She whirled on him angrily. "The law? What has the law to do with it? Don't be a fool!"

"She ought to be legally exonerated," he said.

Her fingers gripped his arm fiercely. "I want you to understand one thing, Brandon. The story I have told you was for your ears alone.

The secret lives with us and dies with us."

He looked his relief. "Right! It must go no farther. It is not a matter for the law to decide. You may trust me."

"I am cold," she said. He heard her teeth chatter distinctly as she pulled the thick mantle closer about her throat and shoulders.

"It is very raw and wet down here. Come!"

As she started off along the long, narrow pier, he sprang after her, grasping her arm. She leaned rather heavily against him for a few steps and then drew herself up. Her teeth still chattered, her arm trembled in his clasp.

"By Jove, Sara, this is bad," he cried, in distress. "You're chilled to the marrow."

"Nerves," she retorted, and he somehow felt that her lips were set and drawn.

"You must get to bed right away. Hot bath, mustard, and all that.

I'll not stop for dinner. Thanks just the same. I will be over in the morning."

"When will you sail?" she asked, after a moment.

"I can't go for ten days, at least. My mother goes into the hospital next week for an operation, as I've told you. I can't leave until after that's over. Nothing serious, but--well, I can't go away.

I shall write to Hetty to-night, and cable her to-morrow. By the way, I--I don't know just where to find her. You see, we were not to write to each other. It was in the bargain. I suppose you don't know how I can--"

"Yes, I can tell you precisely where she is. She is in Venice, but leaves there to-morrow for Rome, by the Express."

"Then you have been hearing from her?" he cried sharply.

"Not directly. But I will say this much: there has not been a day since she landed in England that I have not received news of her.

I have not been out of touch with her, Brandon, not even for an hour."

"Good heaven, Sara! You don't mean to say you've had her shadowed by--by detectives," he exclaimed, aghast.

"Her maid is a very faithful servant," was her ambiguous rejoinder.

CHAPTER XXI

DISTURBING NEWS

He walked home swiftly through the early night, his brain seething with tumultuous thoughts. The revelations of the day were staggering; the whole universe seemed to have turned topsy-turvy since that devastating hour at Burton's Inn. Somehow he was not able to confine his thoughts to Hetty Castleton alone. She seemed to sink into the background, despite the absolution he had been so ready, so eager to grant her on hearing the story from Sara's lips. Not that his resolve to search her out and claim her in spite of everything was likely to weaken, but that the absorbing figure of Sara Wrandall stood out most clearly in his reflections.

What an amazing creature she was! He could not drive her out of his thoughts, even when he tried to concentrate them on the one person who was dearest to him of all in all the world, his warm-hearted, adorable Hetty. Strange contrasts suggested themselves to him as he strode along, head bent and shoulders hunched. He could not help contrasting the two women. He loved Hetty; he would always love her, of that he was positive. She was Sara's superior in every respect, infinitely so, he argued. And yet there was something in Sara that could crowd this adored one, this perfect one out of his thoughts for the time being. He found it difficult to concentrate his thoughts on Hetty Castleton.

How white and ill Sara had looked when she said good-night to him at the door! The memory of her dark, mysterious eyes haunted him; he could see them in the night about him. They had been full of pain; there were torrents of tears behind them. They had glistened as if burnished by the fires of fever.

Even as he wrote his long, triumphant letter to Hetty Castleton, the picture of Sara Wrandall encroached upon his mental vision. He could not drive it out. He thought of her as she had appeared to him early in the spring; through all the varying stages of their growing intimacy; through the interesting days when he vainly tried to translate her matchless beauty by means of wretched pigments; up to this present hour in which she was revealed, and yet not revealed, to him. Her vivid face was always before him, between his eyes and the thin white paper on which he scribbled so eagerly.

Her feverish eyes were looking into his; she was reading what he wrote before it appeared on the surface of the sheet!

His letter to Hetty was a triumph of skill and diplomacy, achieved after many attempts. He found it hard not to say too much, and quite as difficult not to say too little. He spent hours over this all-important missive. At last it was finished. He read and re-read it, searching for the slightest flaw: a fatal word or suggestion that might create in her mind the slightest doubt as to his sincerity.

She was sure to read this letter a great many times, and always with the view to finding something between the lines: such as pity, resignation, an enforced conception of loyalty, or even faith! He meant that she should find nothing there but love. It was full of tenderness, full of hope, full of promise. He was coming to her with a steadfast, enduring love in his heart, he wanted her now more than ever before.

There was no mention of Challis Wrandall, and but once was Sara's name used. There was nothing in the letter that could have betrayed their joint secret to the most acute outsider, and yet she would understand that he had wrung everything from Sara's lips. Her secret was his.

He decided that it would not be safe to antic.i.p.ate the letter by a cablegram. It was not likely that any message he could send would have the desired effect. Instead of rea.s.suring her, in all probability it would create fresh alarm.

Sleep did not come to him until after three o'clock. At two he got up and deliberately added a postscript to the letter he had written.

It was in the nature of a poignant plea for Sara Wrandall. Even as he penned the lines, he shuddered at the thought of what she had planned to do to Hetty Castleton. Staring hard at the black window before him, the pen still in his hand, he allowed his thoughts to dwell so intimately on the subject of his well-meant postcript that her ashen face with its burning eyes seemed to take shape in the night beyond. It was a long time before he could get rid of the illusion. Afterwards he tried to conjure up Hetty's face and to drive out the likeness of the other woman, and found that he could not recall a single feature in the face of the girl he loved!

When he reached Southlook in the morning, he found that nearly all of the doors and windows were boarded up. Wagons were standing in the stable-yard, laden with trunks and crates. Servants without livery were scurrying about the halls. There was an air of finality about their movements. The place was being desolated.

"Yes, sir," said Watson, in reply to his question, "we ARE in a rush. Mrs. Wrandall expects to close the 'ouse this evening, sir.

We all go up this afternoon. I suppose you know, sir, we 'ave taken a new apartment in town."

"No!" exclaimed Booth.

"Yes, sir, we 'ave, sir. They've been decorating it for the pawst two weeks. Seems like she didn't care for the old one we 'ad. As a matter of fact, I didn't care much for it, either. She's taken one of them hexpensive ones looking out over the Park, sir. You know we used to look out over Madison Avenue, sir, and G.o.d knows it wasn't hinspirin'. Yes, sir, we go up this afternoon. Mrs. Wrandall will be down in a second, thank you, sir."

Booth actually was startled by her appearance when she entered the room a few minutes later. She looked positively ill.

"My dear Sara," he cried anxiously, "this is too bad. You are making yourself ill. Come, come, this won't do."

"I shall be all right in a day or two," she said, with a weary little gesture. "I have been nervous. The strain was too great, Brandon.

This is the reaction, the relaxation you might say."

"Your hand is hot, your eyes look feverish. You'd better see your doctor as soon as you get to town. An ounce of prevention, you know."

"Well," she said, with a searching look into his eyes, "have you written to her?"

"Yes. Posted it at seven o'clock this morning."

"I trust you did not go so far as to--well, to volunteer a word in my behalf. You were not to do that, you know."

He looked uncomfortable. "I'm afraid I did take your name in vain,"

he equivocated. "You are a--a wonderful woman, Sara," he went on, moved to the remark by a curious influence that he could not have explained any more than he could have accounted for the sudden gush of emotion that took possession of him.

She ignored the tribute. "You will persuade her to come to New York with you?"

"For your sake, Sara, if she won't come for mine."

"She knows the cage is open," was her way of dismissing the subject.

"I am glad you came over. I have a letter from Leslie. It came this morning. You may be interested in what he has to say of Hetty--and of yourself." She smiled faintly. "He is determined that you shall not be without a friend while he is alive."

"Les isn't such a rotter, Sara. He's spoiled, but he is hardly to be blamed for that."