"Mother hates travelling nowadays. She says she had quite sufficient of living abroad in my father's lifetime. We were practically exiled for years, you know. I was born in Lima, and I never saw England till I was eleven. The Diplomatic Service takes one so out of touch with home."

"But Sir Hugh will go abroad this winter, eh?"

"I have not heard him speak of it. I believe he's too busy at the War Office just now. They have some more 'reforms' in progress, I hear," and she smiled.

He was looking straight into the girl's handsome face, his heart torn between love and suspicion.

Those days at Biarritz recurred to him; how he would watch for her and go and meet her down towards Grande Plage, till, by degrees, it had become to both the most natural thing in the world. On those rare evenings when they did not meet the girl was conscious of a little feeling of disappointment which she was too shy to own, even to her own heart.

Walter Fetherston owned it freely enough. In that bright springtime the day was incomplete unless he saw her; and he knew that, even now, every hour was making her grow dearer to him. From that chance meeting at the hotel their friendship had grown, and had ripened into something warmer, dearer--a secret held closely in each heart, but none the less sweet for that.

After leaving Biarritz the man had torn himself from her--why, he hardly knew. Only he felt upon him some fatal fascination, strong and irresistible. It was the first time in his life that he had been what is vulgarly known as "over head and ears in love."

He returned to England, and then, a month later, his investigation of Henry Bellairs' death, for the purpose of obtaining a plot for a new novel he contemplated, revealed to him a staggering and astounding truth.

Even then, in face of that secret knowledge he had gained, he had been powerless, and he had gone up to Monifieth deliberately again to meet her--to be drawn again beneath the spell of those wonderful eyes.

There was love in the man's heart. But sometimes it embittered him. It did at that moment, as they strolled still onward over that carpet of moss and fallen leaves. He had loved her, as he believed her to be a woman with heart and soul too pure to harbour an evil thought. But her story of the death of poor Bellairs, the man who had loved her, had convinced him that his suspicions were, alas! only too well grounded.

CHAPTER XIV

WHAT CONFESSION WOULD MEAN

A SILENCE had fallen between the pair. Again Walter Fetherston glanced at her.

She was an outdoor girl to the tips of her fingers. At shooting parties she went out with the guns, not merely contenting herself, as did the other girls, to motor down with the luncheon for the men. She never got dishevelled or untidy, and her trim tweed skirt and serviceable boots never made her look unwomanly. She was her dainty self out in the country with the men, just as in the pretty drawing-room at Hill Street, while her merry laugh evoked more smiles and witticisms than the more studied attempts at wit of the others.

At that moment she had noticed the change in the man she had so gradually grown to love, and her heart was beating in wild tumult.

He, on his part, was hating himself for so foolishly allowing her to steal into his heart. She had lied to him there, just as she had lied to him at Biarritz. And yet he had been a fool, and had allowed himself to be drawn back to her side.

Why? he asked himself. Why? There was a reason, a strong reason. He loved her, and the reason he was at that moment at her side was to save her, to rescue her from a fate which he knew must sooner or later befall her.

She made some remark, but he only replied mechanically. His countenance had, she saw, changed and become paler. His lips were pressed together, and, taking a cigar from his case, he asked her permission to smoke, and viciously bit off its end. Something had annoyed him. Was it possible that he held any suspicion of the ghastly truth?

The real fact, however, was that he was calmly and deliberately contemplating tearing her from his heart for ever as an object of suspicion and worthless. He, who had never yet fallen beneath a woman's thraldom, resolved not to enter blindly the net she had spread for him.

His thoughts were hard and bitter--the thoughts of a man who had loved pa.s.sionately, but whose idol had suddenly been shattered.

Again she spoke, remarking that it was time she turned back, for already they were at the opposite end of the wood, with a beautiful panorama of valley and winding river spread before them. But he only answered a trifle abruptly, and, acting upon her suggestion, turned and retraced his steps in silence.

At last, as though suddenly rousing himself, he turned to her, and said in an apologetic tone: "I fear, Enid, I've treated you rather--well, rather uncouthly. I apologise. I was thinking of something else--a somewhat serious matter."

"I knew you were," she laughed, affecting to treat the matter lightly.

"You scarcely replied to me."

"Forgive me, won't you?" he asked, smiling again in his old way.

"Of course," she said. "But--but is the matter very serious? Does it concern yourself?"

"Yes, Enid, it does," he answered.

And still she walked on, her eyes cast down, much puzzled.

Two woodmen pa.s.sed on their way home from work, and raised their caps politely, while Walter acknowledged their salutation in French.

"I shall probably leave here to-morrow," her companion said as they walked back to the high road. "I am not yet certain until I receive my letters to-night."

"You are now going back to your village inn, I suppose," she laughed cheerfully.

"Yes," he said. "My host is an interesting old countryman, and has told me quite a lot about the war. He was wounded when the Germans sh.e.l.led Verdun. He has told me that he knows Paul Le Pontois, for his son Jean is his servant."

"Why, Mr. Fetherston, you are really ubiquitous," cried the girl in confusion. "Why have you been watching us like this?"

"Merely because I wished to see you, as I've already explained," was his reply. "I wanted to ask you those questions which I have put to you this afternoon."

"About poor Harry?" she remarked in a hoa.r.s.e, low voice. "But you begged me to reply to you in my own interests--why?"

"Because I wished to know the real truth."

"Well, I've told you the truth," she said with just the slightest tinge of defiance in her voice.

For a moment he did not speak. He had halted; his grave eyes were fixed upon her.

"Have you told me the whole truth--all that you know, Enid?" he asked very quietly a moment later.

"What more should I know?" she protested after a second's hesitation.

"How can I tell?" he asked quickly. "I only ask you to place me in possession of all the facts within your knowledge."

"Why do you ask me this?" she cried. "Is it out of mere idle curiosity?

Or is it because--because, knowing that Harry loved me, you wish to cause me pain by recalling those tragic circ.u.mstances?"

"Neither," was his quiet answer in a low, sympathetic voice. "I am your friend, Enid. And if you will allow me, I will a.s.sist you."

She held her breath. He spoke as though he were aware of the truth--that she had not told him everything--that she was still concealing certain important and material facts.

"I--I know you are my friend," she faltered. "I have felt that all along, ever since our first meeting. But--but forgive me, I beg of you. The very remembrance of that night of the second of September is, to me, horrible--horrible."

To him those very words of hers increased his suspicion. Was it any wonder that she was horrified when she recalled that gruesome episode of the death of a brave and honest man? Her personal fascination had overwhelmed Harry Bellairs, just as it had overwhelmed himself. The devil sends some women into the hearts of upright men to rend and destroy them.

Upon her cheeks had spread a deadly pallor, while in the centre of each showed a scarlet spot. Her heart was torn by a thousand emotions, for the image of that man whom she had seen lying cold and dead in his room had arisen before her vision, blotting out everything. The hideous remembrance of that fateful night took possession of her soul.

In silence they walked on for a considerable time. Now and then a rabbit scuttled from their path into the undergrowth or the alarm-cry of a bird broke the evening stillness, until at last they came forth into the wide highway, their faces set towards the autumn sunset.

Suddenly the man spoke.