Margaret was now incensed, Helen surprised, and even slightly amused.

Brett rattled on, demanding and receiving occasional curt replies. The tea came.

Whatever the failings of Beechcroft might be, they had not reached the kitchen. Delightful little rolls of thin bread and b.u.t.ter, sandwiches of cuc.u.mber and _pate de foie gras_, tempting morsels of pastry, home-made jam, and crisp biscuits showed that the housekeeper had unconsciously adopted Brett's view of her mistress's needs.

Margaret, hardly knowing what she did, toyed at first with these delicacies, until she yielded to the demands of her stimulated appet.i.te.

Helen and Brett were unfeignedly hungry, and when Brett rose to ring for more cuc.u.mber sandwiches, they all laughed.

"The first time I met you," said Margaret, whose cheeks began to exhibit a faint trace of colour, "I told you that you could read a woman's heart. I did not know you were also qualified to act as her physician."

"If the first part of my treatment is deemed successful, then I hope you will adopt the second. I am quite in earnest concerning Whitby, or Cromer, if you do not care to go far north."

"But, Mr. Brett, how can I possibly leave Beechcroft now?"

"Did Mr. Capella consult you when he went to Naples? Are you not mistress here? Take my advice. Give the majority of your servants a holiday. Close your house, or, better still, have every room dismantled on the pretence of a thorough renovation. Leave it to paperhangers, plasterers, and caretakers. The rector may be persuaded to allow Miss Layton to come with you to London, where you should visit your dressmaker, for you can now dispense with mourning. When your husband returns from Naples, let him rage to the top of his bent. By that time I may be able to spare Mr. Hume to look after both of you for a week or so. Permit your husband to join you when he humbly seeks permission--not before. Believe me, Mrs. Capella, if you have strength of will to adopt my programme in its entirety, the trip to Naples may have results wholly unexpected by the runaway."

"Really, Margaret, Mr. Brett's advice seems to me to be very sensible. It happens, too, that my father needs a change of air, and I think we could both persuade him to come with us to the coast."

Helen, like all well regulated young Englishwomen, quickly took a reasonable view of the problem. Already Capella's heroics and his wife's lamentations began to appear ridiculous.

Margaret looked wistfully at both of them.

"You do not understand why my husband has gone to Naples," she said slowly, seemingly revolving something in her mind.

"I think I can guess his motive," said the barrister.

"Tell me your explanation of the riddle," she answered lightly, though a shadow of fear crossed her eyes.

"Soon after your marriage he imagined that he discovered certain facts connected with your family--possibly relative to your brother's death--which served to estrange him from you. Whatever they may be, whether existent or fanciful, you are in no way responsible. He has gone to Naples to obtain proofs of his suspicions, or knowledge. He will come back to terrorise you, perhaps to seek revenge for imaginary wrongs.

Therefore, I say, do not meet him half-way by sitting here, blanched and fearful, until it pleases him to return. Compel him to seek you. Let him find you at least outwardly happy and contented, careless of his neglect, and more pleased than otherwise by his absence. Tell him to try Algiers in August and Calcutta in September."

Margaret's eyes were widely distended. Her mobile features expressed both astonishment and anxiety. She covered her face with her hands, in an att.i.tude of deep perplexity.

They knew she was wrestling with the impulse to take them wholly into confidence.

At last she spoke:

"I cannot tell you," she said, "how comforting your words are. If you, a stranger, can estimate the truth so nearly, why should I torture myself because my husband is outrageously unjust? I will follow your counsel, Mr.

Brett. If possible, Nellie and I will leave here to-morrow. Perhaps Mrs.

Eastham may be able to come with us to town. Will you order my carriage? A drive will do me good. Come with Nellie and me, and stay here to dinner.

For to-day we may dispense with ceremony."

She left the room, walking with a firm and confident step.

Brett turned to Miss Layton.

"Capella is in for trouble," he said, with a laugh. "He will be forced to make love to his wife a second time."

CHAPTER XIV

MARGARET SPEAKS OUT

During the drive the presence of servants rendered conversation impossible on the one topic that engrossed their thoughts.

The barrister, therefore, had an opportunity to display the other side of his engaging personality, his singular knowledge of the world, his acquaintance with the latest developments in literature and the arts, and so much of London's _vie intime_ as was suited to the ears of polite society.

Once he amused the ladies greatly by a trivial instance of his faculty for deducing a definite fact from seemingly inadequate signs.

He was sitting with his back to the horses. They pa.s.sed a field in which some people were working. Neither of the women paid attention to the scene. Brett, from mere force of habit, took in all details.

A little farther on he said: "Are we approaching a village?"

"Yes," answered Miss Layton, "a small place named Needham."

"Then it will not surprise me if, during the next two minutes, we meet a horse and cart with a load of potatoes. The driver is a young man in his shirt sleeves. Sitting by his side is a brown-eyed maid in a poke bonnet.

Probably his left arm follows the line of her ap.r.o.n string."

His hearers could not help being surprised by this prediction. Helen leaned over the side and looked ahead.

"You are wrong this time, Mr. Brett," she laughed merrily. "The only vehicle between us and a turn in the road is a dog-cart coming this way."

"That merely shows the necessity of carefully choosing one's words. I should have said 'overtake,' not 'meet.'"

The carriage sped swiftly along. Helen craned her head to catch the first glimpse of the yet hidden stretch of road beyond the turning.

"Good gracious!" she cried suddenly.

Even Margaret was stimulated to curiosity. She bent over the opposite side.

"What an extraordinary thing!" she exclaimed.

Brett sat unmoved, anything in front being, of course, quite invisible to him. On the box the coachman nudged the footman, as if to say:

"Did you ever! Well, s'elp me!"

For, in the next few strides, the horses had to be pulled to one side to avoid a cart laden with potatoes, driven by a coatless youth who had one arm thrown gracefully around the waist of a girl in a huge bonnet.

Nellie turned and stared at them in most unladylike manner, much to their discomfiture.

"I do declare," she cried, "the girl has brown eyes! Mr. Brett, do tell us how you did it."

"I will," he replied gaily. "Those labourers in a field half a mile away were digging potatoes. Among the women sorters was a girl who was gazing anxiously in this direction, and who resumed work in a very bad temper when another woman spoke to her in a chaffing way. The gate was left open, and there were fresh wheel-tracks in this direction. The men were all coatless, so I argued a young man driving and a girl by his side, hence the annoyance of the watcher in the field, owing particularly to the position of his arm. The presence on the road of several potatoes, with the earth still damp on them, added certainty to my convictions. It is very easy, you see."

"Yes, but how about the colour of the girl's eyes?"