"That will be very kind of you," she replied demurely. And then, before she could say a word of protest, he had taken the heavy tray out of her hands. "You'll find me much more useful than Timmy," he said, with a touch of his old masterfulness. "Now you lead the way up, and I'll hand you over the tray at Nanna's door."



CHAPTER XXI

Some three or four hours later, Miss Pendarth, attired in a queer kind of brown smock which fell in long folds about her tall, still elegant figure, and with a gardening basket slung over her arm, stood by the glass door giving into her garden, when suddenly she heard a loud double knock on her stout, early Victorian knocker.

She turned quickly into her morning room. Who could it be? She knew the knock and ring of each of her neighbours, and this was none of them.

Her maid hurried out of the kitchen, and a moment later she heard a man's voice exclaim: "Will you kindly give this note to Miss Pendarth? I will return for the answer in about an hour."

Miss Pendarth knew the voice, and, stepping out of her morning room, she called out: "Come in just for a few minutes, Mr. Radmore."

In the old days she had always called him "Godfrey," but when Timmy had brought him to call within a day or two of his return to Beechfield, she had used the formal mode of address.

Radmore had to obey her, willy-nilly, and as he came down the hall towards her, she was struck by the keenness and intelligence of his dark face. She told herself grudgingly that he had certainly improved amazingly, at any rate in outward appearance, during the last ten years.

"Do let us go into your garden," he said courteously. "I hear that you are still Mrs. Tosswill's only rival!"

She softened, in spite of herself. The Godfrey Radmore of ten years ago would not have thought of saying such a civil, pleasant thing.

They walked through the glass door, and proceeded in silence down the path. The herbaceous borders were in fuller beauty than anything the Old Place garden could now show, but Radmore paid no further compliment, and it was she who broke the silence.

"You must see amazing changes at Old Place," she said musingly. "The rest of Beechfield has altered comparatively little, but Old Place is very different, with George gone, and all those young people who were children when you went away, grown up. As for Timmy, he was little more than a baby ten years ago."

"Timmy is my godson," said Radmore quickly. Her allusion to George had cut him.

Miss Pendarth turned on him rather sharply. "Of course I know that! I remember his christening as if it was yesterday. It must be twelve or thirteen years ago. I can see you and Betty standing by the font—" and then she stopped abruptly, while Radmore blushed hotly under his tan.

He said hastily: "Timmy's a dear little chap, but I confess I can't make him out sometimes."

Miss Pendarth turned and looked at him. She knew everything there was to know about Timmy Tosswill. His mother had early confided in her, and she never spoke of the child to other people. Like so many gossips, when really trusted with a secret, Miss Pendarth could keep a confidence—none better.

But she felt that Godfrey Radmore was entitled to know the little she could tell him, so "Timmy is a very queer child," she said slowly, "but I can't help thinking, Mr. Radmore—"

"Do call me Godfrey," he exclaimed, and at once she went on:

"Well, Godfrey, I think a certain amount of his oddity is owing to the fact that he's never been to school or mixed with other boys. I'm told he's a good scholar, but he's a shocking speller! Where's the good of knowing Latin and Greek if you can't spell such a simple word as chocolate—he spells it 'chockolit.' Still, I'm bound to admit the child sees and foresees more than most human beings are allowed to see and foresee."

And then, as Radmore remained silent, she went on: "Do you yourself believe in all that sort of thing, Godfrey—I mean second sight, and so on?"

Radmore answered frankly: "Yes, I think I do. I didn't before the War—I never gave any thought to any of these subjects. But during the War things happened to me and to some of my chums which made me believe, in a way I never had believed till then, in the reality of another state of being—I mean a world quite near to this world, one full of spirits, good and evil, who exercise a certain influence on the living."

They had come to a circular stone seat which was much older even than this old garden, and Miss Pendarth motioned her visitor to sit down.

"It isn't a new thing with Timmy," she said. "As a matter of fact, even before you left Beechfield, Dr. O'Farrell regarded the child as being in some way abnormal."

"D'you mean while he was still a baby?" asked Radmore.

"Well, when he had just emerged from babyhood. But I doubt if anyone knew it but Timmy's parents, the doctor, myself, and yes, I mustn't forget Nanna. He was a very extraordinary little child. He spoke so very early, you know."

"I do remember that."

"Unfortunately," went on Miss Pendarth, "it's difficult to know when Timmy is telling the truth, or what he believes to be the truth, about his gift. I think that often—and I know that Betty agrees with me—the boy invents all kinds of fantastic tales in order to impress the people about him."

"As far as I can make out," said Radmore slowly, "he's always told me the truth."

"I'll tell you something curious that happened—let me see, about seven years ago. You remember an old man we used to call Gaffer John? He had Wood Cottage, and lived in a very comfortable sort of way."

"Of course I remember Gaffer John! He was well over ninety when I left Beechfield, and he had been valet years ago to one of Queen Victoria's cousins."

"Yes, that's the man I mean. At last he was found dead in his chair. He had what was by way of being rather a grand funeral. Timmy, for some reason or other (I think he had a cold), wasn't allowed to attend the funeral, and as he was set on seeing it, Janet said that he might come and see it from one of my windows. Well, after the funeral was over, he stayed on with me for a few minutes, and suddenly he exclaimed: 'Gaffer John isn't dead at all, Miss Pendarth.' I naturally answered, 'Of course he is, Timmy. Why, we've just seen him buried.' And then he said: 'Don't you see him walking out there, along the road, quite plainly? He's behind an old gentleman dressed up for a fancy ball.' Then, Godfrey, the child went on to describe the kind of uniform which would have been worn seventy years ago by a staff officer. I couldn't help being impressed, in spite of myself, for I'd never given Timmy the slightest encouragement to talk in that sort of way, and it's the only time he's ever done it, with me."

"What does his mother really think of this queer power of his?" asked Radmore. "I've never liked to talk to her about it."

"It's difficult to say. In some ways Janet Tosswill's a very reserved woman. But I'll tell you another curious thing about the child." Instinctively she lowered her voice.

"The day before poor George was killed, Timmy cried and cried and cried. It was impossible to comfort him—and he wouldn't give any reason for his grief. Both Janet and Betty were dreadfully upset. They thought he had some pain that he wouldn't tell them of, and they would have sent for Dr. O'Farrell, but they knew he was away, some miles off, at a very difficult case. Betty actually came in and asked if I would try to make him say what was the matter! But of course I could do nothing with him. I think you know that he was passionately fond of George."

"What does Dr. O'Farrell think of it all?"

"He's convinced that Timmy has got a kind of peculiar, rare, thought-reading gift. He won't hear of its being in any sense supernatural. I haven't spoken to him about it lately, but the last time he mentioned the child, he told me he was sure that what he called the boy's 'subconscious self' would in time sink into its proper place."

"I wonder if it will?" exclaimed Radmore. "I don't see why it should."

"No, nor do I, excepting that, as time goes on, Timmy has become much more like a normal boy than he used to be. I'm convinced that very often he pretends to see things that he doesn't see. He loves frightening the village people, for instance, and some of them are really afraid of him. They think he can heal certain simple ailments, and they're absolutely certain that he can what they call 'blight' them!"

"What a very convenient gift," observed Radmore drily. "I've known a good many people in my time I should have liked to 'blight'!"

Even as he spoke, an unpleasant question was obtruding itself. Was it possible that Timmy had a "scunner" against poor little Enid Crofton?

"D'you think the child has a jealous disposition?" he asked abruptly.

Miss Pendarth looked round at him, rather surprised by the question. "He's never any occasion to be jealous," she said shortly. "Betty and Janet both worship him, and so does his old nurse. I don't think he cares for anyone else in the world excepting these three. Perhaps I ought to make an exception in your favour—from what I'm told he cherishes a romantic affection for you."

Miss Pendarth went on: "Mind you—I think there's often a touch of malice about the boy! Timmy wouldn't be at all averse to doing mischief to anyone he didn't like, or whom he thought ill of."

"There are a good many grown-up people of whom one can say that," observed Radmore.

And then, almost as if the other had seen into his mind, Miss Pendarth, with a touch of significance in her voice, observed musingly: "I fancy Timmy doesn't much like the pretty young widow who has taken The Trellis House. The first evening Mrs. Crofton came to see the Tosswills, she got an awful fright. Timmy's dog, Flick, rushed into the room and began snarling and growling at her. There was a most disagreeable scene, and from what one of the girls said the other day, it seems to have prejudiced the boy against her."

Radmore looked straight into Miss Pendarth's face. Then she hadn't yet heard about last night?

There was a slight pause.

"Yes," said Radmore at last. "I'm afraid that Timmy does dislike Mrs. Crofton."

"Perhaps," said Miss Pendarth slowly, "the boy has more reason to dislike her than we know." As Radmore said nothing, she went on: "Mrs. Crofton is behaving in a very wrong, as well as in a very unladylike, way with Jack Tosswill."

Radmore moved uneasily in his seat. It was time for him to escape. This was the Miss Pendarth of long ago—noted for the spiteful, dangerous things she sometimes said.

He got up. "Jack certainly goes to see her very often," he said, "but I don't think that's her fault. Forgive me for saying so, Miss Pendarth, but you know what village gossip is?"

"I'm afraid that she's giving Jack a great deal of deliberate encouragement. Even her servants believe that he regards himself as engaged to her."

"What absolute nonsense!" exclaimed Radmore vigorously. "Why, if it comes to that, Rosamund's quite as much at The Trellis House as Jack is, and even I go there very often!"

"Yes, I know you do; at one time you were first favourite," said Miss Pendarth coolly.

She had never been lacking in courage.

"And yet I can assure you," he exclaimed in a challenging tone, "that I, at any rate, am not at all in love with Mrs. Crofton."

"Sit down, Godfrey. There's something I want to ask you."

Unwillingly he obeyed.

"I think you knew Colonel Crofton?"

"Yes, and I liked him very much."

"I'm afraid from what I've heard that she wasn't a particularly good wife to him." Radmore was surprised at the feeling in her voice, but he asked himself irritably how the devil had Miss Pendarth heard anything of the Croftons and their private affairs?

He got up again, feeling vexed with himself for having come in to Rose Cottage.

She also rose from the stone seat.

"Stop just one moment, Godfrey. I didn't realize that you knew Mrs. Crofton as well as you seem to do. I do beg of you to convey to her that she ought to be more prudent. I'm quite serious as to the talk about Jack Tosswill. They seem to have gone on a walk together yesterday afternoon, and the girl at the post-office, who is often sent long distances with telegrams and messages, saw them in the North Wood kissing one another."

Godfrey uttered an exclamation of surprise and disgust.

How extraordinary that a woman of Miss Pendarth's birth and breeding should listen to, and believe, low village gossip!

"Really," he said at last, "that's too bad! I can't understand, Miss Pendarth, how you can believe such a story—" He nearly added, "or allow it to be told you!"

"I wouldn't believe everybody," she said in a low voice, "but I do believe Jane Nichol. She's a sensible, quiet, reserved girl. She seems to have passed quite close to them, but they were so absorbed in themselves that they didn't see her. She told no one but her aunt, and her aunt told me. I'm sorry to say I do believe the story, and I think you will agree that what may be sport to your pretty friend might mean lifelong bitterness to such a boy as Jack Tosswill." She added earnestly, "Can't you say just a word to her?"

"Well, no, I don't see how I can! Still I promise you to try to do it if I get the chance."

He felt sharply disturbed and annoyed, and yet he didn't believe a word of that vulgar story! Of course it was foolish of Enid Crofton to go for a long walk alone with Jack Tosswill. That sort of thing was bound to make talk. What would the village people think if they knew how often he, Radmore, and Mrs. Crofton had dined and lunched together during the three weeks that he had been there? Thank Heaven, they didn't know, and never would.

"Did you ever read the report of the inquest on Colonel Crofton?" asked Miss Pendarth meaningly.

"I hadn't the chance. I was still in Australia," he said shortly.

"If you'll wait a moment I'll bring it to you," was the, to him, astonishing reply.

Miss Pendarth walked off with her quick, light footsteps towards the house, and Radmore, gazing after her, told himself that she was indeed a strange woman. In some ways he had liked her far better to-day than he had ever liked her before, but the low, silly bit of gossip she had just told him filled him with disgust.

Very soon she was back, holding in her hand a newspaper.

An inquest of the kind that was held on Colonel Crofton is a godsend to any local sheet, and Radmore saw at a glance that this county paper had made the most of it.

"Will you read it here, if you're not in a hurry? I don't want it taken away; so while you're reading it, I'll go and do some potting over there."

She disappeared into a glass-house built across a corner of her garden, and he settled down to read the long newspaper columns.

Soon his feeling quickened into intense interest. The local Essex reporter had a turn for descriptive writing, and, as he read, Godfrey Radmore saw the scene described rise vividly before him. He seemed to visualise the intensely crowded little court-house, the kindly coroner, the twelve good men and true, and the motley gathering of small town and country folk drawn together in the hope of hearing something startling.

Yet the facts were simple enough. Colonel Crofton had died from either an accidental, or a deliberate, over-dose of strychnine. And his death had been a terrible one.

The outstanding points of interrogation were: Had he consciously added to a tonic which he was taking an ounce or more of the deadly drug? Or, as some people were inclined to believe, had the local chemist by some mistake or gross piece of carelessness, put a murderous amount of strychnine into a mixture which had been prescribed for his customer about a fortnight before?

But for the fact that a bottle of nux vomica had been actually found on the ledge of the dead man's dressing-room window, it would have gone hard with the chemist. But there the bottle had been found, and in her evidence, evidently given very clearly and simply, Mrs. Crofton had explained that, during the war, while in Egypt, she had palpitations of the heart, and so many drops of diluted strychnine had been ordered her.

When asked why there was so large a bottle full of the deadly stuff, she had answered that it had come from the Army Stores, where they always did things in a big and generous way. At that there had been laughter in Court.

Mrs. Crofton had further explained that, as a matter of fact, she had brought the bottle back to England without really knowing that she had done so; and that she had never given it a thought till it had been found, as described, after her husband's death, by the doctor who had been called in to attend Colonel Crofton in his agonizing seizure.

One thing stated by Mrs. Crofton much surprised Radmore. She had asserted, quite definitely, that her husband had suffered from shell-shock. That Radmore believed to be quite untrue.

With quickened, painful interest he read her account of how odd and how cranky Colonel Crofton had become when wholly absorbed in his hobby of breeding wire-haired terriers. How, when one of his dogs had failed to win a prize, he would go about muttering to himself, and visiting his annoyance and disappointment on those about him.

She had drawn a sad picture of the last long months of their joint life together and Radmore began to feel very, very sorry for her.... What an awful ordeal the poor little woman had gone through!

The doctor's evidence made painful reading, but what had really clinched the matter was the evidence of one Piper, the Croftons' general odd man and trusted servant. He had been Colonel Crofton's batman during part of the war, and was evidently much attached to him. When Piper repeated the words in which his master had once or twice threatened to take his own life, his evidence had obviously made a strong impression on both coroner and jury.

Radmore remembered Piper with a faint feeling of dislike. It was Piper who had prepared the puppy, Flick, for the cross-country journey to Beechfield, and Radmore had given the man a handsome tip for all the trouble he had taken.

Yes, he had not liked Piper; so much he remembered. He had thought the man self-assertive, over self-confident, while disagreeably cringing in manner.

He read through the coroner's charge, which was given fully, very attentively. It was quite clear that the coroner was strongly biased, if one could put it that way, in Mrs. Crofton's favour. He had spoken touchingly of the difficult time the poor young lady had had with her husband. Then he had recalled that the Colonel's own favourite terrier, Dandy, on which he had built great hopes, had only been commended, instead of winning, as he had hoped, the first prize at an important show, and that had thoroughly upset him. Indeed, according to Piper's evidence, he had used the exaggerated phrase, "My life is no longer worth living." Finally the coroner had touched lightly, but severely, on evidence tendered by a spiteful ex-woman-servant of the Croftons who had drawn a very unpleasant picture of the relations existing between the husband and wife.

Yet when the verdict of felo de se had been returned, there had been murmurs in Court, at once sharply checked by the coroner.

Radmore felt surprised. Surely everyone present should have rejoiced from every point of view. Had a different verdict been returned, it would have put the unfortunate chemist in a very difficult position, and might easily have ruined his business.

Though Radmore was grateful to Miss Pendarth for allowing him to read the report, it had an effect very different from that she had intended, for it made him pity Mrs. Crofton intensely. Somehow he had never realised what a terrible ordeal the poor little woman had been through.



CHAPTER XXII

A week later Enid Crofton lay in her drawing-room on the one couch which The Trellis House contained. She looked very charming in her new guise of invalid.

Several people had already called to know how she was, including Jack Tosswill and his father, but no visitor had yet been admitted. Now it was past four, and she was expecting the doctor—also, she hoped, in due course, Godfrey Radmore. That was why she had come downstairs, after having had an early cup of tea in her bedroom, and lain herself on the sofa.

The door opened, and as his burly form came through the door, Dr. O'Farrell told himself that he had seldom if ever attended such an attractive looking patient! She was still very pale, for the shock had been great; but to-day, for the first time since her widowhood, she had put on a pink silk jacket, and it supplied the touch of colour which was needed by her white cheeks. She had made up her mind that even a little rouge would be injudicious, but she had just used her lip-stick. It was pleasant to know that she had every right to be an interesting invalid with all an interesting invalid's privileges.

And yet, well acquainted as she was with the turns and twists of masculine human nature, Mrs. Crofton would have been surprised to know how suddenly repelled was the genial Irishman when she exclaimed eagerly:—"I do hope that horrible cat has been killed! Didn't I hear you say that you meant to shoot her yourself?"

It was not without a touch of sly satisfaction that Dr. O'Farrell answered:—"That was my intention certainly, Mrs. Crofton. But I was frustrated. The cat and her kittens vanished—just entirely away!"

"Vanished?" she exclaimed. "Then perhaps someone else has killed her?"

"Bless you, no. I'm afraid that the brute has still got her nine lives before her! She was spirited away by that broth of a boy. Timmy Tosswill's a good hater and a good lover, and that's the truth of it! I wasn't a bit surprised when I got the news that my services wouldn't be wanted—that the cat wasn't any longer at Old Place."

"D'you mean you don't know what's happened to the horrible creature?" she exclaimed vexedly.

"That's just what I do mean, Mrs. Crofton. That smart little fellow just spirited the creature away."

As he spoke, sitting with his back to the window, he was observing his pretty patient very closely. She had reddened angrily and was biting her lips. What a little vixen she was, to be sure! And suddenly she saw what he was thinking.

"I'd like to put a question to you, Mrs. Crofton."

"Do!" she insisted, but his question, when it came, displeased her.

"Is it true that that wasn't the first time you'd had an unpleasant experience with an animal at Old Place?"

Dr. O'Farrell had not meant to ask his patient this question to-day, but he really felt curious to know the truth concerning something Godfrey Radmore had told him that morning.

"Yes," she answered, slowly, "the first time I was in Old Place, Timmy Tosswill's dog frightened me out of my wits."

"That's very strange," said the doctor, "Flick's such a mild-mannered dog."

Enid Crofton lifted herself up from her reclining position. "Dr. O'Farrell! I wouldn't say so to anyone but you, but don't you think there's something uncanny about Timmy Tosswill? My little maid told me last night that the village people think he's a kind of—well, I don't know what to call it!—a kind of boy-witch. She says they're awfully afraid of him, that they think he can do a mischief to people he doesn't like." As he said nothing for a moment, she added rather defiantly:—"I daresay you think it is absurd that I should listen to village gossip, but the truth is, I've a kind of horror of the child. He terrifies me!"

Dr. O'Farrell looked round the room as if he feared eavesdroppers. He even got up and went to see if the door was really shut. "That's very curious," he said thoughtfully. "Very curious indeed. But no, I'm not thinking you absurd, Mrs. Crofton. The child's a very peculiar child. Have you ever heard of thought transference?"

She looked at him, astonished. "No," she answered, rather bewildered, "I haven't an idea what you mean by that."

"Well, you've heard of hypnotism?"

"Oh, yes, but I've never believed in it!"

To that remark he made no answer, and he went on, more as if speaking to himself than to her:—"We needn't consider what the village people say. Timmy just tries to frighten them—like all boys he's fond of his practical joke, and of course it's a temptation to him to work on their fears. But the little lad certainly presents a curious natural phenomenon, if I may so express myself."

She looked at him puzzled. She had no idea what he meant.

"If that child wasn't the child of sensible people, he'd have become famous—he'd be what silly people call a medium."

"Would he?" she said. "Do you mean that he can turn tables and do that sort of thing?"

The doctor shook his head. "What I mean is that in some way as yet unexplained by science, he can create simulacra of what people are thinking about, or of what may simply be hidden far away in the recesses of their memory. In a sort of way Timmy Tosswill can make things seem to appear which, as a matter of fact, are not there. But how he does it? Well, I can't tell you that."

Enid Crofton stared at Dr. O'Farrell. It was as if he were speaking to her in a foreign language, and yet his words made her feel vaguely apprehensive. Surely Timmy could not divine the hidden thoughts of the people about him? She grew hot with dismay at the idea.

The doctor bent forward, and looked at her keenly: "I should like to ask you another question, Mrs. Crofton. Have you in your past life ever had some very painful association with a dog—I mean any very peculiar experience with a terrier?"

The colour receded from her face. She was so surprised that she hardly knew what to answer.

"I don't think so. My first experience of a really disagreeable kind was when that boy's terrier flew at me. It's true that I've always had a peculiar dislike to dogs—at least for a long time," she corrected herself hastily. She added after a moment's pause, "I expect you know that Colonel Crofton bred dogs?"

"Aye, and that very dog, Flick, was bred by your husband—isn't that so?"

"I believe he was."

She was wondering anxiously why he asked her this question, and her mind all at once flew off to Piper and Mrs. Piper, and she felt sick with fear.

"I ask you these questions," said the doctor very deliberately, "because, according to Mrs. Tosswill, Timmy thinks, or says he thinks, that you are always accompanied by—well, how can I put it?—by a phantom dog."

"A phantom dog?"

She stared at him with her large dark eyes, and then, all at once, she remembered Dandy, her husband's terrier, who, after his master's tragic death, had refused all food, and had howled so long and so dismally that, in a fit of temper, she had herself ordered him to be destroyed.

She lay back on her pretty, frilled pillow, and covered her face with the hand belonging to the arm that was uninjured.

"Oh," she gasped out, "I see now. What a horrible idea!"

"Then you have no painful associations with any one particular terrier apart from Flick?" persisted Dr. O'Farrell.

He really wanted to know. According to his theory, Timmy's subconscious self could in some utterly inexplicable way build up an image of what was in the minds of those about him.

"Perhaps I have," she confessed in a very low voice. "My husband had a favourite terrier called Dandy, Flick's father in fact. The poor brute got into such a state after his master's death that he had to be sent to one of those lethal chambers in London. The whole thing was a great trouble, and a great pain to me."

Dr. O'Farrell felt a thrill of exultation run through him. To find his theory thus miraculously confirmed was very gratifying.

"That's most interesting!" he exclaimed, "for Timmy, even the very first time he saw you walking down the avenue towards the front door of Old Place, thought you were followed by a dog uncommonly like his terrier, Flick. His theory seemed to be that both Flick and the cat did not fly at you, but at your invisible companion."

"My invisible companion?"

He saw the colour again receding from her face. "Don't for a moment believe I think there is any phantom dog there," he said soothingly. "All I believe—and what you have told me confirmed my theory—is that Timmy Tosswill can not only see what's in your subconscious mind, but that he can build up a kind of image of it and produce what is called, I believe, in the East, collective hypnotism. I should never be surprised, for instance, if someone else thought they saw you with a dog—that is as long as that boy was present. It's a most interesting and curious case."

"It's a very horrible case," said Enid faintly.

She felt as if she were moving in a terrible nightmare world, unsuspected, unrealised by her till then.

"All abnormality is unpleasant," said the doctor cheerfully, "I always thought the boy would grow out of it, and, to a certain extent, he has grown out of it. You'll hardly believe me, Mrs. Crofton, when I tell you that, as a little child, Timmy actually declared he could see fairies and gnomes, 'the little people' as we call them in my country! I think that's what first started this queer reputation of his among the village folk. I tell you he's anything but a welcome guest in the cottages—people with evil consciences, you know!" The doctor laughed. "They're afraid of Master Timmy, that's what the bad folks in Beechfield are—they think he can 'blight' them, bring ill-luck on them. Well, well, I mustn't stop, gossiping here with you, though it's very pleasant. By the way, I'll ask you to keep all I've said to you to yourself—not but what the boy's parents know quite well what I think about him!"

Then followed a few professional questions and answers, and then the doctor went off, well satisfied with his visit.

After Dr. O'Farrell had gone, Enid Crofton lay back and shut her eyes. Her nerves had by no means recovered from the horrible experience, and she felt a sort of utter distaste to Beechfield and to everybody there—with the one exception of Godfrey Radmore. She promised herself fiercely that if Radmore did what she was always telling herself secretly he would surely end by doing, then she would make it her business to see that they never, either of them, came back to this horrible place any more.

Apart from anything else, Jack Tosswill was already beginning to be more of a complication than was pleasant to one in her weak, excited state. He had left a letter when he called that morning—an eager, ardent love-letter, entirely assuming that they were engaged to be married.

She took it out of the pretty fancy bag, which lay on her pale blue silk eiderdown, and read it through again with a mixture of amusement and irritation. It was a long letter, written on the cheap, grey Old Place notepaper, very unlike another love-letter she had had to-day, written on nice, thick, highly-glazed letter-paper which had a small coronet embossed above the address. In that letter Captain Tremaine urgently asked to be allowed to come down for the next week-end. He pointed out that his leave was drawing to a close, and that they had a lot of things to discuss. He, too, considered himself engaged to her, but somehow she didn't mind that. She told herself pettishly that Providence has a way of managing things very badly. If only Tremaine had Radmore's money, even only a portion of his money, how gladly she would leave England behind her, and start a new, free, delightful life in India! Tremaine knew the kind of grand, smart people she longed to know. He was staying with some of them now.

Just as this thought was drifting through her mind, the door opened and she hurriedly stuffed Jack's letter beneath her silk quilt. Radmore walked in, and his face softened as he looked down on the pale, fragile-looking girl—for she did look very much like a girl—lying on the sofa.

"I've brought you a lot of messages from Old Place," he began. "They really are most awfully miserable about you!"

"I'm glad the cat hasn't been killed after all," she said weakly.

She had at last seen the look of recoil on Dr. O'Farrell's face, and she was now trimming her sails accordingly.

"That's very magnanimous of you." Radmore smiled. He was surprised, and a little touched, too. "May I sit down?"

He drew up a chair, and then he touched the hand belonging to the bandaged arm. "I do hope you are fairly free from pain?" he said solicitously.

"It does hurt a good deal."

There was a pause; his hand was still lying protectingly over her hand.

She lay quite still—a vision of lovely Paris frocks, a Rolls-Royce running smoothly by a deep blue sea, a long rope of pearls, flashed before her inner consciousness. Then she was awakened from this dream of bliss by Radmore's next words:—"My godson's going to write you a letter of apology," he said.

And then, to her chagrin, he took his hand away; it was as though Timmy's malign influence had fallen between them. His very tone changed; it was no longer tender, solicitous—only kindly.

"Mr. Radmore, I want to tell you something. I'm horribly afraid of Timmy!"

There was an accent of absolute sincerity in her low voice. She went on:—"Dr. O'Farrell has been talking to me about him. He seems a most strange, unnatural child. The village people believe that he has supernatural powers. Do you believe that?"

"I don't quite know what I think about Timmy," he answered hesitatingly. He felt acutely uncomfortable, also rather shocked that Dr. O'Farrell had said anything about a child who might, after all, be regarded as his patient. But Enid Crofton was looking at him very intently, and so he went on:—

"I've never spoken to any of them about it, but, yes, if you ask me for my honest opinion, I do think the child has very peculiar powers."

And then, all at once, Enid Crofton burst into tears. "Timmy terrifies me," she sobbed. "I wish he never came near me! He hates me—I feel it all the time. I'm sure he made that cat fly at me!"

Radmore remained silent—he didn't know what to say, what to admit. He wondered uncomfortably how she had come so near the truth.

"Come, come," he said, bending forward, "you mustn't feel like that. I don't think the child hates you, but I do think that he loves trying experiments with that queer power of his. I'm afraid he wanted to see whether the cat would behave as the dog had done."

"That's what I mean," she exclaimed, dabbing her eyes, "that's exactly what I mean! I don't want to hurt his feelings, or to make a fuss, but I should be so grateful if you could manage to prevent his coming here. I don't want to make you vain," she smiled, very winningly, "but sometimes I do feel that 'two's company.' Since I've been here I've hardly ever seen you alone. I used to enjoy our talks in London! I feel, I know that you're the only friend I've got in Beechfield."

"That's rather hard on Jack Tosswill," and though he smiled, he looked at her significantly.

Enid was so surprised that for a moment her composure gave way, and the colour rushed into her pale face. Then she pulled herself together. "It really hasn't been my fault," she said plaintively.

"I'm sure it hasn't. But in a village one has to be careful. Would it surprise you to hear that as I came along this morning, one of the inhabitants of Beechfield spoke to me of you and Jack, and suggested—forgive me for saying so—not only that the boy was very much in love with you but that you—well—encouraged him!"

Enid Crofton sat up. "I've always heard that villages were far more wicked places than towns, and now I know it's true!"

"Steady on," he said smiling, "forgive me for having repeated a silly bit of gossip. But, after all, what you said just now is quite true—I am your oldest friend by a long way, and so I feel I ought to give you a word of warning. I do think the poor boy is very fond of you, eh?"

Enid Crofton put out her hand and took his in hers. She squeezed it convulsively. "I feel so miserable," she sobbed, "so miserable and lonely!"

"Do you, dear—" And then they both started violently, and Radmore moved his chair away with a quick movement, for the door behind them had swung open, and Jack Tosswill, quite unaware of the other man's presence, came through it, and at once began speaking eagerly, excitedly, in a voice so unlike his usual "home" voice that Radmore hardly recognised it:—

"I'm so glad you're downstairs. I came this morning I hope you got my—" and then he saw the other man, and checked himself abruptly.

He had given the beloved woman he regarded as his future wife, his most solemn word of honour that no one should suspect that they were more than mere acquaintances. So, after a perceptible pause, he concluded, lamely, "my step-mother's message."

"Yes, I did; thank you very much."

He saw that she had been crying, and his heart welled up with tenderness, and with angry, impatient annoyance against Radmore's presence.

Why didn't the stupid fellow go? Surely he must realise, surely there must be something in the atmosphere, which must tell even the blindest of onlookers, how things were between him, Jack Tosswill, and the invalid?

But Radmore was quite impervious to the atmosphere of emotion and strain—or so it seemed. On and on he sat, Enid Crofton languidly making conversation with them both in turn, until at last Rosamund came in, and both men rose to leave together.

And then something curious happened. Radmore, even while conscious that he was a fool, felt a violent desire to see Enid Crofton again and very soon, alone. He was trying to make up a form of words to convey this to her before the other two, when good fortune seemed to favour him, for brother and sister began—as they were wont to do—wrangling together.

Seeing his opportunity he bent down a little over Mrs. Crofton's couch in order to suggest to her that he should come again to-morrow. And then, in a flash, the whole expression of his face altered and stiffened. Half under the lace coverlet over the eiderdown a letter written on familiar looking pale grey notepaper was sticking out, and he couldn't help seeing the words:—"My own darling angel."

Straightening himself quickly and hardly knowing what he was saying, he exclaimed, "I do hope you'll soon feel all right again."

And then he saw that she was aware of what had happened for she became even whiter than she had been before. Every bit of colour fled from her face—except for the unnaturally pink lips.



CHAPTER XXIII

As he walked away from The Trellis House Radmore felt terribly disturbed, and maddened with himself for feeling so disturbed.

After all, Enid Crofton meant very little to him! He even told himself that he had never really liked, still less respected, her and yet there had been something that drove him on, that allured him, that made him feel as he had felt to-night. But for the accident of his having seen that letter from poor foolish Jack Tosswill he might, by this time to-morrow, have been in the position of Enid Crofton's future husband! The knowledge turned him sick.

Just now he felt that he never wished to see her again.

As he walked on, leaving the village behind him, and emerging on the great common which stretched between Beechfield and the nearest railway station—he asked himself whether or no it was possible that she had genuinely fallen in love with Jack Tosswill?

And then he stayed his steps suddenly. He had remembered the look of terror, the look of being "found out," which had crossed her face, when she had realised that he had seen that fatally revealing corner of her love-letter.

Why had she looked like that? And then, all at once, he knew. It was for him that Enid Crofton had come to Beechfield, for him, or rather for his money. He felt hideously disturbed as certain tiny past happenings crowded on his memory. He felt he would give half his possessions were it possible thereby to transplant The Trellis House hundreds of miles from Beechfield.

He threw a rueful thought to Jack Tosswill. Miss Pendarth had been right, after all. That sort of experience might well embitter the whole of the early life of such a priggish, self-centred youth; and while he was chewing the cud of these painful, troubling thoughts there came a woman's voice out of the darkness.

"Does this lead on into Beechfield, sir? I want to find The Trellis House. I've been there once before, but it was broad daylight then."

Radmore peered at the speaker: a thin, medium-sized woman she seemed to be; obviously not one of the country folk—by her accent a Londoner.

"Go straight on, and in about a quarter of an hour, you'll find The Trellis House on your right. But you'd better enquire as soon as you get into the village itself. Is it Mrs. Crofton's house that you want to find?"

"Yes, that's the place I'm bound for," said the woman.

"Look here," said Radmore good-naturedly. "I was only going for a walk. I'll take you along to The Trellis House. You might easily miss it."

He turned, and they began walking along the road side by side.

"I suppose Mrs. Crofton 'asn't gone away yet, I'm sure to find 'er there, sir?" There was a doubting, almost a resentful, tone in the mincing voice.

"I think she's at home. Isn't she expecting you?" Radmore had taken the woman for a superior servant.

"She's not expecting me exactly, but me and my 'usband have been 'oping for a letter from Mrs. Crofton. As nothing's come, I thought I'd just come down and see 'er. My 'usband asked 'er to get the address of a gentleman who 'e thinks might 'elp 'im—Major Radmore. I don't suppose as what you've ever 'eard of 'im, sir?"

Radmore said quietly, "I know Major Radmore rather well. May I ask your name?"

She hesitated, then answered:—"Mrs. Piper, sir. My 'usband was Colonel Crofton's dog-breeding assistant, and 'e's about to start for 'imself in the same line, if 'e can get the money that's been promised 'im. If 'e can't get that money—well, 'e'll have to go into service again, and 'e thought that Major Radmore, who's a kind, generous gentleman, might 'elp 'im to a job."

Radmore felt amused, interested, and, yes, a little touched. Evidently his distaste for Piper had not been reciprocal.

"I suppose to start dog-breeding requires a good bit of money," he said.

"Well, sir, it's this way. Fancy dogs fetch a good bit more money than they did. Such a lot o' breeding stopped during the War. But what with one thing and another, and prices 'aving gone up so, Piper says 'twould be no good going in for such a thing under a matter of L500. But we've got good hopes of getting the money," said the woman composedly.

"Have you indeed?"

Then he felt rather ashamed of the little game he was playing with this no doubt excellent woman.

"Look here, Mrs. Piper," he exclaimed, "perhaps I ought to tell you frankly that my name is Radmore. I no longer call myself 'Major Radmore.' My address for the present is Old Place, Beechfield. But Beechfield alone would find me, and I hope your husband will let me know if I can do anything for him."

"There now! Could one ever hope for such a thing coming to pass as my meeting you, sir, accidental like?"

Mrs. Piper was genuinely moved and excited. She felt that Providence, in whom she only believed when she was in trouble, had done her a good turn. For a moment or two she remained silent, thinking intently, wondering whether she dared take advantage of this extraordinary chance—a chance that might never occur again.

"I take it, sir," she said at last, "that you are a friend of Mrs. Crofton's?"

"Of course I am well acquainted with the lady you name." There came a tone of reserve, instantly detected by the woman's quick ear and quicker mind, into the speaker's voice. "And I had a great regard for your husband's late employer, Colonel Crofton," he added.

"Aye, 'e was a good gentleman and no mistake," said Mrs. Piper feelingly.

She was wondering how far she dare go. She knew the man walking by her side was very rich; Piper had called him a millionaire.

"I 'ope you won't think me troublesome, sir, if I tells you 'ow matters are between Mrs. Crofton and my 'usband?"

There came no immediate answer to her question. Still she decided to go on.

"Piper was with the Colonel a long time, sir. And after the poor gentleman's death Mrs. Crofton promised Piper that she'd oblige 'im in the matter of financing 'is new business."

Radmore was very much surprised. He felt certain that Enid Crofton had no money to spare, then he told himself that women are sometimes very foolish, especially if any matter of sentiment is in question. But somehow he would not have thought that particular woman would ever be tempted to show herself impulsively generous.

"You spoke just now, Mrs. Piper, as if there was some doubt about the money?"

"Did I, sir? Well, one can never tell in this world. But I think Mrs. Crofton will find the money." She added, almost in a whisper, "It's to 'er interest to do so, sir."

"To her interest?" repeated Radmore. "What exactly do you mean?"

"I don't quite understand it myself, sir." Mrs. Piper spoke with a touch of light indifference in her voice, "Piper don't tell me very much. I was in Islington, conducting a little business I've got, when Colonel Crofton came by 'is sad death. Mrs. Crofton spoke to Piper most feelingly, sir, about the service 'e'd done her by what 'e said at the inquest. I've always 'ad my belief, sir, that Piper might 'ave said something more and different that would have been, maybe, awkward for Mrs. Crofton." She waited a moment, realising that she had burnt her boats. "Do you take my meaning, sir?"

"No," said Radmore sternly, "I don't take your meaning at all, Mrs. Piper. I don't in the least understand what you meant to imply just now."

A most disturbing suspicion had begun to assail him. Was this woman, with her low, mincing voice, and carefully chosen words, something of a blackmailer?

They walked on in silence for a few minutes, and on her side, Mrs. Piper began to doubt very much whether she had acted for the best in being so honest—"honest" was the word she used to herself. But she told herself that now she had started, perhaps she had better go straight on with it.

"It's my belief that Piper did ask Mrs. Crofton to speak to you, sir, about the matter, and I thought, maybe, that she 'ad done so. 'Ave I your permission to say, sir, that I met you in the road, and that the subject cropped up as it were?"

"You can say anything you like," said Radmore coldly.

He could not ask this strange, sinister woman to remain silent, yet the thought that Enid Crofton was about to be told that he and this Mrs. Piper had discussed her affairs was very disagreeable to him.

Radmore was tempted for a moment to do a quixotic act, to say to the woman, "I will find this money for your husband; don't trouble Mrs. Crofton," and but for what had happened not an hour ago he would almost certainly have done so. But now he felt as if he never wanted to hear Enid Crofton's name mentioned again, and he would have given a good deal to obliterate her and her concerns entirely from his memory.

They were now, much to his relief, close to The Trellis House: "I will ring the bell for you," he said courteously, and then, without waiting for her thanks, he hurried off towards Old Place.

* * * * *

The next evening Jack Tosswill drew Radmore aside. "Look here," he said awkwardly, "I wonder if you'd kindly wait a bit after the others have gone to bed? I want to ask you something, Godfrey."

"Of course I will, old chap." Radmore looked hard into the young man's moody, troubled face, and came to a certain conclusion. Doubtless Enid Crofton had given Jack his dismissal, and the foolish fellow was going to pour it all out. He felt he was in for a disagreeable, not to say painful, half hour. Few people of a kindly disposition even reach the age Radmore had reached without having had more than one such talk with a young man crossed in love.

As soon as they settled themselves down, each with his pipe, in front of the drawing-room fire, Jack began, speaking obviously with a great effort, and yet with a directness and honesty which the older man admired:—

"Look here, Godfrey? It's no use beating about the bush. I want to know if you can lend me L500, and I want to say at once that I don't know when I shall be able to pay you back. Still, I shall be able to pay you interest. I suppose one pays the bank rate? I don't know anything about those things. Of course, you may ask why don't I go to my father, but—"

Radmore stopped him. "It's all right, old chap. I'll give you a cheque this evening before we go to bed."

"I say—" Jack turned round. "You're a good fellow, Radmore; I wouldn't do it, only—only—"

"I know," said Radmore coolly. "I quite realise it isn't for yourself. I suppose it's to oblige a pal. You needn't tell me anything more about it. As a matter of fact I meant to ask you whether you'd take a present from me of just that sum. I don't suppose you know how I feel about you all. George and I were just like brothers. He'd have given me anything."

"No, no! I want this to be a business transaction, Godfrey." He said the words just a little fiercely.

"So it shall be—if you want it that way. I'll go and get my cheque book now."

When he came back, the cheque made out in his hand, he said thoughtfully, "I hope your friend hasn't got into the sort of scrape which means that one has to pay money of a—well, of a blackmailing sort? There's no end to that, you know."

Jack Tosswill looked surprised. "Good Heavens, no! He's only being rushed over a bill—legal proceedings threatened—you know the sort of thing?"

"I've made out the cheque to self and endorsed it," observed Radmore.

"Thanks awfully. You are a good sort. I am far more grateful than I can say, far more than—than—if it was only for myself—"

He stopped abruptly, and there was an awkward pause. Then Jack, speaking rather breathlessly, asked an odd question:—

"You knew Crofton very well, didn't you, Godfrey? What kind of a chap was he?"

He brought out the question with an effort. But he did so want to know! For the first time in his self-confident, comfortable, young life Jack Tosswill was in love and full of painful, poignant, retrospective jealousy.

Radmore looked away, instinctively. "I liked Colonel Crofton, I always got on with him—but he was not popular. He was not at all happy when I knew him, and unhappy people are rarely popular."

He was wondering whether he had better say anything to Jack—whether the favour he had just done him gave him the right to speak.

"I suppose he was at least thirty years older than Mrs. Crofton?"

Radmore nodded, and then they neither spoke for a few moments. Each was waiting for the other to say something, and at last Jack asked another question.

"They didn't get on very well together, did they?"

"When I first knew them they seemed to be all right. But he was very jealous of her, and he had cause to be, for most of the fellows out there were in love with her, and well, not to put too fine a point on it, she liked it!" He hesitated. "She was rather too fond of telling people that her husband wasn't quite kind to her."

"I think that was very natural of her!" exclaimed Jack, and Radmore felt a surge of pity for the young fellow. Still he forced himself to go on: "It's no use pretending. She was—and still is—a tremendous flirt."

Jack made a restless movement.

"I'm afraid you think me rather a cad for saying that, and I wouldn't say it to anyone but you. She was bred in a bad school—brought up, so I understood from a man who had known her as a girl, in Southsea, by a widowed mother as pretty as herself. Her first husband—"

"But—but surely Colonel Crofton was her first husband?"

"No," again Radmore avoided looking at his companion, "she's been married twice. Her first husband, a good-looking young chap in the 11th Hussars, died quite soon after the marriage, the two of them having 'blued' all they had between them. I suppose she foolishly thought there was nothing left for it but for her to marry Colonel Crofton. And the real trouble was that Colonel Crofton was poor. I fancy they'd have got on perfectly well if he had had pots of money."

"I—I don't agree to that," Jack said hotly.

"I'm afraid it's true. But we really oughtn't to discuss a woman, even as we are doing now. The only excuse is that we're both so fond of her," said Radmore lightly.

But even as he spoke he felt heavy-hearted. Jack Tosswill had got it very badly, far worse than he had suspected, and somehow he didn't believe that the medicine he had just administered had done the young man any good.



CHAPTER XXIV

Two days went by, and now Saturday had come round again.

In a sense nothing had happened during those two days, and to some of the inmates of Old Place the week had seemed extremely long and dull.

Mrs. Crofton had suddenly gone up to town for two nights, and both Jack and Rosamund, in their very different ways, felt depressed and lonely in consequence. But she was coming back to-day, and Rosamund was going to meet her at the station with the Old Place pony cart.

At breakfast Rosamund suggested that perhaps Godfrey might like to motor her there instead, but to her vexation he didn't "rise" at all. He simply observed, rather shortly, that he was going on a rather long business expedition: and Rosamund retorted, pertly, "Business on a Saturday? How strange!" to receive the dry reply: "Yes, it does seem strange, doesn't it?"

Half an hour later Betty and Timmy were busily engaged in washing up the breakfast things when Godfrey Radmore strolled into the scullery.

"I thought that I was always to be in on this act?" he exclaimed. And it was true that he had fallen into the way of helping to wash up, turning what had always been a very boresome task into what Timmy to himself called "great fun" for while Radmore washed and dried the plates and dishes, he told them funny things about some of his early experiences in Australia.

"We've done quite well without you. We're nearly through," said Betty merrily. Somehow she felt extraordinarily light-hearted to-day.

Her visitor—for very well she knew he was her visitor rather than Timmy's—came a little nearer, and shut the scullery door behind him.

"Look here," he said mysteriously, "I want just us three to take a secret expedition to-day. I think I've found my house of dreams! If you'll then both run upstairs and put on your things, we could go there and be back in quite good time for tea."

"For tea?" repeated Betty, startled. "But who would look after lunch?"

"There's plenty of delicious cold mutton in the house," said Radmore decidedly. He added with a certain touch of cunning: "I did ask your mother, Timmy, if she'd come too, but she can't leave the house this morning: she's expecting a very important telephone message—something to do with the garden. She'll see about lunch, for she's particularly anxious,"—he turned to Betty,—"that you should have a good blow this time. We shall get a little lunch while we are out, and be home by four."

"Let's take lunch with us," broke in Timmy eagerly. "We can eat it anywhere." He had always had a passion for picnics.

Betty was the last human being to make any unnecessary fuss. Also, somehow, she felt as if to-day was not quite like other days. She could not have told why. "All right. I'll cut some sandwiches, and then I'll go and get ready," she said.

Janet was in the hall when Betty came down.

"That's right," she said heartily, "I'm glad you're going to have a real outing at last!"

She took the girl in her arms and kissed her, and Betty felt touched. Her step-mother was not given to affectionate demonstration. And then, all at once, Janet looked round and said in a low voice: "Betty, I'm dreadfully worried about Jack. D'you think it's conceivably possible that there's anything serious between him and Mrs. Crofton?"

Betty hardly knew what to answer. For some days past she had felt quite sure that there was something between those two. Jack had been so odd, so unlike himself, and once he had said to her, "Betty, I do wish you'd make friends with Mrs. Crofton. After all you're my sister ..." and then they had been, perhaps fortunately, interrupted. But if there was anything between Jack and the fascinating widow, Rosamund, who was so devoted to Enid Crofton, knew nothing of it.

"I really can't say," she answered at last, "I've hardly ever felt so doubtful about anything in my life! Sometimes I think there is, and sometimes I think there isn't."

"I'm afraid there's no doubt as to what he feels. I happen to know she's just had a very good offer for The Trellis House—seven guineas a week for six months. But she seems to have settled in here for good and all, doesn't she?"

"I wonder if she really has," said Betty. And then she grew a little pink.

Deep in her heart she had felt quite convinced that Mrs. Crofton had come to Beechfield for Godfrey Radmore, and for no other reason. Now she wondered if she had been unjust.

"How I wish she'd stay away now, even for a few days longer!" exclaimed Janet.

At that moment Timmy rushed into the hall, Radmore drove up in his motor, and in a couple of minutes the three were off—Janet looking after them, a touch of wistful longing and anxiety in her kind heart.

She had hoped somehow, that Godfrey would persuade Betty to go alone with him to-day, and she was wondering now whether she could have said a word to Timmy. Her child was so unlike other little boys. If selfish, he was very understanding where the few people he cared for were concerned, and his mother had never known him to give her away.

But the harm, if harm there was, was done now, and for some things she was not sorry to get rid of Timmy for some hours. There had arisen between the boy and his eldest half-brother a disagreeable state of tension. Timmy seemed to take pleasure in teasing Jack, and Jack was not in the humour to bear even the smallest practical joke just now.

* * * * *

On and on sped the party in the motor, Timmy sitting by his godfather in front, Betty, in lonely state, behind.

They hadn't gone very far before the countryside began to have all the charm of strangeness to Betty Tosswill, and she found herself enjoying the change of scene as only a person who has been cooped up in one familiar place for a considerable time can enjoy it.

"Why, we must be on the borders of Sussex!" she called out, at a point where Radmore, slowing down, was consulting a sign-post. He turned round and nodded.

They started again. And then something rather absurd happened. Betty's hat blew off! It was an ordinary, rather floppy hat, and she had tied it on, as she thought, securely with a veil under her chin.

Both Timmy and Radmore jumped out to pick the hat up, and as they came back towards the car, Timmy exclaimed: "It's a shame that Betty hasn't got a proper motor bonnet! Rosamund's got a lovely one."

"Why hasn't Betty got one?"

"Because they're so expensive," said Timmy simply. He went on, "When I've got lots of money, I shall give Betty heaps of beautiful clothes; but only one very plain dress apiece to Rosamund and Dolly."

"Betty! You ought to have a motor bonnet," called out Radmore as he came up to the car.

Her fair hair, blowing in the wind, formed an aureole round her face. She looked very, very different to the staid Betty of Old Place.

She answered merrily: "So I will when my ship comes home! I had one before the War, and I stupidly gave it away."

"Surely we might get one somewhere to-day," suggested Radmore.

"Get one to-day—what an extraordinary idea? Motor bonnets don't grow on hedges—"

But when they were going through—was it Horsham?—Radmore, alone of the three, espied a funny little shop. It was called "The Bandbox": its woodwork was painted bright green, and in the window were three hats.

"Now then," he exclaimed, slowing down, "this, I take it, is where motor bonnets grow. At any rate we'll get down and see."

"What a lark!" cried Timmy delightedly. "Please, please Betty, don't make yourself disagreeable—don't be a 'govvey'!"

And Betty, not wishing to be a "govvey," got out of the car.

"But I've no money with me," she began.

"I wouldn't let you pay for what's going to be a present," said Radmore shortly. "You're the only inhabitant of Old Place to whom I haven't given a present since I've been home."

Home? It gave Betty such pleasure to hear him call it that.

They all three marched into the tiny shop where the owner of "The Bandbox," described by Timmy to his mother, later, as a "rather spidery-looking, real lady," sat sewing.

She received them with a mixture of condescension and pleasure at the thought of a new customer, which diverted Radmore, who was new to the phenomenon of the lady shopkeeper. But when it came to business, she took a very great deal of trouble, bringing out what seemed, at the time, the whole of her considerable stock, for "The Bandbox" was cleverly lined with deep, dust-proof cupboards.

At last she produced a quaint-looking little blue and purple bonnet, with an exquisitely soft long motor veil of grey chiffon.

"My sister is at Monte Carlo," she observed, "and when she was passing through Paris she got me a dozen early autumn models. I have already copied this model in other colours, but this is the original motor bonnet. May I advise that you try it on?"

It was in its way a delightful bit of colour, and Betty hardly knew herself when she looked in the glass and saw what a very pretty reflection was presented there. She was startled—but oh, how pleasantly startled—to see how young she still could look.

"Of course you must have that one," said Radmore, in a matter of fact tone, "and leave the horrid thing you wore coming here behind you." Then he turned to Timmy:—"Now then, don't you think you could choose something for your mother?"

The lady of the shop turned patronisingly towards the little boy. She went across to a corner cupboard and opened what appeared to be a rather secret receptacle. Though she had not been in business long, she already realised what an advantage it is to deal, as regards feminine fripperies, with a man-customer. Also, Radmore, almost in spite of himself, looked opulent.

"I think I have the very thing!" she explained. "It's a little on the fantastic side, and so only suits a certain type of face."

As she spoke she brought out a miniature brown poke bonnet which was wreathed with one uncurled ostrich feather of a peculiar powder blue tint. She put it deftly on Betty's head, then stepped back and gazed delightedly into the smiling face and dancing eyes of her new client.

"I have kept this back," she began, "hoping I should come across a bride-elect whom it might really suit, for it would make a perfect 'going-away' hat! But it is so extraordinarily becoming to this lady, that I feel I ought to let her have it!"

She turned appealingly to Radmore, but Timmy intervened:—"That's not my mother!" he cried, going off into fits of laughter. "We want a hat for my mother. That's only my sister!"

The shop-lady looked vexed, and Radmore felt awkward. He realised that he and Betty had been taken for husband and wife, Timmy for their spoilt little boy.

"I'm quite sure I could find something that would suit Janet," exclaimed Betty, hastily taking off the delightful bit of headgear.

She put on the motor bonnet again, and then she went over to where a black garden hat, with just one rose on the brim, and with long blue velvet strings, was lying on a table.

"I think Timmy's mother would look very nice in this," she said smiling.

The black hat was slipped into a big paper-bag, and handed to Timmy. Then Radmore exclaimed: "Now then, we've no time to lose! Help your sister into the car, Timmy, while I stop behind and pay the bill."

The bill did not take a minute to make out, and Radmore was rather surprised to find that the three hats—for he bought three—cost him not far short of fifteen pounds between them, though the lady observed pleasantly, "Of course I can afford to sell my hats at a much less price than London people charge."

To Betty's eyes, Godfrey looked rather funny when he came out of the gay little painted door with a flower-covered bandbox slung over his right arm.

She had thought it just a little mean that the shop-woman should give Timmy Janet's hat in a paper-bag. Though Betty would have been horrified indeed at the prices paid by Radmore, she yet suspected that "The Bandbox" lady asked quite enough for her pretty wares to be able to throw in a cardboard box, so "Is that for Janet's hat?" she called out.

"This," he said, looking up at her, "is that queer-looking brown thing with the blue feather that suited you so well. Of course I meant you to have it too."

Betty felt at once disturbed, and yet, absurdly pleased. "I'm afraid it was very expensive," she began. And then suddenly Radmore told himself that after all the poke bonnet had been cheap indeed if the thought of it could bring such a sparkle into Betty's eyes, and such a vivid while delicate colour to her cheeks.

There came a day, as a matter of fact the day when Betty wore that quaint-looking bonnet for the first time, when she did venture to ask Godfrey what it had cost. He refused to tell her, simply saying that whatever he had paid he had had the best of the bargain as it had been worth its weight in gold. Even so it is very unlikely that she will ever know what that queer little bonnet, which she intends to keep as long as she lives, really meant to Godfrey Radmore—how it had suddenly made him feel that here was the young Betty of nine years ago come back, never to disappear into the mists of time again.

Something else happened in the High Street of that little Sussex town. Radmore decided that it was Timmy's turn to sit behind, and the boy gave in with a fairly good grace; though after they had left the houses behind them and were again moving swiftly between brown hedges, he called out patronisingly:—"The back of your head looks very nice now, Betty—quite different to what it looked in that horrid old hat you left in the shop."

At last the car slowed down in front of a gate, on one side of which was a big board. On this board was painted a statement to the effect that the historic estate of Doryford House was to be let or sold, furnished or unfurnished, "Apply to the principal London agents."

The finding of the place had not been quite easy, and Radmore drew a breath of relief as he helped Betty down.

"When Timmy and I were last here," he said hurriedly, "there was a child very ill at the lodge. So I think I'd better go and just find how things are."

He was hoping with all his heart that the news he would see on the mother's face would be good news. Somehow he felt that it would be of happy augury for himself.

As he rang the bell his heart was beating—a feeling of acute suspense had suddenly come over him, of which he was secretly ashamed, for it was almost entirely a selfish distress. And then, when the door opened, he saw that all was well, for the young woman's worn face was radiant.

"Is that you, sir? Oh, I did hope that you would come again!" she exclaimed, "The doctor says that my little girl's certain to get well. I was terrible anxious the day before yesterday, but now though she's weak and wan, you'd hardly know she'd been bad, sir."

"I wonder if you could give me the keys of Doryford House?" began Radmore. "I want to go over it, and we need not trouble you to come with us."

"I'm supposed always to go up with visitors," she said hesitatingly, "even if I leaves them there," but she looked troubled at the thought of leaving her child. Then, all at once, Radmore had a happy inspiration.

"Would you feel easier if we left the little boy we've brought with us in charge? He's very intelligent. He might sit in your kitchen."

She looked across to where Betty Tosswill and Timmy were standing. "Why, yes!" she exclaimed, relieved. "If the young gentleman don't mind, perhaps he would sit with Rosie. 'Tain't nothing infectious, you know, sir, and it would please her like to have a visitor. She's got a book in which there's a picture of a little sick girl and someone coming to see her. She said to me yesterday, 'No one comes to see me, mother, 'cepting doctor.'"

Radmore went off to the other two.

"The woman evidently feels that she ought to come up herself to the house. But she's nervous about leaving her little girl. I was wondering whether Timmy would mind staying and amusing the child? We might have our picnic in the house itself, if it's in any way possible."

"What sort of a little girl is she?" began Timmy, but his godfather cut him short.

"Never mind what sort of a little girl she is—she's longing for a visitor, and you will be the first one to see her since she's been ill."

He turned to Betty. "Perhaps you'd like to go in and see what sort of a place it is? Meanwhile I'll open the gate and get the car through."

Betty and Timmy followed the woman through the kitchen of the lodge to a bedroom, where lay a pale-faced little girl of six. On the patchwork counterpane were a pair of scissors and a big sheet of paper. It was evident that the child had been trying to amuse herself by cutting out patterns. As the visitors came in, she sat up, and her little face flushed with joy. Here was her dream come true! Here were some visitors—a beautiful lady in a peculiarly lovely blue bonnet, and a pleasant-looking young gentleman too!

Timmy, who was quite unshy, went up to her bedside. "Good-morning," he said in a polite, old-fashioned way. "I'm sorry you're ill, and I hope you'll soon be quite well. I've come to look after you while your mother goes up to the house with my godfather and my sister. If you like, I'll cut you some beautiful fairy figures out of that paper, and then we can pretend they're dancing."

He looked round and espied a chair, which he brought up close to the bed.

Rosie was far too excited and shy to speak.

"What's your name?" he began. "Mine is Timothy Godfrey Radmore Tosswill."

The little girl whispered "Rosamund."

"I've got a sister called Rosamund; now, isn't that curious?" cried Timmy.

He had already seized the scissors, and was engaged in cutting out some quaint, fantastic looking little figures.

After the others had left the room, Rosamund's mother turned to Betty. "I never saw such a nice, kind, young gentleman!" she exclaimed. "He fair took my breath away—a regular little doctor he'd make."

* * * * *

Houses are like people—they have their day, their hour, even, one feels inclined to add, their moods of sadness and of joy, of brightness and of dulness.

To-day the white Corinthian-looking building called Doryford House was at its best, in the soft lambent light of an autumn day. For a moment, when the long, pillared building first came into view, Radmore had felt a thrill of unreasonable disappointment. He had hoped, somehow, for a red-brick manor-house—a kind of glorified Old Place. But a few minutes later, when the mahogany front doors had been unlocked, and they passed into a light, circular hall and so into a delightful-looking sunny drawing-room filled with enchanting examples of 18th century furniture, he began to think that this was, after all, a very attractive house.

"In what wonderful order everything seems to be!" he exclaimed. "Have the people to whom the place belongs only just left it?"

"It's this way, sir. The gentleman to whom it belongs has several other homes—he don't care for this place at all. But it's all kep' up proper—one of the gardeners sees to the furnace—and about all this here furniture, anybody who takes the house unfurnished, or buys the place, will be able to keep what they likes at a valuation. Perhaps you and your lady would like to go over the house by yourselves? People often do, I notice. If you'll excuse me, I'll just nip away. I wants to go to the village for a few minutes—that is if your little boy will be so kind as to stay with my Rosie till I'm back."

"I'm sure he will," said Radmore heartily. He told himself that it was very natural that everyone should think that he and Betty were married.

The front door shut behind the caretaker, and the two left behind began going through the ground floor of the great empty house. Their progress gave Betty an eerie feeling. She felt as if she was in a kind of dream; the more so that this was quite unlike any country house into which she had ever been.

They finally came to the last living-room of all, and both exclaimed together: "This is the room I like best of all!"

It was an octagon library, lined with mahogany bookcases filled with bound books which looked as though they hadn't been disturbed for fifty years. The wide, fan-shaped window looked out on a formal rose garden.

And then, all at once, Radmore's quick eye detected a concealed door in the wall, on which there were encrusted the sham book titles often to be found on the doors of an old country home library. Quickly he went across and, opening it, found it gave straight on to a corkscrew staircase.

Filled with a queer sense of adventure, he motioned Betty to go up first, in front of him.

The staircase led up to a tiny lobby, into which opened a most beautiful bedchamber, a replica as to shape and size of the library beneath.

The furniture there interested Betty, for she had never seen anything like it, except once in a chateau near Arras. It was First Empire, and on the pin-cushion, lying on the ornate dressing-table, someone had written in a fine Italian hand on an envelope, the words: "This room was furnished from Paris in 1810. The bed is a replica of a bed made for the Empress Josephine."

They went on through many of the rooms on the upper floor, full to-day of still, sunny late autumn charm.

Radmore scarcely spoke at all during their curious progress through the empty house, and Betty still felt as if in a dream. She had asked herself again and again if he could really be thinking of buying this stately mansion.

The mere possibility of such a thing meant that he must be thinking of marrying Mrs. Crofton, and also that he must be much richer than any of them knew.

At last they came down a wide staircase which terminated in a corridor leading into the circular hall, and then it was Betty who broke what was becoming an oppressive silence:

"Shall we go on and see the kitchen and the servants' quarters, Godfrey?"

"No; they're sure to be all right."

Again came what seemed to Betty a long, unnatural silence.

"Do you really like the house?" he asked at last.

"I like it very much," she said frankly. "But wouldn't it cost a tremendous lot of money, Godfrey? It would be a pity not to buy it exactly as it stands. It all seems so—so—"

"I know! As if the furniture had grown there," he broke in.

"So beautiful and so—so unusual," Betty went on diffidently.

"I'm afraid I'm a commonplace person, Betty. I like a room to be beautiful, but I like comfort, and I think this is a very comfortable house. I feel, somehow, as if happy, good people had lived here. I like that, too."

He was standing by one of the round pillars which carried out the type of architecture which had been the fashion at the time Doryford was built; and he was gazing at her with what seemed to her a rather odd expression on his dark face. Was he going to tell her of his hopes or intention with regard to Mrs. Crofton?

Betty felt, for the first time that day, intensely shy. She walked away, towards the big half-moon window opposite the front door. A wide grass gallop, bordered with splendid old trees, stretched out as if illimitable, and she began gazing down it with unseeing eyes.

He came quickly across the hall, and stood by her. Then he said slowly, "I'm wondering, wondering, wondering if I shall ever be in this house again!"

"You must think it well over," she began.

But he cut her short. "It depends on you whether Doryford becomes my home or not."

"On me?" she repeated, troubled. "Don't trust to my taste as much as that, Godfrey."

"But you do like it?" he asked insistently.

"Of course I like it. If it comes to that, I don't know that I've ever been in so beautiful and perfect a house. And then, well perhaps because we've everything so shabby at Old Place, I do like to see everything in such apple-pie order!"

A little disappointed, he went on, "I fear it isn't your ideal house, Betty? Not your house of dreams?"

And then, all at once, she knew that she couldn't answer him, for tears had welled up in her eyes, and choked her speech.

Her house of dreams? Betty Tosswill's house of dreams had vanished, she thought, for ever, so very long ago. Betty's house of dreams had been quite a small house—but such a cosy, happy place, full of the Godfrey of long ago, and of good, delicious dream children....

She turned her head away.

"Well," he exclaimed, "that's that! We won't think about this house again. We'll go and look at another place to-morrow."

His matter-of-fact, rather cross, tone made her pull herself together. What a baby he was after all!

"Don't be absurd, Godfrey. I don't believe if we were to look England through, that I should see a house I thought more delightful than this house. I'm a little overawed by it, that's all! You see I've never dwelt in marble halls—"

"Oh, one gets used to that!"

"Yes, I expect one does."

"Whether I buy this place depends on you," he said obstinately.

"Well, then, if I'm to decide, I say buy it!" She turned and smiled at him a little tremulously, keeping her head well down—her face shadowed by the deep brim of her motor-bonnet.

More and more was this like a scene out of a dream to Betty Tosswill. In a way, it was, of course, natural that she and Godfrey should be alone, and that he should turn to her as his closest friend. And yet it seemed strange and unnatural, too. But Betty had a very generous nature—and to this man, who was looking at her with such an eager, searching look, she felt in a peculiar relation. So she repeated, with greater ease and lightness, "Let's settle, here and now, that this is to be the future residence of Godfrey Radmore, Esquire! Timmy's a little bit like a cat, you know. He'll simply adore this house. He'll love all the pretty things in it. Perhaps you'd run him up in the motor presently, while I stay with the little girl and that nice woman?"

And then all at once he took a step forward and roughly took her two hands in his: "Betty," he said, "don't you understand? I shall never enter this house again unless you're willing to come and share it with me. No place would be home to me without you in it. Why, Old Place is only home now because you're there."

She looked at him with a long, searching, measuring look; a look that was, unconsciously, full of questioning; but her hands remained in his strong grasp.

"Don't you know that I've always been yours?" he asked—"that I shall always be yours even if you won't have me—even if I end by marrying another woman, as I daresay I shall do if you won't have me, for I'm a lonely chap—" And then something in her face made him add: "Try to love me again, Betty. I want you to say to yourself—'a poor thing but mine own.' Do, my dear."

And then Betty burst out crying, and found herself clasped in his arms, strained to his heart, while his lips sought and found her soft, tremulous mouth.

He was gentle with her, gentle and strangely restrained. And yet as the happy moments went by in that silent, sunny house, something deep in her still troubled heart told her that Radmore really loved her—loved her as perhaps he had not loved her ten years ago, in his hot, selfish, impulsive youth.

"We needn't tell anyone for a little while, need we?" she whispered at last.

She had shared her life, given her services to so many during the last nine years, and she longed to keep this strange new joy a secret for a while.

"If you like, we need never tell them at all," he answered. "We can just go out, find a church, and be married!"

"Oh, no; that wouldn't be fair to Janet." And yet the notion of doing this fascinated her.



CHAPTER XXV

And meanwhile what had been going on at Old Place? Outwardly very little, yet one long-expected, though when it happened, surprising, thing had occurred. Also Janet, as the day went on, felt more and more worried about Jack.

He wandered in and out of the house like an unhappy, unquiet spirit, for the sudden departure of Enid Crofton for London two days before had taken him utterly by surprise, the more so that she had left no address, and he was suspicious of—he knew not what! It was reasonable to suppose she had gone to pay the debt for which he had provided the money; but then why keep her address in town secret from him?

At last, this morning, there had come a postcard to Rosamund, asking to be met at the station, alone, with the Old Place pony-cart. It was a reasonable request, for the funny little vehicle only held two people and a minute quantity of luggage. Still Jack had felt annoyed she had not asked him to meet her. She seemed to him absurdly over-cautious.

About ten minutes before the motoring party's return, Rosamund hurried in with a casual message that Enid was very tired, and so had gone straight to bed; that she hoped some of them would come in and see her on the morrow, Sunday. In any case they would all meet at church.

Jack was puzzled, hurt, and bitterly disappointed, and at once he went off to write a note which should be, while wildly loving, yet clear in its expressions of surprise that she had not sent him some sort of message appointing a time for their next meeting. He found the letter unexpectedly difficult to write, and he had already torn up two beginnings, when the door behind him burst open, and, turning round irritably, he saw Timmy rush across to a window and shout exultantly, "Mum? We're back! And we've brought Josephine and her kittens. Mr. Trotman said she'd be all right now."

Jack Tosswill jumped up from his chair. It was as if his pent-up feelings of anger had found a vent at last: "You have, have you?" he cried in an enraged voice. "Then I'll see to the shooting of the brute this very minute!"

Quick as thought, Timmy rushed back to the door and turned the key in the lock. Then he bounded again to the open window. "Mum!" he screamed at the top of his voice. "Come here—I'm frightened!"

Janet Tosswill, walking quickly across the lawn, was horrified at the look of angry despair on the child's face.

"What's happened?" she asked, and then, suddenly, she saw Jack's blazing eyes.

"J-Janet," he began, stuttering in his rage, "either that cat is shot to-day, or I leave this house for ever."

Even in the midst of poor Janet's agitation, she could not help smiling at the melodramatic tone in which the usually self-contained Jack uttered his threat. Still—

"It was very, very wrong of you, Timmy, to bring back your cat to-day," she said sternly. "Had I known there was any idea of such a thing I should have absolutely forbidden it. Josephine is not fit to come back here yet; you know what Dr. O'Farrell said."

The colour was coming back into Timmy's face. He had a touching belief in his mother's power of saving him from the consequences of his own naughty actions.

"I'm very sorry," he began whimperingly. "It was not my fault, Mum. Even Mr. Trotman said there was nothing the matter with her."

And now Jack was beginning to repent of his hasty, cruel words. He was as angry as ever with Timmy, but he was ashamed of having spoken as he had done to Janet—the woman who, as he knew deep in his heart, was not only the best of step-mothers, but the best of friends, to his sisters and himself.

"Of course I don't mind her being at Trotman's, but I do very much object to her being here," he said ungraciously.

"I'll see about her being sent back to Epsom to-day," said Janet quietly. She turned to her son: "Now then, Timmy, I'm afraid we shall have to ask poor Godfrey to start back at once after tea."

"Oh, I say," called out Jack awkwardly. "I don't want the cat to go as soon as that, Janet. To-morrow will do all right. All I ask is that the brute shall be taken away before it has a chance of seeing Mrs. Crofton again."

"Very well; the cat shall go to-morrow."

Drawing her little boy quickly after her, Janet left the drawing-room, crossed the corridor, walked into the empty schoolroom, and then, to Timmy's unutterable surprise, burst into bitter tears.

Now Timmy had never seen his mother cry—and she herself was very much taken aback. She would have given a great deal to have been left alone just then to have her cry out, but Timmy's scared little face touched her.

"I can't think why you did it," she sobbed. "I always thought you were such an intelligent boy. Oh, Timmy, surely you understood how angry it would make Jack and Rosamund if you brought Josephine back now, to-day?"

"I never thought of them," he said woefully. "We were so happy, Mum—Godfrey, Betty and I. Oh, why are people so horrid?"

"Why are people so selfish?" she asked sadly. "I'm surprised at Betty; I should have thought that she, at least, would have understood that the cat must stay away a little longer."

"It wasn't Betty's fault," said Timmy hastily. He waited a moment, then added cunningly, "It was really Mr. Trotman's fault; he said Josephine ought to come home."

But his mother went on a little wildly: "It isn't an easy job, taking over another woman's children—and doing the very best you can for them! To-day, Timmy, you've made me feel as if I was sorry that I ever did it."

"Sorry that you married Daddy?" asked Timmy in an awe-struck voice.

Janet Tosswill nodded.

"Sorry that I was ever born?" cried Timmy. He flung his skinny arms round her bent neck.

She looked up and smiled wanly. "No, Timmy, I shall never be able to say that, however naughty you may be."

But Timmy was not to be let off yet.

"What happened to-day has hurt me very, very much," she went on. "It will be a long time before I shall feel on the old, happy terms with Jack again. Without knowing it, Timmy, you've pierced your mother's heart."

But even as she uttered these, to Timmy, dreadful words, Janet Tosswill got up, and dried her eyes. "Now then, we must go and see about Josephine being shut up in some place of safety, where she and her kittens will not offend the eyes of Jack and Rosamund. How about the old stable?"

She was her own calm, satirical, determined self again. But Timmy felt, perhaps for the first time in his life, deeply conscious of sin. His mother's phrase made him feel very uneasy. Had he really pierced her heart—could a mother's heart be permanently injured by a wicked child?

It was a very mournful, dejected, anxious boy who walked into the kitchen behind Janet Tosswill.

Timmy had a very vivid imagination, and during the drive back he had amused himself by visualising the scene when he would place Josephine and her kittens in their own delightful, roomy basket in the scullery. It would be such fun, too, introducing Flick to the two kittens! At Betty's suggestion, Flick had been shut out from the scullery after Josephine's kittens were born, and that though the dog and the cat got on extremely well together. In fact, Flick was the only creature in the world with whom Josephine, since she had reached an approximately mature age, ever condescended to play.

And now poor Josephine and her kittens were to be banished to the old stable, and to-morrow driven back ignominiously to Epsom, all because of that tiresome, hateful Mrs. Crofton!