"Of course I say so!" he declared. "I am very fond of you indeed, or I should not want to marry you. Come, I think that you had better say good-bye to my mother now. Your friend outside will be tired of waiting."

She rose to her feet, and he led her from the room. They walked down the field side by side, and Lois felt her knees trembling. She was white as a sheet, and once she was obliged to clutch his arm for support. As they neared the gate, they saw that Vandermere was talking to someone on horseback. Saton's face darkened as he recognised the tall figure. His first impulse was to stop, but with Lois by his side he saw at once that it was impossible. With the courage that waits upon the inevitable, he opened the gate and pa.s.sed out into the lane.

"Good afternoon, Miss Champneyes!" he said, holding out his hand. "It was very good of you to come in and visit the Comtesse. She is always so glad indeed to see you."

The girl's fingers lay for a moment icy cold within his. Then she turned with a little breath of relief to Vandermere. They walked off together.

Rochester signalled with his whip to Saton to wait for a moment. As soon as the other two were out of earshot, he leaned down from his saddle.

"My young friend," he said, "it seems to me that you are wilfully disregarding my warning."

"I was not aware," Saton answered, "that Miss Champneyes was a prisoner in your house, nor do I see how I am to be held responsible for her call upon the Comtesse."

"We will not bandy words," Rochester said. "I have no wish to quarrel with you, but I want you always to remember the things which I have said. Lois Champneyes is very nearly of age, it is true, but she remains a child by disposition and temperament. As her guardian, I want you to understand that I forbid you to continue your friendship or even your acquaintance with her!"

The quiet contempt of Rochester's words stung Saton into a moment of fury.

"What sort of a creature am I, then," he exclaimed, "that you should think me unworthy even to speak to your ward, or to the women of your household? You treat me as though I were a criminal, or worse!"

Rochester tapped his riding boot with the end of his whip. Saton watched him with fascinated eyes. There seemed something a little ominous in the action, in the sight of that gently moving whip, held so firmly in the long, sinewy fingers.

"What you are," Rochester said, leaning a little down from his horse, "you know and I know. Let that be enough. Only remember that there comes a time when threats cease, and actions commence. And as sure as you and I are met here together this evening, Saton, I tell you that if you offend again in this matter, I shall punish you. You understand?"

Rochester swung his horse round and cantered down the lane. Saton stood looking after him with white, angry face and clenched hands.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE d.u.c.h.eSS'S DINNER PARTY

The d.u.c.h.ess welcomed the little party from Beauleys in person, and with more than ordinary warmth.

"I am glad to see you all, of course," she said, "but I am really delighted to see you about again, Henry. Do tell me, now. I have heard so many contradictory reports. Did you shoot yourself, or was it one of your guests who did it? I don't know how it is, but poor Ronald always says that the men one asks to shoot, nowadays, hit everything except the birds."

"My dear d.u.c.h.ess," Rochester answered, "I certainly did not shoot myself. I have every confidence in my guests, and so far as we have been able to ascertain, there wasn't another soul in the neighborhood.

Shall we say that I was shot by the act of G.o.d? There really doesn't seem to be any other explanation."

The d.u.c.h.ess was not altogether satisfied.

"To-night I am going to offer you a great privilege," she said. "I am going to give you a chance of finding out the answer to your riddle."

Rochester looked perplexed, and Lady Mary blandly curious. Pauline alone seemed as though by instinct to realize what lay beneath their hostess's words. Her face seemed suddenly to grow tense. She shrank back--a slight, involuntary movement, but significant enough under the circ.u.mstances.

"An answer to my riddle," Rochester remarked, smiling. "Really, I did not know that I had propounded one."

"Only a moment ago," the d.u.c.h.ess reminded him, "you spoke of being shot by the act of G.o.d. That, of course, was a form of speech. You meant that you did not know who did it. Perhaps we shall be able to solve that little mystery for you."

Rochester looked at his hostess as though for a moment he doubted her sanity. Tall and slim in his immaculate clothes, standing before the great wood fire which burned in the open grate, he leaned a little forward upon his stick, with knitted brows. Then his eyes caught Pauline's, and something which he was about to say seemed to die away upon his lips.

"Of course, you are unbelievers, all of you," the d.u.c.h.ess said, calmly, "but some day--perhaps even to-night--you may become converts.

Did I tell you, Mary," she continued, turning away from Rochester, "that I met that extraordinary man Naudheim in London? He told me so many interesting things, and since then I have been reading. He introduced me to--to one of his most brilliant pupils--a young man, he a.s.sured me, whose insight was more highly developed, even, than his own. Of course, you understand that in these matters, insight and perception take the place almost of brains."

"My dear d.u.c.h.ess," Rochester interrupted, "what are you talking about?"

"The new science," the d.u.c.h.ess answered, with a note of triumph in her tone. "You will learn all about it some day, and you cannot begin too soon. The young man whom Professor Naudheim spoke so highly of is dining here to-night. Curiously enough, I found that he was almost a neighbor of both of ours."

There was an instant's silence. Pauline, who was prepared, was now perhaps the calmest of the trio. Rochester's face was dark with anger.

"You refer, d.u.c.h.ess, I suppose," he said--

The d.u.c.h.ess left him unceremoniously. She took a step or two forward with outstretched hands. The butler was announcing--

"Mr. Saton!"

The dinner was as successful as the d.u.c.h.ess's country dinners always were. She herself, a hostess of renown, led the conversation at her end of the table. Like all women with a new craze, she conscientiously did her best to keep it in the background, and completely failed.

Before the third course had been removed, she was discussing occultism with the bishop of the diocese. Rochester, from her other side, listened with a thin smile. She turned upon him suddenly.

"Oh, I know that you're an unbeliever!" she said. "You're one of those people who go through life doubting everything. You shan't have him for an ally, Bishop," she said, "because your points of view are entirely different. Henry here doubts everything, from his own existence to the vintage of my champagne. You, on the other hand," she added, turning toward her other companion, "are forced to disbelieve, because you feel that any new power or gift that may be granted to us, and which we discover for ourselves, is opposed, of course, to your creed."

"It depends," the bishop remarked, "upon the nature of that power."

"Even in its elementary stages," the d.u.c.h.ess said, "there is no doubt that it is a power which can do a great deal for us towards solving the mysteries of existence. Personally, I consider it absolutely and entirely inimical to any form of religious belief."

"Why?" Rochester asked quietly.

"Because," the d.u.c.h.ess answered, "all the faith that has been lavished upon religion since the making of the world, has been a misapplied force. If it had been applied toward developing this new part of ourselves, there is no doubt that so many thousands of years could never have pa.s.sed without our entering the last and greatest chamber in the treasure-house of knowledge."

The bishop, being a privileged guest, and a cousin of his hostess, deliberately turned his back upon her and escaped from the conversation. The d.u.c.h.ess looked past him towards Saton, who was sitting a few places down the table.

"There!" she exclaimed. "I have been braver than even you could have been."

Saton smiled.

"That sort of courage," he remarked, "is the prerogative of your s.e.x."

"You have heard what I said," she continued. "Don't you agree with me?"

"Of course," he answered.

He hesitated for a moment, but the d.u.c.h.ess was looking at him. She evidently expected him to continue the subject.

"We are told," he said slowly, "that there is no such thing as waste in the physical world--that matter simply changes its form. I suppose that is true enough. And yet a change of form can be for the better or for the worse, according to our caprices. Strictly speaking, it is a waste when matter is changed for the worse. It is very much like this, I think, with regard to the subject which you were just then discussing. Faith, from our point of view, is a very real and psychical force. The faith which has been spent upon religion through all these ages, seems to us very much like the tragedy of an unharnessed Niagara."

The d.u.c.h.ess looked around her triumphantly. She was chilled a little, however, by Rochester's curling lip.