Calamity fixed his disconcerting gaze upon her face.

"There's no hurry for a week or so," he said.

CHAPTER XXIX

"n.o.bLESSE OBLIGE"

Grouped about the hall--a splendid example of Tudor architecture with its oak wainscoting and great, open fireplace--were several people chatting and drinking tea. Calamity recognised some of them immediately as people he had known in the old days. Life had dealt gently with them, and they had changed but little despite the intervening years. They had lost the rude vitality and adventurous spirit of youth, and had become sleek and soft and habit-governed; but otherwise they were essentially the same, living the same clean, sheltered, uneventful lives.

As Calamity entered with Lady Betty, these people gathered about him with words of welcome. He was, after all, one of themselves, and in the years which had pa.s.sed the old story of the forged cheque had almost faded into a legend of doubtful authenticity. Calamity, despite the bitter memories which his home-coming had brought back, knew that these greetings were not insincere; that these friends of a by-gone period regarded him as a wanderer returned to the fold.

When everyone had settled down again to drink tea and chatter, Calamity seated himself between Lady Betty and an eminent politician for whom he had "f.a.gged" at Eton, while Elfrida stood near, watching him with the grave deliberation of childhood. During a momentary pause in the conversation she drew closer to him and placed a beseeching hand on his knee.

"Oh, Uncle John," she said breathlessly, "do tell us about fighting the pirates. Were you afraid?"

Calamity smiled almost genially as he turned to the eager little questioner.

"No, Elfrida, I wasn't afraid. A pirate is a person I thoroughly understand. In fact, I came very near being hanged for a pirate, myself."

Elfrida clapped her hands with delight and the others smiled tolerantly at what they took for granted was a joke.

"Isn't he sweet?" murmured a motherly dowager to McPhulach, who was sitting near her.

The engineer started.

"Eh?" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"Isn't he sweet?" repeated the dowager, shouting at him a little in the belief that he was deaf.

McPhulach did not answer for a moment. Before him there arose a vision of the Captain of the _Hawk_ smashing right and left among his mutinous crew with a capstan-bar, and another picture of the same man as he led his rabble followers up the bullet-swept slope of the German island.

"Weel," he replied at last, "I wouldna go sae far as tae say that. He's a michty quare mon, ye'll ken."

The dowager's comment had been overheard by Lady Betty, and it set her thinking. Was it only to her eyes that this man whom she had once promised to marry seemed so grim and terrible? Lady Mitford had called him "sweet," Elfrida obviously adored him, and the others seemed to be at their ease with him. Why was it that his terrific personality seemed to disquiet her alone?

The matter was still exercising her mind when she came down that evening, dressed for dinner. She had heard Calamity go down a little earlier and had hastened her dressing in order to s.n.a.t.c.h a quiet talk with him before the others left their rooms. But he was in neither the smoking-room nor the library, and so she made her way to the gallery, where his ancestors gazed down from the walls in painted stiffness.

Here she found him, pacing up and down, apparently in a brown study. He looked up as she entered, and Lady Betty, after a second's hesitation, went to him and laid her hand upon his arm.

"I was sure you'd be here," she said softly. "I know you so well."

She looked very delicate and sweet in the shaded light, and the fire, suddenly flaming up, glinted on the gold of her hair.

He laughed, a little bitterly.

"Know me, do you?" he asked. "Is that why you married my brother after promising to marry me?"

She looked at him silently for a moment, affronted by his tone yet not knowing what to say.

"It is cruel of you to take that tone," she said at last. "You know very well that after what happened I--I couldn't----"

"Be decent to me again," he concluded for her. "You don't seem to find it so difficult to-day, although the charge against me has not been disproved."

"It's so long ago. You must see, yourself, that it's different now."

"Since I've become head of the family?" he suggested.

She drew herself up haughtily and walked towards the fireplace, where she stood looking down into the blaze.

"What would you have had me do?" she asked without looking round.

"Believe in my innocence!"

She shook her head.

"I couldn't do that," she answered. "But if I had been that kind of--of fool, what then?"

He shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. Standing there in the firelight, Lady Betty looked unquestionably beautiful, and yet Calamity felt a great weariness of her and of this scene. His mind took a leap through time and s.p.a.ce, and he saw himself once more upon the deck of the _Hawk_, facing, not this delicately nurtured woman, but a girl with fearless eyes and wind-swept hair; a girl who would have believed in him against the world.

Lady Betty crossed to him.

"You are unjust to me," she said.

"You were unjust to me," he replied.

She gave a weary little sigh. It seemed hopeless to try and make him see her point of view.

"Suppose I told you that I could now prove my innocence," he said, turning on her abruptly, "how would you feel about the past?"

"It's--it's impossible."

"Impossible! Not a bit of it. I suppose you wondered why I brought that Scotchman here? Well he's one of the witnesses to a confession signed by a confederate of the real criminal. Vayne will be coming to-night bringing that confession with him. I told him that we would all adjourn to the library after dinner to hear him read it."

Fifteen years ago when her lover had declared his innocence, Lady Betty had not believed him; now, when he told her that he could prove himself guiltless, she knew intuitively that he spoke the truth.

"John, I--I'm very glad," she said, her face colourless and stricken.

He nodded and moved away. To him, also, the moment was poignant.

Presently he became aware of her hand on his arm, and turning, saw her standing beside him with bowed head.

"John, what can I say? Words are so useless--now."

"You haven't asked me who did it?"

"What does that matter?" she asked, wondering at the pa.s.sion in his face.