That was true. Slotman gritted his teeth. Two minutes later the carter trudging on his way pa.s.sed a solitary man smoking by a gate, and far down the road a woman walked quickly towards Starden.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

"FOR HER SAKE"

Into Hugh Alston's life had come two women, women he had loved, both now engaged to be married to other men, and Hugh Alston was a sorely worried and perplexed man about both of them.

"I'll go to Cornbridge to-morrow," said Hugh, and he went.

"Where," asked Lady Linden, "the d.i.c.kens have you been?"

"In the country!"

"Isn't your own country good enough for you?" She looked at him shrewdly.

She saw the worry in his face; it was too open and too honest to make concealment of his feelings possible.

Marjorie welcomed him with tearful gladness in her eyes. She said nothing, she held his hand tightly. Not till afterwards did she thank him for coming.

"I felt you would," she said. "I knew you would!"

And so he was glad he came.

And was she? She wondered, better a thousand times for her and her happiness if she never saw him again. So long as she lived she would not forget those four words that had entered like a sword into her heart and had slain for ever the last hope of happiness for her--"Better than my life!"

It was odd how women remembered Hugh Alston's words. How even on this very day another woman was remembering, and was fighting a fight, pride and obstinacy opposed to fear and loneliness and weariness of soul.

Hugh noticed a change in Tom.

"h.e.l.lo, Alston," said Tom, and gripped him by the hand; but it was a weary and dispirited voice and grip, unlike those of Tom Arundel of yore.

They walked about Lady Linden's model farm together, Tom acting as showman with no little pride, and yet behind even the enthusiasm there was a weariness that Hugh detected.

"And the wedding, Tom?" Hugh asked him presently. "When is it to be?"

Tom looked up. "I don't know, Alston, sometimes I think never. Alston, you--you've seen her. You remember her as she was, the sweetest, dearest girl in the world, her eyes and her heart filled with sunshine, and now..." The lad's voice trailed off miserably.

"Hugh, I can't make her out; it worries me and puzzles me and--and hurts me. She is so different, she takes me up so sharply. I--I know I am a fool, I know I am not fit to touch her little hand. I know that I am not a man--like you, a man a girl could look up to and respect, but I've always loved her, Hugh, and I've kept straight. There are things I might have done and didn't do--for her sake. I just thought of her, Hugh, and so--so I've lived a decent life!"

Hugh's eyes kindled, for he knew that what the boy said was truth.

Thursday afternoon saw Hugh back at Hurst Dormer. It was a week now since he had left Starden. She had asked him to leave, and he had left, yet not exactly for that reason. His coming here had done no good, had only given him fresh worry and anxiety, and now he realised that all his sympathy was for Tom and not for Marjorie.

"Oh, my Lord! Uncertain, coy and hard to please is correct, and I suppose some of them can be ministering angels--yes, G.o.d bless them!

I've seen them!" His face softened, his thoughts flew back to other days, days of strife and bloodshed, of misery and death, days when men lay helpless and in pain, and in memory Hugh saw the gentle, soft-footed girls at their work of mercy. Ministering angels--G.o.d's own!

"Mrs. Morrisey, I am going to London."

"Very good, sir!" Mrs. Morrisey was giving up all hopes of this restless young master of hers. "Very good, sir!"

"I shall be back"--he paused--"eventually, if not sooner!"

"Certainly, sir!" said Mrs. Morrisey, who had no sense of humour.

"Meanwhile, send on any letters to the Northborough Hotel. I shall catch the seven-thirty," said Hugh.

"I'll order the car round, sir," said Mrs. Morrisey.

And this very day at Starden pride broke down; the need was so great. It was not the money that the man demanded, but the bonds that paying it would forge about her, bind her for all time.

"Please come to me here. I want your help. I am in great trouble, and there is no one I can turn to but you.

"JOAN."

And not till after the letter was in the post did she remember that she had signed it with her Christian name only.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

CONNIE DECLARES

"My dear Connie!" Helen Everard was amazed. "My dear Connie, why talk such nonsense? This marriage between Joan and Johnny is the best, the very best possible thing in the world for him. Joan is--"

"I know all she is, Helen," said Connie; "no one knows better than I do.

I know she is lovely; she is good, she is rich, and she is cold--cold to Johnny. She doesn't love him; and I love him, Helen, and I hate to think that Johnny should give his life to a woman who does not care for him!"

Helen shrugged her shoulders. "Sometimes, Connie with her queer unworldly notions annoys me," she thought.

"At any rate, dear child, it is all arranged, and whatever you and I say will not matter in the least. But, all the same, I am sorry you are opposed to the marriage."

"I am!" said Connie briefly.

She had declared herself, as she had known sooner or later she must, and she had declared on the side of the girl who loved Johnny Everard better than her life.

At home Johnny wondered at the change that had come to the two women whom he loved and believed in. It seemed to him that somehow they were antagonistic to him, they seemed to cling together.

Ellice deliberately avoided him. When he asked her to go out, as in the old days, she refused, and when he felt hurt Connie sided with her.

"Con, what does it mean?" he cried in perplexity.

"Nothing. What should it mean?"

"But it does. Ellice hardly speaks to me. When I speak to her she just answers. You--you"--he paused--"and you are different even. What have I done?"