"Is he?" said Vincent. He had no suspicions; Mabel"s engagement seemed only too probable, and he knew that he had never had any claim upon her; but for all that, he had no intention of taking the fact entirely upon trust; he would not leave England till he had seen her and learned from her own lips that he must give up hope for ever; after that the sooner he went the better.
"You needn"t go out with him unless you want to--you might join him later there; but of course you wouldn"t take anything for granted, nothing. Still, if you _did_ care to go out at once, I suppose you"ve nothing in the way of preparations to hinder you, eh?"
"No," said Vincent; "it would only be transferring my trunks from one ship to another; but I--I don"t feel well enough to go out just yet."
"Of course not," said Caffyn; "you must have a week or two of mountain air first, then you"ll be ready to go anywhere; but I must have you at Wast.w.a.ter," he added, with a laughing look of intelligence at Mark, whose soul rose against all this duplicity--and subsided again.
How wonderfully everything was working out! Unless some fatality interposed between then and the next morning, the man he dreaded would be safely buried in the wildest part of the Lake District--he might even go off to India again and never learn the wrong he had suffered!
At all events, Mark was saved for a time. He was thankful, deeply thankful now that he had resisted that mad impulse to confession.
Vincent had dropped into an arm-chair with his back to the window, brooding over his shattered ambitions; all his proud self-confidence in his ability to win fame for the woman he loved was gone now; he felt that he had neither the strength nor the motive to try again.
If--if this he had heard was true, he must be an exile, with lower aims and a blanker life than those he had once hoped for.
All at once Mark, as he stood at the window with Caffyn, stepped back with a look of helpless terror.
"What the deuce is it now?" said the other under his breath.
Mark caught Caffyn"s elbow with a fierce grip; a carriage had driven up; they could see it plainly still in the afternoon light, which had only just begun to fade.
"Do you see?" muttered Mark thickly. "She"s in it; she looked up--and saw _me_!"
Caffyn himself was evidently disturbed. "Not, not Mabel?" he whispered. "Worse! it"s Dolly--and _she"ll_ come up. She"ll see _him_!"
The two stood there staring blankly at each other, while Holroyd was still too absorbed to have the least suspicion that the future happiness or misery of himself and others was trembling just then in the balance.
CHAPTER x.x.x.
THE WAY OF TRANSGRESSORS.
Dolly"s mere appearance in the room would lead Vincent to suspect that he had been deceived; her first words would almost inevitably expose the fraud. She was coming up, nevertheless, and Mark felt powerless to prevent her--he could only indulge himself in inwardly cursing Caffyn"s ingenuity and his own weakness for having brought him to such a pa.s.s as this. Caffyn was shaken for the moment, but he soon recovered himself. "Keep cool, will you," he whispered (he might have shouted, for Vincent saw and heard nothing just then): "you stay here and keep _him_ amused--don"t let him go near the window!" Then he added aloud, "I"ll go and see if I can find that Bradshaw. Almost certain I didn"t bring it with me; but if you saw it there, why"--and he was gone.
Mark caught up a paper with a rapid, "Oh! I say, Vincent, _did_ you see this correspondence about compet.i.tive examinations? Of course you haven"t, though--just listen then, it"s rather amusing!" and he began to read with desperate animation a string of letters on a subject which, in the absence of worthier sport, was just then being trailed before the public. The newspaper hid his face, and while he read he could strain his ears for the first sign of Dolly"s approach. She had seen him, he was sure, and she would insist upon coming up--she was so fond of him! He wished now he had gone down himself instead of leaving it to Caffyn.
Meanwhile the latter had rushed down in time to wave back the maid who was coming to the door, and which he opened himself. Dolly was standing there alone on the doorsteps. She had prepared a polite little formula for the servant, and was therefore disappointed to see Caffyn.
"Why, it"s _you_!" she said, in rather an injured tone.
"You never expected such luck as that, did you?" said Caffyn. "Is there anything I can do for your ladyship?"
"Mabel asked me to drive round this way and ask if Mark has come back.
There"s Fraulein in the carriage too, but I wanted to ask all by myself."
"Pray step this way," said Caffyn, leading the way with mock politeness to a little sitting-room on the ground floor.
"I can"t stay long," said Dolly. "Mark isn"t here--I saw his face at the window upstairs. Mabel told me to see if he was quite well, and I want to ask him how he is and where he"s been."
"Afraid you can"t see him just now," said Caffyn, "he"s got some one with him he hasn"t seen for a long time--we mustn"t disturb him; tell Mabel he"ll come to-morrow and he"s quite well."
Dolly was preparing to go, when she discovered some portmanteaus and boxes in a corner. "What a funny box, with all those red tickets on it!" she said. "Oh, and a big white helmet--it"s green inside. Is Mark going to be married in _that_ thing, Harold?"--all at once she stopped short in her examination. "Why--why, they"ve got poor Vincent"s name on them! they _have_--look!" And Caffyn realised that he had been too ingenious: he had forgotten all about this luggage in showing Dolly to that room, in his fear lest her voice should be too audible in the pa.s.sage.
"There, there--you"re keeping Fraulein waiting all this time. Never mind about the luggage," he said hurriedly. "Good-bye, Dolly; sorry you can"t stop."
"But I _can_ stop," objected Dolly, who was not easily got rid of at the best of times. "Harold, I"m sure that dear Vincent has come alive again--_he"s_ the somebody Mark hasn"t seen for a long time.... Oh, if it really _is_ ... I must go and see!"
Caffyn saw his best course now was the hazardous one of telling the truth. "Well," he said, "as it happens, you"re right. Vincent was _not_ drowned, and he is here--but I don"t advise you to go to see him for all that."
"Why?" said Dolly, with her joy suddenly checked--she scarcely knew why.
"He"s in a fearful rage with you just now," said Caffyn; "he"s found out about that letter--that letter you burnt."
"Mabel said I was never to worry about that horrid letter any more--and I"m not going to--so it"s no use your trying to make me,"
said Dolly defiantly. And then, as her fears grew, she added, "What about that letter?"
"Well," said Caffyn, "it appears that the letter you tore the stamp off was from Vincent (it had a foreign stamp, I remember), and it was very important. He never got an answer, and he found out somehow that it was because you burnt it--and then--my goodness, Dolly, what a rage he was in!"
"I don"t care," said Dolly. "Mabel will tell Vincent how it was--_she_ knows."
"Ah, but you see she _don"t_ know," said Caffyn. "Do you suppose if she had known who the letter was from and what it was about she would have taken it so quietly? Why, she thinks it was only an old envelope you burnt--I heard her say so--you know she still believes Vincent is dead. She doesn"t know the truth yet, but Vincent will tell her. Are you coming up to see him?"
"No," said Dolly, trembling; "I--I think I won"t--not to-day."
"Wise child!" said Caffyn, approvingly. "Between ourselves, Dolly, poor Vincent has come back in such a queer state that he"s not fit to see anyone just yet, and we"re dreadfully afraid of his meeting Mabel and frightening her."
"Oh, don"t let him come--don"t!" cried terrified Dolly.
"Well, I tell you what we"ve done--I got Mark to agree to it--we haven"t told him that you"re any of you at home at all; he thinks you"re all away, and he"s coming with me into the country to-morrow; so, unless you tell Mabel you"ve seen him----"
"Oh, but I won"t; I don"t _want_ her to know--not now!" said Dolly.
"Oh, and I was so glad when I first heard of it! Is he--is he _very_ angry, Harold?"
"I don"t advise you to come near him just yet," he said. "You won"t tell Fraulein, of course? I"ll see you to the carriage ... how do, Fraulein? Home, I suppose?" And the last thing he saw was Dolly"s frightened glance up at the window as the carriage drove off. "She won"t tell _this_ time," he said to himself.
And indeed poor Dolly was silent enough all the way home, and met Fraulein Moser"s placid stream of talk with short and absent answers.
That evening, however, in the schoolroom, she roused herself to express a sudden interest in Colin"s stamp alb.u.m, which she coaxed him to show her.
As he was turning over the pages, one by one, she stopped him suddenly. "What is that one?" she said, pointing out a green-coloured stamp amongst the colonial varieties.
"Can"t you read?" said Colin, a little contemptuously, even while regarding this healthy interest as a decided sign of grace in a girl: "there"s "Ceylon Postage" on the top, isn"t there? It isn"t rare, though--twenty-four cents--I gave twopence for it; but I"ve had much more expensive ones, only I swopped them. If you _want_ to see a rare one, here"s a Virgin Islands down here----"
"I think I"ll see the rest another time, Colin, thanks," said Dolly; "I"m tired now."
"I mayn"t have time to show you another day," said Colin, "so you"d better----" But Dolly had gone--her pa.s.sion for information having flickered out as suddenly as it rose. She knew that English-looking green stamp well enough; there had been dreadful days once when it had seemed always floating before her eyes, the thing which might send her to prison; she was much older now, of course, and knew better; but, for all that, it had not quite lost its power to plague her yet.
For, this time at least, she was sure that Harold had not been teasing; she _had_ burnt the letter, and it came from Ceylon; Vincent must have written it, and he had come back and meant to scold her--she had cried so when she heard he was drowned, and now she was afraid to see him--a shadow she dared not speak of had once more fallen across her life!