"Your guard has come for you, Mr Belke," he said. "I"m sorry to interrupt this conversation, but I"m afraid you must be moving."
III.
THE EMPTY ENVELOPE.
Commander Blacklock closed the front door.
"Chilly night," he observed.
"It is rather," said Eileen.
The wind droned through a distant keyhole mournfully and continuously.
That melancholy piping sound never rose and never fell; monotonous and unvarying it piped on and on. Otherwise the house had that peculiar feeling of quiet which houses have when stirring events are over and people have departed.
The two remaining inhabitants re-entered the parlour, glanced at one another with a half smile, and then seemed simultaneously to find a little difficulty in knowing what to do next.
"Well," said Blacklock, "our business seems over."
He felt he had spoken a little more abruptly than he intended, and would have liked to repeat his observations in a more genial tone.
"Yes," said she almost as casually, "there is nothing more to be done to-night, I suppose."
"I shall have to write up my report of our friend Mr Belke"s life and last words," said he with a half laugh.
"And I have got to get over to Mrs Brown"s," she replied, "and so I had better go at once."
"Oh, there"s no such desperate hurry," he said hastily; "I haven"t much to write up to-night. We must have some supper first."
"Yes," she agreed, "I suppose we shall begin to feel hungry soon if we don"t. I"ll see about it. What would you like?"
"The cold ham and a couple of boiled eggs will suit me."
She agreed again.
"That won"t take long, and then you can begin your report."
Again he protested hastily.
"Oh, but there"s no hurry about that, I a.s.sure you. I only wanted to save trouble."
While she was away he stood before the fire, gazing absently into s.p.a.ce and scarcely moving a muscle. The ham and boiled eggs appeared, and a little more animation became apparent, but it was not a lively feast.
She talked for a little in an ordinary, cheerful way, just as though there was no very special subject for conversation; but he seemed too absent-minded and silent to respond even to these overtures, except with a brief smile and a briefer word. They had both been quite silent for about five minutes, when he suddenly said in a constrained manner, but with quite a different intonation--
"Well, I am afraid our ways part now. What are you going to do next?"
"I"ve been wondering," she said; "and I think if Mrs Craigie still wants me I ought to go back to her."
"Back to the Craigies!" he exclaimed. "And become--er--a governess again?"
"It will be rather dull at first," she laughed; "but one can"t have such adventures as this every day, and I really have treated the Craigies rather badly. You see you told Mr Craigie the truth about my desertion of them, and they may forgive me. If they do, and if they still need me, I feel I simply must offer my services."
"It"s very good of you."
She laughed again.
"It is at least as much for my own interest as Mrs Craigie"s. I have nowhere else to go to and nothing else to do."
"I wish I could offer you another job like this," said he.
A sparkle leapt into her eyes.
"If you ever do see any chance of making any sort of use of me--I mean of letting me be useful--you will be sure to let me know, won"t you?"
"Rather! But honestly, I"m not likely to have such a bit of luck as this again."
"What will you be doing?"
"Whatever I"m told to do; the sort of thing I was on before--odd jobs of the "hush" type. But I wish I could think of you doing something more--well, more worthy of your gifts."
"One must take one"s luck as it comes," she said with an outward air of philosophy, whatever her heart whispered.
"Exactly," he agreed with emphasis. "Still----"
He broke off, and pulled a pipe out of his pocket.
"I"ll leave you to smoke," she said, "and say good-night now."
"One moment!" said he, jumping up; "there"s something I feel I must say. I"ve been rather contrite about it. I"m afraid I haven"t quite played cricket so far as you are concerned."
She looked at him quickly.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"It"s about Belke. I"m afraid Phipps was quite right in saying I"m rather cold-blooded when I am keen over a job. Perhaps it becomes a little too much of a mere problem. Getting you to treat Belke as you did, for instance. You were very nice to him to-night--though he was too German to understand how you felt--and it struck me that very possibly you had been seeing a great deal of him, and he"s a nice-looking fellow, with a lot of good stuff in him, a brave man, no doubt about it, and--well, perhaps you liked him enough to make you wish I hadn"t let you in for such a job. I just wondered."
She looked at him for an instant with an expression he did not quite understand; then she looked away and seemed for a moment a little embarra.s.sed, and then she looked at him again, and he thought he had never seen franker eyes.
"You"re as kind and considerate as--as, well, as you"re clever!" she said with a half laugh. "But, if you only knew, if you only even had the least guess how I"ve longed to do something for my country--something really useful, I mean; how unutterably wretched I felt when the trifling work I was doing was stopped by a miserable neglected cold and I had to have a change, and as I"d no money I had to take this stupid job of teaching; and how I envied the women who were more fortunate and really _were_ doing useful things; oh, then you"d know how grateful I feel to you! If I could make every officer in the German navy--and the army too--fall in love with me, and then hand them over to you, I"d do it fifty times over! Don"t, please, talk nonsense, or think nonsense! Good-night, Mr Tiel, and perhaps it"s good-bye."
She laughed as she gave him his _nom-de-guerre_, and held out her hand as frankly as she had spoken. He did not take it, however.
"I"m going to escort you over to Mrs Brown"s," he said with a very different expression now in his eyes.
"It"s very good of you," she said; "you are sure you have time?"
"Loads!" he a.s.sured her.