"To your wife, I mean," she said.

"To--my--wife!"

She gave a little affected laugh.

"My dear Chris, don't pretend to be surprised when everyone down at the hotel noticed it, even on your honeymoon. Why, Mrs. Lister even asked me which of you was her husband--you or Mr. Dakers. So silly of her, of course, but it shows how people notice things. You know I always think that when a man dislikes women, as Mr. Dakers has always professed to do, in the long run he is bound to be badly caught."

Chris turned on her furiously.

"I think you forget you are speaking of my wife," he said.

She flushed scarlet.

"My dear boy, I meant nothing against her. I know as well as you do that there is nothing in it, on her side at all. I only meant that Mr. Dakers ..."

"Dakers is my friend. I would rather not discuss him, if you have no objection."

She saw that she had gone too far, and relapsed into silence. They both played badly for the remainder of the game, and lost the match.

They were rather a silent party as they walked back to the clubhouse.

Feathers looked round quickly.

"Mrs. Lawless is not here," he said to Chris.

Chris threw his clubs into a corner.

"No; I'll go and find her," he said, and walked out again into the sunshine.

CHAPTER XVI

"Better for both that the word should be spoken; Fetters, than heart, if one must be broken."

MARIE sat lost in thought for a long time after the others had gone on. It was very peaceful out there on the links, and to-day there was hardly anybody about.

She wondered why it was that, no matter how hard she tried, she always seemed to find herself left alone and out of everything.

Did the fault lie in her own temperament, or was it merely that she was not physically strong enough to enter into things as other women did?

She knew that she was totally unsuited to be Chris' wife, and, knowing it, wondered why it was she had ever loved him so much; why things so often seemed to happen like that in life, without any apparent reason.

In spite of the subtle change in her feelings towards her husband, she never for a moment blamed him. It was Fate--one could not avoid these things, and she found herself wondering if Feathers would have been kinder and less selfish had he found himself in similar circ.u.mstances.

She looked down at his rough tweed coat lying across her lap. It was well worn and very shabby, much more shabby than any coat of her husband's. She smoothed the rough fabric with gentle fingers.

It was odd how blind women were, she thought; odd that an ugly face should so repel them that they never troubled to look beyond it and discover that it is possible for a heart of gold to lie hidden behind blunt features and an ungainly figure.

She had made the same mistake herself. She had adored her husband's handsome face and proved to her bitter cost that alone it was unsatisfying and offered nothing in exchange for all her love.

What was to become of her? The bond of marriage which she had at first believed she could tolerate because she loved her fellow prisoner was now growing into a fetter, and she felt that she would give anything to be free of it.

She had thought herself miserable when Chris was away in Scotland, and yet she knew she had been happier then than she was now, when his presence in the house was a constant worry to her, and left her with an eternal sense of captivity.

She had tried hard to get used to it, and failed. Surely there must be some other way of escape for them both.

Across the hills she thought she heard somebody calling to her, and she scrambled to her feet with a sense of guilt. Time had pa.s.sed so quickly--she supposed they had got back to the clubhouse and were looking for her.

Feather's coat had fallen to the gra.s.s, and as she stooped to recover it a litter of papers and odds and ends tumbled out of one of the pockets.

Marie went down on her knees to gather them up, smiling at the motley collection. There was a bundle of pipe-cleaners and a half-empty packet of cigarettes, a bone pocket knife, some papers that looked like bills and a sheet torn from a bridge scorer with something folded between it--something that fluttered down to the gra.s.s--a dead flower!

The color flew to Marie cheeks as she stooped to pick it up. It was a faded blossom of love-in-a-mist--the flower she herself had given to Feathers the last time they drove this way.

She held it in her band for a moment, her eyes a little misty, then she unfolded the page from the bridge scorer and put it back in its place, and on the inside of the paper, scrawled in Feather's writing, were the words "Marie Celeste," and the date of the day she had given it to him.

Marie sat down on the gra.s.s with a little feeling of unreality. Why had he kept it? She shut her eyes and conjured up his kind, ugly face, and all at once it was as if a burning ray of light penetrated her mind, showing her the thing he had never meant her to see.

He loved her! She could not have explained how it was that she knew or why she was so sure, but it came home to her with a conviction that would not be denied. He loved her.

How blind she had been not to have known all along! A hundred and one little incidents of their friendship came crowding back to her, fraught with a new meaning and significance.

He loved her, and his was a love so well worth having; a love that would make a woman perfectly contented and happy, that would allow of no room for jealous doubts or bitterness, that would be like the clasp of his hand, strong and all enfolding.

She had often thought with faint envy of the unknown woman whom some day he might love, and all the time she was that woman!

The little dried flower had betrayed his secret, and the knowledge of it sent a wave of such happiness through her heart that for an instant she felt as if she were floating on clouds far above all the bitter disappointments and disillusionments that marriage had brought her.

For the first time in her life Chris no longer had a place in her thoughts. She gave herself up to the sweetness of a dream that could never be realized--the wonder of complete happiness.

"Marie," said a voice behind her, and she looked up with dazed eyes to her husband's face.

She had not heard his step over the soft gra.s.s, and he was close beside her as with trembling fingers she thrust the papers and odds and ends back into Feathers' coat.

"I was just coming back," she said. She tried desperately to control her voice, but her agitated heartbeats seemed somehow to have got hopelessly mixed up with it. "Mr. Dakers left me his coat, and the things all fell out of the pocket--I hope I've found them all."

She scrambled up.

"Let me take it," Chris said. She made a little involuntary movement as if to refuse, then gave it to him silently.

That old tweed coat had suddenly grown dear to her--more dear than anything else in the world. She averted her eyes, so she should not see the careless way in which Chris slung it over his arm.

She walked along beside him without speaking, hardly conscious of his presence. Her thoughts were all in the clouds, her pulses were still throbbing.