"It is not true," she answered in a low firm tone. "I know that it is not true."

Mr. Thurwell shrugged his shoulders.

"I hope not, I'm sure. Still, I'd rather he did not come back here again. Some one must have done it, you see, and if it was a stranger, he must have been a marvelous sort of fellow to come into this lonely part of the country, and go away again without leaving a single trace."

"Criminals are all clever at disguises," she interposed.

"Doubtless; but they have yet to learn the art of becoming invisible,"

he went on drily. "I'm afraid it's no use concealing the fact that things look black against Maddison, and there is more than a whisper in the county about it. If he's a wise fellow, he'll keep away from here."

"He will not," she answered. "He will come back. He is innocent!"

Mr. Thurwell saw the rising flush in his daughter's face, but he had no suspicion as to its real cause. He knew that Bernard Maddison was one of her favorite authors, and he put her defence of him down to that fact.

He was not a particularly warm advocate on either side, and suddenly remembering his unopened letters, he abandoned the discussion.

Helen, whose calm happiness had been altogether disturbed, rose in a few minutes with the intention of making her escape. But her father, with an open letter in his hand, checked her.

"Have you been seeing much of Sir Allen Beaumerville in town, Helen?" he asked.

"Yes, a great deal. Why?" she asked.

"He's coming down here," Mr. Thurwell said. "He asks whether we can put him up for a night or two, as he wants to do some botanizing. Of course we shall be very pleased. I did give him a general invitation, I remember, but I never thought he'd come. You'll see about having some rooms got ready, Helen!"

"Yes, papa, I'll see to it," she answered, moving slowly away.

What could this visit in the middle of the season mean? she wondered uneasily. It was so unlike Sir Allan to leave town in May. Could it be that what her aunt had once laughingly hinted at was really going to happen? Her cheeks burned at the very thought. She liked Sir Allan, and she had found him a delightful companion, but even to think of any other man now in such a connection seemed unreal and grotesque. After all, it was most improbable. Sir Allan had only shown her the attention he showed every woman who pleased his fastidious taste.

CHAPTER XXVIII

SIR ALLAN BEAUMERVILLE VISITS THE COURT

On the following day Sir Allan duly arrived, and in a very short s.p.a.ce of time Helen's fears had altogether vanished. His appearance was certainly not that of an anxious wooer. He was pale and haggard and thin, altogether a different person to the brilliant man about town who was such a popular figure in society. Something seemed to have aged him.

There were lines and wrinkles in his face which had never appeared there before, and an air of restless depression in his manner and bearing quite foreign to his former self.

On the first evening Mr. Thurwell broached some plans for his entertainment, but Sir Allan stopped him at once.

"If I may be allowed to choose," he said, "I should like to be absolutely quiet for a few days. London life is not the easiest in the world, and I'm afraid I must be getting an old man. At any rate I am knocked up, and I want a rest."

"You have come to the right place for that," Mr. Thurwell laughed. "You could live here for months and never see a soul if you chose. But I'm afraid you'll soon be bored."

"I'm not afraid of that," Sir Allan answered quietly. "Besides, my excuse was not altogether a fiction. I really am an enthusiastic botanist, and I want to take up my researches here just where I was obliged to leave them off so suddenly last year."

Mr. Thurwell nodded.

"I remember," he said; "you were staying at Mallory, weren't you, when that sad affair to poor Kynaston happened?"

"Yes."

Sir Allan moved his chair a little, as though to escape from the warmth of the fire, and sat where the heavily shaded lamp left his face in the shadow.

"Yes, that was a terrible affair," he said in a low tone; "and a very mysterious one. Nothing has ever been heard of the murderer, I suppose?"

"Nothing."

"And there are no rumors, no suspicions?"

Mr. Thurwell looked uneasily around, as though to satisfy himself that there were no servants lingering in the room.

"It is scarcely a thing to be talked about," he said slowly; "but there have been things said."

"About whom?"

"About my tenant at Falcon's Nest--Bernard Maddison, as he turned out to be."

"Ah!"

Mr. Thurwell looked at his guest wonderingly. He could not quite make up his mind whether he was profoundly indifferent or equally interested.

His tone sounded a little cold.

"There was a fellow down here in my employ," continued Mr. Thurwell, lighting a fresh cigar, "who turns out to have been a spy or detective of some sort. Of course I knew nothing of it at the time--in fact, I've only just found it out; but it seems he ransacked Falcon's Nest and discovered some papers which he avowed quite openly would hang Mr.

Maddison. But what's become of him I don't know."

"I suppose he didn't disclose the nature of the papers?" Sir Allan asked quietly.

"No, he didn't go as far as that. By the bye, you know every one, Beaumerville. Who is this Bernard Maddison? Of course I know all about his writing and that; but what family is he of? He is certainly a gentleman."

Sir Allan threw away his cigarette, and rose.

"I think I have heard once, but I don't remember for the moment. Miss Helen promised us a little music, didn't she?" he added. "If you are ready, shall we go and remind her?"

Sir Allan brought the conversation to an end with a shrug of his shoulders, and during the remainder of his stay Mr. Thurwell noticed that he carefully avoided any reopening of it. Evidently his guest has no taste for horrors.

Sir Allan rose late on the following morning, and until lunch-time begged for the use of the library, where he remained writing letters and reading up the flora of the neighborhood. Early in the afternoon he appeared equipped for his botanizing expedition.

"Helen shall go with you and show you the most likely places," Mr.

Thurwell had said at luncheon. But though Sir Allan had bowed courteously, and had expressed himself as charmed, he had not said another word about it, so when the time came he started alone. On the whole Helen, although she was by no means ill-pleased, was not a little puzzled. In London, when it was sometimes difficult to obtain a place by her side at all, Sir Allan had been the most a.s.siduous and attentive of cavaliers; but now that they were quite alone in the country, and her company was even offered to him, he showed himself by no means eager to avail himself of it. On the contrary, he had deliberately preferred doing his botanizing alone. Well, she was quite satisfied, she thought, with a little laugh. It was far better this way than the other. Still she was puzzled.

Later in the afternoon she started for her favorite walk alone. She nearly always chose the same way along the cliffs, through the fir plantation, and sometimes as far as the hill by the side of which was Falcon's Nest. It was a walk full of a.s.sociations for her, a.s.sociations which had become so dear a part of her life that she always strove to heighten them even by choosing the same hour of the day for her walk as that well-remembered one when they had stood hand-in-hand for a single moment in the shadows of the darkening plantation. And again, as it had done many times before, her heart beat fast, and sweet memories began to steal back to her as she pa.s.sed under those black waving branches moaning slightly in the evening breeze, and pressed under foot the brown leaves which in a sodden ma.s.s carpeted the winding path. Yes, it was here by that tall slender fir that they had stood for that one moment of intense happiness, when the thunder of the sea filling the air around them had almost forbidden speech, and the strange light had flashed in his dark eyes. She pa.s.sed the spot with slow, lingering steps and quickening pulses, and opening the little hand-gate, climbed slowly up the cliff.

At the summit she paused and looked around. A low grey mist hung over the moor, and twilight had cast its mantle of half-veiled obscurity over sea and land. A wind too had sprung up, blowing her ulster and skirts around her, and driving the mist across the moor in clouds of small, fine rain. Before her she could just see the dim outline of the opposite hill, with its dark patch of firs, and Falcon's Nest, bare and distinct, close up against its side. The wind and the rain blew against her, but she took no heed. All personal discomforts seemed so little beside these memories tinged with such a peculiar sweetness. It is a fact that a woman is able to extract far more pleasure from memories than a man, for there is in his nature a certain impatience which makes it impossible for him to keep his thought fixed steadfastly upon the past. The vivid flashes of memory which do come to him only incite a great restlessness for its renewal, which, if it be for the time impossible, is only disquieting and discontenting. But for a woman, her love itself, even though it be for the time detached from its object, is a sweet and precious thing. She can yield herself up to its influence, can steep her mind and soul in it, till a glow of intense happiness steals through her whole frame; and hence her patience during separation is so much greater than a man's.

And it was so to a certain extent with Helen. Those few moments of intense abstraction had their own peculiar pleasure for her, and it was only the sound of the far-off clock borne by the wind across the moor from Thurwell Court which recalled her to herself. Then she started, and in a moment more would have been on her way home.

But that lingering farewell glance toward Falcon's Nest suddenly changed into a startled fearful gaze. Her heart beat fast, and she took an involuntary step forward. There was no doubt about it. A dim moving light shone from the lower windows of the cottage.