"Perhaps I may tell you all about it years hence, Doris," he said. "Not now. Just make your father happy and be happy yourself. And remember that, so far as your father is concerned, it was Alan's money. So that makes everything nice and tidy, doesn't it?"

"But father ought to know that it was you who--"

"Now, don't go and spoil everything! I a.s.sure you that I did nothing worth mentioning except miss my breakfast--which is, perhaps, a good deal for an Englishman to do."

"But, Teddy, what am I to say to you?"

"Nothing. Just smile, and say I made you."

She smiled.

"Ah!" he said softly, "you haven't smiled like that, Doris, for months!

I'm a great man, after all! Now, what about moving along to Earl's Gate? I mustn't keep you longer from giving him the good news. Have you got it safe?"

She touched her breast. "Oh, Teddy, you wonderful, wonderful man!--to alter the world in a few hours!"

"Pretty smart, wasn't it? By the way, I may not see you for a while. I think Alan wants me to go back with him to-morrow night."

"We are all going to Grey House on Tuesday."

"Oh!" said Teddy of the torn heart. "Do you happen to remember how many buns I've eaten?"

On reaching home Doris learned that her mother had gone out. She was not sorry. She was not to know that the hour in which she gave her father his freedom witnessed a consultation between her mother and Mr. Bullard. For Bullard was not yet beaten, and Mrs. Lancaster had still to learn that her husband was safe.

CHAPTER XXVI

So the two friends returned north, Teddy with a new secret in his heavy heart, Alan in a thoroughly unsettled state of mind.

Alan's second meeting with Doris had certainly not been helpful to either. Doris, while almost a.s.sured as to her father's freedom, was at least dubious about her own, so much so that she gently but firmly refused to consider herself in any way engaged to Alan, and Alan, as any other honourable young man would have done in the circ.u.mstances, pleaded and argued.

"You will never marry Bullard," said he, for the tenth time.

"He has my promise. He might yet find another way of injuring father,"

she answered; "and you too," she added to herself.

Alan was handicapped: he could not think to shock her with the ugly truth about the man, unless that were necessary in order to save her from him at the last moment. He and Teddy had agreed that for the present, at least, no one--not even Caw--should be told.

"Doris, don't you really care for me?" he asked presently.

"Alan!--after all you have done!--"

"That's not the point, dear."

Quickly she turned the questioning on him. "Alan, are you _quite_ sure you want to marry me?"

"What did I come home for? What am I here for now?"

And so forth. The phrase is not to be taken flippantly, but when two young people talk with the primary object of concealing their respective thoughts, the conversation is apt to partake of futility. In this case, at all events, it led to nothing satisfactory.

"It's too absurd, Doris," he cried at last. "It means practically a year--"

"Till the clock stops." She smiled ruefully. "I have to redeem my promise then--if necessary."

"Did Bullard put it that way?"

"I didn't understand what he meant till father explained," she said, and continued in a lighter tone: "I'm very curious about that strange clock of yours. I expect I'll spend all my time at Grey House watching it."

"I've a good mind to smash up the wretched thing the moment I get home! ... Doris, once more, you are not going to marry that man!"

In the end they had parted kindly, even tenderly, feeling that each owed the other something.

As well as an unsettled mind Alan brought with him from London a letter from Bullard, which he had received by registered post on the Sat.u.r.day night. Although it must have been indited on the top of that disturbing interview with Teddy, it was frank in manner and pleasantly congratulatory in tone; moreover, it covered the will which Alan had signed about nineteen months ago. The writer concluded with regrets for the necessity which would involve his departure for South Africa within the next few days.

"Do you think he's running away, Teddy?" Alan asked his friend after showing him the letter.

"I've no doubt he's jolly glad to go, but the journey was planned, I'm sure, before the Flitch affair. Those Rand riots, you know. Poor Lancaster, did he say anything about their effect on his income?"

"Disastrous, I'm afraid. But he seems resigned to anything now that the Syndicate matter is out of the way. I wish to goodness we could lay hands quickly on those diamonds--if they exist. I want some money."

"They--or their equivalent--must exist," said Teddy. "Your uncle, situated as he was, could not have spent half a million in five years, you know."

Alan shook his head. He was depressed and disposed to be pessimistic about everything.

"Changed your theory about the clock?" the other mildly enquired.

Alan laughed shortly. "We're always doing that, aren't we?"

They reached Grey House about noon to learn that nothing of moment had happened in their absence. Possibly Caw did not consider it worthy of mention that, under agreeable compulsion, he had been giving Miss Handyside instruction in revolver shooting.

Caw was told of his arch-enemy's impending voyage.

"A good job that, sir," he remarked. "Now we'll maybe get a few months of peace."

"Oh, Bullard has ceased from troubling for good," said Teddy rather c.o.c.kily.

"Indeed, sir!" returned Caw very respectfully.

His thoughts were speedily diverted, however, by Alan's intimation of the Lancasters' approaching visit.

"And you'll just forget, Caw, that you ever saw Mr. Lancaster in an invidious position here. He has suffered enough."