Easily, and with the effortless grace of her fifteen years, she laughed her way into our hearts.

CHAPTER VII

"Arnold!"

I waved my left hand.

"Don't disturb me for a few minutes, Allan, there's a good chap," I begged. "I'm hard at it."

"Found your plot, then, eh?"

"I've got a start, anyhow! Give me half an hour. I only want to set the thing going."

Mabane grunted, and took up his brush. For once I was thankful that we were alone. At last I saw my way. After weeks of ineffective scribbling a glimpse of the real thing had come to me.

The stiffness had gone from my brain and fingers. My pen flew over the paper. The joy of creation sang once more in my heart, tingled in all my pulses. We worked together and in silence for an hour or more. Then, with a little sigh of satisfaction, I leaned back in my chair.

"The story goes, then?" Mabane remarked.

"Yes, it goes," I a.s.sented, my eyes fixed absently upon the loose sheets of ma.n.u.script strewn all over my desk. Already I was finding it hard to tear my thoughts away from it.

There was a short silence. Then Mabane, who had been filling his pipe, came over to my side.

"You heard from the convent this morning, Arnold?"

"Yes! The letter is here. Read it!"

Mabane shook his head.

"I can't read French," he said.

"They want her back again," I told him, thoughtfully. "The woman appears to be honest enough. She admits that they have no absolute claim--they do not even know her parentage. They have been paid, she says, regularly and well for the child's education, and if she is now without a home they would like her to go back to them. She thinks it possible that Major Delahaye's relatives, or the people for whom he acted, might continue the payments, but they are willing to take their risk of that.

The long and short of it is, that they want her back again."

"As a pupil still?" Mabane asked.

"They would train her for a teacher. In that case she would have to serve a sort of novitiate. She would practically become a nun."

Mabane withdrew his pipe from his mouth, and looked thoughtfully into the bowl of it.

"I never had a sister," he said, "and I really know nothing whatever about children. But does it occur to you, Arnold, that this--young lady seems particularly adapted for a convent?"

"I believe," I said firmly, "that it would be misery for her."

Mabane walked over to his canvas and came back again.

"What about Delahaye?" he asked.

"He is still unconscious at the hospital," I answered.

Mabane hesitated.

"I do not wish to seem intrusive, Arnold," he said, "but I can't help remembering that a certain lady with whom you were very friendly once married a Delahaye!"

I nodded.

"I should have told you, in any case," I said. "This is the man--Major Sir William Delahaye, whom Eileen Marigold married."

"Then surely you recognized him in the restaurant?"

"I never met him," I answered. "This marriage was arranged very quickly, as you know, and I was abroad when it took place. I called on Lady Delahaye twice, but I did not meet her husband on either occasion."

Mabane fingered the loose sheets of my ma.n.u.script idly.

"Your story, Arnold," he said, "is having a tragic birth. Will Delahaye really die, do you think?"

"The doctors are not very hopeful," I told him. "The wound itself is not mortal, but the shock seems to have affected him seriously. He is not a young man, and he has lived hard all his days."

"If he dies," Mabane said thoughtfully, "your friend Grooten, I think you said he called himself, will have to disappear altogether. In that case I suppose we--shall be compelled to send the child back to the convent?"

"Unless----"

"Unless what?"

"Unless we provide for her ourselves," I answered boldly.

Mabane smoked furiously for a few moments. His hands were thrust deep down in his trousers pockets. He looked fixedly out of the window.

"Arnold," he said abruptly, "do you believe in presentiments?"

"It depends whether they affect me favourably or the reverse," I answered carelessly. "You Scotchmen are all so superst.i.tious."

"You may call it superst.i.tion," Mabane continued. "Everything of the sort which an ignorant man cannot understand he calls superst.i.tion. But if you like, I will tell you something which is surely going to happen.

I will tell you what I have seen."

I leaned forward in my chair, and looked curiously into Allan's face.

His hard, somewhat commonplace features seemed touched for the moment by some transfiguring fire. His keen, blue-grey eyes were as soft and luminous as a girl's. He had actually the appearance of a man who sees a little way beyond the border. Even then I could not take him seriously.

"Speak, Sir Prophet!" I exclaimed, with a little laugh. "Let my eyes also be touched with fire. Let me see what you see."

Mabane showed no sign of annoyance. He looked at me composedly.

"Do not be a fool, Arnold," he said. "You may believe or disbelieve, but some day you will know that the things which I have in my mind are true."

I think that I was a little bewildered. I realized now what at first I had been inclined to doubt--that Mabane was wholly in earnest.