Queenie laughed again that satirical little laugh which made a man wonder what her thoughts exactly were.

"You say that because you don't know anything about me. I don't talk when Doreen is talking, because then n.o.body would listen to me. I could talk, too, if anybody ever talked to me."

"But one sees so little of you," pleaded Dudley. "You are generally out district-visiting, or busy for Mrs. Wedmore, so that one hasn't a chance of knowing you well. And one has got an idea that you are too good to waste your time in idle conversation with a mere man!"

"Good!" cried Queenie contemptuously. "There's nothing good about my district-visiting. I like it, Doreen goes about telling people it is good of me. But that's only because she wouldn't care about it herself.

I like fussing about and thinking I am making myself useful. It's like mamma's knitting, which gets her the reputation of being very industrious, while all the time she enjoys it very much."

"But you yourself said you were 'devoted to good works,' I quote your very words."

"That was only in fun. It's what Doreen says of me. You must have heard her. She is much better than I am--really much, more unselfish--much more amiable. Only because she's always bright and full of fun, she doesn't get the credit of any of her good qualities. People think she's only indulging her own inclination when she keeps us all amused and happy all day long. But they don't know that she can suffer just as much as anybody else, and that it costs her an effort to be lively for our sakes when she feels miserable."

Queenie spoke with a little feeling in her usually hard, dry voice.

Dudley was silent for a long time when she had finished speaking. At last they looked up at the same moment and met each other's eyes. And the reserved, hara.s.sed man felt his heart go out to the girl, with her quiet shrewdness and undemonstrative affection for her brilliant sister.

"Your quiet eyes see a great deal more than one would think, Queenie,"

he said at last. "I suppose they have seen that there is something--something wrong--with--"

He spoke very slowly, and finally he stopped without finishing the sentence.

Queenie gravely took it up for him.

"Something wrong with you? Of course I have. Well?"

"I don't know why I am telling you this. I didn't mean to tell any one.

But--but--well, I've begun; I may as well finish. You're not a person who would talk about anybody else's secrets more than about your own."

"A secret? Are you going to tell me a secret?"

Dudley smiled very faintly, and then his expression suddenly changed.

Something like a spasm of fear and of pain shot quickly across his face, frightening her a little. Then he shook his head.

"No," said he. "I hardly think you will consider it a secret, after what you have just told me. I am only going to tell you this: I have had a great trouble, a great affliction, hanging over me for some time now.

Sometimes I have thought it was going to clear away and leave me as I was before. Sometimes I have felt myself quite free from it, and able to go on in the old way. But with this consciousness, this knowledge hanging over me always, I have behaved in all sorts of strange ways, have hurt the feelings of my friends, have not been myself at all. You know that, Queenie."

Queenie slowly bowed her head. Mrs. Wedmore and Max, still occupied in their search for the missing soup tickets, had now extended their operations to the hall, and left the room in possession of the other two. Dudley went on with his confession.

"And now something has happened which has cut me off from my old self, as it were. I don't know how else to express what I mean. I came down last night with the intention of speaking to--to Doreen for the last time, of trying to explain myself, if not to--to justify myself to her.

You know what I mean, don't you?"

Again Queenie bowed her head. Her father's suspicions as to Dudley's perfect sanity had, of course, reached her ears, and she felt so much pity for the poor fellow whose confession she was then hearing that she dared not even raise her eyes to his face again. He went on, hurrying his words, as if anxious to get his confession over:

"But I thought it all over last night, and I decided to say nothing to her, after all. I don't think I could, without making a fool of myself.

For you know--you know my feelings about her; everybody knows. I had hoped--Oh, well, you know what I hoped--"

There was a pause. Dudley was afraid of breaking down.

"Oh, Dudley, is it really all over, then, between you? Oh, it is dreadful! For, you know, she cares, too!"

"Not as I do. I hope and think that is impossible," said Dudley, hoa.r.s.ely.

There was another pause, a longer one. Then Queenie gave utterance to a little sob. Dudley, who was sitting on the table at which she was at work, got upon his feet with an impatient movement. His dark face looked hard and angry. As he paced once or twice up and down the small s.p.a.ce available in the disordered room, the inward fight which was going on between his pa.s.sion and his sense of right convulsed his face, and Queenie shuddered as, glancing at him, she fancied she could see in the glare of his black eyes the haunting madness at which he seemed so plainly to have hinted.

She rose in her turn.

"But, Dudley--" she began.

And then, unable to express what she felt, what she thought, any better than he had done, she turned abruptly away and sat down again.

There was silence for a few moments, and then she heard the door close.

Looking round, she saw that he had left the room.

CHAPTER VI.

THE LITTLE STONE Pa.s.sAGE.

Queenie kept Dudley's half-confessed secret to herself for the whole of that day. She was hoping against hope that he would change his mind again and speak to Doreen himself. Since there must be a definite and final breach, she thought it would be better for the princ.i.p.als themselves to come to an understanding, without the intervention of outsiders. She would have told him so, but she got no further opportunity of speaking to him alone.

The day pa.s.sed uncomfortably for everybody, although the only person who gave vent to his feelings by open ill-temper was Mr. Wedmore, who was waiting for the promised explanation which Dudley never attempted to give. And before dinner-time that evening the young barrister returned to town.

Mr. Wedmore, who had been out shooting with Doctor Haselden, was furious, on returning home, to learn of Dudley's departure.

"He has left a note for you, papa, in the study," said Doreen, who was, perhaps, a little paler than usual, but who gave no other outward sign of her feelings.

Her father went into the study, after a glance at his daughter, and read the letter. It was not a very long one. Following the lines of his guarded confession to Queenie, Dudley expressed the sorrow he felt at having to give up the hopes he had had of being something more than the mere old friend he had been for so many years. He had thought it better, at the last, to say this on paper instead of by word of mouth, and he ended by expressing the deep grat.i.tude he should always feel for the kindness shown to him by Mr. Wedmore and all his family during the happiest period of his life.

Mr. Wedmore read this letter with little astonishment. It was, in fact, what he had been prepared to hear. He read it to his wife, who cried a great deal, but acquiesced in her husband's desire that Dudley should drop not only out of the ranks of their intimate friends, but even, as much as possible, out of their conversation.

"Let us do our best," said he, "to make Doreen forget him."

Mr. Wedmore showed the letter also to Doctor Haselden, who, perhaps, from pure love of contradiction, persisted in maintaining that the letter confessed nothing, and that the cause of the young man's withdrawal was, in all probability, quite different from what Mr.

Wedmore supposed. The two gentlemen had quite a wrangle over the matter, at the end of which each was settled more firmly in his own opinion than before.

When they went upstairs for the night, Doreen came to Queenie's room and demanded to know what her younger sister and Dudley had been talking about so earnestly in the breakfast-room that morning.

"What do you mean by talking earnestly?" said Queenie, in the calm, dry manner which would have made any one but her sister think she was really surprised.

"Max told me," said Doreen, "and I mean to stay here until I know."

It needed very little reflection to tell Queenie that it was better for her sister to hear the truth at once. So she told her.

Doreen listened very quietly, and then got up and wished her sister good night.

"Well," said Queenie, "you take it very quietly. What do you think about it?"