Suddenly my strained hearing detected what I had been listening for all the time. There was a faint but audible rustling in the shrubs overgrowing the wall on my left. I made a quick dash forward, tripped against some invisible obstacle stretched across the lane, and went staggering sideways, struggling to preserve my balance. Almost at the same moment two dark forms dropped from the shelter of the shrubs on to the lane by my side. I felt the soft splash of a wet cloth upon my cheeks, an arm round my neck, and the sickening odour of chloroform in my nostrils. But already I had regained by balance. I wrenched myself free from the arm, and was suddenly blinded by the glare of a small electric hand-light within a foot of my face. I struck a sweeping blow at it with my stick, and from the soft impact it seemed to me that the blow must have descended upon the head of one of my assailants. I heard a groan, and I saw the shadowy form of the second man spring at me. What followed was not, I believe, cowardice on my part, for my blood was up and my sense of fear gone. I dashed my stick straight at the approaching figure, and I leaped forward and ran. I had won the hundred yards and the quarter of a mile at Oxford, and I was in fair training. I knew how to get off fast, and after the first dozen yards I felt that I was safe. The footsteps which had started in pursuit ceased in a few minutes. Breathless, but with the dispatch-box safe under my arm, I sprinted across the marsh, and never paused till I reached the road. Then I looked back and listened. I could see or hear nothing, but from one of the top rooms in the Grange a faint but steady light was shining out.
XXI. LADY ANGELA APPROVES
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It was the only breath of fresh air which I had allowed myself all the morning, though the dazzling sunlight and the soft west wind had tempted me all the time. And now, as ill luck would have it, I had walked straight into the presence of the one person in the world whom I wished most earnestly to avoid. She was standing on the edge of the cliff, her hands behind her, gazing seawards, and though I stopped short at the sight of her, and for a moment entertained wild thoughts of flight, it was not possible for me to carry them out. A dry twig snapped beneath my feet, and, turning quickly round, she had seen me. She came forward at once, and for some reason or other I knew that she was glad. She smiled upon me almost gaily.
“So this sunshine has even tempted you out, Sir Hermit,” she exclaimed. “Is it not good to feel the Spring coming?”
“Delightful,” I answered.
She looked at me curiously.
“How pale you are!” she said. “You are working too hard, Mr. Ducaine.”
“I came down from London by the mail last night,” I said. “I saw Colonel Ray—had dinner with him, in fact.”
She nodded, but asked me no questions.
“I think,” she said abruptly, “that they are all coming down here in a few days. I heard from my father this morning.”
I sighed.
“I have been very unfortunate, Lady Angela,” I said. “Your father is displeased with me. I think that but for Colonel Ray I should have been dismissed yesterday.”
“Is it about—the Prince of Malors?” she asked in a low tone.
“Partly. I was forced to tell what I knew.” She hesitated for a moment, then she turned impulsively toward me.
“You were right to tell them, Mr. Ducaine,” she said. “I have hated myself ever since the other night when I seemed to side against you. There are things going on about us which I cannot fathom, and sometimes I have fears, terrible fears. But your course at least is a clear one. Don’t let yourself be turned aside by any one. My father has prejudices which might lead him into grievous errors. Trust Colonel Ray—no one else. Yours is a dangerous position, but it is a splendid one. It means a career and independence. If there should come a time even—”
She broke off abruptly in her speech. I could see that she was agitated, and I thought that I knew the cause.
“Lady Angela,” I said slowly, “would it not be possible for you and Colonel Ray to persuade Lord Blenavon to go abroad?”
She swayed for a moment as though she would have fallen, and her eyes looked at me full of fear.
“You think—that it would be better?”
“I do.”
“It would break my father’s heart,” she murmured, “if ever he could be brought to believe it.”
“The more reason why Lord Blenavon should go,” I said. “He is set between dangerous influences here. Lady Angela, can you tell me where your brother was last night?”
“How should I?” she answered slowly. “He tells me nothing.”
“He was not at home?”
“He dined at home. I think that he went out afterwards.”
I nodded.
“And if he returned at all,” I said, “I think you will find that it was after three o’clock.”
She came a little nearer to me, although indeed we were in a spot where there was no danger of being overheard.’
“What do you know about it?”
“Am I not right?” I asked.
“He did not return at all,” she answered. “He is not home yet.”
I had believed from the first that Blenavon was one of my two assailants. Now I was sure of it.
“When he does come back,” I remarked grimly, “you may find him more or less damaged.”
“Mr. Ducaine,” she said, “you must explain yourself.”
I saw no reason why I should not do so. I told her the story of my early morning adventure. She listened with quivering lips.
“You were not hurt, then?” she asked eagerly.
“I was not hurt,” I assured her. “I was fortunate.”
“Tell me what measures you are taking,” she begged.
“What can I do?” I asked. “It was pitch dark, and I could identify no one. I am writing Colonel Ray. That is all.”
“That hateful woman,” she murmured. “Mr. Ducaine, I believe that if Blenavon is really concerned in this, it is entirely through her influence.”
“Very likely,” I answered. “I have heard strange things about her. She is a dangerous woman.”
We were both silent for a moment. Then Lady Angela, whose eyes were fixed seawards, suddenly turned to me.
“Oh,” she cried, “I am weary of all these bothers and problems and anxieties. Let us put them away for one hour of this glorious morning. Dare you play truant for a little while and walk on the sands?”
“I think so,” I answered readily, “if you will wait while I go and put Grooton in charge.”
“I will be scrambling down,” she declared. “It is not a difficult operation.”
I joined her a few minutes later, and we set our faces toward the point of the bay. Over our heads the seagulls were lazily drifting and wheeling, the quiet sea stole almost noiselessly up the firm yellow sands. Farther over the marshes the larks were singing. Inland, men like tiny specks in the distance were working upon their farms. We walked for a while in silence, and I found myself watching my companion. Her head was thrown slightly back, she walked with all the delightful grace of youth and strength, yet there was a cloud which still lingered upon her face.
“These,” I said abruptly “should be the happiest days of your life, Lady Angela. After all, is it worth while to spoil them by worrying about other people’s doings?”
“Other people’s doings?” she murmured.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Selfishness, you know, is the permitted vice of the young—and of lovers.”
“Blenavon can scarcely rank amongst the other people with me,” she said. “He is my only brother.”
“Colonel Ray is to be your husband,” I reminded her, “which is far more important.”
She turned upon me with flaming cheeks.
“You do not understand what you are talking about, Mr. Ducaine,” she said, stiffly. “Colonel Ray and I are not lovers. You have no right to assume anything of the sort.”
“If you are not lovers,” I said, “what right have you to marry?”
She seemed a little staggered, as indeed she might be by my boldness.
“You are very mediaeval,” she remarked.
“The mediaeval sometimes survives. It is as true now as then that loveless marriages are a curse and a sin,” I answered. “It is the one thing which remains now as it was in the beginning.”
She looked at me furtively, almost timidly.
“I should like to know why you are speaking to me like this,” she said. “I do not want to seem unkind, but do you think that the length of our acquaintance warrants it?”
“I do not know how long I have known you,” I answered. “I do not remember the time when I did not know you. You are one of those people to whom I must say the things which come into my mind. I think that if you do not love Colonel Ray you have no right to marry him.”
She looked me in the face. Her cheeks were flushed with walking, and the wind had blown her hair into becoming confusion.
“Mr. Ducaine,” she said, “do you consider that Colonel Ray is your friend?”
“He has been very good to me,” I answered.
“There is something between you two. What is it?”
“It is not my secret,” I told her.
“There is a secret, then,” she murmured. “I knew it. Is this why you do not wish me to marry him?”
“I have not said that I do not wish you to marry him,” I reminded her.
“Not in words. You had no need to put it into words.”
“You are very young,” I said, “to marry any one for any other reason save the only true one. Some day there might be some one else.”
She watched the flight of a seagull for a few moments—watched it till its wings shone like burnished silver as it lit upon the sun-gilded sea.
“I do not think so,” she said, dreamily. “I have never fancied myself caring very much for any one. It is not easy, you know, for some of us.”
“And for some,” I murmured, “it is too easy.”
She looked at me curiously, but she had no suspicion as to the meaning of my words.
“I want you to tell me something,” she said, in a few minutes. “Have you any other reason beyond this for objecting to my marriage with Colonel Ray?”
“If I have,” I answered slowly, “I cannot tell it you. It is his secret, not mine.”
“You are mysterious!” she remarked.
“If I am,” I objected, “you must remember that you are asking me strange questions.”
“Colonel Ray is too honest,” she said, thoughtfully, “to keep anything from me which I ought to know.”
I changed the conversation. After all I was a fool to have blundered into it. We talked of other and lighter things. I exerted myself to shake off the depression against which I had been struggling all the morning. By degrees I think we both forgot some part of our troubles. We walked home across the sandhills, climbing gradually higher and higher, until we reached the cliffs. On all sides of us the coming change in the seasons seemed to be vigorously asserting itself. The plovers were crying over the freshly-turned ploughed fields, a whole world of wild birds and insects seemed to have imparted a sense of movement and life to what only a few days ago had been a land of desolation, a country silent and winterbound. Colour was asserting itself in all manner of places—in the green of the sprouting grass, the shimmer of the sun upon the sea-stained sands, in the silvery blue of the Braster creeks. Lady Angela drew a long breath of content as we paused for a moment at the summit of the cliffs.
“And you wonder,” she murmured, “that I left London for this!”
“Yes, I still wonder,” I answered. “The beauties of this place are for the lonely—I mean the lonely in disposition. For you life in the busy places should just be opening all her fascinations. It is only when one is disappointed in the more human life that one comes back to Nature.”
“Perhaps then,” she said, a little vaguely, “I too must be suffering from disappointments. I have never realized—”
We had taken the last turn. My cottage was in sight. To my surprise a man was standing there as though waiting. He turned round as we approached. His face was very pale, and the back of his head was bandaged. He carried his arm, too, in a sling. It was Colonel Mostyn Ray!
XXII. MISS MOYAT MAKES A SCENE
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Ray was smoking his customary enormous pipe, which he deliberately emptied as Lady Angela and I approached. The sight of him and the significance of his wounds reduced me to a state of astonishment which could find no outlet in words. I simply stood and stared at him. Lady Angela, however, after her first exclamation of surprise, went up and greeted him.
“Why, my dear Mostyn,” she exclaimed, “wherever have you sprung from, and what have you been doing to yourself?”
“I came from London—newspaper train,” he answered.
“And your head and arm?”
“Thrown out of a hansom last night,” he said grimly.
We were all silent for a moment. So far as I was concerned, speech was altogether beyond me. Lady Angela, too, seemed to find something disconcerting in Ray’s searching gaze.
“My welcome,” he remarked quietly, “does not seem to be overpowering.”
Lady Angela laughed, but there was a note of unreality in her mirth.
“You must expect people to be amazed, Mostyn,” she said, “if you treat them to such surprises. Of course I am glad to see you. Have you seen Blenavon yet?”
“I have not been to the house,” he answered. “I came straight here.”
“And your luggage?” she asked.
“Lost,” he answered tersely. “I only just caught the train, and the porter seems to have missed me.”
“You appear to have passed through a complete chapter of mishaps,” she remarked. “Never mind! You must want your lunch very badly, or do you want to talk to Mr. Ducaine?”
“Next to the walk up to the house with you,” he answered, “I think that I want my lunch more than anything in the world.”
Lady Angela smiled her farewells at me, and Ray nodded curtly. I watched them pass through the plantation and stroll across the Park. There was nothing very loverlike in their attitude. Ray seemed scarcely to be glancing towards his companion; Lady Angela had the air of one absorbed in thought. I watched them until they disappeared, and then I entered my own abode and sat down mechanically before the lunch which Grooton had prepared. I ate and drank as one in a dream. Only last night Ray had said nothing about coming to Braster. Yet, there he was, without luggage, with his arm and head bound up. Just like this I expected to see the man whom I had struck last night.
Now though Ray’s attitude towards me was often puzzling, an absolute faith in his honesty was the one foundation which I had felt solid beneath my feet during these last few weeks of strange happenings. This was the first blow which my faith had received, and I felt that at any cost I must know the truth. After lunch I finished the papers which, when complete, it was my duty to lock away in the library safe up at the house, and secured them in my breast-pocket. But instead of going at once to the house I set out for Braster Junction.
There was a porter there whom I had spoken to once or twice. I called him on one side.
“Can you tell me,” I asked, “what passengers there were from London by the newspaper train this morning?”
“None at all, sir,” the man answered readily.
“Are you quite sure?” I asked.
The man smiled.
“I’m more than sure, sir,” the man answered, “because she never stopped. She only sets down by signal now, and we had the message ‘no passengers’ from Wells. She went through here at forty miles an hour.”
“I was expecting Colonel Ray by that train,” I remarked, “the gentleman who lectured on the war, you know, at the Village Hall.”
The man looked at me curiously.
“Why, he came down last night, same train as you, sir. I know, because he only got out just as the train wa
s going on, and he stepped into the station master’s house to light his pipe.”
“Thank you,” I said, giving the man a shilling. “I must have just missed him, then.”
I left the station and walked home. Now, indeed, all my convictions were upset. Colonel Ray had left me outside his clubhouse last night, twenty minutes before the train started, without a word of coming to Braster. Yet he travelled down by the same train, avoided me, lied to Lady Angela and myself this morning, and had exactly the sort of wounds which I had inflicted upon that unknown assailant who attacked me in the darkness. If circumstantial evidence went for anything, Ray himself had been my aggressor.
I avoided the turn by Braster Grange and went straight on to the village. Coming out of the post office I found myself face to face with Blanche Moyat. She held out her hand eagerly.
“Were you coming in?” she asked.
“Well, not to-day,” I answered. “I am on my way to Rowchester, and I am late already.”
She kept by my side.
“Come in for a few moments,” she begged, in a low tone. “I want to talk to you.”
“Not the old subject, I hope,” I remarked.
She looked around with an air of mystery.
“Do you know that some one is making inquiries about—that man?”
“I always thought it possible,” I answered, “that his friends might turn up some time or other.”
We were opposite the front of the Moyats’ house. She opened the door and beckoned me to follow. I hesitated, but eventually did so. She led the way into the drawing-room, and carefully closed the door after us.
“Mr. Ducaine,” she said, “I mean it, really. There is some one in the village making inquiries—about—the man who was found dead.”
“Well,” I said, “that is not very surprising, is it? His friends were almost certain to turn up sooner or later.”
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