"Here it is," she said. "Will you direct it? I've told him everything."

Jack nodded.

"That's excellent!" he said. "It shall go to-night."

He glanced up at her and saw her looking at him with just the faintest wistfulness. He understood perfectly, he said to himself: she was still a little unhappy at not being allowed to send the letter herself. What a good girl she was!

"Have some tea before you go?" she said.

"Thanks. I'd better not. They'll be wondering what's happened to me."

As he shook hands he tried to put something of his sympathy into his look. He knew exactly how she was feeling, and he thought her splendidly brave. But she hardly met his eyes, and again he felt he knew why.

As he opened the garden gate beyond the house he turned once more to wave. But she was busy with the tea-things, and a black figure was advancing briskly upon her from the direction of the study end of the house.

CHAPTER VII

(I)

Life had been a little difficult for the Major for the last fortnight or so. Not only was Frank's material and moral support lacking to him, but the calls upon him, owing to Gertie's extreme unreasonableness, had considerably increased. He had explained to her, over and over again, with a rising intensity each time, how unselfishly he had acted throughout, how his sole thought had been for her in his recent course of action. It would never have done, he explained pacifically, for a young man like Frank to have the responsibility of a young girl like Gertie on his hands, while he (the Major) was spending a fortnight elsewhere. And, in fact, even on the most economical grounds he had acted for the best, since it had been himself who had been charged in the matter of the tin of salmon, it would not have been a fortnight, but more like two months, during which the little community would have been deprived of his labor. He reminded her that Frank had had a clean record up to that time with the police....

But explanation had been fruitless. Gertie had even threatened a revelation of the facts of the case at the nearest police-station, and the Major had been forced to more manly tactics with her. He had not used a stick; his hands had served him very well, and in the course of his argument he had made a few insincere remarks on the mutual relations of Frank and Gertie that the girl remembered.

He had obtained a frugal little lodging in one of the small streets of York, down by the river--indeed looking straight on to it; and, for a wonder, five days' regular work at the unloading of a string of barges.

The five days expired on the Sat.u.r.day before Frank was expected, but he had several shillings in hand on the Sunday morning when Frank's letter arrived, announcing that he hoped to be with them again on Sunday night or Monday morning. Two letters, also, had arrived for his friend on the Sunday morning--one in a feminine handwriting and re-directed, with an old postmark of June, as well as one of the day before--he had held it up to the light and crackled it between his fingers, of course, upon receiving it--and the other an obvious bill--one postmark was Cambridge and the other Barham. He decided to keep them both intact. Besides, Gertie had been present at their delivery.

The Major spent, on the whole, an enjoyable Sunday. He lay in bed till a little after twelve o'clock, with a second-hand copy of the Sporting Times, and a tin of tobacco beside him. They dined at about one o'clock, and he managed to get a little spirit to drink with his meal. He had walked out--not very far--with Gertie in the afternoon, and had managed by representing himself as having walked seven miles--he was determined not to risk anything by foolishly cutting it too fine--to obtain a little more. They had tea about six, and ate, each of them, a kippered herring and some watercress. Then about seven o'clock Frank suddenly walked in and sat down.

"Give me something to eat and drink," he said.

He looked, indeed, extraordinarily strained and tired, and sat back on the upturned box by the fireplace as if in exhaustion. He explained presently when Gertie had cooked another herring, and he had drunk a slop-basinful of tea, that he had walked fasting since breakfast, but he said nothing about the priest. The Major with an air of great preciseness measured out half a finger of whisky and insisted, with the air of a paternal doctor, upon his drinking it immediately.

"And now a cigarette, for G.o.d's sake," said Frank. "By the way, I've got some work for to-morrow."

"That's first-rate, my boy," said the Major. "I've been working myself this week."

Frank produced his fourpence and laid it on the corner of the table.

"That's for supper and bed to-night," he said.

"Nonsense, my boy; put it back in your pocket."

"Kindly take that fourpence," remarked Frank. "You can add some breakfast to-morrow, if you like."

He related his adventures presently--always excepting the priest--and described how he had met a man at the gate of a builder's yard this evening as he came through York, who had promised him a day's job, and if things were satisfactory, more to follow.

"He seemed a decent chap," said Frank.

The Major and Gertie had not much to relate. They had left the market-town immediately after Frank's little matter in the magistrates'

court, and had done pretty well, arriving in York ten days ago. They hardly referred to Frank's detention, though he saw Gertie looking at him once or twice in a curiously shy kind of way, and understood what was in her mind. But for very decency's sake the Major had finally to say something.

"By the way, my boy, I won't forget what you did for me and for my little woman here. I'm not a man of many words, but--"

"Oh! that's all right," said Frank sleepily. "You'll do as much for me one day."

The Major a.s.sented with fervor and moist eyes. It was not till Frank stood up to go to bed that anyone remembered the letters.

"By the way, there are two letters come for you," said the Major, hunting in the drawer of the table. Frank's bearing changed. He whisked round in an instant.

"Where are they?"

They were put into his hand. He looked at them carefully, trying to make out the postmark--turned them upside down and round, but he made no motion to open them.

"Where am I to sleep?" he said suddenly. "And can you spare a bit of candle?"

(And as he went upstairs, it must have been just about the time that the letter-box at Barham was cleared for the late Sunday post.)

(II)

Frank lay a long time awake in the dark that night, holding tight in his hand Jenny's letter, written to him in June. The bill he had not even troubled to open.

For the letter said exactly and perfectly just all those things which he most wished to hear, in the manner in which he wished to hear them.

It laughed at him gently and kindly; it called him an extraordinarily silly boy; it said that his leaving Cambridge, and, above all, his manner of leaving it--Frank had added a postscript describing his adventure with the saddle and the policeman--were precisely what the writer would have expected of him; it made delightful and humorous reflections upon the need of Frank's turning over a new leaf--there was quite a page of good advice; and finally it gave him a charming description--just not over the line of due respect--of his father's manner of receiving the news, with extracts from some of the choicest remarks made upon that notable occasion. It occupied four closely-written pages, and if there were, running underneath it all, just the faintest taint of strain and anxiety, loyally concealed--well--that made the letter no less pleasant.

I have not said a great deal about what Jenny meant to Frank, just because he said so very little about her himself. She was, in fact, almost the only element in his variegated life upon which he had not been in the habit of pouring out torrential comments and reflections.

His father and Archie were not at all spared in his conversation with his most intimate friends; in fact, he had been known, more than once, in a very select circle at Cambridge, to have conducted imaginary dialogues between those two on himself as their subject, and he could imitate with remarkable fidelity his Cousin d.i.c.k over a billiard-table.

But he practically never mentioned Jenny; he had not even a photograph of her on his mantelpiece. And it very soon became known among his friends, when the news of his engagement leaked out through Jack, that it was not to be spoken of in his presence. He had preserved the same reticence, it may be remembered, about his religion.

And so Frank at last fell asleep on a little iron bedstead, just remembering that it was quite possible he might have another letter from her to-morrow, if Jack had performed his commission immediately. But he hardly expected to hear till Tuesday.

Gertie was up soon after five next morning to get breakfast for her men, since the Major had announced that he would go with Frank to see whether possibly there might not be a job for him too; and as soon as they had gone, very properly went to sleep again on the bed in the sitting-room.

Gertie had a strenuous time of it, in spite of the Major's frequently expressed opinion that women had no idea what work was. For, first, there was the almost unending labor of providing food and cooking it as well as possible; there was almost a standing engagement of mending and washing clothes; there were numerous arguments to be conducted, on terms of comparative equality, if possible, with landladies or farmers'

wives--Gertie always wore a bra.s.s wedding-ring and showed it sometimes a little ostentatiously; and, finally, when the company was on the march, it was only fair that she should carry the heavier half of the luggage, in order to compensate for her life of luxury and ease at other times.

Gertie, then, was usually dog-tired, and slept whenever she could get a chance.