For a moment his eyes seemed to burn out at her from under his heavily drawn brows.

"Trust you?" he said hoarsely. "I don't know whether I trust you or not!... But I know I want you!"

And once more he swept her up into his embrace.

"My beloved!"

His kisses rained down on her face—fierce, imperious kisses that seemed to draw the very soul out of her body and seal it his, and when at last he let her go she leaned against him, tremulously spent and shaken with the rapture of answering passion which had kindled to life within her.

"Tell me you love me!" he insisted. "Let me hear you say it—to make it real!"

And turning to give herself to him again, she hid her face against his shoulder, whispering:

"Oh, you know—you know I do!"

* * * * *

Half an hour later found them still together, sitting by the big, old-fashioned hearth which Eliot had plied with logs till the flames roared up the chimney. Robin had not yet come back; he had ridden into Ferribridge early in the afternoon, leaving word that he would probably be late in returning. Once Maria had looked into the room to ask if she should light the lamps, and the lovers had started guiltily apart, Ann replying with hastily assumed indifference that they did not require them yet. Old Maria, whose eyesight was still quite keen enough to distinguish love, even from the further side of a room lit only by the lambent firelight, retired to her own quarters, chuckling to herself. "So 'tez the squire as was courtin' the chiel, after all. An' me thinkin' all along as how 'twas young Master Tony! Aw, well, tez more suitin' like, for sure—him with his millions and my Miss Ann." Maria's ideas as to the riches with which the owner of Heronsmere was providentially endowed might be hazy, but at least she did not err on the side of underestimating them.

Meanwhile, Eliot and Ann, placidly believing that Maria was none the wiser for her brief entrance into the room—all newly-acknowledged lovers being apparently blessed with an ostrich-like quality of self-deception—continued talking together by the firelight.

"That first day I saw you," Eliot was saying. "It was at the Kursaal. Do you remember?"

Ann laughed and blushed a little.

"I'm not likely to forget," she said mirthfully. "You were so frightfully rude."

"Rude? I?" He looked honestly astonished.

"Yes. Didn't you mean to be? I was sympathising with you so nicely over losing at the tables—and you nearly bit my head off! You looked down your nose—it's rather a nice nose, by the way!"—impertinently—"and observed loftily: 'Pray don't waste your sympathy'!"

Eliot laughed outright.

"Did I, really? What a boor you must have thought me!"

"Oh, I did"—fervently. "And then there was the day of the Fetes des Narcisses, when I hit you with a rosebud by mistake. You glared at me as if I'd committed one of the seven deadly sins."

"So you had—if occupying the thoughts of a 'confirmed misogynist' who had forsworn women and all their ways counts as one of them!"

A silence fell between them. The lightly uttered speech suddenly recalled the past, and each was vividly conscious of the bitter root from which it sprang. The man's face darkened as though he would push aside the memory.

"But that's past," said Ann at last, very softly.

He turned to her curiously.

"So you know, then?"

She flushed.

"Yes, I know—I heard. People talk. But I've not been gossiping, Eliot—truly."

A brief smile crossed his face.

"You—gossiping! That's good. But I might have guessed you would hear all about it. Even one's own particular rack and thumbscrew aren't private property nowadays"—bitterly. "I wonder how much you know. What have you heard?"

"Oh, very little—" she began confusedly, her heart aching for the bitterness which still lingered in his voice.

"Tell me," he insisted authoritatively. "I'd rather you knew the truth than some garbled version of it."

Very reluctantly Ann repeated what she had learned from Mrs. Hilyard—the bare facts of that unhappy episode in his life which had turned him into a soured, embittered man.

"Anything more? Do you know who the woman was—her name?"

"No. Only that she was very young"—pitifully.

"I believe," he said, cupping her face in his hand and turning it up to his, "I believe you are actually sorry for her?"

"Yes, I am. I'm sorry for any one who makes a dreadful mistake and loses their whole happiness through it," she answered heartily.

"I'm afraid I don't take such a broad-minded view of things," he returned grimly. "I haven't a forgiving disposition, and I believe in people getting what they deserve. You'd better remember that"—smiling briefly—"if ever you feel tempted to try how far you can go."

"Do you know, I think you're going to prove rather an autocratic lover, Eliot?" she said, laughing gently.

"All good lovers are," he answered, drawing her into his arms once more with a sudden, swift jealousy. "Don't you know that? It's the very essence of love—possession, A man asks everything of the woman he loves—past, present, and future. He will he satisfied with nothing less."

The words, uttered with an undercurrent of deep passion, struck a familiar chord in Ann's mind. They were like, and yet unlike, something she had heard before. For a moment she puzzled over it, the connection eluding her. Then, all at once, it flashed over her, and she remembered how Brett Forrester had said: "The past doesn't matter to me. It's the future that counts." These two men, Eliot and Brett, loved very differently, she thought! With Brett, love meant a passionate determination to possess the woman he desired whether she surrendered willingly or with every fibre of her spirit in revolt. But to Eliot, love signified something deeper and more enduring. He wanted all of the woman he would make his wife—soul as well as body, past as well as future, the supreme gift which only a woman who loves perfectly can give and which only a man whose love is on the same high plane should dare to ask.

"I should never be content with less," Eliot went on. "I think if you were ever to fail me, Ann—" He broke off abruptly, as though the bare idea were torture.

"But I shan't fail you!" she replied confidently. "I love you"—simply. "And when one loves, one doesn't fail."

His arms tightened their clasp about her till she could feel the hard beating of his heart against her own.

"Heart's dearest!" he murmured, his lips against her throat.

Presently she lifted her head from his shoulder and regarded him with questioning eyes.

"You didn't tell me what would happen to me if I did fail you?"

"Don't speak of it!" he said sharply.

"But it's just as well to know the worst," she persisted laughingly. She felt so sure—so safe—with his arms round her that she could afford to joke a little about something that could never happen. "Would you cut off my head—as Bluebeard cut off the heads of his wives?"

For a moment he made no answer. Then:

"I should simply wipe you out of my life. That's all."

He spoke very evenly, but with such a note of absolute finality in his quiet voice that Ann quivered a little as she lay in his arms—as one might wince if any one laid the keen edge of a naked blade against one's throat, no matter how lightly.

"Ah! Don't let's talk of such things!" she cried hastily. "Don't let's spoil our first day, Eliot. Do you realise"—with a radiant smile—"that this is the first—the very first—day we have really belonged to each other?"

So they talked of other things—the foolish, sweet, and tender things which lovers have always talked and probably always will—things which are of no moment to the busy material-minded world as it bustles on its way, but which are the frail filaments out of which men and women fashion for themselves dear memories that shall sweeten all their lives.

But time will not wait, even for lovers, and Eliot had been gone over an hour when at last Robin returned from Ferribridge.

"Cast a shoe and had to wait an unconscionable time to get my horse shod," he explained briefly.

"You must be starving," commiserated Ann, "I'll tell Maria to bring you in some supper at once. I've had mine." But she omitted to add she had hardly eaten anything at the little solitary meal which succeeded Eliot's departure.

Maria's indignation as she carried out the half-touched dishes had been tinctured with a certain philosophic indulgence. "Ah, well!" she commented. "They do say folks that be mazed wi' love can't never fancy their victuals. Seems like tez true." In response to which Ann had merely laughed and kissed her weather-beaten old cheek.

In true masculine fashion, it was not until the cravings of his inner man were satisfied that Robin began to observe anything unusual in the atmosphere. But when at last he had finished supper, and was filling his beloved pipe preparatory to enjoying that best of all smokes which follows a long day's riding and a cosy meal, it dawned upon him that there was something unaccustomed in Ann's air of suppressed radiance. She was hovering about him, waiting to strike a match for him to light up by, when the idea struck him. He regarded her attentively for a minute or two with his nice grey-green eyes and finally inquired in a tone of mild amusement:

"What is it, sister mine? Has some one left us a fortune, or what? There's something odd about you to-night—an air of—je ne sais quoi!"—with an expansive wave of his hand.

"'I'm engaged to be married, sir, she said,'" remarked Ann demurely.

"Engaged? Great Scott! Who to?" Robin manifested all the unflattering amazement common to successive generations of brothers when confronted with the astounding fact that the apparently quite ordinary young woman whom they have hitherto regarded merely as a sisterly adjunct to life has suddenly become the pivot upon which some other man's entire happiness will henceforth turn.

But afterwards, when he had had time to assimilate the unexpected news, he was ready to enter whole-heartedly into Ann's happiness—just as throughout all their lives he had been always ready to share with her either happiness or pain, like the good comrade he was.

"I shall miss you abominably," he declared. "In fact, I shall forbid the banns if Coventry wants to carry you off too soon."

"You absurd person!" She laughed and kissed him. "Why, living at Heronsmere, I shall be able to look after you both. Little brother shan't be neglected, I promise you!"

They sat over the fire talking till the grandfather's clock in the corner struck twelve warning strokes. Robin knocked out the ashes of his pipe.

"We'd better be thinking of turning in, old thing," he observed. "Even newly-engaged people require a modicum of sleep, I suppose"—smiling across at her.

"We're not telling people we're engaged, yet," Ann. cautioned him.

Robin looked up.

"No? Why not?" he asked laconically.

"I wanted—I thought it would be nice to have a few days just to ourselves," she replied uncertainly.

"That's not the only reason."

Ann hesitated.

"No," she acknowledged at last. "It isn't. Perhaps I'm 'fey' to-night. I don't feel quite material Ann yet"—with a faint smile. "And—somehow—I'd rather no one knew for a little while."



CHAPTER XXII

WILD OATS

Lady Susan came briskly into the morning-room at White Windows, and the four privileged members of the Tribes of Israel who, being allowed the run of the house, were basking in front of a cheery fire, rose in a body and rushed towards her, jealously clamouring for attention. She patted them all round with a beautiful impartiality, cuffed the Great Dane for trampling on a minute Pekingese, settled a dispute between the truculent Irish terrier and an aristocratic Chow, and proceeded to greet her nephew.

"I've got an errand for you this morning, Brett," she remarked, as she poured out coffee.

Forrester, who was lifting the covers of the hot dishes on the sideboard, glanced round over his shoulder.

"At your service, most revered aunt. What particular job is it? Which will you have? Bacon and eggs, or fish?"

"Bacon. I want you to go over to Heronsmere, if you will, and bring back that pedigree pup Mr. Coventry promised me."

Brett surveyed the privileged classes on the hearth-rug with a ruminative eye.

"Are you proposing to add yet another to your collection of dogs?" he inquired with some amusement. "You must pay over quite a young fortune to the Government every year in the shape of dog-licenses."

Lady Susan smiled deprecatingly.

"Well, I really didn't intend to add to their number just at present," she admitted. "But I couldn't resist a pup by Mr. Coventry's pedigree fox-terrier. It's a first-class strain, and lie promised he'd pick me out a good puppy."

"Then hadn't you better wait till he comes hack to make the selection for you?"

"He is back."

Brett, who was in the middle of helping the bacon and eggs, paused abruptly, and a delicately poached egg promptly slid off the spoon he was holding and plopped back upon the dish, disseminating a generous spray of fat.

"Damn!" he ejaculated below his breath. "Who told you Coventry was back?" he went on in an expressionless voice.

Lady Susan chuckled and tried to restrain the Irish terrier's manifest intention of leaping on to her lap.

"My dear boy, haven't you learned yet that nothing takes place in a tiny village like Silverquay without everybody's knowing all about it—and a little more, too! The comings and goings of an important personage like the owner of Heronsmere certainly wouldn't be allowed to pass without comment." Here she quieted the Irishman's misplaced exuberance with a lump of sugar. "Through the comparatively direct channel of my maid, who had it from Mrs. Thorowgood, the laundress, who had it from the unsullied fount of Maria Coombe herself, I've even received the additional information that Mr. Coventry paid a long visit to Oldstone Cottage yesterday."

"He probably would," returned Brett. "After being away nearly three weeks he'd naturally want to see his agent."

"Only," remarked Lady Susan reflectively, "it appears that he must have gone to see his agent's sister. Robin was in Ferribridge yesterday. I met him just setting off there, and he said he'd got a long afternoon's work in front of him."

Brett preserved a brooding silence.

"I merely told you by way of giving you a friendly warning," observed his aunt, after a moment.

His blue eyes flashed up and met the mirthful dark ones scanning his sulky face amusedly.

"Thank you," he said grimly. "I'll see that your warning is not neglected."

"Now what in the world did he mean by that?" Lady Susan asked herself, and the question recurred to her again when, an hour or so later, he swung down the drive in the dog-cart at a reckless pace which sent a shiver through her as she watched him turn the corner almost on one wheel.

She was under no delusions respecting her nephew, as she had once admitted to Ann. But she was indulgently attached to him, and so genuinely devoted to Ann herself that she would have welcomed a match between the two. During the time they had lived together she had grown to love Ann almost as a daughter, and she felt that if she became her niece by marriage the girl would really "belong" to her, in a way. She had even come to a mental decision that if such a desirable consummation were ever reached she would settle a fairly large sum of money upon Ann on her wedding day. "For," as she shrewdly argued to herself, "Brett's already got more than is good for him, and every woman's better off for being independent of her husband for the price of hairpins."

She had seen comparatively little of Coventry and Ann together. Moreover, although she guessed that the former might be attracted to a limited extent, she did not regard him as a marrying man, nor had she the remotest notion of for how much he counted in Ann's life. Had she suspected this, she would most certainly have let things take their course, and the little warning hint which she had half banteringly dropped at breakfast, and which was destined to bear such bitter fruit, would never have been uttered.

Forrester covered the few miles that separated White Windows from Heronsmere at the same reckless pace at which he had started. He seemed oblivious of the animal between the shafts of the high dog-cart, directing it with the instinctive skill of a man to whom good horsemanship is second nature. His thoughts were turned inward. His eyes, curiously concentrated in expression, gleamed with that peculiar brilliance which was generally indicative with him of some very definite intensity of purpose. The groom who took charge of the foam-flecked horse when he reached Heronsmere glanced covertly at his arrogant face and opined to one of his fellows in the stables that "Mr. Forrester had precious little care for his horseflesh. Brought his horse here in a fair lather, he did."

Coventry, who was attending to a mass of correspondence when Brett was shown into his study, shook hands with the superficial friendliness that not infrequently masks a secret hostility between one man and another.

"Hope I'm not disturbing you?" queried Brett lightly.

Eliot shook his head.

"I've no particular love for my present task," he replied, with a gesture towards his littered desk. "I'm trying to overtake arrears of correspondence. Sit down and have a smoke." He tendered his case as he spoke.

"Price you've got to pay for three weeks' gallivanting, I suppose?" suggested Brett, helping himself to a cigarette and lighting up.

"I should hardly describe my recent absence from home as—gallivanting," returned Eliot, with a brief flash of reminiscence in his eyes.

"No? Well, you don't look as if it had agreed with you too well, whatever it was," commented the other candidly. "I should say you've dropped about half a stone in weight since I last saw you."

"Just as well—with the hunting season commencing," returned Eliot indifferently.

Brett nodded, and, changing the subject, proceeded to explain the object of his visit.

"The prospect of an addition to her kennels produces much the same effect on Aunt Susan as the promise of a new toy to a kiddie," he added. "She's almost dancing with impatience over it."

Coventry smiled.

"We won't keep her in suspense any longer, then," he replied. "You shall take the pup back with you. Come along to the stables and I'll show you the one I thought of sending her."

He rose as he spoke, tossing the stump of his cigarette into the fire, and Brett followed him out of the house and down to the stables where, in an empty horse-box, the litter of puppies at present resided. Cradled in clean, sweet-smelling straw, they were all bunched together round a big bowl of bread and milk—a heterogeneous mass of delicious fat roly-poly bodies and clumsy baby paws and tails that wagged unceasingly. At sight of the visitors, they deserted the now nearly empty bowl of food and galloped unsteadily towards them, squirming ecstatically over their feet and sampling the blacking on their boots with inquisitive pink tongues.

"This is the chap," said Coventry. And stooping, he singled out one of the pups and picked it up.

All the hardness went out of Brett's eyes as he took the little beast from him and fondled it, the puppy responding by thrusting against his face an affectionate moist black muzzle, still adorned with drops of milk from the recently concluded morning feed.

"He has all the points," remarked Eliot. "I think he's the pick of the litter."

"Undoubtedly," agreed Brett, casting a knowledgeable eye over the others. "Though they're a good lot, and you ought to find a winner or two amongst them."

"Like to see the horses?" asked Coventry, and Brett assenting very willingly, they made a tour of the stables.

"That's a nice little mare," remarked Forrester, pausing by the stall of a slim chestnut thoroughbred, who immediately thrust her head forward and nosed against his shoulder.

"Yes. And knows her job in the hunting field, too. I'm going to offer her to Miss Lovell for the season."

The puppy Brett was carrying in the crook of his arm uttered a plaintive squeak as the breath was abruptly jerked out of his fat little body by the sudden pressure of the arm in question.

"An offer that won't be rejected, I imagine," replied Brett. He accompanied his host out of the stables, and the two men turned towards the house. "Miss Lovell's quite a good horsewoman—and a very charming young person into the bargain."

"Very charming," agreed Coventry shortly. The idea of discussing Ann with any one, above all with Brett Forrester, was utterly distasteful to him.

"A somewhat flighty young monkey, though," pursued Brett pensively. "It's that touch of red in her hair that does it, I suppose." He laughed indulgently.

Coventry making no reply, he continued conversationally:

"You never inquired into her past history, I suppose, when you engaged her brother as your agent?"

Inwardly Coventry anathematised the promise he had given Ann to keep their engagement secret for the present. It sealed his lips against the innuendo contained in Forrester's speech.

"I certainly did not," he responded frigidly. "I was not engaging—her."

Brett appeared entirely unabashed.

"No. Or you might have found she couldn't show quite such a clean bill as her brother," he returned, smiling broadly.

By this time they had re-entered Coventry's study. Decanter and syphon, together with a couple of tumblers, had been placed on the table in readiness by a thoughtful servant. Eliot glanced at these preparations with concealed annoyance, but, compelled by the laws of hospitality, inquired curtly:

"Will you have a drink?"

Brett assented amicably and established himself in a chair by the fire, the puppy sprawling beatifically across his knees while he pulled its satin-smooth ears with caressing fingers.

"You can never trust red hair," he went on, accepting the drink Coventry had mixed for him. Then, catching the other's eye, he threw back his head and laughed with that impudent, friendly charm of his that discounted half his deviltries. "Oh, I can guess what you're thinking! And you're quite right. I ought to know—because I'm one of the red-headed tribe myself."

"It certainly passed through my mind," admitted Eliot.

"Well, you can't trust 'em. It's true. There's always a bit of the devil in them. And I happen to know that that demure little person down at your cottage has sown quite a sprinkling of wild oats."

"Wild oats in a woman are a very different thing from wild oats in a man," remarked Eliot, pouring himself out a whisky.

"Yes. But they're a deal more nearly related nowadays than they were before the war. Staying the night at a hotel with a man pal is sailing a trifle near the wind, don't you think? Anyway, it's carrying a flirtation rather far."

The syphon, beneath Eliot's sudden pressure, squirted out a torrent of soda. Brett's eyes scintillated as he watched the slight accident.

"You're implying a good deal, Forrester," said Eliot gravely, as he dried his coat with his handkerchief.

"Oh, I know what I'm talking about. I was there, you see, and caught the little limb of Satan red-handed, so to speak—though, of course, she doesn't know it." Then, as Eliot remained stonily silent, he proceeded loquaciously: "It was last June or thereabouts. I was stopping a night or two at the Hotel de Loup, up in the mountains above Montricheux—know it?"

"Yes, I know it," replied Coventry mechanically.

"There wasn't a soul in the place except me—out of the season, you know. And one beastly cold night, when I marched into the hotel after a confounded long tramp, who should I see but a man I knew saying good-night to an uncommonly pretty girl at the bottom of the stairs. I kept tactfully out of the way till the good-nights were over, as I thought at first he must have committed matrimony while I'd been abroad and that they were on their honeymoon. I never got the chance to ask him, as he bolted past me down one of the corridors before I had time to speak. So I took a squint at the hotel visitors' book and found they'd registered as 'G. Smith and sister'! That settled it. The chap's name wasn't Smith, and I happened to know he'd never had a sister—either by that name or any other! So I just chuckled quietly to myself and mentally congratulated him on his good taste—the girl was quite pretty enough to excuse a slight deviation from the strict and narrow path." He paused to light a fresh cigarette, his eyes, between narrowed lids, raking the other man's impenetrable face. Throughout the telling of the story Coventry had sat motionless, like a figure carved in stone. Only, as the recital proceeded, his eyes hardened slightly and his closed lips straightened into a stern, inflexible line. Having lit his cigarette, Forrester airily resumed the thread of his narrative.

"What follows is really rather interesting—the long arm of coincidence with a vengeance! My revered aunt brings me to Oldstone Cottage and sends me into the garden on a voyage of discovery to find Miss Lovell. And I find her asleep in the hammock—the identical young woman I'd seen up at the Dents de Loup with Tony Brabazon."

"Brabazon!" The name seemed jerked out of Coventry's lips without his own volition. A curious greyish pallor had overspread his face, and behind the hardness of his eyes smouldered a savage fire that seemed to wax and wane, struggling for release.

"Yes, Brabazon," replied Brett carelessly. "It seems he and old Sir Philip and Aunt Susan and Miss Lovell were all stopping at Montricheux. I'd no idea my aunt was staying there, or I'd have run down and looked her up. But we hardly ever correspond. My address is always such a doubtful quantity"—with a laugh. "You see, I'm liable to dash off to the ends of the earth at a moment's notice, if the spirit moves me." He rose, tucking the puppy under his arm. "Well, I must be getting back. Aunt Susan will be on tenterhooks till she sees this youngster."

Coventry accompanied him to the door and signalled to the groom who was walking Brett's horse slowly up and down.

"I shouldn't repeat that story to any one, if I were you, Forrester," he said, speaking with some effort, as they shook hands.

"Good Lord! Not I! What do you take me for?" laughed Brett easily. "I only thought it might amuse you, Lovell being your agent."

The groom brought the horse and trap to a standstill in front of the house door, and touched his hat.

"I've kept the horse moving about, sir, as he was a bit hot," he said, addressing Brett.

The latter nodded and tipped the man generously. Meanness, at least, was not included amongst his many faults.

"Quite right," he replied. "Got a basket handy for the pup?"

The man lifted down from the front of the dog-cart a basket he had put there in readiness, and the puppy, wailing pathetically, was deposited inside.

"Never mind, old man," observed Brett, bestowing a final reassuring pat on the small black and tan head. "It'll soon be over."

A minute later he was driving swiftly down the avenue, an odd expression of mingled triumph and amusement in his eyes.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE TEETH OF THE WOLF

The gate clicked and Ann peeped rosily out of her bedroom window. She had been expecting that click all morning—waiting for it with every sense alert and with absurd, delicious little thrills of happiness chasing each other through her veins. Several disappointing clicks had preceded it—one which merely revealed a new baker's boy who hadn't troubled to discover whether the Cottage boasted a back-door or not, and another heralding the entry of Billy Brewster, armed with a stout broom and prepared to sweep the flagged path clean of the minutest particle of dust. So that Ann had at last been reluctantly compelled to fall back on the same explanation which had served her once before—that Eliot must have been detained at Heronsmere by unexpected business.

But now the afternoon had brought the desired click of the gate, and she could see his tall, well-knit figure striding up the path below. She leaned out of the window and called to him:

"Coo-ee! I'm up here!"

The charming voice, vibrant with that tender, indescribable inflection which a woman's voice holds only for the one beloved man, floated down to him, and instinctively he looked up. For an instant his glance lingered, and ever afterwards there remained stamped indelibly upon his memory the impression of her as she leaned there like the Blessed Damozel leaning "out from the gold bar of Heaven."

The sun glinted on her hair, turning it into a nimbus of ruddy gold, and there was something delicately flower-like in the droop of her small bent head on its slender throat. It reminded him of a harebell.

His expression hardened as he fought down the tide of longing which surged up within him at the sight of her, and from some disused corner of his subconscious mind the lines of the old Persian Tentmaker seemed to leap out at him and mock him:

"Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire, And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire."

The vision which had been his was shattered, utterly destroyed—destined to be forever unfulfilled.

... But Ann remained joyfully oblivious of anything amiss.

"Walk straight in," she called through the window. "I'm coming down." And with a gay wave of her hand she withdrew into the room. Followed a light sound of footsteps on the stairs, and a minute later the door of the living-room flew open to admit her.

Eliot, who had been standing with his back to the room, staring out of the window, wheeled round as she came towards him with hurrying feet and thrust her eager hands into his.

"You've come at last! I thought you'd be here the minute after breakfast," she began, her face breaking into smiles. "If you were a story-book hero you would have been!... Oh, I know you'll say it was business that kept you. But that's only an old married man's excuse"—mirthfully. "I shan't allow you to offer it to me until we've been married for years and years!"

Thus far she had run on gaily with her tender nonsense, but now she checked herself suddenly as she read no answering smile on his face and felt her hands lie flaccidly ungripped in his.

"Eliot"—she drew back a little—"why don't you speak? What is it?" Her hands clutched his spasmodically, and a sudden frightened look blurred the radiance in her eyes. "Oh, my dear! What is it? Have you had bad news?"

Very slowly, but with a strange, deliberate significance, he freed his hands from her clasp and put her away from him.

"Yes," he said quietly, "I've had—news." At the frozen calmness of his tones she shrank back as one shrinks from the numbing cold of the still air that hangs above black ice.

"What is it?" she breathed. "Not bad news—for us?"

Her eyes were fastened on his face, searching it wildly. A quick and terrible fear clamoured at her heart. Was there something in the past, something of which she had no knowledge, that could arise—now—to separate them from each other? That long-ago episode which had wrecked his youth—had the woman who had figured in it some material hold upon him? Could she—was it possible she could still come between them in some way? Ann had heard of such things. It seemed to her as though, betwixt herself and Eliot, there hovered a dim, formless shadow, vague and nebulous—a shadow which had crept silently out from some memory-haunted corner of the past.

"Not bad news—for us?" she repeated quiveringly.

"That depends upon how you choose to regard it," he replied. "Ann"—the ice broke up and he came to the point with a suddenness that was almost brutal—"why haven't you been straight with me?"

"Straight with you?" she repeated wonderingly. "But I have been straight with you."

"What a woman would call straight, I suppose!" he flung back. "Which means concealing everything that you think won't be found out."

The indignant colour rushed up into her face, then receded, leaving it deadly pale.

"But I have nothing to conceal," she answered. "Eliot—I don't understand—"

"Don't you?" lie said, and the measureless contempt in his voice stung like the lash of a whip. "Think back a bit! Is there nothing you've kept from me which I ought to have known—nothing which makes the love you professed only last night no more than a sham?"

For a moment Ann gazed at him in speechless silence. Then a low, passionate denial left her lips.

"Nothing!" she said.

Eliot took two strides towards her, and, gripping her by the shoulders, dragged her closer to the window so that the remorseless sunlight poured down on to her face.

"Repeat that!" he commanded savagely. "Will you dare to repeat that—that unutterable lie?"

His eyes, blazing with a terrible anger that seemed, to scorch her like a flame, searched her face with a scrutiny so pitiless, so implacably incredulous, that it was almost unbearable. But she endured it, and her clear golden eyes met his unflinchingly.

"It was the truth!" she said. Her voice sounded to herself as though it came from a great distance away. It had an odd, tinny sound like cracked metal.

He released her suddenly, almost flinging her from him, and she staggered a little, catching at the back of a chair to steady herself. His roughness roused her spirit.

"Eliot! Are you mad?" she exclaimed.

He stared at her, that burning ferocity of almost uncontrollable anger which had possessed him dying slowly out of his face.

"Mad?" he said grimly. "No, I'm not mad—now. I was mad yesterday—when I believed in you."

The stark agony in his voice smote her to the heart.

"Eliot"—she moved towards him, her hands held out appealingly—"what have I done? Won't you tell me? I don't understand."

"No?" His lips drew back over his teeth in a grimace that was a dreadful travesty of a smile. "Then I'll ask you a simple question. Perhaps—after that—you'll understand. Have you ever stayed at the Hotel de Loup?"

"The Hotel de Loup? Why—" The word "yes" was on the tip of her tongue. But before she could utter it the whole, overwhelming realisation of what he suspected rushed over her, and she checked herself abruptly, stunned into silence. With the amazing speed at which the mind can work in moments of tense excitement, she grasped instantly all that must have happened. Some one—she could not imagine who it was—had found out about that night which she and Tony had been compelled to pass together at the Hotel de Loup, and had made mischief ... told Eliot, putting the worst construction on it ... and he believed ... Oh! What did he not believe? A burning flush bathed her face, mounting to her very temples—a flush of shamed horror, and she fell suddenly silent, staring at him with wide, horrified eyes.

"So you do remember?" he said, his voice like cold steel.

"Yes." She answered him mechanically—like a doll which says "yes" or "no" when some one touches a spring.

"And you were not there alone, I believe?"

The other spring this time. "No," answered the doll.

"Brabazon was with you—Tony Brabazon?"

"Yes." Again the parrot-like reply.

"Then I don't think there is any need to continue this conversation." As he spoke, Eliot turned and walked towards the door. Ann watched him without moving. She felt almost as though she were watching something that was happening in a play—something that had nothing whatever to do with her. Then, just as his hand was on the latch of the door, the strange numbness which had held her motionless and silent seemed to melt away.

"Eliot, come back!" she cried out, and there was a note so ringingly clear and decisive in her voice that involuntarily he halted. "I have listened to you," she went on quietly. "Now—you will listen to me."

He retraced his steps to her side, like a man moving without his own volition, and stood waiting.

"Well?" he said tonelessly. "What is it you wish to say? I am listening."

"It's quite true that I stayed at the Hotel de Loup," she said. "And it's true that Tony Brabazon was with me. But I have nothing to ask your forgiveness for." She lifted her head, meeting his gaze with eyes that were very steady and unashamed. There was something proud and at the same time infinitely appealing in the gesture. But Eliot regarded her unmoved.

"Do you expect me to believe that?" he asked contemptuously. "I'm not a blind fool!... Do you remember, I told you that a man asks all of a woman—past as well as future. Well, you can't give me the past. It belongs to some one else—to Brabazon. I suppose you meant to marry him. And then I come along—and I'm worth more. I don't flatter myself I'm more attractive!"—grimly. "Years ago a woman threw me over because I was poor. And now another woman is ready to throw over some one else and marry me because I'm rich. It's the same stale old story. You're not going to ask me to believe you accepted me from disinterested affection, are you?"

While he spoke, Ann had been standing motionless, every nerve of her taut and strained to the utmost. Outwardly unflinching, inwardly she felt as though he were raining blows upon her. It was all so sordid and horrible. It dragged love through the clinging mire of suspicion and distrust till its radiant wings were soiled and fouled beyond recognition.

"I'm not going to ask you to believe—anything." She spoke very quietly. A bitter, tortured pride upheld her. "If you can think—that—of me, it would be useless asking you to believe anything I might say. Yesterday"—her voice trembled but she steadied it again—"yesterday you told me that the essence of love was possession. It isn't, Eliot.... It's faith ... and trust."

In the silence that followed the man and woman stood gazing dumbly at each other, and for a brief moment love and faith hung quivering in the balance. Then the balance tilted. The heavy burden of suspicion weighed it down, and without another word Eliot turned and left the room.

Ann did not move. She stood quite still, her arms hanging straight down at her sides. The Dents de Loup—wolf's teeth! Well, the jaws of the wolf had closed, crushing her happiness for ever between their merciless white fangs.

She knew now the meaning of that nebulous, distorted shape which had seemed to come betwixt her and the man she loved. It was the grey shadow of distrust which had sprung out from the hidden places of the past and now lay, dark and impenetrable, dividing them for ever.



CHAPTER XXIV

AFTERMATH

"I beg your pardon!"

Instinctively Cara apologised, although actually the collision had been no fault of hers. The man with whom she had collided had been striding along with bent head, completely absorbed in his own thoughts, and had awakened too late to the fact that some one was coming towards him along the narrow bridle-path through the woods. He lifted his hat mechanically and murmured some sort of apology, but his eyes remained blank and seemed to look through and beyond the woman into whom he had just cannoned without seeing her—certainly without recognising her.

Cara was startled by their expression of strain. They seemed to glare with a hard, unnatural brilliance, as though the man's vision were focused upon some terrible inner presentment. She laid a detaining hand on his sleeve, but he appeared quite unconscious of her touch and she gave his arm a little shake.

"Eliot!" she said quickly. "Eliot! Are you trying to cut me?"

As though by an immense effort he seemed to come back to the consciousness of his material environment.

"To cut you?" he repeated dully. He brushed his hand across his forehead. "No, of course I wasn't trying to cut you."

He looked shockingly ill. His face was grey and lined, and his shoulders sagged as though he were physically played out. The boots and leggings he wore were caked with mud, and his coat had little torn ends of wool sticking up over it, as if he had been walking blindly ahead, careless of direction, and had forced his way through thickets of bramble rather than turn aside to seek an easier path.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" she asked rather breathlessly. In every nerve of her she felt that something terrible had happened. "You look"—trying to summon up a smile—"as if you'd been having a battle."

"I've been walking."

"Far?"

He gave a sudden laugh.

"To hell and back. I don't know the mileage."

"Eliot, what do you mean?"

He looked down at her, and now that dreadful glare which had so frightened her had gone out of his eyes. They were human once more, but the naked misery in them shocked her into momentary silence. She would have liked to run away—to escape from those eyes. They were the windows of a soul enduring torture that was almost too intolerable to be borne. It was only by a strong effort of will that she at last forced her voice to do her bidding.

"What has happened, Eliot?" she said, speaking very gently. "Can't you tell me?"

He stared at her a moment. Then:

"Why, yes," he said. "I think I could tell you—part of it. It might amuse you. I've found you were not the only woman in the world who counts the shekels. You wouldn't marry me because I was poor. Now another woman is ready to marry me just because I'm rich. There's only one drawback."

"Drawback?"

"Yes. Quite a drawback. You see, it doesn't appeal to me to be married because I've a decent income, any more than it appealed to me ten years ago to be turned, down for the opposite reason."

Cara shrank from this bitter reference to the past.

"You can be very cruel, Eliot," she said unsteadily.

"Cruelty breeds cruelty," he replied with indifference. "Still, I'm beginning to think I was too hard on you, Cara, in the past. It seems finance plays an amazingly strong hand in the game of love. But it's taken two women to teach me the lesson thoroughly"—with a short laugh.

"Two?"

"You—and Ann."

"Ann! I don't believe it!" The words burst from her with impulsive vehemence.

His face darkened.

"While I can believe no other. In fact"—heavily—"your poor little sin shows white as driven snow beside—hers."

"You're wrong. I'm sure you're wrong," insisted Cara. "I don't know why you believe what you do—nor all that you believe. I don't ask to know. It wouldn't make any difference if you told me. I know Ann. And however black things looked against her, nothing would ever make me believe she was anything but dead straight."

"Most touching faith!" jeered Eliot. "Unfortunately, I have a preference in favour of believing the evidence of my own senses."

She drew nearer to him, her hands pressed tightly together.

"Eliot, you're deliberately going to throw away your happiness if you distrust Ann," she urged, beseechingly, "I've told you, she's not like me. She's different."

"She's no better and no worse than other women, I suppose," he returned implacably. "Ready to take whatever goods the gods provide—and then go on to the next."

Cara turned aside in despair. She could not tell—could not guess—what had happened. She only knew that the man whose happiness meant more to her than her own, and the woman she had learned to love as a friend, had somehow come to irretrievable misunderstanding and disaster. At last she turned back again to Eliot.

"Would you have believed this of her—whatever it is you do believe—if it had not been for me?"

He reflected a moment.

"Perhaps not," he said.

She uttered a cry that was half a sob. So the price of that one terrible mistake she had made was not yet paid! Fate would go on exacting the penalty for ever—first the destruction of her own happiness, then that of Eliot and of Ann. All must be hurled into the bottomless well of expiation. There was no forgiveness of sins.

It was useless to plead with Eliot—to reason with him. It was she herself who had poisoned the very springs of life for him, and now she was powerless to cleanse them. With a gesture of utter hopelessness she turned and left him, and made her way despondently homeward through the gathering dusk.

She reached the Priory just in time to encounter Robin coming out of the gates. He sprang off his horse and greeted her delightedly.

"I came over to bring you a brace of pheasants," he explained. "As you were out, I deposited them in the care of your parlourmaid."

Cara thanked him cordially, and then, as he still lingered, she added:

"Won't you turn back and come in for a cup of tea? Have you time?"

"I should think I have!" The mercurial rise in Robin's spirits betrayed itself in the tones of his voice. "I was hoping for an invitation to tea—so you can imagine my disappointment when I found that you weren't home."

She laughed, and they walked up to the house together, Robin leading his horse. A cheery fire burned on the hearth in the square, old-fashioned hall which Cara had converted into a living-room. As they entered she switched on the lights, revealing panelled walls, thick dim-hued rugs breaking an expanse of polished floor, and, by the fire, big, cushioned easy chairs which seemed to cry aloud for some one to rest weary limbs in their soft, capacious embrace.

"Ann's always envious of your electric light," remarked Robin. "Being only cottage folk"—smiling—"we have to content ourselves with lamps, and they seem prone to do appalling things in the way of smoking and covering the whole room with greasy soot the moment you take your eye off them."

"I know. They're a frightful nuisance," said Cara, ringing the bell for tea. "But lamp-light is the most becoming form of illumination, you know—especially when you're getting on in years, like me!"

Robin helped her off with her coat, lingering a little over the process, and gazed down at her with adoring eyes.

"Don't—talk—rubbish!" he said, softly and emphatically.

Perhaps he might have gone on to say something more, but at that moment a trim parlourmaid came in and began to arrange the tea-table beside her mistress's chair, and for some time afterwards Cara skilfully contrived to keep the conversation on impersonal lines. It was not until tea was over that Robin suddenly struck a more intimate note again. He had been watching her face in silence for a little while, noticing that it looked very small and pale to-day in its frame of night-dark hair, and that there were faint, purplish shadows beneath her eyes.

"You look awfully tired!" he remarked with concern. "And sad," he added. "Is anything bothering you?"

She was silent for a moment, staring into the heart of the fire where the red and blue flames played flickeringly over the logs.

"I've been taking a look into the past," she said, at last, "It's—it's rather a dreary occupation."

"I know," he said quietly. "I know." Ignorant of that earlier past of hers, in which Eliot Coventry had played a part, he was thinking only of her unhappy married life, about which he had gathered a good deal from other people and a little—a very little—from Cara herself. But even that little had let in far more light than she had imagined. Robin's insight was extraordinarily quick and keen, and a phrase dropped here or there, even her very silences at times, had enabled him to make a pretty good conjecture as to the kind of martyrdom she had suffered. It made his blood boil to think of the mental—and even physical—suffering she must have endured, tied to the brute and drunken bully which it was common knowledge Dene Hilyard had been.

"Don't you think," he went on gently, "that you could try to forget it, Cara? Don't dwell on the past. Think of the future."

"I'm afraid that's rather dreary, too," she answered, with a sad little smile. "It's just... going on living... and remembering."

He leaned over her and suddenly she felt the eager touch of his hand on hers.

"It needn't be that, Cara," he said swiftly. "It needn't be that." She looked up at him with startled eyes. Her thoughts had been so far away, bridging the gulf between to-day and long-dead yesterday, that she had almost to wrench them back to the present. And now here was Robin, with a new light in his eyes and a new, passionate note in his voice. "Cara—darling—"

With a sudden realisation of what was coming, she drew her hand quickly away from him.

"No—no, Robin—" she began.

But he would not listen.

"Don't say 'no' yet. Hear me out!" he exclaimed. "I love you. But I don't suppose—I'm not conceited enough to suppose that you love me—yet. Only let me try—let me try to teach you to love me! Don't judge all men by one. You've had a ghastly time. Let me try—some day—to make you happier."

He was so eager, so humble, so entirely selfless in his devotion, thinking only of her, that she was touched inexpressibly—tempted, even. Ah! If she could only put all the past aside, out of sight, and take this love that Robin offered her and hold it round her like a garment shielding her from the icy blasts of life! But she had nothing to give in return for this splendid, brave first love he was offering her. She must play fair. She dare not take where she could not give. Very gently she put him from her.

"You don't understand," she said. "You don't understand. Robin, I wish—I wish I could say 'yes.' But I can't. It isn't—Dene—who stands between us. I'm not a coward—I'd take my chance again if I could love again—"

"But you never loved him? You couldn't have loved him!" he protested incredulously.

"My husband? No. But—I loved some one once. And I threw away my happiness—to marry Dene. Oh, it was years ago, Robin—" She broke off and lifted her eyes appealingly to his face. "Must I go on? That's—that's really all there is to tell you. Only don't you see—I—I can't marry you."

"No, I don't see—yet," returned Robin stoutly, though her words had dashed the quick, eager look of hope from his face. "This—this other man, the one you cared for—is he coming back to marry you?"

"Coming back? No!" For once the sweet voice was hard—bitterly hard. "He has gone out of my life for ever."

A look of relief came into his eyes. He took her hands into his and held them very gently.

"Then in that case," he said, "there's still a chance for me. Not now—not yet. I wouldn't try to hurry you. But you'll let me go on loving you, Cara—after all, you can't stop my doing that!"—with a crooked little smile. "And some day, perhaps, you'll come to me and let me try and make you happier again. I think I could do that, you know."

"Ah, no, Robin! I couldn't come to you—not like that. I couldn't take all your love—and only give you second best in return. It wouldn't be fair."

He laughed a little.

"I think 'fairness' just doesn't come into love at all," he said, with a great tenderness. "One just loves. And I'd be very glad to take that 'second best'—if you'll give it to me, Cara. Oh, my dear, if you only knew, if you only understood! A man can do so much for a woman when he loves her—he can serve her and protect her, and take all the difficult tasks away from her and leave her only the easy ones—the little, pretty, beautiful things, you know. He can stand between her and the prickles and sharp swords of life—and there are such a lot of prickles, and sometimes a terribly sharp sword.... I want to do all these things for you, Cara."

She shook her head silently. For a moment she could not find her voice. She was too unused to tenderness—out of practice in all the sweet ways of being cared for.

"No—no, Robin," she said at last. "I'm grateful—I shall always be grateful, and—and happier, I think, because you've said these things to me—because you've thought of me that way. But you must keep them—keep them for some nice girl who hasn't wasted all her youth and lost her beliefs—who can give you something better than a bundle of regrets and a second-hand love. You'll—you'll meet her some day, Robin. And then you'll be glad that I didn't take you at your word."

But Robin appeared quite unimpressed.

"No, I shan't. I don't want any 'nice girl,' thank you," he returned, and his head went up a little. "If I can't have you, no one else is going to take your place. But I shall never give up hope until you've actually married some other man. And meanwhile"—smiling a little—"I shall propose to you regularly and systematically, till you give me a different answer. I suppose"—tentatively—"you couldn't give it to-day?"

Cara pushed him gently away from her, but she did not withdraw her hands from the strong, kind, comfortable clasp in which he held them.

"Oh, Robin, you're ridiculous!" she said, a little break in her voice. "I'm speaking for your own good—really I am."

"And I think I'm the best judge of that," he answered, regarding her with a quiet humour in his eyes. "But I won't bother you any more to-night," he went on. "Only I shall come back." He lifted the hands he held and kissed them—kissed them with a kind of reverence that made of the slight action an act of homage. "I shall come back," he repeated, his eyes looking straight into hers.

Then, with a sudden reversion to the commonplace and everyday, he glanced at the clock.

"I must be off!" he exclaimed. "Ann will be wondering what has become of me—and, as soon as she's quite sure I'm safe and sound, she'll give me a scolding for being late for dinner," he added, laughing.

Ann! Cara was conscious of an overwhelming rush of self-reproach. Ann miserable—and alone. And she had been keeping Robin here with her—or, at least, had let him stay. Should she warn him? Prepare him? She hesitated. But her hesitation was only momentary. Whatever had occurred betwixt Ann and the man who loved her, it was Ann's secret, and she alone had the right to decide whether Robin should be admitted into it or not. But he must go home—now, at once!

"Why, yes," she said urgently. "You must hurry back, Robin. Ann may be—feeling lonely."

Half an hour later Robin strode into the living-room at the Cottage to find Ann sitting by the window, curiously still, and staring out impassively into the dusk with blank, unseeing eyes. At sight of her—white and motionless as a statue—a queer sense of foreboding woke in him, and he stepped quickly to her side.

"Ann!" he exclaimed. "Ann, what is it?"

She remained quite still, as if she did not hear him. He touched her shoulder.

"What is it, Ann?" he repeated urgently.

At the touch of his hand she glanced stupidly towards him. Then, shivering a little as though suddenly cold, she got up stiffly out of her chair. But still she did not speak. Robin slipped his arm round her.

"Ann—dear old thing, tell me. What's happened?" he entreated.

At last she answered him.

"Nothing much," she said. "Oh, nothing at all, really." She gave a funny little cracked laugh. "Only—I'm not—engaged any longer.... I told you I was 'fey' last night."

Almost before she had finished speaking, he felt her slight young body suddenly become a dead weight on his arm. She crumpled up against him, and sank into the blessed oblivion of unconsciousness.

* * * * *

The following morning two rather strained young faces confronted each other across the Cottage breakfast table. After Ann had recovered consciousness the previous evening, she had confided to Robin something of what had taken place during the interview between herself and Eliot. He had vainly tried to dissuade her, urging that she was too tired to talk and had much better go to bed and rest.

"I'd rather tell you now—to-night," she had insisted. "Then we need never speak of it again. And there's very little to tell. Eliot has broken off his engagement with me because he thinks I've deceived him."

Robin's anger had been deep but inarticulate. When he spoke again it was reassuringly, soothingly. All else he had kept back.

"You deceive him—or any one! If he thinks that, then he doesn't know you at all, little sister. And what's more, if he can think that of you, he isn't good enough for you."

"The trouble is"—with a pale little smile—"that he thinks I'm not—good enough—for him."

She would give no reply to Robin's impetuous demand for an explanation.

"No, dear old boy, don't ask me," she had said painfully. "It—it doesn't bear talking about. He just doesn't think me good enough. That's all."

But the following morning, when he asked her if she would like to leave Silverquay, a look of intense relief overspread her face.

"Would it be possible?" she asked on a low, breathless; note of eagerness. Then her face fell. "Oh, but we can't think of it! It's much too good a post for you to throw up."

Robin made no answer. But in his own mind he resolved that, if it were possible, he would find some other post—one which, while it would not take him entirely out of reach of the Priory, would yet spare Ann the necessity of ever again meeting Eliot Coventry, or of feeling that they were dependent for their livelihood on the man who, he was instinctively aware, had hurt her in some deep, inmost sanctuary of her womanhood—hurt her so unbearably that she could not bring herself to speak of it.

He rode across to Heronsmere as soon as breakfast was over, and it did not require a second glance at Eliot's haggard face to tell him that Ann was not alone in her intensity of suffering. He was appalled at the change which two days had worked in the man before him, and for an instant sheer pity almost quenched the burning intention of his errand.

"You wanted to see me, Lovell?"

As Eliot turned the grey mask of his face towards him, Robin mentally visioned Ann's own face as he had last seen it, and his heart hardened.

"Yes," he said, speaking rather jerkily. "I want to resign my post as your agent."

A momentary change of expression showed itself on Eliot's face, fleeting as the passage of a shadow across a pool.

"To resign?" he repeated mechanically.

"As soon as you can find some one to take my place."

Coventry remained silent, his fingers trifling absently with a small silver calendar that stood on his desk, pushing it backwards and forwards.

"That's rather a strange request," he said at last.

"I don't think so," answered Robin, quietly, looking at him very directly.

He returned the glance with grave eyes.

"I suppose I understand what you mean," he said slowly.

"I suppose you do," returned Robin bluntly. "But we needn't speak of that. I came merely to ask you to accept my resignation."

Again Eliot made no immediate response. He was trying to realise it—to visualise the Cottage empty, or occupied by some one who was no more than an ordinary estate agent—just his man of business. To conceive Silverquay void of Ann's presence, know her no longer there, be ignorant of where she was in the big world ... whether well or ill.... He found that the bare idea wrought an exquisite agony within him. It was like probing a raw wound.

"No!" He spoke very suddenly, his voice so harsh that it seemed to grate on the quiet of the room. "No. You can't leave, Lovell. Our arrangement was six months' notice on either side. I claim that notice."

Robin drew a deep breath.

"I hoped you would consent to waive it," he said.

"I don't consent. I claim it"—decisively. "You can't leave under six months." Coventry rose from his chair as though to indicate that the interview was at an end, hesitated a moment, then added abruptly: "I'm going abroad. I must have some one in charge whom I can trust. I shall be leaving England to-morrow."



CHAPTER XXV

THE HALF-TRUTH

There are few truer sayings than the one which cautions us that evil is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart. When you are unlucky enough to get a combination of the two, the evil accomplished is liable to assume considerably increased proportions.

On the morning following Eliot's visit to the Cottage, want of thought, in addition to a very natural semi-maternal pride, led Maria Coombe into confiding jubilantly into the ear of Mrs. Thorowgood—laundress and purveyor of local gossip—the fact that her Miss Ann and "the Squire up to Heronsmere" were going to make a match of it. Mrs. Thorowgood, not to be outdone, responded to the effect that she had "suspicioned" all along that this was going to be the case, and that when she had heard in the village yesterday that Mr. Coventry had gone straight to the Cottage upon his return that afternoon to Silverquay—with Mr. Lovell away in Ferribridge, too, and all!—she felt sure of it. "So I'm not surprised at your news, Mrs. Coombe," she concluded triumphantly. "Not surprised at all."

Having thus successfully taken the wind out of Maria's sails, she proceeded on her way delivering the clean laundry at various houses in the district, and in the course of a few hours the news of Mr. Coventry's engagement to Miss Lovell was being glibly discussed in more than one servants' hall as an accomplished fact. By the afternoon, conveyed thither by the various butchers, bakers, and greengrocers who had acquired the news in the course of their morning rounds, the information had spread to the village.

Meanwhile, during the progress of Brett Forrester's visit to Heronsmere in search of the puppy his aunt so ardently desired, a prying servant had chanced to pause outside Eliot's study door, inspired by a fleeting inquisitiveness to learn with whom her master was closeted. A single sentence she overheard sufficed to convert that idle curiosity into a burning thirst for knowledge. So she remained at the key-hole listening post until it was satisfied, and later on, armed with a fine fat piece of gossip, the like of which did not often come her way, she sallied forth to spend her "afternoon out" in the village.

Thus it came about that the two streams of gossip—one emanating in all innocence from Maria Coombe, the other having its origin in the conversation overheard between Eliot and Brett—met and mingled together and were ultimately poured into the ears of Miss Caroline, busily engaged in parochial visitation. An evil fatality appointed that the first person she subsequently encountered should be Mrs. Carberry, the M.F.H.'s wife, with whom, in a flutter of shocked excitement, she promptly shared the dreadful story she had heard. This, of course, carried then gossip into another stratum of society altogether.

"I can hardly believe it's true! I'm surprised!" twittered Miss Caroline. "Although, of course, Miss Lovell is certainly rather unconventional, I've always looked upon her as quite nice. But to spend a night—like that—at a hotel—" Words failed her, and she had to rely upon an unusual pinkness of her complexion to convey adequately to Mrs. Carberry the scandalised depth of her feelings.

"Perhaps I'm not so surprised as you are," returned the M.F.H.'s wife. "I never cared for the girl. After all, she was merely a companion-help."

"Companion-chauffeuse," corrected Miss Caroline diffidently.

"Companion-help," repeated Mrs. Carberry, unmoved. "And no one would have taken her up at all if Lady Susan hadn't made such a silly fuss of her. It's absurd, when her brother's nothing more than Mr. Coventry's estate agent. I always think it's a great mistake to take people like that out of their position. One generally regrets it afterwards."

"Still, I believe the Lovells were quite a good family—West Country people—lost money, you know." Miss Caroline's conscience drove her into making this admission. Also, she wanted very much to know how Mrs. Carberry would meet it. Mrs. Carberry took it in her stride.

"That's just it. They've lost money—mixed with the wrong sort of people. Losing money so often involves losing caste, too. If this story proves to be true, I shall be very glad indeed that I never allowed my daughter Muriel to make friends of these Lovells. We shall soon know," she added, a note of hungry anticipation in her voice. "The part about the engagement is true, without doubt, since it came direct from the Oldstone Cottage cook. Besides, one could see that this Lovell girl was angling to catch Mr. Coventry. If the engagement is broken off, we may feel pretty sure, I think, that the rest of the story's true, too."

Privately, she hoped it would prove true, since a man is very often caught at the rebound, and, judiciously managed, it seemed quite possible that Coventry, shocked and disgusted at Ann Lovell's flightiness of character, might turn with relief and admiration to so modest and well-brought-up a girl as her own daughter. To see dear Muriel installed as mistress of Heronsmere had been her ambition from the first moment of its new owner's coming to live at Silverquay, and when Miss Caroline had volunteered the news of Ann's supposed engagement to him, it had come as a rude shock to her plans. But this had been so swiftly followed by the story of Ann's scandalous behaviour in Switzerland that she had speedily reacted from the shock, and was already briskly weaving fresh schemes to bring about the desirable consummation of a marriage between her daughter and Eliot Coventry. Decidedly, Mrs. Carberry was not likely to help stem the tide of gossip setting against Ann!

The day following, the news that Eliot had left England for an indefinite stay abroad flew like wildfire through the neighbourhood, and, in consequence, substance was immediately given to the stories already circulating. There could be no longer any further doubt as to what had happened—Coventry had asked Miss Lovell to marry him, and then, discovering how she had forfeited her reputation somewhere on the Continent, had broken off the engagement between them the very next day.

Silverquay fairly buzzed with the tale. Everybody jumped to the same conclusion and told each other so with varying degrees of censure and disapprobation. Miss Caroline, eager as a ferret, even paid a special visit to Oldstone Cottage, to obtain confirmation of the dreadful truth. Having previously assured herself that Robin and Ann were both out, she darted into the Cottage on the plea of delivering the monthly parish magazine and, naturally, lingered on the doorstep to chat a little with Maria.

"Surely there's no truth in this story I hear, Maria?" she opened fire after a few minutes devoted to generalities.

"What story may you be meaning, ma'am?" inquired Maria blandly. She had heard the tale, of course, from half a dozen different sources, and was inwardly fuming with loyal wrath and indignation—the more so in that she dared not mention the matter to her young mistress whose still, pale composure had seemed to fence her round with a barrier which it was beyond Maria's powers to surmount.

"Why—why—" Miss Caroline fluttered. "The story that she stayed the night at a hotel in the mountains with young Mr. Brabazon when she was on the Continent."

"And did you suppose 'twas true?" demanded Maria scornfully, her arms akimbo, her blue eyes gimleting Miss Caroline's face.

"I—I don't know what to think," began Miss Caroline feebly.

Maria looked her up and down—a look beneath which Miss Caroline wilted visibly.

"Well, 'tis certain sure no one would pass the night with you, miss, on any mountain top," she observed grimly. "And 'tis just as sure they wouldn't with Miss Ann—though there'd be a main diff'rence in the reason why!" And with a snort of defiance she had flounced back into the house, slamming the door in Miss Caroline's astonished face.

To Ann herself, the sudden cloud of obloquy in which she found herself enveloped heaped an added weight to the burden she already had to bear, and compelled her to take Robin fully into her confidence. It was a mystery to her how the story of the Dents de Loup episode had leaked out in the neighbourhood. She utterly declined to believe that Coventry himself would have shared his knowledge of the incident with any one. But that it had leaked out was cruelly self-evident, and the worst part of it was that the malicious gossip was founded on so much actual fact that it was difficult—almost impossible, in fact—to combat or refute it. She felt helpless in the face of the detestable scandal which had reared itself upon a foundation of such innocent truth.

"I wish Coventry had accepted my resignation," fulminated Robin fiercely. "This is a perfectly beastly business. That vile scandal's all over the place."

"I know," assented Ann indifferently. It hurt her that certain people should think ill of her as they did, but after all, the ache in her heart hurt much more. A man stretched on the rack would probably take little notice if you ran a pin into him. The lesser pain would be overwhelmed by the great agony. And although the first realisation of the gossip that had fastened on her name filled Ann with bitter indignation and disgust, it became a relatively small matter in comparison with the total shipwreck of her love and happiness. It did not really matter very much that Mrs. Carberry had cut her pointedly in the middle of Silverquay, or that some of the village girls whispered and pointed at her surreptitiously as she passed. These were all external things, which could be fought down. But the wound that Eliot himself had dealt her had pierced to the very core of her being.

"Well," Robin resumed thoughtfully after a brief silence. "I've got to stay here till the six months are run out. But you needn't, Ann. You had better look for a post of some kind till I'm free—"

"A post!" She laughed rather bitterly. "I've a good recommendation for any post, haven't I? A story like this would be sure to follow me up somehow, and I should probably be politely requested by my employer to leave.'

"Then go away for a bit. I'll find the money somehow. I won't have you baited by all the old tabby-cats in the neighbourhood."

Ann stood up, her head thrown back proudly on its slim young throat.

"No," she said with decision. "No, Robin. I'm not going to run away from village gossip. I'm going to face it out."

Robin sprang up.

"Well done, little sister!" he exclaimed, a ring of wholehearted admiration in his voice. "We'll stick it out together—stay here and live it down." He held out his hand and, Ann laying hers within it, they shook hands soberly, just as in earlier days they had so often shaken hands over some childish pact.

The loyalty of Ann's friends, of Lady Susan and of Cara and the rector, was a very real consolation. Lady Susan had descended on the Cottage the moment the story came to her ears—which happened to be on the very day following Coventry's departure from Silverquay. Brett, she vouchsafed, had run up to town unexpectedly for a few days. "And he's just as well out of the way," she added briskly, "till we've got this tangle straight"—little dreaming that her nephew was responsible for the whole knotting of the tangled skein. By kindly probing she elicited the real, grim tragedy which lay behind all the gossip, and her anger against Eliot knew no bounds. But once she had given characteristic expression to her opinion of men in general, and of Eliot in particular, she promptly set to work to try and mend matters.

"I can explain to Eliot how you came to be at the Hotel de Loup that night," she asserted. "He won't presume to doubt me!"

"No. But he has presumed to doubt me," replied Ann bitterly. "So it wouldn't help in the least if you explained all day."

"How do you mean—wouldn't help?"

"Because what matters is whether Eliot himself trusts me—not whether he has everything explained to him," said Ann. "He must trust me because I'm trustworthy—not because you guarantee me."

"My dear—that's the ideal attitude. But"—Lady Susan sighed and smiled in the same breath—"we've got to make allowances for poor human nature. We're all so very far from being ideal in this sinful old world. Be sensible, Ann darling," she coaxed, "and let me assure Eliot you were up at the Hotel de Loup alone."

Ann shook her head.

"You can't, dear Lady Susan. Because—I wasn't alone. Tony and I were there together."

Lady Susan turned on her a face of blank astonishment.

"You weren't alone?" she exclaimed. "But—I don't understand. Philip told me that Tony ran over to Geneva that day and stayed the night there!"

"Did he?" Ann's heart grew very soft at the thought of Tony's boyishly crude effort to protect her from the possible consequence of their night's sojourn at the hotel. "I'm afraid Tony let him think that on my account—in order to shield me.... I should have told you all about it at the time," she went on, "only—don't you remember—you had sprained your ankle, and you were in so much, pain that I just didn't want to bother you with the matter."

Lady Susan looked distressed.

"But, my dear, what possessed you to stay the night up there—with Tony? You must have known people would talk if it ever became known."

"Well, it was just a sheer bit of bad luck," explained Ann, and forthwith proceeded to recount the whole adventure which had befallen her and Tony at the Dents de Loup. "We had to stay there," she wound up. "We'd absolutely no choice. But we met no one. Not a soul. And I can't conceive how the story has got out."

"And now there's all this wretched tittle-tattle about you!" chafed Lady Susan. "My poor little Ann, it really is a stroke of the most fiendish ill-luck."

Ann nodded.

"Yes. Don't you see how impossible it is for me to clear myself? We were there. It's true."

"I do see," replied Lady Susan in a worried tone. "It's just the kind of coil that's hardest of all to straighten out. A lot of untrue gossip founded upon actual fact—and there's nothing more difficult to combat than a half-truth."

"Oh, well"—Ann jumped up restlessly out of her chair. "It's smashed up everything for me. And when you've crashed I don't suppose a little ill-natured gossip more or less matters very much. Did you know Mrs. Carberry cut me this morning in the village high-street?" she added with a smile.

"Did she indeed?" said Lady Susan, a grim note in her usually pleasant voice. "Of course, the whole business is nuts to her—she's aching to plant that prunes-and-prisms daughter of hers on Eliot Coventry. Well, I think I carry weight enough in the neighbourhood to put a stop to that kind of insolence." She paused reflectively. "I shall open my campaign with a big dinner-party—and you and Robin will come to it. I'll shoot off the invitations to-morrow. Don't worry, Ann. If, between us, your friends can't manage to scotch this kind of dead-set some people are making at you, my name's not Susan Hallett." She rose and slipped her arm round Ann's shoulders in a gesture of unwonted tenderness. "And for the rest, my dear—try and believe things will come straight in the end. You're in the long lane, now—but you'll find the turning some day, I feel sure."

The following morning Brian Tempest arrived at the Cottage. Ann greeted him with a smile, half sad, half bitter.

"Have you come to call down fulminations of wrath on my devoted head?" she asked.

The rector's kind eyes were puckered round with little creases of distress.

"Did you think that?" he asked.

She smiled—and there was less of bitterness in the smile this time.

"No," she answered frankly. "I didn't. I thought you'd come to pay a kindly visit to the outcast."

"I came," he said simply, "to tell you—if you need telling—that I don't believe one word of this ridiculous story which is flying round, and that I'm going to fight it with every bit of influence I can bring to bear."

"You dear!" replied Ann softly. A wan gleam of amusement flitted across her face. "But it's true, you know—Tony and I did stay at the Hotel de Loup together."

No remotest glimmer of doubt, or even of astonishment, showed itself in the steady glance of Tempest's "heather mixture" eyes.

"Did you?" he returned placidly. "Well, I suppose neither of you has the sole monopoly of any hotel in Europe."

"Then you're not shocked?"

"Not in the least. I conjecture that some accidental happening drove you both into an awkward predicament. Feel like telling me about it all?"—with a friendly smile.

Ann felt exactly like it. There was something in Brian Tempest—in his absolute sincerity and his broad, tolerant, humorous outlook on things—which attracted confidence as a magnet attracts steel, and before long he was in possession of the skeleton facts of the story, and had himself, out of his own gifts of observation and sympathetic intuition, clothed those bare bones with tissue.

"And what do you propose to do?" he asked, when Ann ceased speaking.

"Stick it out," she returned briefly.

Tempest watched the brave fire gather and glow in the golden-brown eyes. He nodded contentedly.

"I was sure you would," he said. "And don't worry overmuch. Think that it will come right. Even"—with a kindly significance—"the part that hurts you most—and I know that's not the general gossip. Don't let your thoughts waver. There's no limit to the force of thought, you know."

"You believe that, too, then?" said Ann quickly.

"I'm sure of it," he answered quietly. "Thought is the one great miracle-worker. Why"—with a laugh—"if you want immediate proof, it was a bad thought, some one thinking wrongly, that started all this present trouble. So that the right thought—the thought that it will all work out straight, held by you and by all of us who are your friends—is the obvious antidote. God never made a law that only works one-sidedly. If thought forces can work evil, they can assuredly work infinite good."

"You're an excellent 'cheerer-up,'" said Ann, later on, when he was going. "You have cheered me, you know," she added gratefully.

"Have I? I'm glad. And now, I want you to cheer me."

"You?" Her voice held surprise.

"Yes, me." He hesitated a moment. "Ann, I'm going to throw myself on your mercy. I know—to my deep shame I know that my sister has been one of the people who have helped to circulate this unfounded story about you. I want you, if you can, to try and forgive her—and me."

"There's nothing to forgive you for," protested Ann.

"She's my sister. Part of her burden must be mine. Nor have I any excuse to offer for her. Some people look through a window and see God's sunshine, while others see only the spots on the window-pane. We are as we're made, they say—but some of us have got a deal of re-making to do before we're perfected."

"Don't worry." Unconsciously Ann sought to comfort him in the same familiar, everyday language which he himself had used to her. "Don't worry one bit. I've no feeling of ill-will towards Miss Caroline. It's just her way—one can't help one's way of looking at things, you know"—quaintly. "And I'm quite, quite sure she never meant any harm."

"So that's the way you look at things?" He smiled down at her, his eyes very luminous and tender. "Thank you, Ann, for the way you look at things—the plucky, generous, splendid way."

And when he had gone Ann was conscious of a warm glow round about her heart—that gladdening glow of comfort and thanksgiving which the spontaneous, ardent loyalty of real friends can bring even to the heaviest heart.



CHAPTER XXVI

ENLIGHTENMENT

"I've turned up again like a bad penny, you see."

Brett, ushered into the living-room at the Cottage by a very depressed-looking Maria, made the announcement with his usual debonair assurance.

"So I see," replied Ann, shaking hands without enthusiasm. "How are you?"

He looked at her critically—at her face, paler than its wont, her shadowed eyes, the slight lines of her figure—grown slighter even during the brief span of a week.

"I'm all right," he returned pointedly. "But I can't say as much for you. What have you been doing in my absence? Pining?"—quizzically.

"Not exactly," she answered dryly. "I've had—oh, various worries. Nothing to do with you, though."

"I'm not so sure," replied Brett, with a flash of sardonic humour, the significance of which was lost on Ann.

"Then I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it," she responded indifferently.

"Are you worrying about this slur on your fair name?" he demanded next, as airily as though he were inquiring if she was worrying about the trimming of a new hat. "My revered aunt has told me all the news, you see."

Ann winced.

"Brett, how can you speak like that?" Her voice trembled. "It—it isn't anything to laugh at. It's horrible!"

He regarded her in silence. Then:

"No. It isn't anything to laugh at," he said suddenly. "It's my chance."

He took a quick step towards her and she retreated involuntarily.

"Your chance?" she replied. "What do you mean?"

"My chance to prove that I'm a better lover than Coventry. I understand he's so shocked that he's bolted out of England"—sneeringly. "Well, I'm not. I've come back to ask you to marry me."

Ann quivered at his mention of Eliot's name, but with an effort she forced herself to answer him composedly.

"I can only give you the same answer as before—no, Brett."

"Do explain why," he returned irrepressibly. "I don't care tuppence what people say. In fact, if they dared to say anything after we were married I should jolly well break their heads for them. So that's that. But surely I'm as good a fellow as Coventry—who's apparently cried off at the first sign of storm. I suppose that's what's happened, isn't it?"

She turned and faced him, a spark of anger in her eyes.

"Whatever it is that has happened between Eliot and me, it has nothing to do with you," she said haughtily.

His eyes flickered over her face.

"But I can guess!" he replied imperturbably.

"You?—Guess? How—" She broke off, shaken, as so often before, by his air of complete assurance.

He looked at her with quizzical eyes.

"Shall I tell you?" he said tantalisingly. "Yes, I think I will." He paused, then finished quietly: "I happened to be in Switzerland last spring—when you were."

There was no misunderstanding the intentional significance with which he spoke—no evading the impression that some definitely evil menace lay behind the brief statement of commonplace fact. To Ann it seemed as though some horror, lurking in the shadows of the fire-lit room, had suddenly stirred and were creeping stealthily towards her—impalpable but deadly, nauseous as the poisonous miasma rising from some dark and fetid pool. She shrank back, instinctively putting out her hand as though to ward off whatever threatened.

"You—you?" she stammered.

"Even I"—blandly. His gaze fastened on her face. "I spent a couple of nights—at the Hotel de Loup." Then, as she shrank still further away from him, he added lightly: "Dickens of a lonely place, too!"

"Then—then—" Ann's throat felt dry and constricted, but she struggled for utterance. "Then it was you who told—"

"Yes," he cut in quickly. "It was I who told Coventry about your little escapade up there with Tony Brabazon."

"Ah—!" A choked cry broke from her lips, and she leaned helplessly against the wall behind her.

"It was all quite simple," went on Brett coolly. "You see, I read the entry in the hotel register—and I happened to know that Brabazon had no sister." He rattled glibly on, recounting the episode of the Hotel de Loup with much the same air of inward entertainment with which he had narrated it to Coventry himself. When he had finished he looked across at her with a kind of triumph, no whit ashamed of himself.

There was a long silence. Ann swallowed once or twice, trying to relieve the dreadful feeling of tightness in her throat.

"I suppose," she said at last, speaking with difficulty, "I suppose you told Eliot—on purpose—to separate us?"

She was staring at him with incredulous, horror-stricken eyes. This thing which he had done seemed to her unspeakable—treacherous and contemptible beyond all description. She had the same dazed appearance as some one who has just witnessed a terrible catastrophe—so terrible and unlooked-for as to be almost beyond credence. For an instant her stricken expression and slow, painful utterance brought the faintest possible look of shame to Brett's face. But it was only momentary and passed as swiftly as it had come.

"Well," he confessed, "I didn't want you to marry Coventry, so I tried to stop it—naturally. As I told you—I want you to marry me."

"And you could still want to marry me—thinking what you thought?"

"Certainly I could"—promptly. "Don't you remember, I've told you more than once that the past doesn't count—that nothing a woman might have done would matter to me if I wanted her? I thought you would understand."

"Understand?" Ann laughed mirthlessly. "How should I understand? Tony and I were trapped up there—at the Dents de Loup. It was a pure accident. Hasn't Lady Susan told you? Oh!"—with a quick, tortured movement. "What have I ever done that you could think of me like that?"

"I know—" Once again a fleeting look of shame clouded the blue eyes. "It seems mad—now. Now that it's all explained. But any man might have thought the same. And do me this justice—I loved you well enough to forgive you that, or anything else."

"You loved me!" The contempt in her voice was like a lash across the face. "You to speak of love! Why, you don't know the first meaning of it! No man who loved me would have deliberately set out to destroy my happiness. Did you imagine for one moment that I would marry you after what you've done? Never! Even if I absolutely hated Eliot I wouldn't marry you. Oh!"—smiting her hands together—"I couldn't have believed that any man—even you!"—with blazing scorn—"could have been so wicked—so utterly devoid of anything decent or honest or straight. Have you no feeling, Brett—no mercy, or charity, that you could do such a thing?"

"I've the kind of charity that begins at home," he returned, unabashed. "All's fair in love and war, you know."

"Fair! Surely you're not trying to pretend that you've been fair?"

"I think it was a perfectly legitimate thing to do—in the circumstances," he answered coolly.

She gazed at him, appalled. Lady Susan had indeed been right when she declared that Brett had no principles, and against his unshakable sang-froid Ann felt as helpless to make any impression as a wave beating at the foot of some granite rock.

"When you want something very badly," he explained with the utmost simplicity, "the only way to get it is to forge straight ahead. You can't afford to be squeamish over trifles. And I want you!"—his voice deepening to a sudden intensity.

The old, familiar fear and dread of him rushed over her afresh. She felt sick—sick and terrified.

"Oh, go—go away!" she exclaimed desperately.

"All right, I'll go. But you'll kiss me first."

He took a step towards her. She could not retreat. The wall was immediately behind her. With a sudden sideways movement she twisted and tried to escape him. But it was useless. With incredible swiftness he caught her as she turned, and she felt his arms close round her in a grip of steel. He stooped his head.

"No—no!" she implored piteously. "Brett, let me go! Please—please let me go!" She struggled frantically against him. Then, finding herself helpless in his grasp, she covered her face with her hands, pressing them hard against her cheeks. But she might as well have tried to pit her puny strength against an avalanche. In a moment he had forced down her shielding hands, bending her slender body backwards so that her face lay just below his lips—shelterless and at his mercy. And then she felt his mouth crushed savagely on hers and the turbulence of his passion swept over her as the hot wind sweeps across the desert—scorching and resistless.

When at last he released her she swayed unsteadily.

"Oh, go—go!" she whispered, her hand against her bruised lips.

For a moment he stared at her without speaking.

"All right. I'll go," he said sullenly, at last. "But I shall come back. You'll marry me, Ann—I swear it!"

Vaguely she heard him go—the closing of the door behind him, and, a minute later, the sound of the latch of the gate falling into its socket. Came the trampling of a restive horse on the road outside, followed by the rhythmic beat of cantering hoofs. Then silence.

How long she remained where Brett had left her she never knew. She was oblivious of the passage of time, conscious only of a vast grey sea of misery which seemed to have hemmed her in on every side and which had now risen suddenly and closed over her head. But at last, with a quivering, long-drawn breath, she moved stumblingly across towards the window. The room appeared to her stiflingly hot. Her face burned, and her temples throbbed as though a couple of relentless hammers were beating inside her head. With fumbling, nerveless fingers she unfastened the catch of the window and threw it open, letting in the cool autumnal breeze. She leaned out thankfully, drawing in deep breaths of the clean, salt-laden air. It seemed to lave her face, washing away the hated touch of Forrester's lips on hers, and pressing lightly, like a cool hand, against her aching temples.

For some time she stood there, her mind almost a blank, content just to know that she was alone—freed from the presence of the man whom at this moment she felt she loathed more than any one on earth—and to drink in great draughts of the chill, revivifying air. But presently her thoughts began to stir once more. She grew conscious of her surroundings—of her body, which felt suddenly cold. With a shiver, she closed the window and went over to the fire. She crouched down on the hearthrug, and gradually, as her mind became clearer, she began to piece together all that had happened.

It was a bitter realisation. Her whole happiness had been ruined—utterly and remorselessly, because she and Tony had missed the train at the Dents de Loup. It seemed incredible! Such a trivial, unimportant small happening to have brought the whole fabric of a man's and woman's happiness toppling headlong to the ground! A little hysterical sound—half laugh, half sob—escaped her. And Brett— She could hardly endure to think of him. It was past belief that any man who loved her—and within herself Ann acknowledged that in his own selfish, masterful way, Brett did love her—could have so ruthlessly flung everything aside—chivalry, honour, and a woman's happiness—in his fierce determination to obtain his ends. Past belief, indeed! Yet it had actually happened, and the consequences would roll on, like the wheels of some dreadful machine, crushing out hope and joy and faith.

Faith! Ann's thoughts checked at the word. That was the one and only thing which could have saved the whole terrible situation. If Eliot had only trusted her, had had faith in her, then neither the unlucky accident at the Dents de Loup nor the treacherous misuse which Brett had made of it could have availed to hurt their love or to destroy their happiness. For a moment a tide of bitterness against her lover for his lack of trust swelled up within her, then her inherent sense of justice drove it back. He had learned distrust—learned it from bitter experience. The entire burden of catastrophe lay actually on the shoulders of the woman who, years ago, had taken a boy's love and faith and broken them like toys between her hands.

Dully Ann wondered who the woman was—wondered whether she would be a little sorry if she could know that another woman was paying so heavily for the wrong which she had done. And then a dreary smile crossed her face. It wouldn't make any difference if that other woman did know. There was nothing she could do to repair the harm she had worked. It was all hopeless—wheel within wheel, link added to link.

Well, it was over—finished. Ann tried to face the fact without blenching. Love had come, for a brief moment transmuting her whole world, and now love had gone again, and it only remained to take up the burden of life once more. Perhaps it would be easier soon. Some day, she supposed, this pain at her heart would cease, just as everything good, bad, and indifferent, comes to an end in time. But no power on earth could alter things—put back the clock. Even if Eliot, driven by the desperate hunger of love, came back to her, nothing would ever be the same again. He had distrusted her, and that distrust would lie between them now and always.

* * * * *

Night came, but Ann could not sleep. She tossed restlessly from side to side, her thoughts going round and round in an endless weary circle. Tony and Brett and Eliot, three men who had loved and desired her, each in his own way, and between them they had managed to crush out every atom of happiness that life could hold for her.

Towards morning, utterly worn out, she dropped into an uneasy slumber, from which—it seemed to her—Maria roused her almost at once, and with the return of consciousness the whole deadening weight of recollection fell on her once more. She raised herself wearily on her elbow.

"Is it really time to get up?" she asked languidly. "I feel as if I'd only just gone to sleep."

Maria, bustling about the room pulling up the blinds and drawing back the curtains, paused and looked at the slender figure lying in the bed with eyes full of concern. They were like the faithful, yearning eyes of a dog who senses that you are in trouble but is powerless to help. He can do nothing—only love you. And Maria knew that her adored young mistress was in sore trouble, and that she could do nothing to help—only love her.

"There, drink your cup o' tea, miss, and you'll feel better," she said hearteningly. "A body feels different with a cup o' tea inside. I suppose you've heard the news—since Mr. Forrester himself was here only yesterday?"

Ann set down her tea-cup sharply, her heart beating apprehensively. What was she going to hear now? Something else that would hurt her afresh? She glanced shrinkingly towards Maria.

"No. What news?" she faltered. She did not want to be hurt any more. She felt as though she wouldn't be able to bear it.

"Why, 'twas the milkman told me. Mr. Forrester's off from White Windows to-day. Going away quite sudden like in that there Minx of his." She nodded in the direction of the bay.

The ghost of a smile flitted across Ann's tired face.

"In the Sphinx, you mean," she suggested.

"Yes, miss, jes' what I said, wasn't it?" agreed Maria. "You can see 'em all on board this morning—busy as bees in a hive."

Ann stepped out of bed and went to the window. It was quite true. Far below in the bay she could see the shining Sphinx, and there were signs of unmistakable activity on board. She drew a long breath. If Brett were going, it was good news—not bad! She had always been secretly afraid of him. Now—now that she was aware of the part he had played in the destruction of her happiness, she knew that she would never again be able to see him without recalling all that she had lost. He seemed to her to embody the whole tragedy which had befallen her.

And the yacht—his yacht—waiting, waiting always in the bay, like a cat at a mousehole....

Two hours later Ann stood on the cliff and watched the Sphinx steam slowly out to sea, and with the last gleam of the yacht's white stern it seemed to her as though some inexplicable, still lingering menace were removed.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE TRUTH

"Cafe noir? Bien, m'sieu."

The alert French waiter shot away like a stone from a catapult, leaving Coventry to lapse back into the reverie from which he had roused himself to order his coffee. He had dined rather early with a view to escaping the chattering crowd which thronged the hotel, and now he was sitting alone in a windowed corner of the salle, his eyes resting absently on the curving line of coast and sea.