She looked at me furtively, almost timidly.
"I should like to know why you are speaking to me like this," she said.
"I do not want to seem unkind, but do you think that the length of our acquaintance warrants it?"
"I do not know how long I have known you," I answered. "I do not remember the time when I did not know you. You are one of those people to whom I must say the things which come into my mind. I think that if you do not love Colonel Ray you have no right to marry him."
She looked me in the face. Her cheeks were flushed with walking, and the wind had blown her hair into becoming confusion.
"Mr. Ducaine," she said, "do you consider that Colonel Ray is your friend?"
"He has been very good to me," I answered.
"There is something between you two. What is it?"
"It is not my secret," I told her.
"There is a secret, then," she murmured. "I knew it. Is this why you do not wish me to marry him?"
"I have not said that I do not wish you to marry him," I reminded her.
"Not in words. You had no need to put it into words."
"You are very young," I said, "to marry any one for any other reason save the only true one. Some day there might be some one else."
She watched the flight of a seagull for a few moments--watched it till its wings shone like burnished silver as it lit upon the sun-gilded sea.
"I do not think so," she said, dreamily. "I have never fancied myself caring very much for any one. It is not easy, you know, for some of us."
"And for some," I murmured, "it is too easy."
She looked at me curiously, but she had no suspicion as to the meaning of my words.
"I want you to tell me something," she said, in a few minutes. "Have you any other reason beyond this for objecting to my marriage with Colonel Ray?"
"If I have," I answered slowly, "I cannot tell it you. It is his secret, not mine."
"You are mysterious!" she remarked.
"If I am," I objected, "you must remember that you are asking me strange questions."
"Colonel Ray is too honest," she said, thoughtfully, "to keep anything from me which I ought to know."
I changed the conversation. After all I was a fool to have blundered into it. We talked of other and lighter things. I exerted myself to shake off the depression against which I had been struggling all the morning. By degrees I think we both forgot some part of our troubles.
We walked home across the sandhills, climbing gradually higher and higher, until we reached the cliffs. On all sides of us the coming change in the seasons seemed to be vigorously a.s.serting itself. The plovers were crying over the freshly-turned ploughed fields, a whole world of wild birds and insects seemed to have imparted a sense of movement and life to what only a few days ago had been a land of desolation, a country silent and winterbound. Colour was a.s.serting itself in all manner of places--in the green of the sprouting gra.s.s, the shimmer of the sun upon the sea-stained sands, in the silvery blue of the Braster creeks. Lady Angela drew a long breath of content as we paused for a moment at the summit of the cliffs.
"And you wonder," she murmured, "that I left London for this!"
"Yes, I still wonder," I answered. "The beauties of this place are for the lonely--I mean the lonely in disposition. For you life in the busy places should just be opening all her fascinations. It is only when one is disappointed in the more human life that one comes back to Nature."
"Perhaps then," she said, a little vaguely, "I too must be suffering from disappointments. I have never realized--"
We had taken the last turn. My cottage was in sight. To my surprise a man was standing there as though waiting. He turned round as we approached. His face was very pale, and the back of his head was bandaged. He carried his arm, too, in a sling. It was Colonel Mostyn Ray!
CHAPTER XXII
MISS MOYAT MAKES A SCENE
Ray was smoking his customary enormous pipe, which he deliberately emptied as Lady Angela and I approached. The sight of him and the significance of his wounds reduced me to a state of astonishment which could find no outlet in words. I simply stood and stared at him. Lady Angela, however, after her first exclamation of surprise, went up and greeted him.
"Why, my dear Mostyn," she exclaimed, "wherever have you sprung from, and what have you been doing to yourself?"
"I came from London--newspaper train," he answered.
"And your head and arm?"
"Thrown out of a hansom last night," he said grimly.
We were all silent for a moment. So far as I was concerned, speech was altogether beyond me. Lady Angela, too, seemed to find something disconcerting in Ray"s searching gaze.
"My welcome," he remarked quietly, "does not seem to be overpowering."
Lady Angela laughed, but there was a note of unreality in her mirth.
"You must expect people to be amazed, Mostyn," she said, "if you treat them to such surprises. Of course I am glad to see you. Have you seen Blenavon yet?"
"I have not been to the house," he answered. "I came straight here."
"And your luggage?" she asked.
"Lost," he answered tersely. "I only just caught the train, and the porter seems to have missed me."
"You appear to have pa.s.sed through a complete chapter of mishaps," she remarked. "Never mind! You must want your lunch very badly, or do you want to talk to Mr. Ducaine?"
"Next to the walk up to the house with you," he answered, "I think that I want my lunch more than anything in the world."
Lady Angela smiled her farewells at me, and Ray nodded curtly. I watched them pa.s.s through the plantation and stroll across the Park.
There was nothing very loverlike in their att.i.tude. Ray seemed scarcely to be glancing towards his companion; Lady Angela had the air of one absorbed in thought. I watched them until they disappeared, and then I entered my own abode and sat down mechanically before the lunch which Grooton had prepared. I ate and drank as one in a dream. Only last night Ray had said nothing about coming to Braster. Yet, there he was, without luggage, with his arm and head bound up. Just like this I expected to see the man whom I had struck last night.
Now though Ray"s att.i.tude towards me was often puzzling, an absolute faith in his honesty was the one foundation which I had felt solid beneath my feet during these last few weeks of strange happenings. This was the first blow which my faith had received, and I felt that at any cost I must know the truth. After lunch I finished the papers which, when complete, it was my duty to lock away in the library safe up at the house, and secured them in my breast-pocket. But instead of going at once to the house I set out for Braster Junction.
There was a porter there whom I had spoken to once or twice. I called him on one side.
"Can you tell me," I asked, "what pa.s.sengers there were from London by the newspaper train this morning?"
"None at all, sir," the man answered readily.
"Are you quite sure?" I asked.