he got up +and went over to the long, low, garret window. + +For a few moments he saw nothing but darkness, then the familiar scene +unrolled below him and took dim shape in the starlit night. + +Instinctively his sombre eyes sought the place where, far away to the +right, was a dark patch of wood. It was there, set amidst a grove of +high trees, that stood Lawford Chase, the noble old house which had been +his mother's early home, and which now contained Laura Pavely, the woman +to whom he had just written two such different letters, and who for +nearly three months had never been out of his waking thoughts. + +As his eyes grew more and more accustomed to the luminous darkness, he +saw the group of elms under which this very day a word had unsealed the +depths of his heart, and where he had had the agony of seeing Laura +shrink, shudder, wilt as does a flower in a breath of hot, foetid air, +under his avowal of love. + +Violently he put that memory from him, and staring out into the +splendour of this early autumn night, he tried to recapture the mixture +of feelings with which he had regarded Laura Pavely the first time they +had met since her marriage--the first time indeed since she had been a +shy, quiet little girl, and he an eager, highly vitalised youth, five +years older than herself. + +Looking back now he realised that what had predominated in his mind on +that hot, languorous June afternoon was astonishment at her utter +unlikeness to her brother, his partner, Gillie Baynton. It was an +astonishment which warred with the beckoning, almost uncanny, +fascination which her gentle, abstracted, aloof manner effortlessly +exercised over him. And yet she had been (he knew it now, he had not +known it then) amazingly forthcoming--for her! As Mrs. Tropenell's son +he would have had a right to Laura Pavely's regard, but he knew now that +what had set ajar the portals of her at once desolate and burdened heart +had been his kindness to, even his business relationship with, her +brother. + +Gillie Baynton? Yes, it was to that disconcerting and discordant human +chord that their two natures--his and Laura's--had perforce vibrated and +mingled. Remembering this, Oliver Tropenell reproved himself for his +past discontent with the partner who, whatever his failings, had always +shown him both gratitude and a measure of such real affection as a man +seldom shows another in a business relationship. In spite of Gillie's +faults--nay, vices--he, Tropenell, now often found himself favourably +comparing Laura's brother with Laura's husband. + +Oliver Tropenell was acutely, intolerably, jealous of Godfrey +Pavely--jealous in the burning, scorching sense which is so often the +terrible concomitant of such a passion as that which now possessed him. +Godfrey Pavely's presence in his own house, his slightly tyrannical, +often possessive attitude to Laura, the perpetual reminder that he was, +after all, the father of the child Laura had borne, and who seemed to +fill her heart to the exclusion of all else--all this was for this man +who loved her an ever-recurring ordeal which might well have satisfied +the sternest moralist. + +That night Oliver Tropenell dreamt of Laura. He thought that he was +pursuing her through a maze of flowering shrubs and trees. She was +fleeing from him, yet now and again she would turn, and beckon.... + +His first waking thought was that they would meet to-night--here, in his +mother's house. But before that happened a long day would have to be +lived through, for he had made up his mind not to go to The Chase till +Laura again asked him to do so. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The door of Mrs. Tropenell's long low drawing-room opened very quietly, +and Laura Pavely came through into the room. + +She had left a brightly lighted hall for a room of which the only +present illumination radiated from a shaded reading lamp standing on a +little table behind which sat her hostess. Thus, for perhaps as long as +half a minute, Laura thought herself alone. + +During that half minute Mrs. Tropenell, with eyes well accustomed to the +shaded light, gazed at her visitor with an eager, searching look, the +look of one who wishes to see more, and to see further, than she has +ever seen before. + +But what she saw--all she saw--was the Laura she knew with a knowledge +that was at once so superficially close, and so little intimate. A woman +whose stillness of manner--a manner which at times made her appear +almost inanimate--covered, as Mrs. Tropenell had secret reason to know, +an extraordinary force of negative will power. It was a force which had +even pierced Godfrey Pavely's complacency, and shattered his firm belief +in all the rights that English law bestows on the man who has the good +or ill fortune to be a husband. + +As Laura advanced into the room her hostess saw that her visitor's +beautifully shaped head, set proudly and freely on the slender +shoulders, was thrown back in a characteristic gesture of attention, +and, with a touch of reluctance, she admired afresh the masses of fair, +_cendre_ hair drawn back from the forehead in a way which to most women +would have been trying, yet which to this woman lent an air of +eighteenth-century charm and distinction. + +There was no colour in Laura Pavely's face, but her eyes, heavy-lidded, +and fringed with eyelashes darker than her hair, were deeply blue. + +To-night she was wearing a very simple evening dress, a white chiffon +tea-gown with a long black lace coat. The under dress was almost high to +the throat, but beneath the black lace the wearer's arms, soft, dimpled, +and rounded, were bare to the shoulder, and gleamed palely, revealingly. + +Mrs. Tropenell wondered whether Laura knew that her arms were unusually +lovely; then, for she was a very honest woman, her conscience rebuked +her. Laura's faults with regard to men were faults of omission, not of +commission. Of course she was aware--she could not help being +aware--that she was a singularly attractive and distinguished-looking +creature. But she had always taken her own beauty, her own distinction, +just as she did the rare, distinctive features of her garden, and the +perhaps over-studied charm of her house--as something to be tended and +kept beautiful, but also to be guarded from alien indifferent eyes. + +Perhaps because in these days every intelligent woman claims to be +picturesque and witty--beauty, sheer beauty, is somewhat under the +weather. Laura Pavely, to use the current jargon of her day, was not a +"success." She was thought to be affected, "deep," prudish, whereas she +was simply indifferent to the more commonplace human elements about her. + +Her marriage had withdrawn her from the circle of the old friends and +neighbours among whom she had been brought up, in a measure because none +of them could "do," excepting in a very casual and cursory sense, with +Godfrey Pavely. The world of his youth, the little world in and about +the country town of Pewsbury, to which he had introduced her as a bride +with such exultant complacency, found her not only disagreeably +superior, but also dull. Besides, during the early days of her marriage +she had been too bewildered by the conditions of her new life, and of +her relationship with her husband, to trouble about making new friends, +or even new acquaintances. + +And so it was that in any intimate sense Mrs. Tropenell was still +Laura's only close friend, but the younger woman was rather pathetically +aware of how little she really possessed of the older woman's heart, how +constantly she was compared, and ever to her detriment, to her dead +mother, even how unconscious a rival in the older woman's favour was +Laura's own child--merry, cheerful, loving little Alice. + + * * * * * + +"Aunt Letty? I didn't see you were there." + +Laura Pavely had a delightful voice--low, clear, vibrating. It was a +voice which sometimes seemed to promise more depth of feeling than its +owner ever chose to betray. + +As she stooped to kiss Mrs. Tropenell, Laura let herself slide down on +to the floor. She knelt there for a moment, and the light gleamed on her +fair hair and upturned face. "Alice sent you her love," she said +softly, "heaps of love. She's better to-night, though not quite well +yet!" And then, as there came a sound of quick footsteps across the +hall, she rose, and drew herself up to her full height, with the grace +of movement and the absence of flurry which were both so characteristic +of her. + +Mrs. Tropenell looked up quickly. Had Laura flushed, as she sometimes +did flush, with a deep, unbecoming reddening of her pale face, when +moved or startled? No, she seemed, if anything, paler, more impassive +than usual, and Oliver's mother asked herself, yet again, what of late +she had so often asked herself--if Laura was capable of _any_ feeling, +_any_ passion, save a feeling of horror, a passion of repugnance, for +aught which seemed to smirch her own fastidious physical and spiritual +entity. + +That she loved her child, the high-spirited, happy-natured little girl, +whose presence alone made life sweet and normal at Lawford Chase, Mrs. +Tropenell could not doubt--she had had proof of how deeply Laura loved +her child on the only occasion danger had come near to Alice--during a +bout of some childish ailment, when for a few hours the little creature +had been in danger of death. She, the older woman, had been frightened, +awed, by Laura's terrible, dry-eyed agony.... + +Oliver Tropenell opened the door, and as he walked across the room, his +mother's heart quivered with jealous pain, and even with a feeling of +secret, impotent anger, as she saw the eager, rapt look which lighted up +his dark face. + +Laura held out her ringless right hand, but he only just touched it. +"I'm sorry I'm late!" he exclaimed. "As a matter of fact I was reading +a letter just come, by the second post, from Gillie." + +"I've written to Gillie to-day," Laura said quietly. It seemed such a +long, long time since yesterday morning. She felt as if the +extraordinary thing which had happened then had been blotted out. + +"Have you sent your letter off?" + +"No, not yet," she was surprised at the question. + +And then there fell a curious silence on those three people, till at +last the door opened, and dinner was announced. + +"Oliver! Take in Laura," said Mrs. Tropenell. + +On the last occasion when the three had dined alone together there had +been a little smiling discussion as to the order in which they should go +into the dining-room. But that had been many weeks ago. They were not in +such a light mood to-night, and yet--and yet, why should they not be? +The hostess knew of no reason. + +The two paired off together, and Oliver's mother asked herself, for +perhaps the thousandth time in the last three months, why she had +allowed this--this friendship between her son and Laura Pavely to come +about? It would have been so easy to arrange that she and her son should +spend the summer abroad! When he had first come home there had been a +talk of their going away together to Italy, or to France--France, which +they had both loved when he was a clever, ardent, headstrong boy, with a +strength of brain and originality of mind too big for his boyish boots. + +But the harm, what harm there was--sometimes she hoped it was not so +very much harm after all--had been done quickly. By the end of that +first month at home, Oliver had lost all wish to leave Freshley. + +In those early days--or was it that already he was being unconsciously +hypocritical as men are wont to be when in such case as that in which he +now found himself?--he had seemed to have formed an even closer +friendship with Godfrey Pavely than with Godfrey Pavely's wife. They had +even made a joint business expedition to town together, Godfrey as +Oliver's guest, staying in one of those luxurious hotels which seem +equally attractive to the millionaire and the adventurer. But Oliver had +at last thrown off, when alone with his mother, any pretence of liking, +far less of respecting, Godfrey Pavely. Yet when with the other man he +still kept up the sinister fiction. She knew that. + + * * * * * + +The three sat down in the pretty, octagon-shaped dining-room, and the +mother and son talked, Laura saying very little, and never giving, +always accepting--in that sense, perhaps, an elemental woman after all! +Even so, she showed, when she did rouse herself to express an opinion, +that there was a good deal of thought and of intelligence in her small, +beautiful head. + +Mrs. Tropenell, sitting at the top of the oval table, told herself that +in a primeval sense such a woman as Laura might well be the complement +of such a man as was Oliver. He had strength, passion, idealism, enough +to furnish forth half a dozen ordinary human beings. And he had patience +too--patience which is but another name for that self-control in the +secret things of passion which often brings men's desires to fruition. +It was patience and self-control which had been so lacking in Godfrey +Pavely during those early days when Laura had at least desired to fulfil +her duty as a wife. + +And yet again and again during that uncomfortable half-hour Mrs. +Tropenell caught herself wishing that Godfrey Pavely was there, sitting +on her right hand. Godfrey always had plenty to say for himself, +especially in that house, and when he felt secure of the discretion of +those about him, he would often tell much that he ought, in his +character of banker, to have left unsaid. He knew the private business +of every one, gentle or simple, for miles round, and took an easy, +unaffected interest in it all. It was only when he touched on wider +matters, especially on politics, that he grew unbearably tedious and +prosy. But then the only person whom Mrs. Tropenell ever listened to +with pleasure on such subjects was her old friend, Lord St. Amant, who +always knew what he was talking about, and always salted what he knew +with happy flashes of wit and humour. + +Oliver accompanied the two ladies back into the drawing-room, and his +mother did not know whether to be glad or sorry that she had not had a +few minutes alone with the younger woman. Sometimes it seemed as if she +and Laura never were alone together now. Was it possible that of late +Laura was deliberately avoiding her? As this half suspicion came into +Mrs. Tropenell's mind she looked up and saw her son's eyes fixed on her +face. + +There was something imperious, imploring, commanding, in the look he +bent on her. She saw that he was willing her to go away--to leave him, +alone, with Laura.... + +Under the spell of that look she got up. "I must go upstairs for my +work," she said quietly. "And I have a letter to write too. I shan't be +very long." + +It was as if Oliver made but one swift step to the door, and, as he held +it open, his mother turned her head away, lest he should see that tears +had come into her eyes--tears of pain, and yes, of fear. + +How was all this to end? + +After walking slowly forward into the square brightly lighted hall she +suddenly stayed her steps, and clasped her hands together. + +A terrible temptation--terrible, almost unbelievable to such a woman as +was Letitia Tropenell--held her in its grip. She longed with a fearful, +gasping longing, to go back and listen at the door which had just closed +behind her. + +So strong was this temptation that she actually visualised herself +walking across to a certain corner, turning down the electric light +switch, then, in the darkness, creeping to the drawing-room door, and +there gently, gently--pushing it open, say half an inch, in order to +hear what those two were now saying, the one to the other.... + +At last, thrusting the temptation from her, she again began walking +across the brightly lighted hall, and so, slowly, made her way up the +staircase which led to her bedroom. + + * * * * * + +What Mrs. Tropenell would have heard, had she yielded to that ignoble +temptation, would not have told her anything of what she had so longed +to know. + +After he had shut the door on his mother, Oliver Tropenell walked back +to the place where he had stood a moment ago. But he did not come any +nearer than he had been before to his guest, and his manner remained +exactly what it had been when they had been three, instead of being, as +they were now, two, in that dimly lighted room. + +Still, both he and Laura, in their secret, hidden selves, were +profoundly conscious that Mrs. Tropenell's absence made a great, if an +intangible, difference. It was the first time they had been alone that +day, for it was the first day for many weeks past that Oliver had not +walked over to The Chase, either in the morning or in the afternoon or, +as was almost always the case, both after breakfast and about teatime. + +At last, when the silence had become almost oppressive, he spoke, with a +certain hard directness in his voice. + +"In the letter I received from Gillie to-day he tells me that he can +easily be spared for a few weeks, and I've already telephoned a cable +telling him to start at once. I've said that if he thinks it advisable I +myself will leave for Mexico as soon as I hear from him." + +"Oh, but I don't want you to do that!" Laura Pavely looked up at him +dismayed. "I thought you meant to stay in England right up to +Christmas?" + +"Yes, so I did, and I feel almost certain that he won't think it +necessary for me to go back. But the important thing is Gillie's and +your holiday. Why shouldn't he take you and Alice to France or Italy for +a month?" + +He saw her face, the face in which there had been a certain rigid, +suffering gravity, light up, soften, and then become overcast again. +Moving a little nearer to the low chair on which she was sitting--"Yes?" +he asked, looking down at her. "What is it you wish to say, Laura?" + +"Only that Godfrey would never let me go away with Gillie." She spoke in +a sad, low voice, but she felt far more at her ease than she had yet +felt this evening. + +The last time she and Oliver had been alone, they had parted as enemies, +but now there was nothing to show that he remembered their interchange +of bitter, passionate words. + +He answered quietly, + +"I wonder why you feel so sure of that? I believe that if it were put to +Godfrey in a reasonable way, he could not possibly object to your going +abroad with your brother. It's time they made up that foolish old +quarrel." + +"Ah, if only I could get away with Gillie and my little Alice!" + +Laura looked up as she spoke, and Oliver Tropenell was moved, almost +unbearably so, by the look which came over her face. Was it the mention +of her child, of her brother, or the thought of getting away from +Godfrey for a while, which so illumined her lovely, shadowed eyes? + +He went on, still speaking in the quiet, measured tones which made her +feel as if the scene of yesterday had been an evil dream. "I've even +thought of suggesting that Godfrey should come out with me to Mexico, +while your little jaunt with Gillie takes place. We could all be back +here by Christmas!" + +She shook her head. "I'm afraid Godfrey would never go away except in +what he considers his regular holiday time." + +"Not even if I made it worth his while?" + +She looked up, perplexed. And then a wave of hot colour flamed up in her +face. Her conscience, in some ways a very delicate and scrupulous +conscience, smote her. + +Was it her fault that Oliver Tropenell had come so to despise Godfrey? + +But he went on, speaking more naturally, that is quickly, eagerly--more +like his pre-yesterday self, "No, I'm not joking! I think I can put +Godfrey in the way of doing some really good business out there. We've +spoken of it more than once--only yesterday afternoon we spoke of it." + +"You don't mean with Gillie there?" There was a note of incredulity in +Laura's voice. + +"No." They were on dangerous ground now. "Not exactly with Gillie +there--though it seems to me, Laura, that Godfrey ought to make it up +with Gillie." + +Slowly, musingly, as if speaking to herself, she said, "If Godfrey ever +goes to Mexico I think he would want me to come too--he always does." +And this was true, for Godfrey Pavely in some ways was curiously +uxorious. Little as they were to one another, Laura's husband never +allowed her to go away by herself, or even with her child, for more than +a very few days. + +"You come too--to Mexico?" There was surprise, doubt, in Oliver +Tropenell's voice, and suddenly Laura did a strange thing, imprudent, +uncalled-for in the circumstances in which she found herself with this +man; yet she did it with no trace of what is ordinarily called +coquetry. Lifting up her head, she said rather plaintively, "Surely you +wouldn't mind my coming too, Oliver?" + +"Does that mean that you've forgiven me?" he asked. + +She got up from the low chair where she had been sitting, and, facing +him, exclaimed impulsively, "I want us both to forget what happened +yesterday! I was wrong, very wrong, in saying what I did about Godfrey," +her voice faltered, and slowly she added, "But with you, who seemed to +somehow understand everything without being told, I felt, I felt----" + +He raised a warning hand, for his ears had caught the sound of light +footfalls in the hall. "Mother's coming back," he said abruptly. "Don't +say anything to her of my cable to Gillie." And at once, without any +change in his voice, he went on: "There's a great deal that would +interest you, quite as much as Godfrey, out there----" + +The door opened, and he turned round quickly. "I'm trying to persuade +Laura to come out to Mexico," he exclaimed. "Godfrey has practically +promised to pay me a visit, and I don't see why she shouldn't come too!" + +Mrs. Tropenell made no answer. She knew, and she believed that both the +people standing there knew as well as she did, that such an expedition +could never take place so long as Gilbert Baynton was Oliver's partner. +Baynton and Pavely were bitter enemies. There had never been even the +semblance of a reconciliation between them. + +But as her son bent his eyes on her as if demanding an answer, she +forced herself to say lightly: "I expect they both will, some day, and +while they are away I can have my dear little Alice!" + +When, a little later, Mrs. Tropenell accompanied Laura out into the +hall, she said, "Do come in to-morrow or Sunday, my dear. I seem to see +so little of you now." + +"I will--I will!" and as she kissed the older woman, Laura murmured, +"You're so good to me, Aunty Letty--you've always been so very, very +good to me!" + +Oliver opened wide the door giving into the garden. He was now obviously +impatient to get Laura once more alone to himself.... + +After she went back to her drawing-room, Mrs. Tropenell walked straight +across to a window, and there, holding back the heavy curtain, she +watched the two figures moving in the bright moonlight across the lawn, +towards the beech avenue which would presently engulf them. + +What were their real relations the one to the other? Was Laura as blind +to the truth as she seemed to be, or was she shamming--as women, God or +the devil helping them--so often sham? + +Slowly, feeling as if she had suddenly become very, very old, Mrs. +Tropenell dropped the curtain, and walking back to her usual place, her +usual chair, took up her knitting. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Laura and Oliver Tropenell walked across the grass in silence, and still +in silence they passed through under the great dark arch formed by the +beech trees. + +Laura was extraordinarily moved and excited. Her brother, her dear, dear +Gillie, coming home? She had taken the surprising news very quietly, but +it had stirred her to the depths of her nature. Without even telling her +of what he was going to do, the man now walking by her side had brought +about the thing that for years she had longed should come to pass. + +In her husband Laura had become accustomed to a man who was cautious and +deliberate to a fault, and who, as so often happens, carried this +peculiarity even more into the affairs of his daily life than into his +business. Often weeks would go by before Godfrey would make up his mind +to carry out some small, necessary improvement connected with the +estate. + +Yet here was Oliver, who, without saying a word to her about it, had +decided that Gillie should come to England just to see the sister he had +not seen for seven years! Laura began to think it possible that after +all Godfrey _would_ make it up with her brother. Oliver Tropenell had an +extraordinary influence over Godfrey Pavely; again and again, as +regarded small matters, he had, as it were, made Godfrey's mind up for +him. + +A feeling of deep gratitude welled up in her heart for the silent man +by her side. She longed for him to speak now, as he had spoken to her, +kindly, conciliatingly, but a few minutes ago, in the drawing-room. + +But Oliver stalked along dumbly in the intense darkness. + +And then suddenly she remembered, with a miserable feeling of +discomfort, and yes, of shame, that she could hardly expect him to be as +usual. And so it was she who, making a great effort, at last broke the +unnatural silence. + +"I've never thanked you for your letter," she said nervously. "But I'm +very much obliged to you, Oliver, for consenting to be my trustee. And I +know that Godfrey will be! I hope it won't give you much trouble--the +trusteeship, I mean. I know that Mr. Blackmore, for years past, left it +all to Godfrey." + +He answered slowly, meditatively, and to her intense relief, quite in +his old way. "Yes, I think Godfrey will be pleased. To tell you the +truth, Laura, I thought I would take advantage of his pleasure to +suggest that plan about Gillie--I mean that you and Gillie and Alice +should all go abroad together." + +"If only you can persuade Godfrey to let me have Gillie here for a +while, I shall be more than content!" She spoke with a rather piteous +eagerness. + +They were walking very, very slowly. Oliver had now turned on his +electric torch, and it threw a bright patch of light on the path +immediately before them, making all the darkness about them the blacker +and the more intense. + +In a hard voice he exclaimed: "Of course Gillie must come here, and stay +here! His being anywhere else would be preposterous----" And then, once +more, he fell into that strange, disconcerting silence. + +The last time they two had walked down under the beeches at night had +been some three weeks ago. Laura and Godfrey had dined with the +Tropenells, and then Godfrey had said that he had to go home and do some +work, leaving her to stay on, for nearly an hour, with the mother and +son. + +Oliver's torch had gone out that evening, and he had suggested, a little +diffidently, that Laura should take his arm; smiling, she had laid the +tips of her fingers lightly on his sleeve. She had felt so happy then, +so happy, and absolutely at her ease, with her companion.... + +Tears welled up in her eyes. She was grateful for the darkness, but her +trembling voice betrayed her as she exclaimed, "Oliver? I do again ask +you to forget what happened yesterday, and to forgive me for the things +I said. I'm very sorry that I spoke as I did." + +He stopped walking, and put out his torch. "Don't be sorry," he said, in +a low, constrained voice. "It's far better that I should know exactly +how you feel. Of course I was surprised, for I'd always had a notion +that women regarded love from a more ideal standpoint than men seem able +to do. But I see now that I was mistaken." Some of the bitterness with +which his heart was still full and overflowing crept into his measured +voice. "I think you will believe me when I say that I did not mean to +insult you----" + +He was going on, but she interrupted him. + +"--I'm sorry--sorry and ashamed too, Oliver, of what I said. +Please--please forget what happened----" + +He turned on her amid the dark shadows. + +"If _I_ forget, will _you_?" he asked sombrely. + +And she answered, "Yes, yes--indeed I will! But before we put what +happened yesterday behind us forever, do let me tell you, Oliver, that I +_am_ grateful, deeply grateful, for your----" she hesitated painfully, +and then murmured "your affection." + +But Oliver Tropenell did not meet her half-way, as she had perhaps +thought he would. He was torn by conflicting feelings, cursing himself +for having lost his self-control the day before, and yet, even so, deep +in his subtle, storm-tossed mind, not altogether sorry for what had +happened. + +And so it was she who went on, speaking slowly and with difficulty: "I +know that I have been to blame! I know that I ought never to have spoken +of Godfrey as I have sometimes allowed myself to do to you. According to +his lights, he is a good husband, and I know that I have been--that I +am--a bitter disappointment to him." + +He muttered something--she did not hear what it was, and she hurried on: +"What I have wanted--and oh, Oliver, I have wanted it so much--is a +friend," almost he heard the unspoken words, "not a lover." + +She put out her hand in the darkness and laid it, for a moment, on his +arm. And then, suddenly, in that moment of, to him, exquisite, +unhoped-for contact, Oliver Tropenell swore to himself most solemnly +that he would rest satisfied with what she would, and could, grant him. +And so-- + +"I know that," he said in measured, restrained tones. "And I have made +up my mind to be that friend, Laura. We will both forget what happened +yesterday. If you are ashamed, I am a hundred times more so! And do +believe me when I tell you that what you said about Godfrey--why, I've +forgotten it already--had nothing to do with my outburst. I'm a lonely +man, my dear, and somehow, without in the least meaning it, I know, you +crept into my heart and filled it all. But already, since yesterday, +I've come to a more reasonable frame of mind." + +He waited a moment, despising himself for uttering such lying words, and +then he went on, this time honestly meaning what he said: "Henceforth, +Laura, I swear that I'll never again say a word to you that all the +world might not hear. I never did, till yesterday----" + +"I know, I know," she said hurriedly. "And that was why I was so +surprised." + +"Let's put it all behind us and go back to 'as we were'!" He was +speaking now with a sort of gruff, good-humoured decision, and +Laura sighed, relieved, and yet--so unreasonable a being is +woman--unsatisfied. + +The light from his torch flashed again, and they walked on, under the +dark arch of leaves and branches, till they were close to the open road. + +And there Laura said, "I wish you would leave me here, Oliver. I feel +sure that Aunt Letty is waiting up for you." + +He answered her at once. "It won't make more than five minutes' +difference. I'll only walk as far as the lodge. It's a lonely little +stretch of road." + +"Lonely?" she repeated. "Why, there isn't a bit of it that isn't within +hail of Rosedean!" + +And then, determined to go back to their old easy companionship, that +companionship which had lately become so easy and so intimate that when +with him she had often spoken a passing thought aloud, "Katty came home +to-day. I must try and see her to-morrow. She's a plucky creature, +Oliver! I wish that Aunt Letty liked her better than she does." + +He answered idly, "There's nothing much either to like or dislike in +Mrs. Winslow--at least so it always seems to me." + +But she answered quickly, defensively, "There's a great deal to like in +her--when I think of Katty Winslow I feel ashamed of myself. I've known +her do such kind things! And then she's so good about Godfrey--I don't +know what Godfrey would do without her. They knew each other as +children. It's as if she was his sister. All that little Pewsbury world +which bores me so, is full of interest to them both. I'm always glad +when she's at Rosedean. I only wish she didn't go away so often--Godfrey +does miss her so!" + +"Yes, I know he does," he said drily. + +They walked on in silence till they were close to the low lodge. + +Laura Pavely held out her hand, and Oliver Tropenell took it in his +cool, firm grasp for a moment. + +"Good-night," he said. "I suppose we shall meet some time to-morrow?" + +She answered eagerly. "Yes, do come in, any time! Alice and I shall be +gardening before lunch. Godfrey won't be back till late, for he's sure +to go straight to the Bank from the station. He'll be so much obliged to +you about that trusteeship, Oliver. It's really very good of you to take +so much trouble." + +Oliver Tropenell answered slowly, "Yes, I think Godfrey will be +pleased; and as I've already told you, I'll certainly take advantage of +his pleasure, Laura, to suggest the plan about Gillie." + +Once more she exclaimed: "If only you can persuade Godfrey to let me +have Gillie at The Chase for a while, I shall be more than content!" + +There was a thrill of excitement, of longing, in her low voice, as, +without waiting for an answer, she walked away, leaving him looking +after her. The patch of whiteness formed by the hem of her gown moved +swiftly along--against the moonlit background of grass, trees, and sky. +He stood and watched the moving, fluttering bit of whiteness till it +vanished in the grey silvery haze. Then, slowly, he turned on his heel +and made his way back home. + + * * * * * + +It was nearly a quarter of a mile from the lodge to The Chase, as the +house was always called, but there was a rather shorter way across the +grass, through trees; and Laura, when she came to where she knew the +little path to be, left the carriage way, and stepped up on to the +grass. + +She felt oppressed, her soul filled with a piteous lassitude and +weariness of life, in spite of the coming return home of her only +brother. She had been moved and excited, as well as made acutely +unhappy, by what had happened yesterday morning. Mrs. Tropenell, as +almost always happens in such a case, was not fair to Laura Pavely. +Laura had been overwhelmed with surprise--a surprise in which +humiliation and self-rebuke were intolerably mingled--and yes, a certain +proud anger. + +The words Oliver had said, and alas! that it should be so, the bitter, +scornful words she had uttered in reply, had, she felt, degraded them +both--she far, far more than him. At the time she had been too deeply +hurt, too instinctively anxious to punish him, to measure her words. And +now she told herself that she had spoken yesterday in a way no man would +ever forget, and few, very few men would ever forgive. Though he had +been kind to-night--very, very kind--his manner had altered, all the +happy ease had gone. + +Tears came into Laura Pavely's eyes; they rolled down her cheeks. +Suddenly she found herself sobbing bitterly. + +She stopped walking, and covered her face with her hands. With a depth +of pain, unplumbed till now, she told herself that she would never, +never be able to make Oliver understand why she had said those cruel +stinging words. Without a disloyalty to Godfrey of which she was +incapable, she could not hope to make him understand why she had so +profound a distaste, ay, and contempt, for that which, if he had spoken +truly yesterday, he thought the greatest thing in the world. With sad, +leaden-weighted conviction she realised that there must always be +between a man and a woman, however great their friendship and mutual +confidence, certain barriers that nothing can force or clear. + +She had believed, though as a matter of fact she had not thought very +much about it, that Oliver Tropenell, in some mysterious way, was unlike +ordinary men. As far as she knew, he had never "fallen in love." Women, +who, as she could not help knowing, had always played so great a part in +her brother Gillie's life, seemed not to exist--so far as Oliver +Tropenell was concerned. He had never even seemed attracted, as almost +every man was, by pretty Katty Winslow, the innocent _divorcee_ now +living at his very gates. So she, Laura, had allowed herself to slip +into a close, intimate relationship which, all unknowingly to her, had +proved most dangerous to him.... + +Still crying bitterly, she told herself that she had been too happy all +this summer. Godfrey had been kinder, less, less--she shrank from +putting it into words--but yes, less ill-tempered, mean, and tiresome +than usual. Oliver had had such a good effect on Godfrey, and she had +honestly believed that the two were friends. + +But how could they be friends if--if it was true that Oliver loved her? +Laura Pavely knew nothing of the well-worn byways of our poor human +nature. + +Suddenly she threw her head back and saw the starlit sky above her. +Somehow that wonderful ever-recurring miracle of impersonal, unearthly +beauty calmed and comforted her. Drying her eyes, she told herself that +something after all had survived out of yesterday's wreck. Her friend +might be a man--a man as other men were; but he was noble, and +singularly selfless, for all that. On the evening of the very day on +which she had grievously offended and wounded him, he had written her a +kindly letter, offering to be her trustee. + +There had been moments to-day when she had thought of writing Mrs. +Tropenell a note to say she did not feel well--and that she would not +dine at Freshley that night. But oh, how glad she was now that a mixture +of pride and feminine delicacy had prompted her to behave just as if +nothing had happened, as if words which could never be forgotten had +not been uttered between herself and Oliver! She had thought he would +punish her this evening by being sulky and disagreeable--that was her +husband's invariable method of showing displeasure. But with the +exception of a word or two uttered very quietly, and more as if she, +rather than he, had something to forgive, he had behaved as if yesterday +had never been. He had heaped coals of fire upon her head, making it +plain that even now he was only thinking of her--of her and of Gillie, +of how he could pleasure them both by securing her a holiday with her +only brother. + +Every word of that restrained, not very natural, conversation held just +now under the beech trees re-echoed in her ears. She seemed to hear +again the slowly uttered, measured words, "I am going to be your friend, +Laura".... + +And then there came over Laura Pavely an extraordinary sensation of +moral and mental disturbance. Once more everything which had happened +to-day was blotted out, and she went back to yesterday morning. Again +she lived through those moments during which Oliver Tropenell had +offered her what was to him the greatest thing man has it in him to +bestow--love, even if illicit, unsanctified. And she had rejected the +gift with a passion of scorn, spurning it as she would have done a base +and unclean thing. + +Years and years ago, in her quiet, shadowed youth, she too had believed +love to be the most precious, beautiful thing in life. Then, with +marriage to Godfrey Pavely had come the conviction that love was not +beautiful, but very, very ugly--at its best one of those dubious gifts +to man by which old Dame Nature works out certain cunning designs of her +own. And yet, when something of what she believed to be the truth had +been uttered by her during that terrible tense exchange of words, she +had seen how she, in her turn, had shocked, and even repelled, Oliver +Tropenell. + +Once more sobs welled up from her throat, once more she covered her face +with her hands.... + +At last, feeling worn out with the violence of an emotion which, unknown +to her, vivified her whole being, she walked on till the fine Tudor +front of the old house which was at once so little and so much her home, +rose before her. It was an infinite comfort to know that Godfrey would +not be there waiting for her, and that she would be able to make her way +up alone through the sleeping house to the room which opened into her +child's nursery. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Mrs. Tropenell, waiting for Oliver to come back, lost count of time, and +yet not much more than half an hour had gone by before she heard the +sound of a glazed door, which opened on to the garden from a distant +part of the house, burst open. + +In that sound she seemed to hear all the impatience, all the pain, all +the frustrated longing she divined in her son. + +She got up from her chair and stood listening. Would he go straight +upstairs--as she, in her stormy, passionate youth, would have done in +his place? + +But no--with a feeling of rushing, unreasoning joy she heard him coming +across the hall. A moment later he walked through into the room and came +and stood before her. + +"Mother," he said, "it's a beautiful night. Would you care to come into +the garden for a few minutes?" + +As soon as they had stepped out of the French window into the darkness, +she took his arm. + +"You don't feel it cold?" he asked solicitously. + +"Oh no," she said, surprised. "I'm so little cold, Oliver, that I +shouldn't at all mind going over to the blue bench, and sitting down." + +They went across the grass, to a curious painted Italian bench which had +been a gift of the woman who was so much in both their thoughts. + +And there, "I want to ask you a question," he said slowly. "What led to +the marriage of Laura Baynton and Godfrey Pavely? From something she +once said to me, I gather she thinks that you approved of it." + +She felt as if his eyes were burning her in the darkness, and as she +hesitated, hardly knowing what to say, he went on, and in his voice +there was something terribly accusing. + +"Did _you_ make the marriage, mother? Did you really advise her to take +that fellow?" + +The questions stung her. "No," she answered coldly. "I did nothing of +the kind, Oliver. If you wish to know the truth, the person who was most +to blame was your friend Gillie, Laura's brother. Laura adored her +brother. There was nothing in the world she wouldn't have done for him, +and she married Godfrey--it seems a strange thing to look back on +now--to please Gillie." + +"But she met Pavely here?" + +"Yes, of course she did. As you know, she very often stayed with me +after her father died, and when Gillie Baynton, instead of making a home +for her, was getting into scrape after scrape, spending her money as +well as his own." + +He muttered, "Gillie knew she was to have money later." + +She went on: "And then Godfrey Pavely in love is a very different person +from Godfrey Pavely--well, out of love. He was set on marrying Laura, +and that over years. He first asked her when she was seventeen, and they +married when she was twenty-one. In the interval he had done Gillie many +good turns. In fact Godfrey bought Laura from Gillie. That, Oliver, is +the simple truth." + +She waited for him to make some kind of comment, but he said nothing, +and she went on, a tinge of deep, yearning sadness in her voice, "Don't +let your friends, or rather their incompatibility of temper--" she +hesitated, and then rather solemnly ended her sentence with the words, +"affect _our_ relations, my son." + +"I'm sorry, mother." Tropenell's voice altered, softened. "Forgive me +for the way I spoke just now! I had got it into my head--I didn't know +quite exactly why--that you had promoted the marriage. I see now that +you really had nothing to do with it." + +"I won't say that! It's difficult to remember exactly what did happen. +Godfrey never wearied in his slow, inexorable pursuit of Laura. I think +that at last she was touched by his constancy. She knew nothing then of +human nature--she knows nothing of it now." + +He muttered, "Poor girl! Poor unfortunate girl!" and his way of uttering +the commonplace words hurt his mother shrewdly. + +Suddenly she made up her mind to say at least one true thing to him. It +was a thing she knew well no one but herself would ever say to Oliver. + +"I am in a position to know," she said, "and I want you to believe it +when I tell you, that if Laura is to be as much pitied as you believe +her to be--so too, I tell you, Oliver, is Godfrey! If I had known before +the marriage, even an hour before the actual wedding, what I learnt +afterwards--I mean as to their amazingly different ideals of life--I +would have done _anything_ to stop it!" + +"What d'you mean exactly, mother, by different ideals of life?" + +As he asked the question he moved away from her a little, but he turned +round and bent his eyes on to her face--dimly, whitely, apparent in the +starlit, moonlit night. + +She did not speak at once. It seemed to her that the question answered +itself, and yet she felt that he was quivering with impatience for her +answer. + +"The French," she said in a low voice, "have a very good phrase to +describe the kind of man Godfrey is. Godfrey Pavely is a _le moyen homme +sensuel_--the typical man of his kind and class, Oliver--the +self-satisfied, stolid, unimaginative upper middle-class. Such men feel +that the world, their English world at any rate, has been made for them, +built up by the all-powerful entity they call God in their personal +interest. They know scarcely anything of what is going on, either above +or below them, and what is more, they do not really care, as long as +they and their like prosper." + +Oliver nodded impatiently. He knew all that well enough! + +His mother went on: "Godfrey Pavely ought to have married some rather +clever, rather vulgar-natured, rather pretty girl, belonging to his own +little world of Pewsbury. Then, instead of being what he now is, an +uncomfortable, not over contented man, he would have been, well--what +his worthy father was before him. That odd interest in queer, +speculative money dealings, is the unfortunate fellow's only outlet, +Oliver, for what romance is in him." + +"I wonder if you're right, mother?" + +"I'm sure I am." + +There came a long silence between them. + +Mrs. Tropenell could see her son in outline, as it were, his +well-shaped head, and long, lean, finely proportioned body. He was +sitting at the further end of the bench, and he was now staring right +before him. She found it easier--far easier--to speak of Godfrey than of +Laura. And so, musingly, she went on: + +"Looking back a dozen years, I can think of several young women whom +Godfrey would have done well to consider----" + +"I can certainly think of one, mother," he said, and in the darkness +there came a bitter little smile over his face. + +"You mean Katty Winslow? Yes--I think you're right, my dear. When +Godfrey turned from Katty to Laura, he made a terrible mistake. Katty, +in the old days, had very much the same ambitions, and the same social +aspirations, as himself. She was really fond of him too! She would have +become--what's the odious word?--'smart.' And Godfrey would have been +proud of her. By now he would have stood for Parliament, and then, in +due course, would have come a baronetcy. Yes, if the gods had been kind, +Godfrey Pavely would have married poor little Katty--he didn't behave +over well to her, you know!" + +"It seems to me that Mrs. Winslow has made quite a good thing of her +life, mother." + +"Do you really think that, Oliver?" + +"Yes, I do. She managed very cleverly, so I'm told, to get rid of that +worthless husband of hers, and now she's got that pretty little house, +and that charming little garden, and as much of Godfrey as she seems to +want." He spoke with a kind of hard indifference. + +"Katty's not the sort of woman to be really satisfied with a pretty +little house, a charming little garden, and a platonic share in another +woman's husband." + +"Then she'll marry again. People seem to think her very attractive." + +There was a long pause. + +"Mother?" + +"Yes, my dearest." + +"To return to Laura--what should have been _her_ fate had the gods been +kind?" + +She left his question without an answer so dangerously long as to create +a strange feeling of excitement and strain between them. Then, +reluctantly, she answered it. "Laura might have been happiest in not +marrying at all, and in any case she should have married late. As to +what kind of man would have made her happy, of course I have a theory." + +"What is your theory?" He leant towards her, breathing rather quickly. + +"I think," she said hesitatingly, "that Laura might have been happy with +a man of the world, older than herself, who would have regarded his wife +as a rare and beautiful possession. Such a man would have understood the +measure of what she was willing and able to give--and to withhold. I can +also imagine Laura married to a young idealist, the kind of man whose +attitude to his wife is one of worship, whose demands, if indeed they +can be called demands, are few, infrequent----" + +Mrs. Tropenell stopped abruptly. What she had just said led to a path +she did not mean to follow. But she soon realised with dismay that she +had said too much, or too little. + +"Do you mean," said Oliver hoarsely, "that Pavely--that Pavely----" he +left his question unfinished, but she knew he meant to exact an answer +and she did not keep him waiting long for it. Still she chose her words +very carefully. + +"I think that Godfrey Pavely, in the matter of his relations to his +wife, is a very unfortunate, and, some would say, a very ill-used man, +Oliver." + +Oliver Tropenell suddenly diminished the distance between his mother and +himself. The carefully chosen, vague words she had just uttered had been +like balm poured into a festering and intolerably painful wound. + +"Poor devil!" he said contemptuously, and there was a rather terrible +tone of triumph, as well as of contempt, in the muttered exclamation. + +Mrs. Tropenell was startled and, what she seldom was, frightened. She +felt she was face to face with an elemental force--the force of hate. + +She repeated his last words, but in how different a spirit, in how +different a tone! "Poor devil? Yes, Oliver, Godfrey is really to be +pitied, and I ask you to believe me, my son, when I say that he does do +his duty by Laura according to his lights." + +"Mother?" He put out his hand in the darkness and just touched hers. +"Why is it that Laura is so much fonder of you than you are of Laura? +You don't respect--or even like--Godfrey?" + +She protested eagerly. "But I _am_ fond of Laura--very, very fond, +Oliver! But though, as you say, I neither really like nor respect +Godfrey, I can't help being sorry for him. He once said to me--it's a +long time ago--'I thought I was marrying a woman, but I've married a +marble statue. I'm married to something like _that_'--and he pointed to +'The Wingless Victory' your father brought me, years ago, from Italy. +Godfrey is an unhappy man, Oliver--come, admit that you know that?" + +"I think she's far, far more unhappy than he is! No man with so +thoroughly good an opinion of himself is ever _really_ unhappy. Still, +it's a frightful tangle." + +He stopped short for a moment, then in a very low voice, he asked her, +"Is there no way of cutting it through, mother?" Suddenly he answered +his own question in a curiously musing, detached tone. "I suppose the +only way in which such a situation is ever terminated is by death." + +"Yes," she said slowly, "but it's not a usual termination. Still, I have +known it happen." More lightly she went on: "If Laura died, Godfrey +wouldn't escape Katty a second time. And one must admit that she would +make him an almost perfect wife." + +"_And if Godfrey died, mother?_" + +Mrs. Tropenell felt a little tremor of fear shoot through her burdened +heart. This secret, intimate conversation held in the starry night was +drifting into strange, sinister, uncharted channels. But her son was +waiting for an answer. + +"I don't know how far Laura's life would alter for the better if Godfrey +died. I suppose she would go on much as she does now. And, Oliver----" + +"Yes, mother." + +"I should pity and--rather despise the man who would waste his life in +an unrequited devotion." + +He made an impatient movement. "Then do you regard response as essential +in every relationship between a man and a woman?" + +"I have never yet known a man who did not regard it as essential," she +said quietly, "and that, however he might consciously or unconsciously +pretend to be satisfied with--nothing." + +"I once knew a man," he said, in a low, tense voice, "who for years +loved a woman who seemed unresponsive, who forced him to be content with +the merest crumbs of--well, _she_ called it friendship. And yet, mother, +that man was happy in his love. And towards the end of her life the +woman gave all that he had longed for, all he had schooled himself to +believe it was not in her to give--but it had been there all the time! +She had suffered, poor angel, more than he--" his voice broke, and his +mother, turning towards him, laid for a moment her hand on his, as she +whispered, "Was that woman at all like Laura, my darling?" + +"Yes--as far as a Spaniard, and a Roman Catholic, can be like Laura, she +was like Laura." + +Even as he spoke he had risen to his feet, and during their short walk, +from the bench where they had been sitting through the trees and across +the lawn, neither spoke to the other. But, as he opened the house door, +he said, "Good-night. I'm not coming in now; I'm going for a walk. I +haven't walked all day." He hesitated a moment: "Don't be worried--I +won't say don't be frightened, for I don't believe, mother, that +anything could ever frighten you--if you hear me coming in rather late. +I've got to think out a rather difficult problem--something connected +with my business." + +"I hope Gillie hasn't been getting into any scrape since you've come +home?" + +But she only spoke by way of falling in with his humour. Nothing +mattered to her, or to him, just now, except--Laura. + +He said hastily, "Oh no, things have been going very well out there. You +must remember, mother, that Baynton's scrapes never affect his work." + +He spoke absently, and she realised that he wanted to be away, by +himself, to think over some of the things she had said to him, and so +she turned and went slowly up the staircase, and passed through into her +own bedroom without turning up the light. + +Walking over to her window, she gazed down into the moonlit space +beneath. But she could see no moving shadow, hear no sound. Oliver had +padded away across the grass, making for the lonely downs which +encircled, on three sides, the house. + +Before turning away from her window, Mrs. Tropenell covered her face +with her hands; she was fearfully moved, shaken to the depths of her +heart. For the first time Oliver had bared his soul before her. She +thrilled with pride in the passionate, wayward, in a measure nobly +selfless and generous human being whom she had created. + +How strange, how amazing that Laura made no response to that ardent, +exalted passion! But if amazing, then also, from what ought to be every +point of view, how fortunate! And yet, unreasonable though it was, Mrs. +Tropenell felt sharply angered with Laura, irritated by that enigmatic, +self-absorbed, coldness of hers. What a poor maimed creature, to be so +blind, so imperceptive, to the greatest thing in the world! Dislike, a +physical distaste for the unlucky Godfrey which seemed sometimes to +amount to horror, were this beautiful woman's nearest approach to +passion. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +At Rosedean, the small, mid-Victorian house which every one going to and +fro between Freshley Manor and Lawford Chase was bound to pass by, Mrs. +Winslow sat in her drawing-room waiting for Godfrey Pavely. + +He was coming in to see her on his way home from Pewsbury, where, at the +Bank, he spent each day at least six of his waking hours. + +All the summer, up to to-day, Mrs. Winslow had always had tea in the +garden, but there was now a freshness in the air, and she thought they +would find it more comfortable indoors than out. Still, she had opened +wide the long French window, and the wind blew in, laden with pungent +autumnal scents. + +Katty--the old childish name still clung to her--was a very clever +woman. She possessed the power of getting the utmost out of the people +round her, whether they were friends, acquaintances, or servants. Her +little garden was exquisitely kept, and there was no month of the year +when it did not look charming. Her little house, so far as was possible +on very limited means, was perfectly ordered. + +Perhaps one secret of her success lay in the fact that she was able to +do everything herself that she asked others to do for her. Katty was a +good gardener, an excellent cook, and an exceptionally clever +dressmaker. Yet she was the last woman to make the mistake so many +clever people make--of keeping a dog and doing the barking oneself. +Katty was willing to show those she employed exactly how she wanted a +thing done, but she expected them to learn how to do it quickly and +intelligently. She had no use for the idle or the stupid. + +Katty Winslow was thirty-one, but she looked much younger. She was an +exceedingly pretty woman, with brown eyes, a delicately clear, white and +pink complexion, and curling chestnut hair. She took great pains with +her appearance, and with her health. Thus she ate and drank to rule, and +almost walked to rule. + +Early this last summer a bit of cruel bad luck had befallen Mrs. +Winslow. She had caught scarlet fever while on a visit, and for some +days had been very ill. But, perhaps as a result of the long, dull +convalescence, she now looked even prettier, and yes, younger, than she +had done before. + +The only daughter of a well-connected but exceedingly poor half-pay +officer, Katherine Fenton, during a girlhood which lasted till she was +four-and-twenty, had been undisputed belle of Pewsbury, and of a +country-side stretching far beyond the confines of that fine old county +town. Like all beauties, she had had her triumphs and her +disappointments; and then, rather suddenly, she had made what had seemed +the irretrievable mistake of an unhappy marriage. + +Bob Winslow had been weak, vain, ill-tempered, and, to a certain extent, +vicious. Thus his relations had welcomed his marriage to a clever, +capable young woman, who it was supposed would make, and keep, him +straight. The fact that she had no fortune had been regarded as +unimportant--indeed, Bob Winslow had made on his bride what was regarded +in the Pewsbury world as the splendid marriage settlement of twelve +thousand pounds. + +Four and a half per cent, on that sum was now Mrs. Winslow's only +income, and out of that income there were still being paid off heavy +divorce costs, for Bob Winslow, when it had come to the point, had put +up a great fight for his Katty. Not only had he defended the case, but +he had brought on his side vague counter-charges. The Judge, rather +unkindly, had observed that the petitioner had been "somewhat +imprudent," but even so Katty had come out of the painful ordeal very +well--so much was universally allowed, even by the few people in +Pewsbury who had always disliked her, and who did not think she had +treated her husband well. + +Godfrey and Laura Pavely had both been very kind to Katty over the +matter of the divorce--indeed, Mrs. Winslow had actually stayed at +Lawford Chase for many weeks during that troubled time, and Laura's +countenance had been of great value to her. This was now three years +ago, and, though they had nothing in common, the two women remained good +friends, as well as what is sometimes less usual, good neighbours. + +In nothing had Katty shown herself cleverer than in her management of +Laura. In Laura Pavely's imagination Katty Winslow had her fixed place +as a friend of Godfrey's childhood, and that though he was nine years +older. Mrs. Pavely regarded Mrs. Winslow much as she would have done a +pleasant-natured sister-in-law, and she had been glad to do all that she +could for her. When some one had suggested that Katty should become +Godfrey Pavely's tenant at Rosedean, Laura had thought it an excellent +idea. + +It was the fashion to call Rosedean ugly. The house had been built in +the 'sixties, by a retired butcher and grazier, and was of red brick +with white facings. But it was well built, and had far more real +distinction of appearance than the Queen Anne villas which now +surrounded Pewsbury. Also, Rosedean had been built on the site of an old +farmhouse, and Katty's lawn was fringed with some fine old trees, while +a grand old holly hedge concealed a well-stocked kitchen garden. On the +other side of the house were stabling for two horses, a coach-house, and +a paddock. + +Katty had devoted a great deal of successful thought to the arrangement +of her dwelling. She knew she could neither compete with the stately +beauty of Laura's Tudor mansion, nor with the old-fashioned +eighteenth-century charm of Mrs. Tropenell's house, so she wisely made +up her mind that her surroundings should be simply bright, pretty and +cosy. Her drawing-room was in its way a delightful room, and those +walking through into it, from the rather dark, early Victorian hall, +gained an instant impression of coolness in summer, of warmth in winter, +of cheerfulness and comfort at all times. + +No one but Katty herself knew the trouble to which she had been to get +the exact pattern of calendered chintz which she had made up her mind to +obtain. Katty also kept to herself the amount which she had spent, out +of her small reserve, on the thoroughly good, comfortable easy-chairs, +of varying shape, height, and depth, which played such an important, if +unobtrusive, part in the comfort of her visitors. + +Every chair in Katty's sitting-room was an easy chair, with the +exception of two gilt ones which were of their kind good, and which she +had bought at a sale. They, however, were never moved away from the +places where they stood, flanking a quaint, old-fashioned cabinet now +filled with some beautiful old china which had come to Katty from a +grandmother. + +Yet another peculiarity of Katty's sitting-room was the absence of +pictures. Their place was taken by mirrors. Above the mantelpiece on +which stood six delicately charming Dresden china figures was a +looking-glass of curious octagonal shape, framed in rosewood. Opposite +the French window which opened into the garden was fixed a long, narrow +mirror with a finely carved gilt wood frame. This mirror gave an air of +distinction to the room which would otherwise have been lacking, and it +also enabled Katty to see at any moment how she was looking, whether her +burnished chestnut-brown hair was quite tidy, and her gown fresh-looking +and neat. + +There had been a time in her life when Katty Winslow had been +passionately fond of beautiful clothes, and able to indulge her taste. +Now, all she could hope to attain was freshness and neatness. That she +achieved these was to her credit, for they too cost, if not money, then +a good deal of thought and time, on the part of their possessor. + + * * * * * + +Godfrey Pavely had walked out from Pewsbury. From the Bank in the High +Street to Rosedean was rather over two miles, and he had gone along at a +steady, jog-trot pace till he had come in sight of the little house. +Then he quickened his footsteps, and a feeling of pleasurable +anticipation came over him. + +The banker was very, very fond of his old friend and sometime +sweetheart. He believed it to be a straightforward, honest affection, +though he could not but be aware, deep in his heart, that "to it" was +just that little touch of sentiment which adds salt and savour to most +of the close friendships formed between a man and a woman. + +As a matter of fact, Godfrey Pavely was now happier in Katty Winslow's +company than he was in that of any one else. Not only did she ply him +with a good deal of delicate flattery, which caused him always to feel +better pleased with himself when at Rosedean than when he was at The +Chase, but a great and real bond between them was their mutual interest +in all the local happenings and local gossip of the neighbourhood. + +Laura was frankly indifferent to all that concerned the town of Pewsbury +and the affairs of those whom Mrs. Tropenell called the Pewsburyites. +She was not disagreeable about it; she simply didn't care. Katty, in +spite of her frequent absences, for she was a popular visitor with a +large circle of acquaintances, always came home full of an eager wish to +learn all that had happened while she had been away. + +Little by little, imperceptibly as regarded himself, the banker had +fallen into the way of telling this woman, who had so oddly slipped back +into his life, everything which concerned and interested himself, every +detail of his business, and even, which he had no right to do, the +secrets of his clients. + +But to this entire confidence there was one outstanding exception. +Godfrey Pavely never discussed with Katty Winslow his relations with his +wife. Laura's attitude to himself caused him, even now, sharp, almost +intolerable, humiliation. Only to Mrs. Tropenell did he ever say a word +of his resentment and soreness--and that only because she had been the +unwilling confidant of both husband and wife during that early time in +their married life when the struggle between Godfrey and Laura had been, +if almost wordless, at its sharpest and bitterest. + +On one occasion, and on one only, when with Katty Winslow, had Pavely +broken his guarded silence. He had been talking, in a way which at once +fascinated and tantalised Katty, of his growing wealth, and suddenly he +had said something as to his having no son to inherit his fortune. "It's +odd to think that some day there will come along a man, a stranger to +me, who will benefit by everything I now do----" and as she had looked +up at him, at a loss for his meaning, he had gone on, slowly, "I mean +the man whom Mrs. Tropenell and Laura between them will select for my +girl's husband." + +Katty, looking at him very straight out of her bright brown eyes, had +exclaimed, "You may have a son yet, Godfrey!" + +She had been startled by the look of pain, of rage, and of humiliation +that had come into his sulky, obstinate-looking face, as he answered +shortly, "I think that's very unlikely." + +Had Godfrey Pavely been a more imaginative man, he would probably by now +have come to regret, with a deep, voiceless regret, that he had not +married Katty instead of Laura--but being the manner of man he was, he +had, so far, done nothing of the sort. And yet? And yet, at one time, +say fifteen years ago, he had very nearly married Katty. It was a fact +which even now he would have denied, but which she never forgot. + +In those days Godfrey Pavely had been a priggish, self-important young +man of twenty-six, with perhaps not so good an opinion of women as he +had now, for a man's opinion of women always alters, one way or another, +as he grows older. + +Katty, at eighteen, had enjoyed playing on the cautious, judgematical +Godfrey's emotions. So well had she succeeded that at one time he could +hardly let a day go by without trying to see and to be with her alone. +But, though strongly attracted by her instinctive, girlish wiles, he was +also, quite unknowingly to her, repelled by those same wiles. + +Poor Katty had made herself, in those days that now seemed to both of +them so very, very long ago, a little too cheap. Her admirer, to use a +good old word, knew that her appeal was to a side of his nature which it +behooved him to keep in check, if he was not "to make a fool of +himself." And so, just when their little world--kindly, malicious, +censorious, as the case might be--was expecting to hear of their +engagement, Godfrey Pavely suddenly left Pewsbury to spend a year in a +great Paris discount house. + +The now staid country banker did not look back with any pride or +pleasure to that year in France; he had worked, but he had also ignobly +played, spending, rather joylessly, a great deal of money in the +process. Then, having secretly sown his wild oats, he had come home and +settled down to a further time of banking apprenticeship in London, +before taking over the sound family business. + +Almost at once, on his return to England, he had made up his mind to +marry the beautiful, reserved, the then pathetically young Laura +Baynton, who was so constantly with Mrs. Tropenell at Freshley Manor. + +Time went on, and Laura held out; but little by little, perhaps because +he saw her so seldom, he broke down her resistance. His father had +bought the Lawford Chase estate as a great bargain, many years before, +and had been content to let it on a long lease. Godfrey, on becoming his +own master at thirty, determined to live there, and his marriage to +Laura followed a year later. + +During their honeymoon in Paris--a honeymoon which was curiously and +painfully unlike what Godfrey had supposed his honeymoon would and must +be--he saw in a paper a notice of Katty Fenton's engagement. Though not +given to impulsively generous actions, he went out and bought for Katty, +in the Rue de la Paix, a jewelled pendant Laura had just refused to +allow him to buy for her. In return he had received what had seemed at +the time a delightful letter of thanks, to which was the following +postscript, "There's no harm in my saying _now_, that you, dear Godfrey, +were my first love! I've always wanted you to know that. I've always +been afraid that you only thought me a sad little flirt." + +The confession, and the shrewd thrust, which was so much truer than he +thought Katty knew, moved him, and he had told himself sorely that +Katty's husband at any rate would be a very lucky fellow. + +Then once more he had forgotten Katty till one day, years later, "Mrs. +Winslow" had suddenly been shown into his private room at the Bank. + +Looking, as he had at once become aware, even prettier and more +attractive than when he had last seen her, she had said quietly, "I'm in +great trouble, Godfrey, and I've come down from London to consult you +about it. Your father and mine were friends" (a rather exaggerated +statement that--but Pavely was in no mood to cavil), "and I don't know +who else to go to." + +Shortly and simply she had described the dreadful existence she had led +since her marriage--then, suddenly, she had rolled up her right sleeve +and shown the livid bruises made by Bob Winslow the night before, in a +fit of drunken anger, on the slender, soft, white arm. + +Unwontedly moved, the more so that this now unfamiliar Katty seemed to +make no excessive demand either on his pity or on his emotions, Godfrey +Pavely had thrown himself into the complicated, unsavoury business, and +very soon his old-new friend had brought him to advise her in the sense +she wished. But it was Laura who had suggested that poor Mrs. Winslow +should come and stay with them during the divorce proceedings, and while +she had been at Lawford Chase, Katty had avoided, rather than sought +out, the master of the house. + +In the matter of Rosedean the banker had behaved in what he himself +considered a very handsome manner. Not only had he let the house to +Katty for about a third of what he could have got for it in the open +market, but he had allowed her a hundred pounds for "doing it up." He +believed himself to have also suggested the arrangement by which she +obtained the free services, for a certain number of half-days each week, +of a very intelligent Scotch under-gardener who was in his employ. + +He had never had reason to regret his kindness. On the contrary, he and +Katty had become, as time went on, closer and closer friends, and more +and more had he come to miss her during her frequent absences from home. + +Some months ago he had even ventured to tell her that he thought she +gadded about a bit too much! Why couldn't she be content to stay quietly +at Rosedean? "Look at me and Laura," he had exclaimed. "We hardly ever +go away for a holiday, and we very seldom pay a visit!" Katty had shaken +her pretty head playfully: "Ah, but you don't know how lonely I am +sometimes! Laura is most dear and kind to me, but you know, Godfrey, I +don't see her often----" + +He had not liked to remind her that he very often did. + +Then something happened which quite curiously quickened Godfrey Pavely's +unavowed feeling for Katty. Oliver Tropenell, a virtual stranger to them +all, came home from Mexico to spend the summer in England with his +mother. And three times, during Oliver's first fortnight in England, +Godfrey arrived at Rosedean to find the then stranger there. On these +three occasions each man had tried to sit the other out, and finally +they had left the house together. As a result of these meetings Godfrey +soon caught himself wondering with a mixture of feelings he did not care +to analyse, whether Tropenell could possibly be thinking of marrying +Katty? + +He found the notion intolerable. + +Then came a strange turn to the situation. Katty had gone away, on one +of those tiresome little visits she was so fond of paying, and +Providence, which means women, especially any woman placed in an +ambiguous position, to stay quietly at home, had caught her out! She had +fallen ill, when on a visit, of scarlet fever, and she had been +compelled to stay away six weeks. During those weeks he, Godfrey Pavely, +and Oliver Tropenell had become friends--on more intimate terms of +friendship than Pavely had ever expected to find himself with any man. +This was, of course, partly owing to the fortunate fact that Laura liked +Oliver too, and didn't seem to mind how often he came and went to The +Chase. + +But Godfrey Pavely had a tenacious memory. He did not forget that for a +little while, at any rate, Oliver had seemed to enjoy being in Katty's +company. And when Laura, more than once since Mrs. Winslow's return to +Rosedean, had suggested asking Katty in to dinner to meet Oliver, her +husband coldly vetoed the proposal. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Only Harber, the woman who, after having been maid to Katty during her +troubled married life, had stayed on with her as house-parlourmaid and +general factotum, was aware of how very often Mr. Pavely called at +Rosedean on his daily walk home from Pewsbury. To-day he had hardly +pressed the bell-knob before the front door opened. It was almost as if +Harber had been waiting for him in the hall. + +As he put down his hat and stick he was conscious of feeling very glad +that he was going to see Katty. Mrs. Winslow had again been away, was it +for four days, or five? It's true that for part of that time he himself +had been to London, and very busy, but even so the time had seemed long. +He told himself that he had a hundred things to say to her, and he even +felt a little thrill of excitement as he followed the servant through +the hall. + +And Katty? Katty, who the moment she had heard the front-door bell had +quietly begun making the tea--she always made tea herself, with the help +of a pretty spirit lamp--Katty also felt a queer little thrill, but for +a very different reason. Since they had last met she had come to a +certain resolution with regard to Godfrey Pavely, and though she did not +mean to say anything to-day even remotely bearing on it, still it +affected her, made her regard him with rather different eyes. + +It is a great mistake to think that coldness and calculation always go +together. Katty Winslow was calculating, but she was not cold. For once +she had been quite honest when writing that odd little postscript to her +letter of thanks for Godfrey Pavely's wedding present. Godfrey had, in +very truth, been her first love, and she had suffered acutely in her +heart, as well as in her pride, when he had run away. Even now, she felt +as if there were a strong, secret, passionate link between them, and +there was no day when she did not tell herself that she would have made +the banker a perfect, and yes--a very happy wife. + + * * * * * + +Godfrey came into the drawing-room with a pleased, eager look on his +face. He took his hostess's hand in his, and held it for perhaps a +thought longer than he would have held, say, Mrs. Tropenell's hand. But +the hand he now held was a soft, malleable little hand, not thin and +firm, like that of Oliver's mother. + +Katty was smiling at him, such a bright, friendly, pretty smile. "Sit +down," she said softly. "And before we begin talking, take a cup of tea. +You look very tired--and you're late, too, Godfrey. I was beginning to +think that you weren't coming at all!" + +And then he said something which surprised her, but which somehow chimed +in quite surprisingly with what had been filling her busy, active brain +of late. + +"Jim Beath has been with me most of the afternoon," he spoke wearily, +complainingly. "I had to ask him to lunch at the Club, and he stayed on +and on." + +Now the Beaths were by way of being intimate friends of Katty Winslow, +and Jim Beath was a client of Godfrey Pavely. + +"Oh, but that's very interesting!" she cried. "I've been wondering so +much how that affair is going on--I do so hope it will be all right!" + +And then, as she saw a shocked look come over her visitor's narrow, +rather fleshy face, she said in a low voice, "You know how I feel about +the divorce laws, Godfrey. I can't help it. They're horribly +unfair--so--so ridiculous, in fact!" + +As he remained silent, she went on, insisting on her own point of view +far more than was her usual way when talking to her self-opinionated +friend: "Don't you realise how hard it is that two people utterly +unsuited to one another should have to go through that sort of horrid +farce just in order to get free?" + +He looked at her uncomfortably. Sometimes, even now, Katty startled him +by the things she said. But how pretty she looked to-day, bending over +the tea-things! Her burnished hair was dressed in thick soft coils, her +white, well-manicured hand busily engaged in pouring him out just the +cup of tea he liked, with the exact proportions of milk, cream, and +sugar that were right--and which Laura never remembered. + +So it was mildly that he answered: "I don't think the Beaths ought to +want to get what you call 'free.' Divorce was not instituted to meet a +case like theirs--" he hesitated, and then with a certain effort he went +on: "Divorce was instituted to meet a case like yours, Katty." + +Godfrey Pavely was weary of the Beaths and of their divorce plot--for so +he called it to himself. There were other things he wanted to talk to +Katty about. Besides, he did not think that that sort of affair was a +nice subject of discussion between a man and a woman, however intimate. +In some ways Godfrey Pavely was very old-fashioned. + +But she wouldn't let it alone. "Divorce _ought_ to meet a case like +theirs," she went on obstinately. + +"My dear Katty! What would happen to the country if all the married +people who didn't get on with one another were to separate?" + +And then, looking at her defiant face, a most extraordinary and +disagreeable suspicion darted into Godfrey Pavely's mind. Was it +possible, conceivable, that Katty was thinking of Jim Beath as a second +husband for herself? The thought shook him with anger and with +repugnance. He felt he must have that out--here and now. + +"Do you like Jim Beath?" he asked slowly; "I know you've been seeing a +great deal of them this last year. In fact, he mentioned you to-day." + +She could read him like a book, and she remained silent long enough to +make him feel increasingly suspicious and uncomfortable. + +But to-day Katty was not in the mood for a cat-and-mouse game, so she +answered deliberately: "No, Godfrey, I can't say that I do like Jim +Beath! I've tried to like him. But--well, I do thoroughly understand +Nita's feeling towards him. He's so sarcastic--so hard and +unsympathetic!" She waited a moment, then added significantly: "Still, I +think he's behaving awfully well now. He'd have been quite willing to go +on--he told me that himself. But when he saw that Nita was _really_ +unhappy, and that she was getting fond of another man, he made up his +mind that he would do all he could to make her free." + +Katty was playing rather nervously with the edge of the pretty +tea-cloth, and Pavely wondered whether she was telling him the whole +truth. She was flushed, and she looked unwontedly moved. + +"It's a very odd thing for a man to do," he said coldly. "I mean a man +being willing to give up his wife to another man." + +"Why shouldn't he? When he doesn't love her, and when she positively +dislikes him! Nita never understood Jim Beath--she was always afraid of +him, and of his sharp, clever tongue. Of course it's sad about their +little boy. But they've made a very good arrangement--they're going to +share him. Jim will have the child half the year, and Nita the other +half, till he goes to school--when they will have him for alternate +holidays." + +"You talk as if it was all settled!" Katty's visitor exclaimed crossly. +"If they say as much to other people as they seem to do to you, they +will never get their divorce--the King's Proctor is sure to intervene!" + +Katty gave a quick, curious look at her visitor. Godfrey went too +far--sometimes. + +The thought flashed through her mind that she was wasting her life, her +few remaining years of youth, on a man who would never be more to her +than he was now, unless--unless, that is, she could bring him to the +point of putting himself imaginatively, emotionally into Jim Beath's +shoes. _Then_ everything might be changed. But was there any hope of +such a thing coming to pass? + +But all she said, in a constrained tone, was, "Of course I ought not to +have said anything of the matter to you at all. But I'm afraid, Godfrey, +that I often do tell you things I ought to keep to myself. You must try +and forget what I said." + +He was surprised, bewildered, by the sudden steely coldness of her tone. +"Of course you can say anything you like to say to me. Why, Katty, I +tell you all my secrets!" + +"Do you?" She glanced over at him rather sharply. "I don't think you +tell me _all_ your secrets, Godfrey." + +He looked at her puzzled. "You _know_ that I do," he said in a low +voice. "Come, Katty, you're not being fair! It's because I have such a +high regard for you, that I feel sorry when you talk as you've been +talking just now--as if, after all, the marriage bond didn't matter." + +But even as he said these words, Godfrey Pavely felt a wild impulse to +throw over the pretty little gimcrack tea-table, take Katty in his arms, +and kiss her, kiss her, kiss her! He came back, with an inward start, to +hear her exclaim, + +"I don't consider the peculiar relations which exist between Nita and +Jim Beath a marriage at all! They have nothing in common the one with +the other. What interests him doesn't interest her----" + +She waited a moment, saw that he was reddening uncomfortably, and then +hurried on, driven by some sudden instinct that she was at last playing +on the hidden chord she had so often longed to find and strike in +Godfrey Pavely's sore heart: "Nita can't bear Jim to touch her--she will +hardly shake hands with him! Do you call _that_ a marriage?" + +As he remained silent, she suddenly said in a voice so low as to be +almost a whisper, "Forgive me, Godfrey. I--I ought not have said that to +you." + +He answered loudly, discordantly, "I don't know what you mean, Katty! +Why shouldn't you say anything you like about these people? They are +nothing, and less than nothing to me, and I don't suppose they're very +much to you." + +Even as he spoke he had got up out of the easy chair into which he had +sunk with such happy content a few minutes before. "I must be going +now," he said heavily, "Oliver Tropenell's coming in for a game of +tennis at six." + +She made no effort to keep him, though she longed to say to him: "Oliver +Tropenell's been in your house, and in your garden, all afternoon. Both +he and Laura would be only too pleased if you stayed on here till +dinner-time." + +But instead of saying that, she got up, and silently accompanied him to +the front door. + +There poor Godfrey did linger regretfully. He felt like a child who has +been baulked of some promised treat--not by his own fault, but by the +fault of those about him. "Will you be in to-morrow?" he asked abruptly. +"I think I might come in a little earlier to-morrow, Katty." + +"Yes, do come to-morrow! I seem to have a hundred things to say to you. +I'm sorry we wasted the little time we had to-day in talking over those +tiresome people and their matrimonial affairs." + +There was also a look of regret in her face, and suddenly he told +himself that he might have been mistaken just now, and that she had +meant nothing--nothing in the least personal or--or probing, in what she +had said. "Look here!" he said awkwardly. "If there's anything you +really want to say--you said you had a hundred things to tell me--would +you like me to come back for a few minutes? There's no great hurry, you +know--I mean about Tropenell and his game." + +She shook her head, and to his moved surprise, the tears came into her +pretty brown eyes. "No, not now. I'm tired, Godfrey. It's rather absurd, +but I haven't really got over my journey yet; I think I shall have to +take your advice, and stay at home rather more." + +For a long moment they advanced towards one another as if something +outside themselves was drawing them together. Then Godfrey Pavely put +out his hand, and grasped hers firmly. It was almost as if he was +holding her back--at arm's length. + +Katty laughed nervously. She shook her hand free of his, opened the door +wide, and exclaimed: "Well! Good-bye till to-morrow then. My love to +Laura." + +He nodded, and was gone. + +She shut the door behind him, and, turning, went slowly upstairs. She +felt tired, weak, upset--and, what she did not often feel, restless and +unhappy as well. It irritated her--nay, it did more than irritate, it +hurt her shrewdly--to think of those three people who were about to +spend a pleasant couple of hours together. She could so easily, so +safely, have made a fourth at their constant meetings. + +If only Laura Pavely were a little less absorbed in herself, a little +more what ordinary people called good-natured! It would have been so +natural for Laura, when she knew that Oliver Tropenell was coming to +dinner, to send across to Rosedean, and ask her, Katty, to make a +fourth. It was not as if Laura was at all jealous. She was as little +jealous of Godfrey and of Katty--and at that thought Katty gave a queer, +bitter little laugh which startled her, for she had laughed aloud--as +was Godfrey of Laura and Oliver! With as little or as much reason? Katty +would have given a great deal to be able to answer her own question. She +thought she knew half the answer--but it was, alas! by far the less +important half. + +She opened the door of her bedroom, went through into it, and without +troubling to take off her pretty blouse and freshly ironed linen skirt, +walked deliberately to her bed, lay down, and shut her eyes--not to +sleep but to think. + + * * * * * + +What had been forced upon Katty Winslow's notice during the last few +weeks had created a revolution in her mind and in her plans. + +For a while, after her return from that dreary period of convalescence +in a seaside home, she, who was generally so positive, had doubted the +evidence of her own eyes and senses. But gradually that which she would +have deemed the last thing likely to happen had emerged, startlingly +clear. Oliver Tropenell, to use Katty's own expression, had fallen madly +in love with Laura Pavely. No woman could doubt that who saw them +together. When Katty had left Rosedean, there had been the beginnings +of--well, not exactly a flirtation, but a very pleasant friendship +between Tropenell and herself. Now he hardly seemed to know that she +existed. + +But if it was only too plain to see how matters stood with Oliver, this +was far from being the case as regarded Laura. Katty owned herself quite +ignorant of Laura's real nature, and, as is so often the case with +those who know nothing, she was inclined to believe that there was +nothing to know. + +Perhaps, after all, it was only because this man was the son of her +friend that Laura allowed him to be always with her. They were always +together--not always alone, for Oliver seemed to be at The Chase quite +as much when Godfrey was at home, as at other times. But with Katty, she +being the manner of woman she was, it was the other times which +impressed her imagination. In the six short weeks she, Katty, had been +away, Oliver Tropenell had evidently become a component part of Laura +Pavely's life. + +She knew, vaguely, how the two spent their time, and the knowledge irked +her--the more that it suggested nothing of their real relations. Thus +gardening was one of Laura's favourite occupations and few pleasures; +and Oliver, who could never have gardened before--what gardening could +there be to do in Mexico?--now spent hours out of doors with Laura, +carrying out her behests, behaving just as an under-gardener would +behave, when working under his mistress's directions. + +And Godfrey, instead of objecting to this extraordinary state of things, +seemed quite pleased. Oliver, so much was clear, had become Godfrey +Pavely's friend almost as much as he was Laura's. + +As she lay there, straight out on her bed, Katty told herself with +terrible bitterness that it was indeed an amazing state of things to +which she had come back--one which altered her own life in a strange +degree. She had not realised, till these last few weeks, how much +Godfrey Pavely was to her, and how jealous she could become even of +such an affection as his cordial liking of Oliver Tropenell. + +Yet when Godfrey was actually with her, she retained all her old +ascendency over him; in certain ways it had perhaps even increased. It +was as if his unsuspecting proximity to another man's strong, secret +passion warmed his sluggish, cautious nature. + +But that curious fact had not made his friend Katty's part any the more +easy of late. Far from it! There was no pleasing Godfrey in these days. +He was hurt if she was cold; shocked, made uneasy in his conscience, if +she responded in ever so slight a way to the little excursions in +sentiment he sometimes half-ashamedly permitted himself. + +Tears came into her eyes, and rolled slowly down her cheeks, as she +recalled what had happened a few moments ago in the hall. He had been +aching to take her in his arms and kiss her--kiss her as he had been +wont to do, in the old days, in the shabby little lodging where she +lived with her father. Poor little motherless girl, who had thought +herself so clever. At that time she had believed herself to be as good +as engaged to "young Mr. Pavely," as the Pewsbury folk called him. Even +now she could remember, as if it had happened yesterday, the bitter +humiliation, as well as the pain which had shaken her, when she had +learnt, casually, of his sudden disappearance from Pewsbury. + +What hypocrites men were! The fact that often they were unconscious +hypocrites afforded Katty little consolation. + +It was plain that Godfrey was quite unaware of Oliver's growing +absorption in Laura, but that surely was not to his credit. A man of +his age, and with his experience of life, ought to have known, ought to +have guessed, ought to have seen--by now! Instead, he remained absorbed +in himself, in the tiresome little business interests of his prosperous +life, in his new friendship for Oliver Tropenell, and--in that +ambiguous, tantalising friendship with herself. + +Again she told herself that she was wasting what remained to her of +youth and of vitality over a thoroughly unsatisfactory state of things, +and painfully she determined that, if what she had gradually come to +plan since her return home did not come to pass, she would leave +Rosedean, and make another life for herself elsewhere. + + * * * * * + +The things Katty toiled and schemed for had a way of coming to pass. She +had planned her divorce long before it had actually taken place, at a +time indeed when it seemed impossible to believe that it ever could take +place. Bob Winslow had been adoringly, slavishly devoted to her for more +than two-thirds of their married life, and it had taken her trouble and +time to drive him into the courses it was necessary he should pursue to +procure her freedom. + +She had no doubt--there could be no doubt--that were Godfrey free he +would turn to her instinctively at once. She was well aware of her power +over him, and till lately she had been virtuously proud of what she +imagined to be her loyalty to Laura. Also she had had no wish to make +her own position at Rosedean untenable. + +Even as it was, Godfrey came far too often to see her. Had she lived +nearer to Pewsbury, even a mile nearer, his frequent calls on her would +have meant a flood of ill-natured gossip in the little town. + +Yes, the situation, from Katty's point of view, was thoroughly +unsatisfactory, and, as far as she was concerned, it was time it was +ended or mended. And then, once more, for the hundredth time, her +restless, excited mind swung back to what was to her just now the real +mystery, the all-important problem--the relations between Oliver +Tropenell and Laura Pavely. + +Of course it was possible--though Katty thought not likely--that +Tropenell was still unaware of his passion for Laura. Perhaps he still +disguised it under the name of "friendship." But even if that were so, +such a state of things could not endure for very long. Any day some +trifling happening might open his eyes, and, yes--why not?--Godfrey's. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Godfrey Pavely was standing in his private room at Pavely's Bank. It was +only a little after ten, and he had not been in the room many minutes, +yet already he had got up from his writing-table and moved over to the +middle one of the three windows overlooking the prim, exquisitely kept +walled garden, which even nowadays reminded him of his early childhood. +He had gazed out of the window for a few moments, but now he stood with +his back to the window, staring unseeingly before him, a piece of note +paper crushed up in his hand. + +For close on a hundred years his well-to-do careful-living forbears had +passed their pleasant, uneventful lives in this spacious Georgian house, +set in the centre of the wide High Street of the prosperous market town +of Pewsbury. + +What was now known as "Mr. Pavely's own room" had been the dining-room +of his grandparents. He himself had always known it as part of the Bank, +but it still had some of the characteristics of a private living-room. +Thus, on the dark green walls hung a number of quaint family portraits, +his great-grandfather, his grandfather and grandmother, two uncles who +had died in youth, and a presentation portrait of his own father. These +were arranged about and above the mantelpiece, opposite the place where +stood his wide, leather-topped writing-table. + +Taking up most of the wall opposite the windows was a bookcase of +really distinguished beauty. Godfrey Pavely had been gratified to learn, +some five or six years ago, that this piece of furniture was of very +considerable value, owing to the fact that it was supposed to have been, +in a special sense, the work and design of Chippendale himself. But just +now, at this moment, he felt as if he hated the substantial old house +and everything in it. + +He had come into this room, twenty minutes ago, to find the usual pile +of open letters on the table. On the top of the pile was an unopened +envelope marked _Private_, and it was the contents of that envelope that +he now held crushed up--not torn up--in his hand. + +And as he stood there, staring before him unseeingly at the bookcase, +there suddenly flashed into his mind a vision of the first time he had +brought Laura here, to his own room at the Bank. They had only just +became engaged, and he was still feeling an almost oppressive joy of +having compassed that which he had so steadfastly desired. + +He could see her graceful figure walking through the mahogany door, he +could almost hear her exclaim, "What a charming room, Godfrey! I can't +help wishing that we were going to live here, in Pewsbury!" + +She had gone over and stood exactly where he was standing now, and then +she had turned and gazed into the walled garden, at that time brilliant +with tulips and wallflowers. Coming round behind her, he had put his +arm, a little awkwardly, round her shoulders. At once she had slipped +from beneath his grasp, but not unkindly--only with a gentle word that +at any moment some one might come in, and he, poor fool that he had +been, had admired her maidenly delicacy.... + +He glanced down at the piece of notepaper he held in his hand, and, +smoothing it out, he read it through for the tenth or twelfth time. +Then, as there came a knock at the door, he hastily thrust it into his +pocket. + +"Come in!" he cried impatiently; and his head clerk came into the room. + +Mr. Privet had a delicate, refined, thoughtful face. He was very much +respected in the town, and regarded as an important, integral part of +Pavely's Bank. He was one of the very few people in the world who were +really attached to Godfrey Pavely, and he perceived at once that there +was something wrong. + +"We promised to send over to Mr. Johnson to say when you would be ready +to see him, sir. Shall I send over now?" + +"Yes--no. Tell him I'll be ready in half an hour. And, Privet?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"I've a rather important letter to write. Will you see that I'm not +disturbed till I ring?" + +The old man shut the door quietly, and Godfrey Pavely drew irresolutely +towards his writing-table, the table where he did so much hard, good, +and profitable work each day. + +But he did not sit down at once; instead, he took the letter he had been +so nearly caught reading out of his pocket, and once more he read it +through-- + + "This is to warn you that there is a great deal of talk + going on in Pewsbury and the surrounding neighbourhood + about your wife and a certain gentleman who is a near + neighbour of yours. It is well not to be jealous, but + confidence may be carried too far. Try going home when you + are not expected, and you will surely find them together. + + "A WELL-WISHER TO THE + "PAVELY FAMILY." + +The words had been written, or rather printed, in ink, on a very common +sheet of notepaper--the kind of notepaper which is sold in penny packets +in every village and small sweetstuff shop in the kingdom. + +Now in theory there is nothing easier than to despise and disregard an +anonymous letter. But in practice such a missive as Godfrey Pavely had +just received, however vulgar, and even, as in this case, obviously +written by a malicious person, invariably produces a horrible sensation +of discomfort and acute uneasiness. For one thing, the fact that some +unknown human being has devoted so much unwonted thought and spiteful +interest to one's private affairs is in itself an ugly revelation. + +In theory again, most people, if asked what they would do if they +received an anonymous letter, would reply (1) that they would put it +straight in the fire, or (2) go straight with it to the police. But in +practice an anonymous letter, unless the recipient at once guesses with +certainty the identity of the writer, is the only clue to what may +contain the germ of some ugly plot, or conspiracy to harm or injure the +innocent. So it is surely foolish to destroy what may become evidence. +As for going to the police, that is, for obvious reasons, the last thing +any man would care to do if the anonymous communication deals with the +character of a woman near and dear to him. Indeed, the thought of going +to the police did not even enter Godfrey Pavely's mind, though it was +probably the advice he would have given _to any one else_ who had come +to consult him about such a matter. + +As he looked at the letter closely, turning it this way and that, he +suddenly told himself that it did not read like the work of an +illiterate person. Godfrey, and Laura too, were in their different ways +very good employers; besides, they had not dismissed any one lately. No, +no--it was far more likely to be some one living in Pewsbury, probably +with whom he was scarcely acquainted. There were, as the banker could +not but be aware, a good many people in the little town who had reason +to dislike him--not personally perhaps, but as the one money-dealer of +the place. + +At last he sat down at his writing-table and drew an envelope towards +him. On it he wrote, "To be destroyed, unopened, in case of my death," +and then he placed the poisonous little sheet of common notepaper in the +envelope, and, fastening it down, put it in one of his inner pockets. + +He intended to dismiss the whole thing from his mind, at any rate during +this morning, but he found it very difficult, not to say impossible, to +do that. + +Laura and Oliver Tropenell? His thin lips curled at the thought. + +Why, Oliver liked him, Godfrey, far better than he did Laura! He +regarded that as certain. And Laura? He could have laughed aloud at the +absurd suggestion. Laura was not only the coldest, she was also the most +upright, of women. + +Early in their married life, when they had gone about together far more +than they had done recently, he, Godfrey, had never felt even a twinge +of jealousy with regard to her. And yet--and yet in those days Laura had +certainly excited a good deal of admiration. There are men who +passionately admire that kind of proud, passionless beauty in a woman. +Pavely himself had once been such a man. So he knew. + +He looked up from the letter he was writing, and all at once, to his own +surprise, his thoughts took quite another turn. He told himself suddenly +that Tropenell's rather exceptional intimacy with them both might, after +all, excite remark, in such a damned censorious, gossiping place as was +Pewsbury. He, Godfrey Pavely, was well aware of what a nest of gossip a +country town could be, and often is. He had experienced something of it +years ago, when there had been all that foolish talk concerning the then +Katty Fenton and himself. Once or twice he had felt slightly uneasy lest +his _present_ friendship with Katty should be misunderstood. Indeed, he +had felt this so strongly to give her what he had thought to be a +delicate hint--a hint that she had at once taken--as to the +inadvisability of her coming, when in Pewsbury, to see him in his +private room at the Bank. She had done that rather often at one time, +when she was first his tenant at Rosedean. But now she never came to the +Bank. She did not even keep her account at Pavely's, though it would +have been a convenience to her to do so. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Johnson's call, which at any other time would have been a tiresome +infliction, was welcome, for it enabled the banker to dismiss this odd, +queer, unpleasant business of the anonymous letter from his mind for a +while. + +But after Mr. Johnson had gone, the trouble came back, and the +morning--what was left of it--seemed very long. + +He asked himself whether, after all, it might not be wisest to speak of +that absurd letter to some one. Should he say anything to Mrs. +Tropenell, or well, yes--to Laura? But impatiently he shook his head at +the thought. Not only would such a thing shock and disgust his wife, +but, what was of far more consequence to him, it might make her turn +against Tropenell! Godfrey Pavely had been pleased and surprised at the +way in which Laura had tolerated the other man being so much about the +house. In Pavely's imagination Tropenell was _his_ friend--not Laura's. + +He was glad when he heard a quarter to one chime out from the Parish +Church tower, for it meant that he could now get up and go across to the +Club for luncheon. He put on his hat and went out into the square hall +of the Bank. + +As he did so, his head clerk came down the broad staircase. + +Mr. Privet's room was only a little smaller, and a little less lacking +in dignity, than that of Mr. Pavely himself--indeed, some people thought +it a pleasanter room, for it looked out on to the High Street, and was +on the first floor. + +"If you'd been a minute earlier, sir," said the old man, smiling, "you'd +have seen Mrs. Pavely go by! I think she must have been in Mrs. +Tropenell's motor, for Mr. Tropenell was driving her himself." + +Godfrey Pavely felt a queer little pang of annoyance and surprise. + +"I daresay they're still in the town," he said quickly. "I thought it +quite possible that they might come in this morning." + +But he had thought nothing of the kind. + +Mr. Privet shook his head. "Oh no, sir! They were going home sure +enough--and rather quickly, too. I thought the car _had_ caught that +youngest Sherlock boy, but Mr. Tropenell's a skilful driver, and he +missed the child, but only by a few inches, as far as I could judge!" + +Godfrey Pavely nodded, walked on, and so out and across the High Street. +He could not help feeling a little vexed that Oliver and Laura should +have driven into Pewsbury--this morning, of all mornings. He wondered if +they often did so. It was fortunate that nothing had happened to that +stupid child. It would have been very unpleasant for his wife to be +compelled to give evidence at an inquest.... + +He did not enjoy his luncheon as much as he was wont to do. In a sense +he was king of the old-fashioned County Club; every member of it was +either on good terms with the prosperous banker, or desired to be so. +But try as he might he could not get that odious, absurd, anonymous +letter out of his mind! He told himself again and again that it was +thoughtless and--and yes, unbecoming--of Laura, to drive in and out of +Pewsbury with Oliver Tropenell. Somehow it was the sort of thing he +would never have thought his wife was likely to do. Again he wondered +if she did it often. If yes, such conduct would of course provide ample +reason for low, vulgar gossip. + +When, at last, Godfrey Pavely walked back across to the Bank, he had +come to the point of asking himself whether after all it might not be +best to say just a word of caution to Laura. It need not be more than a +word--he knew her well enough to know that! She was the kind of woman to +shrink with fastidious disgust from the thought of her name being +connected, in any vulgar silly way, with that of a man. + +But his mind swung backwards and forwards, like a pendulum. The +possibility of his agreeable, cordial relations with Oliver Tropenell +being in any way jarred or disturbed so upset him that, finally, he made +up his mind to say nothing to Laura. + +At three o'clock the banker walked up to his head clerk's room. "I think +I'll go home early to-day, Privet," he said. + +The old man got up from his chair. He was not only fond, he was proud +too, of his employer. Mr. Pavely was a model banker, a model worker. He +never went home before four, and often stayed on working till five. + +"Very good, sir. It's a fine afternoon. I often wonder you stay as long +as you do," he said, with that queer touch of affection in his voice +which Godfrey Pavely valued perhaps more than he knew. + +The walk home seemed much longer than usual. Two miles and a bit? He was +proud of the fact that he could do it with ease in five minutes over the +half-hour. To-day, as a matter of fact, he walked so quickly that he did +it in twenty-seven minutes, but he was not aware of that. + +For the first time for months, he passed by Rosedean without as much as +giving Katty a thought, and he took a short cut into The Chase instead +of going on, up through the great park gates, as he was wont to do. And +then, as he went along one of the paths in the walled kitchen garden, he +suddenly heard his wife's voice. + +"I think that it would be best to have a mass of red and purple just +here. Last year we had blues." + +He felt a queer, rather unreasoning, shock of relief, of satisfaction. +Laura was evidently speaking to one of the gardeners. + +Then, as he came round the corner, he saw that the person to whom Laura +was speaking was not a gardener, but Oliver Tropenell himself--Oliver, +with a spud in his hand, kneeling before Laura, a basket of bulbs by his +side. He was looking up eagerly--a jealous onlooker might have said +ardently--into her face. In fact, Tropenell looked, so Godfrey Pavely +told himself with some heat, "damned absurd." But before Godfrey came +right upon the three of them--for little Alice was flitting about behind +her mother--Oliver stood up, with the words, "Then I'd better go and get +those other bulbs, hadn't I? Will you come too, Alice?" + +Godfrey called out "Hullo! Doing some planting?" But his voice sounded +odd to himself. Not so, however, to the others. Laura was honestly +unaware that Godfrey was very much earlier than his wont, or, if aware, +she did not attach any importance to the fact. Still, she felt afraid +that Godfrey would interfere with her gardening scheme, and so she shook +her head. + +As for Oliver Tropenell, no one looking at his dark, set face could have +guessed his thoughts. As a matter of fact, he had heard Pavely's +footsteps some moments before Pavely spoke. And he had wondered, with +quick irritation, why he had come back from Pewsbury--or Rosedean--so +much earlier than usual. + +Alice, dark-haired, rosy-cheeked, quite curiously unlike either her +father or her mother, was the only one of the four who was still happily +at ease. She ran up to her father: "Come and see _my_ garden, father!" +she cried. "I'm growing some mustard and cress specially for you. You +can take it to the Bank in an envelope and have some for your tea!" + +The little girl was aware, deep in her sensitive, affectionate heart, +that her father and mother were not quite like other fathers and +mothers. They were not cosily loving together, as were the father and +mother of the two little girls with whom she sometimes went to tea in +Pewsbury, neither were they on the happy terms of easy comradeship which +even Alice knew was usual with other children's parents. + +But she loved her mother with a passionate, unswerving, admiring love, +and her father with a stout, proprietary affection. For his sake, and +his sake only, she would have liked to be a boy, for then, so she argued +secretly within herself, she could be his office boy at the Bank. Up to +now she had felt for Oliver Tropenell the easy, unquestioning liking +children give to one who comes and goes. But lately she had become dimly +aware that occasionally her mother and Mr. Tropenell were too busy +talking together to take much heed of her, and this threw a little +shadow across her heart. + +For Godfrey Pavely there followed days full of discomfort, unease, and +rising annoyance. The whole course of his life was changed. As he came +and went about the quiet streets of his native town, as he granted +business interviews to the townspeople, he was perpetually asking +himself if the person he was speaking to was concerned with this odious +matter, whether he or she was among those who took his beautiful wife's +name lightly. + +His object each afternoon was now to get home early, and see for himself +what was going on there, and how far Laura was giving cause for low, +vulgar gossip. + +Laura was not a child! She must know, if she ever brought herself to +think of such a thing, that if a married woman allows a man to hang +about her, day after day, in the absence of her husband, there is sure +to be talk. Pavely regarded Tropenell's share in the matter with a +strange toleration--it was his wife whom he blamed with an increasing +severity as the minutes, the hours, and the days went by. + +He still went to see Katty Winslow, but no longer as often as he had +been wont to do. And when in her company he was distrait, uncomfortable, +longing to ask if _she_ thought Oliver's constant presence in his house +odd or--or peculiar. But he kept a prudent guard over his tongue. One +day Katty said something which would have made it easy for him to speak, +and which, as a matter of fact, very nearly did cause him to unburden +his heart to her. It was a little word, and said quite pleasantly, with, +he felt sure, no ulterior motive of any kind. + +"It's odd," she said musingly, "to see what good friends Laura has +become with Oliver Tropenell! Who would have thought that she would ever +like any man as much as she seems to like him? I suppose it's really +owing to the fact that he's in partnership with her brother----" + +She waited, and as he said nothing, she went on, with a smile, "But +then, for the matter of that, you're just as fond of him as she is, +aren't you? I can't see the attraction myself, but I admit that it must +be there, for two people as unlike you and Laura are to each other both +to like him so much." + +"Yes, I do like Tropenell," Godfrey spoke very decidedly. "But I can't +make out why he gets on so well with Gilbert Baynton. Gillie couldn't +run straight if he tried." + +"So I've always understood----" + +Katty looked at him curiously. She had never been told the real story of +the quarrel between the brothers-in-law, but she was clever enough to +have reached a very shrewd notion of the truth. Baynton, so much was +clear, had done something which Pavely could neither tolerate nor +forgive. In the old days, as a girl, Katty had met Gillie Baynton +several times, and he had struck her as a very amusing, agreeable sort +of young man. + +Godfrey had let slip this opportunity of saying anything, and +afterwards, as is usually the case, he was glad that he had kept +silence. Clever and sympathetic as she was, Katty could do nothing to +help him in this horrid, rather degrading business. + +And then, walking into his room at the Bank one morning, he saw on the +top of the pile of his letters another common-looking envelope marked +_Private_. He took it up with a sick feeling of half eager, half +shrinking, expectancy-- + + "A sincere well-wisher wishes once more to inform Mr. + Pavely that all Pewsbury is discussing him and his private + affairs. The lady and gentleman in question are more + together than ever they were. The other day some one who + met them walking together on the downs took them for an + engaged couple." + +This second anonymous letter greatly added to Godfrey Pavely's +wretchedness and discomfort, all the more that it was so moderately +worded. It seemed to confirm, to make certain, the fact of growing +gossip and scandal. + +At last something happened which to a small extent relieved the tension. +Laura quietly informed him one evening that she much wished to go away +for three days to see a friend of her childhood, who had written and +begged her to come, and to bring little Alice with her. + +She was surprised at the eagerness with which Godfrey assented to her +wish. In certain ways Godfrey Pavely, from the modern point of view, was +a tyrannical husband. He very much disliked Laura's paying visits by +herself, and she had long ago given up even suggesting that she should +do so. Also, she on her side much disliked asking him the smallest +favour. + +The day his wife left The Chase was the first happy day Godfrey had had +for three weeks. He spent a pleasant hour with Katty; and on his arrival +home his feeling of satisfaction was increased by a note from Mrs. +Tropenell inviting him to come and spend at Freshley Manor the three +nights Laura was to be away. He wrote accepting with more cordiality of +phrase than was his wont, even with so old a friend as was Oliver's +mother. + +Surely he and Oliver Tropenell, at last alone together, could combine to +put an end to this foolish, vulgar gossip? It would be so much easier to +speak to and consult with Oliver in Laura's absence. + +Once he had made up his mind to speak to the other man, Pavely was able, +almost, to forget the whole hateful business. Still, he said nothing +till the second morning of his visit. Then, at breakfast, he made a +proposal. + +"I feel as if I'd like to take this afternoon off. Would you care for a +good long walk, eh? We might start about half-past two, have tea in +Witanbury, and be back here for dinner." + +Oliver nodded. He was at once glad and sorry that Godfrey was so +entirely unaware of the growing tide of dislike, nay of hatred, that he +felt for him. Secretive as he was by nature, and by the life he had now +led for so long, Oliver Tropenell was yet no hypocrite. He loathed the +part fate had forced on him, that of pretending a cordial friendship for +this man whom he so utterly despised. His mother had invited Godfrey +Pavely to stay with them for three nights without first telling Oliver +that she was thinking of doing so; and then, when she had realised, too +late, his annoyance, she could only explain that Godfrey had always +stayed with her on the very rare occasions when Laura had been away. + +Mother and son were together when Godfrey started off on his daily walk +into Pewsbury. + +"I wonder what he's going to talk to you about?" said Mrs. Tropenell a +little nervously. The thought of the coming afternoon expedition made +her vaguely uneasy. + +"He's never at a loss for a word, though he very seldom says anything +worth hearing." + +Oliver was looking with unhappy, frowning eyes after the other man's +trim, rather jaunty figure. + +All that morning Mrs. Tropenell watched her son with anxious fear. He +wandered restlessly in and out of the house, and though he never +mentioned Laura, his mother knew that he was missing her with an almost +agonised sense of loss. + +Oliver was fighting a losing battle with himself--a battle in which no +help from outside could be of any avail. He no longer spoke of going +away; instead, he had told his mother of his scheme for bringing Gillie +to Europe, and of sending Laura and her brother off to Italy, for a +happy little holiday. She ventured to say that she thought that plan to +be quite out of the question. Godfrey would never allow it--he had not +forgiven Gillie, in spite of the fact that Gillie had now "made good." + +It was nearer three than half-past two, when the two men started out, +and they had been walking for a full hour, with snatches of talk, and +such comfortable intervals of silence as is possible only between +intimates, when suddenly Godfrey Pavely stopped walking. + +Surprised, Tropenell also came to a stand. They were on a stretch of +lonely upland, with nothing save a couple of birds in sight. + +"Look here, Oliver, there's something I want to say to you! I hope you +won't be offended. But we're such good friends, you and I, that I think +you'll understand." + +The colour rushed into Oliver Tropenell's face. He turned and faced the +other squarely, but he felt tense with excitement, and a sense of +challenge. He knew, instinctively, that Pavely was going to say +something about Laura--Laura, and perhaps Gillie, her brother. + +"Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, Godfrey? What is it? I can't imagine your +saying anything to me that would offend me." + +"I want you to read what's inside that," said Godfrey in a low voice, +and he handed Oliver an envelope. + +Oliver was relieved, but he looked down at the envelope suspiciously. + +"But this isn't to be opened till you're dead!" he exclaimed. + +"Open it now," said Godfrey roughly, "I only put that in case I met with +an accident--you'll see why I did it, in a moment." + +With a queer feeling of misgiving Oliver Tropenell drew the common +little sheet of notepaper out of the envelope, and in silence read over +what was written there in those deceitful, printed characters. + +He read it once, twice--thrice. Then he handed the sheet of paper back, +with a look of disgust and contempt on his dark face, to the man +standing by his side. + +"Well!" he exclaimed. "I don't know what you expect me to say? If you'd +had as many anonymous letters as I've had in my time--they rain in +Mexico--you wouldn't give much thought to this kind of garbage!" + +Holding out the letter as if it were something dirty, he handed it back +to the other man. + +"I haven't given much thought to it----" and then Godfrey stopped short. +He felt as if some other man, and not his sober self, were uttering the +lie. + +"No," said Oliver quickly, "I don't suppose you have. But still, I can't +help being rather sorry you kept it, and--and that you showed it to me. +There's nothing to be done! I suppose it's the work of some clerk whom +you've dismissed in the last few weeks?" + +"I've dismissed no one," said Pavely shortly. Somehow Tropenell was not +taking this disagreeable business quite as he had meant him to take it. + +In a rather different voice Oliver went on: "Show me the letter again. I +want to see if there's a date to it." + +"It arrived exactly three weeks ago to-day," said Pavely slowly, "and it +was posted in Pewsbury." + +Light broke in on Tropenell. This, then, was why Godfrey had taken to +coming home at such odd hours, and why he had telephoned several times +from the Bank, sending messages to Laura, and, on at least one occasion, +a message to Tropenell himself! + +He set his lips tightly together, and a flood of bitter wrath welled up +from his heart. + +"Then in my place you would do nothing?" asked Godfrey uncertainly. + +More and more he was disappointed in the other's attitude. He had +thought Oliver would suggest something which might be useful, or at any +rate laugh the matter off. + +But Oliver only looked grim--grim and angry. + +"I don't see that you can do anything. It isn't the sort of thing about +which you would care to go to the local police, and even if you knew who +wrote that infamous scrawl I don't see how you could take action. We +can't have Laura's name dragged into this kind of business." + +Then he asked in a lower voice, "Have you said anything to her?" + +The other shook his head. "I've no intention of saying anything to +Laura. It would distress and disgust her very much." + +He was glad to see that Oliver, hearing these words, looked very much +relieved. + +They walked on a few paces, and then Godfrey exclaimed, "There's one +thing I do think, Oliver--and I hope you won't be angry with me for +saying it! It must be admitted that you've been a great deal at The +Chase alone with Laura, and also, unfortunately, that that sort of thing +always does make talk in a country town." + +Tropenell turned on him sternly: "What sort of thing?" he asked. "I +swear before God that there has never been anything in my attitude to +Laura which should give the slightest rise to comment, or afford the +basest scandalmonger excuse for a word." + +And he believed every word of what he said. + +"I know that--I know that, my dear fellow!" Godfrey put his hand out, +and for a moment it lay heavily on his friend's shoulder. + +But quickly, silently, Tropenell shook himself free of the other's +touch. "If you know that," he was breathing hard now, not trying to +disguise his anger, "then why did you allude just now to the fact that I +am a good deal in your house? Does that mean you wish that I should give +up coming to The Chase?" + +"No, of course I don't mean that! You're the one real friend I've +made--well, since I got to man's estate," said Pavely ruefully. + +Everything was going wrong. The conversation was taking a turn he had +never thought of or conceived as possible. "What I mean is that +Laura----" + +Tropenell stopped him with a passionate gesture: "Cannot we keep Laura's +name out of our discussion?" + +Godfrey stared at him, genuinely astonished. + +"How can we keep Laura's name out of our discussion? The whole thing +centres about Laura! This letter mentions Laura--ay, and I've had +another letter, which I hadn't meant to show you, but which on second +thoughts I should like you to see." + +He began fumbling in another pocket. + +"I don't want to see it!" cried Oliver. "I'd rather not see it!" + +"But I'd rather you saw it," said Godfrey obstinately. + +Tropenell read the second anonymous letter through, and then handed it +back, without comment. + +Silently they both turned about, and walked quickly, in almost complete +silence, back to Freshley. "We've come home to tea, after all, mother," +said Oliver shortly, "we are neither of us in condition for a +fifteen-mile walk." + +Neither man referred again to the matter which when they were together +filled both their minds, and on the day of Laura's return to The Chase, +Oliver Tropenell went up to town, without having seen her. Four days +later his mother received a rather cryptic telegram: "Arriving to-night +with a friend." + +A friend? Some sure, sombre instinct told Mrs. Tropenell that this would +be Gillie Baynton. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +"Godfrey can't eat me! Besides, he'll have to see me some time. Not that +I want to see anything of the fellow--I always hated him! Still, as +things are, it's far better I should take him by surprise, in Laura's +house, than go cap in hand, and ask his leave to see my sister." + +It was Gilbert Baynton who was speaking, standing with his legs a little +apart, his fair head thrown back, his hands in his pockets, early in the +afternoon of the day he and Oliver had arrived from London. + +Mother and son were both in the room, but it was really with Mrs. +Tropenell that Baynton was having this rather unpleasant argument. He +and Tropenell had had this all out before. Oliver had wanted Gillie to +write to his sister, but he was set on taking her by surprise, and on +stealing a march on Godfrey Pavely. + +Mrs. Tropenell looked up at the man standing before her. Gillie was two +years older than her Oliver, and she had been the first woman who had +ever seen him, for it was to her that his mother's doctor had handed the +lusty, already screaming baby. His mother had passionately loved +him--loved him and spoilt him, and so had his rather lackadaisical +father. Physically he was a queer mixture of the two. Gillie Baynton had +his father's fair hair, grace of limb and movement, and plainness of +feature, coupled with his mother's abounding vitality, and her charm of +manner--that charm, that coming-on-ness, which his beautiful sister, +born so many years later, had always lacked. + +Gillie had early begun to get into various ugly scrapes, but as a youth +he had always somehow managed to shuffle out of them, for he was +popular, and "had a way with him," as country people say. Also he had +never been lacking in courage of a sort, and courage carries even a +rascal a long way. + +Still, Gillie Baynton had been pretty well done for, as far as his own +country was concerned, when he had been sent out, as a kind of forlorn +hope, to Mexico and Oliver Tropenell.... + +Gillie began speaking again: "I think I know my worthy brother-in-law +quite as well as you do, Mrs. Tropenell. It's much better to take a man +like that by surprise, and not to give him time to think! After all, +he's _got_ to let bygones be bygones." + +And now Oliver interposed, for the first time. "Yes, mother, as things +are, I think Gillie had perhaps better try and see Laura now, at once, +before Godfrey Pavely knows he's in England." + +"I'll go there right now." + +Occasionally, not very often, Gilbert Baynton made use of some little +phrase showing that he lived on the other side of the Atlantic. He had +changed somehow, Mrs. Tropenell could hardly have told you how, for he +had always had a very assured manner. But now Gillie looked what he +was--a very prosperous man of business, though scarcely an English man +of business. The long sojourn in Mexico had not altered her Oliver at +all--not, that is, as far as she could see, but it had altered Gillie +Baynton surprisingly. It had roughened him, and increased his natural +self-assurance. + +"Perhaps Laura and little Alice will come back with you to tea? Godfrey, +too, if he seems in the humour for it," she said. + +And he nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Tropenell. That would be very pleasant." + +He smiled, a good-humoured, triumphant smile, and was gone. + +The other two looked at each other rather doubtfully. And then Oliver, +as if answering her thought, exclaimed, "I don't think he'll stay on at +The Chase till Pavely comes out from Pewsbury! Apart from everything +else, Gillie's a restless creature. We may see him again within a very +short time from now." + +"But supposing he and Godfrey do meet?" asked Mrs. Tropenell anxiously. + +"Well, if they do meet, I think it's quite on the cards there'll be a +furious row. But that, after all, would clear the air. As Gillie said +just now, Godfrey Pavely will _have_ to put the past behind him. +Perhaps, once they've had it out, they'll be better friends. There's a +good deal to be said for a row sometimes, mother." + +"Yes," she said uncomfortably. "I agree, there is." + + * * * * * + +Laura was sitting in what was still known as "the boudoir," by the +household of Lawford Chase. It was a beautiful and stately room, +furnished some ninety years ago, at the time of the marriage of Mrs. +Tropenell's grandmother. The late Mr. Pavely's tenants had not cared to +use it, for it was away from the other living-rooms of the house, and so +nothing in the boudoir had been disturbed or renewed when The Chase had +been prepared for the occupation of the strangers who had lived there +for fourteen years. + +The room suited Laura, and Laura suited the room. To-day she had had a +fire lit, for it was beginning to be chilly. Alice had gone off into +Pewsbury to spend the afternoon with two little friends, and now the +mistress of this lovely, old-world room was trying to read a book; but +soon she let the book rest open on her lap, and she stared mournfully, +hopelessly, into the fire. + +Things were not going well with Laura Pavely. They had begun going ill +about a month ago, just after that--that unfortunate outburst on +Oliver's part. Yet she had felt so sure, after the talk that she and he +had had together, that they would slip back into their old, easy +relationship! And for a while, perhaps for as long as a week, it had +seemed as if they were going to do so. + +But then there had come a change. Godfrey had fallen into the way of +coming home early. In old days, both before the coming to England of +Oliver Tropenell, and during the months that followed, Godfrey had +generally stayed at the Bank rather late, and then, as often as not, he +had gone in and had a chat with Katty on his way home. Now he always +came back before five, and after his return home he and Oliver would +engage in interminable singles on the big tennis court which had been +Godfrey Pavely's one contribution to the otherwise beautiful gardens of +The Chase. + +Sometimes, and especially had this been true these last few days, Laura +told herself that perhaps after all, the world, the cynical shrewd +world of which she knew so little, was right, and that a close and +confidential friendship between a man and a woman is an impossible +ideal. + +To-day, staring into the fire with dry, unseeing eyes, she felt +miserably unhappy--too troubled and uneasy to occupy herself in any of +her usual ways. More than had ever been the case before, life seemed to +stretch before her in a terrible, dreary, unending monotony. + +Something else had come to pass during the last week, the week during +which Oliver Tropenell had been away in London, which she scarcely liked +to think of, or to make more real by dwelling on. Godfrey had altered in +his manner to her, he had become kinder, and yes, more loverlike than he +had been for years. He hung about her, when he was at home, indoors and +out of doors. In an awkward, clumsy way he actually tried to make +himself pleasant! He had even suggested that she should ask one or two +people to stay at The Chase. But she had protested that she much +preferred being alone, and with a shrug of the shoulders he had given +in. After all, he didn't really care for strangers more than she did. + +Several times during the last dreary week, he had astonished her by +talking to her of Oliver in a rather fretful, complaining way, as if he +thought it odd that the other man was staying on in England with his +mother, instead of going back to Mexico. He had said that he thought it +strange that such a big business as he understood Oliver Tropenell to +have built up, could run by itself. She had answered coldly, "You +forget that my brother is there." And to that he had made no reply. + +Gillie? A pang of pain thrilled through Laura's lonely heart. Oliver had +said nothing more concerning Gillie's visit to Europe. Everything which +had happened, up to, and including, the evening when she and Oliver had +had that curious, intimate conversation when he had promised so solemnly +to be her friend, seemed now like a bright, happy dream compared with +the drab reality of to-day. + +And now, in a few minutes, Godfrey would be coming in, and she would +have to rouse herself to listen and to answer, while they had tea +together in the cedar drawing-room, for Godfrey did not care for the +boudoir. + +Suddenly she heard uttered in the corridor, outside the door, the eager +words, "Is Mrs. Pavely there? You're sure? All right--I'll go straight +in!" And before she could gather her mind together, the door opened, and +her brother--the brother she had not seen for years, but of whom she had +just been thinking--walked forward into the room, exclaiming heartily, +resonantly: "Well, Laura? Well, little girl? Here I am again!" + +She started up, and with a cry of welcoming, wondering delight, threw +herself into his arms, half laughing, half crying, "Oh, +Gillie--Gillie--Gillie! How glad I am to see you! Somehow I thought we +were never going to meet again! Have you only just come? Has Oliver +Tropenell seen you? Why didn't you wire?" + +Gillie was as touched and flattered as it was in him to be, for he +remembered his sister as having been always quiet and restrained. And +when they had parted, just before he had gone out to Mexico, she had +seemed almost inanimate with--had it been vicarious?--shame and pain. + +"I thought I'd take you by surprise." He looked round him with a +pleased, measuring look. "Nothing altered!" he exclaimed, "and you've +got a fire? That's good! I feel it awfully cold here, I mean in England. +They haven't started fires yet, over at Freshley." + +He repeated, "Nothing's altered--you least of all, Laura. Why, you don't +look a day older!" + +She sighed. "I feel," she said, "a lifetime older." + +"I don't!" he cried briskly, "I feel younger. And Godfrey?" His voice +altered, becoming just a little graver. "Time stood still with Godfrey +too, eh?" + +"I don't think Godfrey's altered much----" She was hesitating. And then, +very carefully, she added the words, "Godfrey's quite good to me, you +know, Gillie." + +"Oh, well--of course he always liked you the best!" And then he laughed, +but to them both his laughter sounded just a little hollow. "I gather +that he and Tropenell don't quite hit it off?" + +She turned on him quickly, and he was puzzled at the look of extreme +astonishment which came over her face. "What makes you think that?" she +exclaimed. "They're the greatest friends! Godfrey likes Oliver Tropenell +better than I thought he'd ever like anybody." + +And then, before Gillie Baynton could answer this, to him, surprising +statement, the door opened, and the man of whom they were speaking stood +gazing into the room as if he could not believe in the reality of the +sight before him. + +The brother and sister moved apart, and Gilbert Baynton held out his +hand. + +"Well, Godfrey," he exclaimed, "here I am again! I expect Tropenell told +you that I was thinking of coming to Europe? But I can't be more than a +month in the old country--if as long--unless Tropenell goes back leaving +me behind for a bit. He did make some such suggestion, but I think we're +more likely to go back together." + +As he spoke on, he let his hand slowly drop to his side, for the man he +was addressing had made no answering movement of welcome, or even of +greeting. + +Such a flood of wrath had mounted up into Godfrey Pavely's brain when he +saw Gilbert Baynton standing there, with his arm round Laura's shoulder, +that he was fearful the words he meant to utter would never get +themselves said. He had never felt so angry before, and the sensation +had a curious physical effect on him. He felt, as country folk so +vividly put it, "all of a tremble." + +A curious, ominous, sinister silence fell on the room. Laura, +unconsciously, drew a little nearer to her brother; and Godfrey, who was +staring straight at her, saw the movement, and it intensified the +passion of anger which was working in his brain as wine does in the +body. + +"I must ask you to leave my house at once," he said in a low voice. "I +have had no reason to change my mind as to what I said when you were +last in this house, Gilbert Baynton." + +_"Godfrey!"_ There was a passionate protest and revolt in the way Laura +uttered her husband's name. + +But her brother put up his hand. "Hush, Laura," he said. "It's much +better I should tackle this business alone. In fact, if you don't mind, +you'd better leave the room." + +She shook her head. "No, I mean to stay." + +He shrugged his shoulders, and looked straight at Godfrey Pavely. "Look +here!" he exclaimed, "isn't all this rather--well, highfaluting rot? +It's quite true that when I left here I didn't mean ever to darken your +doors again. But everything's altered now! I've paid you back every cent +of that money--it wasn't even your money, it was my own sister's money. +She didn't mind my having it--I heard her tell you so myself." + +"You forged my signature to obtain it," said Godfrey. He spoke in a very +low voice, almost in a whisper. He was the sort of man who always +suspects servants of listening at the door. + +"Yes, I own I was a damned fool to do that--though as a matter of fact +you goaded me to it! However, it's a long time ago, and I suggest that +we'd better let bygones be bygones. If I don't marry, and I'm not a +marrying man, your child will be my heiress. Laura's my only sister, the +only thing in the world I really care for----" + +Laura put her hand through his arm when she heard him say that. + +And then Godfrey spoke again, his voice a little raised: "That makes no +difference," he said--"I mean your having paid the money back makes no +difference. I won't have you in my house, and if Laura considers my +wishes she won't see you again while you're in England." + +Laura said at once: "I shall not consider your wishes, Godfrey. Of +course I shall see my brother as often as I can." + +But Godfrey went on, still directly addressing Gilbert Baynton, "I can't +prevent Laura seeing you, if she insists upon it. She's a grown-up +woman, and I can't turn the key on her. But she shan't see you in _my_ +house. And, as far as I'm concerned, this is the last time I'll ever set +eyes on your face." + +"Don't you be so sure of that!" Gillie muttered the words between his +teeth. His fair face had turned a deep red-brick colour, his blue eyes +were blazing. + +Again there fell on the three of them that strange, ominous, sinister +silence. + +Then Gilbert Baynton turned to his sister. He actually laughed out loud. +But even Pavely noticed, with bitter satisfaction, that the laughter +sounded very forced. + +"Ha! ha! ha! Godfrey's not a bit changed. He's just the same old +narrow-minded, sanctimonious prig he always was!" + +He took Laura in his arms, and kissed her two or three times very +warmly. "Never mind, little girl," he said. "I shan't make trouble +between you and Godfrey for long! I shan't be in England for more than a +few days. I'm off to Paris next week." + +He disengaged himself gently from Laura's clinging arms, went to the +door, opened it, then shut it very quietly behind him. + +Laura turned away, and stared into the fire. + +Godfrey began, awkwardly, conciliatingly, "Now, my dear Laura----" + +She put up her hand. "Don't speak to me," she said, in what he felt to +be a dreadful voice of aversion and of pain. "I shall never, never +forgive you for this!" + +He shrugged his shoulders, and went out of the room, into the long +corridor. And then he walked quickly through it and so to the hall of +the fine old house, of which, try as he might, he never felt himself, in +any intimate sense, the master. + +The hall was empty. Quietly he opened the front door. Yes, Gillie had +kept his word this time! He really had gone. Pavely could see the alert, +still young-looking figure of the man whom in his mind he always called +"that scoundrel" hurrying down the carriage road which led to the great +gates of The Chase. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Katty Winslow stood by her open gate. She had wandered out there feeling +restless and excited, though she hardly knew why. During the last +fortnight she had spent many lonely hours, more lonely hours than usual, +for Godfrey Pavely came much less often to see her than he had done in +the old, easygoing days. + +And yet, though restless, Katty was on the whole satisfied. She thought +that things were going very much as she wished them to go. It was of +course annoying to know so little, but she was able to guess a good +deal, and she felt quite sure that the leaven was working. + +But the suspense and the uncertainty had got on her nerves, and she had +made up her mind to leave Rosedean perhaps for as long as a fortnight. +Two days ago she had written to various friends who were always glad to +see her. That was why, as she stood at the gate, she was able to tell +herself that she was waiting for the postman. + +She thought it very probable that Godfrey Pavely would be walking past +her house about this time. A couple of days ago he had come in for about +half an hour, but he had been dull and ill at ease, his mind evidently +full of something he was unwilling or ashamed to tell. And she had +watched him with an amused, sympathetic curiosity, wondering how long +his cautious reticence would endure. If she had put her mind to it, +perhaps Katty could have made him speak of that which filled his sore +heart, but she felt that the time was not yet ripe for words between +herself and Godfrey. She was afraid of jarring him, of making him say +something to her which both of them afterwards might regret. No, not any +words of love to herself--of that she was not afraid--but some dogmatic +pronouncement on divorce, and perchance on re-marriage. + +And then, as she stood there, glancing up and down the lonely country +road, she suddenly saw a man walking quickly towards her--not from +Pewsbury, but from the opposite direction, which led only from The +Chase. + +Katty's bright brown eyes were very good eyes, and long before the +stranger could see her she had, as it were, taken stock of him. Somehow +his clothes were not English-looking, and he wore a kind of grey Homburg +hat. + +He was walking at a great pace, and as he came nearer, some vague +feeling of curiosity made Katty step out of the gate, and look straight +up the road towards him. All at once she made up her mind that he was +American--a well-to-do and, according to his lights, a well-dressed +American. + +Now Katty Winslow looked very charming, as she stood out there, in her +heather-mixture tweed skirt, and pale blue flannel blouse--charming, and +also young. And the stranger--to her he seemed entirely a stranger--when +he was quite close up to her, suddenly took off his hat and exclaimed, +"Why, Miss Fenton! It is Miss Fenton, isn't it?" + +He was now smiling broadly into her face, his bold, rather challenging +eyes--the blue eyes which were the best feature of his face, and the +only feature which recalled his beautiful sister--full of cordial +admiration. + +"You don't remember me?" he went on. "Well, that's quite natural, for of +course you made a much deeper impression on me than I did on you!" + +And then all at once it flashed across Katty who this pleasant, +bright-eyed wayfarer must be. It must be, it could only be, Gilbert +Baynton--the peccant Gillie! + +"Mr. Baynton?" she said questioningly, and she also threw a great note +of welcome and cordiality into her voice. + +"Yes," he said. "Gilbert Baynton--very much at your service----?" + +"--Mrs. Winslow," she said hurriedly. "I'm Mrs. Winslow now." She saw +that the name conveyed nothing to him. "Do come in," she went on +pleasantly, "if only for a moment, Mr. Baynton. Though it's early for +tea, perhaps you'll stay and have a cup with me? I had no idea you were +in England! I suppose you're staying with Laura, at The Chase?" + +He shook his head, the smile faded from his face, and Katty, who was +observant, saw that her question was ill-timed. + +"It's delightful--seeing an old friend again, and I was feeling so +bored--all by myself!" + +As he followed her into the house, Gillie told himself that this was +distinctly amusing--quite good fun! It would take the horrible taste of +his interview with that--that _brute_--out of his mouth. + +He looked round the little hall with quick interest and curiosity. +There was no sign of a man about, only a lady's slender walking-stick +and a bright red parasol, in the umbrella-stand. Was pretty little Katty +a widow? Somehow she did not look like a widow! + +She opened a door which gave out of the hall on the left, and called +out, "Harber? I should like tea in about five minutes." + +Then she shut the door, and led the way down the little hall, and +through into her sitting-room. + +Gillie again glanced about him with eager appreciation. This was the +sort of room he liked--cosy, comfortable, bright and smiling like its +attractive mistress. + +"Sit down," she exclaimed, "and tell me everything that's happened to +you since we last met! Why, it must be, let me see, quite twelve years +ago?" + +She took up a china box: "Have a cigarette--I'll have one too." + +He waved the box aside, took out his own case, and held it out to her. +"I think you'll like these," he said. Then he struck a match, and as +their fingers touched, the lighting of her cigarette took quite a little +while. + +"This _is_ jolly!" He sank back into one of Katty's well-cushioned easy +chairs. "You've the prettiest room I've been in since I came to England, +Mrs. Winslow." + +"Oh, then you haven't been into Laura's boudoir?" + +"Yes, I've just come from there." Again his face altered as he spoke, +and this time there came a look of frowning anger over it. Then, almost +as if he read the unspoken question in her mind, he said slowly, "Look +here, Mrs. Winslow, as you seem to know my sister so well, I may as well +tell you the truth. I've just been ordered out of her house by my +brother-in-law, Godfrey Pavely. I suppose you know that he and I had a +row years ago?" He was looking at her rather hard as he spoke, and she +nodded her head. + +"Yes," she said frankly, "I do know that, though I don't know what it +was about." + +He breathed a little more freely. "It was about money," he said +bitterly. "Just what one would expect it to be with a man like Godfrey. +He was furious because I got Laura to lend me some money. It was to pay +a debt of honour, for I was a gambler in those days. But I'm a good boy +now!" + +"Yes," she said, and smiled. "I know you are! You're Oliver Tropenell's +partner, aren't you, Mr. Baynton? He talks awfully nicely of you." + +Gillie--his face was fair, his skin very clear, almost like a +girl's--looked pleased. "Good old Tropenell!" he exclaimed. "Yes, he and +I are tremendous pals. He's been the best friend to me man ever had." + +"I am _so_ sorry for Laura," said Katty gently. + +She was playing with the edge of a piece of Italian embroidery which +covered a small table close to her elbow, and she was thinking--hard. + +At that moment the drawing-room door opened, and the tea appeared. While +the table was being drawn up in front of her, the tray placed on to it, +and a taper put to the spirit lamp, Katty's mind went on working busily. +And by the time the maid was leaving the room, she had come to a +decision. Even to her it was a momentous decision--how momentous to +others she was destined never to know. + +Again she said slowly, impressively, "Yes, Mr. Baynton, I am sorry +indeed for poor Laura." + +"I'm sorry too. Not that it much matters! I didn't want to stay at The +Chase. I always thought it a gloomy place in the old days, when I was a +child--I mean when it still belonged to Mrs. Tropenell's people. Of +course I shall see Laura again--Godfrey can't prevent that! In fact he +admitted that he couldn't." + +There was a little pause. And then Katty, her eyes bent downwards, said, +"I didn't quite mean that, Mr. Baynton. Of course I'm very sorry about +your new row with Mr. Pavely, for it must be so hateful to Laura to feel +she can't have her own brother in her own house. But--well----" She +threw her head back, and gazed straight across at him. "Can you keep a +secret?" she asked. + +"Yes, of course I can!" He looked at her amused. + +"I want you to keep what I'm going to say absolutely to yourself. I +don't want you ever to hint a word of it to Laura--still less to Oliver +Tropenell." + +"Of course I won't!" He looked at her with growing curiosity. What was +it she was going to tell him? + +"I wonder if I ought to tell you," she murmured. + +He laughed outright. "Well, I can't _make_ you tell me!" + +She felt piqued at his indifference. "Yes, I will tell you, though it +isn't _my_ secret!" she exclaimed. "But I feel that you ought to know +it--being Laura's brother. Laura," her voice dropped, she spoke in a +very low voice, "Laura is in love with Oliver Tropenell, Mr. Baynton. +And Oliver is in love with Laura--a thousand times more in love with her +than she is in love with him!" + +She gave him a swift glance across the tea-table. Yes! Her shot had +told indeed. He looked extraordinarily moved and excited. So excited +that he got up from his chair. + +"Good God!" he exclaimed incredulously. "Laura?" And then, "Tropenell? +Are you sure of this, Mrs. Winslow?" + +"Yes," she answered in a quiet, composed voice that carried conviction. +"I am _quite_ sure. They are both very, very unhappy, for they are good, +high-minded people. They wouldn't do anything wrong for the world." + +As he looked at her a little oddly, and with a queer little smile all +over his face, she exclaimed, "I _know_ Laura wouldn't." And he nodded, +a little ashamed of that queer little smile. + +Gilbert Baynton's face stiffened into deep gravity. His eyes were +shining, and he was staring down at the little table, his half-finished +cup of tea forgotten. + +He sat down again. "Has Laura told you this?" he asked abruptly. "Are +you her confidante?" + +Katty hesitated. "No," she said at last. "I don't suppose Laura has +spoken of the matter to any living soul. But if you promise absolutely +not to give me away--I can tell you how you can assure yourself of the +truth. Ask Mrs. Tropenell. _She_ knows. I won't say any more." + +"And Pavely?" he asked. "What part does my fine brother-in-law play? +Does proper Godfrey know? Is priggish Godfrey jealous?" + +She answered slowly: "I think that Mr. Pavely suspects. He and Oliver +Tropenell were great friends till quite lately. But there's a coldness +now. I don't know what happened. But _something_ happened." + +"I see now why Tropenell has stayed here so long. I thought it must be a +woman! I thought some prudish, dull, English girl had got hold of +him----" He waited a moment. + +"Well, I'm eternally grateful to you, Mrs. Winslow, for giving me this +hint! You see, I'm very fond of Tropenell. It's a peculiar kind of +feeling--there's nothing in the world I wouldn't do for him. Good God! I +only wish that he and Laura----" + +He was going to say "would have the pluck to bolt together!" but Katty +supplied a very different ending to his sentence. + +"Ah," she exclaimed, "I only wish that Laura and Oliver _could_ marry. +They're made for one another. You can't see them together without seeing +that!" She went on feelingly, "Laura was dreadfully unhappy with Godfrey +Pavely even before Oliver Tropenell came into her life. She and Mr. +Pavely are quite unsuited to one another." + +There was a queer bitterness in her voice. + +And then Gillie Baynton suddenly remembered--remembered the flood of +gossip there had been at one time concerning those two--pretty Katty +Fenton, as she had been then, and Godfrey Pavely, the man who later +became his own brother-in-law. + +He gave her a queer, shrewd glance, and Mrs. Winslow went on, rather +quickly and breathlessly, + +"You mustn't think that I dislike Godfrey Pavely! He's been very good to +me--as good as Laura. I'm what they call an innocent _divorcee_, Mr. +Baynton, and they both helped me through the trouble. It was pretty bad +at the time, I can tell you. But of course I can't help seeing--no one +could help seeing--that Godfrey and Laura aren't suited to one another, +and that they would each be much, much happier apart." + +At the back of her clever, astute mind was the knowledge that it was +quite on the cards that Oliver, or Oliver's mother, would say something +to Gilbert Baynton concerning herself and her intimacy with Godfrey +Pavely. She must guard against that, and guard against it now. + +So she went on, pensively, "I don't know, to tell you the truth, for +which of them I'm the more sorry--Laura, Godfrey, or Oliver! They're all +three awfully to be pitied. Of course, if they lived in America it would +be quite simple; Laura and Godfrey would be divorced by mutual consent, +and then Laura would be able to be happy with Mr. Tropenell." + +"And is nothing of that sort possible here?" asked Gillie Baynton +curiously. "This old England _has_ stood still!" + +Katty shook her head regretfully. "No, there's nothing of the sort +possible here. Of course there are ways and means----" + +The other fixed his eyes on her. "Yes?" he said interrogatively. + +"I fear that they are not ways and means that Godfrey or Laura would +ever lend themselves to." + +"Then there's no cutting the Gordian knot?" + +But that wasn't quite what Katty meant to imply. "I don't know," she +said hesitatingly. "Godfrey would do almost anything to avoid any kind +of scandal. But then you see one comes up against Laura----" + +He nodded quickly. "Yes, I quite understand that Laura would never do +anything she thought wrong--queer, isn't it?" + +Gilbert Baynton stayed on at Rosedean for quite another half-hour, but +nothing more was said on the subject which was filling his mind and that +of his hostess. They walked about the pretty, miniature garden, talking +in a desultory way over old times, and about some of the people they had +both known years ago. + +And then, at last, she took him to the gate. They looked at one another +like two augurs, and he said under his breath, "Well, it's a pretty +kettle of fish I've come home to, eh? I thought there was some sort of +mystery. I'm very much obliged to you for having put me on the track to +solve the riddle." + +"Ah," she said, "but the riddle isn't solved yet, Mr. Baynton, is it?" + +He answered, gravely for him, "No, those sorts of riddles are very hard +to solve." He hesitated, then exclaimed in a meaning tone, "Still, they +_are_ solved sometimes, Mrs. Winslow." + + * * * * * + +It was late the same night, a warm, St. Martin's summer night, and Mrs. +Tropenell, sitting alone after dinner, made an excuse of a telephone +message to join her son and Gillie Baynton out of doors. + +After Baynton's return from The Chase the two men had gone off for a +long walk together over the downs, and they had come home so late that +dinner had had to be put off for half an hour. Instead of joining her +later, they had gone out again, but this time only into the garden. + +Noiselessly she moved across the grass, and then, just as she was going +to step under the still leaf-draped pergola, she heard her son's +voice--a voice so charged with emotion and pain that, mastered by her +anxiety, she stopped just behind one of the brick arches, and listened. + +"You'll oblige me, Baynton, by keeping your sister's name out of this." + +"Oh, very well! I thought you'd be glad to know what that woman said to +me--I mean Mrs. Winslow." + +"I'm not glad. I'm sorry. Mrs. Winslow is mistaken." + +The short sentence came out with laboured breath as if with difficulty, +and the one who overheard them, the anguished eavesdropper, felt her +heart stirred with bitter impotence. + +How Oliver cared--how much Oliver cared! + +"Why are you so sure of that?" Again she heard Baynton's full, caressing +voice. "Laura's a very reserved woman! I'd rather believe her best +friend--apparently Katty _is_ her best friend--about such a thing as +this. You've admitted that _you_ love her." + +And as the other made no answer, Gillie went on, speaking in a very low +voice, but with every word clearly audible from the place where Mrs. +Tropenell stood listening: "Of course I won't mention Laura--as it +upsets you so much! But after all, my hatred for Pavely and my love for +my sister are the two strongest things in my life. Surely you know that +well enough, Tropenell? I can't bar Laura out!" + +And then came the answer, muttered between the speaker's teeth: "I +understand that, Baynton." + +"I'm sorry I repeated Mrs. Winslow's tale. But of course it did impress +me--it did influence me. I'd _like_ to believe it, Tropenell." + +The secret listener was surprised at the feeling which Gillie's vibrant +voice betrayed. + +Oliver muttered something--was it, "I'd give my soul to know it true"? + +Then, in a lighter tone, Gillie exclaimed, "As to that other matter, I'd +rather keep you out of the business altogether if I could! But I +can't--quite." + +What was it that Oliver answered then? The two men were now walking +slowly away towards the further end of the pergola. Mrs. Tropenell +strained her ears to hear her son's answer: + +"I don't want to keep out of it." Was that what he said, in a very low, +tense voice? + +Gilbert Baynton was speaking again: "It is _my_ idea, _my_ scheme, and I +mean to carry it through! I shan't want much help--only quite a little +help from you." + +And then she heard her son's voice again, and he was speaking more +naturally this time. "Of course we'll go shares, Gillie! What d'you take +me for? Am I to have all the profit, and you all the risk?" + +Mrs. Tropenell breathed more freely. They were off from Laura now, and +on some business affair. She heard Gillie Baynton laugh aloud. "I'm +quite looking forward to it--but it will be a longish job!" + +Oliver answered, "_I'm_ not looking forward to it. You feel quite sure +about this thing, Baynton? There's time to draw back--now." + +"Sure? Of course I'm sure!" There was triumph, a challenge to fate, in +the other's tone. "I've always liked playing for high stakes--you know +that, eh?" + +"Ay, I know that----" + +"And I've never looked back. I've never regretted anything I've done in +my life----" there was a ring of boastful assurance in Gilbert Baynton's +tone. + +"I can't say that of myself--I wish I could." + +"You? Why, you've a milk-white record, compared to mine!" + +Mrs. Tropenell moved away swiftly over the grass, till she stood at the +end of the dark, arched walk. Then, "Oliver!" she called out, "there's a +message from Lord St. Amant. He wants to know if you can go over to the +Abbey next week, from Saturday till Tuesday. He says there'll be some +shooting. I told him you'd ring up before going to bed--I hope that was +right." + +"Yes, mother. Of course I'll ring up. I'll go in and do it now, if you +like. Gillie and I have been having a long business talk." + +And then she heard Gilbert Baynton: "I'll stay out here a bit longer, +Mrs. Tropenell. I'm getting quite used to the cold and damp of the old +country. I don't mind it as much as I did a week ago." + +Mother and son walked across the lawn to the house. + +When they were indoors, he broke silence first: "Gillie had a bad row +with Pavely this afternoon. I don't think it's any use his staying on +here. Pavely won't allow Laura to see him again at The Chase." + +Mrs. Tropenell uttered an exclamation of dismay. + +"Yes, it's unfortunate, I admit. And I don't think it was Gillie's +fault! He's described the scene to me in great detail. He was quite +willing to go as far as I think he could be expected to go in the way of +apology and contrition. But Pavely simply didn't give him a chance. +Pavely's a narrow-minded brute, mother." + +"Is Gillie very upset? Is he much disappointed?" she asked in a low +voice. + +"Yes, I think Gillie is upset--more upset than I should have expected +him to be! He's disappointed, too, at not having seen little Alice. He's +really fond of children, and, as he truly says, Alice is bound to be his +heiress--unless of course he should marry, which is very unlikely." + +Oliver was speaking in a preoccupied, absent voice, as if he was hardly +thinking of what he was saying. "We're thinking, he and I, of going to +the Continent next week. We've got business to do in Paris--rather +important business, too. Of course I'll try and come back here before +leaving for Mexico." + +Mrs. Tropenell felt as if the walls of the room were falling about her. +Oliver had always spoken of late as if he meant to stay on in England +till after Christmas. + +"How long d'you expect to be in France?" + +"I can't tell yet, mother. I might be there a fortnight, or I might be +there six weeks--it all depends on the business we're going to do. No +dates are settled yet." + +He waited a few moments, then said slowly, "I've been wondering whether +you would mind going up with Laura to London for a few days? Somehow I +think Pavely is more likely to let her go if you offer to go too." + +There swept over her a feeling of recoil, but she let her son see +nothing of that. "Very well," she said quietly. "I quite +understand--I'll do my best. I agree that Laura ought to see her +brother again. And what are _you_ thinking of doing, my dear?" + +"Oh, I thought of going up to town, too." He spoke with a detached air. +"You and I could stay in that nice little hotel where we stayed years +ago, mother. Of course I'm only thinking of a few days in town, before +Gillie and I go off to Paris." + +As they came through into the house, she was startled by the expression +on her son's face. He looked as if he had had a shock; he was very pale, +it was as if all the healthy colour had been drained out of his tan +cheeks. + +"Oliver?" she exclaimed. "Do you feel ill, my darling? When you came in +before dinner you looked as if you had caught a chill." + +"It was rather cold on the downs, but I feel very much as usual, thank +you, mother. A talk with Gillie always tires me. I think he's got a +rather----" he hesitated for a word, then found it--"obstreperous +vitality." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +When Godfrey Pavely arrived at the Bank next morning it seemed to him +that days, instead of hours, had gone by, since that hateful and +degrading scene had taken place between himself and his wife's brother. + +Laura had not spoken to him again, except to utter the few sentences +which were necessary to keep up the pretence that they two were on their +usual terms, before the servants, and, what had been more difficult, +before their little daughter. + +After Alice had gone to bed, they had eaten their dinner in silence, +and, in silence also, they had spent the evening reading up to eleven +o'clock. At last Godfrey, getting up, had said in a nervous, +conciliatory tone, "Well, good-night, Laura." But she had not answered +him, for by that time the servants were gone to bed, and there was no +longer any reason for hypocrisy. + +Laura had always been an exceptionally silent woman, but this was the +first time, in the long armed neutrality of their married life, that she +had actually refused to answer when he spoke to her. Feeling acutely +uncomfortable, because curiously helpless, Godfrey Pavely now wondered +how long this state of things was to endure. + +He asked himself whether he had said anything yesterday which could +really justify Laura in this extraordinary attitude. Now and again there +seemed to sound in his ears the voice in which she had uttered the last +words which she had spoken to him of her own free will. "Don't speak to +me," she had exclaimed passionately. "I shall never, never forgive you +for this!" + +Women were so unreasonable--ridiculously, absurdly unreasonable. Laura +knew exactly what Gillie was like, for he, Godfrey, had gone to special +pains to make Laura fully understand the mean, despicable and +_dangerous_ way in which her brother had behaved over the forged +cheque--for forgery it was, though it had been difficult to persuade +Laura of the fact. He remembered now, how, at last, after he had forced +his wife to understand, she had abased herself, imploring him to save +her brother from the consequences of his wicked action. + +Godfrey also remembered sorely how grateful Laura had seemed to be after +everything had been arranged, and Gillie had finally gone off to Mexico, +a ruined and discredited man. He felt a glow of virtuous satisfaction +when he recalled how she had thanked him--her kind, generous +husband--for what he had done! True, the loan then advanced had been +paid back, and Gillie--to use the stupid expression which seems to be +creeping into the British language--had "made good." But that was no +reason why he should come back and thrust himself into his, Godfrey's, +home, and make friends with Godfrey's only child--after he had actually +given an undertaking, in his own, melodramatic words, "never to darken +Godfrey's door again." + +Yet in his innermost heart Godfrey Pavely was sorry now that he had +behaved as he had done yesterday. He had allowed his temper to get the +better of him, always a silly thing for a sensible man to do. By +behaving as he had done he had put a weapon into Laura's hands.... + +At one moment he considered the advisability of going into Freshley +Manor on his way home to-day, to consult Mrs. Tropenell. And then he had +suddenly remembered that his brother-in-law was actually her guest! That +fact alone made a most disagreeable complication. + +As he looked over his letters, and dictated some of the answers to them, +he tried without success to put the matter out of his mind. It had taken +there the place occupied by the unpleasantness connected with those +absurd anonymous letters. For the first time, this morning he forgot +them. + +There came a knock at the door. "A letter, sir, has just been brought by +Mrs. Tropenell's man. He said there was an answer, so he's waiting." + +With quickened pulse, Godfrey Pavely opened the letter. He had long been +familiar with Mrs. Tropenell's clear, flowing handwriting, and he +wondered what she could have to say to him which she preferred to write, +rather than telephone. + +The banker was attached to Mrs. Tropenell. Always she had acted towards +him in a high-minded, straightforward way, and on two occasions he had +had reason to be specially grateful to her, for on each of these +occasions she had intervened, successfully, between Laura and himself, +and made Laura see reason. But she never alluded to the past, even in +the remotest way, and he had come of late years to think and hope she +had forgotten those now distant, painful, active misunderstandings. + +If Mrs. Tropenell was now pleading with him for a reconciliation with +Gilbert Baynton, then he knew that it would be very difficult for him to +say "no" to a woman to whom he owed so much. It would also be a graceful +way of getting out of the difficulty in which he had involved +himself.... + +But the contents of the letter disagreeably surprised him, for they were +quite other than what he had expected them to be-- + + "DEAR GODFREY:--Oliver and Gilbert Baynton have to go to + the Continent on business. I think they will be away for + some time, and Gilbert speaks of going straight back to + Mexico from France. + + "I write to know if you will allow Laura to come up to town + with me for a few days? It would enable her to see something + of her brother, before a separation which may last, as did + their past separation, for years. + + "I hope, dear Godfrey, you will see your way to granting + this request of mine. It is in very truth my request--not + Laura's. + + "Your affectionate old friend, + "LETTICE TROPENELL." + +The unfortunate man--for he was in the full meaning of the words an +unfortunate man--stared down at the letter. + +He felt moved and perplexed by the way it was worded. "Your affectionate +old friend"--what a strange way to sign herself! Mrs. Tropenell had +never signed herself so before. And what exactly did she mean by saying +that it was her request, not Laura's? In spite of those words, he felt +convinced that Laura, too proud to ask this favour of him after the +shameful way she had behaved yesterday, had persuaded Mrs. Tropenell to +ask it for her. + +He sat down and drew a piece of notepaper towards him. He was glad of +the opportunity of showing them all how magnanimous he was--how much of +a _man_. Laura should go to London with his full permission. Of course +he knew quite well, at the back of his mind, that if he refused it she +would probably go just the same. But in all the circumstances it would +be just as well to heap coals of fire on her head. She should go--but +not taking their child with her. His little Alice must not be +contaminated. + +When his daughter was old enough, he, Godfrey, would tell her the truth +about her mother's brother. He did not hold with concealing this sort of +thing from young people. In _his_ family, thank God, there had never +been anything to hide. All had always been honest and above-board. +Besides, if anything happened to him, Alice would be a very wealthy +woman, and Gillie would almost certainly try and get hold of her and of +her money. He, Godfrey, knew that well enough. + + "MY DEAR MRS. TROPENELL:--Certainly it shall be as you + ask----" He could not help adding, "though Laura knows that + in doing this she is disregarding my formal wishes. Still, + I admit that, Gillie being her brother, it is, I suppose, + natural that she should wish to see him again before he + leaves England." + +Then he hesitated--indeed, he kept the messenger for whom he had already +rung waiting for quite a long time. But at last he signed himself: "Your +affectionate, and always grateful, Godfrey Pavely." + +When the banker reached home rather early that afternoon--for he felt +too much upset to go in and spend his usual pleasant hour with Katty at +Rosedean--little Alice met him with the news that "Mummy" had gone to +London, and that she, Alice, was going to be allowed to sit up to dinner +to bear him company. + +It was characteristic of the man that, if relieved, he was also sharply +annoyed. He had hoped to extract from his wife some word of reluctant +thanks for his magnanimity. But no, she had not even left a note telling +him what day she would return! + +Things had not fallen out at The Chase that morning as Godfrey Pavely +had supposed. After breakfast Laura, still in a kind of stupor of pain +and indignation, had gone into the garden. She had not been there a +quarter of an hour when Mrs. Tropenell, who so seldom came to The Chase, +had suddenly appeared, walking with stately, leisurely steps over the +grass, to tell her of Oliver's and Gillie's coming departure for the +Continent. + +It was Mrs. Tropenell who had proposed sending that note to Godfrey, but +Godfrey, who so little understood his wife, either for good or evil, was +right in his belief that she would not have allowed her plans to be +affected by his answer. At once Laura had determined to go to London, +whether Godfrey gave his consent or no. Yet she was relieved when there +came to her from Freshley the news that her husband's answer to Mrs. +Tropenell's request was in the affirmative. + +The message was given to her over the telephone by Oliver Tropenell, and +in giving it he used the allusive form of words which come naturally +when a man knows that what he says may be overheard: "Mother has just +had a note saying that it is quite all right. So we propose to call for +you in time to get the five minutes to one from Langford Junction. Does +that give you enough time?" And she had exclaimed, "Oh, yes, yes! I'm +quite ready now." + +To that he had made no answer, and she had felt a little chill at the +heart. Oliver's voice had sounded curiously cold--but then the telephone +does sometimes alter voices strangely. + +Those eight days in London! Laura was often to live through each of +those long days during the dull weeks which followed her return home. +Yet, when she did look back on that time, she had to admit that she had +not been really happy, though the first hours had been filled with a +sort of excited triumph and sense of victory. It was such a relief, too, +to be away from Godfrey, and spared, even if only for a few days, the +constant, painful irritation of his presence. + +But her brother, for whose sake, after all, she was in London, jarred on +her perpetually. For one thing, Gillie was in extravagant, almost +unnaturally high spirits, set on what he called "having a good time," +and his idea of a good time was, as Oliver once grimly remarked, +slightly monotonous. + +Gillie's good time consisted in an eager round of business interviews, +culminating each evening in a rich dinner at one of the smart +grill-rooms which were then the fashion, followed by three hours of a +musical comedy, and finally supper at some restaurant, the more +expensive the better. + +To his sister, each evening so spent seemed a dreary waste of precious +time. For in the daytime the two ladies, who had taken rooms in an +old-fashioned hotel in a small street off Piccadilly, saw very little of +Gillie and Oliver. Gillie had insisted that Oliver and he should go and +stay at what he considered the smartest and most modern hotel in London, +and though the strangely assorted quartette always lunched together, the +two partners had a good deal to do each morning and most afternoons. + +To Mrs. Tropenell's surprise Oliver apparently had no wish to be with +Laura alone. Was it because he was afraid of giving himself away to his +coarse-minded, jovial partner? Oliver looked stern, abstracted, and, +when at the play, bored. + +She admitted another possible reason for his almost scrupulous avoidance +of Laura. With regard to the bitter feud between the brothers-in-law, +Oliver had spoken to his mother with curious apathy. Perhaps he was +honestly desirous of not taking sides. But on the whole Mrs. Tropenell +swung more often to her first theory, and this view was curiously +confirmed on the one Sunday spent by them in town. + +Gillie, grumbling, a good deal at the dulness of the English Sunday, had +motored off early to the country to spend the day with some people whom +he had known in Mexico. And late that morning Oliver suddenly suggested +that Laura and he should go out for a turn in the Green Park--only a +stone's-throw from the rooms the two ladies were sharing. + +And that hour, which was perhaps fraught with bigger circumstance than +any one, save Oliver himself, was ever to know, did remain in Laura +Pavely's memory as a strange and, in a sense, a delicious oasis, in her +long, arid stay in London. For, as the two walked and talked intimately +together in a solitude all the greater because peopled by the +indifferent and unknown, they seemed to come nearer to one another--and +to meet, for the first time, in an atmosphere of clarity and truth. +Laura, perhaps because she had felt, during these last few days, so +desperately lonely in a spiritual sense, talked more freely, albeit in a +more detached way, to her devoted, considerate, and selfless friend, +than she had ever been able to bring herself to do to any other human +being. + + * * * * * + +For a while, after they had turned and begun pacing together under the +now yellowing plane trees, neither of them spoke. Then Oliver said +abruptly, "So all our schemes have vanished into air--I'm sorry." + +"I'm sorry too," she said. "I always knew that Godfrey would never allow +me to go away with Gillie, but I never, never thought that even he could +behave as he did to my brother the other day----" + +There was a sound of suppressed passion and revolt in her voice that he +had never heard there before. It touched a chord in his own heart, but +all he said, slowly, was, "I suppose Gillie irritated him." + +"No, I don't think so. There wasn't time for Gillie to do anything, for +Godfrey at once refused to shake hands with him. That's how it began." + +"Gillie ought to have written first. My mother begged him not to take +Godfrey by surprise----" + +"Your mother is always right," she said in a low voice. "I've never +known her wrong yet, though her advice isn't always easy to follow, +Oliver." + +"I'm afraid she was right this time, anyhow." + +"I know she was." + +There fell between them a long, pregnant silence. And then Oliver said, +in a low, moved voice, "I'm afraid that this last business has made you +very unhappy, Laura?" + +She answered, "Yes--foolishly so. I ought not to have been surprised, +for by this time I know Godfrey so well." And she believed herself to be +speaking the truth. + +"It's not his fault," she went on painfully, "that he has nothing in +common with me and with my brother, different as we, too, are the one +from the other. Gillie and I might have been born on different planets +from Godfrey." + +Laura had not meant to speak of Godfrey to Oliver. Indeed, she had +formed the resolution never to do so again. But somehow, to-day, she +felt as if she might break that salutary rule. + +His next words seemed to prove to her that she could trust him to +understand, for, "Yes," he said quietly, "you're right there, Laura. You +and Godfrey have nothing in common between you, and that being so, I +suppose there's nothing to be done?" + +"No, there's nothing to be done," she repeated hopelessly. And then once +more she broke her wise resolution: "If it hadn't been for Alice, I +should, even now, be tempted to do what I so nearly did at the time +that Godfrey and Gillie"--she hesitated--"had their first +misunderstanding." + +"What you nearly did then, Laura?" There came an eager, questioning +thrill in her companion's strained voice. + +"Yes--" Why shouldn't she unburden her heart for once? "Yes, at the time +of that first quarrel between my brother and my husband, I nearly left +Godfrey. But for your mother, I should have done so. Alice was a tiny +baby then, and I didn't realise, as I realise now, what an awful +responsibility a woman takes on herself in breaking up a child's happy +home. Only your mother stopped my doing it, and the fact"--she looked at +him with a soundless depth of sadness in her face--"the fact that Gillie +didn't really want me to go and live with him. Of course it was long +before the question of his going to Mexico was raised." + +"And have you never regretted that you did not carry out that purpose?" + +Oliver Tropenell was looking straight before him as he asked the +dangerous question. They were walking, slowly, slowly, along the broad +path which runs just within the railings along the park side of +Piccadilly. Between twelve and one on an autumn Sunday morning this path +is generally deserted. + +She did not answer at once, and he said quickly, "Forgive me! I ought +not to have asked you that." + +"Yes," she said again, "you can ask me anything you like, Oliver. But +it's very difficult to answer such a question truthfully." + +And again there fell between them one of those long silences which +played a curious part in a conversation neither ever forgot. + +At last Laura did answer Oliver's dangerous question. "I have always +known in my heart that your mother was right in making me do what she +did--I mean in persuading me that for my little girl's sake I must go +on. Alice loves her father, though I think, perhaps foolishly, that of +the two she cares for me best----" + +"Of course she does!" he exclaimed. + +"But whether that be so or not, I know what a terrible thing it would +have been for Alice if Godfrey and I had lived apart. I've never doubted +that--I don't doubt it now. But for that I could not go on--after what +happened the other day." + +"Then if, as is of course possible, you and I don't meet again for years +and years, am I to think of you as always going on in exactly the same +way?" he asked. + +Some cruel devil outside himself had seemed to force him to utter the +hopeless question which he had already made up his mind should be, must +be, answered by Fate in the negative. + +They had stopped their slow pacing side by side, and he was now looking +down into her sad, desolate eyes. He saw the word--the one word "Yes," +form itself on her quivering lips. + +"Do you really mean that, Laura? Answer me truly." + +And then suddenly there came over Laura Pavely an extraordinary +sensation. It was as if this man, whose burning eyes were fixed on her +face, were willing her to say aloud something which, however true, were +better left unsaid. "There will never come any change," she answered, +feeling as if the words were being forced out of her, "till, as the +Marriage Service says, 'death us do part.'" + +"Do you ever think of that possibility?" + +He put the probing question in a singularly detached, almost a light, +tone of inquiry. + +But she answered very solemnly, again as if impelled to tell him the +truth--a truth she had never thought to tell to any human being: + +"There was a time before Alice was born when I was so unhappy, largely, +as I can see now, through my own fault, when I felt I could not bear it +any longer, and----" Her voice dropped, and he bent down so that he +might catch the almost whispered words, "I was strongly tempted to--to +kill myself," she said. "I used to go and walk up and down that little +path across the head of the lake, and plan out how I would do it. Even +now I do not think that any one, except perhaps your mother, would ever +have suspected. It would have been so easy to make it appear an absolute +accident." + +He remained silent, and she went on, more composedly: + +"I had got into a selfish, morbid state, Oliver, and yet the temptation +was not wholly selfish, for I knew that Godfrey was miserable too, and +my sense told me that if anything happened to me he would very soon +marry again--some woman who would appreciate his good qualities, who +would be happy with him, who would not be, as I knew I was, a bitter +disappointment." + +Once more her voice had become nearly inaudible, and once more Oliver +bent his dark, convulsed face down to hear what she said. + +Tears were rolling down Laura's face. But suddenly she made an immense +effort over herself, and went on, calmly: + +"It was your mother who helped me over that bad, foolish time. I don't +know what I should have done but for Aunt Letty. I think she's the only +person in the world to whom Godfrey ever listens--who can ever make any +impression on him. It's strange in a way, for I know she doesn't really +like either of us." + +As he uttered a violent expression of dissent, she went on: "It's quite +true, Oliver, and what is more, of the two she likes Godfrey the best. +Why shouldn't she? She thinks I've behaved very unkindly to Godfrey. The +only excuse she can make for me--she told me so once, long ago--is that +I'm inhuman. I suppose in a way I _am_ inhuman?" She looked at him +plaintively, a strange, piteous expression in her beautiful, shadowed +eyes. + +And Oliver Tropenell caught his breath. God--how he loved her! Her +inhumanity--to use that cruelly misleading term which she had just used +herself--only made his passion burn with a purer, whiter flame. The one +thing in the world that mattered to him now was this woman's deliverance +from the awful death-in-life to which her sensitive conscience, and her +moving love for her child, alone condemned her. Yes, Laura's deliverance +was the only thing worth compassing--and that even if the deliverer were +wrecked, soul as well as body, body as well as soul, in the process. + +They began walking again, slowly, slowly, once more enwrapped in a +silence which said so much more than words could have said, even to +Laura's still numb, unawakened heart. + +It was she who at last broke the kind of spell which lay on them both. +They had come almost to the end of the broad path. Opposite to where +they were standing, on the other side of the road, was a huge white and +green building, handsome and showy, looking strangely un-English and out +of place in the famous old London way. + +"They pulled down such a wonderful, delightful house just there," she +said regretfully. "I was once taken to it by my father, when I was quite +a little girl. It was like going right back a hundred years--not only to +another London, but to another England. It's a shame that any one should +have been allowed to pull down such a bit of old London as that." + +And Oliver agreed, absently. + +So, talking of indifferent things, they walked back to the hotel where +Mrs. Tropenell was awaiting them, and the three afterwards spent the +rest of the day peacefully together. But the next day there began again +for them all the same dreary round--that odd, artificial life of "having +a good time," as Gillie jovially put it. + +Somehow Laura did not mind it so much now as she had done before. Her +talk with Oliver had shifted her burden a little, and made her feel as +if he and she had gone back to their old, happy, simple friendship. It +had also deadened her feeling of acute, unreasoning anger with Godfrey. + +At last came the morning when Oliver and Gillie were to go to Paris. +And at the last moment, standing on the platform at Charing Cross, there +took place a rather pathetic, ridiculous little scene. + +Gillie had bought for his sister a beautiful old jewel, and he thrust +it--with a merry little word as to this being the first really nice +present he had ever given her--into her hand. When she opened the case +and saw the emerald and pearl heart, her eyes brimmed over with tears. + +Even Gillie was moved. "There, there!" he exclaimed. "Nothing to cry +about--'Nuff said,' Laura. Perhaps we'll meet again sooner than you +think, my friends the Americans say." + +And she tried to smile. + +Then Gillie turned to Mrs. Tropenell, speaking with much greater +sincerity of feeling than he was wont to do. "I'll never forget your +kindness--in the past and in the present--to my sister and to me, Mrs. +Tropenell. I'm not such a careless brute as I seem to be--I never forget +a kindness--or an injury. Now then, Oliver!" + +Laura felt her hand seized, closed on in a vice-like pressure which +hurt, then dropped. "Good-bye, Laura," said Oliver in an almost +inaudible tone. "Good-bye, till we meet again." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +As so often happens after hours or days of crises, and even of quarrel, +things went better for a while after Laura's return to The Chase. + +True, life was now, even more than before, dull, sad, and difficult. She +missed Oliver Tropenell's constant companionship and stimulating talk, +more than she was willing to acknowledge even to her innermost self. And +yet, when Godfrey spoke of the other man's absence from Freshley with +regret, his words jarred on her, and made her feel vaguely ashamed. Yet +surely, surely she had nothing to reproach herself with in the matter of +Oliver Tropenell? She would so gladly have kept him as Godfrey's friend +as well as her own. + +They had made it up, those two ill-matched people--made it up, that is, +after a fashion. They were now much where they had been six months ago, +just before Oliver Tropenell with his strong, masterful personality had +come into their joint lives. + +And Godfrey? Godfrey Pavely was happier, more complacent than usual, +during those late autumn days. He also was ashamed--though not +unreasonably so--of the absurd importance he had attached to those two +vulgar anonymous letters! He was sorry now that he had spoken of the +matter to Oliver Tropenell, for that odd, rather awkward talk of theirs +on the matter had been perhaps a contributory cause of the other man's +sudden departure. If Oliver came home for Christmas, he, Godfrey, would +"make it all right." + +The banker had yet another reason for feeling life pleasanter than usual +just now. He was engaged in a rather big bit of financial business of a +kind his soul loved, for it was secret, immediately profitable, and with +a gambling risk attached to it. The only person to whom he had said a +word concerning the affair was Katty Winslow, and even to her, for he +was a very prudent man, he had been quite vague. + +With Katty he was becoming daily more intimate. Laura's cold aloofness +made him seek, instinctively, a kinder, warmer, and yes, occasionally, a +tenderer feminine presence. For the first time, lately, Godfrey had +begun to tell himself that Katty would have made an almost perfect +wife.... And Katty could have told you almost the exact moment when that +thought had first flashed upon Godfrey Pavely's brain. But she also knew +that so far he was content, most irritatingly content, with the _status +quo_. Not so she----And one evening Katty tried an experiment which was +on the whole remarkably successful, though its effects were strangely +different from what she had expected. + +While dining alone with Godfrey and Laura at The Chase, she startled her +host and hostess by throwing out a careless word as to the possibility +of her leaving Rosedean--of letting the house furnished, for a year.... + +Laura was astonished to see how much this casual remark of Katty's upset +Godfrey. He uttered an exclamation of deep surprise and annoyance, and +his wife told herself bitterly how strange it was that Godfrey, feeling +so strongly about Katty, should not understand how she, Laura, felt +about Gillie. After all, Gillie was her own brother, and Katty was not +Godfrey's sister--only an old playmate and friend! + +Godfrey was, in very truth, much more than upset at those few careless +words of his old friend--playmate, in the sense that Laura meant, she +had never been. So disturbed and taken aback indeed that he lay awake +much of that night. + +The next morning he broke his walk into Pewsbury by going into Rosedean, +this being the very first time he had ever done such a thing. + +He was kept waiting a few moments--as a matter of fact only a very few +moments--in the familiar little drawing-room, before Katty, wearing a +charming, pale blue dressing-gown, edged with swansdown, joined him. + +As was her way, she began speaking at once. "Why, what's the matter?" +she exclaimed. "Has anything gone wrong, Godfrey?" + +He answered irritably, "No, not that I know of. But I've something to +say to you." He pulled out his big, old-fashioned gold repeater. "It's +twenty to ten--I thought I'd find you down!" + +"I always breakfast upstairs in my own room. But I didn't keep you +waiting long----" + +She was still a little breathless, for she had come down very quickly. + +And then he began, with no preamble: "I want to know if you really meant +what you said last night about letting this house furnished for a year? +I'm by no means sure if the terms of your lease allow for your doing +that; I shall have to look into it after I get to the Bank. Still, I +thought I'd better come and see you first." + +Katty grew very pink. "Oh, Godfrey!" she exclaimed. "Surely you wouldn't +be so unkind----?" + +There came over her pretty face that curious, obstinate look which he +had already seen there often enough to dread. Also she made him feel +ashamed of himself. But how attractive she looked--how fresh and +dainty--like a newly opened rose! Katty had twisted up her hair anyhow, +but that only made her look younger, and more natural. + +"Let's come out into the garden," she said coaxingly. "Surely you can +stay for a few minutes? This is the very first time you've ever been to +see me in the morning! Why not telephone through and say you've been +delayed,--that you can't be at the Bank till eleven?" She was edging him +as she spoke towards the corner where, behind a screen, there stood the +telephone instrument. + +As if compelled to obey, he took up the receiver, and uttered the +familiar words, "Pewsbury 4." And at once there came an answer. + +"Is that you, Privet? What a comfort it is to know that I can always +rely on your being there, whoever else isn't! This is only to say that I +have been delayed, and that I don't expect to be at the Bank till +eleven." + +Then came the calming, comforting answer, "Very good. That'll be all +right, sir. There's nothing much doing this morning, from what I could +make out when I was looking over your letters just now." + +So Godfrey Pavely, feeling rather as if he was being driven along by a +pleasant fate, hung the receiver up, and followed the blue-garbed +figure out of doors, into a little pleasance now filled with exquisite +autumnal colouring, and pungent, searching scents. + +In the furthest corner of the walled garden, which was so much older +than the house itself, was a tiny lawn surrounded by high hedges. There +they could talk without any fear of being overlooked or overheard; and, +before her visitor could stop her, Katty had dragged two cane-seated +easy chairs out of her little summer-house. + +They both sat down, but this time Katty warily remained silent. She was +waiting for her companion to begin. + +"You weren't serious, were you?" he said at last, and she felt the +underlying pain and surprise in his voice. "You don't really mean that +you want to go away, Katty? Where would you go to? What would you do? +Have the Standens asked you to go abroad again--not for a whole year, +surely?" + +"No," she said slowly, "not the Standens. If you must know, I've been +offered a furnished cottage rent-free by those friends of mine, the +Haworths, who live near York. The truth is, I can't afford to keep up +Rosedean! I hate saying this to you, but it's the truth." + +"If you didn't go away so much----" he began irritably. + +But she cut across him sharply, "After all, I've a right to go away if I +like! But it isn't that, Godfrey. I've gone into it all--really I have! +Even if I never left Rosedean I should still be too poor to go on living +here comfortably." + +"How much too poor?" he asked. + +Katty drew a long breath. In a sense she was speaking at random, but no +one would have known it from the tone in which she answered: "About a +hundred a year--a little less, a little more." + +And then Godfrey Pavely said something which very much surprised Katty. +"About that thousand pounds which was left to you the other day," he +said hesitatingly. + +"Well? That'll only bring in thirty-five pounds a year; you made all the +arrangements," she added wearily. "You wouldn't let me have it--as I +wanted you to do." + +"I couldn't, Katty, you know that! I didn't ask your aunt to make me +your trustee." + +"Well, that thirty-five pounds won't make any difference." + +She was sorry now she had told him of the little house on her generous +friends' estate. Perhaps he would offer to let her off the Rosedean +rent. But Katty had quite made up her mind to cut the cable, and make a +fresh start elsewhere. + +"Wait a bit," he said slowly, "women always run on so fast! When I +mentioned that thousand pounds, I was not thinking of giving it you, as +you call it, to spend. I was thinking of that foreign investment I +mentioned to you last week. If you're willing to take the risk, I might +stretch a point, for if things go well that thousand pounds might easily +be trebled in the course of the next two years. I'm so sure of that, +that I'm quite willing to advance you, say, two hundred pounds." + +He knew quite well that his proposal was utterly illogical, and bore, so +to speak, no relation to the fact that the investment he was proposing +might turn up trumps. + +Katty's eyes sparkled. She was very fond of ready money, and it was such +a long, long time since she had had any. "D'you mean you'd really give +me two hundred pounds _now_?" she asked joyfully. + +And Godfrey, with his eyes fixed on the grass, said in a shamed voice, +"Yes--that is what I do mean." + +Somehow it hurt him to feel how that sum of money, so trifling to him, +affected her so keenly. He was better pleased with her next question. + +"What sort of an investment exactly is it?" + +"It's in the nature of a company promotion," he said slowly. "And of +course you must regard anything I tell you about it as absolutely +private." + +"Yes, I quite understand that!" + +He drew a piece of paper out of his pocket. "As a matter of fact I've +got a few facts about it jotted down here." + +She drew her chair rather nearer to his, and Godfrey Pavely, turning his +narrow yet fleshy face towards her, began speaking with far more +eagerness and animation than usual. Katty, who was by no means a fool +where such things were concerned, listened absorbedly while he explained +the rather big bit of financial business in which he was now interested. + +After he had been speaking to her without interruption for some minutes, +Katty exclaimed: "Yes, I think I see now exactly what you mean! There +certainly doesn't seem much risk attached to it--at any rate as regards +the start off, as it were. But what made these French bankers pick _you_ +out, Godfrey? After all, they're doing you a very good turn." + +"I don't exactly know why they picked me out, as you call it----" he +spoke hesitatingly. "But during that year I spent in Paris I came across +a great many of that sort of people. My father got me the best possible +introductions." + +The piece of paper on which he had jotted certain notes and calculations +was a large piece of thin foreign notepaper covered with small +handwriting in the diluted ink which some French business men use. + +"Can you read French?" he asked doubtfully. + +She answered rather sharply, "Yes, of course I can!" and held out her +hand. + +The letter, which bore a Paris address, and the date of a fortnight +back, was from the French banking house of Zosean & Co. It explained at +some length that a client of the bank, a wealthy South American of +Portuguese extraction named Fernando Apra, had become possessed of an +estate on the coast of Portugal to which was attached a gambling +concession. The idea was to make the place a kind of Portuguese Monte +Carlo, and the present possessor was very desirous that English capital +and English brains should be put into the company. The returns promised +were enormous, and there seemed to be little or no risk attached to the +business--if it was run on the right lines. + +"I have gone into the matter very thoroughly," said Godfrey Pavely, "and +I have convinced myself that it's all right. This Fernando Apra already +has a London office. I managed to see him there for a few minutes last +week. His real headquarters are in Paris." + +"And are you finding all the money?" asked Katty eagerly. "Will it be +all your money and _my_ thousand pounds, Godfrey? In that case I +suppose we shall get all the profits?" + +He smiled a little at woman's cupidity. "No," he said, "I haven't been +able to find it all myself. But I've managed to get in a very good man. +Some one with whom I've done business before, Katty." + +"What's his name?" she asked inquisitively. + +Godfrey Pavely waited a moment. "I don't know that I ought to tell +you--" he said uncomfortably. "He doesn't want to appear in the +business." + +"Of course you ought to tell me!" All sorts of strange ideas floated +through Katty's mind. Was he going to say "Oliver Tropenell"? She rather +expected he was. + +"Well, I _will_ tell you," he said, "for I know you can hold your +tongue. The name of the man who's going into this business with me is +Greville Howard." + +"D'you mean the big money-lender?" Katty couldn't help a little tone of +doubt, of rather shocked surprise, creeping into her voice. + +"Yes," he said doggedly, "I do mean the man who was once a great +money-lender. He's retired now--in fact he's living----" and then he +stopped himself. + +"Why, of course!" Katty felt quite excited. "He's living in Yorkshire, +near the Haworths! They've often talked about him to me! They don't know +him--he won't know anybody. He's a rather queer fish, isn't he, +Godfrey?" + +"He's absolutely straight about money," exclaimed Godfrey Pavely +defensively. "I've had dealings with him over many years. In fact he's +the ideal man for this kind of thing. He has all sorts of irons in the +fire--financially I mean--on the Continent. He's a big shareholder in +the company that runs the Dieppe and Boulogne Casinos." + +He got up. "Well, I ought to be going now. It's all right isn't it, +Katty? You won't talk again of going away?" + +"Could you let me have that two hundred pounds this afternoon?" she +asked abruptly. + +Godfrey Pavely looked at her with a curious, yearning, rather sad look. +Somehow he would have preferred that Katty should not be quite +so--so--he hardly formulated the thought to himself--so ready to do +_anything_ for money. "Very well," he said. "Very well, my dear"--he +very seldom called her "my dear," but he had done so once or twice +lately. "I'll bring it this afternoon, in notes." + +"That _will_ be kind of you," she said gratefully. "But look here, +Godfrey, do take it out of my thousand pounds! Put eight hundred in this +thing." + +He shook his head and smiled. Women were queer, curiously unscrupulous +creatures! "That would be right down dishonest of me, Katty." + +They were now walking across the little lawn, which was so securely +tucked away, out of sight of any prying window, and before going through +the aperture which had been cut in the hedge, they both turned round and +clasped hands. "Thank you so--so much," she said softly. "You've been a +dear, kind friend to me always, Godfrey." + +"Have I?" he said. "Have I, Katty? Not always, I fear." + +"Yes, always," and her voice trembled a little. + +He bent down and kissed her on the mouth with a kind of shamed, +passionate solemnity which moved, and, yes, a little amused her. What +_queer_, curiously scrupulous creatures men were! + +"Go now, or you'll be late," she whispered. + +And he went. + + + + +PART TWO + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Certain days become retrospectively memorable, and that however +apparently uneventful they may have seemed at the time. + +To Laura Pavely the 6th of January opened as had done all the other days +during the last few weeks, that is, quietly, dully, and sadly. + +There was one difference, trifling or not as one happened to look at the +matter. Godfrey was away in London. He had been absent for over a +week--since the 28th, and though he had been expected back last night, +there had come a telephone message, late in the afternoon, to say that +his business would keep him away a day longer. + +This morning--it was a Friday morning--Laura, trying hard to shake off +her depression, told herself that she and Alice might as well go for a +ride. It was a beautiful day, and the wind blew soft. They would go +across the downs to a certain lonely spot which Alice loved. + +Laura was already in the hall in her riding habit, waiting for the +child, when there came a telephone message through from Pewsbury. It was +from the Bank asking what time Mr. Pavely would be there. A gentleman +with whom he had made an appointment for ten o'clock, had been waiting +for him since that hour. It was now nearly eleven. + +Laura turned to the servant: "Did Mr. Pavely give you any message to +send on to the Bank?" she asked. + +The man answered, "No, ma'am, not that I understood. Mr. Pavely didn't +come himself to the telephone." + +"What was the message exactly?" Laura was always kind and courteous in +her manner to her servants, and they were all attached to her. + +"It was as how Mr. Pavely was being detained, and could not be home last +night, ma'am. The person who gave the message was in a great hurry--he +cut me off before I could say anything to him." + +"I suppose we ought to have telephoned to the Bank early this morning," +said Laura thoughtfully. But it had never occurred to her that it would +be necessary for her to do so. Her husband was a very exact man of +business. She had taken it as certain that he had also communicated with +the Bank. + +"Who was it telephoned just now?" she asked. + +"I think it was Mr. Privet himself, ma'am. He said he felt sure Mr. +Pavely intended to be back this morning, because of the gentleman he had +arranged to see." + +"Perhaps I had better speak to Mr. Privet myself," said Laura. "Is that +you, Mr. Privet?" + +"I wish you a very good morning, Mrs. Pavely. I didn't mean to put you +to any trouble, but you see the matter is important----" Even through +the telephone she could hear a mysterious tone in the old voice, though +he was speaking in so low a tone that she could scarcely hear. "It's +Lord St. Amant. He's been here since ten o'clock, and he says he can't +stop any longer. Mr. Pavely made an appointment with his lordship over +a week ago. It's very strange he should have forgotten, isn't it, Mrs. +Pavely?" + +"Yes, I think it _is_ strange," she said slowly. "Will you tell his +lordship that I'm exceedingly sorry that word was not sent him. If I had +known of the appointment, of course I would have communicated with him +either by telephone or by a note." + +"Then I'm to put off all Mr. Pavely's appointments for to-day?" + +"Well, yes, Mr. Privet, that seems to me the only thing you can do." + +Laura smiled a little as she left the telephone. Mr. Privet's tone, if +not his words, made it quite clear that he thought Mr. Pavely had +committed a serious solecism, almost the worst solecism a country banker +could commit, in not keeping an appointment with the great man of the +neighbourhood, who was to be the new Lord Lieutenant of the county. + + * * * * * + +An hour and a half later, as mother and child were riding slowly home, +Laura suddenly told herself that it was a long time since Mrs. Tropenell +had seen Alice on pony-back. Why shouldn't they both go on to Freshley? +And if Aunt Letty asked them to stay to lunch, as she very probably +would, so much the better! + +On their way to the front door of the house, they turned into the +stable-yard to find a groom, and then, suddenly, Laura felt a queer, and +to herself an utterly unexpected and new, sensation sweep over her. It +was a sensation of eager, unreasoning joy. + +Oliver Tropenell stood in the middle of the yard, talking to his +mother's old groom. He looked ill and tired--dreadfully tired. But all +at once, as he saw Laura and her child come riding in, a wonderful +change swept over his dark face--there came over it a glowing expression +of welcome and delight. He lifted Alice off her pony. Then he came +forward to help Laura.... + +With a shock of surprise which seemed to make her heart stop beating, +Laura felt her whole being responding to the ardent, and at once +imperious and imploring look with which he gazed up into her eyes. She +was shaken, awed by the passion he threw, perhaps unconsciously, into +that long, beckoning look--stirred to the heart by the feeling of +content his mere presence brought her. + +But even in those few flashing moments, Laura Pavely quickly, almost +fiercely, assured herself that this new, strange sensation of oneness, +of surrender on her part, was "friendship," nothing more. + +Yet her voice faltered in spite of herself, as she said, "Hadn't we +better ride round? I only came in here to find some one to hold the +horses, in case your mother wanted us to come in." + +But with a muttered, "Mother has got Lord St. Amant to luncheon--I know +she would like you both to stay, too," he lifted her off her horse. + +They walked to a door which led into the back part of the house, and so +by a corridor to a small room where Mrs. Tropenell generally sat in the +morning. As they went along, Alice, alone, chattered happily. + +At last Laura, more for the sake of proving to herself that she felt +quite at ease than for anything else, asked suddenly, "I suppose you +didn't see Godfrey on your way through London?" + +Oliver waited a few moments--so long indeed that she wondered if he had +heard her. But she knew in her heart that he had, for his face had +darkened at the mention of her husband's name. At last he answered, very +deliberately, "Is Godfrey away then?" + +"Yes. He went off some days ago. We expected him home yesterday; but he +sent a telephone message to say he wasn't coming back till to-night." + +They were now before the door of Mrs. Tropenell's sitting-room. Her son +opened it quietly, and for a moment the three stood there, gazing into +the panelled, sunlit little room, which was part of the survival of a +much older building than the eighteenth-century manor-house. + +Mrs. Tropenell, sitting upright in a low chair, was looking up into the +face of the man who stood before her, and they were both so absorbed in +what they were saying that neither had heard the door open. + +Laura gazed with new eyes, a new curiosity, at Lord St. Amant. She had +seen him often in this house, though sometimes at comparatively long +intervals, ever since she was a child, and always he had had a fixed +place, in her mind and imagination, as Mrs. Tropenell's one man-friend. + +To-day, seeing the two thus talking eagerly together she felt her +interest oddly quickened. She was asking herself eagerly whether some +such passage as that which had taken place between herself and Oliver +Tropenell three months ago, and which had caused her so much pain, had +ever occurred between those two in the days when Lady St. Amant, a +fretful, selfish invalid whom every one disliked, was still alive. If +yes, then Mrs. Tropenell had evidently known how to retain the +friendship, the warm affections of a man who, younger, had been +notoriously inconstant. + +In Laura's eyes these two had always been old when she thought of them +at all. But to-day she realised, as in a flash, that the man and woman +before her had also been young, and that not so very long ago. + +Even now, Lord St. Amant was a still vigorous and active-looking man. He +was leaning over the back of a chair, looking eagerly into his old +friend's face. Was it true, as some of the gossips said, that he had +remained a widower for that same friend's sake? + +Laura gazed at him with an almost hungry curiosity. She was absurdly +surprised that he looked to-day exactly as he had always looked in her +eyes--a pleasant, agreeable-mannered, amusing man of the world, not at +all her notion of the one-time lover of many women. + +Lord St. Amant's hair had now gone white, but, apart from that he looked +just as he had been wont to look, when he came and went about Freshley +Manor, when she, as a child, had stayed there with her mother. Some +years later, she had become dimly aware--girls always know such +things--that Mrs. Tropenell had had a fleeting notion of marrying her to +Lord St. Amant. But Laura had also known that it was Mrs. Tropenell, not +herself, who was the magnet which then drew him so often to Freshley +Manor. + +They had once, however, had an intimate talk together. It had been on +one of the very rare occasions when Mrs. Tropenell was ill, confined to +bed, upstairs, and she, Laura Baynton, had been left alone to entertain +her Aunt Letty's old friend. And their talk--she remembered it now--had +been all of Oliver: of Oliver and his mother. + +Lord St. Amant had spoken with much heat of Oliver's having settled on +the other side of the world, leaving Mrs. Tropenell lonely. Then he had +smiled a curious little smile: "But that makes no difference. To a +mother 'distance makes the heart grow fonder,' and also 'lends +enchantment to the view.' An only son, Laura, is the most formidable of +rivals." + +The girl had been flattered, touched too, by the implied confidence. + +She had yet another vivid memory of Lord St. Amant. He had sent her, +immediately on hearing of her engagement to Godfrey Pavely, a +magnificent wedding present; also he had come, at some inconvenience, to +her marriage. + +Godfrey had supposed the compliment due to regard for himself and for +his father, but Laura, of course, had known better. Lord St. Amant had +come to her marriage to please Mrs. Tropenell--because he regarded her, +in a sense, as Mrs. Tropenell's adopted daughter. + +Something of all this moved in quick procession through Laura Pavely's +mind, as she stood in the doorway, looking more beautiful, more +animated, more feminine, in spite of--or was it because of?--her riding +dress, than Oliver Tropenell had ever seen her. + +She moved forward into the room, and Lord St. Amant turned quickly +round. + +If Laura looked at Lord St. Amant with a new interest, a new curiosity +in her beautiful eyes, he, on his side, now looked at Laura more +attentively than he had done for a long time. He had been abroad for two +months, and this was the first time he and Mrs. Tropenell had met since +his return. + +They had just had a long talk, and during that talk she had at last told +him something which had amused, surprised, and yes, interested him very +much; for Lord St. Amant, in the evening of his days, found himself +more, not less, tolerant of, and interested in, human nature, and in +human nature's curious kinks and byways, than at the time when he +himself had provided his friends and contemporaries with food for gossip +and scandal. But he had been very comforting in his comments on her +story, and more than once he had made his old friend smile. Mrs. +Tropenell had felt very, very glad to see Lord St. Amant. It was natural +that she should be glad to have once more within easy reach of her the +one human being in the world to whom she could talk freely, and who took +an unaffectedly close, deep interest in all her concerns. + + * * * * * + +Not till they were all sitting at luncheon, was Laura able, in a low +tone, to inquire after her brother. Little Alice knew nothing of her +uncle's visit to England. Godfrey and Laura had tacitly agreed to keep +the child in ignorance of it. But now Laura asked, with some eagerness, +"And Gillie? What's happened to Gillie? Is he still abroad?" + +Olive answered at once, "No, he's gone back to Mexico." And then, as he +saw a look of blank disappointment shadow her face, he added, hastily, +"He gave me a lot of messages for you--I was coming over this afternoon +to deliver them. You know what Gillie's like--he never writes if he can +help it!" + +"Yes," she said, "I know that," and she sighed. "Did he go from a French +port?" she asked. + +Oliver hesitated. It was almost as if he had forgotten. But at last he +answered, "Yes, he went from Havre. I saw him off." + +And then something rather untoward happened. There came a violent +ringing at the front door--a loud, imperious pulling at the big, +old-fashioned iron bell-pull. To the surprise of his mother, Oliver +flushed--a deep, unbecoming brick red. Starting up from table, he pushed +his chair aside, and walked quickly to the door. It was almost as if he +expected some one. "I'll see who it is!" he called out. + +They heard him striding across the hall, and flinging open the front +door.... + +Then he came back slowly, and Mrs. Tropenell saw that there was a look +of immeasurable relief on his face. "It's a man who's brought a parcel +from Pewsbury for one of the servants. He declared he couldn't make any +one hear at the back, and so he came round to the front door--rather +impudent of him, eh?" and he sat down again. + +Coffee was served in the pleasant, low-ceilinged drawing-room, and then +Oliver and Laura went out of doors, with Alice trotting by their side. + +It was quite like old times. And the child voiced their unspoken +feeling, when, slipping her hand into Oliver's, she exclaimed, "This is +jolly! Just like what it used to be when you were here before!" + +And he pressed the little hand which lay so confidingly in his. "Yes," +he said, in a low voice, "the same--but nicer, don't you think so, +Alice?" + +And Alice answered with the downrightness of childhood, "I can't tell +yet! I shall know that after you've been here a little while. We can't +garden as much as we did then, for now the ground is too hard." + +"But we can do other things," said Oliver, smiling down at her. + +And Alice answered doubtfully, "Yes, I suppose we can." + +They did not say very much. Oliver did not talk, as perhaps another man +would have done, of his and Gillie's adventures in France and Italy. And +after a comparatively short time Laura suggested that she and Alice had +better now ride home. + +"Will you come over to tea?" she asked. + +And Oliver said yes, that he would. + +"I daresay Godfrey will be back by then. He often takes the early +afternoon train down from London." + +But to that he made no answer, and Laura, with a rather painful +sensation, saw the light suddenly die out of his face. + +He came round to the stable. "I'll walk a little way with you," he said. + +But she exclaimed rather hurriedly, "No, don't do that, Oliver! Stay +with your mother and Lord St. Amant." + +And without any word of protest he obeyed her. + + * * * * * + +It is strange what a difference the return of a friend may make to life! +Laura Pavely felt another woman as she busied herself that afternoon, +happily waiting for Oliver Tropenell. Honestly she hoped that Godfrey +would come back by the early afternoon train; he, too, would be glad to +see Oliver. + +But the time went by, and there came no message through from London +ordering the car to be sent to the station, and Laura told herself that +perhaps Godfrey had gone straight to the Bank. + +At last, a little after five, Oliver Tropenell came sauntering in, very +much as he used to saunter in, during the long happy summer days when +they had just become friends. + +They had tea in Alice's day-nursery, and after tea, they all three +played games till it was nearly seven. Then, reluctantly, Oliver got up, +and said he must go home. And as he stood there, gazing down into her +face, Laura was struck, as she had been that morning in the first moment +of their meeting, by his look of fatigue and of strain. She, who was so +little apt to notice such things, unless her little girl was in +question, glanced up at him anxiously. "You don't look well," she said, +with some concern. "You don't look as if you'd had a holiday, Oliver." + +"I shall soon get all right," he muttered, "now that I'm here, with +mother." And then, in a lower voice, he added the words, "and with you, +Laura." + +She answered, nervously determined to hark back to what had been their +old, happy condition, "Alice and I have both missed you +dreadfully--haven't we, my darling?" + +And Alice said gaily, "Oh yes, indeed, we have, mother." Then the child +turned, in her pretty, eager way to Oliver, "I hope you'll stay a long, +long time at Freshley. If only it snows, father thinks it may soon, you +and I can make a snow man!" + +And Oliver, after a moment's pause, answered, "Yes, so we can, Alice. +I'm going to stay at home some time now, I hope." + +And again, on hearing those words, Laura felt that new, unreasoning +thrill of joy which she had felt when she had seen Oliver standing in +the middle of his mother's stable-yard. Till that moment, and now +again, just now, she had not known how much she had missed her friend. + +At last, when it was really time for him to go, Laura and Alice both +accompanied their guest to the hall. Then he turned abruptly to Laura: +"How about to-morrow? May I come to-morrow morning?" + +And over Laura there came just a little tremour of misgiving. Surely +Oliver was going to be--reasonable? + +"Yes," she said hesitatingly, "I shall be very glad to see you--though +of course I'm rather busy in the morning. To-morrow Mademoiselle is not +coming. Perhaps I'd better telephone early and tell you our plans for +the day. Godfrey will be so glad to see you, Oliver. He asked only the +other day when Mrs. Tropenell expected you back." + +But to that remark Oliver made no answer. + +After the heavy front door had shut behind her visitor, and when Alice +had already run out of the hall, Laura opened the front door again. + +She called out: "Perhaps you'll meet Godfrey. He may be here any moment +now; if he's been at the Bank, he will walk out from Pewsbury." + +But Oliver did not turn round. He was evidently already out of hearing. + +Feeling strangely restless, Laura walked out a little way, closing the +door partly behind her. There was about a quarter of a mile of carriage +road from the house to the gate, but the night was very clear, the +ground hard and dry. Soon her eyes became accustomed to the darkness; +she could see Oliver's tall figure rapidly growing less and less, dimmer +and dimmer. Every moment she expected to see another, still more +familiar, form emerge from out of the darkness. But, after pacing up and +down for perhaps as long as ten minutes, she went back into the house. +Godfrey was evidently coming home by the last train. + +Moved by an indefinable feeling of peace as well as of contentment, +Laura sat up long that night, waiting for her husband. She had made up +her mind to tell him, not only that Oliver had come back, but also that +her brother was on his way to Mexico. Half ashamedly she asked herself +why they should not all three go back to the happy conditions which had +lasted all the summer? + +But there came neither Godfrey nor news of him, and Laura spent the +evening of a day of which the date was to become memorable, not +unhappily in reading. + +When it came to half-past eleven, she knew that her husband would not be +home that night, but, even so, she sat up till the tall lacquered clock +in the hall struck out the chimes of midnight. Then, a little +reluctantly, she went upstairs, telling herself that if in the morning +there was still no news of Godfrey, she and Alice would stroll along to +Rosedean. Katty might know something of Godfrey's movements, for when +she had been last at The Chase an illusion had been made to a bit of +business he was to do for her in London, which would necessitate some +correspondence. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +There are certain winter days when bed and bath seem to be the only two +tolerable places in the world. + +Katty Winslow, on waking up the next morning, that is, on Saturday, the +seventh of January, knew at once, though she was snuggled down deep in +her warm bed, that it was very much colder than it had been the evening +before. She shivered a little, telling herself that perhaps she was not +in as good condition as usual, for she had only just come back from +spending Christmas and the New Year away. + +The faithful Harber drew back the curtains, letting in gleams of red +winter sun. And then she brought her mistress a nice cup of hot tea, and +a pretty, wadded, pale-blue bed wrap. + +Katty sat up. "I'm not in any hurry to-day," she said. "I'll ring when I +want breakfast." And after having taken her tea she lay down again, and +began to think. + +Oddly, or perhaps naturally, enough, her thoughts turned to Godfrey +Pavely. She wondered vaguely where he was, and if he would be home +to-day. + +There had been a kind of half arrangement between them that they would +travel down from London together on the Thursday afternoon. That would +have meant for Katty the benefit of The Chase motor--a pleasant as well +as an economical plan--and its owner's company as far as Rosedean. + +But Katty had not found Godfrey Pavely at the London station, though she +had lingered about up to the very last moment before taking, +regretfully, a third-class ticket. On arriving at Pewsbury she had also +waited some minutes in the vague hope that Godfrey might have dashed up +just as the train was leaving--not that he was apt to dash at any time, +for he was always very careful of himself, and had a due regard for his +personal dignity. But there was no sign of the familiar figure, and so +Katty had had to take a fly--a slow, smelly, expensive fly--out to +Rosedean. + +Yesterday, Friday, had been a rather tiresome, dull day, spent in +hearing from Harber all the disagreeable things which had happened while +she had been away--how Harber's stupid, untrained girl-help had gone and +broken a rather nice piece of china in the drawing-room, and also how it +had come to pass that there were two slates off the roof. + +Katty had rather expected Godfrey would come in, if only to apologise +for having failed her during the journey. But the afternoon had gone +slowly by, and at last she felt sure, knowing his ways, that he had not +yet come home. Something must have delayed him--something, perhaps, +connected with that pleasant Portuguese gambling concession which was to +bring them both such a lot of money. But if that were so, she would +almost certainly receive from him this morning one of his rather long, +explanatory letters. Of late Godfrey had fallen into the way of writing +to Katty almost every day when they were apart. + +Though Mrs. Winslow meant to keep the fact strictly to herself--for it +was one that might have somewhat surprised even the unsuspicious +Laura--she and Godfrey had actually spent a long day together during +their dual absence from home. + +It had fallen out as such pleasant meetings sometimes do fall out, very +naturally and innocently, just a week ago to-day. + +Katty, on her way from the south to stay with her friends, the Haworths, +had run up against Godfrey Pavely at King's Cross. That had been a +really extraordinary coincidence, and one of which it would have been +foolish not to take advantage. For it turned out that he also was going +to Yorkshire, and on the business in which they were both interested, to +spend a night with the ex-money-lender, Greville Howard. That gentleman, +it seemed, was making certain difficulties about the matter--he wanted +to stay his hand till he had seen the French bankers who were concerned +with the affair. As he spent each spring in the south of France, that +would not be such a difficulty as it seemed. Still, it was a bore, and +the other had felt he had better go and see him. + +After a pleasant journey together, as they were steaming into York +station Godfrey suddenly asked: "Must you go on to your friends at once? +Couldn't you telephone to them to meet you by a later train? I'm in no +hurry." And, smilingly, she had consented. + +Of late Katty's heart had become very soft to her old friend. For one +thing he was being so good to her in the matter of money. That two +hundred pounds he had given to her some weeks ago had been followed by +two fifty-pound notes. And yet, though she knew poor Godfrey was quite +unaware of it, her original purpose--the purpose which had so distressed +him, and which, as she well knew, had induced in him such extraordinary +and unusual generosity--had not faltered at all. Katty still meant to +cut the cable, and start a new life elsewhere. + +Rosedean was all very well; her close friendship with Godfrey Pavely was +all very well; though of late she had been disagreeably aware that +Godfrey was ashamed--ashamed of giving her that money, ashamed of his +increasing fondness for her, ashamed also of--well, of other little +things which sometimes happened, things which Katty thought quite +unimportant, which she regarded as part of the payment due from her to +Godfrey. But she realised more rather than less, as time went on, that +if she wanted to make anything of her life there must come a change. She +would wait a while, wait perhaps till next autumn--so she had told those +kind friends of hers, the Haworths. + +Katty was sometimes surprised to find how sorry she was that things had +not fallen out otherwise. But she had always tried, in all the great +things of life, to look the truth squarely in the face. Only once had +she been caught doing anything else--and that, as we know, had been +years and years ago. She was not likely to make that sort of mistake +now. She had come to see, with a rather painful clearness, that Godfrey +and Laura, however ill they got on together, were not the sort of people +to lend themselves to any kind of juggling with the law to obtain their +liberty. + +But she had been disappointed in Oliver Tropenell. She had felt in him +accumulated forces of that explosive energy which leads to determined +action--also she had thought that Gillie would do something. + +But the two had disappeared together almost immediately after her talk +with Laura's brother. That was over ten weeks ago now, and neither had +given any sign of life since. + +But Katty intended to keep up with Godfrey. For one thing she was keenly +interested in that business in which they were, in a sense, both +engaged. Also one never can tell what life--and death--may not bring +forth. Whatever happened, the link between herself and Godfrey was too +strong ever to be broken. Even if she married again, which she supposed +she would do some time or other, there seemed no reason, to her, at any +rate, why she should not keep up with Godfrey. He was her trustee now, +as well as her oldest friend. + +So it was that she had very willingly assented to do him the trifling +favour of spending some further hours in his company. + +As they wandered about the old city, and lingered awhile in the great +Minster, neither of them said a word that the whole world might not have +overheard. They visited some of the curiosity shops for which York is +famed, and Katty's companion, with that new generosity which sat on him +so strangely, bought a beautiful, and very costly, old cut-glass pendant +for Rosedean. + +They did not meet a soul that either of them knew, excepting, yes, +stop----After they had said goodbye (Godfrey, with a rather shocked +look on his face, for Katty, imprudent, foolish Katty, had woman-like +seemed to expect that he would kiss her in a corner of an empty +waiting-room where at any moment they might have been surprised by some +acquaintance of one or the other of them!)--after, as arranged, they had +said good-bye, and Katty was engaged in taking her ticket for the branch +line station for which she was bound, a curious thing happened. + +She suddenly heard a voice, a man's voice, which sounded pleasantly +familiar. + +Who could it be? The association evoked was wholly agreeable, but Katty +could not place, in the chambers of her memory, the owner of the rather +peculiar accents which were engaged in asking when the next train back +to London would start. + +She had turned round quickly, only to see a small queue of people behind +her, among them surely the owner of that peculiar voice. But no, she did +not know any one there--though among them a man attracted her attention, +for the simple reason that he was staring at her very hard. He was +obviously a foreigner, for his skin was olive-tinted, and he had a +small, black, pointed beard. He stared at Katty with an air of rather +insolent admiration. And then he broke away from the queue, and walked +quickly off, out of the booking-office. + +Katty always enjoyed admiration, whatever its source, and yet a queer +kind of shiver had gone through her when this impertinent stranger's +glance rested full on her face. She had had the odious sensation that +the man saw something to be jeered at, as well as admired, in her neat +and attractive self. + + * * * * * + +At last, reluctantly, Katty got up and went into her well-warmed +comfortable bathroom. It was nice to be home again, at no one's orders +but her own. After she had dressed, she rang, and very soon came her +breakfast, daintily served by the devoted Harber, also the one daily +paper she felt she could afford to take. + +Katty was one of the many women to whom the daily picture-paper supplied +a long-felt, if unconscious, want. It gave her just the amount of news, +and the kind of news, that her busy mind, absorbed in other things, +could assimilate comfortably. She was no reader, though sometimes she +would manage to gallop through some book that all the world was talking +about. But newspapers had always bored her. Still, she had become very +fond of the paper she now held in her hand. It only cost a halfpenny a +day, and Katty liked small, sensible economies. + +That liking of hers was one of the links which bound her to Godfrey +Pavely, but unlike Godfrey, Katty did not care for money for money's +sake. She only liked money for what money could buy. And sometimes, when +she was in a cheerful, mischievous mood, she would tell herself, with a +smile, that if ever her Castle in Spain turned out to have been built on +a solid foundation--if ever, that is, she became Godfrey Pavely's wife, +she would know how to spend the money he had garnered so carefully. She +felt pretty sure, deep in her heart, that should such an unlikely thing +come to pass, she would know how to "manage" Godfrey, and that, if +surprised, he would not really mind what she did. She always got good +value out of everything she acquired, and that would remain true if, +instead of spending pence, she was ever able to spend pounds. + +A little before eleven, just as Katty was beginning to think it was time +for her to finish dressing, she heard the gate of her domain open, and +the voice of little Alice Pavely rise up through the still, frosty air, +mingling with the deeper, gentler tones of Laura. + +It was an odd thing, considering that the two women were at any rate in +theory intimate friends, that Laura very, very seldom came to Rosedean. +In fact Katty could not remember a single time when Laura had come in +the morning, an uninvited, unexpected guest. So suddenly poor Katty felt +a little chill of apprehension; she got up from her chair, and +waited.... + +The front door was opened at once. Then came Harber's hurrying footfalls +on the staircase--and, simultaneously, the garden door at the back of +the house swung to. Laura had evidently sent her little girl out of +doors, into the garden. What could she be coming to say? + +Quickly Katty examined her conscience. No, there was nothing that Laura +could possibly have found out. As to that half day spent with Godfrey in +York, Laura was surely the last woman to mind--and if she did mind, she +was quite the last woman to say anything about it! + +There came a knock at the door: then Harber's voice, "Mrs. Pavely wants +to know, ma'am, if she can come up and speak to you, just for a minute." + +"Ask Mrs. Pavely to come up," said Katty, pleasantly. + +A minute later, Laura walked forward into the room. It was the first +time she had been in Katty's bedroom since Rosedean had been first +furnished. + +She looked round her with a smile. "Why, Katty," she exclaimed, "how +charming and pretty you've made it all! You've added quite a number of +things since I was here last." + +"Only the curtains," said Katty quickly (oh, how relieved she felt!), +"only the curtains, and perhaps that arm-chair, Laura." + +"Yes, I suppose that _is_ all, but somehow it looks more." + +Laura looked exactly as she always looked, rather paler perhaps than +usual, but then Laura was pale. She had that peculiar clear, warm +whiteness of skin that is compared by its admirers to a camellia; this +morning, her lovely, deep blue eyes looked tired, as if she had been +sleeping badly. + +"I've really come to ask if you know where Godfrey is? We expected him +home on Thursday. Then he sent a telephone message saying that he +couldn't be back till yesterday. No time was mentioned, but as he had a +lot of appointments at the Bank we of course thought he would be back +early. I myself sat up for him last night till after the last train, but +now, this morning, I've heard nothing from him--and Mr. Privet has heard +nothing." + +"What an odd thing!" exclaimed Katty. She really did think it very odd, +for Godfrey was the most precise of men. + +She waited a moment, then said truthfully, "No, I haven't the slightest +idea where he is. He wrote me a line late last week about a little +investment of mine. I've got the letter somewhere." + +Katty was trying to make up her mind as to whether she should say +anything concerning that joint journey to York. At last she decided not +to do so. It had nothing to do with Godfrey's absence now. + +"Doesn't Mr. Privet know where he is?" she asked. "That really _is_ very +odd, Laura." + +"Of course Mr. Privet knows where Godfrey was up to Thursday morning. He +stayed where he always does stay when in London, at the Hungerford +Hotel, in Trafalgar Square. He's always stayed there--they know him, and +make him very comfortable. But Mr. Privet telephoned through there +yesterday--as a matter of fact I've only just heard this--and they told +him that Godfrey had left the hotel on Thursday morning. But the +extraordinary thing is," and now Laura really did look somewhat +troubled--"that they were expecting him back there to pack, to leave for +here--at least so the manager understood him to say. He went out in the +morning, and then he didn't come back, as they thought he would do, to +luncheon. All his things are still at the Hungerford Hotel." + +Katty began to feel a little uneasy. "Perhaps he's had an accident," she +said. "After all, accidents _do_ happen. Have you done anything, Laura?" + +Laura shook her head. "What seems to make the theory of an accident +unlikely is that telephone message. You see, he telephoned quite late on +Thursday saying that he would stay in town over the night. But he didn't +send a similar message to the Bank, as any one knowing Godfrey would +certainly have expected him to do, and he didn't let them know at the +Hungerford Hotel that he would be away for the night. It's all rather +mysterious." + +"Yes, it is," said Katty. + +"I wonder--" Laura grew a little pink--"I wonder," she said again, "if +you know on what business Godfrey went up to town? Mr. Privet would +rather like to know that." + +And then Katty grew a little pink, too. She hesitated. "No, I don't know +what business took him away. You forget that I myself have been away for +quite a long time--I only came back on Thursday afternoon." + +"Why, of course!" exclaimed Laura. "I forgot that. You've been away +nearly a fortnight, haven't you?" + +"Yes. First I went right down to the south, and then up to Yorkshire." + +Somehow she felt impelled to say this. + +But Katty's visits were of no interest to Laura at any time, least of +all just now. "Well, I thought I'd come and just ask you on the chance," +she said. + +She got up, and for a moment or two the two young women stood together +not far from the bow window of Katty's bedroom. + +Suddenly Katty exclaimed, "Why, there's Oliver Tropenell! What an +extraordinary thing! I thought he was abroad." + +"He came back yesterday morning," said Laura quietly. + +Katty gave her visitor a quick, searching look. But there was never +anything to see in Laura's face. + +"Hadn't I better call out to him? He's evidently on his way to The +Chase. Hadn't I better say you're here?" + +And, as Laura seemed to hesitate, she threw open the window. "Mr. +Tropenell?" she called out, in her clear, ringing voice. + +The man who was striding past Rosedean, walking very quickly, stopped +rather unwillingly. Then he looked up, and when he saw who it was that +was standing by Mrs. Winslow, he turned in through the gate, and rang +the door-bell. + +"Will you go down to him, Laura? I can't come as I am." + +"I'll wait while you put on your dress. We can tell him to go out into +the garden with Alice." + +She bent over the broad, low bar of the window, and Oliver, gazing up at +her, thought of Rossetti's lines: Heaven to him was where Laura was. + +"Will you go through the house into the garden? Alice is there. We'll be +down soon." + +Katty lingered a little, though she only had to put on her blouse, her +skirt, and a sports coat. "I feel quite anxious about Godfrey," she said +hesitatingly. + +And Laura, in an absent voice, said, "Yes, so do I. But of course by +this time he may be at the Bank. He's quite fond of that very early +morning train. He often took it last summer." + +"Yes, but now he would have had to get up in the dark to take it." + +"I don't think Godfrey would mind that." + +At last the two went downstairs, and out into the garden where Oliver +Tropenell and the child were talking together. + +Oliver turned round, and after shaking hands with Mrs. Winslow, he asked +Laura an abrupt question. "Did Godfrey come back last evening after +all?" + +Katty looked at him inquisitively. Then he had been at The Chase +yesterday? + +Laura shook her head. "No, I sat up for him till midnight. I thought it +almost certain that he'd taken the last train. But we've had no news of +him at all. Perhaps he's at the Bank by now--I'll ring up as soon as I +get home. Come, Alice, my dear." + +Katty heard Oliver Tropenell say in a low voice: "May I walk with you?" + +And then Katty cut in: "You'll let me know, Laura, won't you, if you +have any special news? Of course I don't want you to let me know if +Godfrey's safe at the Bank--I'm not so anxious as all that!" She +laughed, her rather affected, little ringing laugh. "But if there's any +other news--especially if he's had an accident of any sort--well, I +_should_ like to know." + +"Of course I'll send you word." And then Laura roused herself. "Why +shouldn't you come up to lunch, Katty? I wish you would! And then I +could tell you anything I've heard this morning." + +"Thanks, I'd like to do that. I'll follow you in about an hour. I've +things to do, and letters to write, now." + +She saw the three off, and once more, as had so often been the case in +the past, her heart was filled with envy--envy, and a certain +excitement. + +Oliver Tropenell's return home just now was a complication. She felt +sure it would upset Godfrey, but she could not quite tell how much. She +wondered if Gilbert Baynton had come back too. She rather hoped that he +had. + +She wrote her letters, and then, so timing her departure as to arrive +exactly at one o'clock, for at The Chase luncheon was at one, she went +off, meeting, as she expected to do, Oliver Tropenell on his way home to +Freshley. + +"Any news?" she called out. And he shook his head. "No--no news at all." +Then he added slowly: "But I don't see that there's any cause for alarm. +Pavely telephoned the day before yesterday saying he was being detained +in town." + +"Still, it's odd he didn't write to Laura," said Katty meditatively. "As +a rule he writes to Laura every day when he is in London." + +She knew that was one of those half-truths which are more misleading +than a lie. Godfrey was fond of sending home postcards containing +directions as to this or that connected with the house or garden. But +Katty saw the instinctive frown which came over Oliver Tropenell's face, +and she felt pleased. She enjoyed giving this odd, sensitive, secretive +man tiny pin-pricks. She had never really liked him, and now she +positively disliked him. Why had he gone away just when things were +looking promising? And, having gone away for so long, why had he now +come back? + +"How is Mr. Baynton?" she asked, smiling. + +"He's gone back to Mexico." + +And now Katty was really surprised. "Has he indeed?" she exclaimed. "And +without seeing Laura again? I'm rather sorry for _that_!" And as Oliver +made no answer, she went on a trifle maliciously: "I suppose you will be +going off soon, too?" + +He hesitated, a very long time it seemed to her, before he answered, +"Yes, I suppose I shall. But things go on all right over there as long +as one of us is there." + +Then, with a not over civil abruptness, he left her. + +Katty stayed most of that cold wintry Saturday afternoon with Laura, and +as was her way when she chose to do so, she made herself very pleasant +to both the mother and child, and that though little Alice did not like +her. + +A little before four she asked Laura if she might telephone herself to +the Bank, and Laura eagerly assented. + +Explaining that she was really speaking for Mrs. Pavely, Katty had quite +a long chat with Mr. Privet. She and the old head clerk had always been +good friends, though they met seldom. He could remember her as a +beautiful child, and then as the popular, because the always good +humoured and pleasant-spoken, belle of Pewsbury. + +"Yes, I feel very anxious indeed, Mrs. Winslow! I've been wondering +whether it wouldn't be a good thing to communicate with the London +police, if we don't have any news of Mr. Pavely to-morrow. Could you +ascertain for me the exact feelings of Mrs. Pavely?" + +"I agree with you, Mr. Privet, for after all, accidents _do_ happen! +Hold the line a moment. I'll go and inquire." + +She hurried off to Laura's boudoir. "Mr. Privet suggests that the London +police should be communicated with--if we don't have news of Godfrey by +to-morrow morning." + +Laura looked up, startled. "Oh, Katty, don't you think that would make +him very angry--if he's all right, I mean?" + +"Perhaps it would," Katty agreed uncomfortably. + +She went back to the telephone. "Mrs. Pavely thinks we'd better wait a +little longer before saying anything to the police," she called out. + +And thus it was through Laura, as Katty reminded herself in days to +come, that two more precious days were lost. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +"Well, my dear--any more news?" But even as Mrs. Tropenell, looking up +from her breakfast-table, asked the question, she knew what the answer +would be. + +It was the following Monday morning. The post had just come in, and at +once, knowing that the postman called first at The Chase, Oliver had +hurried off to the telephone. He had been there a long time--perhaps as +long as ten minutes--and when he came back into the dining-room his +mother was struck afresh by the look of almost intolerable strain and +anxiety in his face and eyes. + +They had spent a great part of Sunday with Laura, and during that long, +trying day Mrs. Tropenell had felt very much more concerned about her +son than she did about Godfrey Pavely. + +Godfrey, so she told herself, with a touch of unreason not usual with +her, would almost certainly turn up all right--even if, as she was +inclined to believe possible, he had met with some kind of accident. But +Oliver, her beloved, the only human being in the world that really +mattered to her--what was wrong with him? Long after she had gone to bed +each evening she had heard him, during the last three nights, wandering +restlessly about the house. + +After the first almost painful rush of joy which had come over her when +he had suddenly walked into her presence last Thursday night, she had +regretted, with unceasing bitter regret, his return home. It was so +horribly apparent to her, his mother, that Laura, _belle dame sans +merci_, held him in thrall. + +"If you don't mind, mother, I think I shall go up to town to-day and see +the Scotland Yard people. I think--don't you?--it would-be a comfort to +Laura." There was a harassed, questioning note in his voice which +surprised Mrs. Tropenell. As a rule Oliver always knew exactly what he +meant to do. + +She answered slowly, reluctantly (she hated so much his being mixed up +in this odd, mysterious matter of Godfrey's temporary disappearance!): +"Perhaps it would be. Still, I think Laura ought to communicate with +Godfrey's cousins. Of course I know he didn't care for them. Still, +after all, those people are his only near relations." + +"That old Mr. Privet, Pavely's confidential clerk, is going up to town +to-day," observed Oliver inconsequently. "I thought he and I might +travel together, and that while he goes to the hotel, I can go to +Scotland Yard." + +And then Mrs. Tropenell roused herself to try and give what help she +could. + +"Lord St. Amant knows the new Commissioner of Police very well," she +said. "They met in India. Ask him to give you a note of introduction, +Oliver. He's in town just now, you would certainly find him, either at +his rooms or at his club." + +There came a faint flush over her face. By her plate there lay Lord St. +Amant's daily letter. On Mondays London letters always arrived by the +second post, but yesterday her old friend had had a late-fee stamp put +on his letter, so that she might get it the first thing this morning. +He had suggested that Sir Angus Kinross--that was the name of the new +Commissioner--should be approached. He had even offered--and it was good +of him, for he hated taking trouble and he had always disliked Godfrey +Pavely--to go to Scotland Yard himself. + +Oliver was still standing, though his breakfast was only half eaten, and +he was looking at his mother with that rather impatient, strained look +on his face to which she had by now become accustomed. "That's a good +idea," he said. And she felt glad that any idea proposed by her should +seem to be good. Yesterday her son, who was always so kindly, so +respectful in his manner to her, had--yes, snubbed her--when she had +proposed something which it had seemed to her would be of use. + +"I think I'll go over to The Chase now, mother. It's impossible to say +all that one wants to say over the telephone." + +She said nervously, "Won't you finish your breakfast?" and to her +surprise he obeyed her. To her surprise also, when at last he did get up +he seemed in no great hurry to go. + +"Shall I come with you, my darling?" she said. + +He shook his head. "No, mother. I'd rather discuss the matter with her +alone, but I'll make her come over as early as I can. You know she said +she would bring Alice to lunch to-day." And then, looking straight down +into her troubled face, he asked: "Mother? What do _you_ think has +happened to Godfrey Pavely?" + +It was the first time he had asked her the direct question. + +"I don't know what to think! But I suppose the most probable thing +is--that he's had an accident. After all, people do meet with bad +accidents, especially in wintry, foggy weather, in the London streets. +If so, he may be lying unconscious in one of the big hospitals. I can't +think why the London police shouldn't have been told of his +disappearance on Friday--that, as I told Laura yesterday, is the first +thing I should have done myself." + +"Both Mrs. Winslow and Laura seemed to think he would dislike that so +very much," said Oliver slowly. + +There was a defensive note in his voice, for he had made no effort to +back up his mother when she had strongly counselled Laura to communicate +with Scotland Yard. + +"Has it ever occurred to you," he said suddenly, "that Pavely may be +dead, mother?" + +"No, Oliver. That I confess has not occurred to me. In fact, I regard it +as extremely unlikely." + +"Why that?" he asked in a hard voice. "People are often killed in street +accidents." Then, after a minute's pause: "Do you think Laura would mind +much?" + +"I think it would give her a great shock!" She added, hesitatingly. +"They have been getting on rather better than usual--at least so it has +seemed to me." + +"Have they indeed?" + +His words cut like a whip, and she got up and went and stood by him. "My +son," she said very solemnly. "Oh, my darling, don't allow yourself to +wish--to hope--for Godfrey Pavely's death!" + +Looking straight into her face, he exclaimed, "I can't help it, mother! +I do hope, I do wish, for Godfrey Pavely's death--with all the strength, +with all the power that is in me. Why should I be hypocritical--with +you? Am I the first man that has committed murder," he waited a +moment--"in his heart?" + +"If that be really so--then don't let it ever be suspected, Oliver! For +God's sake, try and look differently from what you have looked the last +few days! If your wish is to be granted, your hope satisfied, then don't +let any one suspect that the hope or the wish was ever there!" + +She spoke with an intensity of feeling and passion equal to his own. + +"You're right, mother," he said in a low voice. "I know you're right! +And I promise you that I'll try and follow your advice. No man ever had +a wiser and a better mother than I!" + +He turned round quickly and left the room. + +Mrs. Tropenell did not see her son again till late that night, and then +not alone, for Laura spent the evening at Freshley, and after he had +taken their guest home to The Chase, he did not come in again for hours. + +Old Mr. Privet, Godfrey Pavely's confidential clerk, had been rather +taken aback when he had learnt over the telephone, from Mrs. Pavely, +that he was to have Mr. Oliver Tropenell as his travelling companion to +London. But very soon, being a truly religious man, he came to see how +well and wisely everything had been ordered. To begin with, Mr. +Tropenell called for him at the Bank, thus saving him a very cold, +easterly-wind kind of walk to Pewsbury station, which was some way from +the town. And once there, Mr. Tropenell had taken two first-class +return tickets--that again being the action of a true gentleman, for he, +Mr. Privet, would have been quite content to go by himself third-class. +Also, as it turned out, during the long journey to London they had some +very pleasant and instructive conversation together. + +Quite at first, in answer to a query as to what he thought of this +extraordinary business of Mr. Pavely's disappearance, Mr. Oliver +Tropenell had been perhaps a little short. He had replied that no one +could possibly venture an opinion as to what had happened. But then had +followed between them, in spite of the fact that the noise of the train +was very trying, a most agreeable chat over old times--over those days +when Mr. Godfrey Pavely's father, a fine type of the old country-town +banker, was still alive. + +Mr. Privet, as a younger man, had had a good deal to do with the final +sale and purchase of The Chase, and Mr. Tropenell, as was very natural +in one whose own ancestors had lived there for hundreds of years, had +shown the greatest interest in that old story. Mr. Tropenell had not +been in the least over-curious or indiscreet, but Mr. Privet had been +led on to talk of his companion's grandfather, a gentleman who, if +rather wild, and certainly extravagant and headstrong, had been such a +grand sportsman--quite a hero among the young men of Pewsbury! What had +brought about the poor gentleman's undoing had been his taking over the +hounds, when Lord St. Amant's great-uncle had given them up. + +So pleasant had been that conversation in the first-class carriage +shared by them, that for the first time since Thursday Mr. Privet had +almost forgotten the business on which they two were going to London! +But he had soon remembered it again--for at the station Mr. Oliver +Tropenell had suggested that, instead of going to the Hungerford Hotel, +he, Mr. Privet, should accompany him to Lord St. Amant's club, in order +to get a letter of introduction from that nobleman to the Commissioner +of Police. + +Not long ago Mr. Privet had read an interesting book called _In London +Club Land_. But he had little thought, when he was reading that book, +that he would ever see the famous old political club to which a whole +chapter had been devoted, and to which so many of his own special +political heroes had belonged in their time! + +And then, after Lord St. Amant, who also had treated Mr. Privet with +rather exceptional civility, not to say courtesy, had written the +letter, Mr. Tropenell suggested that they should go straight on to +Scotland Yard--pointing out, what was true enough, that Mr. Privet knew +far more of Mr. Godfrey Pavely's business and habits than any one else. + +And so, together, they had driven off in a taxi--also a new, agreeable +experience to Mr. Privet--to the famous Bastille-like building on the +Thames Embankment. + +But when there, the interview with the pleasant-spoken, genial gentleman +who wielded such immense powers had been disappointing. + +Sir Angus Kinross had listened very carefully to all that he, Mr. +Privet, had had to say, and he had asked a number of acute, clever +questions of both his visitors. But very soon he had observed that he +feared much valuable time had been lost. + +Later on, Mr. Privet, when he thought the interview over, could almost +hear the voice of Sir Angus repeating slowly, inexorably: "Thursday? And +it's now Monday afternoon! What a misfortune it is that Mrs.--ah, +yes--Mrs. Pavely, did not communicate with us at once. If she had +telephoned, here, when she first began to realise that there was +something strange in her husband's prolonged absence, she would almost +certainly have had some sort of news by now." + +And then he, Mr. Privet, had answered quickly, "But we didn't begin to +feel anxious till the Friday, sir." + +"I quite understand that! But if you, Mr.--ah yes--Mr. Privet--had +written then, we could have begun our inquiries on the Saturday morning. +Did it not occur to you to let the London police know of Mr. Pavely's +non-appearance?" + +For a moment Mr. Privet had felt vaguely uncomfortable, for his +questioner had given him such a very odd, keen look, as he asked that +simple question. But he had answered, honestly enough, for after all +'Tho' truth may be blamed, it can never be shamed': "Mr. Pavely, sir, +did not like to be interfered with when he was away on business, and we +thought it would annoy him if we were to make too great a fuss. Once, +many years ago now--Mr. Pavely went over to Paris for some days, and +omitted to leave his address at the Bank. I couldn't help remembering +last week that Mr. Pavely, on that former occasion, had seemed somewhat +put out with me for expressing what I thought at the time a very natural +anxiety, sir." + +They hadn't been very long at Scotland Yard, a little under half an hour +in all, and during the last ten minutes a shorthand writer had made some +notes of the conversation, which, indeed, had been almost entirely +carried on between him, Mr. Privet, and the Commissioner of Police. Mr. +Oliver Tropenell, as was bound to be the case, had had very little to +say, seeing that he was there merely as Mrs. Pavely's representative, +she having her only brother in Mexico. + +After leaving Scotland Yard they had gone on to the Hungerford Hotel, +and there a lot of information had been afforded them. But it hadn't +amounted to very much--when all was said and done! They already knew +that all trace of Mr. Pavely had disappeared after eleven o'clock on the +Thursday morning. His room was even now exactly as he had left it; neat, +for he was always a most particular gentleman, but with nothing put +away. In fact the only news of him after that morning had been that +telephone message to The Chase--a message given by some one, the butler +by now wasn't even sure if it was a man or a woman, who was evidently in +a great hurry. + +One thing the manager of the hotel had done which had rather surprised +and shocked both Mr. Privet and his companion. He had consulted a +detective about the affair, and, at Mr. Tropenell's request, the +detective was sent for. + +Mr. Privet had thought this secret inquiry agent (as he called himself) +a queer kind of chap--in fact he had seemed much more anxious to +ascertain if a reward was going to be offered, than to offer any useful +advice as to this perplexing matter of Mr. Pavely's disappearance. + +He had, however, seemed to think that the Thursday evening telephone +call was very important, and he had asked permission to come down to The +Chase to cross-examine the servant who had taken the message. But +that--so Mr. Tropenell had very properly said--was impossible, now that +the matter had been placed in the hands of Scotland Yard. In answer to +Mr. Privet's natural curiosity as to why the detective thought that +telephone call so important, the man had answered, rather crossly: "You +see, there's no record kept of telephone calls! There's a record kept of +telegrams, so one can always recover the original of a telegram." + +Mr. Tropenell had been quite surprised on hearing this. + +"I should have thought telephone calls quite as important as telegrams?" +he had exclaimed. + +"So they are, with regard to _my_ kind of work," the man had replied. +"But even with regard to trunk-calls you've only got to go into a Post +Office and plank down your money and wait till you're through! Still, +the young woman at your country Exchange would probably have remembered +the call if she had been asked sooner. But it's all such a long time +ago." + +A long time ago? What nonsense! He, Mr. Privet, felt quite put out with +this detective, and he began to see why Mr. Tropenell thought the man +ought not to have been brought into the business at all. It was +certainly rather cool of the hotel manager to have gone and brought +such a person into the affair, without asking Mr. Pavely's friends if he +was at liberty to do so. + +They had managed to catch the six o'clock express back to Pewsbury, and +then Mr. Tropenell very kindly insisted on driving Mr. Privet home. Mr. +and Mrs. Privet owned a pretty, old-fashioned house on the other side of +the town. When Mr. Privet had married--a matter of forty years ago +now--he had made up his mind that it would do him good to be obliged to +take a good walk to and from the Bank every day. + +On their arrival at the house--which, funnily enough, was called +Southbank--Mr. Tropenell, at the request of Mr. Privet, had come in for +a few minutes to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Privet. He had said how +much he liked their house, how much prettier it was, how much more +dignified--that had been his curious word--than the red brick villas +which had sprung up all over the outskirts of their beautiful old town. +And Mr. Privet had been secretly rather pleased, for lately "Mother"--as +he called Mrs. Privet--had become somewhat restless, being impressed by +certain improvements those gimcrack villas possessed, which their house +lacked, and that though he had put in a nice bathroom a matter of twenty +years ago. + +Yes, of the several people who, that day, had been engaged in trying to +probe the mystery of Godfrey Pavely's disappearance, the only one who +found a great deal of natural pleasure and simple enjoyment out of it +all was Mr. Privet; and he, alone of them all, really cared for the +missing man, and, perhaps, alone of them all, had a genuine longing to +see him again. + +Mr. Privet thought it was particularly kind of Mr. Oliver Tropenell to +be taking all this trouble for poor Mrs. Pavely; though of course he, +Mr. Privet, was well aware that Mrs. Pavely's brother was partner to Mr. +Tropenell in Mexico. He knew the sad truth--the sad truth, that is, as +to the disgraceful circumstances under which Gilbert Baynton had had to +leave England. No one else in the Bank had known--at least he and Mr. +Pavely hoped not. It had been very, very fortunate that the forged +signature had been on one of their own cheques. But for that fact, +nothing could have saved that good-for-nothing scoundrel--so Mr. Privet +always called Gillie Baynton in his own mind--from a prosecution. + +Do any of us ever think, reader, of the way in which our most secret +business is known, nay, must be known, to a certain number of people of +whose existence we ourselves are scarcely aware? + +Laura, when she came and talked, as she sometimes did talk, kindly, if a +little indifferently, to her husband's confidential clerk, would have +been disagreeably surprised had she been able to see into Mr. Privet's +heart and mind. As for Godfrey Pavely, nothing would have made him +credit, high as was his opinion of Mr. Privet's business acumen, the +fact that his clerk had a very shrewd suspicion where those three +hundred pounds in notes, lately drawn out by his employer for his own +personal use, had made their way.... + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +It was the morning of the 15th of January, and already Godfrey Pavely's +disappearance had excited more than the proverbial nine days' wonder. + +Laura had gone to her boudoir after breakfast, and she was waiting +there, sitting at her writing-table, feeling wretchedly anxious and +excited, for all last night she had had a curious, insistent +presentiment that at last something was going to happen. She had sent +Alice off to her lessons, for there was no object in allowing the child +to idle as she had idled during that first bewildering week. + +At last she got up, pushed her chair aside, and went and lay down on a +sofa. She felt very, very tired; worn out partly by suspense and +anxiety, partly by the many interviews with strangers she had been +compelled to have during the last ten days. + +Oliver Tropenell was again in London, and since he had left Freshley, +for the second time, it was as though a strong, protecting arm on which +she leant had suddenly been withdrawn from her. And yet she knew that he +was engaged upon her business, upon this extraordinary, unutterably +strange business of her husband's disappearance. + +Oliver wrote to her daily--brief, coldly-worded notes describing what +had been, and was being, done both by the police and by the big firm of +private detectives who were now also engaged in a search for the missing +man. But there was very little to report--so far every one was +completely baffled. + +Against the wish and advice of both Oliver Tropenell and the Scotland +Yard authorities, Laura had offered a reward of a thousand pounds for +any information which would lead to the discovery of Godfrey Pavely, +alive or dead. It had been Katty's suggestion, and Laura, somehow, had +not liked to disregard it. + +But now, to-day, Laura, as she moved restlessly this way and that, told +herself that she was sorry she had assented to a suggestion that Katty +Winslow should come and stay with her during those long days of waiting +which were at once so dreary and so full of excitement and suspense. +Katty had got hopelessly on Laura's nerves. Katty could not keep silent, +Katty could not keep still. + +Mrs. Winslow, in a sense, had taken possession of The Chase. It was she +who saw to everything, who examined every letter, who went and answered +the telephone when the police either at Pewsbury or from London rang up. +She was apparently in a state of great excitement and of great anxiety, +and some of the critics in the servants' wing said to each other with a +knowing smile that Mrs. Winslow might have been Mrs. Pavely, so much did +that lady take Mr. Pavely's disappearance to heart! + +Katty had not seemed as worried as Laura had seemed the first two or +three days, but now she appeared even more upset. Yesterday she had +admitted to sleepless nights, and the hostess had felt greatly relieved +when her guest had at last confessed that if dear Laura would not mind +she would like to stay in bed every morning up to eleven o'clock; +nothing ever happened before then. + +The only person with whom Laura, during those long, dreary days, felt +comparatively at ease was Mrs. Tropenell, for Mrs. Tropenell seemed to +understand exactly what she, poor Laura, was feeling during those +miserable days of waiting for news that did not come. But Laura did not +see very much of the older woman--not nearly as much as she would have +liked to do just now, for Mrs. Tropenell disliked Katty, and avoided +meeting her. + + * * * * * + +The stable clock struck ten. And Laura suddenly heard the sound of firm +steps hurrying down the passage. She got off the sofa, expecting to see +the now disagreeably familiar blue uniform and flat blue cap of the +Pewsbury Police Inspector. He came up to see her almost every day, but +he had never come quite so early as this morning. + +She gathered herself together to answer with calm civility his tiresome, +futile questions. There was nothing--_nothing_--she could say that she +had not said already as to Godfrey's usual habits, and as to his +probable business interests outside Pewsbury. The Inspector had been +surprised, though he had tried to hide the fact, to find that Mrs. +Pavely knew so very little of her husband's business interests and +concerns. The last two times he had been there Katty had been present, +and she had been very useful--useful and tactful. Laura, feeling rather +ashamed of her late uncharitable thoughts concerning Katty, wished that +Katty could be present at the coming interview, but unfortunately Katty +was still in bed. + +The door opened, and she stood up expectantly. + +It was only Preston, the butler. There was a large envelope on the +salver he held in his hand. + +"It's from the Bank, ma'am. Marked 'Urgent,'" he said. + +"Is there an answer?" she asked. + +And he hesitated. "We have kept the messenger, ma'am." + +Laura knew Mr. Privet's small, neat handwriting--if he marked an +envelope "Urgent," then it was urgent. + +There were two enclosures--a note and a letter. + +She first read the note:-- + + "DEAR MRS. PAVELY, + + "I found the enclosed on my arrival at the Bank this + morning. It may be important, so I send it on at once. + + "And let me take this opportunity, dear Madam, of assuring + you of my very sincere sympathy. I, too, have known during + the last few days what it was to feel that hope deferred + maketh the heart sick. + + "Yours respectfully, + "DAVID PRIVET." + +She turned, with only languid interest, to the envelope. The address was +typewritten:-- + + MRS. G. PAVELY, + c/o MESSRS. PAVELY & CO., + BANKERS, + PEWSBURY. + +It was marked "Private," "Immediate," but that, as Laura well knew, +meant very little. A certain number of times, perhaps half a dozen +times in all, during her married life, some unfortunate, humble client +of her husband's had written to her a personal appeal. Each of these +letters had been of a painful and disagreeable nature, often couched in +pitiful, eloquent terms, and Godfrey had not allowed her to answer any +one of them save in the most formal, cold way. + +This typewritten envelope looked as if it might have come from some +distressed tradesman. So she opened the envelope reluctantly, not taking +heed, as a different type of woman would have done, to the postmark on +it. Indeed, without thinking of what she was doing, she threw the +envelope mechanically into the burning fire, and then opened out the +large sheet of thin paper. + +But, as she looked down at the lines of typewriting, she stiffened into +instant, palpitating, horrified attention, for this is what she saw +there: + + "MADAME,--It is with the deepest regret that I acquaint you + with the fact that your esteemed husband, Mr. Godfrey + Pavely, of Messrs. Pavely & Co., Bankers, of Pewsbury, + Wiltshire, is dead. + + "If you will instruct the police to go to Duke House, + Piccadilly, and proceed to Room 18 on the top floor--the + only office which is at present let--they will find there + Mr. Pavely's body. + + "I am connected with important business interests in + Portugal, and for some time I have been in business + relations with Mr. Pavely. This fact you will easily confirm + by searching among his papers. I am also, of course, well + known at Duke House, for I have had an office there for a + considerable number of weeks. + + "The tragedy--for a tragedy it is from my point of view as + well as from that of Mr. Pavely's unfortunate family--fell + out in this wise. + + "Mr. Pavely came to see me (by appointment) on the Thursday + before last. There was a pistol lying on my desk. I + foolishly took it up and began playing with it. I was + standing just behind Mr. Pavely when suddenly the trigger + went off, and to my intense horror the unfortunate man + received the charge. I thought--I hoped--that he was only + wounded, but all too soon I saw that he was undoubtedly + dead--dead by my hand. + + "I at first intended, and perhaps I should have been wise in + carrying out my first intention, to call in the police--but + very urgent business was requiring my presence in Lisbon. + Also I remembered that I had no one who could, in England, + vouch for my respectability, though you will be further able + to judge of the truth of my story by going to the Mayfair + Hotel, where I have sometimes stayed, and by making + inquiries of the agent from whom I took the office in Duke + House. + + "My relations with Mr. Pavely were slight, but entirely + friendly, even cordial, and what has happened is a very + terrible misfortune for me. + + "I came to England in order to raise a loan for a big and + important business enterprise. Some French banking friends + introduced me to Mr. Pavely, and I soon entered on good + relations with him. Our business was on the point of + completion, and in a sense mutually agreeable to us, when + what I may style our fatal interview took place. + + "Yours with respectful sympathy, + "FERNANDO APRA." + +Laura sat down on the sofa. For the first time in her life she felt +faint and giddy, and during the few moments that followed the reading of +the extraordinary letter she still held in her hand, it was, oddly +enough, her peculiar physical state which most absorbed her astonished +and anguished mind. + +Then her brain gradually cleared. Godfrey--dead? The thought was +horrible--horrible! It made her feel like a murderess. She remembered, +with a sensation of terrible self-rebuke and shame, the feeling of +almost hatred she had so often allowed herself to feel for her husband. + +And then, before she had had time to gather her mind together +sufficiently to face the immediate problem as to how she was to deal +with this sinister letter, the door again opened, and Katty Winslow came +into the room. + +Katty looked ill as well as worried. There were dark circles round her +eyes. + +"Laura! Whatever is the matter? Have you heard anything? Have you news +of Godfrey?" + +"I have just had this. Oh, Katty, prepare for bad news!" + +But Katty hardly heard the words. She snatched the tough, thin sheet of +paper out of Laura's hand, and going across to the window she began +reading, her back turned to Laura and the room. + +For what seemed a long time she said nothing. Then, at last, she moved +slowly round. "Well," she said stonily, "what are you going to do about +it? If I were you, Laura, I shouldn't let that stupid Pewsbury inspector +see this letter. I should go straight up to London with it." She glanced +at the clock. "We've time to take the 11.20 train--if you hurry!" + +She felt as if she would like to shake Laura--Laura, standing helplessly +there, looking at her, mute anguish--yes, real anguish, in her deep, +luminous blue eyes. + +"If I were you," repeated Katty in a hoarse, urgent tone, "I should go +straight with this letter to Scotland Yard. It's much too serious to +fiddle about with here! We want to know at once whether what this man +says is true or false--and that's the only way you can find out." + +"Then you wouldn't tell anybody here?" asked Laura uncertainly. + +"No. If I were you I shouldn't tell any one but the London police. It +may be a stupid, cruel hoax." + +Deep in her heart Katty had at once believed the awful, incredible story +contained in the letter she still held in her hand, for she, of course, +was familiar with the name of Fernando Apra, and knew that the man's +account of himself was substantially true. + +But even so, she hoped against hope that it was, as she had just said, a +stupid, cruel hoax--the work perchance of some spiteful clerk of this +Portuguese company promoter, with whose schemes both she and Godfrey had +been so taken--so, so fascinated. + +"Of course I'll go to town with you," she said rapidly. "Let's go up +_now_, and dress at once. I'll order the car." + +There was a kind of driving power in Katty. Her face was now very pale, +as if all the pretty colour was drained out of it. But she was quite +calm, quite collected. She seemed to feel none of the bewildered +oppression which Laura felt, but that, so the other reminded herself, +was natural. Katty, after all, was not Godfrey's wife, or--or was it +widow? + +The two went upstairs, and Katty came in and helped Laura to dress. "It +will only make a fuss and delay if you ring for your maid." She even +found, and insisted on Laura putting on, a big warm fur coat which she +had not yet had out this winter. + +"You'd better just tell the servants here that you think there may be a +clue. It's no good making too great a mystery. They can send on some +message of the sort to the Bank; also, if you like, to Mrs. Tropenell." + +A few moments later Laura found herself in the car, and the two were +being driven quickly to Pewsbury station. + +"Shall I wire to Oliver Tropenell that we are coming?" asked Katty +suddenly. + +And Laura answered, dully, "No. He's in York to-day. They've found out +that Godfrey went to York during that week we know he was in London. I +only heard of that this morning, or I would have told you." + +Laura will never forget that journey to London, that long, strange, +unreal journey, so filled with a sort of terror, as well as pain. +Somehow she could not bring herself to believe that Godfrey was dead. + +When they were about half-way there, Katty suddenly exclaimed, "Let me +look at that letter again!" And then, when Laura had taken it out of +her bag, she asked, "Where's the envelope? The envelope's very +important, you know!" + +Laura looked at her helplessly. "I don't know. I can't remember. I've a +sort of an idea that I threw the envelope into the fire." + +"Oh, Laura! What a very, very foolish thing to do! Don't you see there +must have been a postmark on the envelope? Can't you remember anything +about it? What was the handwriting like?" + +Again she felt she would like to shake Laura. + +"The address was typewritten--I do remember that. I thought--I don't +know what I thought--I can't remember now what I did think. It looked +like a circular, or a bill. But it was marked 'Urgent and +Confidential'--or something to that effect." + +On their arrival in London a piece of good fortune befell Laura Pavely. +Lord St. Amant had been in the same train, and when he saw her on the +platform he at once put himself at her disposal. "Scotland Yard? I'll +take you there myself. But Sir Angus Kinross would be out just now. It's +no good going there till half-past two--at the earliest. I hope you'll +both honour me by coming to luncheon in my rooms." + +Reached by an arch set between two houses in St. James's Street, and +unknown to the majority of the people who daily come and go through that +historic thoroughfare, is a tiny square--perhaps the smallest open space +in London--formed by eight to ten eighteenth-century houses. But for the +lowness of the houses, this curious little spot might be a bit of old +Paris, a backwater of the Temple quarter, beyond the Louvre and the +Hotel de Ville, which only those tourists who have a passion either for +Madame de Sevigne or for the young Victor Hugo ever penetrate. + +It was there that Lord St. Amant, some forty years back, when he was +still quite a young man, had found a set of four panelled rooms exactly +to his liking. And through the many vicissitudes which had befallen the +funny little square, he had always contrived to preserve these rooms, +though at last, in order to do so, he had had to become the leaseholder +of the house of which they formed a part. But he kept the fact of this +ownership to himself and to his lawyers, and it was through the latter +that the other rooms--the ground floor and the top floor--were let to +various quiet, humble folk. His lawyers also, had found for him the +intelligent couple who acted as his caretakers, and who managed to make +him extremely comfortable during the comparatively short periods he +spent in London each year. + +Although his club was within a minute's walk, Lord St. Amant, very soon +after his first occupancy of these rooms, had so arranged matters that, +when he chose to order it, a cold luncheon or dinner could be sent in at +a quarter of an hour's notice. And to-day the arrangement, of which he +very rarely availed himself, stood him in good stead. + + * * * * * + +There are a certain number of people who go through life instinctively +taking every chance of advancement or of useful friendship offered to +them. Such a person was Katty Winslow. + +Even in the midst of her real sorrow and distress, she did not lose +sight of the fact that Lord St. Amant, with whom her acquaintance up to +the present had been so slight as to be negligible, might prove a very +useful friend in what now looked like her immediately dreary future. She +was well aware that he was probably, nay, almost certainly, prejudiced +against her, for she and Mrs. Tropenell had never been on cordial terms; +but she set herself, even now, with this terrible thing which she +feared, nay, felt almost sure, was true, filling up the whole background +of her mind, to destroy that prejudice. To a certain extent she +succeeded, during the few minutes, the precious ten minutes, she secured +practically alone with her host, in compassing her wish. + +Laura sat down, in the attractive, if rather dark, sitting-room into +which Lord St. Amant had shown her, and, blind to everything about her, +she was now staring into the fire, oppressed, stunned, by the terrible +thing which perchance lay before her. + +Lining the panelled walls, which were painted a deep yellow tint, hung a +series of curious old colour-prints of London, and, on the +writing-table--itself, as Katty's quick eyes had at once realised, a +singularly fine piece of eighteenth-century English lacquer--were two +portraits. The one was a miniature of a lady in the stiff yet becoming +costume of early Victorian days--probably Lord St. Amant's mother; and +the other was a spirited sketch of a girl in an old-fashioned riding +habit--certainly Mrs. Tropenell forty years ago. + +Katty had remained standing, and soon she wandered over to the open door +of the room where, with noiseless celerity, the table was being laid for +luncheon. It was from there that she almost imperceptibly beckoned to +her host. With some prejudice and a good deal of curiosity, he followed +her, and together they went over to the deep embrasured window +overlooking the tiny square. + +There, looking up earnestly into Lord St. Amant's shrewd, kindly face, +she said in a low voice: "I want to ask you, Lord St. Amant, to do me a +kindness--" she waited a moment, "a true kindness! I want you to arrange +that I go to this place, to Duke House, with whoever goes there to find +out if the news contained in that horrible letter is true!" + +And as he looked extremely surprised, she hurried on, with a little +catch in her voice, "Godfrey Pavely was my dear--my very dear, friend. +When we were quite young people, when I was living with my father in +Pewsbury----" + +"I remember your father," said Lord St. Amant, in a softened, kindly +tone, and his mind suddenly evoked the personality of the broken-down, +not very reputable gentleman to whom the surrounding gentry had taken +pains to be kind. + +"In those days," went on Katty rather breathlessly, "Godfrey and I fell +in love and became engaged. But his people were furious, and as a +result--well, he was made to go to Paris for a year, and the whole thing +came to an end. Later, after I had divorced my husband, when I was +living at Rosedean, it--it----" + +She stopped, and tears--the first tears she had shed this terrible +morning--came into her eyes. + +"I quite understand--you mean that it all began again?" + +Lord St. Amant, hardened man of the world though he was, felt moved, +really moved by those hurried, whispered confidences, and by the bright +tears which were now welling up in his guest's brown eyes. + +Katty nodded. "He was unhappy with Laura--Laura had never cared for him, +and lately she, Laura----" Again she broke off what she was saying, and +reddened deeply. + +"Yes?" said Lord St. Amant interrogatively. He felt suddenly on his +guard. Was Mrs. Winslow going to bring in Oliver Tropenell? But her next +words at once relieved and excessively surprised him. + +"You know all about the Beath affair?" + +And it was his turn to nod gravely. + +"Well, there was something of the same kind thought of--between Godfrey +and myself. If--if Laura could have been brought to consent, then I +think I may say, Lord St. Amant, that Godfrey hoped, that I hoped----" + +Once more she broke off short, only to begin again a moment later: "But +I want you to understand--please, _please_ believe me--that neither he +nor I was treacherous to Laura. You can't be treacherous to a person who +doesn't care, can you? I've only told you all this to show you that I +have a right to want to know whether Godfrey is alive or--or dead." + +And then Lord St. Amant asked a question that rather startled Katty--and +put her, in her turn, on her guard. He glanced down at the letter, that +extraordinary typewritten letter, which Laura had handed to him. + +"Have you any reason to suppose that Godfrey Pavely was really +associated in business with this mysterious man?" he asked. + +Looking down into her upturned face he saw a queer little quiver wave +across her mouth, that most revealing feature of the face. But she +eluded the question. "I did not know much of Godfrey's business +interests. He was always very secret about such things." + +"She certainly knows there is such a man as Fernando Apra!" he said to +himself, but aloud he observed kindly: "I presume Mr. Pavely wrote to +you during the early days of his stay in London?" + +Katty hesitated. "Yes," she said at last, "I did have a letter from him. +But it was only about some business he was doing for me. I was not at +Rosedean, Lord St. Amant. I was away on a visit--on two visits." + +And then Katty flushed--flushed very deeply. + +He quickly withdrew his gaze from her now downcast face, and--came to a +quite wrong conclusion. "I see," he said lightly, "you were away +yourself, and probably moving about?" + +"Yes--yes, I was," she eagerly agreed. + +She was feeling a little more comfortable now. Katty knew the great +value of truth, though she sometimes, nay generally, behaved as if truth +were of no value at all. + +In a sense Lord St. Amant had known Katty from her childhood--known her, +that is, in the way in which the great magnate of a country +neighbourhood, if a friendly, human kind of individual, knows every man, +woman and child within a certain radius of his home. He was of course +well aware of Mrs. Tropenell's prejudice against Katty, and, without +exactly sharing it, he did not look at her with the kindly, indulgent +eyes with which most members of his sex regarded the pretty, +unfortunate, innocent _divorcee_, to whom Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Pavely +had been so truly kind. + +But now, as the upshot of Katty's murmured confidences, her present host +certainly acquired a new interest in, and a new sympathy for, Mrs. +Winslow. Of course she had not deceived him as completely as she +believed herself to have done, for he felt certain that she knew more of +Godfrey Pavely's movements, during the early days of his stay in London +a fortnight ago, than she admitted. He was also quite convinced that +they had met secretly during their joint absence from home. + +But Lord St. Amant would have felt a hypocrite indeed had he on that +account thought any the worse of Katty Winslow. He told himself that +after all the poor little woman did not owe him _all_ the truth! If +Godfrey Pavely had indeed come to his death in this extraordinary, +accidental way, then Katty, whatever Mrs. Tropenell might feel, was much +to be pitied; nice women, even so broad-minded a woman as was his own, +close friend, are apt to be hard on a woman who is not perhaps +quite--nice! + +It was therefore with a good deal of curiosity that he watched his two +guests while they ate the luncheon prepared for them. + +Laura practically took nothing at all. She tried to swallow a little of +the delicious, perfectly cooked cold chicken and mousse-au-jambon, but +in the end she only managed to drink the whole of the large glass of +water her host poured out for her. Katty, on the other hand, made a good +meal, and took her full share of a half-bottle of champagne. As a result +she looked, when luncheon was over, more like her usual, pretty, alert +self than she had looked yet. Laura grew paler and paler, and at last +Lord St. Amant, with kindly authority, insisted on her taking a cup of +coffee, and a tiny liqueur glassful of brandy poured into it French +fashion. + +"I'm afraid," he said feelingly, "that you have a very painful ordeal in +front of you, my dear. You won't make it any better by going without +food." + +But she gazed at him as if she had not understood the purport of his +words. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Sir Angus Kinross, Chief Commissioner of Police, stood gazing down, with +a look of frowning perplexity, at the sheet of typewritten paper he held +in his hand. + +For what seemed a very long time to the other three people now present +in the big light room overlooking the Embankment, he remained silent. +But at last he exclaimed, "I think it very probable that this is a +hoax--a stupid, cruel hoax!" And, as no one spoke, he added slowly, +"Whether it be so or not can soon be ascertained." + +He saw a look of almost convulsive relief flash over Laura Pavely's +face. It was Laura who attracted Sir Angus in the little group of people +which now stood before him. He knew that it was this beautiful, +tragic-looking young woman who had insisted, against his strongly +expressed wish and judgment, on offering the reward which had already +brought a swarm of semi-lunatics and adventurers into the case. As for +the other woman there, he only looked upon her as a friend of Mrs. +Pavely. + +Ladies in the painful position of Mrs. Pavely generally bring a sister, +or a close female friend, with them to Scotland Yard. + +Sir Angus was keenly interested in this business of the country banker's +disappearance, more interested than he had been in any other matter of +the kind for a long time. He had all the threads of the affair very +clearly set out in his shrewd, powerful mind, and only that morning he +had learnt something which he believed none of the three people now +standing before him--Mrs. Pavely, Mrs. Winslow, and Lord St. +Amant--knew, or were likely ever to know, except, of course, if certain +eventualities made the fact important. + +Sir Angus had just learnt that Godfrey Pavely had spent some hours of a +day he had passed at York in the company of a woman, and both he and the +very able man he had put in charge of the case, had made up their minds +that here, at last, was the real clue to the banker's disappearance. +Godfrey Pavely, so they argued at "The Yard," was certainly alive, and +either on the Continent, or hidden snugly in some English or Scottish +country town--not alone. + +As so often happens, the fact that Mr. Pavely had been in York with a +lady had come to light in a very simple way. When the fact of the +well-known country banker's disappearance had been announced in the +Press, the manager of the Yorkshire branch of a London bank had written +to Scotland Yard, and stated that on a certain afternoon about a +fortnight ago--he could not remember the exact day, unfortunately--he +had seen Mr. Godfrey Pavely, of Pewsbury, in the company of a lady whom +he, the bank manager, had naturally supposed to be Mrs. Pavely. He had +looked at the banker with a good deal of interest, owing to the fact +that he and Mr. Pavely had for a while worked in the same bank in Paris +about fifteen years ago. + +He had not met the couple face to face, he had seen them pass by from +the window of his private room at the bank. He could swear to Mr. +Pavely, but he had not paid any special attention to the lady--for one +thing, she had had her veil down, and he, feeling sure that she was Mrs. +Pavely, had not troubled to observe her very particularly. + +Sir Angus had sent some one down to York to see this gentleman, but +nothing of further value had been elicited, excepting, yes, that the +lady had struck him as being young and attractive. + +So it was that the extraordinary typewritten letter received by Mrs. +Pavely that morning very much upset the calculations and the theories of +Sir Angus and of his staff. + +With frowning brow he sat down at his table and touched the electric +bell which lay concealed close to his hand. + +"Ask Mr. Dowden to come to me," and a minute later Mr. Dowden came in. + +"I want to know anything you can tell me about Duke House, if indeed +there is such a place as Duke House in Piccadilly. I can't remember the +name." + +But at once the other answered: "It's that big new building they've +erected on the site of St. Andrews House. It fell in to the Crown on the +death of the Duke of St. Andrews, and an American syndicate bought the +site. Duke House, as they call it, was only opened last October. The +lower storeys are big bachelor flats, and the top half of the building +contains offices. Mr. Biddle, the American millionaire, has taken the +first floor, but he hasn't settled in yet, and I don't think any of the +offices have been let at all. They are asking very big rents, and they +are justified, as it's one of the finest sites in the West End." + +"I want you to get through to the porter of Duke House. Find out for me +whether they have got an office let to a man--a Portuguese merchant I +take him to be, of the name of Fernando Apra." He spelt out the name. +"If you have any difficulty in getting the information, just go up there +yourself in a taxi, and find out. But I'd like you to go back into your +own rooms and try by telephone first." + +There followed a long, painful ten minutes, during which Sir Angus, +though as a rule he was a man of few words, tried to while away the time +by explaining to the three people who were there why he thought it +unlikely that the letter was genuine. + +"You'd be amazed," he said, "to know the number of letters we receive +purporting to contain important information which turn out to be false +in every particular. There must be a whole breed of individuals who +spend their time in writing annoying, futile letters, which, even if +signed, are very seldom signed by the writer's real name. Some of those +people are actuated by vulgar, stupid spite; others are hypnotised by +the thought of a reward. And then, again, such letters are often written +by people who have a grudge against the police, or, even more often, by +some one who has a grudge against some ordinary person who has, maybe, +done them a bad turn, or to whom they have done a bad turn! In the last +few days we've had innumerable letters, from all over the kingdom, +concerning Mr. Pavely's disappearance. It is just possible that this +man"--he looked down again at the sheet of typewritten paper--"has an +office in Duke House, but I think it very unlikely that Mr. Godfrey +Pavely was even acquainted with him----" + +The door opened. + +"Yes, sir, the party in question has got an office there right enough, +but he hasn't been at Duke House for some time--some three weeks, the +porter said. He took the office late in October, and for a time he was +there, on and off, a good deal. The porter don't quite know what his +business is, but as far as he knows he gives him a good character. His +office is right at the very top of the house, the only one let on that +floor." + +An unpleasant little trickle of doubt came over Sir Angus's mind. When +he had first read the typewritten letter, he had doubted very much if +there was such a building in existence as Duke House, Piccadilly. Then, +after he had heard that the place was there, after, as a matter of fact, +it had been recalled to his memory by his subordinate, he had fallen +back on the belief that there would be no person of the name of Fernando +Apra to be found in Duke House. + +He now fell back on a third position. Doubtless this extraordinary +letter had been written by some enemy of the man Apra who wished to +cause him the unpleasantness of a visit from the police. + +After a few moments' thought Sir Angus Kinross proposed something which +none of the three people there knew to be a most surprising departure +from his usual rule. + +"What would you say, Lord St. Amant, if you and I were to go up there +now, to Duke House--accompanied, of course, by two of my men? That, at +any rate, would put an end to Mrs. Pavely's suspense. If she doesn't +mind doing so, Mrs. Pavely and her friend can wait here, in my private +room." + +To Lord St. Amant the proposal seemed a most natural one. "I think +that's a very good idea!" he exclaimed, and then he saw Katty's eyes +fixed imploringly on his face. + +Why, of course----! + +He beckoned to Sir Angus, and the two men walked over to the big window +overlooking the Embankment. "If it would not be greatly out of order," +he muttered, "I think it might be a good thing if Mrs. Winslow--that is +Mrs. Pavely's friend--were to go with us to Duke House. She might be +useful--she has known Mr. Godfrey Pavely all her life." + +Sir Angus looked very much surprised. "Of course she could come," he +said hesitatingly. "Mrs. Winslow? I didn't realise that this lady is +Mrs. Winslow. Didn't I see a letter written to her by Mr. Godfrey +Pavely? She has some odd Christian name--if it's the person I have in my +mind." + +"Her Christian name is Katty," said Lord St. Amant quickly. + +"Yes, that was it--'My dear Katty.' I remember now. It was a letter +about an investment, written on the 30th of December, if I'm not +mistaken. Certainly she can come with us. I have my car downstairs--she +could drive in my car, and wait in it while we make the investigation." + +The two came back to where the ladies were sitting, silently waiting. + +"I have suggested to Sir Angus that it might be useful if Mrs. Winslow +came with us--and you too, my dear Laura, if you desire to do so, of +course." + +But Laura shook her head, and an expression of horror came into her +face. "Oh no," she exclaimed. "I would much rather stay here!" + +Katty had already got up, and was drawing on the gloves she had taken +off. She felt strung up, fearfully excited--and very, very grateful to +Lord St. Amant. + +She was quite unaware that for the first time the Commissioner of Police +was looking at her with attention. + + * * * * * + +There were two entrances to Duke House, the one giving access to the +four spacious flats, of which so far only one had been let, while the +other simply consisted of a porter's lodge and a lift shooting straight +up to the offices which were above the flats. + +And now, within ten minutes of their leaving Scotland Yard, they were +all standing just within the second door, filling up the small space in +front of the lift, for Mrs. Winslow at the last moment had begged to be +allowed to get out of the car. "I don't feel as if I _could_ sit +there--waiting," she had exclaimed, and after a moment's hesitation Sir +Angus allowed the plea. + +Lord St. Amant noticed with interest that the Police Commissioner took +no part in the preliminary proceedings. He left everything to the elder +of the two men he had brought with him. Still, he lent a very attentive +ear to what his subordinate was saying to the porter, and to the +porter's answers. + +"I expect that it was you who answered the telephone message I sent half +an hour ago, eh?" + +"Yes, of course I did--you mean about Mr. Apra here? Well, I told you +then everything there is to say about him. He's a foreigner, of +course--but a very pleasant-mannered gentleman. He took an office on the +second day we was open. For a while he was here a good bit most days, +and quite a number of people came to see him on business. Then he went +abroad, I fancy I heard him say, and his office was shut up. He wouldn't +let any one go in, not even to clean it, unless he was there. He +explained as how his business was very secret--something to do with a +Concession. He was nervous lest other folk should get hold of the idea." + +"When was he here last?" + +"Well, it's difficult for me to remember such a thing as that--I can't +be sure that I could say he was here within the last fortnight, or +perhaps ten days ago. Two or three people have called to see him. One +gentleman came by appointment--I do remember that, because he'd been +several times, and mostly this Mr. Apra was in to see him. But I don't +see what call you have to ask me all these questions?" + +The Scotland Yard man bent forward and said something in a low voice, +and the porter exclaimed, with an air of astonishment, "What? You don't +mean to say the gentleman's 'wanted'?" + +Then the detective said something else in a joking way, and the porter +shook his head. "I haven't got a key! He had another lock put on. Lots +of business gentlemen do that." And then he asked anxiously, "D'you see +any objection to my telephoning to Messrs. Drew & Co.--they're the +agents, you know? 'Twould make me more comfortable in my own mind, +because then I shouldn't get blamed--whatever happened. They'd send +some one along in about five minutes--they've got a West End office." + +The Scotland Yard official looked round for instructions from Sir Angus, +and the latter imperceptibly nodded. + +"All right--we'll wait five minutes. I've brought some tools along." + +"Tools?" The porter stared at him. + +"Sometimes, you know, we do find it necessary to burst open a door!" + +The five minutes--it was barely more--seemed the longest time Katty had +ever spent in waiting. + +Lord St. Amant took pity on her obvious unease and anxiety. He walked +out with her to the street, and they paced quickly up and down in the +cold, wintry air. + +"Do you think we shall find anything?" she murmured at last. + +He answered gravely, "I confess that the whole thing looks very queer to +me. I haven't lived to my time of life without becoming aware that +amazing, astounding things _do_ happen. Perhaps I am over-influenced by +the fact that years and years ago, when I was a boy, a school-fellow of +mine, of whom I was very fond, did shoot himself accidentally with a +pistol. He was staying with us, and he had gone on in front of me into +the gun-room--and I--I went in and found him lying on the ground--dead." + +"How horrible!" murmured Katty. "How very horrible!" and her face +blanched. + +As they turned yet once more, a taxi drove quickly up to the door of +Duke Mansion, and a young, clean-shaven man jumped out. + +Instinctively he addressed himself to Sir Angus Kinross: "About this +tenant of ours--Mr. Fernando Apra? To the best of my belief he is a +perfectly respectable man. He gave a very good reference, that of a big +Paris banker, and with us, at any rate, he was quite frank about his +business. He has obtained a gambling concession from this new Portuguese +Government, and he came to London to try and raise money for the +building of a Casino, and so on. He's an optimistic chap, and his notion +is to create a kind of Portuguese Monte Carlo. He told us quite frankly +that he didn't intend to keep the office going here for more than six +months, or possibly a year, and we arranged that he should be able to +surrender his three years' lease--we don't let these rooms under a three +years' agreement--on the payment of a rather substantial fine. I think +the porter is sure to have a key which will admit you into his room--I +understand you want to get into his office?" + +And then, at last, Sir Angus answered, rather drily, "The porter cannot +admit us to the office, for this Mr. Fernando Apra has had a second lock +fitted. It seems he never allowed any one access to the room--unless he +happened to be there himself." + +"Well, he had plans there--plans of this Concession, and he was very +secretive, as are so many foreigners. Still, he impressed both me and my +father more favourably than do most foreigners we come across. As a +matter of fact, we twice lunched with him at the Berkeley. He is a man +with a tremendous flow of good spirits--speaking English very well, +though of course with a foreign accent. Has he got into any trouble?" he +looked curiously at the gentleman standing before him. He was not aware +of Sir Angus Kinross's identity, but he knew that he was from Scotland +Yard. + +"We shall know more about that when we have forced open the door of his +office. I presume you would like to be present?" + +And the young man nodded. A grave, uneasy expression came over his face; +he wondered if he had said too much of his pleasant client, and that +client's private affairs." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +They went up the lift in two parties: Sir Angus Kinross, the house +agent, and the two men from Scotland Yard; then Lord St. Amant and Katty +Winslow alone. + +As they were going up, he said kindly, "Are you sure you are wise in +doing this? I fear--I fear the worst, Mrs. Winslow!" + +With dry lips she muttered, "Yes, so do I. But I would rather come all +the same. I'll wait outside the door." + +Poor Katty! She was telling herself that it was surely +impossible--_impossible_ that Godfrey Pavely should be dead. + +Though his vitality had always been low, he had been intensely +individual. His self-importance, his egoism, his lack of interest in +anything but himself, Katty, and the little world where he played so +important a part--all that had made him a forceful personality, +especially to this woman who had possessed whatever he had had of heart +and passionate feeling. She had felt of late as if he were indeed part +of the warp and woof of her life, and deep in her scheming mind had +grown a kind of superstitious belief that sooner or later their lives +would become one. + +The thought that he might be lying dead in this great new building +filled her with a sort of sick horror. There seemed something at once so +futile and so hideously cruel about so stupid an accident as that +described in the Portuguese financier's letter. + +They stepped out on to a top landing, from which branched off several +narrow corridors. The agent led the way down one of these. "Room No. 18? +This must be it--this _is_ it! Look, there are the two keyholes!" + +The younger and the brawnier of the two plainclothes detectives came +forward. "If you'll just stand aside, gentlemen, for a minute or two, +we'll soon get this door open. It's quite an easy matter." + +He opened his unobtrusive-looking, comparatively small bag. There was a +sound of wrenching wood and metal, and then the door swung backwards +into the room together with a thick green velvet curtain fixed along the +top of the door on a hinged rod. + +A flood of wintry sunshine, thrown by the blinking now setting sun of a +London January afternoon, streamed into the dark passage, and Sir Angus +Kinross strode forward into the room, Lord St. Amant immediately behind +him. + +Katty shrank back and then placed herself by the wall of the passage. +She put her hand over her eyes, as if to shut out a dreadful sight, yet +all there was to see was an open door through which came a shaft of +pallid wintry afternoon light. + +For a space of perhaps thirty seconds, Sir Angus's trained eyes and mind +took in what he supposed to be every detail of the oblong room +overlooking the now bare tree tops of the Green Park. He noted that the +office furniture was extremely good--first-rate of its kind. Also that +the most prominent thing in the room was an American roll-top desk of an +exceptionally large size. + +Placed at right angles right across the office, this desk concealed +nearly half the room. + +In the corner behind the door was a coat stand, on which there hung a +heavy, fur-lined coat, and a silk hat. On the floor was a thick carpet. +The only unbroken space of wall was covered by a huge diagram map of +what looked like a piece of sea shore. + +One peculiar fact also attracted the attention of the Commissioner of +Police. Both the windows overlooking the Park were wide open, fixed +securely back as far as they would go: and on the window seats, +comfortably, nay luxuriously, padded, and upholstered in green velvet, +there now lay a thick layer of grime, the effect of the fog and rain of +the last fortnight. As they stood within the door, in spite of those +widely opened windows, there gradually stole on the senses of the four +men there, a very curious odour, an odour which struck each of them as +horribly significant. + +Yet another thing Sir Angus noted in that quick, initial glance; this +was that the blind of the narrow window which gave on to the street side +of Duke House was drawn down, casting one half of the room in deep +shadow. + +He turned, and addressing Lord St. Amant in a very low voice, almost in +a whisper, he said: "I think we shall find what we have come to seek +over there, behind that desk." + +Walking forward, he edged round by the side of the big piece of walnut +wood furniture. + +Then he started back, and exclaimed under his breath, "Good God! How +horrible!" + +He had thought to see a body lying at full length on the carpet, but +what he did see, sitting upright at the desk, was a stark, immobile +figure, of which the head, partly blown away, was sunk forward on the +breast.... + +Great care had been taken to wedge the dead man securely back in the +arm-chair, and a cursory glance, in the dim light in which that part of +the room was cast, would have given an impression of sleep, not of +death. + +He beckoned to Lord St. Amant. "Come over here," he whispered, "you +needn't go any nearer. Do you recognise that as being the body of +Godfrey Pavely?" + +And Lord St. Amant, hastening forward, stared with a mixture of +curiosity and horror at the still figure, and answered, "Yes. I--I think +there's no doubt about it's being Pavely." + +"Perhaps you'd better go and tell Mrs. Winslow. Get her away as quick as +you can. I must telephone at once for one of our doctors." + +Lord St. Amant turned without a word, and made his way through the still +open door into the queer, rather dark passage. + +Katty's face was still full of the strain and anguish of suspense, but +she knew the truth by now. Had nothing been found, some one would have +come rushing out at once to tell her so. Three or four minutes had +elapsed since she had heard the sudden hush, the ominous silence, which +had fallen over them all, in there. + +Her lips formed the words: "Then--they've found him?" + +And Lord St. Amant nodded gravely. "It looks as if that Portuguese chap +had told the simple truth." + +"The moment that I read the letter this morning I _knew_ that it was +true," she muttered. Then, "I suppose I'd better go away now? They don't +want me here." + +She began walking towards the lift, and Lord St. Amant, following, felt +very sorry for her. "Look here," he said earnestly, "I'm sure you don't +wish to go straight back to poor Laura Pavely? Why should you? 'Twould +only rack you. I suppose----" He stopped a moment, and she looked up at +him questioningly. + +"Yes, Lord St. Amant--what is it you suppose?" + +Katty spoke in a cold, hard voice--all her small affectations had fallen +away from her. + +"I suppose," he said, "that Laura knew very little of your friendship +with poor Godfrey Pavely?" + +And she answered, again in that hard, cold voice, "Yes, Laura did know, +I think, almost everything there was to know. She didn't care--she +didn't mind. Laura has no feeling." + +As he made no reply to that, she went on, rather breathlessly, and with +sudden passion, "You think that I'm unfair--you think that Laura really +cares because she looked so shocked and miserable this morning? But +that's just what she was--_shocked_, nothing else. What is a piece of +terrible, _terrible_ bad luck for me, is good--very good luck for +Laura!" + +There was such concentrated bitterness in her tone that Lord St. Amant +felt repelled--repelled as well as sorry. + +But all he said was: "Would you like to go back to my rooms for an hour +or two? They're quite near here." + +"No, I'd rather face Laura now, at once. After all, I shall have to see +her some time. I'm bound to be her nearest neighbour for a while, at any +rate." + + * * * * * + +Late that same night the awful news was broken to Mrs. Tropenell by her +son. He had sent a message saying he would be down by the last train, +and she had sat up for him, knowing nothing, yet aware that something +had happened that morning which had sent Laura and Katty hurrying up to +town. + +Perhaps because the news he told was so unexpected, so strange, and to +them both of such vital moment, the few minutes which followed Oliver's +return remained stamped, as if branded with white hot iron, on the +tablets of Mrs. Tropenell's memory. + +When she heard his firm, hurried footsteps outside, she ran to let him +in, and at once, as he came into the house, he said in a harsh, cold +voice: "Godfrey Pavely is dead, mother. A foreigner with whom he had +entered into business relations shot him by accident. The man wrote to +Laura a confession of what he had done. She got the letter this morning, +took it up to London to the police--the best thing she could do--and +Pavely's body was found at the place indicated, a business office." + +As Oliver spoke, in quick, jerky sentences, he was taking off his +greatcoat, and hanging up his hat. + +She waited till he had done, and then only said: "I've got a little +supper ready for you, darling. I sent the servants off to bed, so I'm +alone downstairs." + +Oliver sighed, a long, tired sigh of relief--relief that his mother had +asked no tiresome, supplementary questions. And she saw the look of +strain, and of desperate fatigue, smooth itself away, as he followed +her into their peaceful dining-room. + +She sat with him, and so far commanded her nerves as to remain silent +while he ate with a kind of hungry eagerness which astonished her. + +He turned to her at last, and for the first time smiled a rather wry +smile. "I was very hungry! This is my first meal to-day, and I seem to +have lived in the train. I was up at York--we thought there was a clue +there. I think I told you that over the telephone? Then I came back." + +She broke in gently, "To be met with this awful news, Oliver?" + +He looked at her rather strangely, and nodded. + +"Have you seen Laura?" she ventured. + +"Yes, just for a moment. But, mother? She's horribly unhappy. I--I +expected her to be glad." + +"Oliver!" + +There was a tone of horror, more, of reprobation, in Mrs. Tropenell's +low voice. + +Oliver Tropenell was staring straight before him. "Surely one would have +expected her to be glad that the suspense was over? And now I ask +myself----" and indeed he looked as if he was speaking to himself and +not to her--"if it would have been better for Laura if that--that fellow +had been left to rot there till he had been discovered, two months, +three months, perchance four months hence." + +"My dear," she said painfully, "what do you mean exactly? I don't +understand." + +"Pavely's body was found in an empty office, and if the man who shot him +hadn't written to Laura--well, of course the body would have remained +there till it had occurred to some one to force open the door of the +room, and that might not have happened for months." + +"I'm very glad that Laura was told now," said Mrs. Tropenell firmly. +"The suspense was telling on her far more than I should have expected it +to do. Katty, too, became a very difficult element in the situation. I +don't think there's much doubt that poor Katty was very fond of +Godfrey." + +He muttered: "Mean little loves, mean little lives, mean little +souls--they were well matched!" + +Then he got up. + +"Well, mother, I must be off to bed now, as I have to get up early and +go into Pewsbury. Laura, who's staying on in town, asked me to come down +and tell those whom it concerned, the truth. She wants you to tell +Alice. I said I thought you'd have the child here for a while." + +"Certainly I will. She's been here all to-day, poor little girl." + +"Do you really think she's to be pitied, mother?" + +She hesitated, but his stern face compelled an answer. + +"I don't think that Godfrey would have got on with Alice later on--when +she grew to woman's estate. But now, yes, I do think the child's to be +deeply pitied. It will be a painful, a terrible memory--that her father +died like that." + +"I can't see it! A quiet, merciful death, mother--one that many a man +might envy." He waited a few moments, then went on: "Of course there +will be an inquest, and I fear Laura will almost certainly have to give +evidence, in order to prove the receipt of that--that peculiar letter." + +"Have you got a copy of the letter?" asked Mrs. Tropenell rather +eagerly. + +Her son shook his head. "No, the police took possession of it. But I've +seen it of course." + +They were both standing up now. He went to the door, and held it open +for her. And then, with his eyes bent on her face, he asked her a +question which perhaps was not as strange as it sounded, between those +two who were so much to one another, and who thought they understood +each other so well. + +"Mother," he said slowly, "I want to ask you a question.... How long in +England does an unloving widow mourn?" + +"A decent woman, under normal conditions, mourns at least a year," she +answered, and a little colour came into her face. Then, out of her great +love for him, she forced herself to add, "But that does not bar out a +measure of friendship, Oliver. Give Laura time to become accustomed to +the new conditions of her life." + +"How long, mother?" + +"Give her till next Christmas, my dear." + +"I will." + +He put his arms round her. "Mother!" he exclaimed, "I love you the +better for my loving Laura. Do you realise that?" + +"I will believe it if you tell me so, Oliver." + +He strode off, hastened up the staircase without looking round again, +and she, waiting below, covered her face with her hands. A terrible +sense of loneliness swept over and engulfed her; for the first time +there was added a pang of regret that she had not joined her life to +that of the affectionate hedonist who had been her true, devoted friend +for so long. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +And so, in this at once amazing and simple way was solved the mystery of +Godfrey Pavely's disappearance. + +Inquiries made by the police soon elicited the fact that the Portuguese +financier had told the truth as regarded his business in England, for a +considerable number of persons voluntarily came forward to confirm the +account the man had given of himself in his strange letter. + +During his sojourn at the Mayfair Hotel, the now mysterious Fernando +Apra had impressed those who came in contact with him pleasantly rather +than otherwise. It was also remembered there that one morning, about +three weeks ago, he had come in looking agitated and distressed, and +that he had confided to the manager of the hotel that an accident of a +very extraordinary nature had occurred to him. But there his confidences +had stopped--he had not said what it was that had happened to him. A day +or two later, he had gone away, explaining that his business in England +was concluded. + +Laura stayed up in town till the inquest, and so, rather to Laura's +surprise, did Katty Winslow. + +As is always the case when there is anything of the nature of a mystery, +the inquest was largely attended by the ordinary public. But no +sensational evidence was tendered, though person after person went into +the witness-box to prove that they had come in contact with Fernando +Apra, and that under a seal of secrecy he had informed them of his +gambling concession and of the scheme for developing what he believed +would be a hugely profitable undertaking. In fact, he had spoken to more +than one man of business of a possible two hundred per cent. profit. + +It also became clear, for the first time, why Mr. Pavely had gone to +York. A gentleman who bore the aristocratic name of Greville Howard, and +who was in too poor a state of health to come up to the inquest, +volunteered the information that Fernando Apra had come to see him, +Greville Howard, with an introduction from Mr. Godfrey Pavely. Further, +that he, Mr. Howard, having gone into the matter of the proposed +gambling concession, had suggested that the three should meet and have a +chat over the business. As a result, a rather odd thing had happened. +Mr. Apra did not accept the invitation, but Mr. Pavely, whom he had +known for some years, had come to see him, and they had discussed the +project. Then he, Greville Howard, had heard nothing more till he had +seen in a daily paper a casual allusion to the fact of Mr. Godfrey +Pavely's disappearance! + +But, though so much was cleared up, two rather important questions +remained unanswered. There was no proof, through any of the shipping +companies, that Fernando Apra had left England under his own name. Also, +while there were apparently several men of that same rather common name +in Lisbon, the Portuguese police seemed unable to give any clue as to +this particular man's identity. But a plausible explanation of this was +to be found in the fact that Portugal had lately changed her form of +government. + +Though the mystery was now in no sense any longer a mystery, a rather +peculiar verdict was returned. The foreman of the jury, a tiresome, +self-opinionated man, declared that he and his fellow jurymen were not +really satisfied as to how Godfrey Pavely had come by his death, and +they added a strong rider to their verdict, expressing an earnest hope +that every effort would be made to find Fernando Apra. + +The inquest lasted two days, and as Laura insisted on being present the +whole time, the ordeal for her was severe. She was, however, supported +by the companionship and presence of Mrs. Tropenell, who had come up on +purpose to be with her. + + * * * * * + +After having put Mrs. Tropenell and Laura in a carriage, Lord St. Amant +and Sir Angus Kinross walked away from the building where the inquest +had been held. For a while neither man said anything. + +Then, suddenly, Lord St. Amant exclaimed: "I don't know what _you_ think +about it, but in spite of all we have heard, I can't help having a +suspicion that that man Fernando Apra's story is a bit too thin. I take +it that he and Pavely may have had a quarrel--it's even possible that +this Portuguese fellow may have wanted to get Pavely out of this +exceedingly profitable business. But no man, least of all a man +accustomed to carrying firearms, would play about with a pistol quite +close to the back of another man's head!" + +"I've known stranger things than that happen," said Sir Angus slowly. +"But in any case this Portuguese fellow is an uncommonly clever chap. +He's clean covered up his tracks." + +He hesitated a moment--and then added "I can tell you one queer thing, +St. Amant. This man Pavely's pockets were very thoroughly gone through +by whoever shot him. One side of his coat had the lining ripped open." + +"Yet quite a good bit of money was found on him," observed Lord St. +Amant. + +"Whoever went through his pockets wasn't looking for money." Sir Angus +spoke significantly. + +He went on: "Though it was implied to-day that no papers or letters were +discovered on the body, there was, as a matter of fact, an envelope +found in an inner pocket. It was one of those inner pockets which some +men have put into the inner lining of a waistcoat, the kind of pocket +which is practically impossible to find--especially if you're in a +hurry, and don't suspect its existence." + +Lord St. Amant's curiosity was sharply aroused. He ventured a question: +"And the contents of the envelope?" + +"Well, between ourselves, the contents of the envelope astonished me +very much. The envelope, stamped with the name of Pavely's Bank, +contained two rather scurrilous anonymous letters. To me, the curious +thing consisted in the fact that Pavely had thought it worth while to +keep them. I should have destroyed them at once in his place." + +"Do they throw any light on the mystery?" + +"No, of course not, or they would have been produced in evidence to-day. +But still, one never can tell. Of course we are keeping them." He added +significantly, "They were not letters I should have cared to hand back +to Mr. Pavely's widow." + +And then the Commissioner of Police added something which very much +surprised his companion: "By the way, talking of Mr. Pavely's widow, I +do earnestly beg you to try and dissuade Mrs. Pavely from continuing +that thousand pounds reward." + +"Surely the reward has lapsed now? The only person entitled to it would +be this man, Fernando Apra himself." + +"Ah, but Mrs. Pavely--or so Mr. Tropenell tells me--is quite determined +to keep the offer of the reward open. Whereas before the discovery of +Mr. Pavely's body the reward was offered for any information leading to +his discovery dead or alive, that same sum is now to be offered to any +one who can bring us into communication with this Portuguese fellow +himself. I'm bound to say that Mr. Tropenell saw at once all the +inconvenience of such a course, and he has done his best to dissuade +Mrs. Pavely. But she's quite set on it! I fancy she's been persuaded to +go on with it by Mrs. Winslow." + +"Ah!" said Lord St. Amant. "I can't say that that surprises me. Mrs. +Winslow----" + +Then he stopped short, and the other looked quickly round at him, and +exclaimed: "I wish you'd tell me a little more than I've been able to +find out about this Mrs. Winslow. What exactly was her position in the +Pavely _menage_?" + +Lord St. Amant hesitated. He felt bound to stand up for poor Katty. So, +"Only that she and poor Godfrey Pavely were very old friends--friends +from childhood," he answered slowly. "And since the time she divorced +her husband Mrs. Winslow has lived close to The Chase--in fact, she was +their tenant." + +"Then Mrs. Winslow was Pavely's rather than Mrs. Pavely's friend?" + +"Yes--if you care to put it that way." + +"I've very little doubt--in fact I feel quite sure, St. Amant, that Mrs. +Winslow knows a great deal more about the whole affair than she has +chosen to reveal. When she and I talked the whole thing over, I brought +her to admit that she _had_ heard something of this secret business +arrangement between Pavely and Fernando Apra. But if she was speaking +the truth--and I think she was--there was a reason for her having been +told. She was herself investing a small sum in the concern." + +"The devil she was!" Lord St. Amant was very much surprised. + +"Yes, and on Pavely's advice, of course. I take it that he was on more +confidential terms with this lady than he was with his own wife?" + +The other nodded, reluctantly. "Well, you must know by this time almost +as well as I did that the Pavelys were not on very--well, happy terms, +together!" + +Sir Angus went on: "D'you remember something I told you concerning Mr. +Pavely's day at York? Even before we knew all you have heard to-day, we +felt quite convinced that he'd gone down there to see the old rascal who +calls himself Greville Howard. But some further information about that +journey to York is in our possession." + +Lord St. Amant again nodded. There came a rather uneasy look over his +face. He thought he knew the nature of the further confidence which was +about to be made to him. He had never had any doubt in his own mind +that Godfrey Pavely had not gone alone to Yorkshire. + +"We feel quite certain that Mrs. Winslow was with Pavely in York. He was +seen there, in the company of a lady, by a business acquaintance. We've +ascertained that Mrs. Winslow went, on that same day, to stay with some +rather well-known people in the neighbourhood. Mind you, I'm not for a +moment suggesting that there was anything wrong." + +"I wonder," said Lord St. Amant suddenly, "why Mrs. Winslow still +desires the reward to be offered." + +"I think I can tell you why." + +The Commissioner of Police looked straight into the other man's eyes. +"Mrs. Winslow wishes this reward to be offered because she has vague +hopes of earning it herself." + +Lord St. Amant uttered an exclamation of extreme astonishment. + +The other smiled. "Yes--queer, isn't it? But, mind you, that's by no +means an uncommon trait in the type of woman to which Mrs. Winslow +belongs. Their motives are almost always mixed. They're subtle little +devils for the most part, St. Amant. Mrs. Winslow was quite sufficiently +fond of this unfortunate man to wish to avenge his death, and she also +would be very glad suddenly to receive an addition to her fortune--which +is, I understand, very small--of even a thousand pounds." + +He added, in a graver tone: "It seems to me that the one chance we have +of influencing Mrs. Pavely is through you. And then again, the mere fact +that you are one of her trustees may make a difference. Would you not +have it in your power to _prevent_ her continuing this reward?" + +Lord St. Amant shook his head very decidedly. "No, I should not feel +justified in doing that, even if I had the power. As a matter of fact, +she has a certain amount of money at her own absolute disposal. I may +tell you that I did my best to dissuade her from offering the reward +when she first made up her mind to do so--you will remember when I +mean?" + + * * * * * + +As Lord St. Amant made his way back to his own rooms, the rooms where he +knew Mrs. Tropenell and Laura Pavely were now waiting for him, his mind +was in a whirl of surprise and conjecture. + +Katty Winslow acting the part of amateur detective? What an +extraordinary notion! Somehow it was one which would never have crossed +his mind. That, no doubt, was the real reason why she had been so +determined to attend the inquest. But she had not sat with Mrs. Pavely, +Mrs. Tropenell, and himself. She had chosen a place in a kind of little +gallery behind the jurymen, and by her side, through the whole +proceedings, had sat, with his arms folded, Oliver Tropenell. + +Tropenell, since the discovery of Godfrey Pavely's body, had kept +himself very much apart from the others. He had gone down to Pewsbury, +and had broken the sad news to Mr. Privet--this by Laura's direct +request and desire. But he had not shown even the discreet interest Lord +St. Amant would have expected him to show in the newly-made widow and +her affairs, and there was something enigmatic and reserved in his +attitude. + +One thing he had done. He had made a great effort to prevent Laura +Pavely's being put into the witness-box. He had discovered that she +shrank with a kind of agonised horror from the ordeal, and he had begged +Lord St. Amant to join him in trying to spare her. But of course their +efforts had been of no avail. Laura, in one sense, was the principal +witness. But for her receipt of the letter, the body of her husband +might not have been discovered for weeks, maybe for months. Fernando +Apra would only have had to send a further instalment of rent, with the +proviso that his room should not be entered till he returned, for the +mystery to remain a mystery for at any rate a long time. + +The funeral of Godfrey Pavely was to take place the next day in the old +Parish Church of Pewsbury, where the Pavely family had a vault. The +arrangements had all been left to Mr. Privet, and the only time Lord St. +Amant had seen Oliver Tropenell smile since the awful discovery had been +made, had been in this connection. + +"I'm very glad we thought of it," he said, "I mean that Mrs. Pavely and +myself thought of it. Poor old Privet! He was one of the very few people +in the world who was ever really attached to Godfrey Pavely. And the +fact that all the arrangements have been left to him is a great +consolation, not to say pleasure, to the poor old fellow." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +It was the day of Godfrey Pavely's funeral, and more than one present at +the great gathering observed, either to themselves or aloud to some +trusted crony or acquaintance, that the banker would certainly have been +much gratified had he seen the high esteem in which he was held by both +the gentle and simple of the surrounding neighbourhood. + +Even Lord St. Amant was a good deal impressed by the scene. Every blind +in the High Street was down--a striking mark of respect indeed towards +both the dead banker and his widow. Apart from that fact, the town +looked as if it was in the enjoyment of a public holiday, but even that +was in its way a tribute. The streets were full of people, and round the +entrance to the churchyard was a huge crowd. As for the churchyard +itself, it was overflowing, and presented a remarkable rather than a +touching scene. Only a few of the town-folk were still allowed to be +buried in the mediaeval churchyard which lay just off the High Street, so +a funeral actually taking place there was a very rare event. + +The circumstances of Mr. Pavely's death had been so strange that the +local paper had printed a verbatim report of the inquest, as well as a +very flowery account of the departed, who had been, it was explained, so +true and so loyal a townsman of Pewsbury. Yet, even so, there were those +present at his funeral who muttered that Mr. Pavely had met his death +just as might have been expected, through his love of money. It was +also whispered that the job in which this queer foreigner had been +associated with the banker had not been of the most reputable kind. This +Fernando Apra--every one knew his queer name because of the big +reward--had wanted to raise money for a kind of glorified gambling hell; +that was the long and the short of it, after all, so much the shrewder +folk of Pewsbury had already found out, reading between the lines of the +evidence offered at the inquest. + +In an official sense the chief mourners were two distant cousins of +Godfrey Pavely--men with whom he had quarrelled years ago--but in a +real, intimate sense, the principal mourners were old Mr. Privet, Lord +St. Amant, who, though he was so fond of travel, never neglected the +duties entailed by his position in the county, and last but by no means +least Mr. Oliver Tropenell, who, as every one present was well aware, +had during the last few months become the one intimate friend of the +dead man. Among the women there were several who knew that at this very +moment Mrs. Pavely was being comforted by Mr. Oliver Tropenell's mother, +a lady who stood high in public esteem, and with whom Mrs. Pavely as a +girl, had spent much of her youth, and from whose house, picturesque +Freshley Manor, she had been married to the man whom they were now +engaged in burying. + +Another person present who aroused even more interest among the good +folk of Pewsbury than either Lord St. Amant or Oliver Tropenell, was +Mrs. Winslow. + +The older townspeople looked at Katty with a good deal of rather excited +sympathy, for they remembered the gossip and talk there had been about +pretty Katty Fenton and the dead man, and of how unkind old Mrs. Pavely, +now dead many a year, had shown herself to the lovely, motherless girl. + +There were even some there who whispered that poor Godfrey Pavely had +again become very fond of his first love--and that, too, when they were +both old enough to know better! But these busybodies were not encouraged +to say the little they knew. These are things--natural human +failings--which should be forgotten at a man's funeral. + +Mrs. Winslow did not look unreasonably upset. There were no tears in her +bright brown eyes, and her black frock, sable plumed hat, and beautiful +black furs, intensified the brilliant pink and white of her complexion. +Indeed, many of the people who gazed at Katty that day thought they had +never seen her looking so attractive. The world belongs to the +living--not to the dead, and poor Godfrey Pavely, with his big, +prosperous one-man business, and his almost uncanny cleverness in the +matter of making money, belonged henceforth very decidedly to the past. +So it was that among the men and women who stared with eager curiosity +and respectful interest at the group of mourners, several noticed that +Mr. Oliver Tropenell seemed to pay special attention to Mrs. Winslow. + +Once he crossed over, and stood close to her for a minute or two by the +still open grave, and his dark handsome face showed far more trace of +emotion than did hers. + +After the funeral, Lord St. Amant dropped Mrs. Winslow at the gate of +Rosedean, and, on parting with Katty, he patted her hand kindly, telling +himself that she was certainly a very pretty woman. Lord St. Amant, +like most connoisseurs in feminine beauty, preferred seeing a pretty +woman in black. + +"You must try and forget poor Godfrey Pavely," he said feelingly. + +He was startled and moved by the intensity with which she answered +him:--"I wish I could--but I can't. I feel all the time as if he was +there, close to me, trying to tell me something! I believe that he was +murdered, Lord St. Amant." + +"I'm sure you're mistaken. You must never think that!" + +"Ah, but I do think so. I'm certain of it!" + + * * * * * + +Following the old custom, Godfrey Pavely's will was to be read after his +burial, and Laura had written to Lord St. Amant asking him if he would +be present. + +In the great dining-room of The Chase, a dining-room still lined with +the portraits of Mrs. Tropenell's ancestors, were two tables, one large +long table which was never used, and a round table in the bow-window. +To-day it was about the big table that there were gathered the five men +and the one woman who were to be present at the reading of the will. +Laura was the one woman. The men were Godfrey Pavely's lawyer, the dead +man's two cousins--who had perhaps a faint hope of legacies, a hope +destined to be disappointed, Oliver Tropenell, present as Laura Pavely's +trustee, and Lord St. Amant, who had been a trustee to her marriage +settlement. + +Laura, in her deep black, looked wan, sad and tired, but perfectly calm. +All the men there, with one exception, glanced towards her now and +again with sympathy. The exception was Oliver Tropenell. He had shut her +out, as far as was possible, from his mind, and he seemed hardly aware +of her presence. He stared straight before him, a look of rather +impatient endurance on his face--not at all, so argued Lord St. Amant to +himself, the look of a man from whose path a hitherto impassable +obstacle has just been removed. + +Though rather ashamed of letting his mind dwell on such thoughts at such +a time, Lord St. Amant told himself that Mrs. Tropenell had doubtless +been mistaken as to what she had confided to him on his return from +abroad. Mothers are apt to be jealous where only sons are concerned, and +Letty--his dear, ardent-natured friend Letty--had always been romantic. + +Lord St. Amant was confirmed in this view by the fact that that very +morning Mrs. Tropenell had told him that Oliver was going back to Mexico +almost at once. To her mind it confirmed what she believed to be true. +But her old friend and some-time lover had smiled oddly. Lord St. Amant +judged Oliver by himself--and he had always been a man of hot-foot +decisions. It was inconceivable to him that any lover could act in so +cold-blooded, careful a fashion as this. No, no--if Oliver cared for +Laura as his mother believed he cared, he would not now go off to the +other end of the world, simply to placate public opinion. + +To those who had known the man, Godfrey Pavely's will contained only one +surprise, otherwise it ran on the most conventional lines. Practically +the whole of his very considerable fortune was left, subject to Laura's +life interest--an interest which lapsed on re-marriage--in trust for his +only child. + +The surprise was the banker's substantial legacy to Mrs. Winslow. That +lady was left Rosedean, the only condition attaching to the legacy being +that, should she ever wish to sell the little property, the first offer +must be made to Alice Pavely's trustees. Also, rather to the +astonishment of some of those present, it was found that the will had +only been made some two months ago, and the lawyer who read it out was +aware that in some important particulars it had been modified and +changed. In the will made by Godfrey Pavely immediately after his +marriage he had left his wife sole legatee. After Alice was born the +banker had naturally added a codicil, but he had still left Laura in a +far greater position of responsibility in regard to the estate than in +this, his final will. + +After the will had been read, Lord St. Amant spent a few moments alone +with Laura. He felt he had a rather disagreeable task before him, and he +did not like disagreeable tasks. Still he faced this one with +characteristic courage. + +"I've been asked by Sir Angus Kinross to undertake a rather unpleasant +duty, my dear Laura--that of persuading you to withdraw the reward you +are offering for the discovery of Fernando Apra. He points out that if +Apra's story is true, it might easily mean that you would simply be +giving a present of a thousand pounds to the person who killed your +husband." + +Laura heard him out without interruption. Then she shook her head. "I +feel it is my duty to do it," she said in a low voice. "Katty, who was +Godfrey's greatest friend, says he would have wished it--and I think +she's right. It isn't going to be paid out of the estate, you know. _I_ +will pay it--if ever it is earned." + +She went on painfully. "I am very unhappy, Lord St. Amant. Godfrey and I +were not suited to one another, but still I feel that I was often +needlessly selfish and unkind." + +Lord St. Amant began to see why Oliver Tropenell was going back to +Mexico so soon. + + + + +PART THREE + +CHAPTER XXI + +Those winter and spring months which followed the tragic death of +Godfrey Pavely were full of difficult, weary, and oppressive days to his +widow Laura. Her soul had become so used to captivity, and to being +instinctively on the defensive, that she did not know how to use her +freedom--indeed, she was afraid of freedom. + +Another kind of woman would have gone away to the Continent, alone or +with her child, taking what in common parlance is described as a +thorough change. But Laura went on living quietly at The Chase, feeling +in a queer kind of way as if Godfrey still governed her life, as if she +ought to do exactly what Godfrey would wish her to do, all the more so +because in his lifetime she had not been an obedient or submissive wife. + +As the Commissioner of Police had foretold, the large reward offered by +Mrs. Pavely had brought in its train a host of tiresome and even +degrading incidents. A man of the name of Apra actually came from the +Continent and tried to make out that _he_ had been the banker's +unwitting murderer! But his story broke down under a very few minutes' +cross-examination at Scotland Yard. Even so, Laura kept the offer of the +thousand pounds in being. It seemed to be the only thing that she could +still do for Godfrey. + +Though she was outwardly leading the quiet, decorously peaceful life of +a newly-made widow, Laura's soul was storm-tossed and had lost its +bearings. Her little girl's company, dearly as she loved the child, no +longer seemed to content her. For the first time in her life, she longed +consciously for a friend of her own age, but with the woman living at +her gate, with Katty Winslow, she became less, rather than more, +intimate. + +Also, hidden away in the deepest recess of her heart, was an +unacknowledged pain. She had felt so sure that Oliver Tropenell would +stay on with his mother through the winter and early spring! But, to her +bewildered surprise, he had left for Mexico almost at once. He had not +even sought a farewell interview to say good-bye to her alone, and their +final good-bye had taken place in the presence of his mother. + +Together he and Mrs. Tropenell had walked over to The Chase one late +afternoon, within less than a week of Godfrey's funeral, and he had +explained that urgent business was recalling him to Mexico at once. He +and Laura had had, however, three or four minutes together practically +alone; and at once he had exclaimed, in a voice so charged with emotion +that it recalled those moments Laura now shrank from remembering--those +moments when he had told her of his then lawless love--"You'll let me +know if ever you want me? A cable would bring me as quickly as I can +travel. You must not forget that I am your trustee." + +And she had replied, making a great effort to speak naturally: "I will +write to you, Oliver, often--and I hope you will write to me." + +And he had said: "Yes--yes, of course I will! Not that there's much to +say that will interest you. But I can always give you news of Gillie." + +He had said nothing as to when they were to meet again. But after he was +gone Mrs. Tropenell had spoken as if he intended to come back the +following Christmas. + +Oliver had so far kept his promise that he had written to Laura about +once a fortnight. They were very ordinary, commonplace letters--not +long, intimate, and detailed as she knew his letters to his mother to +be. Mostly he wrote of Gillie, and of whatever work Gillie at the moment +was engaged upon. + +On her side, she would write to him of little Alice, of the child's +progress with her lessons, of the funny little things that Alice said. +Occasionally she would also force herself to put in something about +Godfrey, generally on some matter connected with the estate, and she +would tell him of what she was doing in the garden, or in the house +which had been built by his, Oliver's, forbears. + +She could not tell him, what was yet oddly true, that the spirit of +Godfrey still ruled The Chase. He had inherited from his parents certain +old-fashioned ways and usages, to which he had clung with a sort of +determined obstinacy, and as to such matters, his wife, in the days +which were now beginning to seem so far away and so unreal, had never +even dreamt of gainsaying him. + +One of these usages was the leaving off of fires, however cold the +weather might be, on the first of May, and this year, on the eve of May +Day, Laura remembered, and made up her mind that in this, as in so much +else, she would now be more submissive to the dead than she had ever +been to the living Godfrey. + + * * * * * + +Laura sat up late that night destroying and burning certain papers +connected with her past life. She had come to realise how transitory a +thing is human existence, and she desired to leave nothing behind her +which might later give her child a clue to what sort of unhappy, +unnatural married life she and Godfrey had led. + +But it is always a painful task--that of turning over long-dead embers. + +Sitting there in the boudoir, close to the glowing fire, and with a big +old-fashioned despatch-box at her side, she glanced at the letters which +her husband had written to her during their brief engagement, and then +she tied them up again and inscribed them with names and dates. They +might give Alice pleasure some day, the more so that there was +singularly little else remaining to tell Godfrey's child what he had +been like at his best. She, Laura, only knew--Alice, thank God, would +never know, would never understand--what melancholy memories these +rather formal, commonplace love-letters evoked in the woman who as a +girl had been their recipient. + +The very few letters which her husband had written to her during their +married life, when he happened to be in London or away on business, she +had always destroyed as they came. They had been brief, business-life +communications, generally concerning something he desired to be done on +the estate, or giving her the instructions he wished to have telephoned +to the Bank. + +After glancing absently through them, she burnt many letters which she +now wondered why she had kept--letters for the most part from friends of +her girlhood who had gradually drifted away from her, and the memory of +whom was fraught with pain. She put aside the meagre packet of her +brother's letters, and then, at last she gathered up in her hands the +score or more large envelopes addressed in Oliver Tropenell's clear, +small, masculine handwriting. + +Should she burn these too--or keep them? + +Slowly she took out of its envelope the first of Oliver's letters which +she had kept--that in which he expressed his willingness to become her +trustee. For the first time she forgot little Alice, forgot the day when +her daughter would read all that she found here, in her mother's +despatch-box, with the same eager interest and perchance the same moved +pleasure, which she, Laura, had felt when reading the letters her own +beloved mother had left behind her. + +Consideringly she glanced over the first real letter Oliver Tropenell +had ever written to her. Vividly she remembered the whole circumstances +surrounding the sending and receiving of that letter, for it had +followed close on the scene which, try as she might, she could not, even +now, forget. It was in this letter that she now held open in her hand, +that Oliver had heaped coals of fire on her head, by his quiet, kindly +acceptance of the trusteeship. There was unluckily one passage she felt +Alice should never have a chance of reading--for it concerned Gillie. +So, though she was sorry to destroy the letter, she felt that on the +whole it would be better to burn it, here and now. + +Hesitatingly she held out the large sheet to the bright fire--and as she +was in the act of doing so, quite suddenly there flashed between the +lines of firm, black handwriting other lines--clear, brownish lines--of +the same handwriting. What an extraordinary, amazing, incredible thing! + +Laura slipped down on to the hearthrug from the low arm-chair on which +she had been sitting with her despatch-box beside her, and bent forward, +full of tremulous excitement--her heart beating as it had never beat +before. + + "The decks are cleared between us, Laura, for you know now + that I love you. You said, 'Oh, but this is terrible!' Yes, + Laura, love is terrible. It is not only cleansing, + inspiring, and noble, it is terrible too. Why is it that + you so misunderstand, misjudge, the one priceless gift, the + only bit of Heaven, which God or Nature--I care not + which--has given to man and woman?" + +She stopped reading for a moment, then forced herself to go on, and the +next few lines of that strange, passionate secret letter, burnt +themselves into her brain. + +She let the paper flutter down, and covered her face with her hands. +Could she--should she believe what this man said? + + "What you, judging by your words to-day, take to be love is + as little like that passion as a deep draught of pure cold + water to a man dying of thirst is like the last glass of + drugged beer imbibed by some poor sot already drunk." + +It was a horrible simile, and yet--yes, she felt that it was a true +smile. For the first time Laura Pavely dimly apprehended the meaning of +love in the same sense that Oliver Tropenell understood it. + +She took up the sheet of paper again, and with the tears falling down +her cheeks, she read the postscript which was superposed, as it were, on +to the first. + + "God bless you, my dear love, and grant you the peace which + seems the only thing for which you crave." + +After giving a shamed, furtive look round the empty room, Laura Pavely +pressed the letter to her lips, and then she threw it into the fire, and +watched it vanish into brilliant flame, feeling as if a bit of her heart +were being burnt with it. + +Slowly she got up and went to the door; opening it, she listened for a +while. + +The whole household was asleep, but even so, she locked the door before +coming back to her station by the fire. + +She put more coal on the now glowing embers, and then she took up +another letter Oliver had written to her, a letter written from Paris +just after he and her brother had left London together for that long +holiday on the Continent. Outwardly it was a commonplace letter enough +concerning a change in certain of her investments; but when she held it +to the fire, between the black lines there again started into pulsing +life another message, winged from his soul to hers.... + + "Laura, I have sworn not to speak to you of love, and even + in this letter which you will never see, I will not break + my oath. But as I go in and out of the old Paris churches + (where alone I find a certain measure of solace and peace), + in the women whom I see there praying I often seem to + discover something akin to your spiritual and physical + perfection. + + "It is strange, considering the business on which I am + engaged, that I should feel thus drawn to haunt these old, + dim Paris churches, but there at least I can escape from + Gillie, of Gillie who talks perpetually of Godfrey, your + owner and your tyrant." + +And as she read these last words, there came a cold feeling over Laura's +heart. She realised, for the first time, how Oliver had hated Godfrey. + +She read on: + + "Gillie does not understand the reverence in which I hold + you. Sometimes when he speaks of you--of you and Godfrey--I + feel as if some day I shall strike him on the mouth. + + "But he is your brother, Laura. According to the measure + which is in the man he loves you, aye, and even reverences + you too, in his fashion; but with this reverence is mingled + a touch of pity, of contempt, that you should be what he + calls 'good.'" + +Good? Laura looked up and stared into the now glowing fire. Good in a +narrow, effortless sense she had always been, but to the man who was so +little her owner, though so much at times her tyrant, she had been, +almost from the very first, hard, and utterly lacking in sympathy. + +It was with relief that Laura burnt that letter. + +The notes Oliver Tropenell had written to her in London while he was +conducting the investigation into Godfrey Pavely's disappearance, held, +to her disappointment, no secret writing in between. But the letters she +had received from him since her widowhood all had an invisible +counterpart. + +The first was written on ship-board: + + "Laura, I am now free to speak to you of love. The world + would say that I must wait in spirit as I have waited in + body, but I know at what a cost has been bought the relief + from the vow which I faithfully kept. + + "The past is dead, the future is my own. I look back, dear + love, to the few moments we had by the great window in your + drawing-room, when my mother was talking to Alice over by + the fire. You were so gentle, so sweet, to me then. It was + as if--God forgive me for my presumption--you were + regretting my departure. Till that moment I had felt as if + the man who had once called you wife stood between us, an + angry, menacing shape. But he vanished then, in that house + of which he had never been the real master. And since that + day he has not haunted me as he haunted me during those long + long days of waiting for the news I at once longed for and + dreaded. + + "When I come back I shall not ask you to love me, I shall + only humbly ask you to let me love you." + +Laura went to her writing-table and turned on the light. She moved as +one walking in her sleep, for she was in an extraordinary state of +spiritual and mental exaltation. She drew a sheet of paper towards her, +and before burning the letter she still held in her hand, she copied +out, not all, but a certain part of what had been written there in that +invisible ink which only flashed into being when held up against a +flame. + +Then she went back to the fire, and read the next letter--and the next. +In a sense they were alike--alike in the measureless love, the almost +anguished longing for her presence they expressed, and in their +abhorrence, hatred, contempt for the man who had been her husband. It +was as if Oliver, in spite of his confident words in the letter which +had been written on shipboard, could not forget Godfrey--as if +perpetually he felt the dead man's menacing presence to be there, +between them. + +Laura was amazed, troubled, and yet at the same time profoundly stirred +and excited by Oliver's retrospective jealousy. It seemed to prove to +her as nothing else could have done how passionately, exclusively he +loved her, and had always loved her. + +Though none of those about her were aware of it, the mistress of The +Chase became henceforth a different woman. It was as though she had +suddenly become alive where she had been dead, articulate instead of +dumb. + +Each night, when the house was plunged in darkness and slumber, Laura +would light three candles, and read the words of longing and of love +which Oliver had written in between the formal lines of the last letter +she had received from him. And then, when a new letter came, she would +burn the one that had come before--the one whose contents she had +already long known by heart. + +And as the spring wore into summer the thing that became, apart from her +child, the only real thing in Laura Pavely's life, was her strong, +secret link with this man who she knew was coming back to claim her, on +whatever terms she chose to exact, as his own. And she fell into a deep, +brooding peace--the peace of waiting. She was in no hurry to see Oliver +again--indeed, she sometimes had a disturbing dread that his actual +presence might destroy that amazing sense of nearness she now felt to +him. Unconsciously her own letters to him became more intimate, more +self-revealing; she wrote less of Alice, more of herself. + +The only uneaseful element in Laura Pavely's life now was Katty Winslow. +The two women never met without Katty's making some mention of Godfrey. +And once Laura, when walking away with Katty from Freshley Manor, where +the two had met unexpectedly, was sharply disturbed by something Katty +said. + +"I'm told Oliver Tropenell is coming back at or after Christmas. Somehow +I always associate him with that awful time we had last January. I think +I shall try and be away when he is here--I don't suppose he'll stay +long." + +Katty spoke with a kind of rather terrible hardness in her voice, fixing +her bright eyes on Laura's quivering face. + +"Instead of going away as he did, he ought to have stayed and tried to +clear up the mystery." + +"But the mystery," said Laura in a low voice, "_was_ cleared up, +Katty." + +But Katty shook her head. "To me the mystery is a greater one than +ever," she said decisively. + + * * * * * + +Early in September Laura received a letter written, as were all Oliver's +letters, in sober, measured terms, and yet, even as she opened it, she +felt with a strange, strong instinct that something new was here. And as +she lived through the few hours which separated her from night and +solitude, she grew not only more restless, but more certain, also, of +some coming change in her own life. + +His open letter ran:-- + + "I am writing in my new country house. Years ago, after I + first came out to Mexico, I stumbled across the place by + accident, and at once I made up my mind that some day I + would become its possessor. Over a hundred years old, this + little chateau, set on a steep hillside, is said to have + been built by a Frenchman of genius who, having got into + some bad scrape in Paris, had to flee the country, while + the old _regime_ was in full fling. + + "When I first came here, the house had stood empty for over + forty years. The garden, beautiful as it was, had fallen + into ruin. The fountains were broken, the water no longer + played, the formal arbours looked like forest trees. White + roses and jasmine mingled with the dense southern + vegetation, fighting a losing fight. + + "For a few brief weeks in '67 it was inhabited by Maximilian + and his young Empress--indeed, it is said that the Emperor + still haunts the cool large rooms on the upper floor--there + are but two storeys. So far I have never met his noble + ghost. I should not be afraid if I did. + + "I am beginning to think that it is time I came back to + Freshley for a while. But my plans are still uncertain." + +At last came solitude, and the luminous darkness of an early autumn +night. Laura locked herself into her room. + +Yes, instinct had not played her false, for the first words of the +secret letter ran:-- + + "Laura, I am coming home. I had meant to linger on here yet + another month or six weeks, but now I ask myself each hour + of the day and night--why wait? + + "The room in which I am sitting writing to you, thinking of + you, longing for you, was the room of those two great + lovers, Maximilian and his Carlotta. The ghost of their love + reminds me of the transience of life. I have just walked + across to the window, thinking, thinking, thinking, my + beloved, of you. For I am haunted ever, Laura, by your + wraith. I walk up and down the terrace wondering if you will + ever be here in the body--as you already seem to be in the + spirit. + + "I am leaving at sunrise, and in three days I shall be upon + the sea. You will receive a cable, and so will my mother. + The thought of seeing you again--ah, Laura, you will never + know what rapture, so intense as to be almost akin to pain, + that thought gives me. Lately your letters have seemed a + thought more intimate, more confiding--I dare not say less + cold. But I have sworn to myself, and I shall keep my oath, + to ask for nothing that cannot be freely given." + +Two days later Laura received a wireless message saying that Oliver +would be at Freshley the next day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +A year ago, almost to a day, Mrs. Tropenell had been sitting where she +was sitting now, awaiting Laura Pavely. Everything looked exactly as it +had looked then in the pretty, low drawing-room of Freshley Manor. +Nothing had been added to, nothing withdrawn from, the room. The same +shaded reading-lamp stood on the little table close to her elbow; the +very chrysanthemums might have been the same. + +And yet with the woman sitting there everything was different! Of all +the sensations--unease, anxiety, foreboding, jealousy--with which her +heart had been filled this time last year, only one survived, and of +that one she was secretly very much ashamed, for it was jealousy. + +And now she was trying with all the force of her nature to banish the +ugly thing from her heart. + +What must be--must be! If Oliver's heart and soul, as well as the whole +of his ardent, virile physical entity, desired Laura, then she, his +mother, must help him, as much as lay within her power, to compass that +desire. + +Since Godfrey Pavely's death, it had been as if Mrs. Tropenell's life +had slipped back two or three years. All these last few months she had +written to Oliver long diary letters, and Oliver on his side had written +to her vivid chronicles of his Mexican life. Perhaps she saw less, +rather than more of Laura than she had done in the old days, for Laura, +since her widowhood, had had more to do. She took her duties as the +present owner of The Chase very seriously. Still, nothing was +changed--while yet in a sense everything had been changed--by the +strange, untoward death of Godfrey Pavely. + +Oliver's letters were no longer what they had been, they were curiously +different, and yet only she, his mother, perchance would have seen the +difference, had one of his letters of two years ago and one of his +letters of to-day been put side by side. + +The love he had borne for the Spanish woman, of whom he had once spoken +with such deep feeling, had not affected his relations with his mother. +But the love he now bore Laura Pavely had. Not long ago Laura had shown +Mrs. Tropenell one of Oliver's letters, and though there was really very +little in it, she had been oddly nervous and queer in her manner, hardly +giving the older woman time to read it through before she had taken it +back out of her hand. + +Laura had become more human since her husband's death; it was as if a +constricting band had been loosened about her heart. Even so, Oliver's +mother often wondered sorely whether Laura would ever welcome Oliver in +any character save that of a devoted, discreet, and selfless friend. She +doubted it. And yet, when he had written and suggested coming back now, +instead of waiting till Christmas, she had not said a word to stop him. +And the moment she had heard that he had reached England, and that he +was to be here late on this very afternoon, she had sent a note to The +Chase and asked Laura to share their first meal. + +One thing had made a great difference to Mrs. Tropenell's life during +the last few months. That was the constant, familiar presence of Lord +St. Amant. Now that he was Lord Lieutenant of the county, he was far +more at Knowlton Abbey than he had been for some years, and +somehow--neither could have told you why--they had become even closer +friends than they had been before. + +It was well understood that any supplicant who had Mrs. Tropenell on his +side could count on Lord St. Amant's help and goodwill. Though she was +of course quite unaware of it, there were again rumours through the +whole of the country-side that soon the mistress of Freshley Manor would +become Lady St. Amant, and that then the Abbey would be opened as that +great house had not been for close on forty years. + +And now, to-night, Mrs. Tropenell suddenly remembered that Lord St. +Amant was coming to dinner--she had forgotten it in the excitement of +Oliver's return. But she told herself, with a kind of eagerness, that +her old friend's presence might, after all, make things easier for them +all! It is always easier to manage a party of four people than of three. +Also, it made less marked the fact of Laura's presence on this, the +first evening, of Oliver's return home. + +Mrs. Tropenell had not been able to discover from her son's manner +whether he was glad or sorry Laura was coming to-night. And sitting +there, waiting for her guests, she anxiously debated within herself +whether Oliver would have preferred to see Laura for the first time +alone. Of course he could have offered to go and fetch her; but he had +not availed himself of that excuse, and his mother knew that she would +be present at their meeting. + +The door opened, quietly, and as had been the case a year ago, Mrs. +Tropenell saw her beautiful visitor before Laura knew that there was any +one in the darkened room. + +Once more Mrs. Tropenell had a curious feeling as if time had slipped +back, and that everything was happening over again. The only difference +was that Laura to-night was all in black, with no admixture of white. +Still, by an odd coincidence the gown she was wearing was made exactly +as had been that other gown last year, and through the thin black folds +of chiffon her lovely white arms shone palely, revealingly.... + +And then, as her guest came into the circle of light, Mrs. Tropenell +realised with a feeling almost of shock that Laura was very much +changed. She no longer had the sad, strained, rather severe look on her +face which had been there last year. She looked younger, instead of +older, and there was an expression of half-eager, half-shrinking +expectation on her face--to-night. + +"Aunt Letty? How good of you to ask me----" But her voice sank away into +silence as the sound of quick footsteps were heard hastening across the +hall. + +The door opened, and Oliver Tropenell came in. + +He walked straight to Laura, and took both her hands in his. "You got my +cable?" he asked. + +And then Laura blushed, overwhelmingly. She had had said nothing of that +cable to Mrs. Tropenell. + +And as they stood there--Oliver still grasping Laura's hands in his--the +mother, looking on, saw with a mixture of joy and of jealous pain that +Laura stood before him as if hypnotised, her heavy-lidded blue eyes +fixed upwards on his dark, glowing face. + +Suddenly they all three heard the at once plaintive and absurd hoot of +Lord St. Amant's motor--and it was as if a deep spell had suddenly been +broken. Slowly, reluctantly, Oliver released Laura's hands, and Mrs. +Tropenell exclaimed in a voice which had a tremor in it: "It's Lord St. +Amant, Oliver. I forgot that he had asked himself to dinner to-night. He +said he could not come till half-past eight, but I suppose he got away +earlier than he expected to do." + +And then with the coming into the room of her old friend, life seemed +suddenly to become again normal, and though by no means passionless, yet +lacking that curious atmosphere of violent, speechless emotion that had +been there a moment or two ago. Of the four it was Laura who seemed the +most moved. She came up and slipped her hand into Mrs. Tropenell's, +holding it tightly, probably unaware that she was doing so. + +After the first few words of welcome to Oliver, Lord St. Amant plunged +into local talk with Mrs. Tropenell, and as he did so, he looked a +little wryly at Laura. Why didn't she move away and talk to Oliver? Why +did she stick close like that to Letty--to Letty, with whom he had hoped +to spend a quiet, cosy, cheerful evening? + +But Laura, for the first time in her life, felt as if she were no longer +in full possession of herself. It was as if she had passed into the +secret keeping of another human being; she had the sensation that her +mind was now in fee to another human mind, her will overawed by another +human will. And there was a side to her nature which rebelled against +this sudden, quick transference of herself. + +With what she now half-realised to have been a kind of self-imposed +hypocrisy, she had told herself often, during the last few months, that +Oliver and she when they again met would become dear, dear friends. He +would be the adorer, she the happy, calm, adored. And that then, after a +long probation, perhaps of years, in any case not for a long, long time, +she might bring herself half reluctantly, and entirely for his sake, to +consider the question of--re-marriage. + +But now? Since Oliver had taken her hands in his, and gazed down +speechlessly into her eyes, she had known that it was he, not she, would +set the pace in their new relationship, and that however sincere his +self-imposed restraint and humility. So it was that Laura instinctively +clung to Mrs. Tropenell's hand. + +The passion of love, which so often makes even quite a young man feel +older, steadier, more responsible, has quite the opposite effect on a +woman. To every woman love brings back youth, and the deeper, the more +instinctive the love, the greater the tremors and the uncertainties +which, according to a hypocritical convention, belong only to youth. + +The years which Laura had spent with Godfrey Pavely seemed obliterated. +Memories of her married life which had been very poignantly present in +the early days of her widowhood, filling her with mingled repugnance, +pain, and yes, remorse, were now erased from the tablets of her mind. +She felt as if it was the young, ignorant Laura--that Laura who had been +so full of high, almost defiant ideals--who was now standing, so full of +confused longing and hope, if yet also a little fearful, on the +threshold of a new, wonderful life.... + + * * * * * + +Good-breeding and the observance of certain long-established, social +usages have an inestimable value in all the great crises of human +existence. To-night each of the other three felt the comfort of Lord St. +Amant's presence among them. His agreeable ease of manner, his pleasant, +kindly deference to the older and the younger lady, all helped to lessen +the tension, and make what each of his companions felt to be a +breathless time of waiting, easier to live through. + +He himself was surprised and shocked by the change he saw in Oliver +Tropenell's face. Oliver looked worn, haggard, yet filled with a kind of +fierce gladness. He appeared to-night not so much the happy, as the +exultant, conqueror of fate. He talked, and talked well, of the +political situation in Mexico, of certain happenings which had taken +place in England during his absence, and though now and again Mrs. +Tropenell joined in the talk, on the whole she, like Laura, was content +to listen to the two men. + +After dinner, while they were still alone in the drawing-room, Laura +began to talk, rather eagerly, of her little Alice. She had begun to +wonder whether it would not be well for the child to go to school as a +weekly boarder. There was such a school within reasonable motoring +distance. Alice was becoming rather too grown-up, and unchildlike. She +had certain little friends in the town of Pewsbury, but they did not +really touch her life. + +But even as Mrs. Tropenell and Laura talked the matter over, they both +felt their talk to be unreal. Each of them knew that Laura's second +marriage, if ever marry she did, would completely alter the whole +situation with regard to Alice. Oliver was not the man to hang up his +hat in another man's house--besides, why should he do so? The Chase +belonged to Alice, even now. + +And then rather suddenly, Laura asked a question: "How long is Oliver +going to stay in England, Aunt Letty?" + +And Mrs. Tropenell quietly answered, "I should think he would stay till +after Christmas. I gather everything is going on quite well out there, +thanks to Gillie." She waited a moment, and then repeated, thoughtfully: +"Yes--I feel sure Oliver means to stay till after the New Year----" + +And then she stopped suddenly. There had come a change over Laura's +face. Laura had remembered what Mrs. Tropenell for the moment had not +done--that early in January Godfrey Pavely would have been dead exactly +a year. + +As ten o'clock struck, the other two came in, still talking eagerly to +one another. + +Lord St. Amant sat down by Laura. + +"I'm going to have a little shooting party later on--not now, but early +in December," he said. "Mrs. Tropenell is coming, and I hope Oliver too. +I wonder if you would do me the great pleasure of being there, Laura? +It's a long, long time since you honoured the Abbey with your +company----" + +He was smiling down at her. "I would ask Alice to come too," he went on, +"but I think she'd be bored! Perhaps you'll be bored too? I'm not having +any very brilliant or wonderful people, just a few of the neighbours +whom I feel I've rather neglected." + +Laura laughed. "Of course I shall enjoy coming!" she exclaimed. + +Oliver was standing by his mother. Suddenly he muttered, "Mother? Ask +Lord St. Amant to come over and speak to you----" + +But before she could obey him, Lord St. Amant got up and quickly came +over to where Mrs. Tropenell was sitting, leaving a vacant place by +Laura. + +With his back to the two younger people he sat down close to Mrs. +Tropenell, and all at once he saw that her dark eyes were full of tears. +He took her hand and patted it gently. "I feel dreadfully _de trop_," he +murmured. "Can't we go off, we two old folk, to your little room, my +dearest? I'm sure you've something you want to show me there, or consult +me about?" + +And while Lord St. Amant was saying this to his old love, the two on the +other side of the room were silent, as if stricken dumb by the nearness +each felt to the other. + +And at last it was Laura who broke the silence. "I think I must be going +home," she said uncertainly. + +She looked across at her hostess. "I don't want to make Lord St. Amant +think he ought to go too. Perhaps I can slip away quietly?" + +"I'll walk back with you." + +Oliver spoke with a kind of dry decision. + +He got up. "Mother? I'm taking Laura home. I shan't be long. Perhaps +Lord St. Amant will stay till I come back. It's quite early." + +He turned to Laura, now standing by his side: "Say good-bye to them +now. I'll fetch your shawl, and we'll go out through the window." + +Laura obeyed, as in a dream. "Good-bye, Aunt Letty. Good-night, Lord St. +Amant--I shall enjoy being at the Abbey." + +She suffered herself to be kissed by the one--her hand pressed by the +other. Then she turned as if in answer to an unseen signal. + +Oliver was already back in the room, her Shetland shawl on his arm. He +put it round her shoulders, taking care not to touch her as he did so; +then he opened the long French window, and stood aside for a moment +while she stepped through into the moonlight, out of doors. + + * * * * * + +They were now in the beech avenue, in a darkness that seemed the more +profound because of the streaks of silvery moonlight which lay just +behind them. But even so, the white shawl Laura was wearing showed dimly +against the depths of shade encompassing her. + +All at once Oliver turned and said so suddenly that she, walking by his +side, started: "Laura? Do you remember this time last year?" + +And as she answered the one word "Yes," he went on: "It was to-night, +just a year ago, that I promised to become your friend. And as long as +you were another man's wife, I kept my promise, at any rate to the +letter. If you tell me to go away for the next three months, I will do +so--to-morrow. If I stay, I must stay, Laura, as your lover." + +As she remained silent, he went on quickly: "Do not misunderstand me. I +only ask for the right to love you--I do not ask for any return." + +She was filled with an exquisite, tremulous joy. But that side of her +nature which was restrained, and which had been so atrophied, was +ignorant of the generosities of love, and shrank from quick surrender. +So all she said, in a voice which sounded very cold to herself, was, +"But that, Oliver, would surely not be fair--to you?" + +"Quite fair!" he exclaimed eagerly--"quite fair. In no case would I ever +wish to obtain what was not freely vouchsafed." + +He muttered, in a voice so low as to be scarcely audible, some further +words which moved her strangely, and vibrated to a chord which had never +before been touched, save to jar and to offend. + +"To me aught else were sacrilege," were the words Oliver Tropenell said. + +By now Laura's eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. She could see +her companion's tall, at once broad-shouldered and lean figure, standing +at rights angles to herself, keeping its distance.... + +Taking a step forward, she put out her right hand a little blindly, and +laid it on the sleeve of his coat. Laura had always been an inarticulate +woman, but with that touch, that fleeting moment of contact between +them, something of what she was feeling took flight from her heart to +his---- + +"Laura?" + +He grasped her hands as he had grasped them three hours ago when they +had first met in his mother's presence. And then again he breathed her +name. But this time the touch of doubting, incredulous joy had passed +into something ardent, exultant, possessive, and she was in his +arms--her self-absorption, her fastidiousness, her lifelong shrinking +from any strong emotion, swept away by a force which she had once only +known sufficiently to abhor and to condemn, but which she now felt to be +divine. + +And then Oliver Tropenell said a strange thing indeed. "To have secured +this immortal moment, I would willingly die a shameful, ignoble death +to-morrow," were the words he whispered, as he strained Laura to his +heart, as his lips sought and found her lips.... + +At last they paced slowly on, and Laura found herself secretly exulting +in the violence of Oliver's emotion, and in the broken, passionate terms +of endearment with which he endowed her. That her response was that of a +girl rather than that of a woman was to her lover an added ecstasy. It +banished the hateful, earthy shade of Godfrey Pavely--that shade which +had haunted Oliver Tropenell all that evening, even in his mother's +house. + +Just as they were about to step out from under the arch of the beech +trees on to the high road, he again took her in his arms. "Laura?" he +whispered. "May I tell my mother?" But as he felt her hesitating: "No!" +he exclaimed. "Forget that I asked you that! We will say nothing yet. +Secrecy is a delicious concomitant of love." She heard the added, +whispered words, uttered as if to his own heart, "At least so I have +ever found it." And they were words which a little troubled Laura. +Surely she was the first woman he had ever loved? + +"Aunt Letty has a right to know," she murmured. "But no one else, +Oliver, must know, till January is past." And then she hung her head, +perchance a little ashamed of this harking back to the conventions of +her everyday life. + +He was surprised to hear her say further and with an effort, "I would +rather Lord St. Amant didn't know. We shall be staying at Knowlton Abbey +together in December." + +"We shall," he said exultantly. "For that I thank God!" + +Then suddenly he released her from out of his strong encompassing arms, +and stooping down very low he kissed the hem of her long black gown.... + +After they had parted Oliver Tropenell waited on and on in the dark +garden till he heard Lord St. Amant's car drive away. Then he walked +quickly across the lawn and back into his mother's drawing-room. + +"Mother?" he said briefly. "Laura and I are going to be married. But we +do not wish any one to know this till--till February." + +Even now he could not wholly banish Godfrey Pavely's intrusive presence +from his Laura-filled heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +To any imaginative mind there is surely something awe-inspiring in the +thought of the constant secret interlocking of lives which seem as +unlikely ever to meet, in a decisive sense, as are two parallel lines. + +How amazed, how bewildered, Laura Pavely would have been could she have +visioned even a hundredth part of the feeling concerning herself which +filled her nearest neighbour, Katty Winslow's, heart! + +Even in the old days Katty had disliked Laura, and had regarded her with +a mixture of contempt and envy. And now that Oliver Tropenell had come +back--now that Katty suspected him of being Laura's potential, if not +actual, lover--she grew to hate the woman who had always been kind to +her with an intense, calculating hate. + +It seemed as if she hardly ever looked out of one of her windows without +seeing Oliver on his way to The Chase, or Laura on her way to +Freshley--and this although the secret lovers behaved with great +discretion, for Oliver was less, rather than more, with Laura than he +used to be in the old days when Godfrey was alive. Also, wherever Laura +happened to be, her child--cheerful, eager little Alice--was sure to be +close by. + +Laura, so much Katty believed herself to have discovered, was now happy, +in her cold, unemotional way, in the possession of a man's ardent +devotion, while she, Katty, who had asked so comparatively little of +life, had been deprived of the one human being who could, and perhaps in +time would, have given her all she wanted. + +Poor Godfrey Pavely! No one ever spoke of him now, in that neighbourhood +where once he had counted for so much. Already it was as if he had never +been. But to Katty Winslow he was still an insistent, dominating +presence. Often she brooded over his untimely death, and sometimes she +upbraided herself for not having made some sort of effort to solve the +mystery. The reward was still in being, but one day, lately, when she +had made some allusion to it in Laura's presence, Laura, reddening, had +observed that she was thinking of withdrawing it. + +"Lord St. Amant and the Scotland Yard people never approved of it," she +said, "and as you know, Katty, it has led to nothing." + +Early in October, Laura, Oliver and Alice, passing by Rosedean one day, +turned in through the gate. "Why shouldn't we go in and ask Katty to +come to tea?" It was Laura's suggestion. Somehow she was sorry for +Katty--increasingly sorry. Yet she could not help feeling glad when +Harber coldly informed her that Mrs. Winslow had left home, and would +not be back for ten days. + + * * * * * + +At the very time that happy little group of people was at her door, +Katty herself was standing in a queue of people waiting to take her +ticket at York station. + +Though Mrs. Winslow would have been honestly surprised had any one told +her she was sentimental, she had actually come down by an earlier train +than was necessary in order that she might retrace the ways that she and +her friend had trodden together a year ago in January. + +She had first gone to the Minster, moving swiftly along the paved +streets where she had walked and talked slowly, pleasantly, with the +dead man. Then she had wandered off to the picturesque thoroughfare +lined with curiosity shops. How kind, how generous Godfrey had been to +her just here! Every time she looked up in her pretty little +drawing-room at Rosedean, his gift met her eye. + +While she was engaged on this strange, painful pilgrimage, there welled +up in Katty's heart a flood of agonised regret and resentment. She told +herself bitterly that Godfrey's death had aged her--taken the spring out +of her. Small wonder indeed that in these last few weeks she should have +come to hate Laura with a steady, burning flame of hate.... + +So it was that Katty Winslow was in a queer mental and physical state +when she returned to the big railway station to complete her journey. +She did not feel at all in the mood to face the gay little houseparty +where she was sure of an uproarious, as well as of an affectionate, +welcome. + +As she stood in the queue of rather rough North-country folk, waiting to +take her third-class ticket, there swept over her a sudden, vivid +recollection of that incident--the hearing of a voice which at the time +had seemed so oddly familiar--which had happened on the day she had +parted from Godfrey Pavely for the last time. + +And then--as in a blinding, yet illuminating flash--there came to her +the conviction, nay, more, the certain knowledge, as to whose voice it +had been that she had heard on the last occasion when she had stood +there, in the large, bare booking office. The voice she had heard--she +was quite, _quite_ sure of it now, it admitted of no doubt in her mind +at all--had been the peculiar, rather high-pitched, voice of Gillie +Baynton.... + +She visualised the arresting appearance of the man who had been the +owner of the voice, and who had gazed at her with that rather impudent, +jeering glance of bold admiration. Of course it was Gillie, but Gillie +disguised--Gillie with his cheeks tinted a curious greenish-orange +colour, Gillie with his fair hair dyed black, Gillie--her brain suddenly +supplied the link she was seeking for feverishly--_exactly answering to +the description of the sinister Fernando Apra--the self-confessed +murderer of Godfrey Pavely_. Katty left the queue in which she was +standing, and walked across to a bench. + +There she sat down, and, heedless of the people about her, put her chin +on her hand and stared before her. + +What did her new knowledge portend? What did it lead to? Was Laura +associated with this extraordinary, bewildering discovery of hers? But +the questions she put to herself remained unanswered. She failed to +unravel even a little strand of the tangled skein. + +Slowly she got up again, and once more took her place in the queue +outside the booking office. It would be folly to lose her train because +of this discovery, astounding, illuminating, as it was. + +She was so shaken, so excited, that she longed to confide in one of the +Haworths, brother or sister, to whose house she was going--but some +deep, secretive instinct caused her to refrain from doing that. Still, +she was so far unlike herself, that after her arrival the members of the +merry party all commented to one another on the change they saw in her. + +"She's as pretty as ever," summed up one of them at last, "but somehow +she looks different." + +All that night Katty lay awake, thinking, thinking--trying to put +together a human puzzle of which the pieces would not fit. Gillie +Baynton, even if he disliked his brother-in-law, had no motive for doing +the awful thing she was now beginning to suspect he had done. She found +herself floating about in a chartless sea of conjectures, of +suspicions.... + +She felt better, more in possession of herself, the next morning. Yet +she was still oppressed with an awful sense of bewilderment and horror, +uncertain, too, as to what use she could make of her new knowledge. + +Should she go straight up to town and tell Sir Angus Kinross of what had +happened to her yesterday? Somehow she shrank from doing that. He would +suspect her of simply trying to snatch the reward. Katty had never been +quite at ease with the Commissioner of Police--never quite sure as to +what he knew, or did not know, of her past relations to Godfrey Pavely. +And yet those relations had been innocent enough, in all conscience! +Sometimes Katty, when thinking of those terrible times last January, had +felt sorry she had not told Sir Angus the truth as to that joint journey +to York. But, having hidden the fact at first, she had been ashamed to +confess it later--and now she would have to confess it. + +She was still in this anxious, debating-within-herself frame of mind +when, at luncheon, something happened which seemed to open a way before +her. + +Her host, Tony Haworth, was talking of the neighbourhood, and he said, +rather ruefully: "Of course a man like that old rascal who calls himself +Greville Howard is worse than no good as a neighbour! For one thing he's +a regular recluse. He hardly ever goes outside his park gates. I suppose +the conscience of a man who's done so many naughty deeds in a good world +is apt to make him feel a bit nervous!" + +"How far off does he live from here?" asked Katty slowly. The scene at +the inquest rose up before her, especially that moment when "Greville +Howard's" affidavit, accompanied by his doctor's certificate, had been +read aloud amid a ripple of amusement from the general public present. + +"About four miles--but no one ever sees him. He's more or less of an +invalid. It's a beautiful old house, and they say he's got some +wonderful pictures and furniture there." + +"Does he live quite alone?" + +Her host hesitated. "Well, yes--but sometimes he has a lady of sorts +there. He brought one back from France last June (he has a villa at +Monte Carlo), and then--" Tony Haworth hesitated again, but Katty was +looking at him eagerly--"then something dreadful happened! The poor +woman died. She got a chill, developed pneumonia, and, to do the old +rascal justice, he got down the biggest man he could from town. But it +was no good--she died just the same! As far as I know, he's quite alone +now--and precious lonely he must find it!" + +Katty was very silent for the rest of the meal, and after luncheon she +drew her host aside. + +"Look here," she said abruptly. "I've something to tell you, Tony. I +want to see that person we were speaking about--I mean Greville Howard. +I want to see him about Godfrey Pavely. You know he is one of the few +people who actually saw the man who killed Godfrey. At the time of the +inquest he was ill, and so couldn't attend--I think the police thought +he shammed illness. Sir Angus Kinross was convinced (and so was Lord St. +Amant) that this Greville Howard knew a great deal more about Fernando +Apra than he was willing to tell." + +Tony Haworth was much taken aback. + +"My dear girl, I don't think there's a chance of your getting at him! +However, of course you shall be driven over as soon as you like. He +_may_ see you--_you're_ not the sort of person he's afraid of." + +He looked at her a little sharply. "You never had any money dealings +with him, had you, Katty? Now, honour bright----" + +"Of course not," she laughed. "Is it likely? My husband may have had, in +the long, long ago--but I, never!" + + * * * * * + +An hour or so later, Katty Winslow, alone in her friend's motor, found +herself before the lodge of the big lonely place where the retired +money-lender--a Yorkshireman by birth--had set up his household gods. +The great gates were closed and locked, but there was a bell, and she +rang it. + +After a certain interval the lodge-keeper came out. + +"I've come to see Mr. Greville Howard," she explained, and smiled +amiably at the man. + +He looked at her doubtfully. "The master don't see no one excepting by +appointment," he said gruffly. + +"I think he'll see me." + +And then an extraordinary piece of luck befell Katty Winslow. While she +was standing there, parleying, she suddenly saw a man inside the park, +walking towards the gates. + +"I think," she said boldly, "that that _is_ Mr. Greville Howard?" and +she saw by the lodgekeeper's face that she was right in her guess. + +Moving gracefully forward, she slid past him, and thus she stood just +within the gates, while slowly there advanced towards her--and, had she +but known it, towards many others--Fate, in the person of a tall, thin, +some would have said a very distinguished-looking, elderly man. + +As he came up, he looked at Katty with a measuring, thoughtful glance, +and his eyes travelled beyond her to the well-appointed motor drawn up +in the lonely country road outside. + +Now this was the sort of situation to amuse and stimulate, rather than +alarm, Katty, the more so that the stranger, who was now close to her, +was looking at her pleasantly rather than otherwise. + +She took a step towards him. + +"Mr. Howard?" she exclaimed, in her full, agreeable voice. "I wonder if +you would be so kind as to grant me a short interview? I want to see you +about the late Mr. Godfrey Pavely. He was a great friend of mine." + +As she uttered the dead banker's name, Greville Howard's face stiffened +into sudden watchfulness. But he said slowly: "May I enquire your name, +madam?" + +"Oh yes," she said eagerly. "My name is Winslow--I am Mrs. Winslow. I +was Godfrey Pavely's oldest friend--we were children together." + +"Ah!" he exclaimed. "Your name comes back to me. I think you were +mentioned at the inquest, Mrs. Winslow? But you did not give any +evidence, if I remember rightly." + +"No, I was not asked to give evidence," she answered. "And you yourself, +Mr. Howard, were too ill to come and say what you knew about--about----" + +"About Mr. Pavely's murderer," he said smoothly. + +They were now walking side by side slowly away from the gate, down a +broad, well-kept carriage road, the lodge-keeper staring after them. + +"Do you know Sir Angus Kinross?" asked Katty's companion suddenly. + +She gave him a curious, side-glance look. "I saw him several times last +winter," she said hesitatingly. "But, Mr. Howard?--I don't like him!" + +"Neither do I." He snapped the words out. "I could have told Scotland +Yard a good deal if Kinross had taken the trouble to be civil to me--but +he sent me down a fellow whose manner I exceedingly resented." + +There followed a long pause. Katty became unpleasantly aware +that this strange-looking man--she wondered how old he +was--sixty-five?--seventy?--was looking at her with a rather +pitiless scrutiny. + +"I can see that you are anxious to know the truth," he observed. He +added: "Are you aware that the reward has just been withdrawn?" + +"No, I didn't know that. But I'm not surprised," she said. + +She glanced at him, puzzled, and a little nervous. His keen eyes, +grey-green in tint, were much younger than the rest of his face. + +"I think I know part of the truth," he went on. "And perhaps you will be +able to supply the other part, Mrs. Winslow. I confess to a certain +curiosity about the matter." + +They were now within sight of a charming-looking old house. It was +charming, and yet there was something forlorn about its very perfection. +The low, oak, nail-studded front door was shut, not hospitably open--as +is generally the case with the door of a Yorkshire country house. But +Mr. Greville Howard pulled the bell, and at once the door was opened by +a respectable-looking manservant. + +"I am taking this lady to my study, and I do not wish to be disturbed +till I ring. When I ring you can bring tea." + +Katty followed her host through a short, vaulted passage into a square +hall. It was a beautiful apartment, in keeping with the delicate, +austere charm of the house outside. And round the hall there were some +fine Dutch easel pictures. + +Out of the hall there opened various doors. Greville Howard pushed open +one, already ajar, and Katty walked through into what she at once +realised was her companion's own habitual living-room. + +With all her cleverness, and her acquaintance with the art-furnishing +jargon of the day, Katty would have been surprised to know the value of +the contents of this comparatively small room. It contained some notable +examples of the best period of early French Empire furniture. This was +specially true of the mahogany and brass inlaid dwarf bookcases which +ran round three sides of the apartment. Above the bookcases, against the +turquoise-blue silk with which the walls were hung, were a number of +Meissonier's paintings of Napoleon. + +On the mantelpiece was a marble bust of the young Caesar as First Consul, +and above it a delightful portrait of Mademoiselle Georges, by Gerard. +As he briefly informed his visitor of the portrait's identity, Mr. +Greville Howard felt just a little disappointed that Mrs. Winslow did +not seem more interested. + +During the last quarter of an hour he had recaptured what at the time of +the affair had been a very definite impression as to the relations of +his present visitor and the Wiltshire banker. But now, seeing Katty +there before him, looking so much at her ease, so--so ladylike (Mr. +Greville Howard's own word), he hesitated. + +"Pray sit down," he said courteously, "and make yourself comfortable, +Mrs. Winslow. It's getting rather chilly." + +Her host put on another log as he spoke, and pulled a low, easy chair +up close to the fire. And then he himself sat down, at right angles to +his attractive guest, in a curiously-shaped winged chair which had once +been part of the furniture in the Empress Josephine's music-room at +Malmaison. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +It had been a little after three o'clock when Katty Winslow entered Mr. +Greville Howard's study--and now it was half-past four. The room had +grown gradually darker, but the fire threw out a glimmering light on the +faces of the two sitting there. + +All at once Katty realised, with a sense of acute discomfiture, that as +yet her host had said nothing--nothing, at least, that mattered. He had +drawn out of her, with extraordinary patience, courtesy, and +intelligence, all that _she_ could tell _him_--of what had happened +before, and about the time of, Godfrey Pavely's death. + +She had even told him of the two anonymous letters received by Godfrey +Pavely--but with regard to them she had of course deliberately lied, +stating that Godfrey had shown them to her, and that she still had no +idea from whence they came. + +Her listener had made very few comments, but he had shown, quite early +in their conversation, a special interest in the personality of Oliver +Tropenell. He had even extracted from Katty a physical description of +the man she declared to be now Mrs. Pavely's lover, and probable future +husband. + +At first, say during the first half-hour, she had felt extraordinarily +at ease with the remarkable old man who had listened to her so +attentively, while the fine eyes, which were the most arresting feature +of his delicate, highly intelligent countenance, were fixed on her +flushed face. But now, with the shadows of evening falling, she could +not see him so clearly, and there came a cold feeling about Katty +Winslow's heart. There was very little concerning her own past relations +with Godfrey Pavely that this stranger did not now know. She felt as if +he had uncovered all the wrappings which enfolded her restless, +vindictive, jealous soul. But she herself, so far, had learnt nothing +from him. + +She began to feel very tired, and suddenly, whilst answering one of his +searching, gentle questions, her voice broke, and she burst into tears. + +He leant quickly forward, and laid his thin, delicate right hand on +hers. "My dear Mrs. Winslow, please forgive me! This has been a painful +ordeal for you. I feel like a Grand Inquisitor! But now I am going to +bring you comfort--I ought not to say joy. But before I do so I am going +to make you take a cup of tea--and a little bread and butter. Then, +afterwards, I will show you that I appreciate your generous confidence +in telling me all that you have done." + +He waited a moment, and then said impressively, "I am going to put you +in the way to make it possible for you to avenge your dead friend, I +think I may also say _my_ dead friend, for Mr. Godfrey Pavely and I had +some very interesting and pleasant dealings with one another, and that +over many years." + +She was soothed by the really kind tone of his low voice, even by the +caressing quality of his light touch, and her sobs died down. + +Mr. Howard took his hand away, and pressed a button close to his chair. +A moment later a tray appeared with tea, cake, bread and butter, and a +little spirit lamp on which there stood what looked like a gold +tea-kettle. + +"You can put on the light, Denton," and there came a pleasant glow of +suffused light over the room. + +"Perhaps you will be so kind as to make the tea?" said Mr. Howard in his +full, low voice. + +Katty smiled her assent, and turned obediently towards the little table +which had been placed by her elbow. + +She saw that the kettle was so fixed by a clever arrangement that there +was no fear of accident, though the water in it had been brought in +almost boiling on the lacquer tray--a tray which was as exquisitely +choice in its way as was everything else in the room. + +Katty, as we know, was used to making afternoon tea. Very deftly she put +three teaspoonfuls of tea into the teapot, and then poured out the +boiling water from the bright yellow kettle. She was surprised at its +weight. + +"Yes," said Greville Howard, "it's rather heavy--gold always is. It's +fifteen-carat gold. I bought that kettle years ago, in Paris. It took my +fancy." + +He looked at the clock. "We will give the tea three minutes to draw," he +said thoughtfully. + +And then he began to talk to her about the people with whom she was +staying, the people who had never seen him, but who had so deep--it now +seemed to her so unreasoning and unreasonable--a prejudice against him. +And what he had to say about them amused, even diverted, Katty, so +shrewd were his thrusts, so true his appreciation of the faults and the +virtues of dear Helen and Tony Haworth. But how on earth had he learnt +all that? + +And then, at the end of the three minutes, she poured the tea into the +transparent blue-and-white Chinese porcelain cups. + +"No milk, no sugar, no cream for me," he said. "Only a slice of that +lemon." + +Greville Howard watched Katty take her tea, and eat the bread and butter +and the cake--daintily, but with a good appetite. He watched her with +the pleasant sensations that most men felt when watching Katty do +anything--the feeling that she was not only very pretty, but very +healthy too, and agreeable to look upon, a most satisfactory, satisfying +feminine presence. + +After she had finished, he again touched his invisible button, and the +tray was taken swiftly and noiselessly away. + + * * * * * + +"And now," he said, "I am going to tell you _my_ part of this strange +story, and you will see, Mrs. Winslow, that the two parts--yours and +mine--fit, and that the vengeance for which I see you crave, is in your +hands. I shall further show you how to arrange so that you need not +appear in the matter if Sir Angus Kinross prove kind, as I feel sure he +will be--to you." + +Katty clasped her hands together tightly. She felt terribly moved and +excited. Vengeance? What did this wonderful old man mean? + +"Dealers in money," began Mr. Greville Howard thoughtfully, "have to run +their own international police, and that, my dear young lady, is +especially true of the kind of business which built up what I think I +may truly call my fame, as well as my fortune. During something like +forty years I paid a large subsidy each year to the most noted firm of +private detectives in the world--a firm, I must tell you, who have their +headquarters in Paris. Though I no longer pay them this subsidy, for +mine was a one-man business, I still sometimes have reason to employ +them. They throw out their tentacles all over the world, and their +chief, a most intelligent, cultivated man, is by way of being quite a +good friend of mine. I always thoroughly enjoy a chat with him when I am +going through Paris on my way to my villa in the South of France. It is +to this man that the credit of what I am about to tell you, the credit, +that is, of certain curious discoveries connected with the mystery of +Mr. Godfrey Pavely's death, is due." + +Greville Howard waited a few moments, and then he spoke again. + +"I must begin at the beginning by telling you that when this Fernando +Apra came to see me, I formed two very distinct opinions. The one, which +is now confirmed by what you have told me, was that the man was not a +Portuguese; the other was that he was 'made up.' I felt certain that his +hair was dyed, and the skin of his face, neck and hands tinted. He was a +very clever fellow, and played his part in a capital manner. But I took +him for an adventurer, a man of straw, as the French say, and I believed +that Mr. Godfrey Pavely was being taken in by him. Yet there were +certain things about this Apra that puzzled me--that I couldn't make +out. An adventurer very rarely goes to the pains of disguising himself +physically, for his object is to appear as natural as possible. There +was yet another reason why the adventurer view seemed false. All the +time we were talking, all the time he was enthusing--if I may use a very +ugly modern word--about the prospects of this gambling concession, I had +the increasing conviction that he was not serious, that he was not _out +for business_--that he had come to see me with some other motive than +that of wishing me to take an interest in his scheme." + +Greville Howard leant forward, and gazed earnestly into his visitor's +face. "I felt this so strongly that the thought did actually flash +across me more than once--'Is this man engaged in establishing an +alibi?' When I asked him for the name and address of the French +references to which Mr. Pavely had made an allusion in his letter of +introduction, I saw that he was rather reluctant to give me the names. +Still he did do so at last, the bankers being----" + +"Messrs. Zosean & Co.," exclaimed Katty. "I have sometimes thought of +going to see them." + +"You would have had your journey for nothing. As I shall soon show you, +they were--they still are--an unconscious link in the chain. To return +to Apra, as we must still call him. So little was I impressed by this +peculiar person that I expected to hear nothing more of him or of his +gambling concern. But one day I received a letter from Mr. Godfrey +Pavely, telling me that he himself wished to see me with reference to +the same matter. I saw at once that _he_ really did mean business. He +was very much excited about the prospects of the undertaking." + +Mr. Greville Howard paused. He looked attentively at his visitor, but +Katty's face told him nothing, and he continued: "I cross-examined him +rather carefully about this Fernando Apra, and I discovered that he had +only seen the fellow twice, each time rather late in the evening, and by +artificial light. I then told him of my conviction that Apra was playing +a part, but he scouted the idea. Our unfortunate friend was a very +obstinate man, Mrs. Winslow." + +"Yes," said Katty in a low voice. "That is quite true." + +"And then," went on the other thoughtfully, "Pavely was also exceedingly +susceptible to flattery----" + +Katty nodded. This Mr. Greville Howard knew almost too much. + +"Well, as you know, he came down again to see me--and the next thing I +heard was that he had disappeared! At once--days before Mrs. Pavely +received that very singular letter--I associated Apra with the mystery. +It was, however, no business of mine to teach the police their business, +though I thought it probable that there would come a moment when I +should have to intervene, and reveal the little that I knew. That moment +came when Mr. Pavely's body was discovered in Apra's office at Duke +House." + +Greville Howard straightened himself somewhat in his easy chair. + +"I at once wrote, as I felt in duty bound, to Sir Angus Kinross. I had +met him, under rather unfortunate circumstances, some years ago, before +he became Commissioner of Police. That, doubtless, had given him a +prejudice against me. Be that as it may, instead of taking advantage of +my offer to tell him in confidence all I knew, he sent a most unpleasant +person down to interview me. This man, a pompous, ignorant fellow, came +twice--once before the inquest, once after the inquest. I naturally took +a special pleasure in misleading him, and in keeping to myself what I +could have told. But though I was able to give him the impression I +desired to convey, he was not able to keep anything he knew from _me_; +and, at the end of our second interview, he let out that the police had +very little doubt that two men had been concerned in the actual +murder--for murder the police by then believed it to be--of Mr. Godfrey +Pavely." + +Greville Howard stopped speaking for a moment. + +"Two men?" repeated Katty in a bewildered tone. + +And the other nodded, coolly. "Yes, that is the opinion they formed, +very early in the day, at Scotland Yard. They also made up their minds +that it would be one of those numerous murders of which the perpetrators +are never discovered. And, but for you and me, Mrs. Winslow, the very +clever perpetrators of this wonderfully well planned murder would have +escaped scot-free." + +He touched his invisible bell, and his man answered it. + +"Make up the fire," he said, "--a good lasting fire." + +When this had been done, he again turned to Katty. "We now," he said, +"come to the _really_ exciting part of my story. Up to now, I think I +have told you nothing that you did not know." + +"I had no idea," said Katty in a low, tense voice, "that the police +believed there were _two_ people concerned with Godfrey's death." + +She was trying, desperately, to put the puzzle together--and failing. + +"I crossed to France last March," went on Greville Howard musingly, +"and, inspired I must confess by a mere feeling of idle curiosity, I +stopped in Paris two days in order to see, first, Messrs. Zosean, and +secondly Henri Lutin, the head of the Detective Agency with whom, as I +told you just now, I have long been in such cordial relations. I called +first on Henri Lutin and reminded him of the story of Mr. Pavely's +disappearance, and of the subsequent finding of his body in this +Fernando Apra's office. I also informed him that I would go up to a +certain modest sum in pursuit of independent enquiries if he would +undertake to make them. He consented, and as a preliminary, gave me some +information with regard to Messrs. Zosean. Provided with a good +introduction I called on these bankers, and this is what I learnt. +Messrs. Zosean, with that curious incuriousness which is so very French, +scarcely knew anything of what had happened, though they were vaguely +aware that a man had been found killed by accident in their mysterious +client's office, for Fernando Apra was their client, but only--note +this, for it is important--a client of a few weeks' standing. He had +paid in to their bank, some two months before Mr. Pavely's death, the +very considerable sum of one million francs, forty thousand pounds, on +deposit. One of the junior partners saw him--only once, late in the +afternoon." + +Greville Howard waited a long moment--then he added impressively: "_And +the man whom they to this day believe to be Fernando Apra bore no +physical resemblance at all to the man who visited me here under that +name_. In fact, the description given by the bankers exactly tallies +with that of another man--of a man whom _you_ described to me about an +hour ago." + +"I don't quite understand," faltered Katty. + +"Don't you? Think a little, Mrs. Winslow, and you will agree with me +that the real client of Messrs. Zosean was Oliver Tropenell, the man +whom you believe to be the lover and future husband of Mrs. Pavely." + +Katty uttered an inarticulate exclamation--was it of surprise or of +satisfaction? Her host took no notice of it, and continued his +narrative: + +"One day--I soon found it to have been the day following that on which +the murder of Mr. Pavely was presumably committed--a man who, I feel +sure, was _my_ Fernando Apra, turned up at Messrs. Zosean with a cheque, +the fact that he was coming having been notified to the bank from London +by telephone. He drew out the greater part of the money lodged in the +name of Apra in Messrs. Zosean's bank--not all, mark you, for some eight +thousand pounds was left in, and that eight thousand pounds, Mrs. +Winslow, is still there, undisturbed. I doubt myself if it will ever be +claimed! + +"I then, following the plan laid down for me by Henri Lutin, asked +Messrs. Zosean at what hotel Fernando Apra had stayed. I was given two +addresses. These addresses I handed on to my friend the secret enquiry +agent, and the rest of the story belongs to him, for it was Lutin who +discovered all that I am now going to tell you." + +Greville Howard stopped speaking. He looked thoughtfully at the woman +who sat ensconced in the low arm-chair opposite him. + +He felt rather as a man may be supposed to feel who is about to put a +light to a fuse which will in due course blow up a powder magazine. +There even came over his subtle, tortuous mind a thrill of pity for the +man whom he was about to sacrifice to this pretty woman's desire for +vengeance and--as he could not help seeing--jealous hatred of another +woman who might, for all he knew, be in every way more worthy of his +interest, even of his admiration, than she who sat there looking at him +with gleaming eyes and parted lips. + +But Greville Howard, like all his kind, was a fatalist as well as +something of a philosopher. He could not have lived the life he had led, +and done the work which had built up his great fortune, had he been +anything else, and Katty had come at a very fortunate psychological +moment for him--as well as for herself. Greville Howard was becoming +what he had rarely ever been--bored; he was longing consciously for a +fresh interest and for a new companionship in his life. And so: + +"Perhaps you will be disappointed at the meagreness of what I am about +to tell you, but you may believe me when I say that it is information +which will make the way of Sir Angus Kinross quite clear, and which may +bring one, if not two, men to the gallows." + +Katty gave a little involuntary gasp. But he went on: + +"It did not take my friend Lutin very long to discover that a man of the +name of Apra had stayed at each of the hotels indicated to me by the +bankers. He also discovered that 'Apra' had with him a friend named +Dickinson who put down his birthplace as New York. Do you follow me, +Mrs. Winslow?" + +"Yes, I think so," she replied hesitatingly. + +"At the first hotel, a small, comfortable, rather expensive house in +the Madeleine quarter, Fernando Apra was a tall, dark, good-looking man, +and the other, the New Yorker, was fair and short. Though on the best of +terms they lived very different lives. The American was out a great +deal; he thoroughly enjoyed the gay, lively sides of Paris life. +Fernando Apra on the other hand stayed indoors, reading and writing a +good deal. At last the two men left the hotel, giving out that they were +going to spend the winter in the South of France. But they only stayed a +few days at Lyons and, doubling back to Paris, they settled in the Latin +Quarter on the other side of the river. + +"By that time, my dear Mrs. Winslow, _they had exchanged identities_. +The tall, dark man was now Dickinson, and his fair friend had become +Apra! It was Apra who one day told the manager he was going to a fancy +dress ball and asked him to recommend him a good theatrical costumier. +When Lutin ran that costumier to earth, the man at once remembered the +fact that a client he took to be an Englishman had come and had had +himself made up as a Mexican, purchasing also two bottles of +olive-coloured skin stain. Now Apra was out all night after this +extraordinary transformation in his appearance had taken place, but one +of the waiters at the hotel recognised him that same evening at Mabille. +When the man spoke to him, he appeared taken aback, and explained that +he had made a mistake in the day of the fancy dress ball. The next +morning he left the hotel, distributing lavish tips to everybody. But +Dickinson stayed on for a few days, and during those days he received +each day a telegram from England. One of these telegrams is actually in +my possession." + +Katty's host got up. He went across to a narrow, upright piece of inlaid +mahogany furniture, and unlocking a drawer, took from it an envelope. +Having opened it, he handed Katty a blue strip of paper on which were +printed the words: "Concession going well" and the signature "G." + +Katty stared down at the bit of blue paper, and she flushed. Even she +realised the significance of that "G." + +"I think," said her host quietly, "that if you write down from my +dictation certain notes, and hand them, _together with this telegram_, +to the Commissioner of Police, he may be trusted to do the rest." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Five quiet weeks slipped by--weeks full of outward, as well as of +inward, happiness at The Chase and at Freshley. + +Katty Winslow had come back to Rosedean, and then, without even seeing +Laura, had gone away again almost at once. She was still away when there +took place early in December the gathering together, for the first time +for many years, of a big shooting party at Knowlton Abbey. + +Just before joining that pleasant party, Mrs. Pavely spent a week in +London, and certain Pewsbury gossips, of whose very existence she was +unaware, opined that she had gone up to town to buy clothes! In a little +over a month, Godfrey Pavely would have been dead a year, and some of +these same gossips thought it rather strange that Mrs. Pavely should be +going to stay at the Abbey before her first year of widowhood was over. +But the kinder of the busybodies reminded one another that Lord St. +Amant had known the mistress of The Chase from childhood, and being, as +he was, a very good-natured man, no doubt he had thought it would cheer +up the poor lady to have a little change. + +Yes, Laura, to Mrs. Tropenell's surprise, had gone up alone to London, +and Oliver, after two days, followed her. But he had not waited to +escort her back, as his mother expected him to do. He returned the day +before Laura--in fact she was away a week, he only four days. + +The gossips of Pewsbury had been right. Laura had gone up to town to get +a few new clothes, but she was still wearing unrelieved black, if not +exactly conventional widow's mourning, when she arrived at Knowlton +Abbey. + +Lord St. Amant's shooting party was a great success--a success from the +point of view of the guests, and from that of the host. For the first +time for many years, in fact for the first time since the death of Lady +St. Amant, the house was quite full, for in addition to the neighbours +whom the host specially wished to honour, there had come down certain +more sophisticated folk from London. Among others asked had been Sir +Angus Kinross; but Sir Angus, to his own and Lord St. Amant's regret, +had had to decline. The two men had become intimate since last +winter--each had a real respect, a cordial liking, for the other. + +The housekeeper at the Abbey had been surprised to note his lordship's +interest in every detail. He had himself seen, and at considerable +length, the _chef_ who had come down from London for the week; he had +even glanced over the bedroom list, making certain suggestions as to +where his various guests should sleep. Thus it was by his desire that +Mrs. Tropenell had been given the largest bed-chamber in the house, one +which had never been, in the present housekeeper's reign, occupied by a +visitor. It had been, in the long, long ago, the room of his mother, the +room in fact where his lordship himself had been born some seventy odd +years ago. By his wish, also, there had been arranged for Mrs. +Tropenell's occupation the old-fashioned sitting-room into which the +bedroom opened. + +Mr. Oliver Tropenell had been put nearly opposite Lord St. Amant's own +sleeping apartment, in that portion of the house which was known as "his +lordship's wing." And Mrs. Pavely had been given, in the same part of +the house, but at the further end of the corridor, the room which had +been always occupied, during her infrequent sojourns at the Abbey, by +the late Lady St. Amant. + + * * * * * + +And now the long, though also the all too short, week-end, which had +lasted from Thursday to Tuesday, was over, and all the guests had +departed, with the exception of Lord St. Amant's three intimate +friends--Mrs. Tropenell, that lady's son, and Mrs. Pavely. This smaller +party was staying on for two more days, and then it would break up--Mrs. +Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely returning in the morning to Freshley Manor and +The Chase, while Mr. Tropenell stayed on to accompany his host to +another big shoot in the neighbourhood. + +Though all three had professed sincere regret at the departure of their +fellow guests, each of them felt a certain sense of relief, and yes, of +more than relief, of considerable satisfaction, when they found +themselves alone together. + +There is always plenty to talk about after the breakup of a country +house party, and when at last the four of them found themselves together +at dinner, they all did talk--even Laura, who was generally so silent, +talked and laughed, and exchanged quick, rather shy jests with Oliver. + +Laura and Oliver? Lord St. Amant had of course very soon discovered +their innocent secret. He had taxed Mrs. Tropenell with the truth, and +she had admitted it, while explaining that they desired their +engagement, for obvious reasons, to remain secret for a while. + +During these last few days their host had admired, with a touch of +whimsical surprise, Laura's dignity, and Oliver's self-restraint. Of +course they had managed to be a good deal together, aided by Lord St. +Amant's unobtrusive efforts, and owing to the fact that Mrs. Tropenell's +charming sitting-room upstairs was always at their disposal. + +But no one in the cheerful, light-hearted company had come within miles +of guessing the truth; and Oliver Tropenell had done his full share in +helping Lord St. Amant in the entertainment of his guests. He had also +made himself duly agreeable to the ladies--indeed, Oliver, in a sense, +had been the success of the party, partly because the way of his life in +Mexico enabled him to bring a larger, freer air into the discussions +which had taken place after dinner and in the smoking-room, and also +because of his vitality--a vitality which just now burned with a +brighter glow.... + +Lord St. Amant and Oliver only stayed on at the dining-table a very few +minutes after Mrs. Tropenell and Laura had gone off into the +drawing-room. + +Though now on very cordial terms, the two men never had very much to say +to one another. Yet Lord St. Amant had always been fond of Oliver. Being +the manner of man he was, he could not but feel attached to Letty +Tropenell's child. Still, there had been a time, now many long years +ago, just after the death of his wife, when he had been acutely jealous +of Oliver--jealous, that is, of Mrs. Tropenell's absorption, love, and +pride, in her son. She had made it so very clear that she desired no +closer tie to her old friend--and this had shrewdly hurt his +self-esteem. But he had been too much of a philosopher to bear +_rancune_, and such a friendship as theirs soon became had, after all, +its compensations. + +When Oliver settled in Mexico the time had passed by for a renewal of +the old relations, and for a while the tie which had lasted for so long, +and survived so many secret vicissitudes, appeared to loosen.... + +But now, again, all that was changed. Lord St. Amant had given up his +wanderings on the Continent, and he had come once more very near to Mrs. +Tropenell, during this last year. He and Oliver were also better friends +than they had ever been; this state of things dated from last winter, +for, oddly enough, what had brought them in sympathy had been the death +of Godfrey Pavely. They had been constantly together during the days +which had followed the banker's mysterious disappearance, and they had +worked in close union, each, in a sense, representing Laura, and having +a dual authority from her to do what seemed best. + +Still, to-night, excellent as were the terms on which each man felt with +the other, neither had anything to say that could not be said better in +the company of the ladies. And when in the drawing-room, which now +looked so large and empty with only two, where last night there had been +twelve, women gathered together about the fireplace, the four talked on, +pleasantly, cheerfully, intimately, as they had done at dinner. + +After a while Laura and Oliver slipped away into the smaller +drawing-room, and Lord St. Amant and Mrs. Tropenell, hardly aware that +the other two had left them, went on gossiping--harking back, as they +now so often did, to the old stories, the old human tragedies and +comedies, of the neighbourhood. + +Soon after ten Laura and Oliver came back, walking side by side, and +Oliver's mother looked up with a proud, fond glance. + +They were a striking, well-matched couple--Laura looking more beautiful +than ever to-night, perhaps because she seemed a thought more animated +than usual. + +"I've come to say good-night," she exclaimed. "I feel so sleepy! Oliver +and I had such a glorious walk this afternoon." + +She bent down and kissed Mrs. Tropenell. And then, unexpectedly, she +turned to Lord St. Amant, and put up her face as if she expected him +also to kiss her. + +Amused and touched, he bent and brushed his old lips against her soft +cheek: "My dear," he exclaimed, "this is very kind of you!" + +And then Oliver stepped forward into the circle of light thrown by the +big wood fire. + +He said a little huskily, "My turn next, Laura----" And to the infinite +surprise of his mother and of his host, Laura, with an impulsive, tender +gesture, reached up towards him, and he, too, brushed her soft face with +his lips. + +Then he took her hand, and led her to the door. And Lord St. Amant, +quoting Champmele, turned to his old love: "'Ah! Madame--quelle jolie +chose qu'un baiser!'" he murmured, and ere the door had quite closed +behind Oliver he, too, had put his arm with a caressing gesture round +her shoulder, and drawn her to him, with the whispered words, +"Letty--don't think me an old fool!" And then, "Oh, Letty! Do you +remember the first time----" And though she made no answer, he knew she +did remember, like himself only too well, the wild, winter afternoon, +nearer forty than thirty years ago, when they two had been caught alone, +far from home, in a great storm--the wild weather responding to their +wild mood. They had taken shelter in a deserted, half-ruined barn, a +survival of the days when England had still great granaries. And there, +throwing everything aside--the insistent promptings of honour, and the +less insistent promptings of prudence--St. Amant had kissed Letty.... + +He remembered, even now, the thrill of mingled rapture, shame, +gratitude, triumph, and stinging self-rebuke, which had accompanied that +first long clinging kiss. + +The next day he had left the Abbey for the Continent, and when, at last, +he had come back, he had himself again well in hand.... + +Only yesterday the shooters had gone by that old seventeenth-century +barn, of which nothing now remained but thick low walls, and as he had +tramped by the spot, so alone with his memories, if outwardly so +companioned, there had swept over his heart, that heart which was still +susceptible to every keen emotion, a feeling of agonised regret for what +had--and what had not been. + +"Ah, Letty," he said huskily, "you've been the best friend man ever had! +Don't you think the time has come for two such old friends as you and I +have been never to part? It isn't as if I had a great deal of time +left." + + * * * * * + +An hour later Lord St. Amant was sitting up in bed, reading the fourth +volume of a certain delightful edition of the Memoirs of the Duc de +Saint Simon. He was feeling happier than he had felt for a very long +time--stirred and touched too, as he had not thought to be again. + +Complacently he reminded himself of the successful, the brilliantly +successful, elderly marriages he had known in his time. 'Twas odd when +one came to think of it, but he couldn't remember one such which had +turned out a failure! + +Dear Letty--who had known how to pass imperceptibly from youth to age +with such a fine, measured dignity, while retaining so much which had +made her as a girl and as an older woman the most delightful and +stimulating of companions. What an agreeable difference her presence +would make to his existence as he went slowly down into the shadows! He +shuddered a little--the thought of old age, of real old age, becoming +suddenly, vividly repugnant. + +Thank God, Letty was very much younger than himself. When he was eighty +she would be sixty-three. He tried to put away that thought, the thought +that some day he would be infirm, as well as old. + +He looked up from his book. + +How odd to think that Letty had never been in this room, where he had +spent so much of his life from boyhood onwards! He longed to show her +some of the things he had here--family miniatures, old political +caricatures, some of his favourite books--they would all interest her. + +He was glad he had arranged that she should have, on this visit, his +dear mother's room. When he had married--close on fifty years ago--his +parents had been alive, and later his wife, as the new Lady St. Amant, +had not cared to take over her predecessor's apartments. She had been +very little here, for soon, poor woman, she had become an invalid--a +most disagreeable, selfish invalid. He told himself that after all he +had had a certain amount of excuse for--well, for the sort of existence +he had led so long. If poor Adelaide had only died twenty years earlier, +and he had married Letty--ah, _then_, he would indeed have become an +exemplary character! Yet he had been faithful to Letty--in his +fashion.... + +No other woman had even approached near the sanctuary where the woman of +whom now, to-night, he was able to think as his future wife, had at once +become so securely enthroned. It had first been a delicious, if a +dangerous, relationship, and, later, a most agreeable friendship. During +the last few months she had become rather to his surprise very necessary +to him, and these last few days he had felt how pleasant it would be to +have Letty always here, at the Abbey, either in his company, or resting, +reading, or writing in the room where everything still spoke to him of +the long-dead mother who had been so dear to him. + +Of course they would wait till Oliver and Laura were married--say, till +some time in February or March: and then, when those two rather tiresome +younger people were disposed of, they, he and Letty, would slip up +quietly to London, and, in the presence of perhaps two or three old +friends, they would be made man and wife. + +He reflected complacently that nothing in his life would be changed, +save that Letty would be there, at the Abbey, as she had been the last +few days, always ready to hear with eager interest anything he had to +say, always with her point of view sufficiently unlike his own to give +flavour, even sometimes a touch of the unexpected, to their +conversation. + + * * * * * + +A knock at the door, and his valet came in, and walked close up to the +bed. + +"It's a telephone message, my lord. From Sir Angus Kinross--private to +your lordship." + +"Yes. What is the message?" + +Lord St. Amant felt a slight tremor of discomfort sweep over him. What +an odd time to send a trunk-call through--at close on midnight. + +"Sir Angus has been trying to get on for some time, my lord; there was a +fault on the line. Sir Angus would be much obliged if you would meet him +at your lordship's rooms at one o'clock to-morrow. He says he's sorry to +trouble your lordship to come up to London, but it's very important. He +came himself to the telephone, my lord. He asked who I was. I did offer +to fetch your lordship, but he said there was no occasion for that--if I +would deliver the message myself." + +"All right, Barrett." + +"Sir Angus begs your lordship not to tell any one that your business +to-morrow is with him." + +"I quite understand that." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +"We have solved the mystery of Godfrey Pavely's death!" + +Such were the words with which Sir Angus Kinross greeted Lord St. Amant, +when the latter, arriving at his rooms, found the Commissioner of Police +already there. + +"D'you mean that you've run Fernando Apra to earth?" + +The speaker felt relieved, and at the same time rather discomfited. He +had not associated the Commissioner of Police's summons with that now +half-forgotten, painful story. Godfrey Pavely had vanished out of his +mind, as he had vanished out of every one else's mind in the +neighbourhood of Pewsbury, and in the last few months when Sir Angus and +Lord St. Amant had met they had seldom alluded to the strange occurrence +which had first made them become friends. + +But now, seeing that the other looked at him with a singular look of +hesitation, there came a slight feeling of apprehension over St. Angus's +host. + +"Have you actually got the man here, in England? If so, I suppose poor +Mrs. Pavely is bound to have a certain amount of fresh trouble in +connection with the affair?" + +"We have not got the man who called himself Fernando Apra, and we are +never likely to have him. In fact, I regard it as certain that we shall +not even be able to connect him directly with the murder--for murder it +certainly was, St. Amant." + +"Murder?" + +Lord St. Amant repeated the word reluctantly, doubtfully. He was +beginning to feel more and more apprehensive. There was something so +strange and so sombre in the glance with which the Commissioner of +Police accompanied his words. + +During that fortnight when they had so constantly seen one another last +year, Sir Angus had never once looked surprised, annoyed--or even put +out! There had been about him a certain imperturbability, both of temper +and of manner. He now looked infinitely more disturbed than he had done +even at the moment when he had first seen Godfrey Pavely's dead body +sitting up in Fernando Apra's sinister-looking office. + +"Yes," he went on in a low, incisive voice, "it was murder right enough! +And we already hold a warrant, which will be executed the day after +to-morrow, this next Friday----" + +He waited a moment, then uttered very deliberately the words: "It is a +warrant for the arrest of Mr. Oliver Tropenell on the charge of having +murdered Mr. Godfrey Pavely on or about the 5th of last January." + +"I--I don't understand what you mean! Surely Oliver Tropenell was not +masquerading as Fernando Apra?" exclaimed Lord St. Amant. "If one can +believe a mass of quite disinterested evidence, the two men were utterly +unlike!" + +"That is so, and there was of course a man who masqueraded, and +masqueraded most successfully, both in Paris and in London, as Fernando +Apra. That man, St. Amant, was----" + +Lord St. Amant bent forward eagerly while his mind, his still vigorous, +intelligent, acute mind, darted this way and that. What name--whose +name--was Sir Angus going to utter? + +He was not long left in suspense. + +"That man," said Sir Angus slowly, impressively, "was Mrs. Pavely's +brother, a certain Gilbert Baynton, who is, we are informed, the +business partner of Mr. Tropenell in Mexico. It was _he_ who masqueraded +as Fernando Apra. But it was not he who actually fired the pistol shot +which killed Godfrey Pavely----" + +When he had heard the name Gilbert Baynton, it was as if a great light +had suddenly burst in on Lord St. Amant's brain. In spite of everything +he felt a sharp thrill of relief. + +"Good God!" he exclaimed. "There's been a terrible mistake--but it's one +that I can set right in a very few minutes. Believe me, you're on the +wrong track altogether! If murder there was--murder, and not +manslaughter, which I venture to think much more probable--then Gilbert +Baynton was Godfrey Pavely's murderer. The two men hated one another. It +all comes back to me--not only had they a quarrel years ago, but that +same quarrel was renewed not long before Godfrey Pavely's disappearance. +Nothing--_nothing_--would induce me to believe that Oliver Tropenell is +a murderer!" + +"I'm afraid you'll soon be brought round to believe it," said Sir Angus +ruefully. "I am of course well aware of what you say concerning Gilbert +Baynton's relations to his brother-in-law. We've already found all that +out, especially as we had a willing witness close to our hand. +Unfortunately--I say unfortunately, St. Amant, for of course I know he +is a thorough bad hat--we have irrefutable evidence that this man +Baynton did _not_ commit the murder. He was certainly in Paris at the +time when Godfrey Pavely was killed in London." + +Sir Angus took a turn up and down the room--then he came back to where +the other man was sitting. + +"You can take it from me, St. Amant, that there has never been, in the +whole history of criminal jurisprudence, so far as I am acquainted with +it, any crime planned out with such infinite care, ingenuity, +and--and--well, yes, I must say it, a kind of almost diabolical cunning. +So true is that that----" He took another turn up and down the room, and +then once more he came and stood before his friend: "Well, I consider +the murderer has a very good sporting chance of getting off--scot free! +He will be able to command the best legal advice as well as the best +intellects at the Criminal Bar--that he himself has no mean intellect he +has proved over this business. Yes, I shouldn't be in the least +surprised if he managed to scrape through! More fortunate than most of +his kind, he has a new country to which he will be able to retire with +the widow of the man he murdered--if she can be brought to believe in +him. And, mind you, women can be brought to believe _anything_ of those +they love, or at any rate, they can be brought to _seem_ to believe +anything!" + +He waited a moment, and then added abruptly, "I formed the opinion that +Mrs. Pavely was a very unusual woman, St. Amant." + +"But you don't think--surely you don't think----" + +"No, no----" Sir Angus was very decided. "I certainly don't think Mrs. +Pavely was in any way concerned in this appalling plot. And mind +you--ill as I think of him, I must admit that Oliver Tropenell's a brave +man. He did the job himself--even if he was helped by his friend." + +He waited a moment. Somehow St. Amant was taking the news far more to +heart than he had expected. + +"I'll tell you everything in time, but it's a long, complicated story; +and of course I'm trusting entirely to your honour in the matter. What I +tell you now must never go beyond these four walls." + +Sir Angus sat down, and Lord St. Amant listened, half of his brain +acutely, sensitively alive to the story that was being told him--the +other half in a kind of stupor of grief, of shame, and of horror. That +second half of his brain was dominated by one name, one thought, one +heart-beat--Letty, the dear, the beloved woman who had just promised to +marry him, to bring him the solace of her care and companionship in the +evening of his days.... + + * * * * * + +"Apart from certain most cleverly devised breaks in the story--to which +I shall make allusion presently--Oliver Tropenell's best chance lies in +the absence of adequate motive. Why should this millionaire wish to +murder a man who, as he will easily be able to prove, was not only an +intimate friend, but also a connection of his own? Our answer to that +question will be to put in these two anonymous letters." + +Sir Angus took out of his pocket the two letters which had caused poor +Godfrey Pavely such acute discomfort just a year before. + +Lord St. Amant read them through, carefully, in silence. + +"Still, as I daresay you know, judges look very much askance at +anonymous letters, and especially in a trial for murder. Also these +prove so _very_ little--the more so that there seems to have been no +talk at all about Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely in the neighbourhood. She +bears, and has always borne, a very high character. As for these +letters, they were evidently written by a woman--and by an educated +woman. Any one familiar with disguised handwriting could tell you _that_ +much. Of course I have my own theory as to who wrote them." + +Lord St. Amant nodded. "Yes, so have I." + +"Still, I'm not bound to give my theory to either side, am I? I foresee +that very probably these letters will remain anonymous. A great many +people who think themselves clever will put them down to some dismissed +servant. + +"The fact that Mr. Tropenell left England for Mexico so soon after the +discovery of Mr. Pavely's body is a good point on his side. The judge +will argue, above all the jury will argue, that if he had been in love +with Mrs. Pavely--if he had loved her, that is, with a guilty +passion--he would not have left her just after she had become a widow. +Nothing compelled him to do so. It has been suggested, but from a person +who does not intend to go into the witness-box if she can help it, that +Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely are now secretly engaged. My answer to that +is--why shouldn't they be? Many a man has married his best friend's +widow without any one supposing that he committed murder in order to +attain that satisfaction!" + +"Have you proof--irrefutable proof--pointing to the guilt of Oliver +Tropenell?" + +"What is irrefutable proof? It can be proved that Oliver Tropenell spent +many weeks on the Continent in the company of the man who undoubtedly +masqueraded as Fernando Apra, and that for a certain portion of that +time the two men exchanged identities. Nothing can shake that portion of +the evidence. But there is no record of the two having met, later, in +London--I mean during the time when the net was certainly being drawn +round Godfrey Pavely. And, as I said before, Gilbert Baynton--_alias_ +Fernando Apra--has an absolute alibi. He was certainly in Paris on the +day when all trace of Pavely was lost. There seems no doubt at all that +the evidence of the London hotel manager was most artfully arranged for. +The man's story was given in good faith, but the incident occurred a +full week before Mr. Pavely was done to death." + +"But where does Tropenell come in?" + +"As to the movements of Mr. Oliver Tropenell, we have not been quite so +fortunate in tracing them. But even so, we have evidence that during the +fateful three days on one of which the murder was certainly committed, +he was staying in London, having just arrived from the Continent. I +personally have no doubt at all that it was on Thursday, January the +5th, that, lured by a cleverly concocted letter signed 'Fernando Apra,' +the hapless Pavely went to Duke House to find Tropenell lying in wait +for him. The two men may have had words--they probably _did_ have +words. But whatever passed--and look at it as you may, St. Amant--it was +deliberate murder." + +Lord St. Amant stood up. His turn had come to astound the Commissioner +of Police. + +"Yes," he said, "yes, if your theory is correct, Kinross, it was +deliberate murder--to me far the more terrible fact, because the +murderer will soon be my stepson. I am to be married to Mrs. Tropenell +by special licence next week." + +And as the Commissioner of Police, transfixed with surprise, remained +silent, the other went on, speaking rather quietly and coldly, "It is +only fair on my part to tell you this. Indeed, perhaps I ought to have +told you at once--I mean when I first gathered the purport of what you +wished to say to me." + +Sir Angus shook his head. He was filled with a great pity, as well as a +great admiration, for the man--who now looked such an old man--standing +there facing him. + +"Look here," he said slowly. "I oughtn't perhaps to make such a +suggestion to you--but we've become friends, St. Amant. That is why I +venture to advise you that before this next Friday you should get these +two unfortunate ladies, Mrs. Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely, out of the +country. Take them away--hide them away--in France or in Spain! If you +do that they will be spared a fathomless measure of anguish and of +shame. The presence of neither of them is essential to the course of +justice, and if they remain in England they will certainly each be +called as witnesses, in which case Mrs. Pavely will go through--well, I +can only describe it as _hell_. It is not as if the presence of either +of them would be really beneficial to Oliver Tropenell." + +"Can you say that quite truly about his mother?" asked Lord St. Amant +searchingly. + +Sir Angus looked up with a very troubled expression of face. + +"No, I fear I can't," he answered, frankly, "for if Mrs. Tropenell can +bring herself to believe her son absolutely innocent, then, in the hands +of a skilful counsel, I have to admit that her evidence might be of +great sentimental value to Tropenell. But the same cannot be said of +Mrs. Pavely's presence in the witness-box. Whichever way you look at it, +Mrs. Pavely's presence is bound to be, in a judicial sense, detrimental +to the man in the dock. She is, if I may say so, St. Amant, a singularly +attractive woman, and ten out of every twelve of the men in Court would +probably regard her as providing a very adequate 'motive'!" + +There was a pause, and then Sir Angus began again: + +"What would you say to our persuading Mrs. Pavely to leave England for a +while, leaving only Mrs. Tropenell to face the music?" + +"Mrs. Pavely," said Lord St. Amant thoughtfully, "would probably refuse +to leave England. I think, I fear, that she loves Oliver +Tropenell--passionately." + +He added abruptly, "Are you having him watched?" + +Sir Angus cleared his throat. "Well, no, not exactly _watched_. We are +of course aware that he has been staying with you for the past week, and +that he is going back to Freshley Manor--is it to-morrow, or the day +after to-morrow? I take it that he would probably prefer to be arrested +in his mother's house." + +A feeling of sick horror came over the other man's heart. "I--I suppose +so," he muttered. + +And then Sir Angus Kinross dropped his voice: "You really know this man +and I don't. Do you think it advisable that he should be prepared for +what is coming--that _you_, for instance, St. Amant----" + +"Do you mean," exclaimed Lord St. Amant, "that I may--warn him?" + +The other nodded. "Yes, that is what I suggest that you should do. I +take it that we can be quite sure that he will do nothing mad or +foolish--that he will not try to get away, for instance? It would be +quite useless, and I need hardly point out that it would ruin his +chances--later. I think you are at liberty to tell him, as from yourself +of course, that you have reason to think he has a sporting chance, St. +Amant. But I am trusting, not only to your honour, but to your secrecy +and--and discretion." + +The other nodded gravely. "Tropenell's not the sort of man to run away." + +"No, I don't think he is--once he knows the game is up," answered the +Commissioner of Police a trifle grimly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +It was now early, very early in the morning after the return of Lord St. +Amant to the Abbey. Dead dark, and dead quiet too, in the great sleeping +house. Not dead cold, however, in his lordship's comfortable bedroom, +for he had built up the fire, as he sat on and on, still fully dressed, +reading, or trying to read--his bed exactly in the same state as when he +had gone upstairs from the drawing-room about eleven. + +It was years and years since Lord St. Amant had last stayed up all +night, but though he had made a great effort to forget himself in those +ever fresh, even if familiar, memoirs of Saint Simon, he had found it +impossible to banish from his mind--even for a few moments--the awful +thing which he knew would, in a sense, never leave his mind again. + +For the tenth time he put his book down, marking the page with a tiny +strip of green watered ribbon, on a low table by his side, and then, +staring into the fire, his memory lingered--not over his talk with Sir +Angus Kinross, he was sick of thinking _that_ over--but over the +incidents which had marked the evening before. + +He had returned from London only just in time to dress for dinner, and +so he had not seen his guests till just before a quarter-past eight. +Then had followed an hour passed, outwardly at least, peacefully and +pleasantly. + +But while he had been eating mechanically the food put before him, in +very truth not knowing what it was, terrible thoughts had gone through +his mind in a terrible sequence. + +Once or twice he had caught, or thought he had caught, Oliver +Tropenell's penetrating eyes fixed searchingly on his face, but he, the +host, had avoided looking at his guest. Somehow he could neither look at +Oliver, nor even think of Oliver--with Oliver and Laura there, the one +sitting opposite to him, the other next him. + +Laura? Laura, on Lord St. Amant's left, had looked lovely last night. +She was wearing a white dress, almost bridal in its dead whiteness--a +rather singular fact considering that she had till to-day worn +unrelieved black. Looking back, her host could not get her out of his +mind. To think that she, proud, reserved, Laura Pavely was to be the +heroine of a frightful tragedy which would bring not only shame and +disgrace on herself and on the man whom Lord St. Amant had every reason +to suppose she now loved, but--what was of so very much more concern to +him--on that man's mother. + +Looking at Laura, seeing that strange, haunting Mona Lisa smile on her +lovely face, it had seemed incredible that she should be the central +figure of such a story. But how could she escape being the central +figure, the heroine of the story, at any rate in the imagination of all +those, one might almost count them by millions, rather than thousands, +who in a few days or a few weeks would be as familiar with the name +"Mrs. Pavely" as they once had been with the names of--of Mrs. Bravo and +Mrs. Maybrick? + +Yes, Lord St. Amant, staring into the fire, told himself, that that +three-quarters of an hour spent in his own dining-room had been the most +painful time he had ever lived through in his long life. He felt as if +every moment of it was indelibly stamped on his brain. And yet he had +completely forgotten what the talk had been about! He supposed they had +talked. Silence would have seemed so strange, so unnatural. Yet he could +not remember a single thing which had been said. + +But his vision of the three who had sat at table with him remained +horribly clear. + +Now he was haunted specially by Oliver. And then, after a while, Oliver +left him, and he was haunted by his poor friend, soon to be his poor +wife. + +Mrs. Tropenell had been more silent than usual--so much he did remember. +And he wondered uneasily if he had given her any cause for thinking, +from his appearance or his manner, that there was anything wrong? + +The thought of what was going to happen to Mrs. Tropenell on the day +which was now to-morrow, became suddenly so intolerable to Lord St. +Amant that he got up from his chair, and walked twice round the large, +shadowed bedroom. + +Then he sat down again, and groaned aloud. + +It was as though a bridge had been thrown over the chasm of nearly forty +years. His withered heart became vivified. Something of the passion +which he had left for the high-spirited and innocent, yet +ardent-natured, girl whom he had loved, and whom he had saved from +herself, stirred within him. Secretly, voicelessly, he had always been +very proud of what he had, done--and left undone. It was the one good, +nay, the one selfless, action of his long, agreeable, selfish life. + +But he could not save her now! Some little shelter and protection he +would be able to afford her, but what would it avail against the +frightful cloud of shame and anguish which was about to envelop her? + +He told himself suddenly what he had already told himself when with Sir +Angus--namely, that he and Letty must be married at once. She would +certainly acquiesce in any course which would benefit Oliver. Yes, Letty +would think of nothing but her son, and, the world being what it is, +Oliver would of course benefit by the fact that Lord St. Amant was his +stepfather. It would add yet another touch of the unusual and the +romantic to the story.... + +Once more his mind swung back to last evening. He and Oliver had stayed +alone together some ten minutes after the ladies had gone into the +drawing-room, and there had come over Lord St. Amant a wild, unreasoning +impulse to unburden his heart. But of course he had checked, battened +down resolutely, that foolish almost crazy impulse. As soon as Letty and +Laura were safely gone tomorrow morning he must, of course, tackle the +terrible task. And then he tried, as he had tried so often during the +last twelve hours, to put himself in Oliver Tropenell's place. + +He recalled the younger man's easy, assured manner, and what a real +help, nay, more than help, he had been when the house was full of +guests. More than one of their neighbours there had spoken warmly, with +evident admiration, of Tropenell. "How well he's turned out! He was +thought to be such a queer chap as a boy." + +A queer chap? Oliver was certainly _that_. + +Lord St. Amant forced himself to consider the man whom his intellect, if +not his heart, was compelled to recognise as a cold-blooded murderer. + +What had been his and Laura's real attitude to one another during +Godfrey Pavely's lifetime? Was Laura absolutely innocent? Or, had she +played with Tropenell as women sometimes do play with men--as a certain +kind of beautiful, graceful, dignified cat sometimes plays with a mouse? +He was still inclined to think _not_,--before yesterday he would +certainly have said not. But one never can tell--with a woman.... + +And what was going to happen now? Oliver had always been a fighter--no +doubt Oliver would be prepared to take the "sporting chance." + +When he and his guest had gone into the drawing-room last evening, Laura +and Oliver had almost at once passed through into the smaller +drawing-room. They had moved away unconcernedly, as if it was quite +natural that they should desire to be by themselves, rather than in the +company of Oliver's mother and Laura's host; and Lord St. Amant, looking +furtively at Mrs. Tropenell, had felt a sudden painful constriction of +the heart as he had noted the wistful glance she had cast on the two +younger people. It had been such a touching look--the look of the mother +who gives up her beloved to the woman who has become his beloved. + +At ten o'clock tea had been brought in--an old-fashioned habit which +was, perhaps, the only survival of the late Lady St. Amant's reign at +the Abbey, and, to the surprise of Mrs. Tropenell, her companion had +poured himself out a cup and had drunk it off absently. + +She had smiled, exclaiming, "You shouldn't have done that! You know you +never can take tea and coffee so near together!" And he had said, "Can't +I? No, of course I can't. How stupid of me!" + +And Laura, hearing the opening and the shutting of doors, had come back, +and said that she felt sleepy. They had had another glorious walk, she +and Oliver.... + +Yes, that had been how the evening had worn itself out, so quiet and +pleasant, so peaceful--outwardly. It was, indeed, outwardly just the +kind of evening which Lord St. Amant had promised himself only yesterday +should be repeated many times, after his marriage to his old friend. But +now he knew that that had been the last apparently pleasant, peaceful +evening that was ever likely to fall to his share in this life. Even if +Oliver Tropenell, aided by his great wealth and shrewd intellect, +escaped the legal consequences of his wicked deed, his mother would ever +be haunted by the past--if indeed the fiery ordeal did not actually kill +her. + +The old man, sitting by the fire, began to feel very, very tired--tired, +yet excited, and not in the least sleepy. He turned and looked over at +his bed, and then he shook his head. Yet he would have to get into that +bed and pretend that he had slept in it, before his valet came into the +room at half-past seven. + +It was years, years, _years_ since he had last tried to make an +unslept-in bed look as if it had been slept in. + +He told himself fretfully that it was odd how unwilling he felt to go +over in his own mind the amazing story told him by Sir Angus Kinross. He +had thought of nothing else on his long journey from London, but since +he had arrived at the Abbey, since he had seen Oliver, he could not bear +to think over the details of the sinister story. He forced himself to +glance at them, as it were obliquely, for a moment. Yes, he could quite +see what Sir Angus meant! Oliver certainly had a sporting chance, backed +with the power of commanding the best legal advice and the highest +talent at the Bar, coupled with the kind of sympathy which is aroused, +even in phlegmatic England, by what the French call a _crime passionel_. + + * * * * * + +Once more Lord St. Amant took up the little faded red leather-bound +volume, but he had hardly pushed aside the green ribbon which marked his +place in it, when there struck on his ears the metallic sound of an +alarum clock--one which he judged to have been carefully muffled and +deadened, yet which must be quite sufficiently audible to fulfil its +purpose of awakening any sleeper in the room where it happened to be. + +Now, on hearing that sound, Lord St. Amant was exceedingly surprised, +for, as far as he knew, only one other room was occupied on this side of +the corridor. That room was that which his late wife had chosen in +preference to the one which had been his mother's, and by an odd whim he +had assigned it to Laura Pavely. + +He turned slightly round in his chair, and glanced at the travelling +clock which was on his dressing-table. + +It was half-past five. + +Why should Laura, or any one else in that great house for the matter of +that, wish to be awakened on a winter's morning at such an hour? + +While he was thinking this over, he heard the sound of a key turning +quietly in a lock, and then there came that of the slow opening of a +door on to the corridor. + +He stood up, uncertain what to do, and feeling his nerves taut. + +Though he was now an old man, his limbs had not lost all their +suppleness, and after a moment of hesitation he sprang to his door and +opened it. + +Yes! He could hear the firm tread of footsteps coming down the corridor +towards him, to his left. + +He flung his door wide open, and into the stream of light thrown by his +powerful reading lamp into the corridor, there suddenly appeared Oliver +Tropenell---- + +For a flashing moment the tall figure loomed out of the darkness, and +then was engulfed again.... + +Lord St. Amant shut the door and hurried back to the fireplace. He +cursed the impulse, bred half of genuine alarm, half of eager curiosity, +which had made him the unwilling sharer in another man's--and +woman's--secret. + +Laura? Laura?--_Laura?_ He was so taken aback, so surprised, so utterly +astounded, and yes, so shocked, that for a moment he forgot the terrible +thing which had now filled his mind without ceasing for so many hours. +Then it came back, a thousand-fold more vivid and accusing. + +Laura? Good God, how mistaken he had been in her! Manlike, he told +himself, most unfairly, that somehow what he had now learnt made +everything--anything possible. + +But before he had time to sit down, the door opened again, and Oliver +Tropenell walked into the room. + +"I wish you to know," he began, without any preamble, "that Laura and I +were married a week ago in London. She wished to wait--in fact it had +been arranged that we should wait--till February or March. But to please +me--only to please me, St. Amant--she put her own wishes, her own +scruples aside. If there is any blame--the blame is entirely, _entirely_ +mine." He waited a moment, and then went on rapidly: + +"As far as the rest of the world--the indifferent world--is concerned, +it will believe that Laura and I were married when of course we should +have been, after Godfrey Pavely had been dead a year. But Laura would +like my mother to know. In fact she intends, I believe, to tell my +mother to-morrow." + +Lord St. Amant found himself debating, with a kind of terrible +self-questioning, whether now was the moment to speak to Oliver. + +"Of course I understand," he said shakily. "And I think Laura did quite +right. But even so I suggest that nothing is said to your mother--yet. I +have a very serious reason for asking you to beg Laura to keep your +marriage absolutely secret." + +He was looking earnestly, painfully into the face of the younger man. + +Oliver Tropenell's countenance suddenly stiffened. It assumed a +terrible, mask-like expression. + +"Had your journey to London," he asked slowly, "anything to do with my +affairs? I thought so once--at dinner. Did Sir Angus Kinross send for +you?" + +Lord St. Amant could not, did not, speak. But at last he bent his head. + +Then Oliver asked another question, quickly, in a matter-of-fact tone: +"How many hours have I left?" + +"Till to-morrow, I mean till Friday, morning," the other answered in a +stifled voice. + +He longed to go on, to tell the man standing by his side what Sir Angus +had said as to his having "a sporting chance." But there was something +in the expression of the rigid, mask-like face which forbade his saying +that. + +And then Oliver Tropenell turned round and grasped his host's hand. + +"I owe you a lot of kindness," he muttered. "I used not to be grateful, +but I am grateful, _now_. We'll get Laura and mother off--and then +you'll tell me what I have to know." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Mrs. Tropenell stood by the window of the pretty, old-fashioned +sitting-room which she had now occupied for over a week, and which she +knew would be, in a special sense, her own room, after she had became +Lady St. Amant. + +She was already dressed for the drive home with Laura Pavely. It was +nearly twelve o'clock, and the car would be round in a few minutes. But +she was waiting on, up here, for her son, for after breakfast Oliver had +said casually: "I'll come up to your room for a moment, mother--I mean +before you start for Freshley." + +She looked round the room consideringly. Nothing in it had been altered +for something like fifty years. Above the Italian marble chimney-piece +was a good portrait, in oils, of Lord St. Amant's father, and on either +side of the fireplace were crayon drawings of St. Amant as a little boy, +and of his two sisters as little girls. Everything here epitomised the +placid, happy life of the good and fortunate woman who had been Lord St. +Amant's mother. + +But the pretty, old-fashioned, peaceful-looking room told also of the +strange transience of human life. With the exception of that early +Victorian crayon drawing of the stalwart little boy, almost everything +in the nature of a relic or memento spoke of some human being long dead. + +Mrs. Tropenell felt curiously at peace. There was something almost +final about the feeling which possessed her. Up to last night she had +been anxious, restless, full of a secret, painful doubt as to whether +she was doing right in marrying Lord St. Amant. + +But now, this morning, her doubts had gone, partly owing to a very +trifling thing, a quick perception of how well St. Amant and Oliver got +on together--now. She had been alone with them at breakfast, and they +had talked eagerly together, passing quickly from one subject to +another, with no intervals of silence. When, at last, Oliver had got up, +St. Amant also had risen, and put his arm with an affectionate gesture +round the younger man's shoulder, and she had caught a strange look, a +look of moved gratitude, on Oliver's dark face.... + +She had dreaded telling her son of her resolve--but the dread had left +her, and she made up her mind to tell him this morning--not to wait, as +she had half thought of doing, till he was at home again. + +St. Amant and Oliver were going to shoot this afternoon over land +belonging to little Alice Pavely. Laura had let The Chase shooting to a +neighbour, and the neighbour, whose name was Buckhurst, had invited the +other two to join his shooting party to-day, and to-morrow also. Oliver +was coming home to Freshley in between.... + +The door opened. "Mother, may I come in?" + +She turned quickly, all her heart, as always, welcoming him. With a +little, unacknowledged pang she told herself that Oliver was growing +older, that he was losing the look of buoyancy that he had kept so long. +But what a fine, strong, vigorous-looking man he looked!--as he stood +there, smiling rather gravely at her. + +"Oliver?" she exclaimed, suddenly making up her mind to rush her +fence--it was a simile which still often occurred to her--"Oliver, my +dear, I want to tell you something. I have promised Lord St. Amant to +marry him." + +He looked moved and surprised--perhaps more than she had expected him to +be. But his answer came instantly: "I am glad, mother. I'm very, very +glad! I want to tell you, I've meant to tell you for some time, that I +felt I've been very churlish in this matter of Lord St. Amant. He's +always been good to me! Very, very good. I owed him a great deal as a +boy. Lately, well, mother, you must have noticed it yourself, we've +become really friends." + +He looked swiftly round the pretty room. Till this morning he had always +been here alone with Laura, having eyes only for her. He saw now what a +charming room it was--so warm, so cosy too, on this chilly, wintry +December day. + +He exclaimed: "It will be good to think of you here--wherever I may +be----" + +She felt a tremor go through her. Somehow she had thought that he meant +to settle down in England; he had never said anything about it, but she +had thought that that was his intention. + +"Is Laura willing to spend a part of every year in Mexico, my dearest?" + +He nodded, rather absently, as if the question hardly required an +answer. + +She moved closer to him. "You are very happy, are you not, Oliver?" she +asked in a low voice, and looking up into his face. + +And again he answered at once, almost as though he had seen the question +in her eyes before she uttered it: "Very, very happy, mother! I don't +suppose any man has ever been happier than I have been." + +Again she put an intimate, probing question, wondering at her own +courage, her own temerity, in doing so. "Laura wholly satisfies you?" +she asked, allowing nothing of the doubt which was still in her heart to +creep into her voice. + +"Wholly," he said, again in that strong, confident voice. "And, +mother--?" he waited a moment, and then, in a voice suddenly tense with +emotion, he muttered--"what she is to me, I, all unworthy though I be, +am to her. Do you know what--what response means to a man?" + +"I think I do," she said in a low voice. + +They remained silent. She felt as if she were, for the first time, fused +in intense spiritual communion with her son. + +He broke the spell. "There's something I want you to know," he said. And +then he stopped short, and, looking away, exclaimed, "Laura shall tell +you!" The carriage gong echoed through the great house. He opened the +door, she passed through it, and so together they walked down to the +large, rather bare hall. There they waited a few moments in silence, +till there came the sound of light footsteps--Laura running downstairs, +a small fur cap on her beautiful head. + +She hurried towards them, smiling, and Mrs. Tropenell turned away--a +twinge of jealous pain, of which she was ashamed, in her heart--and +stared into the big log fire. + +She heard Oliver exclaim, in accents at once imploring and imperious: +"Laura? Come over here a moment." + +At last she, the mother, turned slowly round, to see, through the +half-open door of Lord St. Amant's study, the two standing together, +locked in each other's arms, Laura looking up into Oliver's face with an +expression of rapt devotion, of entire absorption, in her blue, +heavy-lidded eyes. As their lips met, Mrs. Tropenell looked quickly +away. She asked herself if this exalted passion could last, and whether, +after all, Oliver were not happier now than he could ever hope to be +again? + +Laura was very silent during the first half of their homeward drive, but +at last she amazed Mrs. Tropenell by suddenly saying: "I want you to +know--I feel I must tell you--that Oliver and I were married, in London, +ten days ago. And I think--oh, Aunt Letty, I do think that he is +happy--at last!" + +She said the words very simply, and Mrs. Tropenell felt extraordinarily +moved. This then was what Oliver had wanted her to know, and man-like +had felt too--too shy to tell her. + +"I am very grateful to you for what you have done," she exclaimed, and +held the younger woman's hand tightly clasped in hers for a moment. + +That was all. But before they parted Laura gave his mother a message +from Oliver. It was quite an unimportant message, simply that on his way +home he meant to look in at The Chase. + +"You don't mind, do you?" Laura asked, a little hesitatingly. And +Oliver's mother smiled. + +"Of course not, my dear--I'm glad he should! Perhaps you'd like to come +back with him, and stay on for dinner?" + +But Laura, reddening with one of her rather rare, vivid blushes, shook +her head. "I think I ought to stay at home the first evening," she said, +"and put Alice to bed. She loves my putting her to bed. I don't want +Alice ever to feel jealous." + +But this time Mrs. Tropenell made no answer. Poor little Alice! It would +be strange indeed if the child did not feel a little jealous as time +went on--if, that is, Laura went on being, as she seemed to be, almost +mystically absorbed in this wonderful, glowing thing which had come into +her life. + + * * * * * + +It was the afternoon of the same day, and Mrs. Tropenell, after dealing +with the various matters which had accumulated during her week's +absence, had gone up to her room to rest before Oliver's return. Lying +on her bed, in the fast-gathering twilight, thinking over all that had +happened, and all that was happening, to herself and to those she loved, +Mrs. Tropenell dozed off for a few moments. Then, in a long flash which +seemed to contain aeons of sensation, she went through an amazing and +terrifying experience! + +On the dead stillness which reigned both within and without the house +there suddenly rang out a shot. At the same moment, if not indeed +before, her whole being seemed to be bracing itself up to endure a great +ordeal. It was as if her spirit, vanquishing a base, secret, physical +terror of the unknown, was about to engage on a great adventure. + +With a stifled cry she sat up, and then she realised, with a gasp of +relief, that she had been dreaming, only dreaming--but her heart went on +beating for a long time with the excitement, the mingled terror and +exaltation of spirit, she had just gone through. + +At last, feeling curiously languid and shaken, she went downstairs, and +had tea in the drawing-room. + +It was only a little after five; probably Oliver would not come in till +just before it was time to dress for dinner. + +The stillness of the house oppressed her. She got up, and moved +restlessly about the room. The curtains had been drawn and the fire made +up while she had been upstairs. She went across to one of the windows, +and, behind the closed curtains, opened it widely. And as she opened the +window, and stood by it, breathing in the cold, moist air, she heard the +sound of branches being pushed aside across a little-used path which was +even a shorter cut to The Chase than was the beech-wood avenue. + +Then Oliver was coming home earlier than Laura had thought he would? + +She stepped out quickly into the open air, on to the flagged path. + +She could hear quick footsteps now--but they were not Oliver's +footsteps. It was probably a maid coming back from the village which lay +beyond The Chase. But even so there crept a slight feeling of anxiety +over her heart. "Who's there?" she called out. + +Close out of the twilit darkness there came the instant hoarse answer: +"It's Laura, Aunt Letty." + +"Laura? Oh, my dear, you'll catch cold!" for Laura, without hat or +cloak, was now there, before her. + +"Aunt Letty? I've brought bad news--there's been an accident." + +"To Oliver?" But she knew, even as she asked the question, what the +answer would be. + +"Yes--Oliver. They went on too long in the twilight--he stumbled, and +his gun went off. They're bringing him home--now." + +Laura was staring before her, her eyes veiled, glassy, like those of a +blind woman. + +"They wanted to bring him to The Chase. But there was a doctor there, +and he said nothing would be of any use. So I told them to bring him +home--to you." + +Both women waited in the grateful darkness, dry-eyed and still. + +At last Mrs. Tropenell said uncertainly: "Come indoors, Laura." + +But Laura shook her head. "No, I'd rather stay out here, if you don't +mind, Aunt Letty." + +Not quite knowing what she was doing or why, Mrs. Tropenell walked +forward and opened the door into the hall. There she took down a cloak, +and coming out again, she put it round Laura. And they stood there +waiting--till there broke on their ears the heavy tramp of men's feet +carrying a burden. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +It was arranged between Lord St. Amant and the coroner--who was his +lordship's own medical attendant (when he required a medical attendant, +which was seldom)--that the inquest should be held at Freshley Manor. + +The body had been placed in Mrs. Tropenell's own room, that is, in the +very room, as the cook, who had been in the house close on thirty-five +years, explained to some of the members of the jury, where poor Mr. +Oliver had been born. + +So it was there, in that peaceful, old-fashioned, lady's bedchamber, +that the twelve good men and true of Pewsbury had to view the body. It +was remembered afterwards that the expression on the dead man's face +showed how completely he had been taken by surprise: it bore an +expression of absolute serenity--almost as if he had died in his sleep. + +Rather to the disapproval of some of the Pewsbury people, but with the +sympathetic understanding of others, Mrs. Tropenell, by her own desire, +was present at the inquest; and, supporting her on the painful occasion, +was her nearest neighbour and almost daughter, Mrs. Pavely. + +The chief witness was Mr. Robert Buckhurst, the gentleman who had been +host to the ill-fated shooting party. + +His evidence was quite simple and straightforward--indeed, there was +nothing at all strange or mysterious about the sad affair. + +"Lord St. Amant shot a bird," he said, "and we hunted for it for some +time. We were engaged in beating up the next field, when some one said, +'Where is Tropenell?' Just at that moment I heard a shot." He waited a +moment, and then went on: "It sounded as if it were fifty yards away." + +Again the witness paused, and then he continued gravely: "I said in +jest, 'I hope he has not shot himself!' And Lord St. Amant said, 'Hold +my gun, Buckhurst, and I'll walk along behind the hedge, and see if I +can find him.' He got through a gap, and he could only have gone a very +few yards before we heard him call out. 'Come at once! He's shot!' With +this we got through a gap, and ten paces on we saw Mr. Oliver Tropenell +lying on his back, parallel with the hedge. The gun was lying across his +body, the muzzle towards the hedge. At first we could not find the +wound, but soon we discovered that he had been shot through the heart." + +In reply to various questions, the witness explained how he raised Mr. +Oliver Tropenell's left hand, fancying he could detect a slight flutter +of the pulse. He called out for Dr. Turner, who happened to be a member +of the party. That gentleman came up, and after a brief examination, +said that Mr. Tropenell was certainly dead. The charge had gone through +the heart, and death must have been practically instantaneous. Some one, +probably the keeper, opened the breech of Mr. Tropenell's gun, and found +that the cartridge in the right-hand chamber had been exploded. + +At this point, in answer to a word from a juryman, Mr. Buckhurst said +very decidedly that there could be no doubt at all that the shot had +been fired by Mr. Tropenell's own gun. If he might venture to give an +informal opinion, it was perfectly plain what had happened. The ground +was rough just there, and twilight was falling. Without doubt Mr. +Tropenell, on getting through the hedge, had stumbled heavily, the gun +had fallen forward, and then had occurred one of those accidents which +occasionally do happen out shooting, and which no amount of care or +experience can prevent. + +There was some little doubt as to what had been the exact position of +the body, and while this was being discussed every one felt particularly +sorry for the dead man's mother. + +Following Mr. Buckhurst, Lord St. Amant went into the witness-box, and +then some inquisitive juryman asked his lordship a question as to the +mental condition of the deceased. In answer to that question, Lord St. +Amant explained, with a good deal of emotion, that just before he and +Mr. Tropenell had started out on their fatal expedition they had had a +pleasant little talk together, during which Mr. Tropenell had seemed +particularly well and cheerful. Further, the witness threw in, as an +after-thought, the statement that the deceased gentleman had expressed +considerable gratification at the fact that his mother, Mrs. Tropenell, +and he, Lord St. Amant, had just entered together into an engagement of +marriage. + +This announcement of a forthcoming alliance which so closely touched the +whole neighbourhood naturally overshadowed the rest of the purely formal +medical evidence at the inquest. Very soon there remained nothing for +the jury to do but to return a verdict of "death by misadventure," and +to express the deepest sympathy with Mr. Tropenell's mother. + +A great deal of deep, unaffected sympathy, more sincere in this case +perhaps than a great deal of the sympathy which is lavished on the +bereaved in this world, was felt for Mrs. Tropenell. + +Her son had not only been the most devoted and excellent of sons, but he +had been such a success, such a man to be proud of! It was also +remembered that he had done many a kindly turn to the good folk of +Pewsbury in the last eighteen months or so, since he had come home to +make the first long stay he had made in their neighbourhood for over ten +years. His manner, if reserved, was always kindly and pleasant, without +any touch of that patronage which is sometimes irritating in gentlemen +of his sort. The townspeople recalled, too, the dead man's intimacy with +the late Mr. Godfrey Pavely, and the more sober among them did not fail +to remind one another how curious it was that in under a year those two +men, still both young as youth is counted nowadays, had been gathered to +their fathers. + +And then, before Pewsbury had had time to recover from the excitement of +poor Oliver Tropenell's tragic end, and from the announcement, given +under such painful and dramatic circumstances, of his mother's +forthcoming marriage to Lord St. Amant, yet another thrilling sensation +was provided for the inhabitants of the little town. This was the +surprising news that Mrs. Winslow had married again! + +The fortunate man was, it seemed, a certain Mr. Greville Howard, one of +the largest subscribers to the Prince of Wales's Hospital Fund, a +gentleman, therefore, of evident social standing and wealth. + +The ceremony had taken place at St. James's, Piccadilly, in the presence +of a few friends of the bridegroom, and the happy pair had gone straight +off to Mr. Howard's villa in the South of France. There Harber, Mrs. +Winslow's faithful factotum, was to join her mistress as soon as she had +made the necessary arrangements for the disposal, by auction, of the +furniture at Rosedean. Of that furniture two objects were at the last +moment withdrawn from the sale--one was a china cabinet, and the other a +rather curious-looking old chandelier, both associated, so it was +understood, with the new Mrs. Greville Howard's youth. + +The auctioneer regretted these omissions from the catalogue, for by bad +luck they were the only objects in the house which a big London dealer +had come specially down to see, and for which he had intimated that he +was prepared to give a very good price. + + + + +THE END + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Repeated part titles have been deleted. + +Obsolete spellings and alternate spellings of words (e.g., dulness) have +been retained. + +Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_. + +On page 36, the [oe] ligature was replaced with "oe". + +On page 137, "Bayton" was replaced with "Baynton". + +On page 148, a period was added after "drew a piece of notepaper towards +him". + +On page 159, "kindess" was replaced with "kindness". + +On page 160, "contributary" was replaced with "contributory". + +On page 239, "wainting" was replaced with "waiting". + +On page 279, "lov" was replaced with "love". + +On page 300, "affectionte" was replaced with "affectionate". + +On page 329, "whispred" was replaced with "whispered". + +On page 352, "Olive" was replaced with "Oliver". + +On page 355, "a great deal as as" was replaced with "a great deal as". + +On page 361, "expresson" was replaced with "expression". + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Love and hatred, by Marie Belloc Lowndes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE AND HATRED *** + +***** This file should be named 36079.txt or 36079.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/0/7/36079/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Ernest Schaal, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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