"And how to look after ourselves," thought Mary.

At that moment dinner was announced, and she went in on Morris's arm, the Colonel gallantly insisting that it should be so. After this things progressed a good deal better. The first plunge was over, and the cool refreshing waters of Mary's conversation seemed to give back to Morris's system some of the tone that it had lost. Also, when he thought fit to use it, he had a strong will, and he thought fit this night. Lastly, like many a man in a quandary before him, he discovered the strange advantages of a scientific but liberal absorption of champagne. Mary noticed this as she noticed everything, and said presently with her eyes wide open:

"Might I ask, my dear, if you are--ill? You are eating next to nothing, and that's your fourth large gla.s.s of champagne--you who never drank more than two. Don't you remember how it used to vex my poor dad, because he said that it always meant half a bottle wasted, and a temptation to the cook?"

Morris laughed--he was able to laugh by now--and replied, as it happened, with perfect truth, that he had an awful toothache.

"Then everything is explained," said Mary. "Did you ever see me with a toothache? Well, I should advise you not, for it would be our last interview. I will paint it for you after dinner with pure carbolic acid; it's splendid, that is if you don't drop any on the patient's tongue."

Morris answered that he would stick to champagne. Then Mary began to narrate her experiences in the convent in a fashion so funny that the Colonel could scarcely control his laughter, and even Morris, toothache, heartache, and all, was genuinely amused.

"Imagine, my dear Morris," she said, "you know the time I get down to breakfast. Or perhaps you don't. It's one of those things which I have been careful to conceal from you, but you will one day, and I believe that over it our matrimonial happiness may be wrecked. Well, at what hour do you think I found myself expected to be up in that convent?"

"Seven," suggested Morris.

"At seven! At a quarter to five, if you please! At a quarter to five every morning did some wretched person come and ring a dinner-bell outside my door. And it was no use going to sleep again, not the least, for at half-past five two hideous old lay-sisters arrived with buckets of water--they have a perfect pa.s.sion for cleanliness--and began to scrub out the cell whether you were in bed or whether you weren't."

Then she rattled on to other experiences, trivial enough in themselves, but so entertaining when touched and lightened with her native humour, that very soon the evening had worn itself pleasantly away without a single sad or untoward word.

"Good night, dear!" said Mary to Morris, who this time managed to embrace her with becoming warmth; "you will come and see me to-morrow, won't you--no, not in the morning. Remember I have been getting up at a quarter to five for a month, and I am trying to equalise matters; but after luncheon. Then we will sit before a good fire, and have a talk, for the weather is so delightfully bad that I am sure I shan't be forced to take exercise."

"Very well, at three o'clock," said Morris, when the Colonel, who had been reflecting to himself, broke in.

"Look here, my dear, you must be down to lunch, or if you are not you ought to be; so, as I want to have a chat with you about some of your poor father's affairs, and am engaged for the rest of the day, I will come over then if you will allow me."

"Certainly, uncle, if you like; but wouldn't Morris do instead--as representing me, I mean?"

"Yes," he answered; "when you are married he will do perfectly well, but until that happy event I am afraid that I must take your personal opinion."

"Oh! very well," said Mary with a sigh; "I will expect you at a quarter past one."

CHAPTER XVIII

TWO EXPLANATIONS

Accordingly, at a quarter past one on the following day the Colonel arrived at Seaview, went in to lunch with Mary, and made himself very amusing and agreeable about the domestic complications of his old friend, Lady Rawlins and her objectionable husband, and other kindred topics. Then, adroitly enough, he changed the conversation to the subject of the great gale, and when he talked of it awhile, said suddenly:

"I suppose that you have heard of the dreadful thing that happened here?"

"What dreadful thing?" asked Mary. "I have heard nothing; you must remember that I have been in a convent where one does not see the English papers."

"The death of Stella Fregelius," said the Colonel sadly.

"What! the daughter of the new rector--the young lady whom Morris took off the wreck, and whom I have been longing to ask him about, only I forgot last night? Do you mean to say that she is dead?"

"Dead as the sea can make her. She was in the old church yonder when it was swept away, and now lies beneath its ruins in four fathoms of water."

"How awful!" said Mary. "Tell me about it; how did it happen?"

"Well, through Morris, poor fellow, so far as I can make out, and that is why he is so dreadfully cut up. You see she helped him to carry on his experiments with that machine, she sitting in the church and he at home in the Abbey, with a couple of miles of coast and water between them. Well, you are a woman of the world, my dear, and you must know that all this sort of thing means a great deal more intimacy than is desirable. How far that intimacy went I do not know, and I do not care to inquire, though for my part I believe that it was a very little way indeed. Still, Eliza Layard got hold of some c.o.c.k and bull tale, and you can guess the rest."

"Perfectly," said Mary in a quiet voice, "if Eliza was concerned in it; but please go on with the story."

"Well, the gossip came to my ears----"

"Through Eliza?" queried Mary.

"Through Eliza--who said----" and he told her about the incident of the ulster and the dog-cart, adding that he believed it to be entirely untrue.

As Mary made no comment he went on: "I forgot to say that Miss Fregelius seems to have refused to marry Stephen Layard, who fell violently in love with her, which, to my mind, accounts for some of this gossip.

Still, I thought it my duty, and the best thing I could do, to give a friendly hint to the old clergyman, Stella's father, a funny, withered-up old boy by the way. He seems to have spoken to his daughter rather indiscreetly, whereon she waylaid me as I was walking on the sands and informed me that she had made up her mind to leave this place for London, where she intended to earn her own living by singing and playing on the violin. I must tell you that she played splendidly, and, in my opinion, had one of the most glorious contralto voices that I ever heard."

"She seems to have been a very attractive young woman," said Mary, in the same quiet, contemplative voice.

"I think," went on the Colonel, "take her all in all, she was about the most attractive young woman that ever I saw, poor thing. Upon my word, dear, old as I am, I fell half in love with her myself, and so would you if you had seen those eyes of hers."

"I remember," broke in Mary, "that old Mr. Tomley, after he returned from inspecting the Northumberland living, spoke about Miss Fregelius's wonderful eyes--at the dinner-party, you know, on the night when Morris proposed to me," and she shivered a little as though she had turned suddenly cold.

"Well, let me go on with my story. After she had told me this, and I had promised to help her with introductions--exactly why or how I forget--but I asked her flat out if she was in love with Morris.

Thereon--I a.s.sure you, my dear Mary, it was the most painful scene in all my long experience--the poor thing turned white as a sheet, and would have fallen if I had not caught hold of her. When she came to herself a little, she admitted frankly that this was her case, but added--of which, of course, one may believe as much as one likes, that she had never known it until I asked the question."

"I think that quite possible," said Mary; "and really, uncle, to me your cross-examination seems to have been slightly indiscreet."

"Possibly, my dear, very possibly; even Solomon might be excused for occasionally making a mistake where the mysterious articles which young ladies call their hearts are concerned. I tell what happened, that is all. Shall I go on?"

"If you please."

"Well, after this she announced that she meant to see Morris once to say good-bye to him before she went to London, and left me. Practically the next thing I heard about her was that she was dead."

"Did she commit suicide?" asked Mary.

"It is said not; it is suggested that after Morris's interview with her in the Dead Church--for I gather there was an interview though n.o.body knows about it, and that's where they met--she fell asleep, which sounds an odd thing to do in the midst of such a gale as was raging on Christmas Eve, and so was overwhelmed. But who can say? Impressionable and unhappy women have done such deeds before now, especially if they imagine themselves to have become the object of gossip. Of course, also, the mere possibility of such a thing having happened on his account would be, and indeed has been, enough to drive a man like Morris crazy with grief and remorse."

"What had he to be remorseful for?" asked Mary. "If a young woman chanced to fall in love with him, why should he be blamed, or blame himself for that? After all, people's affections are in their own keeping."

"I imagine--very little, if anything. At least, I know this, that when I spoke to him about the matter after my talk with her, I gathered from what he said that there was absolutely nothing between them. To be quite frank, however, as I have tried to be with you, my dear, throughout this conversation, I also gathered that this young lady had produced a certain effect upon his mind, or at least that the knowledge that she had avowed herself to be attached to him--which I am afraid I let out, for I was in a great rage--produced some such effect. Well, afterwards I believe, although I have asked no questions and am not sure of it, he went and said good-bye to her in this church, at her request. Then this dreadful tragedy happened, and there is an end of her and her story."

"Have you any object in telling it to me, uncle?"

"Yes, my dear, I have. I wished you to know the real facts before they reached you in whatever distorted version Morris's fancy or imagination, or exaggerated candour, may induce him to present them to you. Also, my dear, even if you find, or think you find that you have cause of complaint against him, I hope that you will see your way to being lenient and shutting your eyes a little."

"Severity was never my strong point," interrupted Mary.

"For this reason," went on the Colonel; "the young woman concerned was a very remarkable person; if you could have heard her sing, for instance, you would have said so yourself. It is a humiliating confession, but I doubt whether one young man out of a hundred, single, engaged, or married, could have resisted being attracted by her to just such an extent as she pleased, especially if he were flattered by the knowledge that she was genuinely attracted by himself."

Mary made no answer.