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diff --git a/1931.txt b/1931.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..01a0774 --- /dev/null +++ b/1931.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9089 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Zeppelin's Passenger, by E. Phillips Oppenheim + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Zeppelin's Passenger + +Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim + +Posting Date: November 25, 2008 [EBook #1931] +Release Date: October, 1999 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ZEPPELIN'S PASSENGER *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer + + + + + +THE ZEPPELIN'S PASSENGER + +By E. Phillips Oppenheim + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +"Never heard a sound," the younger of the afternoon callers admitted, +getting rid of his empty cup and leaning forward in his low chair. "No +more tea, thank you, Miss Fairclough. Done splendidly, thanks. No, I +went to bed last night soon after eleven--the Colonel had been route +marching us all off our legs--and I never awoke until reveille this +morning. Sleep of the just, and all that sort of thing, but a jolly +sell, all the same! You hear anything of it, sir?" he asked, turning to +his companion, who was seated a few feet away. + +Captain Griffiths shook his head. He was a man considerably older than +his questioner, with long, nervous face, and thick black hair streaked +with grey. His fingers were bony, his complexion, for a soldier, +curiously sallow, and notwithstanding his height, which was +considerable, he was awkward, at times almost uncouth. His voice was +hard and unsympathetic, and his contributions to the tea-table talk had +been almost negligible. + +"I was up until two o'clock, as it happened," he replied, "but I knew +nothing about the matter until it was brought to my notice officially." + +Helen Fairclough, who was doing the honours for Lady Cranston, her +absent hostess, assumed the slight air of superiority to which the +circumstances of the case entitled her. + +"I heard it distinctly," she declared; "in fact it woke me up. I hung +out of the window, and I could hear the engine just as plainly as though +it were over the golf links." + +The young subaltern sighed. + +"Rotten luck I have with these things," he confided. "That's three times +they've been over, and I've neither heard nor seen one. This time they +say that it had the narrowest shave on earth of coming down. Of course, +you've heard of the observation car found on Dutchman's Common this +morning?" + +The girl assented. + +"Did you see it?" she enquired. + +"Not a chance," was the gloomy reply. "It was put on two covered trucks +and sent up to London by the first train. Captain Griffiths can tell you +what it was like, I dare say. You were down there, weren't you, sir?" + +"I superintended its removal," the latter informed them. "It was a very +uninteresting affair." + +"Any bombs in it?" Helen asked. + +"Not a sign of one. Just a hard seat, two sets of field-glasses and a +telephone. It seems to have got caught in some trees and been dragged +off." + +"How exciting!" the girl murmured. "I suppose there wasn't any one in +it?" + +Griffiths shook his head. + +"I believe," he explained, "that these observation cars, although they +are attached to most of the Zeppelins, are seldom used in night raids." + +"I should like to have seen it, all the same," Helen confessed. + +"You would have been disappointed," her informant assured her. +"By-the-by," he added, a little awkwardly, "are you not expecting Lady +Cranston back this evening?" + +"I am expecting her every moment. The car has gone down to the station +to meet her." + +Captain Griffiths appeared to receive the news with a certain +undemonstrative satisfaction. He leaned back in his chair with the air +of one who is content to wait. + +"Have you heard, Miss Fairclough," his younger companion enquired, a +little diffidently, "whether Lady Cranston had any luck in town?" + +Helen Fairclough looked away. There was a slight mist before her eyes. + +"I had a letter this morning," she replied. "She seems to have heard +nothing at all encouraging so far." + +"And you haven't heard from Major Felstead himself, I suppose?" + +The girl shook her head. + +"Not a line," she sighed. "It's two months now since we last had a +letter." + +"Jolly bad luck to get nipped just as he was doing so well," the young +man observed sympathetically. + +"It all seems very cruel," Helen agreed. "He wasn't really fit to go +back, but the Board passed him because they were so short of officers +and he kept worrying them. He was so afraid he'd get moved to another +battalion. Then he was taken prisoner in that horrible Pervais affair, +and sent to the worst camp in Germany. Since then, of course, Philippa +and I have had a wretched time, worrying." + +"Major Felstead is Lady Cranston's only brother, is he not?" Griffiths +enquired. + +"And my only fiance," she replied, with a little grimace. "However, +don't let us talk about our troubles any more," she continued, with an +effort at a lighter tone. "You'll find some cigarettes on that table, +Mr. Harrison. I can't think where Nora is. I expect she has persuaded +some one to take her out trophy-hunting to Dutchman's Common." + +"The road all the way is like a circus," the young soldier observed, +"and there isn't a thing to be seen when you get there. The naval airmen +were all over the place at daybreak, and Captain Griffiths wasn't +far behind them. You didn't leave much for the sightseers, sir," he +concluded, turning to his neighbour. + +"As Commandant of the place," Captain Griffiths replied, "I naturally +had to have the Common searched. With the exception of the observation +car, however, I think that I am betraying no confidences in telling you +that we discovered nothing of interest." + +"Do you suppose that the Zeppelin was in difficulties, as she was flying +so low?" Helen enquired. + +"It is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis," the Commandant assented. "Two +patrol boats were sent out early this morning, in search of her. An old +man whom I saw at Waburne declares that she passed like a long, black +cloud, just over his head, and that he was almost deafened by the noise +of the engines. Personally, I cannot believe that they would come down +so low unless she was in some trouble." + +The door of the comfortable library in which they were seated was +suddenly thrown open. An exceedingly alert-looking young lady, very +much befreckled, and as yet unemancipated from the long plaits of the +schoolroom, came in like a whirlwind. In her hand she carried a man's +Homburg hat, which she waved aloft in triumph. + +"Come in, Arthur," she shouted to a young subaltern who was hovering +in the background. "Look what I've got, Helen! A trophy! Just look, Mr. +Harrison and Captain Griffiths! I found it in a bush, not twenty yards +from where the observation car came down." + +Helen turned the hat around in amused bewilderment. + +"But, my dear child," she exclaimed, "this is nothing but an ordinary +hat! People who travel in Zeppelins don't wear things like that. How +do you do, Mr. Somerfield?" she added, smiling at the young man who had +followed Nora into the room. + +"Don't they!" the latter retorted, with an air of superior knowledge. +"Just look here!" + +She turned down the lining and showed it to them. "What do you make of +that?" she asked triumphantly. + +Helen gazed at the gold-printed letters a little incredulously. + +"Read it out," Nora insisted. + +Helen obeyed: + + "Schmidt, + Berlin, + Unter den Linden, 127." + +"That sounds German," she admitted. + +"It's a trophy, all right," Nora declared. "One of the crew--probably +the Commander--must have come on board in a hurry and changed into +uniform after they had started." + +"It is my painful duty, Miss Nora," Harrison announced solemnly, +"to inform you, on behalf of Captain Griffiths, that all articles of +whatsoever description, found in the vicinity of Dutchman's Common, +which might possibly have belonged to any one in the Zeppelin, must be +sent at once to the War Office." + +"Rubbish!" Nora scoffed. "The War Office aren't going to have my hat." + +"Duty," the young man began-- + +"You can go back to the Depot and do your duty, then, Mr. Harrison," +Nora interrupted, "but you're not going to have my hat. I'd throw it +into the fire sooner than give it up." + +"Military regulations must be obeyed, Miss Nora," Captain Griffiths +ventured thoughtfully. + +"Nothing so important as hats," Harrison put in. "You see they +fit--somebody." + +The girl's gesture was irreverent but convincing. "I'd listen to +anything Captain Griffiths had to say," she declared, "but you boys who +are learning to be soldiers are simply eaten up with conceit. There's +nothing in your textbook about hats. If you're going to make yourselves +disagreeable about this, I shall simply ignore the regiment." + +The two young men fell into attitudes of mock dismay. Nora took a +chocolate from a box. + +"Be merciful, Miss Nora!" Harrison pleaded tearfully. + +"Don't break the regiment up altogether," Somerfield begged, with a +little catch in his voice. + +"All very well for you two to be funny," Nora went on, revisiting the +chocolate box, "but you've heard about the Seaforths coming, haven't +you? I adore kilts, and so does Helen; don't you, Helen?" + +"Every woman does," Helen admitted, smiling. "I suppose the child really +can keep the hat, can't she?" she added, turning to the Commandant. + +"Officially the matter is outside my cognizance," he declared. "I shall +have nothing to say." + +The two young men exchanged glances. + +"A hat," Somerfield ruminated, "especially a Homburg hat, is scarcely an +appurtenance of warfare." + +His brother officer stood for a moment looking gravely at the object in +question. Then he winked at Somerfield and sighed. + +"I shall take the whole responsibility," he decided magnanimously, "of +saying nothing about the matter. We can't afford to quarrel with Miss +Nora, can we, Somerfield?" + +"Not on your life," that young man agreed. + +"Sensible boys!" Nora pronounced graciously. + +"Thank you very much, Captain Griffiths, for not encouraging them in +their folly. You can take me as far as the post-office when you go, +Arthur," she continued, turning to the fortunate possessor of the +side-car, "and we'll have some golf to-morrow afternoon, if you like." + +"Won't Mr. Somerfield have some tea?" Helen invited. + +"Thank you very much, Miss Fairclough," the man replied; "we had tea +some time ago at Watson's, where I found Miss Nora." + +Nora suddenly held up her finger. "Isn't that the car?" she asked. "Why, +it must be mummy, here already. Yes, I can hear her voice!" + +Griffiths, who had moved eagerly towards the window, looked back. + +"It is Lady Cranston," he announced solemnly. + + + +CHAPTER II + + +The woman who paused for a moment upon the threshold of the library, +looking in upon the little company, was undeniably beautiful. She +had masses of red-gold hair, a little disordered by her long railway +journey, deep-set hazel eyes, a delicate, almost porcelain-like +complexion, and a sensitive, delightfully shaped mouth. Her figure +was small and dainty, and just at that moment she had an appearance of +helplessness which was almost childlike. Nora, after a vigorous embrace, +led her stepmother towards a chair. + +"Come and sit by the fire, Mummy," she begged. "You look tired and +cold." + +Philippa exchanged a general salutation with her guests. She was still +wearing her travelling coat, and her air of fatigue was unmistakable. +Griffiths, who had not taken his eyes off her since her entrance, +wheeled an easy-chair towards the hearth-rug, into which she sank with a +murmured word of thanks. + +"You'll have some tea, won't you, dear?" Helen enquired. + +Philippa shook her head. Her eyes met her friend's for a moment--it was +only a very brief glance, but the tragedy of some mutual sorrow seemed +curiously revealed in that unspoken question and answer. The two young +subalterns prepared to take their leave. Nora, kneeling down, stroked +her stepmother's hand. + +"No news at all, then?" Helen faltered. + +"None," was the weary reply. + +"Any amount of news here, Mummy," Nora intervened cheerfully, "and heaps +of excitement. We had a Zeppelin over Dutchman's Common last night, +and she lost her observation car. Mr. Somerfield took me up there this +afternoon, and I found a German hat. No one else got a thing, and, would +you believe it, those children over there tried to take it away from +me." + +Her stepmother smiled faintly. + +"I expect you are keeping the hat, dear," she observed. + +"I should say so!" Nora assented. + +Philippa held out her hand to the two young men who had been waiting to +take their leave. + +"You must come and dine one night this week, both of you," she said. "My +husband will be home by the later train this evening, and I'm sure he +will be glad to have you." + +"Very kind of you, Lady Cranston, we shall be delighted," Harrison +declared. + +"Rather!" his companion echoed. + +Nora led them away, and Helen, with a word of excuse, followed them. +Griffiths, who had also risen to his feet, came a little nearer to +Philippa's chair. + +"And you, too, of course, Captain Griffiths," she said, smiling +pleasantly up at him. "Must you hurry away?" + +"I will stay, if I may, until Miss Fairclough returns," he answered, +resuming his seat. + +"Do!" Philippa begged him. "I have had such a miserable time in town. +You can't think how restful it is to be back here." + +"I am afraid," he observed, "that your journey has not been successful." + +Philippa shook her head. + +"It has been completely unsuccessful," she sighed. "I have not been able +to hear a word about my brother. I am so sorry for poor Helen, too. They +were only engaged, you know, a few days before he left for the front +this last time." + +Captain Griffiths nodded sympathetically. + +"I never met Major Felstead," he remarked, "but every one who has +seems to like him very much. He was doing so well, too, up to that last +unfortunate affair, wasn't he?" + +"Dick is a dear," Philippa declared. "I never knew any one with so many +friends. He would have been commanding his battalion now, if only he +were free. His colonel wrote and told me so himself." + +"I wish there were something I could do," Griffiths murmured, a little +awkwardly. "It hurts me, Lady Cranston, to see you so upset." + +She looked at him for a moment in faint surprise. + +"Nobody can do anything," she bemoaned. "That is the unfortunate part of +it all." + +He rose to his feet and was immediately conscious, as he always was when +he stood up, that there was a foot or two of his figure which he had no +idea what to do with. + +"You wouldn't feel like a ride to-morrow morning, Lady Cranston?" he +asked, with a wistfulness which seemed somehow stifled in his rather +unpleasant voice. She shook her head. + +"Perhaps one morning later," she replied, a little vaguely. "I haven't +any heart for anything just now." + +He took a sombre but agitated leave of his hostess, and went out into +the twilight, cursing his lack of ease, remembering the things which +he had meant to say, and hating himself for having forgotten them. +Philippa, to whom his departure had been, as it always was, a relief, +was already leaning forward in her chair with her arm around Helen's +neck. + +"I thought that extraordinary man would never go," she exclaimed, "and +I was longing to send for you, Helen. London has been such a dreary +chapter of disappointments." + +"What a sickening time you must have had, dear!" + +"It was horrid," Philippa assented sadly, "but you know Henry is no use +at all, and I should have felt miserable unless I had gone. I have been +to every friend at the War Office, and every friend who has friends +there. I have made every sort of enquiry, and I know just as much now +as I did when I left here--that Richard was a prisoner at Wittenberg +the last time they heard, and that they have received no notification +whatever concerning him for the last two months." + +Helen glanced at the calendar. + +"It is just two months to-day," she said mournfully, "since we heard." + +"And then," Philippa sighed, "he hadn't received a single one of our +parcels." + +Helen rose suddenly to her feet. She was a tall, fair girl of the best +Saxon type, slim but not in the least angular, with every promise, +indeed, of a fuller and more gracious development in the years to come. +She was barely twenty-two years old, and, as is common with girls of her +complexion, seemed younger. Her bright, intelligent face was, above +all, good-humoured. Just at that moment, however, there was a flush of +passionate anger in her cheeks. + +"It makes me feel almost beside myself," she exclaimed, "this hideous +incapacity for doing anything! Here we are living in luxury, without a +single privation, whilst Dick, the dearest thing on earth to both of us, +is being starved and goaded to death in a foul German prison!" + +"We mustn't believe that it's quite so bad as that, dear," Philippa +remonstrated. "What is it, Mills?" + +The elderly man-servant who had entered with a tray in his band, bowed +as he arranged it upon a side table. + +"I have taken the liberty of bringing in a little fresh tea, your +ladyship," he announced, "and some hot buttered toast. Cook has sent +some of the sandwiches, too, which your ladyship generally fancies." + +"It is very kind of you, Mills," Philippa said, with rather a wan little +smile. "I had some tea at South Lynn, but it was very bad. You might +take my coat, please." + +She stood up, and the heavy fur coat slipped easily away from her slim, +elegant little body. + +"Shall I light up, your ladyship?" Mills enquired. + +"You might light a lamp," Philippa directed, "but don't draw the blinds +until lighting-up time. After the noise of London," she went on, +turning to Helen, "I always think that the faint sound of the sea is so +restful." + +The man moved noiselessly about the room and returned once more to his +mistress. + +"We should be glad to hear, your ladyship," he said, "if there is any +news of Major Felstead?" Philippa shook her head. + +"None at all, I am sorry to say, Mills! Still, we must hope for the +best. I dare say that some of these camps are not so bad as we imagine." + +"We must hope not, your ladyship," was the somewhat dismal reply. "Shall +I fasten the windows?" + +"You can leave them until you draw the blinds, Mills," Philippa +directed. "I am not at home, if any one should call. See that we are +undisturbed for a little time." + +"Very good, your ladyship." + +The door was closed, and the two women were once more alone. Philippa +held out her arms. + +"Helen, darling, come and be nice to me," she begged. "Let us both +pretend that no news is good news. Oh, I know what you are suffering, +but remember that even if Dick is your lover, he is my dear, only +brother--my twin brother, too. We have been so much to each other all +our lives. He'll stick it out, dear, if any human being can. We shall +have him back with us some day." + +"But he is hungry," Helen sobbed. "I can't bear to think of his being +hungry. Every time I sit down to eat, it almost chokes me." + +"I suppose he has forgotten what a whisky and soda is like," Philippa +murmured, with a little catch in her own throat. + +"He always used to love one about this time," Helen faltered, glancing +at the clock. + +"And cigarettes!" Philippa exclaimed. "I wonder whether they give him +anything to smoke." + +"Nasty German tobacco, if they do," Helen rejoined indignantly. "And +to think that I have sent him at least six hundred of his favourite +Egyptians!" + +She fell once more on her knees by her friend's side. Their arms were +intertwined, their cheeks touching. One of those strange, feminine +silences of acute sympathy seemed to hold them for a while under its +thrall. Then, almost at the same moment, a queer awakening came for both +of them. Helen's arm was stiffened. Philippa turned her head, but her +eyes were filled with incredulous fear. A little current of cool air was +blowing through the room. The French windows stood half open, and with +his back to them, a man who had apparently entered the room from the +gardens and passed noiselessly across the soft carpet, was standing +by the door, listening. They heard him turn the key. Then, in a +businesslike manner, he returned to the windows and closed them, the +eyes of the two women following him all the time. Satisfied, apparently, +with his precautions, he turned towards them just as an expression of +indignant enquiry broke from Philippa's lips. Helen sprang to her feet, +and Philippa gripped the sides of her chair. The newcomer advanced a few +steps nearer to them. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +It seemed to the two women, brief though the period of actual silence +was, that in those few seconds they jointly conceived definite and +lasting impressions of the man who was to become, during the next few +weeks, an object of the deepest concern to both of them. The intruder +was slightly built, of little more than medium height, of dark +complexion, with an almost imperceptible moustache of military pattern, +black hair dishevelled with the wind, and eyes of almost peculiar +brightness. He carried himself with an assurance which was somewhat +remarkable considering the condition of his torn and mud stained +clothes, the very quality of which was almost undistinguishable. They +both, curiously enough, formed the same instinctive conviction that, +notwithstanding his tramplike appearance and his burglarious entrance, +this was not a person to be greatly feared. + +The stranger brushed aside Philippa's incoherent exclamation and opened +the conversation with some ceremony. + +"Ladies," he began, with a low bow, "in the first place let me offer +my most profound apologies for this unusual form of entrance to your +house." + +Philippa rose from her easy-chair and confronted him. The firelight +played upon her red-gold hair, and surprise had driven the weariness +from her face. Against the black oak of the chimneypiece she had almost +the appearance of a framed cameo. Her voice was quite steady, although +its inflection betrayed some indignation. + +"Will you kindly explain who you are and what you mean by this +extraordinary behaviour?" she demanded. + +"It is my earnest intention to do so without delay," he assured her, his +eyes apparently rivetted upon Philippa. "Kindly pardon me." + +He held out his arm to stop Helen, who, with her eye upon the bell, had +made a stealthy attempt to slip past him. Her eyes flashed as she felt +his fingers upon her arm. + +"How dare you attempt to stop me!" she exclaimed. + +"My dear Miss Fairclough," he remonstrated, "in the interests of all +of us, it is better that we should have a few moments of undisturbed +conversation. I am taking it for granted that I have the pleasure of +addressing Miss Fairclough?" + +There was something about the man's easy confidence which was, in its +way, impressive yet irritating. Helen appeared bereft of words and +retreated to her place almost mildly. Philippa's very delicate eyebrows +were drawn together in a slight frown. + +"You are acquainted with our names, then?" + +"Perfectly," was the suave reply. "You, I presume, are Lady Cranston? I +may be permitted to add," he went on, looking at her steadfastly, "that +the description from which I recognise you does you less than justice." + +"I find that remark, under the circumstances, impertinent," Philippa +told him coldly. + +He shrugged his shoulders. There was a slight smile upon his lips and +his eyes twinkled. + +"Alas!" he murmured, "for the moment I forgot the somewhat unusual +circumstances of our meeting. Permit me to offer you what I trust you +will accept as the equivalent of a letter of introduction." + +"A letter of introduction," Philippa repeated, glancing at his +disordered clothes, "and you come in through the window!" + +"Believe me," the intruder assured her, "it was the only way." + +"Perhaps you will tell me, then," Philippa demanded, her anger gradually +giving way to bewilderment, "what is wrong with my front door?" + +"For all I know, dear lady," the newcomer confessed, "yours may be +an excellent front door. I would ask you, however, to consider my +appearance. I have been obliged to conclude the last few miles of my +journey in somewhat ignominious fashion. My clothes--they were quite +nice clothes, too, when I started," he added, looking down at himself +ruefully--"have suffered. And, as you perceive, I have lost my hat." + +"Your hat?" Helen exclaimed, with a sudden glance at Nora's trophy. + +"Precisely! I might have posed before your butler, perhaps, as belonging +to what you call the hatless brigade, but the mud upon my clothes, +and these unfortunate rents in my garments, would have necessitated an +explanation which I thought better avoided. I make myself quite clear, I +trust?" + +"Clear?" Philippa murmured helplessly. + +"Clear?" Helen echoed, with a puzzled frown. + +"I mean, of course," their visitor explained, "so far as regards my +choosing this somewhat surreptitious form of entrance into your house." + +Philippa shrugged her shoulders and made a determined move towards the +bell. The intruder, however, barred her way. She looked up into his +face and found it difficult to maintain her indignation. His expression, +besides being distinctly pleasant, was full of a respectful admiration. + +"Will you please let me pass?" she insisted. + +"Madam," he replied, "I am afraid that it is your intention to ring the +bell." + +"Of course it is," she admitted. "Don't dare to prevent me." + +"Madam, I do not wish to prevent you," he assured her. "A few moments' +delay--that is all I plead for." + +"Will you explain at once, sir," Philippa demanded, "what you mean by +forcing your way into my house in this extraordinary fashion, and by +locking that door?" + +"I am most anxious to do so," was the prompt reply. "I am correct, of +course, in my first surmise that you are Lady Cranston--and you Miss +Fairclough?" he added, bowing ceremoniously to both of them. "A very +great pleasure! I recognised you both quite easily, you see, from your +descriptions." + +"From our descriptions?" Philippa repeated. + +The newcomer bowed. + +"The descriptions, glowing, indeed, but by no means exaggerated, of your +brother Richard, Lady Cranston, and your fiance, Miss Fairclough." + +"Richard?" Philippa almost shrieked. + +"You have seen Dick?" Helen gasped. + +The intruder dived in his pockets and produced two sealed envelopes. He +handed one each simultaneously to Helen and to Philippa. + +"My letters of introduction," he explained, with a little sigh of +relief. "I trust that during their perusal you will invite me to have +some tea. I am almost starving." + +The two women hastened towards the lamp. + +"One moment, I beg," their visitor interposed. "I have established, I +trust, my credentials. May I remind you that I was compelled to ensure +the safety of these few minutes' conversation with you, by locking that +door. Are you likely to be disturbed?" + +"No, no! No chance at all," Philippa assured him. + +"If we are, we'll explain," Helen promised. + +"In that case," the intruder begged, "perhaps you will excuse me." + +He moved towards the door and softly turned the key, then he drew the +curtains carefully across the French windows. Afterwards he made his way +towards the tea-table. A little throbbing cry had broken from Helen's +lips. + +"Philippa," she exclaimed, "it's from Dick! It's Dick's handwriting!" + +Philippa's reply was incoherent. She was tearing open her own envelope. +With a well-satisfied smile, the bearer of these communications seized a +sandwich in one hand and poured himself out some tea with the other. He +ate and drank with the restraint of good-breeding, but with a voracity +which gave point to his plea of starvation. A few yards away, the +breathless silence between the two women had given place to an almost +hysterical series of disjointed exclamations. + +"It's from Dick!" Helen repeated. "It's his own dear handwriting. How +shaky it is! He's alive and well, Philippa, and he's found a friend." + +"I know--I know," Philippa murmured tremulously. "Our parcels have been +discovered, and he got them all at once. Just fancy, Helen, he's really +not so ill, after all!" + +They drew a little closer together. + +"You read yours out first," Helen proposed, "and then I'll read mine." + +Philippa nodded. Her voice here and there was a little uncertain. + + MY DEAREST SISTER, + + I have heard nothing from you or Helen for so long that I was + really getting desperate. I have had a very rough time here, + but by the grace of Providence I stumbled up against an old + friend the other day, Bertram Maderstrom, whom you must have + heard me speak of in my college days. It isn't too much to say + that he has saved my life. He has unearthed your parcels, found + me decent quarters, and I am getting double rations. He has + promised, too, to get this letter through to you. + + You needn't worry about me now, dear. I am feeling twice the + man I was a month ago, and I shall stick it out now quite easily. + + Write me as often as ever you can. Your letters and Helen's make + all the difference. + + My love to you and to Henry. + Your affectionate brother, RICHARD. + + P.S. Is Henry an Admiral yet? I suppose he was in the Jutland + scrap, which they all tell us here was a great German victory. I + hope he came out all right. + +Philippa read the postscript with a little shiver. Then she set her +teeth as though determined to ignore it. + +"Isn't it wonderful!" she exclaimed, turning towards Helen with glowing +eyes. "Now yours, dear?" + +Helen's voice trembled as she read. Her eyes, too, at times were misty: + + DEAREST, + + I am writing to you so differently because I feel that you will + really get this letter. I have bad an astonishing stroke of luck, + as you will gather from Philippa's note. You can't imagine the + difference. A month ago I really thought I should have to chuck + it in. Now I am putting on flesh every day and beginning to feel + myself again. I owe my life to a pal with whom I was at college, + and whom you and I, dearest, will have to remember all our lives. + + I think of you always, and my thoughts are like the flowers of + which we see nothing in these hideous huts. My greatest joy is + in dreaming of the day when we shall meet again. + + Write to me often, sweetheart. Your letters and my thoughts of + you are the one joy of my life. + + Always your lover, + DICK. + +There were a few moments of significant silence. The girls were leaning +together, their arms around one another's necks, their heads almost +touching. Behind them, their visitor continued to eat and drink. He rose +at last, however, reluctantly to his feet, and coughed. They started, +suddenly remembering his presence. Philippa turned impulsively towards +him with outstretched hands. + +"I can't tell you how thankful we are to you," she declared. + +"Both of us," Helen echoed. + +He touched with his fingers a box of cigarettes which stood upon the +tea-table. + +"You permit?" he asked. + +"Of course," Philippa assented eagerly. "You will find some matches on +the tray there. Do please help yourself. I am afraid that I must have +seemed very discourteous, but this has all been so amazing. Won't you +have some fresh tea and some toast, or wouldn't you like some more +sandwiches?" + +"Nothing more at present, thank you," he replied. "If you do not mind, I +would rather continue our conversation." + +"These letters are wonderful," Philippa told him gratefully. "You know +from whom they come, of course. Dick is my twin brother, and until the +war we had scarcely ever been parted. Miss Fairclough here is engaged +to be married to him. It is quite two months since we had a line, and +I myself have been in London for the last three days, three very weary +days, making enquiries everywhere." + +"I am very happy," he said, "to have brought you such good news." + +Once more the normal aspect of the situation began to reimpose itself +upon the two women. They remembered the locked door, the secrecy of +their visitor's entrance, and his disordered condition. + +"May I ask to whom we are indebted for this great service?" Philippa +enquired. + +"My name for the present is Hamar Lessingham," was the suave reply. + +"For the present?" Philippa repeated. "You have perhaps, some +explanations to make," she went on, with some hesitation; "the condition +of your clothes, your somewhat curious form of entrance?" + +"With your permission." + +"One moment," Helen intervened eagerly. "Is it possible, Mr. Lessingham, +that you have seen Major Felstead lately?" + +"A matter of fifty-six hours ago, Miss Fairclough. I am happy to tell +you that he was looking, under the circumstances, quite reasonably +well." + +Helen caught up a photograph from the table by her side, and came over +to their visitor's side. + +"This was taken just before he went out the first time," she continued. +"Is he anything like that now?" + +Mr. Hamar Lessingham sighed and shook his head. + +"You must expect," he warned her, "that prison and hospital have had +their effect upon him. He was gaining strength every day, however, when +I left." + +Philippa held out her hand. She had been looking curiously at their +visitor. + +"Helen, dear, afterwards we will get Mr. Lessingham to talk to us about +Dick," she insisted. "First there are some questions which I must ask." + +He bowed slightly and drew himself up. For a moment it seemed as though +they were entering upon a duel--the slight, beautiful woman and the man +in rags. + +"Just now," she began, "you told us that you saw Major Felstead, my +brother, fifty-six hours ago." + +"That is so," he assented. + +"But it is impossible!" she pointed out. "My brother is a prisoner of +war in Germany." + +"Precisely," he replied, "and not, I am afraid, under the happiest +conditions, he has been unfortunate in his camp. Let us talk about him, +shall we?" + +"Are you mad," Helen demanded, "or are you trying to confuse us?" + +"My dear young lady!" he protested. "Why suppose such a thing? I was +flattering myself that my conversation and deportment were, under the +circumstances, perfectly rational." + +"But you are talking nonsense," Philippa insisted. "You say that you saw +Major Felstead fifty-six hours ago. You cannot mean us to believe that +fifty-six hours ago you were at Wittenberg." + +"That is precisely what I have been trying to tell you," he agreed. + +"But it isn't possible!" Helen gasped. + +"Quite, I assure you," he continued; "in fact, we should have been +here before but for a little uncertainty as to your armaments along the +coast. There was a gun, we were told, somewhere near here, which we were +credibly informed had once been fired without the slightest accident." + +Philippa's eyes seemed to grow larger and rounder. + +"He's raving!" she decided. + +"He isn't!" Helen cried, with sudden divination. "Is that your hat?" she +asked, pointing to the table where Nora had left her trophy. + +"It is," he admitted with a smile, "but I do not think that I will claim +it." + +"You were in the observation car of that Zeppelin!" + +Lessingham extended his hand. + +"Softly, please," he begged. "You have, I gather, arrived at the +truth, but for the moment shall it be our secret? I made an exceedingly +uncomfortable, not to say undignified descent from the Zeppelin which +passed over Dutchman's Common last night." + +"Then," Philippa cried, "you are a German!" + +"My dear lady, I have escaped that misfortune," Lessingham confessed. +"Do you think that none other than Germans ride in Zeppelins?" + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +A new tenseness seemed to have crept into the situation. The +conversation, never without its emotional tendencies, at once changed +its character. Philippa, cold and reserved, with a threat lurking all +the time in her tone and manner, became its guiding spirit. + +"We may enquire your name?" she asked. + +"I am the Baron Maderstrom," was the prompt reply. "For the purpose of +my brief residence in this country, however, I fancy that the name of +Mr. Hamar Lessingham might provoke less comment." + +"Maderstrom," Philippa repeated. "You were at Magdalen with my brother." + +"For three terms," he assented. + +"You have visited at Wood Norton. It was only an accident, then, that I +did not meet you." + +"It is true," he answered, with a bow. "I received the most charming +hospitality there from your father and mother." + +"Why, you are the friend," Helen exclaimed, suddenly seizing his hands, +"of whom Dick speaks in his letter!" + +"It has been my great privilege to have been of service to Major +Felstead," was the grave admission. "He and I, during our college days, +were more than ordinarily intimate. I saw his name in one of the lists +of prisoners, and I went at once to Wittenberg." + +A fresh flood of questions was upon Helen's lips, but Philippa brushed +her away. + +"Please let me speak," she said. "You have brought us these letters from +Richard, for which we offer you our heartfelt thanks, but you did +not risk your liberty, perhaps your life, to come here simply as +his ambassador. There is something beyond this in your visit to this +country. You may be a Swede, but is it not true that at the present +moment you are in the service of an enemy?" + +Lessingham bowed acquiescence. + +"You are entirely right," he murmured. + +"Am I also right in concluding that you have some service to ask of us?" + +"Your directness, dear lady, moves me to admiration," Lessingham assured +her. "I am here to ask a trifling favour in return for those which I +have rendered and those which I may yet render to your brother." + +"And that favour?" + +Their visitor looked down at his torn attire. + +"A suit of your brother's clothes," he replied, "and a room in which +to change. The disposal of these rags I may leave, I presume, to your +ingenuity." + +"Anything else?" + +"It is my wish," he continued, "to remain in this neighbourhood for a +short time--perhaps a fortnight and perhaps a month. I should value your +introduction to the hotel here, and the extension of such hospitality as +may seem fitting to you, under the circumstances." + +"As Mr. Hamar Lessingham?" + +"Beyond a doubt." + +There was a moment's silence. Philippa's face had become almost stony. +She took a step towards the telephone. Lessingham, however, held out his +hand. + +"Your purpose?" he enquired. + +"I am going to ring up the Commandant here," she told him, "and explain +your presence in this house." + +"An heroic impulse," he observed, "but too impulsive." + +"We shall see," she retorted. "Will you let me pass?" + +His fingers restrained her as gently as possible. + +"Let me make a reasonable appeal to both of you," he suggested. "I am +here at your mercy. I promise you that under no circumstances will I +attempt any measure of violence. From any fear of that, I trust my name +and my friendship with your brother will be sufficient guarantee." + +"Continue, then," Philippa assented. + +"You will give me ten minutes in which to state my case," he begged. + +"We must!" Helen exclaimed. "We must, Philippa! Please!" + +"You shall have your ten minutes," Philippa conceded. + +He abandoned his attitude of watchfulness and moved back on to the +hearth-rug, his hands behind him. He addressed himself to Philippa. It +was Philippa who had become his judge. + +"I will claim nothing from you," he began, "for the services which I +have rendered to Richard. Our friendship was a real thing, and, finding +him in such straits, I would gladly, under any circumstances, have done +all that I have done. I am well paid for this by the thanks which you +have already proffered me." + +"No thanks--nothing that we could do for you would be sufficient +recompense," Helen declared energetically. + +"Let me speak for a moment of the future," he continued. "Supposing you +ring that telephone and hand me over to the authorities here? Well, that +will be the end of me, without a doubt. You will have done what seemed +to you to be the right thing, and I hope that that consciousness will +sustain you, for, believe me, though it may not be at my will, your +brother's life will most certainly answer for mine." + +There was a slight pause. A sob broke from Helen's throat. Even +Philippa's lip quivered. + +"Forgive me," he went on, "if that sounds like a threat. It was not so +meant. It is the simple truth. Let me hurry on to the future. I ask so +little of you. It is my duty to live in this spot for one month. What +harm can I do? You have no great concentration of soldiers here, no +docks, no fortifications, no industry. And in return for the slight +service of allowing me to remain here unmolested, I pledge my word that +Richard shall be set at liberty and shall be here with you within two +months." + +Helen's face was transformed, her eyes glowed, her lips were parted +with eagerness. She turned towards Philippa, her expression, her whole +attitude an epitome of eloquent pleading. + +"Philippa, you will not hesitate? You cannot?" + +"I must," Philippa answered, struggling with her agitation. "I love Dick +more dearly than anything else on earth, but just now, Helen, we have to +remember, before everything, that we are English women. We have to +put our human feelings behind us. We are learning every day to make +sacrifices. You, too, must learn, dear. My answer to you, Baron +Maderstrom--or Mr. Lessingham, as you choose to call yourself--is no." + +"Philippa, you are mad!" Helen exclaimed passionately. "Didn't I have to +realise all that you say when I let Dick go, cheerfully, the day +after we were engaged? Haven't I realised the duty of cheerfulness and +sacrifice through all these weary months? But there is a limit to +these things, Philippa, a sense of proportion which must be taken +into account. It's Dick's life which is in the balance against some +intangible thing, nothing that we could ever reproach ourselves with, +nothing that could bring real harm upon any one. Oh, I love my country, +too, but I want Dick! I should feel like his murderess all my life, if I +didn't consent!" + +"It occurs to me," Lessingham remarked, turning towards Philippa, "that +Miss Fairclough's point of view is one to be considered." + +"Doesn't all that Miss Fairclough has said apply to me?" Philippa +demanded, with a little break in her voice. "Richard is my twin brother, +he is the dearest thing in life to me. Can't you realise, though, that +what you ask of us is treason?" + +"It really doesn't amount to that," Lessingham assured her. "In my own +heart I feel convinced that I have come here on a fool's errand. No +object that I could possibly attain in this neighbourhood is worth the +life of a man like Richard Felstead." + +"Oh, he's right!" Helen exclaimed. "Think, Philippa! What is there here +which the whole world might not know? There are no secrets in Dreymarsh. +We are miles away from everywhere. For my sake, Philippa, I implore you +not to be unreasonable." + +"In plain words," Lessingham intervened, "do not be quixotic, Lady +Cranston. There is just an idea on one side, your brother's life on the +other. You see, the scales do not balance." + +"Can't you realise, though," Philippa answered, "what that idea +means? It is part of one's soul that one gives when one departs from a +principle." + +"What are principles against love?" Helen demanded, almost fiercely. "A +sister may prate about them, Philippa. A wife couldn't. I'd sacrifice +every principle I ever had, every scrap of self-respect, myself and all +that belongs to me, to save Dick's life!" + +There was a brief, throbbing silence. Helen was feverishly clutching +Philippa's hand. Lessingham's eyes were fixed upon the tortured face +into which he gazed. There were no women like this in his own country. + +"Dear lady," he said, and for the first time his own voice shook, "I +abandon my arguments. I beg you to act as you think best for your own +future happiness. The chances of life or death are not great things for +either men like your brother or for me. I would not purchase my end, nor +he his life, at the expense of your suffering. You see, I stand on one +side. The telephone is there for your use." + +"You shan't use it!" Helen cried passionately. "Phillipa, you shan't!" + +Philippa turned towards her, and all the stubborn pride had gone out of +her face. Her great eyes were misty with tears, her mouth was twitching +with emotion. She threw her arms around Helen's neck. + +"My dear, I can't! I can't!" she sobbed. + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Philippa's breakdown was only momentary. With a few brusque words +she brought the other two down to the level of her newly recovered +equanimity. + +"To be practical," she began, "we have no time to lose. I will go +and get a suit of Dick's clothes, and, Helen, you had better take Mr. +Lessingham into the gun room. Afterwards, perhaps you will have time to +ring up the hotel." + +Lessingham took a quick step towards her,--almost as though he were +about to make some impetuous withdrawal. Philippa turned and met +his almost pleading gaze. Perhaps she read there his instinct of +self-abnegation. + +"I am in command of the situation," she continued, a little more +lightly. "Every one must please obey me. I shan't be more than five +minutes." + +She left the room, waving back Lessingham's attempt to open the door for +her. He stood for a moment looking at the place where she had vanished. +Then he turned round. + +"Major Felstead's description," he said quietly, "did not do his sister +justice." + +"Philippa is a dear," Helen declared enthusiastically. "Just for a +moment, though, I was terrified. She has a wonderful will." + +"How long has she been married?" + +"About six years." + +"Are there--any children?" + +Helen shook her head. + +"Sir Henry had a daughter by his first wife, who lives with us." + +"Six years!" Lessingham repeated. "Why, she seems no more than a child. +Sir Henry must be a great deal her senior." + +"Sixteen years," Helen told him. "Philippa is twenty-nine. And now, +don't be inquisitive any more, please, and come with me. I want to show +you where to change your clothes." + +She opened a door on the other side of the room, and pointed to a small +apartment across the passage. + +"If you'll wait in there," she begged, "I'll bring the clothes to you +directly they come. I am going to telephone now." + +"So many thanks," he answered. "I should like a pleasant bedroom and +sitting room, and a bathroom if possible. My luggage you will find +already there. A friend in London has seen to that." + +She looked at him curiously. + +"You are very thorough, aren't you?" she remarked. + +"The people of the country whom it is my destiny to serve all are," he +replied. "One weak link, you know, may sometimes spoil the mightiest +chain." + +She closed the door and took up the telephone. + +"Number three, please," she began. "Are you the hotel? The manager? +Good! I am speaking for Lady Cranston. She wishes a sitting-room, +bedroom and bath-room reserved for a friend of ours who is arriving +to-day--a Mr. Hamar Lessingham. You have his luggage already, I believe. +Please do the best you can for him.--Certainly.--Thank you very much." + +She set down the receiver. The door was quickly opened and shut. +Philippa reappeared, carrying an armful of clothes. + +"Why, you've brought his grey suit," Helen cried in dismay, "the one he +looks so well in!" + +"Don't be an idiot," Philippa scoffed. "I had to bring the first I could +find. Take them in to Mr. Lessingham, and for heaven's sake see that he +hurries! Henry's train is due, and he may be here at any moment." + +"I'll tell him," Helen promised. "I'll smuggle him out of the back way, +if you like." + +Philippa laughed a little drearily. + +"A nice start that would be, if any one ever traced his arrival!" she +observed. "No, we must try and get him away before Henry comes, but, if +the worst comes to the worst, we'll have him in and introduce him. Henry +isn't likely to notice anything," she added, a little bitterly. + +Helen disappeared with the clothes and returned almost immediately, +Philippa was sitting in her old position by the fire. + +"You're not worrying about this, dear, are you?" the former asked +anxiously. + +"I don't know," Philippa replied, without turning her head. "I don't +know what may come of it, Helen. I have a queer sort of feeling about +that man." + +Helen sighed. "I suppose," she confessed, "I am the narrowest person on +earth. I can think of one thing, and one thing only. If Mr. Lessingham +keeps his word, Dick will be here perhaps in a month, perhaps six +weeks--certainly soon!" + +"He will keep his word," Philippa said quietly. "He is that sort of +man." + +The door on the other side of the room was softly opened. Lessingham's +head appeared. + +"Could I have a necktie?" he asked diffidently. Philippa stretched out +her hand and took one from the basket by her side. + +"Better give him this," she said, handing it over to Helen. "It is one +of Henry's which I was mending.--Stop!" + +She put up her finger. They all listened. + +"The car!" Philippa exclaimed, rising hastily to her feet. "That is +Henry! Go out with Mr. Lessingham, Helen," she continued, "and wait +until he is ready. Don't forget that he is an ordinary caller, and bring +him in presently." + +Helen nodded understandingly and hurried out. + +Philippa moved a few steps towards the other door. In a moment it was +thrown open. Nora appeared, with her arm through her father's. + +"I went to meet him, Mummy," she explained. "No uniform--isn't it a +shame!" + +Sir Henry patted her cheek and turned to greet his wife. There was +a shadow upon his bronzed, handsome face as he watched her rather +hesitating approach. + +"Sorry I couldn't catch your train, Phil," he told her. "I had to make a +call in the city so I came down from Liverpool Street. Any luck?" + +She held his hands, resisting for the moment his proffered embrace. + +"Henry," she said earnestly, "do you know I am so much more anxious to +hear your news." + +"Mine will keep," he replied. "What about Richard?" + +She shook her head. + +"I spent the whole of my time making enquiries," she sighed, "and every +one was fruitless. I failed to get the least satisfaction from any one +at the War Office. They know nothing, have heard nothing." + +"I'm ever so sorry to hear it," Sir Henry declared sympathetically. "You +mustn't worry too much, though, dear. Where's Helen?" + +"She is in the gun room with a caller." + +"With a caller?" Nora exclaimed. "Is it any one from the Depot? I must +go and see." + +"You needn't trouble," her stepmother replied. "Here they are, coming +in." + +The door on the opposite side of the room was suddenly opened, and Hamar +Lessingham and Helen entered together. Lessingham was entirely at his +ease,--their conversation, indeed, seemed almost engrossing. He came at +once across the room on realising Sir Henry's presence. + +"This is Mr. Hamar Lessingham--my husband," Philippa said. "Mr. +Lessingham was at college with Dick, Henry, so of course Helen and he +have been indulging in all sorts of reminiscences." + +The two men shook hands. + +"I found time also to examine your Leech prints," Lessingham remarked. +"You have some very admirable examples." + +"Quite a hobby of mine in my younger days," Sir Henry admitted. "One +or two of them are very good, I believe. Are you staying in these parts +long, Mr. Lessingham?" + +"Perhaps for a week or two," was the somewhat indifferent reply. "I am +told that this is the most wonderful air in the world, so I have come +down here to pull up again after a slight illness." + +"A dreary spot just now," Sir Henry observed, "but the air's all right. +Are you a sea-fisherman, by any chance, Mr. Lessingham?" + +"I have done a little of it," the visitor confessed. Sir Henry's face +lit up. He drew from his pocket a small, brown paper parcel. + +"I don't mind telling you," he confided as he cut the string, "that I +don't think there's another sport like it in the world. I have tried +most of them, too. When I was a boy I was all for shooting, perhaps +because I could never get enough. Then I had a season or two at Melton, +though I was never much of a horseman. But for real, unadulterated +excitement, for sport that licks everything else into a cocked hat, give +me a strong sea rod, a couple of traces, just enough sea to keep on the +bottom all the time, and the codling biting. Look here, did you ever see +a mackerel spinner like that?" he added, drawing one out of the parcel +which he had untied. "Look at it, all of you." + +Lessingham took it gingerly in his fingers. Philippa, a little +ostentatiously, turned her back upon the two men and took up a +newspaper. + +"Lady Cranston does not sympathize with my interest in any sort of sport +just now," Sir Henry explained good-humouredly. "All the same I argue +that one must keep one's mind occupied somehow or other." + +"Quite right, Dad!" Nora agreed. "We must carry on, as the Colonel says. +All the same, I did hope you'd come down in a new naval uniform, with +lots of gold braid on your sleeve. I think they might have made you an +admiral, Daddy, you'd look so nice on the bridge." + +"I am afraid," her father replied, with his eyes glued upon the spinner +which Lessingham was holding, "that that is a consideration which didn't +seem to weigh with them much. Look at the glitter of it," he went on, +taking up another of the spinners. "You see, it's got a double swivel, +and they guarantee six hundred revolutions a minute." + +"I must plead ignorance," Lessingham regretted, "of everything connected +with mackerel spinning." + +"It's fine sport for a change," Sir Henry declared. "The only thing is +that if you strike a shoal one gets tired of hauling the beggars in. +By-the-by, has Jimmy been up for me, Philippa? Have you heard whether +there are any mackerel in?" + +Philippa raised her eyebrows. + +"Mackerel!" she repeated sarcastically. + +"Have you any objection to the fish, dear?" Sir Henry enquired blandly. + +Philippa made no reply. Her husband frowned and turned towards +Lessingham. + +"You see," he complained a little irritably, "my wife doesn't approve of +my taking an interest even in fishing while the war's on, but, hang it +all, what are you to do when you reach my age? Thinks I ought to be a +special constable, don't you, Philippa?" + +"Need we discuss this before Mr. Lessingham?" she asked, without looking +up from her paper. + +Lessingham promptly prepared to take his departure. + +"See something more of you, I hope," Sir Henry remarked hospitably, as +he conducted his guest to the door. "Where are you staying here?" + +"At the hotel." + +"Which?" + +"I did not understand that there was more than one," Lessingham replied. +"I simply wrote to The Hotel, Dreymarsh." + +"There is only one hotel open, of course, Mr. Lessingham," Philippa +observed, turning towards him. "Why do you ask such an absurd question, +Henry? The 'Grand' is full of soldiers. Come and see us whenever you +feel inclined, Mr. Lessingham." + +"I shall certainly take advantage of your permission, Lady Cranston," +were the farewell words of this unusual visitor as he bowed himself out. + +Sir Henry moved to the sideboard and helped himself to a whisky and +soda. Philippa laid down her newspaper and watched him as though waiting +patiently for his return. Helen and Nora had already obeyed the summons +of the dressing bell. + +"Henry, I want to hear your news," she insisted. He threw himself into +an easy-chair and turned over the contents of Philippa's workbasket. + +"Where's that tie of mine you were mending?" he asked. "Is it finished +yet?" + +"It is upstairs somewhere," she replied. "No, I have not finished it. +Why do you ask? You have plenty, haven't you?" + +"Drawers full," he admitted cheerfully. "Half of them I can never wear, +though. I like that black and white fellow. Your friend Lessingham was +wearing one exactly like it." + +"It isn't exactly an uncommon pattern," Philippa reminded him. + +"Seems to have the family taste in clothes," Sir Henry continued, +stroking his chin. "That grey tweed suit of his was exactly the same +pattern as the suit Richard was wearing, the last time I saw him in +mufti." + +"They probably go to the same tailor," Philippa remarked equably. + +Sir Henry abandoned the subject. He was once more engrossed in an +examination of the mackerel spinners. + +"You didn't answer my question about Jimmy Dumble," he ventured +presently. + +Philippa turned and looked at him. Her eyes were usually very sweet and +soft and her mouth delightful. Just at that moment, however, there were +new and very firm lines in her face. + +"Henry," she said sternly, "you are purposely fencing with me. Mr. +Lessingham's taste in clothes, or Jimmy Dumble's comings and goings, are +not what I want to hear or talk about. You went to London, unwillingly +enough, to keep your promise to me. I want to know whether you have +succeeded in getting anything from the Admiralty?" + +"Nothing but the cold shoulder, my dear," he answered with a little +chuckle. + +"Do you mean to say that they offered you nothing at all?" she +persisted. "You may have been out of the service too long for them to +start you with a modern ship, but surely they could have given you an +auxiliary cruiser, or a secondary command of some sort?" + +"They didn't even offer me a washtub, dear," he confessed. "My name's on +a list, they said--" + +"Oh, that list!" Philippa interrupted angrily. "Henry, I really can't +bear it. Couldn't they find you anything on land?" + +"My dear girl," he replied a little testily, "what sort of a figure +should I cut in an office! No one can read my writing, and I couldn't +add up a column of figures to save my life. What is it?" he added, as +the door opened, and Mills made his appearance. + +"Dumble is here to see you, sir." + +"Show him in at once," his master directed with alacrity. "Come in, +Jimmy," he went on, raising his voice. "I've got something to show you +here." + +Philippa's lips were drawn a little closer together. She swept past her +husband on her way to the door. + +"I hope you will be so good," she said, looking back, "as to spare me +half an hour of your valuable time this evening. This is a subject which +I must discuss with you further at once." + +"As urgent as all that, eh?" Sir Henry replied, stopping to light a +cigarette. "Righto! You can have the whole of my evening, dear, with the +greatest of pleasure.--Now then, Jimmy!" + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Jimmy Dumble possessed a very red face and an extraordinary capacity for +silence. He stood a yard or two inside the room, twirling his hat in +his hand. Sir Henry, after the closing of the door, did not for a moment +address his visitor. There was a subtle but unmistakable change in his +appearance as he stood with his hands in his pockets, and a frown on +his forehead, whistling softly to himself, his eyes fixed upon the door +through which his wife had vanished. He swung round at last towards the +telephone. + +"Stand by for a moment, Jimmy, will you?" he directed. + +"Aye, aye, sir!" + +Sir Henry took up the receiver. He dropped his voice a little, although +it was none the less distinct. + +"Number one--police-station, please.--Hullo there! The inspector +about?--That you, Inspector?--Sir Henry Cranston speaking. Could you +just step round?--Good! Tell them to show you straight into the library. +You might just drop a hint to Mills about the lights, eh? Thank you." + +He laid down the receiver and turned towards the fisherman. + +"Well, Jimmy," he enquired, "all serene down in the village, eh?" + +"So far as I've seen or heard, sir, there ain't been a word spoke as +shouldn't be." + +"A lazy lot they are," Sir Henry observed. + +"They don't look far beyond the end of their noses." + +"Maybe it's as well for us, sir, as they don't," was the cautious reply. + +Sir Henry strolled to the further end of the room. + +"Perhaps you are right, Jimmy," he admitted. + +"That fellow Ben Oates seems to be the only one with ideas." + +"He don't keep sober long enough to give us any trouble," Dumble +declared. "He began asking me questions a few days ago, and I know he +put Grice's lad on to find out which way we went last Saturday week, +but that don't amount to anything. He was dead drunk for three days +afterwards." + +Sir Henry nodded. + +"I'm not very frightened of Ben Oates, Jimmy," he confided, as he threw +open the door of a large cabinet which stood against the further wall. +"No strangers about, eh?" + +"Not a sign of one, sir." + +Sir Henry glanced towards the door and listened. + +"Shall I just give the key a turn, sir?" his visitor asked. + +"I don't think it is necessary," Sir Henry replied. "They've all gone up +to change. Now listen to me, Jimmy." + +He leaned forward and touched a spring. The false back of the cabinet, +with its little array of flies, spinners, fishing hooks and tackle, +slowly rolled back. Before them stood a huge chart, wonderfully executed +in red, white and yellow. + +"That's a marvellous piece of work, sir," the fisherman observed +admiringly. + +"Best thing I ever did in my life," Sir Henry agreed. "Now see here, +Jimmy. We'll sail out tomorrow, or take the motor boat, according to the +wind. We'll enter Langley Shallows there and pass Dead Man's Rock on the +left side of the waterway, and keep straight on until we get Budden Wood +on the church tower. You follow me?" + +"Aye, aye, sir!" + +"We make for the headland from there. You see, we shall be outside the +Gidney Shallows, and number twelve will pick us up. Put all the fishing +tackle in the boat, and don't forget the bait. We must never lose sight +of the fact, Jimmy, that the main object of our lives is to catch fish." + +"That's right, sir," was the hearty assent. + +"We'll be off at seven o'clock sharp, then," Sir Henry decided. + +"The tide'll be on the flow by that time," Jimmy observed, "and we'll +get off from the staith breakwater. That do be a fine piece of work and +no mistake," he added, as the false back of the cabinet glided slowly to +its place. + +Sir Henry chuckled. + +"It's nothing to the one I've got on number twelve, Jimmy," he said. +"I've got the seaweed on that, pretty well. You'll take a drop of whisky +on your way out?" he added. "Mills will look after you." + +"I thank you kindly, sir." + +Mills answered the bell with some concern in his face. + +"The inspector is here to see you, sir," he announced. "He did mention +something about the lights. I'm sure we've all been most careful. Even +her ladyship has only used a candle in her bedroom." + +"Show the inspector in," Sir Henry directed, "and I'll hear what he has +to say. And give Dumble some whisky as he goes out, and a cigar." + +"Wishing you good night, sir," the latter said, as he followed Mills. +"I'll be punctual in the morning. Looks to me as though we might have +good sport." + +"We'll hope for it, anyway, Jimmy," his employer replied cheerfully. +"Come in, Inspector." + +The inspector, a tall, broad-shouldered man, saluted and stood at +attention. Sir Henry nodded affably and glanced towards the door. He +remained silent until Mills and Dumble had disappeared. + +"Glad I happened to catch you, Inspector," he observed, sitting on the +edge of the table and helping himself to another cigarette. "Any fresh +arrivals?" + +"None, sir," the man reported, "of any consequence that I can see. There +are two more young officers for the Depot, and the young lady for the +Grange, and Mr. and Mrs. Silvester returned home last night. There was +a commercial traveller came in the first train this morning, but he went +on during the afternoon." + +"Hm! What about a Mr. Lessingham--a Mr. Hamar Lessingham?" + +"I haven't heard of him, sir." + +"Have you had the registration papers down from the hotel yet?" + +"Not this evening, sir. I met the Midland and Great Northern train in +myself. Her ladyship was the only passenger to alight here." + +"And I came the other way myself," Sir Henry reflected. + +"Now you come to mention the matter, sir," the inspector continued, +"I was up at the hotel this afternoon, and I saw some luggage about +addressed to a name somewhat similar to that." + +"Probably sent on in advance, eh?" + +"There could be no other way, sir," the inspector replied, "unless the +registration paper has been mislaid. I'll step up to the hotel this +evening and make sure." + +"You'll oblige me very much, if you will. By Jove," Sir Henry added, +looking towards the door, "I'd no idea it was so late!" + +Philippa, who had changed her travelling dress for a plain black net +gown, was standing in the doorway. She looked at the inspector, and for +a moment the little colour which she had seemed to disappear. + +"Is anything the matter?" she asked breathlessly. + +"Nothing in the world, my dear," her husband assured her. "I am +frightfully sorry I'm so late. Jimmy stayed some time, and then the +inspector here looked in about our lights. Just a little more care in +this room at night, he thinks. We'll see to it, Inspector." + +"I am very much obliged, sir," the man replied. "Sorry to be under the +necessity of mentioning it." + +Sir Henry opened the door. + +"You'll find your own way out, won't you?" he begged. "I'm a little +late." + +The inspector saluted and withdrew. Sir Henry glanced round. + +"I won't be ten minutes, Philippa," he promised. "I had no idea it was +so late." + +"Come here one moment, please," she insisted. + +He came back into the room and stood on the other side of the small +table near which she had paused. + +"What is it, dear?" he enquired. "We are going to leave our talk till +after dinner, aren't we?" + +She looked him in the face. There was an anxious light in her eyes, and +she was certainly not herself. "Of course! I only wanted to know--it +seemed to me that you broke off in what you were saying to the +inspector, as I came into the room. Are you sure that it was the lights +he came around about? There isn't anything else wrong, is there?" + +"What else could there be?" he asked wonderingly. + +"I have no idea," she replied, with well-simulated indifference. "I was +only asking you whether there was anything else?" + +He shook his head. + +"Nothing!" + +She threw herself into an easy-chair and picked up a magazine. + +"Thank you," she said. "Do hurry, please. I have a new cook and she +asked particularly whether we were punctual people." + +"Six minutes will see me through it," Sir Henry promised, making for the +door. "Come to think of it, I missed my lunch. I think I'll manage it in +five." + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Sir Henry was in a pleasant and expansive humour that evening. The new +cook was an unqualified success, and he was conscious of having dined +exceedingly well. He sat in a comfortable easy-chair before a blazing +wood fire, he had just lit one of his favourite brand of cigarettes, and +his wife, whom he adored, was seated only a few feet away. + +"Quite a remarkable change in Helen," he observed. "She was in the +depths of depression when I went away, and to-night she seems positively +cheerful." + +"Helen varies a great deal," Philippa reminded him. + +"Still, to-night, I must say, I should have expected to have found her +more depressed than ever," Sir Henry went on. "She hoped so much from +your trip to London, and you apparently accomplished nothing." + +"Nothing at all." + +"And you have had no letters?" + +"None." + +"Then Helen's high spirits, I suppose, are only part of woman's natural +inconsistency.--Philippa, dear!" + +"Yes?" + +"I am glad to be at home. I am glad to see you sitting there. I know you +are nursing up something, some little thunderbolt to launch at me. Won't +you launch it and let's get it over?" + +Philippa laid down the book which she had been reading, and turned to +face her husband. He made a little grimace. + +"Don't look so severe," he begged. "You frighten me before you begin." + +"I'm sorry," she said, "but my face probably reflects my feelings. I am +hurt and grieved and disappointed in you, Henry." + +"That's a good start, anyway," he groaned. + +"We have been married six years," Philippa went on, "and I admit at once +that I have been very happy. Then the war came. You know quite well, +Henry, that especially at that time I was very, very fond of you, yet +it never occurred to me for a moment but that, like every other woman, I +should have to lose my husband for a time.--Stop, please," she insisted, +as he showed signs of interrupting. "I know quite well that it was +through my persuasions you retired so early, but in those days there was +no thought of war, and I always had it in my mind that if trouble came +you would find your way back to where you belonged." + +"But, my dear child, that is all very well," Sir Henry protested, "but +it's not so easy to get back again. You know very well that I went up to +the Admiralty and offered my services, directly the war started." + +"Yes, and what happened?" Philippa demanded. "You were, in a measure, +shelved. You were put on a list and told that you would hear from +them--a sort of Micawber-like situation with which you were perfectly +satisfied. Then you took that moor up in Scotland and disappeared for +nearly six months." + +"I was supplying the starving population with food," he reminded her +genially. "We sent about four hundred brace of grouse to market, not to +speak of the salmon. We had some very fair golf, too, some of the time." + +"Oh, I have not troubled to keep any exact account of your diversions!" +Philippa said scornfully. "Sometimes," she continued, "I wonder whether +you are quite responsible, Henry. How you can even talk of these things +when every man of your age and strength is fighting one way or another +for his country, seems marvellous to me. Do you realise that we are +fighting for our very existence? Do you realise that my own father, who +is fifteen years older than you, is in the firing line? This is a small +place, of course, but there isn't a man left in it of your age, with +your physique, who has had the slightest experience in either service, +who isn't doing something." + +"I can't do more than send in applications," he grumbled. "Be +reasonable, my dear Philippa. It isn't the easiest thing in the world to +find a job for a sailor who has been out of it as long as I have." + +"So you say, but when they ask me what you are doing, as they all did +in London this time, and I reply that you can't get a job, there is +generally a polite little silence. No one believes it. I don't believe +it." + +"Philippa!" + +Sir Henry turned in his chair. His cigar was burning now idly between +his fingers. His heavy eyebrows were drawn together. + +"Well, I don't," she reiterated. "You can be angry, if you will--in +fact I think I should prefer you to be angry. You take no pains at +the Admiralty. You just go there and come away again, once a year or +something like that. Why, if I were you, I wouldn't leave the place +until they'd found me something--indoors or outdoors, what does it +matter so long as your hand is on the wheel and you are doing your +little for your country? But you--what do you care? You went to town +to get a job--and you come back with new mackerel spinners! You are off +fishing to-morrow morning with Jimmy Dumble. Somewhere up in the North +Sea, to-day and to-morrow and the next day, men are giving their lives +for their country. What do you care? You will sit there smoking your +pipe and catching dabs!" + +"Do you know you are almost offensive, Philippa?" her husband said +quietly. + +"I want to be," she retorted. "I should like you to feel that I am. In +any case, this will probably be the last conversation I shall hold with +you on the subject." + +"Well, thank God for that, anyway!" he observed, strolling to the +chimneypiece and selecting a pipe from a rack. "I think you've said +about enough." + +"I haven't finished," she told him ominously. + +"Then for heaven's sake get on with it and let's have it over," he +begged. + +"Oh, you're impossible!" Philippa exclaimed bitterly. "Listen. I give +you one chance more. Tell me the truth? Is there anything in your +health of which I do not know? Is there any possible explanation of your +extraordinary behaviour which, for some reason or other, you have kept +to yourself? Give me your whole confidence." + +Sir Henry, for a moment, was serious enough. He stood looking down at +her a little wistfully. + +"My dear," he told her, "I have nothing to say except this. You are my +very precious wife. I have loved you and trusted you since the day of +our marriage. I am content to go on loving and trusting you, even though +things should come under my notice which I do not understand. Can't you +accept me the same way?" + +Philippa, momentarily uneasy, was nevertheless rebellious. + +"Accept you the same way? How can I! There is nothing in my life to +compare in any way with the tragedy of your--" + +She paused, as though unwilling to finish the sentence. He waited +patiently, however, for her to proceed. + +"Of my what?" + +Philippa compromised. + +"Lethargy," she pronounced triumphantly. + +"An excellent word," he murmured. + +"It is too mild a one, but you are my husband," she remarked. + +"That reminds me," he said quietly. "You are my wife." + +"I know it," she admitted, "but I am also a woman, and there are limits +to my endurance. If you can give me no explanation of your behaviour, +Henry, if you really have no intention of changing it, then there is +only one course left open for me." + +"That sounds rather alarming--what is it?" he demanded. + +Philippa lifted her head a little. This was the pronouncement towards +which she had been leading. + +"From to-day," she declared, "I cease to be your wife." + +His fingers paused in the manipulation of the tobacco with which he was +filling his pipe. He turned and looked at her. + +"You what?" + +"I cease to be your wife." + +"How do you manage that?" he asked. + +"Don't jest," she begged. "It hurts me so. What I mean is surely plain +enough. I will continue to live under your roof if you wish it, or I +am perfectly willing to go back to Wood Norton. I will continue to bear +your name because I must, but the other ties between us are finished." + +"You don't mean this, Philippa," he said gravely. + +"But I do mean it," she insisted. "I mean every word I have spoken. So +far as I am concerned, Henry, this is your last chance." + +There was a knock at the door. Mills entered with a note upon a salver. +Sir Henry took it up, glanced questioningly at his wife, and tore open +the envelope. + +"There will be no answer, Mills," he said. + +The man withdrew. Sir Henry read the few lines thoughtfully:-- + + Police-station, Dreymarsh + SIR, + + According to enquiries made I find that Mr. Hamar Lessingham + arrived at the Hotel this evening in time for dinner. His + luggage arrived by rail yesterday. It is presumed that he came + by motor-car, but there is no car in the garage, nor any mention + of one. His room was taken for him by Miss Fairclough, ringing + up for Lady Cranston about seven o'clock. + + Respectfully yours, + JOHN HAYLOCK. + +"Is your note of interest?" Philippa enquired. + +"In a sense, yes," he replied, thrusting it into his waistcoat pocket. +"I presume we can consider our late subject of conversation finished +with?" + +"I have nothing more to say," she pronounced. + +"Very well, then," her husband agreed, "let us select another topic. +This time, supposing I choose?" + +"You are welcome." + +"Let us converse, then, about Mr. Hamar Lessingham." + +Philippa had taken up her work. Her fingers ceased their labours, but +she did not look up. + +"About Mr. Hamar Lessingham," she repeated. "Rather a limited subject, I +am afraid." + +"I am not so sure," he said thoughtfully. "For instance, who is he?" + +"I have no idea," she replied. "Does it matter? He was at college with +Richard, and he has been a visitor at Wood Norton. That is all that +we know. Surely it is sufficient for us to offer him any reasonable +hospitality?" + +"I am not disputing it," Sir Henry assured her. "On the face of it, it +seems perfectly reasonable that you should be civil to him. On the other +hand, there are one or two rather curious points about his coming here +just now." + +"Really?" Philippa murmured indifferently, bending a little lower over +her work. + +"In the first place," her husband continued, "how did he arrive here?" + +"For all I know," she replied, "he may have walked." + +"A little unlikely. Still, he didn't come from London by either of the +evening trains, and it seems that you didn't take his rooms for him +until about seven o'clock, before which time he hadn't been to the +hotel. So, you see, one is driven to wonder how the mischief he did get +here." + +"I took his rooms?" Philippa repeated, with a sudden little catch at her +heart. + +"Some one from here rang up, didn't they?" Sir Henry went on carelessly. +"I gathered that we were introducing him at the hotel." + +"Where did you hear that?" she demanded. + +He shrugged his shoulders, but avoided answering the question. + +"I have no doubt," he continued, "that the whole subject of Mr. Hamar +Lessingham is scarcely worth discussing. Yet he does seem to have +arrived here under a little halo of coincidence." + +"I am afraid I have scarcely appreciated that," Philippa remarked; "in +fact, his coming here has seemed to me the most ordinary thing in the +world. After all, although one scarcely remembers that since the war, +this is a health resort, and the man has been ill." + +"Quite right," Sir Henry agreed. "You are not going to bed, dear?" + +Philippa had folded up her work. She stood for a moment upon the +hearth-rug. The little hardness which had tightened her mouth had +disappeared, her eyes had softened. + +"May I say just one word more," she begged, "about our previous--our +only serious subject of conversation? I have tried my best since we were +married, Henry, to make you happy." + +"You know quite well," he assured her, "that you have succeeded." + +"Grant me one favour, then," she pleaded. "Give up your fishing +expedition to-morrow, go back to London by the first train and let me +write to Lord Rayton. I am sure he would do something for you." + +"Of course he'd do something!" Her husband groaned. "I should get a +censorship in Ireland, or a post as instructor at Portsmouth." + +"Wouldn't you rather take either of those than nothing?" she asked, +"than go on living the life you are living now?" + +"To be perfectly frank with you, Philippa, I wouldn't," he declared +bluntly. "What on earth use should I be in a land appointment? Why, no +one could read my writing, and my nautical science is entirely out of +date. Why a cadet at Osborne could floor me in no time." + +"You refuse to let me write, then?" she persisted. + +"Absolutely." + +"You intend to go on that fishing expedition with Jimmy Dumble +to-morrow?" + +"Wouldn't miss it for anything," he confessed. + +Philippa was suddenly white with anger. + +"Henry, I've finished," she declared, holding out her hand to keep +him away from her. "I've finished with you entirely. I would rather be +married to an enemy who was fighting honourably for his country than to +you. What I have said, I mean. Don't come near me. Don't try to touch +me." + +She swept past him on her way to the door. + +"Not even a good-night kiss?" he asked, stooping down. + +She looked him in the eyes. + +"I am not a child," she said scornfully. + +He closed the door after her. For a moment he remained as though +undecided whether to follow or not. His face had softened with her +absence. Finally, however, he turned away with a little shrug of +the shoulders, threw himself into his easy-chair and began to smoke +furiously. + +The telephone bell disturbed his reflection. He rose at once and took up +the receiver. + +"Yes, this is 19, Dreymarsh. Trunk call? All right, I am here." + +He waited until another voice came to him faintly. + +"Cranston?" + +"Speaking." + +"That's right. The message is Odino Berry, you understand? O-d-i-n-o +b-e-r-r-y." + +"I've got it," Sir Henry replied. "Good night!" He hung up the receiver, +crossed the room to his desk, unlocked one of the drawers, and produced +a black memorandum book, secured with a brass lock. He drew a key from +his watch chain, opened the book, and ran his fingers down the O's. + +"Odino," he muttered to himself. "Here it is: 'We have trustworthy +information from Berlin.' Now Berry." He turned back. "'You are being +watched by an enemy secret service agent.'" + +He relocked the cipher book and replaced it in the desk. Then he +strolled over to his easy-chair and helped himself to a whisky and soda +from the tray which Mills had just arranged upon the sideboard. + +"We have trustworthy information from Berlin," he repeated to himself, +"that you are being watched by an enemy secret service agent." + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +"Tell me, Mr. Lessingham," Philippa insisted, "exactly what are you +thinking of? You looked so dark and mysterious from the ridge below that +I've climbed up on purpose to ask you." + +Lessingham held out his hand to steady her. They were standing on +a sharp spur of the cliffs, the north wind blowing in their faces, +thrashing into little flecks of white foam the sea below, on which the +twilight was already resting. For a moment or two neither of them could +speak. + +"I was thinking of my country," he confessed. "I was looking through the +shadows there, right across the North Sea." + +"To Germany?" + +He shook his head. + +"Further away--to Sweden." + +"I forgot," she murmured. "You looked as though you were posing for a +statue of some one in exile," she observed. "Come, let us go a little +lower down--unless you want to stay here and be blown to pieces." + +"I was on my way back to the hotel," he answered quickly, as he followed +her lead, "but to tell you the truth I was feeling a little lonely." + +"That," she declared, "is your own fault. I asked you to come to +Mainsail Haul whenever you felt inclined." + +"As I have felt inclined ever since the evening I arrived," he remarked +with a smile, "you might, perhaps, by this time have had a little too +much of me." + +"On the contrary," she told him, "I quite expected you yesterday +afternoon, to tell me how you like the place and what you have been +doing. So you were thinking about--over there?" she added, moving her +head seawards. + +"Over there absorbs a great deal of one's thoughts," he confessed, "and +the rest of them have been playing me queer tricks." + +"Well, I should like to hear about the first half," she insisted. + +"Do you know," he replied, "there are times when even now this war seems +to me like an unreal thing, like something I have been reading about, +some wild imagining of Shelley or one of the unrestrainable poets. I +can't believe that millions of the flower of Germany's manhood and +yours have perished helplessly, hopelessly, cruelly. And France--poor +decimated France!" + +"Well, Germany started the war, you know," she reminded him. + +"Did she?" he answered. "I sometimes wonder. Even now I fancy, if the +official papers of every one of the nations lay side by side, with their +own case stated from their own point of view, even you might feel a +little confused about that. Still, I am going to be very honest with +you. I think myself that Germany wanted war." + +"There you are, then," she declared triumphantly. "The whole thing is +her responsibility." + +"I do not quite go so far as that," he protested. "You see, the world is +governed by great natural laws. As a snowball grows larger with rolling, +so it takes up more room. As a child grows out of its infant clothes, it +needs the vestments of a youth and then a man. And so with Germany. She +grew and grew until the country could not hold her children, until her +banks could not contain her money, until she stretched her arms out on +every side and felt herself stifled. Germany came late into the world +and found it parcelled out, but had she not a right to her place? She +made herself great. She needed space." + +"Well," Philippa observed, "you couldn't suppose that other nations +were going to give up what they had, just because she wanted their +possessions, could you?" + +"Perhaps not," he admitted. "And yet, you see, the immutable law comes +in here. The stronger must possess--not only the stronger by arms, +mind, but by intellect, by learning, by proficiency in science, by +utilitarianism. The really cruel part, the part I was thinking of then, +as I looked out across the sea, is that this crude and miserable resort +to arms should be necessary." + +"If only Germans themselves were as broad-minded and reasonable as +you," Philippa sighed, "one feels that there might be some hope for the +future!" + +"I am not alone," he assured her, "but, you see, all over Germany there +is spread like a spider's web the lay religion of the citizen--devotion +to the Government, blind obedience to the Kaiser. Independent thought +has made Germany great in science, in political economy, in economics. +But independent thought is never turned towards her political destinies. +Those are shaped for her. For good or for evil her children have learnt +obedience." + +They were descending the hillside now. At their feet lay the little +town, black and silent. + +"You have helped me to understand a little," Philippa said. "You put +things so gently and yet so clearly. Now tell me, will you not, how it +is that you, who are a Swede by birth, are bearing arms for Germany?" + +"That is very simple," he confessed. "My mother was a German, and when +she died she bequeathed to me large estates in Bavaria, and a very +considerable fortune. These I could never have inherited unless I +had chosen to do my military service in Germany. My family is an +impoverished one, and I have brothers and sisters dependent upon me. +Under the circumstances, hesitation on my part was impossible." + +"But when the war came?" she queried. + +He looked at her in surprise. + +"What was there left for me then?" he demanded. "Naturally I heard +nothing but the voice of those whom I had sworn to obey. I was in that +mad rush through Belgium. I was wounded at Maubeuge, or else I should +have followed hard on the heels of that wonderful retreat of yours. +As it was, I lay for many months in hospital. I joined again--shall I +confess it?--almost unwillingly. The bloodthirstiness of it all sickened +me. I fought at Ypres, but I think that it was something of the courage +of despair, of black misery. I was wounded again and decorated. I +suppose I shall never be fit for the front again. I tried to turn to +account some of my knowledge of England and English life. Then they sent +me here." + +"Here, of all places in the world!" Philippa repeated wonderingly. +"Just look at us! We have a single line of railway, a perfectly +straightforward system of roads, the ordinary number of soldiers being +trained, no mysteries, no industries--nothing. What terrible scheme are +you at work upon, Mr. Lessingham?" + +He smiled. + +"Between you and me," he confided, "I am not at all sure that I am not +here on a fool's errand--at least I thought so when I arrived." + +She glanced up at him. + +"And why not now?" + +He made no answer, but their eyes met and Philippa looked hurriedly +away. There was a moment's queer, strained silence. Before them loomed +up the outline of Mainsail Haul. + +"You will come in and have some tea, won't you?" she invited. + +"If I may. Believe me," he added, "it has only been a certain diffidence +that has kept me away so long." + +She made no reply, and they entered the house together. They found Helen +and Nora, with three or four young men from the Depot, having tea in the +drawing-room. Lessingham slipped very easily into the pleasant little +circle. If a trifle subdued, his quiet manners, and a sense of humour +which every now and then displayed itself, were most attractive. + +"Wish you'd come and dine with us and meet our colonel, sir," Harrison +asked him. "He was at Magdalen a few years after Major Felstead, and I +am sure you'd find plenty to talk about." + +"I am quite sure that we should," Lessingham replied. "May I come, +perhaps, towards the end of next week? I am making most strenuous +efforts to lead an absolutely quiet life here." + +"Whenever you like, sir. We sha'n't be able to show you anything very +wild in the way of dissipation. Vintage port and a decent cigar are the +only changes we can make for guests." + +Philippa drew her visitor on one side presently, and made him sit with +her in a distant corner of the room. + +"I knew there was something I wanted to say to you," she began, "but +somehow or other I forgot when I met you. My husband was very much +struck with Helen's improved spirits. Don't you think that we had better +tell him, when he returns, that we had heard from Major Felstead?" + +Lessingham agreed. + +"Just let him think that your letters came by post in the ordinary way," +he advised. "I shouldn't imagine, from what I have seen of your husband, +that he is a suspicious person, but it is just possible that he might +have associated them with me if you had mentioned them the other night. +When is he coming back?" + +"I never know," Philippa answered with a sigh. "Perhaps to-night, +perhaps in a week. It depends upon what sport he is having. You are not +smoking." + +Lessingham lit a cigarette. + +"I find your husband," he said quietly, "rather an interesting type. We +have no one like that in Germany. He almost puzzles me." + +Philippa glanced up to find her companion's dark eyes fixed upon her. + +"There is very little about Henry that need puzzle any one," she +complained bitterly. "He is just an overgrown, spoilt child, devoted to +amusements, and following his fancy wherever it leads him. Why do +you look at me, Mr. Lessingham, as though you thought I was keeping +something back? I am not, I can assure you." + +"Perhaps I was wondering," he confessed, "how you really felt towards a +husband whose outlook was so unnatural." + +She looked down at her intertwined fingers. + +"Do you know," she said softly, "I feel, somehow or other, although we +have known one another such a short time, as though we were friends, +and yet that is a question which I could not answer. A woman must always +have some secrets, you know." + +"A man may try sometimes to preserve his," he sighed, "but a woman is +clever enough, as a rule, to dig them out." + +A faint tinge of colour stole into her cheeks. She welcomed Helen's +approach almost eagerly. + +"A woman must first feel the will," she murmured, without glancing at +him. "Helen, do you think we dare ask Mr. Lessingham to come and dine?" + +"Please do not discourage such a delightful suggestion," Lessingham +begged eagerly. + +"I haven't the least idea of doing so," Helen laughed, "so long as I may +have--say just ten minutes to talk about Dick." + +"It is a bargain," he promised. + +"We shall be quite alone," Philippa warned him, "unless Henry arrives." + +"It is the great attraction of your invitation," he confessed. + +"At eight o'clock, then." + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +"Captain Griffiths to see your ladyship." + +Philippa's fingers rested for a moment upon the keyboard of the piano +before which she was seated, awaiting Lessingham's arrival. Then she +glanced at the clock. It was ten minutes to eight. + +"You can show him in, Mills, if he wishes to see me." + +Captain Griffiths was ushered into the room--awkward, unwieldly, nervous +as usual. He entered as though in a hurry, and there was nothing in his +manner to denote that he had spent the last few hours making up his mind +to this visit. + +"I must apologise for this most untimely call, Lady Cranston," he said, +watching the closing of the door. "I will not take up more than five +minutes of your time." + +"We are very pleased to see you at any time, Captain Griffiths," +Philippa said hospitably. "Do sit down, please." + +Captain Griffiths bowed but remained standing. + +"It is very near your dinner-time, I know, Lady Cranston," he continued +apologetically. "The fact of it is, however, that as Commandant here +it is my duty to examine the bona fides of any strangers in the place. +There is a gentleman named Lessingham staying at the hotel, who I +understand gave your name as reference." + +Philippa's eyes looked larger than ever, and her face more innocent, as +she gazed up at her visitor. + +"Why, of course, Captain Griffiths," she said. "Mr. Lessingham was at +college with my brother, and one of his best friends. He has shot down +at my father's place in Cheshire." + +"You are speaking of your brother, Major Felstead?" + +"My only brother." + +"I am very much obliged to you, Lady Cranston," Captain Griffiths +declared. "I can see that we need not worry any more about Mr. +Lessingham." + +Philippa laughed. + +"It seems rather old-fashioned to think of you having to worry about +any one down here," she observed. "It really is a very harmless +neighbourhood, isn't it?" + +"There isn't much going on, certainly," the Commandant admitted. "Very +dull the place seems at times." + +"Now be perfectly frank," Philippa begged him. "Is there a single fact +of importance which could be learnt in this place, worth communicating +to the enemy? Is the danger of espionage here worth a moment's +consideration?" + +"That," Captain Griffiths replied in somewhat stilted fashion, "is not a +question which I should be prepared to answer off-hand." + +Philippa shrugged her shoulders and appealed almost feverishly to Helen, +who had just entered the room. + +"Helen, do come and listen to Captain Griffiths! He is making me feel +quite creepy. There are secrets about, it seems, and he wants to know +all about Mr. Lessingham." + +Helen smiled with complete self-possession. + +"Well, we can set his mind at rest about Mr. Lessingham, can't we?" she +observed, as she shook hands. + +"We can do more," Philippa declared. "We can help him to judge for +himself. We are expecting Mr. Lessingham for dinner, Captain Griffiths. +Do stay." + +"I couldn't think of taking you by storm like this," Captain Griffiths +replied, with a wistfulness which only made his voice sound hoarser and +more unpleasant. "It is most kind of you, Lady Cranston. Perhaps you +will give me another opportunity." + +"I sha'n't think of it," Philippa insisted. "You must stay and dine +to-night. We shall be a partie carrie, for Nora goes to bed directly +after dinner. I am ringing the bell to tell Mills to set an extra +place," she added. + +Captain Griffiths abandoned himself to fate with a little shiver of +complacency. He welcomed Lessingham, who was presently announced, with +very much less than his usual reserve, and the dinner was in every way +a success. Towards its close, Philippa became a little thoughtful. +She glanced more than once at Lessingham, who was sitting by her side, +almost in admiration. His conversation, gay at times, always polished, +was interlarded continually with those little social reminiscences +inevitable amongst men moving in a certain circle of English society. +Apparently Richard Felstead was not the only one of his college friends +with whom he had kept in touch. The last remnants of Captain Griffiths' +suspicions seemed to vanish with their second glass of port, although +his manner became in no way more genial. + +"Don't you think you are almost a little too daring?" Philippa asked her +favoured guest as he helped her afterwards to set out a bridge table. + +"One adapts one's methods to one's adversary," he murmured, with a +smile, "Your friend Captain Griffiths had only the very conventional +suspicions. The mention of a few good English names, acquaintance with +the ordinary English sports, is quite sufficient with a man like that." + +Helen and Griffiths were talking at the other end of the room. Philippa +raised her eyes to her companion's. + +"You become more of a mystery than ever," she declared. "You are making +me even curious. Tell me really why you have paid us this visit from the +clouds?" + +She was sorry almost as soon as she had asked the question. For a moment +the calm insouciance of his manner seemed to have departed. His eyes +glowed. + +"In search of new things," he answered. + +"Guns? Fortifications?" + +"Neither." + +A spirit of mischief possessed her. Lessingham's manner was baffling +and yet provocative. For a moment the political possibilities of his +presence faded away from her mind. She had an intense desire to break +through his reserve. + +"Won't you tell me--why you came?" + +"I could tell you more easily," he answered in a low tone, "why it will +be the most miserable day of my life when I leave." + +She laughed at him with perfect heartiness. + +"How delightful to be flirted with again!" she sighed. "And I thought +all German men were so heavy, and paid elaborate, underdone compliments. +Still, your secret, sir, please? That is what I want to know." + +"If you will have just a little patience!" he begged, leaning so close +to her that their heads almost touched, "I promise that I will not leave +this place before I tell it to you." + +Philippa's eyes for the first time dropped before his. She knew +perfectly well what she ought to have done and she was singularly +indisposed to do it. It was a most piquant adventure, after all, and +it almost helped her to forget the trouble which had been sitting so +heavily in her heart. Still avoiding his eyes, she called the others. + +"We are quite ready for bridge," she announced. + +They played four or five rubbers. Lessingham was by far the most expert +player, and he and Philippa in the end were the winners. The two men +stood together for a moment or two at the sideboard, helping themselves +to whisky and soda. Griffiths had become more taciturn than ever, and +even Philippa was forced to admit that the latter part of the evening +had scarcely been a success. + +"Do you play club bridge in town, Mr. Lessingham?" Griffiths asked. + +"Never," was the calm reply. + +"You are head and shoulders above our class down here." + +"Very good of you to say so," Lessingham replied courteously. "I held +good cards to-night." + +"I wonder," Griffiths went on, dropping his voice a little and keeping +his eyes fixed upon his companion, "what the German substitute for +bridge is." + +"I wonder," Lessingham echoed. + +"As a nation," his questioner proceeded, "they probably don't waste as +much time on cards as we do." + +Lessingham's interest in the subject appeared to be non-existent. He +strolled away from the sideboard towards Philippa. She, for her part, +was watching Captain Griffiths. + +"So many thanks, Lady Cranston," Lessingham murmured, "for your +hospitality." + +"And what about that secret?" she asked. + +"You see, there are two," he answered, looking down at her. "One I shall +most surely tell you before I leave here, because it is the one secret +which no man has ever succeeded in keeping to himself. As for the +other--" + +He hesitated. There was something almost like pain in his face. She +broke in hastily. + +"I did not call you away to ask about either. I happened to notice +Captain Griffiths just now. Do you know that he is watching you very +closely?" + +"I had an idea of it," Lessingham admitted indifferently. "He is rather +a clumsy person, is he not?" + +"You will be careful?" she begged earnestly. "Remember, won't you, that +Helen and I are really in a most disgraceful position if anything should +come out." + +"Nothing shall," he promised her. "I think you know, do you not, that, +whatever might happen to me, I should find some means to protect you." + +For the second time she felt a curious lack of will to fittingly reprove +his boldness. She had even to struggle to keep her tone as careless as +her words. + +"You really are a delightful person!" she exclaimed. "How long is it +since you descended from the clouds?" + +"Sometimes I think that I am there still," he answered, "but I have +known you about seventy-six hours." + +"What precision?" she laughed. "It's a national characteristic, isn't +it? Captain Griffiths," she continued, as she observed his approach, "if +you really must go, please take Mr. Lessingham with you. He is making +fun of me. I don't allow even Dick's friends to do that." + +Lessingham's disclaimer was in quite the correct vein. + +"You must both come again very soon," their hostess concluded, as she +shook hands. "I enjoyed our bridge immensely." + +The two men were already on their way to the door when a sudden idea +seemed to occur to Captain Griffiths. He turned back. + +"By-the-by, Lady Cranston," he asked, "have you heard anything from your +brother?" + +Philippa shook her head sadly. Helen, who, unlike her friend, had not +had the advantage of a distinguished career upon the amateur dramatic +stage, turned away and held a handkerchief to her eyes. + +"Not a word," was Philippa's sorrowful reply. + +Captain Griffiths offered a clumsy expression of his sympathy. + +"Bad luck!" he said. "I'm so sorry, Lady Cranston. Good night once +more." + +This time their departure was uninterrupted. Helen removed her +handkerchief from her eyes, and Philippa made a little grimace at the +closed door. + +"Do you believe," Helen asked seriously, "that Captain Griffiths has any +suspicions?" + +Philippa shrugged her shoulders. + +"If he has, who cares?" she replied, a little defiantly. "The very idea +of a duel of wits between those two men is laughable." + +"Perhaps so," Helen agreed, with a shade of doubt in her tone. + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Philippa and Helen started, a few mornings later, for one of their +customary walks. The crystalline October sunshine, in which every +distant tree and, seaward, each slowly travelling steamer, seemed to +gain a new clearness of outline, lay upon the deep-ploughed fields, the +yellowing bracken, and the red-gold of the bending trees, while the west +wind, which had strewn the sea with white-flecked waves, brought down +the leaves to form a carpet for their feet, and played strange music +along the wood-crested slope. In the broken land through which they +made their way, a land of trees and moorland, with here and there a +cultivated patch, the yellow gorse still glowed in unexpected corners; +queer, scentless flowers made splashes of colour in the hedgerows; a +rabbit scurried sometimes across their path; a cock pheasant, after +a moment's amazed stare, lowered his head and rushed for unnecessary +shelter. The longer they looked upwards, the bluer seemed the sky. The +grass beneath their feet was as green and soft as in springtime. Driven +by the wind, here and there a white-winged gull sailed over their +heads,--a cloud of them rested upon a freshly turned little square of +ploughed land between two woods. A flight of pigeons, like torn leaves +tossed about by the wind, circled and drifted above them. Philippa +seated herself upon the trunk of a fallen tree and gazed contentedly +about her. + +"If I had a looking-glass and a few more hairpins, I should be perfectly +happy," she sighed. "I am sure my hair must look awful." + +Helen glanced at it admiringly. + +"I decline to say the correct thing," she declared. "I will only remind +you that there will be no one here to look at it." + +"I am not so sure," Philippa replied. "These are the woods which the +special constables haunt by day and by night. They gaze up every tree +trunk for a wireless installation, and they lie behind hedges and watch +for mysterious flashes." + +"Are you suggesting that we may meet Mr. Lessingham?" Helen enquired, +lazily. "I am perfectly certain that he knows nothing of the equipment +of the melodramatic spy. As to Zeppelins, don't you remember he told us +that he hated them and was terrified of bombs." + +"My dear," Philippa remonstrated, "Mr. Lessingham does nothing crude." + +"And yet,--" Helen began. + +"Yet I suppose the man has something at the back of his head," Philippa +interrupted. "Sometimes I think that he has, sometimes I believe that +Richard must have shown him my picture, and he has come over here to see +if I am really like it." + +"He does behave rather like that," her companion admitted drily. + +Phillipa turned and looked at her. + +"Helen," she said severely, "don't be a cat." + +"If I were to express my opinion of your behaviour," Helen went on, +picking up a pine cone and examining it, "I might astonish you." + +"You have an evil mind," Philippa yawned, producing her cigarette case. +"What you really resent is that Mr. Lessingham sometimes forgets to talk +about Dick." + +"The poor man doesn't get much chance," Helen retorted, watching the +blue smoke from her cigarette and leaning back with an air of content. +"Whatever do you and he find to talk about, Philippa?" + +"Literature--English and German," Philippa murmured demurely. "Mr. +Lessingham is remarkably well read, and he knows more about our English +poets than any man I have met for years." + +"I forgot that you enjoyed that sort of thing." + +"Once more, don't be a cat," Philippa enjoined. "If you want me to +confess it, I will own up at once. You know what a simple little thing +I am. I admire Mr. Lessingham exceedingly, and I find him a most +interesting companion." + +"You mean," her friend observed drily "the Baron Maderstrom." Philippa +looked around and frowned. + +"You are most indiscreet, Helen," she declared. "I have learnt something +of the science of espionage lately, and I can assure you that all spoken +or written words are dangerous. There is a thoroughly British squirrel +in that tree overhead, and I am sure he heard." + +"I suppose the sunshine has got into your head," Helen groaned. + +"If you mean that I am finding it a relief to talk nonsense, you are +right," Philippa assented. "As a matter of fact, I am feeling most +depressed. Henry telephoned from somewhere or other before breakfast +this morning, to say that he should probably be home to-night or +to-morrow. They must have landed somewhere down the coast." + +"You are a most undutiful wife," Helen pronounced severely. "I am sure +Henry is a delightful person, even if he is a little irresponsible, and +it is almost pathetic to remember how much you were in love with him, a +year or two ago." + +Some of the lightness vanished from Philippa's face. + +"That was before the war," she sighed. + +"I still think Henry is a dear, though I don't altogether understand +him," Helen said thoughtfully. + +"No doubt," Philippa assented, "but you'd find the not understanding him +a little more galling, if you were his wife. You see, I didn't know that +I was marrying a sort of sporting Mr. Skimpole." + +"I wonder," Helen reflected, "how Henry and Mr. Lessingham will get on +when they see more of one another." + +"I really don't care," Philippa observed indifferently. + +"I used to notice sometimes--that was soon after you were married," +Helen continued, "that Henry was just a little inclined to be jealous." + +Philippa withdrew her eyes from the sea. There was a queer little smile +upon her lips. + +"Well, if he still is," she said, "I'll give him something to be jealous +about." + +"Poor Mr. Lessingham!" Helen murmured. + +Philippa's eyebrows were raised. + +"Poor Mr. Lessingham?" she repeated. "I don't think you'll find that +he'll be in the least sorry for himself." + +"He may be in earnest," Helen reminded her friend. "You can be horribly +attractive when you like, you know, Philippa." + +Philippa smiled sweetly. + +"It is just possible," she said, "that I may be in earnest myself. I've +quarrelled pretty desperately with Henry, you know, and I'm a helpless +creature without a little admiration." + +Helen rose suddenly to her feet. Her eyes were fixed upon a figure +approaching through the wood. + +"You really aren't respectable, Philippa," she declared. "Throw away +your cigarette, for heaven's sake, and sit up. Some one is coming." + +Philippa only moved her head lazily. The sunlight, which came down in +a thousand little zigzags through the wind-tossed trees, fell straight +upon her rather pale, defiant little face, with its unexpressed evasive +charm, and seemed to find a new depth of colour in the red-gold of her +disordered hair. Her slim, perfect body was stretched almost at full +length, one leg drawn a little up, her hands carelessly drooping towards +the grass. The cigarette was still burning in the corner of her lips. + +"I decline," she said, "to throw away my cigarette for any one." + +"Least of all, I trust," a familiar voice interposed, "for me." + +Philippa sat upright at once, smoothed her hair and looked a little +resentfully at Lessingham. He was wearing a brown tweed knickerbocker +suit, and he carried a gun under his arm. + +"Whatever are you doing up here," she demanded, "and do you know +anything about our game laws? You can't come out into the woods here and +shoot things just because you feel like it." + +He disposed of his gun and seated himself between them. + +"That is quite all right," he assured her. "Your neighbour, Mr. +Windover, to whom these woods apparently belong, asked me to bring my +gun out this morning and try and get a woodcock." + +"Gracious! You don't mean that Mr. Windover is here, too?" Philippa +demanded, looking around. Lessingham shook his head. + +"His car came for him at the other side of the wood," he explained. "He +was wanted to go on the Bench. I elected to walk home." + +"And the woodcock?" she asked. "I adore woodcock." + +He produced one from his pocket, took up her felt hat, which was lying +amongst the bracken, and busied himself insinuating the pin feathers +under the silk band. + +"There," he said, handing it to her, "the first woodcock of the season. +We got four, and I really only accepted one in the hope that you would +like it. I shall leave it with the estimable Mills, on my return." + +"You must come and share it," Philippa insisted. "Those boys of Nora's +are coming in to dinner. Your gift shall be the piece de resistance." + +"Then may I dine another night?" he begged. "This place encourages in me +the grossest of appetites." + +"Have no fear," she replied. "You will never see that woodcock again. I +shall have it for my luncheon to-morrow. I ordered dinner before I came +out, and though it may be a simple feast, I promise that you shall not +go away hungry." + +"Will you promise that you will never send me away hungry?" he asked, +dropping his voice for a moment. + +She turned and studied him. Helen, who had strolled a few yards away, +was knee-deep in the golden brown bracken, picking some gorgeously +coloured leaves from a solitary bramble bush. Lessingham had thrown his +cap onto the ground, and his wind-tossed hair and the unusual colour in +his cheeks were both, in their way, becoming. His loose but well-fitting +country clothes, his tie and soft collar, were all well-chosen and +suitable. She admired his high forehead and his firm, rather proud +mouth. His eyes as well as his tone were full of seriousness. + +"You know that you ought to be saying that to some Gretchen away across +that terrible North Sea," she laughed. + +"There is no Gretchen who has ever made my heart shake as you do," he +whispered. + +She picked up her hat and sighed. + +"Really," she said, "I think things are quite complicated enough as they +are. I am in a flutter all day long, as it is, about your mission here +and your real identity. I simply could not include a flirtation amongst +my excitements." + +"I have never flirted," he assured her gravely. + +"Wise man," she pronounced, rising to her feet. "Come, let us go and +help Helen pick leaves. She is scratching her fingers terribly, and I'm +sure you have a knife. A dear, economical creature, Helen," she added, +as they strolled along. "I am perfectly certain that those are destined +to adorn my dining-table, and, with chrysanthemums at sixpence each, +you can't imagine how welcome they are. Come, produce the knife, Mr. +Lessingham." + +The knife was forthcoming, and presently they all turned their faces +homeward. Philippa arrested both her companions on the outskirts of +the wood, and pointed to the red-tiled little town, to the sombre, +storm-beaten grey church on the edge of the cliff, to the peaceful +fields, the stretch of gorse-sprinkled common, and the rolling stretch +of green turf on the crown of the cliffs. Beyond was the foam-flecked +blue sea, dotted all over with cargo steamers. + +"Would one believe," she asked satirically, "that there should be scope +here in this forgotten little spot for the brains of a--Mr. Lessingham!" + +"Remember that I was sent," he protested. "The error, if error there be, +is not mine." + +"And after all," Helen reminded them both, "think how easily one may be +misled by appearances. You couldn't imagine anything more honest than +the faces of the villagers and the fishermen one sees about, yet do you +know, Mr. Lessingham, that we were visited by burglars last night?" + +"Seriously?" he asked. + +"Without a doubt. Of course, Mainsail Haul is an invitation to thieves. +They could get in anywhere. Last night they chose the French windows and +seem to have made themselves at home in the library." + +"I trust," Lessingham said, "that they did not take anything of value?" + +"They took nothing at all," Philippa sighed. "That is the humiliating +part of it. They evidently didn't like our things." + +"How do you know that you had burglars, if they took nothing away?" +Lessingham enquired. + +"So practical!" Philippa murmured. "As a matter of fact, I heard some +one moving about, and I rang the alarm bell. Mills was downstairs +almost directly and we heard some one running down the drive. The French +windows were open, a chair was overturned in the library, and a drawer +in my husband's desk was wide open." + +"The proof," Lessingham admitted, "is overwhelming. You were visited by +a burglar. Does your husband keep anything of value in his desk?" + +"Henry hasn't anything of value in the world," Philippa replied drily, +"except his securities, and they are at the bank." + +"Without going so far as to contradict you," Lessingham observed, with a +smile, "I still venture to disagree!" + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Sir Henry stepped back from the scales and eyed the fish which they had +been weighing, admiringly. + +"You see that, Mills? You see that, Jimmy?" he pointed out. "Six and +three-quarter pounds! I was right almost to an ounce. He's a fine +fellow!" + +"A very extraordinary fish, sir," the butler observed. "Will you allow +me to take your oilskins? Dinner was served nearly an hour ago." + +Sir Henry slipped off his dripping overalls and handed them over. + +"That's all right," he replied. "Listen. Don't say a word about my +arrival to your mistress at present. I have some writing to do. Bring +me a glass of sherry at once, or mix a cocktail if you can do so without +being missed, and take Jimmy away and give him some whisky and soda." + +"But what about your own dinner, sir?" + +"I'll have a tray in the gun room," his master decided, "say in twenty +minutes' time. And, Mills, who did you say were dining?" + +"Two of the young officers from the Depot, sir--Mr. Harrison and Mr. +Sinclair--and Mr. Hamar Lessingham." + +"Lessingham, eh?" Sir Henry repeated, as he seated himself before his +writing-table. "Mills," he added, in a confidential whisper, "what port +did you serve?" + +The butler's expression was one of conscious rectitude. + +"Not the vintage, sir," he announced with emphasis. "Some very excellent +wood port, which we procured for shooting luncheons. The young gentlemen +like it." + +"You're a jewel, Mills," his master declared. "Now you understand--an +aperitif for me now, some whisky for Jimmy in your room, and not a word +about my being here. Good night, Jimmy. Sorry we were too late for the +mackerel, but we had some grand sport, all the same. You'll have a day +or two's rest ashore now." + +"Aye, aye, sir!" Dumble replied. "We got in just in time. There's +something more than a squall coming up nor'ards." + +Sir Henry listened for a moment. The French windows shook, the rain beat +against the panes, and a dull booming of wind was clearly audible from +outside. + +"We timed that excellently," he agreed. "Come up and have a chat +to-morrow, Jimmy, if your wife will spare you." + +"I'll be round before eleven, sir," the fisherman promised, with a grin. + +Sir Henry waited for the closing of the door. Then he leaned forward for +several moments. He had scarcely the appearance of a man returned from a +week or two of open-air life and indulgence in the sport he loved best. +The healthy tan of his complexion was lessened rather than increased. +There were black lines under his eyes which seemed to speak of sleepless +nights, and a beard of several days' growth was upon his chin. He drank +the cocktail which Mills presently brought him, at a gulp, and watched +with satisfaction while the mixer was vigorously shaken and a second one +poured out. + +"We've had a rough time, Mills," he observed, as he set down the glass. +"Until this morning it scarcely left off blowing." + +"I'm sorry to hear it, sir," was the respectful reply. "If I may be +allowed to say so, sir, you're looking tired." + +"I am tired," Sir Henry admitted. "I think, if I tried, I could go to +sleep now for twenty-four hours." + +"You will pardon my reminding you, so far as regards your letters, that +there is no post out tonight, sir," Mills proceeded. "I have prepared a +warm bath and laid out your clothes for a change." + +"Capital!" Sir Henry exclaimed. "It isn't a letter that's bothering me, +though, Mills. There are just a few geographical notes I want to make. +You know, I'm trying to improve the fishermen's chart of the coast round +here. That fellow Groocock--Jimmy Dumble's uncle--very nearly lost his +motor boat last week through trusting to the old one." + +"Just so, sir," Mills replied deferentially, placing the empty glass +upon his tray. "If you'll excuse me, sir, I must get back to the dining +room." + +"Quite right," his master assented. "They won't be out just yet, will +they?" + +"Her ladyship will probably be rising in about ten minutes, sir--not +before that." + +Sir Henry nodded a little impatiently. Directly the door was closed +he rose to his feet, stood for a moment listening by the side of his +fishing cabinet, then opened the glass front and touched the spring. +With the aid of a little electric torch which he took from his pocket, +he studied particularly a certain portion of the giant chart, made some +measurements with a pencil, some notes in the margin, and closed it +up again with an air of satisfaction. Then he resumed his seat, drew +a folded slip of paper from his breast pocket, a chart from another, +turned up the lamp and began to write. His face, as he stooped low, +escaped the soft shade and was for a moment almost ghastly. Every now +and then he turned and made some calculations on the blotting-paper by +his side. At last he leaned back with a little sigh of relief. He had +barely done so before the door behind him was opened. + +"Are we going to stay in here, Mummy, or are we going into the +drawing-room?" Nora asked. + +"In here, I think," he heard Philippa reply. + +Then they both came in, followed by Helen. Nora was the first to see him +and rushed forward with a little cry of surprise. + +"Why, here's Dad!" she exclaimed, flinging her arms around his neck. +"Daddy, how dare you be sitting here all by yourself whilst we are +having dinner! When did you get back? What a fish!" + +Sir Henry closed down his desk, embraced his daughter, and came forward +to meet his wife. + +"Fine fellow, isn't he, Nora!" he agreed. "Well, Philippa, how are you? +Pleased to see me, I hope? Another new frock, I believe, and in war +time!" + +"Fancy your remembering that it was war time!" she answered, standing +very still while he leaned over and kissed her. + +"Nasty one for me," Sir Henry observed good-humouredly. "How well you're +looking, Helen! Any news of Dick yet?" + +Helen attempted an expression of extreme gravity with more or less +success. + +"Nothing fresh," she answered. + +"Well, well, no news may be good news," Sir Henry remarked consolingly. +"Jove, it's good to feel a roof over one's head again! This morning has +been the only patch of decent weather we've had." + +"This morning was lovely," Helen assented. "Philippa and I went and sat +up in the woods." + +Philippa, who was standing by the fire, turned and looked at her husband +critically. + +"We have some men dining," she said. "They will be out in a few minutes. +Don't you think you had better go and make yourself presentable? You +smell of fish, and you look as though you hadn't shaved for a week." + +"Guilty, my dear," Sir Henry admitted. "Mills is just getting me +something to eat in the gun room, and then I am going to have a bath and +change my clothes." + +"And shave, Dad," Nora reminded him. + +"And shave, you young pest," her father agreed, patting her on the +shoulder. "Run away and play billiards with Helen. I want to talk to +your mother until my dinner's ready." + +Nora acquiesced promptly. + +"Come along, Helen, I'll give you twenty-five up. Or perhaps you'd like +to play shell out?" she proposed. "Arthur Sinclair says I have improved +in my potting more than any one he ever knew." + +Sir Henry opened the door and closed it after them. Then he returned and +seated himself on the lounge by Philippa's side. She glanced up at +him as though in surprise, and, stretching out her hand towards her +work-basket, took up some knitting. + +"I really think I should change at once, if I were you," she suggested. + +"Presently. I had a sort of foolish idea that I'd like to have a word or +two with you first. I've been away for nearly a fortnight, haven't I?" + +"You have," Philippa assented. "Perhaps that is the reason why I feel +that I haven't very much to say to you." + +"That sounds just a trifle hard," he said slowly. + +"I am hard sometimes," Philippa confessed. "You know that quite well. +There are times when I just feel as though I had no heart at all, nor +any sympathy; when every sensation I might have had seems shrivelled up +inside me." + +"Is that how you are feeling at the present time towards me, Philippa?" +he asked. + +Her needles flashed through the wool for a moment in silence. + +"You had every warning," she told him. "I tried to make you understand +exactly how your behaviour disgusted me before you went away." + +"Yes, I remember," he admitted. "I'm afraid, dear, you think I am a +worthless sort of a fellow." + +Philippa had apparently dropped a stitch. She bent lower still over her +knitting. There was a distinct frown upon her forehead, her mouth was +unrecognisable. + +"Your friend Lessingham is here still, I understand?" her husband +remarked presently. + +"Yes," Philippa assented, "he is dining to-night. You will probably see +him in a few minutes." + +Sir Henry looked thoughtful, and studied for a moment the toe of a +remarkably unprepossessing looking shoe. + +"You're so keen about that sort of thing," he said, "what about +Lessingham? He is not soldiering or anything, is he?" + +"I have no idea," Philippa replied. "He walks with a slight limp and +admits that he is here as a convalescent, but he hasn't told us very +much about himself." + +"I wonder you haven't tackled him," Sir Henry continued. "You're such +an ardent recruiter, you ought to make sure that he is doing his bit of +butchery." + +Philippa looked up at her husband for a moment and back at her work. + +"Mr. Lessingham," she said, "is a very delightful friend, whose stay +here every one is enjoying very much, but he is a comparative stranger. +I feel no responsibility as to his actions." + +"And you do as to mine?" + +"Naturally." + +Sir Henry's head was resting on his hand, his elbow on the back of +the lounge. He seemed to be listening to the voices in the dining room +beyond. + +"Hm!" he observed. "Has he been here often while I've been away?" + +"As often as he chose," Philippa replied. "He has become very popular in +the neighbourhood already, and he is an exceedingly welcome guest here +at any time." + +"Takes advantage of your hospitality pretty often, doesn't he?" + +"He is here most days. We are always rather disappointed when he doesn't +come." + +Sir Henry's frown grew a little deeper. + +"What's the attraction?" he demanded. + +Philippa smiled. It was the smile which those who knew her best, feared. + +"Well," she confided, "I used to imagine that it was Helen, but I think +that he has become a little bored, talking about nothing but Dick and +their college days. I am rather inclined to fancy that it must be me." + +"You, indeed!" he grunted. "Are you aware that you are a married woman?" + +Philippa glanced up from her work. Her eyebrows were raised, and her +expression was one of mild surprise. + +"How queer that you should remind me of it!" she murmured. "I am afraid +that the sea air disturbs your memory." + +Sir Henry rose abruptly to his feet. + +"Oh, damn!" he exclaimed. + +He walked to the door. His guests were still lingering over their wine. +He could hear their voices more distinctly than ever. Then he came back +to the sofa and stood by Philippa's side. + +"Philippa, old girl," he pleaded, "don't let us quarrel. I have had such +a hard fortnight, a nor'easter blowing all the time, and the dirtiest +seas I've ever known at this time of the year. For five days I hadn't a +dry stitch on me, and it was touch and go more than once. We were all in +the water together, and there was a nasty green wave that looked like +a mountain overhead, and the side of our own boat bending over us +as though it meant to squeeze our ribs in. It looked like ten to one +against us, Phil, and I got a worse chill than the sea ever gave me when +I thought that I shouldn't see you again." + +Philippa laid down her knitting. She looked searchingly into her +husband's face. She was very far from indifferent to his altered tone. + +"Henry," she said, "that sounds very terrible, but why do you run such +risks--unworthily? Do you think that I couldn't give you all that you +want, all that I have to give, if you came home to me with a story +like this and I knew that you had been facing death righteously and +honourably for your country's sake? Why, Henry, there isn't a man in the +world could have such a welcome as I could give you. Do you think I am +cold? Of course you don't! Do you think I want to feel as I have done +this last fortnight towards you? Why, it's misery! It makes me feel +inclined to commit any folly, any madness, to get rid of it all." + +Her husband hesitated. A frown had darkened his face. He had the air of +one who is on the eve of a confession. + +"Philippa," he began, "you know that when I go out on these fishing +expeditions, I also put in some work at the new chart which I am so +anxious to prepare for the fishermen." + +Philippa shook her head impatiently. + +"Don't talk to me about your fishermen, Henry! I'm as sick with them +as I am with you. You can see twenty or thirty of them any morning, +lounging about the quay, strapping young fellows who shelter themselves +behind the plea of privileged employment. We are notorious down here +for our skulkers, and you--you who should be the one man to set them an +example, are as bad as they are. You deliberately encourage them." + +Sir Henry abandoned his position by his wife's side, His face darkened +and his eyes flashed. + +"Skulkers?" he repeated furiously. + +Philippa looked at him without flinching. + +"Yes! Don't you like the word?" + +The angry flush faded from his cheeks as quickly as it had come. He +laughed a little unnaturally, took up a cigarette from an open box, and +lit it. + +"It isn't a pleasant one, is it, Philippa?" he observed, thrusting his +hands into his jacket pockets strolling away. "If one doesn't feel the +call--well, there you are, you see. Jove, that's a fine fish." + +He stood admiring the codling upon the scales. Philippa continued her +work. + +"If you intend to spend the rest of the evening with us," she told him +calmly, "please let me remind you again that we have guests for dinner. +Your present attire may be comfortable but it is scarcely becoming." + +He turned away and came back towards her. As he passed the lamp, she +started. + +"Why, you're wet," she exclaimed, "wet through!" + +"Of course I am," he admitted, feeling his sleeve, "but to tell you the +truth, in the interest of our conversation I had quite forgotten it. +Here come our guests, before I have had time to escape. I can hear your +friend Lessingham's voice." + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The three dinner guests entered together, Lessingham in the middle. Sir +Henry's presence was obviously a surprise to all of them. + +"No idea that you were back, sir," Harrison observed, shaking hands. + +Sir Henry greeted them all good-humouredly. "I turned up about three +quarters of an hour ago," he explained, "just too late to join you at +dinner." + +"Bad luck, sir," Sinclair remarked. "I hope that you had good sport?" + +"Not so bad," Sir Henry admitted. "We had to go far enough for it, +though. What do you think of that for an October codling?" + +They all approached the scales and admired the fish. Sir Henry stood +with his hands in his pockets, listening to their comments. + +"You are enjoying your stay here, I hope, Mr. Lessingham?" he enquired. + +"One could scarcely fail to enjoy even the briefest holiday in so +delightfully hospitable a place," was the somewhat measured reply. + +"You're by way of being a fisherman yourself, I hear?" Sir Henry +continued. + +"In a very small way," Lessingham acknowledged. "I have been out once or +twice." + +"With Ben Oates, eh?" + +"I believe that was the man's name." + +Philippa glanced up from her work with a little exclamation of surprise. + +"I had no idea of that, Mr. Lessingham. Whatever made you choose Ben +Oates? He is a most disgraceful person." + +"It was entirely by accident," Lessingham explained. "I met him on the +front. It happened to be a fine morning, and he was rather pressing in +his invitation." + +"I'm afraid he didn't show you much sport," Sir Henry observed. "From +what Jimmy Dumble's brother told him, he seems to have taken you in +entirely the wrong direction, and on the wrong tide." + +"We had a small catch," Lessingham replied. "I really went more for the +sail than the sport, so I was not disappointed." + +"The coast itself," Sir Henry remarked, "is rather an interesting one." + +"I should imagine so," Lessingham assented. "Mr. Ben Oates, indeed, +told me some wonderful stories about it. He spoke of broad channels down +which a dreadnought could approach within a hundred yards of the land." + +"He is quite right, too," his host agreed. + +"There's a lot of deep water about here. The whole of the coast is very +curious in that way. What the--what the dickens is this?" + +Sir Henry, who had been strolling about the room, picked up a Homburg +hat from the far side of a table of curios. Philippa glanced up at his +exclamation. + +"That's Nora's trophy," she explained. "I told her to take it up to her +own room, but she's always wanting to show it to her friends." + +"Nora's trophy?" Sir Henry repeated. "Why, it's nothing but an ordinary +man's hat." + +"Nevertheless, it's a very travelled one, sir," Harrison pointed out. +"Miss Nora picked it up on Dutchman's Common, the morning after the +observation car was found there." + +Sir Henry held out the hat. + +"But Nora doesn't seriously suppose that the Germans come over in this +sort of headgear, does she?" he demanded. + +"If you'll just look inside the lining, sir," Sinclair suggested. + +Sir Henry turned it up and whistled softly. "By Jove, it's a German hat, +all right!" he exclaimed. "Doesn't look a bad shape, either." + +He tried it on. There was a little peal of laughter from the men. +Philippa had ceased her knitting and was watching from the couch. Sir +Henry looked at himself in the looking-glass. + +"Well, that's funny," he observed. "I shouldn't have thought it would +have been so much too small for me. Here, just try how you'd look in it, +Mr. Lessingham," he added, handing it across to him. + +Lessingham accepted the situation quite coolly, and placed the hat +carefully on his head. + +"It doesn't feel particularly comfortable," he remarked. + +"That may be," Sir Henry suggested, "because you have it on wrong side +foremost. If you'd just turn it round, I believe you would find it a +very good fit." + +Lessingham at once obeyed. Sir Henry regarded him with admiration. + +"Excellent!" he exclaimed. "Look at that, Philippa. Might have been made +for him, eh?" + +Lessingham looked at himself in the glass and removed the hat from his +head with some casual observation. He was entirely at his ease. His +host turned towards the door, which Mills was holding open. + +"Captain Griffiths, sir," the latter announced. + +Sir Henry greeted his visitor briefly. + +"How are you, Griffiths?" he said. "Glad to see you. Excuse my costume, +but I am just back from a fishing expedition. We are all admiring Mr. +Lessingham in his magic hat." + +Captain Griffiths shook hands with Philippa, nodded to the others, and +turned towards Lessingham. + +"Put it on again, there's a good fellow, Lessingham," Sir Henry begged. +"You see, we have found a modern version of Cinderella's slipper. The +hat which fell from the Zeppelin on to Dutchman's Common fits our friend +like a glove. I never thought the Germans made such good hats, did you, +Griffiths?" + +"I always thought they imported their felt hats," Captain Griffiths +acknowledged. "Is that really the one with the German name inside, which +Miss Nora brought home?" + +"This is the genuine article," Lessingham assented, taking it from +his head and passing it on to the newcomer. "Notwithstanding the name +inside, I should still believe that it was an English hat. It feels too +comfortable for anything else." + +The Commandant took the hat to a lamp and examined it carefully. He drew +out the lining and looked all the way round. Suddenly he gave vent to a +little exclamation. + +"Here are the owner's initials," he declared, "rather faint but still +distinguishable,--B. M. Hm! There's no doubt about its being a German +hat." + +"B. M.," Sir Henry muttered, looking over his shoulder. "How very +interesting! B. M.," he repeated, turning to Philippa, who had +recommenced her knitting. "Is it my fancy, or is there something a +little familiar about that?" + +"I am sure that I have no idea," Philippa replied. "It conveys nothing +to me." + +There was a brief but apparently pointless silence. Philippa's needles +flashed through her wool with easy regularity. Lessingham appeared to be +sharing the mild curiosity which the others showed concerning the hat. +Sir Henry was standing with knitted brows, in the obvious attitude of a +man seeking to remember something. + +"B. M.," he murmured softly to himself. "There was some one I've known +or heard of in England--What's that, Mills?" + +"Your dinner is served, sir," Mills, who had made a silent entrance, +announced. + +Sir Henry apparently thought no more of the hat or its possible owner. +He threw it upon a neighbouring table, and his face expressed a new +interest in life. + +"Jove, I'm ravenous!" he confessed. "You'll excuse me, won't you? Mills, +see that these gentlemen have cigars and cigarettes--in the billiard +room, I should think. You'll find the young people there. I'll come in +and have a game of pills later." + +The two young soldiers, with Captain Griffiths, followed Sir Henry at +once from the room. Lessingham, however, lingered. He stood with his +hands behind him, looking at the closed door. + +"Are you going to stay and talk nonsense with me, Mr. Lessingham?" +Philippa asked. + +"If I may," he answered, without changing his position. + +Philippa looked at him curiously. + +"Do you see ghosts through that door?" + +He shook his head. + +"Do you know," he said, as he seated himself by her side, "there are +times when I find your husband quite interesting." + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Philippa leaned back in her place. + +"Exactly what do you mean by that, Mr. Lessingham?" she demanded. + +He shook himself free from a curious sense of unreality, and turned +towards her. + +"I must confess," he said, "that sometimes your husband puzzles me." + +"Not nearly so much as he puzzles me," Philippa retorted, a little +bitterly. + +"Has he always been so desperately interested in deep-sea fishing?" + +Philippa shrugged her shoulders. + +"More or less, but never quite to this extent. The thing has become an +obsession with him lately. If you are really going to stay and talk with +me, do you mind if we don't discuss my husband? Just now the subject is +rather a painful one with me." + +"I can quite understand that," Lessingham murmured sympathetically. + +"What do you think of Captain Griffiths?" she asked, a little abruptly. + +"I have thought nothing more about him. Should I? Is he of any real +importance?" + +"He is military commandant here." + +Lessingham nodded thoughtfully. + +"I suppose that means that he is the man who ought to be on my track," +he observed. + +"I shouldn't be in the least surprised to hear that he was," Philippa +said drily. "I have told you that he came and asked about you the other +night, when he dined here. He seemed perfectly satisfied then, but he +is here again to-night to see Henry, and he never visits anywhere in an +ordinary way." + +"Are you uneasy about me?" Lessingham enquired. + +"I am not sure," she answered frankly. "Sometimes I am almost terrified +and would give anything to hear that you were on your way home. And at +other times I realise that you are really very clever, that nothing is +likely to happen to you, and that the place will seem duller than ever +when you do go." + +"That is very kind of you," he said. "In any case, I fear that my +holiday will soon be coming to an end." + +"Your holiday?" she repeated. "Is that what you call it?" + +"It has been little else," he replied indifferently. "There is nothing +to be learnt here of the slightest military significance." + +"We told you that when you arrived," Philippa reminded him. + +"I was perhaps foolish not to believe you," he acknowledged. + +"So your very exciting journey through the clouds has ended in failure, +after all!" she went on, a moment or two later. + +"Failure? No, I should not call it failure." + +"You have really made some discoveries, then?" she enquired dubiously. + +"I have made the greatest discovery in the world." + +Her eyebrows were gently raised, the corners of her mouth quivered, her +eyes fell. + +"Dear me! In this quiet spot?" she sighed. + +"Yes!" + +"Is it Helen or me?" + +"Philippa!" he protested. + +Her eyebrows were more raised than ever. Her mouth had lost its alluring +curve. + +"Really, Mr. Lessingham!" she exclaimed. "Have I ever given you the +right to call me by my Christian name?" + +"In my country," he answered, "we do not wait to ask. We take." + +"Rank Prussianism," she murmured. "I really think you had better go back +there. You are adopting their methods." + +"I may have to at any moment," he admitted, "or to some more distant +country still. I want something to take back with me." + +"You want a keepsake, of course," Philippa declared, looking around the +room. "You can have my photograph--the one over there. Helen will give +you one of hers, too, I am sure, if you ask her. She is just as grateful +to you about Richard as I am." + +"But from you," he said earnestly, "I want more than gratitude." + +"Dear me, how persistent you are!" Philippa murmured. "Are you really +determined to make love to me?" + +"Ah, don't mock me!" he begged. "What I am saying to you comes from my +heart." + +Philippa laughed at him quietly. There was just a little break in her +voice, however. + +"Don't be absurd!" + +"There is nothing absurd about it," he replied, with a note of sadness +in his tone. "I felt it from the moment we met. I struggled against it, +but I have felt it growing day by day. I came here with my mind filled +with different purposes. I had no thought of amusing myself, no thought +of seeking here the happiness which up till now I seem to have missed. +I came as a servant because I was sent, a mechanical being. You have +changed everything. For you I feel what I have never felt for any woman +before. I place before you my career, my freedom, my honour." + +Philippa sighed very softly. + +"Do you mind ringing the bell?" she begged. + +"The bell?" he repeated. "What for?" + +"I want Helen to hear you," she confided, with a wonderful little smile. + +"Philippa, don't mock me," he pleaded. "If this is only amusement to +you, tell me so and let me go away. It is the first time in my life +that a woman has come between me and my work. I am no longer master of +myself. I am obsessed with you. I want nothing else in life but your +love." + +There was an almost startling change in Philippa's face. The banter +which had served her with so much effect, which she had relied upon as +her defensive weapon, was suddenly useless. Lessingham had created an +atmosphere around him, an atmosphere of sincerity. + +"Are you in earnest?" she faltered. + +"God knows I am!" he insisted. + +"You--you care for me?" + +"So much," he answered passionately, "that for your sake I would +sacrifice my honour, my country, my life." + +"But I've only known you for such a short time," Philippa protested, +"and you're an enemy." + +"I discard my birth. I renounce my adopted country," he declared +fiercely. "You have swept my life clear of every scrap of ambition and +patriotism. You have filled it with one thing only--a great, consuming +love." + +"Have you forgotten my husband?" + +"Do you think that if he had been a different sort of man I should have +dared to speak? Ask yourself how you can continue to live with him? You +can call him which you will. Both are equally disgraceful. Your heart +knows the truth. He is either a coward or a philanderer." + +Philippa's cheeks were suddenly white. Her eyes flashed. His words had +stung her to the quick. + +"A coward?" she repeated furiously. "You dare to call Henry that?" + +Lessingham rose abruptly to his feet. He moved restlessly about the +room. His fists were clenched, his tone thick with passion. + +"I do!" he pronounced. "Philippa, look at this matter without prejudice. +Do you believe that there is a single man of any country, of your +husband's age and rank, who would be content to trawl the seas for +fish whilst his country's blood is being drained dry? Who would weigh +a codling," he added, pointing scornfully to the scales, "whilst the +funeral march of heroes is beating throughout the world? The thing is +insensate, impossible!" + +Philippa's head drooped. Her hands were nervously intertwined. + +"Don't!" she pleaded, "I have suffered so much." + +"Forgive me," he begged, with a sudden change of voice. "If I am +mistaken in your husband--and there is always the chance--I am sorry. +I will confess that I myself had a different opinion of him, but I can +only judge from what I have seen and from that there is no one in the +world who would not agree with me that your husband is unworthy of you." + +"Oh, please stop!" Philippa cried. "Stop at once!" + +Lessingham came back to his place by her side. His voice was still +shaking, but it had grown very soft. + +"Philippa, forgive me," he repeated. "If you only knew how it hurts to +see you like this! Yet I must speak. There is just once in every man's +lifetime when he must tell the truth. That time has come with me--I love +you." + +"So does my husband," she murmured. + +"I will only remind you, then, that he shows it in strange fashion," +Lessingham continued. "He sets your wishes at defiance. He who should be +an example in a small place like this, is only an object of contempt in +the neighbourhood. Even I, who have only lived here for so short a time, +have caught the burden of what people say." + +Philippa wiped her eyes. + +"Please, do you mind," she begged, "not saying anything more about +Henry. You are only reminding me of things which I try all the time to +forget." + +"Believe me," Lessingham answered wistfully, "I am only too content to +ignore him, to forget that he exists, to remember only that you are the +woman who has changed my life." + +Philippa looked at him in something like dismay, rather like a child who +has started an engine which she has no idea how to stop. + +"But you must not--you must not talk to me like this!" + +His hand closed upon hers. It lay in his grasp, unyielding, cold, yet +passive. + +"Why not?" he whispered. "I have the one unalterable right, and I am +willing to pay the great price." + +"Right?" she faltered. + +"The right of loving you--the right of loving you better than any woman +in the world." + +There was a queer silence, only partly due, as she was instantly aware, +to the emotion of the moment. A door behind them had opened. Philippa's +quicker senses had recognised her husband's footsteps. Lessingham rose +deliberately to his feet. In his heart he welcomed the interruption. +This might, perhaps, be the decisive moment. Sir Henry was strolling +towards them. His manner and his tone, however, were alike good-natured. + +"I was to order you into the billiard room, Mr. Lessingham," he +announced. "Sinclair has been sent for--a night route march, or some +such horror--and they want you to make a four." + +Lessingham hesitated. He had a passionate inclination to face +the situation, to tell this man the truth. Sir Henry's courteous +indifference, however, was like a harrier. He recognised the inevitable. + +"I am afraid I am rather out of practice," he said, "but I shall be +delighted to do my best." + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Sir Henry was obviously not in the best of tempers. For a mild-mannered +and easy-going man, his expression was scarcely normal. + +"That fellow was making love to you," he said bluntly, as soon as the +door was closed behind Lessingham. + +Philippa looked up at her husband with an air of pleasant candour. + +"He was doing it very nicely, too," she admitted. + +"You mean to say that you let him?" + +"I listened to what he had to say," she confessed. "It didn't occur to +you, I suppose," her husband remarked, with somewhat strained sarcasm, +"that you were another man's wife?" + +"I am doing my best to forget that fact," Philippa reminded him. + +"I see! And he is to help you?" + +"Possibly." + +Sir Henry's irritation was fast merging into anger. + +"I shall turn the fellow out of the house," he declared. + +Philippa shrugged her shoulders. + +"Why don't you?" + +He seated himself on the couch by his wife's side. "Look here, Philippa, +don't let's wrangle," he begged. "I'm afraid you'll have to make up your +mind to see a good deal less of your friend Lessingham, anyway." + +Philippa's brows were knitted. She was conscious of a vague uneasiness. + +"Really? And why?" + +"For one thing," her husband explained, "because I don't intend to have +him hanging about my house during my absence." + +"The best way to prevent that would be not to go away," Philippa +suggested. + +"Well, in all probability," he announced guardedly, "I am not going away +again--at least not just yet." + +Philippa's manner suddenly changed. She laid down her work. Her hand +rested lightly upon her husband's shoulder. + +"You mean that you are going to give up those horrible fishing +excursions of yours?" + +"For the present I am," he assured her. + +"And are you going to do something--some work, I mean?" she asked +breathlessly. + +"For the immediate present I am going to stay at home and look after +you," he replied. + +Philippa's face fell. Her manner became notably colder. + +"You are very wise," she declared. "Mr. Lessingham is a most fascinating +person. We are all half in love with him--even Helen." + +"The fellow must have a way with him," Sir Henry conceded grudgingly. +"As a rule the people here are not over-keen on strangers, unless they +have immediate connections in the neighbourhood. Even Griffiths, who +since they made him Commandant, is a man of many suspicions, seems +inclined to accept him." + +"Captain Griffiths dined here the other night," Philippa remarked, "and +I noticed that he and Mr. Lessingham seemed to get on very well." + +"The fellow's all right in his way, no doubt," Sir Henry began. + +"Of course he is," Philippa interrupted. "Helen likes him quite as much +as I do." + +"Does he make love to Helen, too?" Sir Henry ventured. + +"Don't talk nonsense!" Philippa retorted. "He isn't that sort of a +man at all. If he has made love to me, he has done so because I have +encouraged him, and if I have encouraged him, it is your fault." + +Sir Henry, with an impatient exclamation, rose from his place and took a +cigarette from an open box. + +"Quite time I stayed at home, I can see. All the same, the fellow's +rather a puzzle. I can't help wondering how he succeeded in making +such an easy conquest of a lady who has scarcely been notorious for her +flirtations, and a young woman who is madly in love with another man. He +hasn't--" + +"Hasn't what?" + +"He hasn't," Sir Henry continued, blowing out the match which he +had been holding to his cigarette and throwing it away, "been in the +position of being able to render you or Helen any service, has he?" + +"I don't understand you," Philippa replied, a little uneasily. + +"There's nothing to understand," Sir Henry went on. "I was simply trying +to find some explanation for his veni, vidi, vici." + +"I don't think you need go any further than the fact," Philippa +observed, "that he is well-bred, charming and companionable." + +"Incidentally," Sir Henry queried, "do you happen to have come across +any one here who ever heard of him before?" + +"I don't remember any one," Philippa replied. "He was at college with +Richard, you know." + +Sir Henry nodded. + +"Of course, that's a wonderful introduction to you and Helen," he +admitted. "And by-the-by, that reminds me," he went on, "I never saw +such a change in two women in my life, as in you and Helen. A few weeks +ago you were fretting yourselves to death about Dick. Now you don't seem +to mention him, you both of you look as though you hadn't a care in the +world, and yet you say you haven't heard from him. Upon my word, this is +getting to be a house of mysteries!" + +"The only mystery in it that I can see, is you, Henry," she declared. + +"Me?" he protested. "I'm one of the simplest-minded fellows alive. What +is there mysterious about me?" + +"Your ignominious life," was the cold reply. + +"Jove, I got it that time!" he groaned,--"got it in the neck! But didn't +I tell you just now that I was turning over a new leaf?" + +"Then prove it," Philippa pleaded. "Let me write to Rayton and beg him +to use his influence to get you something to do. I am sure you would be +happier, and I can't tell you what a difference it would make to me." + +"It's that indoor work I couldn't stick, old thing," he confided. "You +know, they're saying all the time it's a young man's war. They'd make me +take some one's place at home behind a desk." + +"But even if they did," she protested, "even if they put you in a coal +cellar, wouldn't you be happier to feel that you were helping your +country? Wouldn't you be glad to know that I was happier?" + +Sir Henry made a wry face. + +"It seems to me that your outlook is a trifle superficial, dear," he +grumbled. "However--now what the dickens is the matter?" + +The door had been opened by Mills, with his usual smoothness, but Jimmy +Dumble, out of breath and excited, pushed his way into the room. + +"Hullo? What is it, Jimmy?" his patron demanded. + +"Beg your pardon, sir," was the almost incoherent reply. "I've run all +the way up, and there's a rare wind blowing. There's one of our--our +trawlers lying off the Point, and she's sent up three green and six +yellow balls." + +"Whiting, by God!" Sir Henry exclaimed. + +"Whiting!" Philippa repeated, in agonised disgust. "What does this mean, +Henry?" + +"It must be a shoal," her husband explained. "It means that we've got to +get amongst them quick. Is the Ida down on the beach, Jimmy?" + +"She there all right, sir," was the somewhat doubtful reply, "but us'll +have a rare job to get away, sir. That there nor'easter is blowing great +guns again and it's a cruel tide." + +"We've got to get out somehow," Sir Henry declared. "Mills, my oilskins +and flask at once. I sha'n't change a thing, but you might bring a +cardigan jacket and the whisky and soda." + +Mills withdrew, a little dazed. Philippa, whose fingers were clenched +together, found her tongue at last. + +"Henry!" she exclaimed furiously. + +"What is it, my dear?" + +"Do you mean to tell me that after your promise," she continued, "after +what you have just said, you are starting out to-night for another +fishing expedition?" + +"Whiting, my dear," Sir Henry explained. "One can't possibly miss +whiting. Where the devil are my keys?--Here they are. Now then." + +He sat down before his desk, took some papers from the top drawer, +rummaged about for a moment or two in another, and found what seemed +to be a couple of charts in oilskin cases. All the time the wind was +shaking the windows, and a storm of rain was beating against the panes. + +"Help yourself to whisky and soda, Jimmy," Sir Henry invited, as he +buttoned up his coat. "You'll need it all presently." + +"I thank you kindly, sir," Jimmy replied. "I am thinking that we'll both +need a drink before we're through this night." + +He helped himself to a whisky and soda on the generous principle of +half and half. Philippa, who was watching her husband's preparations +indignantly, once more found words. + +"Henry, you are incorrigible!" she exclaimed. "Listen to me if you +please. I insist upon it." + +Sir Henry turned a little impatiently towards her. "Philippa, I really +can't stop now," he protested. "But you must! You shall!" she cried. +"You shall hear this much from me, at any rate, before you go. What I +said the other day I repeat a thousandfold now." + +Sir Henry glanced at Dumble and motioned his head towards the door. The +fisherman made an awkward exit. + +"A thousandfold," Philippa repeated passionately. "You hear, Henry? I do +not consider myself any more your wife. If I am here when you return, it +will be simply because I find it convenient. Your conduct is disgraceful +and unmanly." + +"My dear girl!" he remonstrated. "I may be back in twenty-four--possibly +twelve hours." + +"It is a matter of indifference to me when you return," was the curt +reply. "I have finished." + +The door was thrown open. + +"Your oilskins, sir, and flask," Mills announced, hurrying in, a little +breathless. "You'll forgive my mentioning it, sir, but it scarcely seems +a fit night to leave home." + +"Got to be done this once, Mills," his master replied, struggling into +his coat. + +The young people from the billiard room suddenly streamed in. Nora, who +was still carrying her cue, gazed at her father in amazement. + +"Why, where's Dad going?" she cried. + +"It appears," Philippa explained sarcastically, "that a shoal of whiting +has arrived." + +"Very uncertain fish, whiting," Sir Henry observed, "here to-day and +gone to-morrow." + +"You won't find it too easy getting off to-night, sir," Harrison +remarked doubtfully. + +"Jimmy will see to that," was the confident reply. "I expect we shall be +amongst them at daybreak. Good-by, everybody! Good-by, Philippa!" + +His eyes sought his wife's in vain. She had turned towards Lessingham. + +"You are not hurrying off, are you, Mr. Lessingham?" she asked. "I want +you to show me that new Patience." + +"I shall be delighted." + +Sir Henry turned slowly away. For a moment his face darkened as his eyes +met Lessingham's. He seemed about to speak but changed his mind. + +"Well, good-by, every one," he called out. "I shall be back before +midnight if we don't get out." + +"And if you do?" Nora cried. + +"If we do, Heaven help the whiting!" + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +"Of course, we're behaving shockingly, all three of us!" Philippa +declared, as she sipped her champagne and leaned back in her seat. + +"You mean by coming to a place like this?" Lessingham queried, looking +around the crowded restaurant. "We are not, in that case, the only +sinners." + +"I didn't mean the mere fact of being here," Philippa explained, "but +being here with you." + +"I forgot," he said gloomily, "that I was such a black sheep." + +"Don't be silly," she admonished. "You're nothing of the sort. But, of +course, we are skating on rather thin ice. If I had Henry to consider +in any way, if he had any sort of a career, perhaps I should be more +careful. As it is, I think I feel a little reckless lately. Dreymarsh +has got upon my nerves. The things that I thought most of in life seem +to have crumbled away." + +"Ought I to be sorry?" he asked. "I am not." + +"But why are you so unsympathetic?" + +"Because I am waiting by your side to rebuild," he whispered. + +A tall, bronzed young soldier with his arm in a sling, stopped before +their table, and Helen, after a moment's protest and a glance at +Philippa, moved away with him to the little space reserved for the +dancers. + +"What a chaperon I am!" Philippa sighed. "I scarcely know anything about +the young man except his name and that he was in Dick's regiment." + +"I did not hear it," Lessingham observed, "but I feel deeply grateful +to him. It is so seldom that I have a chance to talk to you alone like +this." + +"It seems incredible that we have talked so long," Philippa said, +glancing at the watch upon her wrist. "I really feel now that I know all +about you--your school days, your college days, and your soldiering. You +have been very frank, haven't you?" + +"I have nothing to conceal--from you," he replied. "If there is anything +more you want to know--" + +"There is nothing," she interrupted uneasily. + +"Perhaps you are wise," he reflected, "and yet some day, you know, you +will have to hear it all, over and over again." + +"I will not be made love to in a restaurant," she declared firmly. + +"You are so particular as to localities," he complained. "You could +not see your way clear, I suppose, to suggest what you would consider a +suitable environment?" + +Philippa looked at him for a moment very earnestly. + +"Ah, don't let us play at things we neither of us feel!" she begged. +"And there is some one there who wants to speak to you." + +Lessingham looked up into the face of the man who had paused before +their table, as one might look into the face of unexpected death. He +remained perfectly still, but the slight colour seemed slowly to +be drawn from his cheeks. Yet the newcomer himself seemed in no way +terrifying. He was tall and largely built, clean-shaven, and with +the humourous mouth of an Irishman or an American. Neither was there +anything threatening in his speech. + +"Glad to run up against you, Lessingham," he said, holding out his hand. +"Gay crowd here tonight, isn't it?" + +"Very," Lessingham answered, speaking very much like a man in a dream. +"Lady Cranston, will you permit me to introduce my friend--Mr. Hayter." + +Philippa was immediately gracious, and a few moments passed in trivial +conversation. Then Mr. Hayter prepared to depart. + +"I must be joining my friends," he observed. "Look in and see me +sometime, Lessingham--Number 72, Milan Court. You know what a nightbird +I am. Perhaps you will call and have a final drink with me when you have +finished here." + +"I shall be very glad," Lessingham promised. + +Mr. Hayter passed on, a man, apparently, of many acquaintances, to judge +by his interrupted progress. Lady Cranston looked at her companion. She +was puzzled. + +"Is that a recent acquaintance," she asked, "as he addressed you by the +name of Lessingham?" + +"Yes," was the quiet reply. + +"You don't wish to talk about him?" + +"No!" + +Helen and her partner returned, a few moments later, and the little +party presently broke up. Lessingham drove the two women to their hotel +in Dover Street. + +"We've had a most delightful evening," Philippa assured him, as they +said good night. "You are coming round to see us in the morning, aren't +you?" + +"If I may," Lessingham assented. + +Helen found her way into Philippa's room, later on that night. She had +nerved herself for a very thankless task. + +"May I sit down for a few moments?" she asked, a little nervously. "Your +fire is so much better than mine." + +Philippa glanced at her friend through the looking-glass before which +she was brushing her hair, and made a little grimace. She felt a +forewarning of what was coming. + +"Of course, dear," she replied. "Have you enjoyed your evening?" + +"Very much, in a way," was the somewhat hesitating reply. "Of course, +nothing really counts until Dick comes back, but it is nice to talk with +some one who knows him." + +"Agreeable conversation," Philippa remarked didactically, "is one of the +greatest pleasures in life." + +"You find Mr. Lessingham very interesting, don't you?" Helen asked. + +Philippa finished arranging her hair to her satisfaction and drew up an +easy-chair opposite her visitor's. + +"So you want to talk with me about Mr. Lessingham, do you?" + +"I suppose you know that he's in love with you?" Helen began. + +"I hope he is a little, my dear," was the smiling reply. "I'm sure I've +tried my best." + +"Won't you talk seriously?" Helen pleaded. + +"I don't altogether see the necessity," Philippa protested. + +"I do, and I'll tell you why," Helen answered. "I don't think Mr. +Lessingham is at all the type of man to which you are accustomed. I +think that he is in deadly earnest about you. I think that he was in +deadly earnest from the first. You don't really care for him, do you, +dear?" + +"Very much, and yet not, perhaps, quite in the way you are thinking of," +was the quiet reply. + +"Then please send him away," Helen begged. + +"My dear, how can I?" Philippa objected. "He has done us an immense +service, and he can't disobey his orders." + +"You don't want him to go away, then?" + +Philippa was silent for several moments. "No," she admitted, "I don't +think that I do." + +"You don't care for Henry any more?" + +"Just as much as ever," was the somewhat bitter reply. "That's what I +resent so much. I should like Henry to believe that he had killed every +spark of love in me." + +Helen moved across and sat on the arm of her friend's chair. She felt +that she was going to be very daring. + +"Have you any idea at the back of your mind, dear," she asked "of making +use of Mr. Lessingham to punish Henry?" + +Philippa moved a little uneasily. + +"How hatefully downright you are!" she murmured. "I don't know." + +"Because," Helen continued, "if you have any such idea in your mind, I +think it is most unfair to Mr. Lessingham. You know perfectly well that +anything else between you and him would be impossible." + +"And why?" + +"Don't be ridiculous!" Helen exclaimed vigorously. "Mr. Lessingham may +have all the most delightful qualities in the world, but he has attached +himself to a country which no English man or woman will be able to +think of without shuddering, for many years to come. You can't dream +of cutting yourself adrift from your friends and your home and your +country! It's too unnatural! I'm not even arguing with you, Philippa. +You couldn't do it! I'm wholly concerned with Mr. Lessingham. I cannot +forget what we owe him. I think it would be hatefully cruel of you to +spoil his life." + +Philippa's flashes of seriousness were only momentary. She made a little +grimace. She was once more her natural, irresponsible self. + +"You underrate my charm, Helen," she declared. "I really believe that I +could make his life instead of spoiling it." + +"And you would pay the price?" + +Philippa, slim and elflike in the firelight, rose from her chair. There +was a momentary cruelty in her face. + +"I sometimes think," she said calmly, "that I would pay any price in the +world to make Henry understand how I feel. There, now run along, dear. +You're full of good intentions, and don't think it horrid of me, but +nothing that you could say would make any difference." + +"You wouldn't do anything rash?" Helen pleaded. + +"Well, if I run away with Mr. Lessingham, I certainly can't promise that +I'll send cards out first. Whatever I do, impulse will probably decide." + +"Impulse!" + +"Why not? I trust mine. Can't you?" Philippa added, with a little shrug +of the shoulders. + +"Sometimes," Helen sighed, "they are such wild horses, you know. They +lead one to such terrible places." + +"And sometimes," Philippa replied, "they find their way into the heaven +where our soberer thoughts could never take us. Good night, dear!" + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Mr. William Hayter, in the solitude of his chambers at the Milan Court, +was a very altered personage. He extended no welcoming salutation to his +midnight visitor but simply motioned him to a chair. + +"Well," he began, "is your task finished that you are in London?" + +"My task," Lessingham replied, "might just as well never have been +entered upon. The man you sent me to watch is nothing but an ordinary +sport-loving Englishman." + +"Really! You have lived as his neighbour for nearly a month, and that is +your impression of him?" + +"It is," Lessingham assented. "He has been away sea-fishing, half the +time, but I have searched his house thoroughly." + +"Searched his papers, eh?" + +"Every one I could find, and hated the job. There are a good many charts +of the coast, but they are all for the use of the fishermen." + +"Wonderful!" Hayter scoffed. "My young friend, you may yet find +distinction in some other walk of life. Our secret service, I fancy, +will very soon be able to dispense with your energies." + +"And I with your secret service," Lessingham agreed heartily. "I dare +say there may be some branches of it in which existence is tolerable. +That, however, does not apply to the task upon which I have been +engaged." + +"You have been completely duped," Hayter told him calmly, "and the +information you have sent us is valueless. Sir Henry Cranston, instead +of being the type of man whom you have described, is one of the greatest +experts upon coast defense and mine-laying, in the English Admiralty." + +Lessingham laughed shortly. + +"That," he declared, "is perfectly absurd." + +"It is," Hayter repeated, with emphasis, "the precise truth. Sir Henry +Cranton's fishing excursions are myths. He is simply transferred from +his fishing boat on to one of a little fleet of so-called mine sweepers, +from which he conducts his operations. Nearly every one of the most +important towns on the east coast are protected by minefields of his +design." + +Lessingham was dumbfounded. His companion's manner was singularly +convincing. + +"But how could Sir Henry or any one else keep this a secret?" he +protested. "Even his wife is scarcely on speaking terms with him because +she believes him to be an idler, and the whole neighbourhood gossips +over his slackness." + +"The whole neighbourhood is easily fooled," Hayter retorted. "There are +one or two who know, however." + +"There are one or two," Lessingham observed grimly, "who are beginning +to suspect me." + +"That is a pity," Hayter admitted, "because it will be necessary for you +to return to Dreymarsh at once." + +"Return to Dreymarsh at once? But Cranston is away. There is nothing for +me to do there in his absence." + +"He will be back on Wednesday or Thursday night," was the confident +reply. "He will bring with him the plan of his latest defenses of a town +on the east coast, which our cruiser squadron purpose to bombard. We +must have that chart." + +Lessingham listened in mute distress. + +"Could you possibly get me relieved?" he begged. "The fact is--" + +"We could not, and we will not," Hayter interrupted fiercely. "Unless +you wish me to denounce you at home as a renegade and a coward, you will +go through with the work which has been allotted to you. Your earlier +mistakes will be forgiven if that chart is in my hands by Friday." + +"But how do you know that he will have it?" Lessingham protested. +"Supposing you are right and he is really responsible for the minefields +you speak of, I should think the last thing he would do would be to +bring the chart back to Dreymarsh." + +"As a matter of fact, that is precisely what he will do," Hayter assured +his listener. "He is bringing it back for the inspection of one of the +commissioners for the east coast defense, who is to meet him at his +house. And I wish to warn you, too, Maderstrom, that you will have very +little time. For some reason or other, Cranston is dissatisfied with the +secrecy under which he has been compelled to work, and has applied +to the Admiralty for recognition of his position. Immediately this is +given, I gather that his house will be inaccessible to you." + +Lessingham sat, his arms folded, his eyes fixed upon the fire. His +thoughts were in a turmoil, yet one thing was hatefully clear. Cranston +was not the unworthy slacker he had believed him to be. Philippa's whole +point of view might well be changed by this discovery--especially now +that Cranston had made up his mind to assert himself for his wife's +sake. There was an icy fear in his heart. + +"You understand," Hayter persisted coldly, "what it is you have to do?" + +"Perfectly. I shall return by the afternoon train," was the despairing +reply. + +"If you succeed," Hayter continued, "I shall see that you get the usual +acknowledgment, but I will, if you wish it, ask for your transfer to +another branch of the service. I am not questioning your patriotism or +your honour, Maderstrom, but you are not the man for this work." + +"You are right," Lessingham said. "I am not." + +"It is not my affair," Hayter proceeded, "to enquire too closely into +the means used by our agents in carrying out our designs. That I find +you in London in company with the wife of the man whom you are appointed +to watch, may be a fact capable of the most complete and satisfactory +explanation. I ask no questions. I only remind you that your country, +even though it be only your adopted country, demands from you, as from +all others in her service, unswerving loyalty, a loyalty uninfluenced by +the claims of personal sentiment, duty, or honour. Have I said enough?" + +"You have said as much as it is wise for you to say," Lessingham +replied, his voice trembling with suppressed passion. + +"That is all, then," the other concluded. "You know where to send +or bring the chart when you have it? If you bring it yourself, it +is possible that something which you may regard as a reward, will be +offered to you." + +Lessingham rose a little wearily to his feet. His farewell to Hayter was +cold and lifeless. + +He left the hotel and started on his homeward way, struggling with a +sense of intolerable depression. The streets through which he passed +were sombre and unlit. + +A Zeppelin warning, a few hours before, had driven the people to their +homes. There was not a chink of light to be seen anywhere. An intense +and gloomy stillness seemed to brood over the deserted thoroughfares. +Nightbirds on their way home flitted by like shadows. Policemen lurked +in the shadows of the houses. The few vehicles left crawled about with +insufficient lights. Even the warning horns of the taxicab men sounded +furtive and repressed. Lessingham, as he marched stolidly along, felt +curiously in sympathy with his environment. Hayter's news brought him +face to face with that inner problem which had so suddenly become the +dominant factor in his life. For the first time he knew what love was. +He felt the wonder of it, the far-reaching possibilities, the strange +idealism called so unexpectedly into being. He recognized the vagaries +of Philippa's disposition, and yet, during the last few days, he had +convinced himself that she was beginning to care. Her strained relations +with her husband had been, without a doubt, her first incentive towards +the acceptance of his proffered devotion. Now he told himself with eager +hopefulness that some portion of it, however minute, must be for his own +sake. The relations between husband and wife, he reminded himself, must, +at any rate, have been strained during the last few months, or Cranston +would never have been able to keep his secret. In his gloomy passage +through this land of ill omens, however, he shivered a little as he +thought of the other possibility--tortured himself with imagining what +might happen during her revulsion of feeling, if Philippa discovered the +truth. A sense of something greater than he had yet known in life seemed +to lift him into some lofty state of aloofness, from which he could +look down and despise himself, the poor, tired plodder wearing the heavy +chains of duty. There was a life so much more wonderful, just the other +side of the clouds, a very short distance away, a life of alluring and +passionate happiness. Should he ever find the courage, he wondered, to +escape from the treadmill and go in search of it? Duty, for the last two +years, had taken him by the hand and led him along a pathway of shame. +He had never been a hypocrite about the war. He was one of those who had +acknowledged from the first that Germany had set forth, with the sword +in her hand, on a war of conquest. His own inherited martial spirit had +vaguely approved; he, too, in those earlier days, had felt the sunlight +upon his rapier. Later had come the enlightenment, the turbulent waves +of doubt, the nightmare of a nation's awakening conscience, mirrored in +his own soul. It was in a depression shared, perhaps, in a lesser +degree by millions of those whose ranks he had joined, that he felt this +passionate craving for escape into a world which took count of other +things. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Punctually at 12 o'clock the next morning, Lessingham presented himself +at the hotel in Dover Street and was invited by the hall porter to take +a seat in the lounge. Philippa entered, a few minutes later, her eyes +and cheeks brilliant with the brisk exercise she had been taking, her +slim figure most becomingly arrayed in grey cloth and chinchilla. + +"I lost Helen in Harrod's," she announced, "but I know she's lunching +with friends, so it really doesn't matter. You'll have to take care of +me, Mr. Lessingham, until the train goes, if you will." + +"For even longer than that, if you will," he murmured. + +She laughed. "More pretty speeches? I don't think I'm equal to them +before luncheon." + +"This time I am literal," he explained. "I am coming back to Dreymarsh +myself." + +He felt his heart beat quicker, a sudden joy possessed him. Philippa's +expression was obviously one of satisfaction. + +"I'm so glad," she assured him. "Do you know, I was thinking only as I +came back in the taxicab, how I should miss you." + +She was standing with her foot upon the broad fender, and her first +little impulse of pleasure seemed to pass as she looked into the fire. +She turned towards him gravely. + +"After all, do you think you are wise?" she asked. "Of course, I don't +think that any one at Dreymarsh has the least suspicion, but you know +Captain Griffiths did ask questions, and--well, you're safely away now. +You have been so wonderful about Dick, so wonderful altogether," she +went on, "that I couldn't bear it if trouble were to come." + +He smiled at her. + +"I think I know what is at the back of your mind," he said. "You think +that I am coming back entirely on your account. As it happens, this is +not so." + +She looked at him with wide-open eyes. + +"Surely," she exclaimed, "you have satisfied yourself that there is no +field for your ingenuity in Dreymarsh?" + +"I thought that I had," he admitted. "It seems that I am wrong. I have +had orders to return." + +"Orders to return?" she repeated. "From whom?" + +He shook his head. + +"Of course, I ought not to have asked that," she proceeded hastily, +"but it does seem odd to realise that you can receive instructions and +messages from Germany, here in London." + +"Very much the same sort of thing goes on in Germany," he reminded her. + +"So they say," she admitted, "but one doesn't come into contact with it. +So you are really coming back to Dreymarsh!" + +"With you, if I may?" + +"Naturally," she agreed. + +He glanced at the clock. "We might almost be starting for lunch," he +suggested. + +She nodded. "As soon as I've told Grover about the luggage." + +She was absent only a few moments, and then, as it was a dry, sunny +morning, they walked down St. James Street and along Pall Mall to the +Carlton. Philippa met several acquaintances, but Lessingham walked with +his head erect, looking neither to the right nor to the left. + +"Aren't you sometimes afraid of being recognised?" she asked him. "There +must be a great many men about of your time at Magdalen, for instance?" + +"Nine years makes a lot of difference," he reminded her, "and besides, I +have a theory that it is only when the eyes meet that recognition really +takes place. So long as I do not look into any one's face, I feel quite +safe." + +"You are sure that you would not like to go to a smaller place than the +Carlton?" + +"It makes no difference," he assured her. "My credentials have been +wonderfully established for me." + +"I'm so glad," she confessed. "I know it's most unfashionable, but I do +like these big places. If ever I had my way, I should like to live +in London and have a cottage in the country, instead of living in the +country and being just an hotel dweller in London." + +"I wonder if New York would not do?" he ventured. + +"I expect I should like New York," she murmured. + +"I think," he said, "in fact, I am almost sure that when I leave here I +shall go to the United States." + +She looked at him and turned suddenly away. They arrived just then at +their destination, and the moment passed. Lessingham left his companion +in the lounge while he went back into the restaurant to secure his +table and order lunch. When he came back, he found Philippa sitting very +upright and with a significant glitter in her eyes. + +"Look over there," she whispered, "by the palm." + +He followed the direction which she indicated. A man was standing +against one of the pillars, talking to a tall, dark woman, obviously a +foreigner, wrapped in wonderful furs. There was something familiar about +his figure and the slight droop of his head. + +"Why, it's Sir Henry!" Lessingham exclaimed, as the man turned around. + +"My husband," Philippa faltered. + +Sir Henry, if indeed it were he, seemed afflicted with a sudden +shortsightedness. He met the incredulous gaze both of Lessingham and his +wife without recognition or any sign of flinching. At that distance it +was impossible to see the tightening of his lips and the steely flash in +his blue eyes. + +"The whiting seem to have brought him a long way," Philippa said, with +an unnatural little laugh. + +"Shall I go and speak to him?" Lessingham asked. + +"For heaven's sake, no!" she insisted. "Don't leave me. I wouldn't have +him come near me for anything in the world. It is only a few weeks ago +that I begged him to come to London with me, and he said that he hated +the place. You don't know--the woman?" + +Lessingham shook his head. + +"She looks like a foreigner," was all he could say. + +"Take me in to lunch at once," Philippa begged, rising abruptly to her +feet. "This is really the last straw." + +They passed up the stairway and within a few feet of where Sir Henry +was standing. He appeared absorbed, however, in conversation with his +companion, and did not even turn around. Philippa's little face +seemed to have hardened as she took her seat. Only her eyes were still +unnaturally bright. + +"I am so sorry if this has annoyed you," Lessingham regretted. "You +would not care to go elsewhere?" + +"I? Go anywhere else?" she exclaimed scornfully. "Thank you, I am +perfectly satisfied here. And with my companion," she added, with a +brilliant little smile. "Now tell me about New York. Have you ever been +there?" + +"Twice," he told her. "At present the dream of my life is to go there +with you." + +She looked at him a little wonderingly. + +"I wonder if you really care," she said. "Men get so much into the habit +of saying that sort of thing to women. Sometimes it seems to me they +must do a great deal of mischief. But you--Is that really your wish?" + +"I would sacrifice everything that I have ever held dear in life," he +declared, with his face aglow, "for its realization." + +"But you would be a deserter from your country," she pointed out. "You +would never be able to return. Your estates would be confiscated. You +would be homeless." + +"Home," he said softly, "is where one's heart takes one. Home is just +where love is." + +Her eyes, as they met his, were for a moment suspiciously soft. Then +she began to talk very quickly of other things, to compare notes of +countries which they had both visited, even of people whom they had met. +They were obliged to leave early to catch their train. As they passed +down the crowded restaurant they once more found themselves within a few +feet of Sir Henry. His back was turned to them, and he was apparently +ignorant of their near presence. The party had become a partie Carrie, +another man, and a still younger and more beautiful woman having joined +it. + +"Of course," Philippa said, as they descended the stairs, "I am behaving +like an idiot. I ought to go and tell Henry exactly what I think of him, +or pull him away in the approved Whitechapel fashion. We lose so much, +don't we, by stifling our instincts." + +"For the next few minutes," he replied, glancing at his watch, "I think +we had better concentrate our attention upon catching our train." + +They reached King's Cross with only a few minutes to spare. Grover, +however, had already secured a carriage, and Helen was waiting for them, +ensconced in a corner. She accepted the news of Lessingham's return with +resignation. Philippa became thoughtful as they drew towards the close +of their journey and the slow, frosty twilight began to creep down upon +the land. + +"I suppose we don't really know what war is," she observed, looking +out of the window at a comfortable little village tucked away with a +background of trees and guarded by a weather-beaten old church. "The +people are safe in their homes. You must appreciate what that means, Mr. +Lessingham." + +"Indeed I do," he answered gravely. "I have seen the earth torn and +dismembered as though by the plough of some destroying angel. A few +blackened ruins where, an hour or so before, a peaceful village stood; +men and women running about like lunatics stricken with a mortal fear. +And all the time a red glow on the horizon, a blood-red glow, and little +specks of grey or brown lying all over the fields; even the cattle +racing round in terror. And every now and then the cry of Death! You are +fortunate in England." + +Philippa leaned forward. + +"Do you believe that our turn will come?" she asked. "Do you believe +that the wave will break over our country?" + +"Who can tell?" + +"Ah, no, but answer me," she begged. "Is it possible for you to land an +army here?" + +"I think," he replied, "that all things are possible to the military +genius of Germany. The only question is whether it is worth while. +Germans are supposed to be sentimentalists, you know. I rather doubt it. +There is nothing would set the joybells of Berlin clanging so much as +the news of a German invasion of Great Britain. On the other hand, +there is a great party in Germany, and a very far-seeing one, which is +continually reminding the Government that, without Great Britain as a +market, Germany would never recover from the financial strain of the +war." + +"This is all too impersonal," Philippa objected. "Do you, in your heart, +believe that the time might come when in the night we should hear the +guns booming in Dreymarsh Bay, and see your grey-clad soldiers forming +up on the beach and scaling our cliffs?" + +"That will not be yet," he pronounced. "It has been thought of. Once it +was almost attempted. Just at present, no." + +Philippa drew a sigh of relief. + +"Then your mission in Dreymarsh has nothing to do with an attempted +landing?" + +"Nothing," he assured her. "I can even go a little further. I can tell +you that if ever we do try to land, it will be in an unsuspected place, +in an unexpected fashion." + +"Well, it's really very comforting to hear these things at first-hand," +Philippa declared, with some return to her usual manner. "I suppose we +are really two disgraceful women, Helen and I--traitors and all the rest +of it. Here we sit talking to an enemy as though he were one of our best +friends." + +"I refuse to be called an enemy," Lessingham protested. "There are times +when individuality is a far greater thing than nationality. I am just a +human being, born into the same world and warmed by the same sun as you. +Nothing can alter the fact that we are fellow creatures." + +"Dreymarsh once more," Philippa announced, looking out of the window. +"And you're a terribly plausible person, Mr. Lessingham. Come round and +see us after dinner--if it doesn't interfere with your work." + +"On the contrary," he murmured under his breath. "Thank you very much." + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Sir Henry was standing with his hands in his pockets and a very blank +expression upon his face, looking out upon the Admiralty Square. He was +alone in a large, barely furnished apartment, the walls of which were +so hung with charts that it had almost the appearance of a schoolroom +prepared for an advanced geography class. The table from which he had +risen was covered with an amazing number of scientific appliances, some +samples of rock and sand, two microscopes and several telephones. + +Sir Henry, having apparently exhausted the possibilities of the outlook, +turned somewhat reluctantly away to find himself confronted by an +elderly gentleman of cheerful appearance, who at that moment had entered +the room. From the fact that he had done so without knocking, it was +obvious that he was an intimate. + +"Well, my gloomy friend," the newcomer demanded, "what's wrong with +you?" + +Sir Henry was apparently relieved to see his visitor. He pushed a chair +towards him and indicated with a gesture of invitation a box of cigars +upon his desk. + + +"Your little Laranagas," he observed. "Try one." + +The visitor opened the box, sniffed at its contents, and helped himself. + +"Now, then, get at it, Henry," he enjoined. "I've a Board in +half-an-hour, and three dispatches to read before I go in. What's your +trouble?" + +"Look here, Rayton," was the firm reply, "I want to chuck this infernal +hole-and-corner business. I tell you I've worked it threadbare at +Dreymarsh and it's getting jolly uncomfortable." + +The newcomer grinned. + +"Poor chap!" he observed, watching his cigar smoke curl upwards. "You're +in a nasty mess, you know, Henry. Did I tell you that I had a letter +from your wife the other day, asking me if I couldn't find you a job?" + +Sir Henry waited a little grimly, whilst his friend enjoyed the joke. + +"That's all very well," he said, "but we are on the point of a +separation, or something of the sort. I'll admit it was all right at +first to run the thing on the Q.T., but that's pretty well busted up by +now. Why, according to your own reports, they know all about me on the +other side." + +"Not a doubt about it," the other agreed. "I'm not sure that you haven't +got a spy fellow down at Dreymarsh now." + +"I'm quite sure of it," Sir Henry replied grimly. "The brute was +lunching with my wife at the Carlton to-day, and, as luck would have it, +I was landed with that Russian Admiral's wife and sister-in-law. You're +breaking up the happy home, that's what you're doing, Rayton!" + +His lordship at any rate seemed to find the process amusing. He laughed +until the tears stood in his eyes. + +"I should love to have seen Philippa's face," he chuckled, "when she +walked into the restaurant and saw you there! You're supposed to be off +on a fishing expedition, aren't you?" + +"I went out after whiting," Sir Henry groaned, "and I'd just promised to +chuck it for a time when I got the Admiral's message." + +"Well, we'll see to your German spy, anyway," his visitor promised. + +"Don't be an ass!" Sir Henry exclaimed irritably. "I don't want the +fellow touched at present. Why, he's been a sort of persona grata at my +house. Hangs around there all the time when I'm away." + +"All the more reason for putting an end to his little game, I should +say," was the cheerful reply. + +"And have the whole neighbourhood either laughing at my wife and Miss +Fairclough, or talking scandal about them!" Sir Henry retorted. + +"I forgot that," his friend confessed ruminatively. "He's a gentlemanly +sort of fellow, from what I hear, but a rotten spy. What do you want +done with him?" + +"Leave him for me to deal with," Sir Henry insisted. "I have a little +scheme on hand in which he is concerned." + +Rayton scratched his chin doubtfully. + +"The fellow may not be such a fool as he seems," he reminded his friend. + +"I won't run any risks," Sir Henry promised. "I just want him left +there, that's all. And look here, Rayton, you know what I want from you. +I quite agreed to your proposals as to my anonymity at the time when I +was up in Scotland, but the thing's a secret no longer with the people +who count. Every one in Germany knows that I'm a mine-field specialist, +so I don't see why the dickens I should pose any longer as a sort of +half-baked idiot." + +Rayton's eyes twinkled. + +"You want to play the Wilson Barrett hero and make a theatrical +disclosure of your greatness," he laughed. "Poor Philippa will fall +upon her knees. You will be the hero of the village, which will probably +present you with some little article of plate. You've a good time +coming, Henry." + +"Talk sense, there's a good fellow," the other begged. "You go and see +the Chief and put it to him. There isn't a single reason why I shouldn't +own up now." + +"I'll see what I can do," Rayton promised, "but what about this fellow +Lessingham, or whatever else he calls himself, down there? There's a +chap named Griffiths--Commandant, isn't he?--been writing us about him." + +"I won't have Lessingham touched," Sir Henry insisted. "He can't do any +particular harm down there, and there isn't a line or a drawing of mine +down at Dreymarsh which he isn't welcome to." + +Lord Rayton rose to his feet. + +"Look here, Henry, old fellow," he said, "I do sympathise with you up +to a certain point. I tell you what I'll do. I shall have to answer +Philippa's letter, and I'll answer it in such a way that if she is as +clever a little woman as I think she is, she'll get a hint. Of course," +he went on ruminatively, "it is rather a misfortune that the Princess +Ollaneff and her sister are such jolly good-looking women. Makes it look +a little fishy, doesn't it? What I mean to say is, it's a far cry +from fishing for whiting in the North Sea to lunching with a beautiful +princess at the Carlton--when you think your wife's down in Norfolk." + +Sir Henry threw open the door. + +"Look here, I've had enough of you, Rayton," he declared. "You get back +and do an hour's work, if you can bring your mind to it." + +The latter assumed a sudden dignity, necessitated by the sound of voices +in the corridor, and departed. The door had scarcely been closed +when two younger men presented themselves--Miles Ensol, Sir Henry's +secretary, a typical-looking young sailor minus his left arm; and a +pale-faced, clean-shaven man of uncertain age, in civilian clothes. Sir +Henry shook hands with the latter and pointed to the easy-chair which +his previous visitor had just vacated. + +"Welcome back again, Horridge," he said cordially. "Miles, I'll ring +when I want you." + +"Very good, sir," the secretary replied. "There's a fisherman from +Norfolk downstairs, when you're at liberty." + +Sir Henry nodded. + +"I'll see him presently. Shut him up somewhere where he can smoke." + +The young man withdrew, carefully closing the door, around which Sir +Henry, with a word of apology, arranged a screen. + +"I don't think," he explained, "that eavesdropping extends to these +premises, or that our voices could reach outside. Still, a ha'porth of +prevention, eh? Have a cigar, Horridge." + +"I'm not smoking for a day or two, thank you, sir." + +"You look as though they'd put you through it," Sir Henry remarked. + +His visitor smiled. + +"I've travelled fourteen miles in a barrel," he said, "and we were +out for twenty-four hours in a Danish sailing skiff. You know what the +weather's been like in the North Sea. Before that, the last word of +writing I saw on German soil was a placard, offering a reward of five +thousand marks for my detention, with a disgustingly lifelike photograph +at the top. I had about fifty yards of quay to walk in broad daylight, +and every other man I passed turned to stare after me. It gives you the +cold shivers down your back when you daren't look round to see if you're +being followed." + +Sir Henry groped in the cupboard of his desk, and produced a bottle of +whisky and a syphon of soda water. His visitor nodded approvingly. + +"I've touched nothing until I've reached what I consider sanctuary," he +observed. "My nerves have gone rotten for the first time in my life. Do +you mind, sir, if I lock the door?" + +"Go ahead," Sir Henry assented. + +He brought the whisky and soda himself across the room. Horridge resumed +his seat and held out his hand almost eagerly. For a moment or two he +shook as though he had an ague. Then, just as suddenly as it had come +upon him, the fit passed. He drained the contents of the tumbler at a +gulp, set it down empty by his side, and stretched out his hand for a +cigar. + +"The end of my journey didn't help matters any," he went on. "I daren't +even make for a Dutch port, and we were picked up eventually by a tramp +steamer from Newcastle to London with coals. I hadn't been on board more +than an hour before a submarine which had been following overhauled us. +I thought it was all up then, but the fog lifted, and we found ourselves +almost in the midst of a squadron of destroyers from Harwich. I made +another transfer, and they landed me in time to catch the early morning +train from Felixstowe." + +"Did they get the submarine?" his listener asked eagerly. + +"Get it!" the other repeated, with a smile. "They blew it into scrap +metal." + +"Plenty of movement in your life!" + +"I've run the gauntlet over there once too often," Horridge said grimly. +"Just look at me now, Sir Henry. I'm twenty-nine years old, and it's +only two years and a half since I was invalided out of the navy and +took this job on. The last person I asked to guess my age put me down at +fifty. What should you have said?" + +"Somewhere near it," was the candid admission. "Never mind, Horridge, +you've done your bit. You shall pass on your experience to a new hand, +take your pension and try the south coast of England for a few months. +Now let's get on with it. You know what I want to hear about." + +Horridge produced from his pocket a long strip of paper. + +"They're there, sir," he announced, "coaled to the scuppers, every man +standing to stations and steam up. There's the list." + +He handed the paper across to Sir Henry, who glanced it down. + +"The fast cruiser squadron," he observed. "Hm! Three new ships we +haven't any note of. No transports, then, Horridge?'" + +"Not a sign of one, sir," was the reply. "They're after a bombardment." + +He rose to his feet, walked to a giant map of England, and touched a +certain port on the east coast. Sir Henry's eyes glistened. + +"You're sure?" + +"It is a certainty," Horridge replied. "I've been on three of those +ships. I've dined with four of the officers. They're under sealed +orders, and the crew believes that they're going to escort out half +a dozen commerce destroyers. But I have the truth. That's their +objective," Horridge repeated, touching once more the spot upon the map, +"and they are waiting just for one thing." + +Sir Henry smiled thoughtfully. + +"I know what they're waiting for," he said. "Perhaps if they'd a Herr +Horridge to send over here for it, they'd have got it before now. As +it is--well, I'm not sure," he went on. "It seems a pity to disappoint +them, doesn't it? I'd love to give them a run for their money." + +Horridge smiled faintly. He knew a good deal about his companion. + +"They're spoiling for it, sir," he admitted. Sir Henry spoke down a +telephone and a few minutes later Ensol reappeared. + +"Find Mr. Horridge a comfortable room," his chief directed, "and one of +our confidential typists. You can make out your report at your leisure," +he went on. "Come in and see me when it's all finished." + +"Certainly, sir," Horridge replied, rising. + +Sir Henry held out his hand. He looked with something like wonder at +the nerve-shattered man who had risen to his feet with a certain air of +briskness. + +"Horridge," he said, "I wish I had your pluck." + +"I don't know any one in the service from whom you need borrow any, +sir," was the quiet reply. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Lessingham sat upon a fallen tree on Dutchman's Common near the scene +of his romantic descent, and looked rather ruefully over the moorland, +seawards. Above him, the sky was covered with little masses of quickly +scudding clouds. A fugitive and watery sunshine shone feebly upon a +wind-tossed sea and a rain-sodden landscape. He found a certain grim +satisfaction in comparing the disorderliness of the day with the tumult +in his own life. He felt that he had embarked upon an enterprise greater +than his capacity, for which he was in many ways entirely unsuitable. +And behind him was the scourge of the telegram which he had received a +few hours ago, a telegram harmless enough to all appearance, but which, +decoded, was like a scourge to his back. + +Your work is unsatisfactory and your slackness deserves reprobation. +Great events wait upon you. The object of your search is necessary for +our imminent operations. + +The sound of a horse's hoofs disturbed him. Captain Griffiths, on a +great bay mare, glanced curiously at the lonely figure by the roadside, +and then pulled up. + +"Back again, Mr. Lessingham?" he remarked. + +"As you see." + +The Commandant fidgeted with his horse for a moment. Then he approached +a little nearer to Lessingham's side. + +"You are a good walker, I perceive, Mr. Lessingham," he remarked. + +"When the fancy takes me," was the equable reply. + +"Have you come out to see our new guns?" + +"I had no idea," Lessingham answered indifferently, "that you had any." + +Griffiths smiled. + +"We have a small battery of anti-aircraft guns, newly arrived from +the south of England," he said. "The secret of their coming and their +locality has kept the neighbourhood in a state of ferment for the last +week." + +Lessingham remained profoundly uninterested. + +"They most of them spotted the guns," his companion continued, "but not +many of them have found the searchlights yet." + +"It seems a little late in the year," Lessingham observed, "to be making +preparations against Zeppelins." + +"Well, they cross here pretty often, you know," Griffiths reminded him. +"It's only a matter of a few weeks ago that one almost came to grief +on this common. We picked up their observation car not fifty yards from +where you are sitting." + +"I remember hearing about it," Lessingham acknowledged. + +"By-the-by," the Commandant continued, smoothing his horse's neck, +"didn't you arrive that evening or the evening after?" + +"I believe I did." + +"Liverpool Street or King's Cross? The King's Cross train was very +nearly held up." + +"I didn't come by train at all," Lessingham replied, glancing for a +moment into the clouds, "And now I come to think of it, it must have +been the evening after." + +"Fine county for motoring," Griffiths continued, stroking his horse's +head. + +"The roads I have been on seem very good," was the somewhat bored +admission. + +"You haven't a car of your own here, have you?" + +"Not at present." + +Captain Griffiths glanced between his horse's ears for a few moments. +Then he turned once more towards his companion. + +"Mr. Lessingham," he said, "you are aware that I am Commandant here?" + +"I believe," Lessingham replied, "that Lady Cranston told me so." + +"It is my duty, therefore," Griffiths went on, "to take a little more +than ordinary interest in casual visitors, especially at this time +of the year. The fact that you are well-known to Lady Cranston is, of +course, an entirely satisfactory explanation of your presence here. +At the same time, there is certain information concerning strangers of +which we keep a record, and in your case there is a line or two which we +have not been able to fill up." + +"If I can be of any service," Lessingham murmured. + +"Precisely," the other interrupted. "I knew you would feel like that. +Now your arrival here--we have the date, I think--October 6th. As you +have just remarked, you didn't come by train. How did you come?" + +Lessingham's surprise was apparently quite genuine. + +"Is that a question which you ask me to answer--officially?" he +enquired. + +His interlocutor shrugged his shoulders. + +"I am not putting official questions to you at all," he replied, "nor +am I cross-examining you, as might be my duty, under the circumstances, +simply because your friendship with the Cranstons is, of course, a +guarantee as to your position. But on the other hand, I think it would +be reasonable if you were to answer my question." + +Lessingham nodded. + +"Perhaps you are right," he admitted. "As you can tell by finding me +here this afternoon, I am a great walker. I arrived--on foot." + +"I see," Griffiths reflected. "The other question which we usually ask +is, where was your last stopping place?" + +"Stopping place?" Lessingham murmured. + +"Yes, where did you sleep the night before you came here?" Griffiths +persisted. + +Lessingham shook his head as though oppressed by some distasteful +memory. + +"But I did not sleep at all," he complained. "It was one of the worst +nights which I have ever spent in my life." + +Captain Griffiths gathered up his reins. + +"Well," he said with clumsy sarcasm, "I am much obliged to you, Mr. +Lessingham, for the straight-forward way in which you have answered my +questions. I won't bother you any more just at present. Shall I see you +to-morrow night at Mainsail Haul?" + +"Lady Cranston has asked me to dine," was the somewhat reserved reply. + +His inquisitor nodded and cantered away. Lessingham looked after him +until he had disappeared, then he turned his face towards Dreymarsh and +walked steadily into the lowering afternoon. Twilight was falling as +he reached Mainsail Haul, where he found Philippa entertaining some +callers, to whom she promptly introduced him. Lessingham gathered, +almost in the first few minutes, that his presence in Dreymarsh was +becoming a subject of comment. + +"My husband has played bridge with you at the club, I think," a lady +by whose side he found himself observed. "You perhaps didn't hear my +name--Mrs. Johnson?" + +"I congratulate you upon your husband," Lessingham replied. "I remember +him perfectly well because he kept his temper when I revoked." + +"Dear me!" she exclaimed. "He must have taken a fancy to you, then. As a +rule, they rather complain about him at bridge." + +"I formed the impression," Lessingham continued, "that he was rather a +better player than the majority of the performers there." + +Mrs. Johnson, who was a dark and somewhat forbidding-looking lady, +smiled. + +"He thinks so, at any rate," she conceded. "Didn't he tell me that you +were invalided home from the front?" + +Lessingham shook his head. + +"I am quite sure that it was not mentioned," he said. "We walked home +together as far as the hotel one evening, but we spoke only of the golf +and some shooting in the neighbourhood." + +Philippa, who had been maneuvering to attract Lessingham's attention, +suddenly dropped the cake basket which she was passing. There was a +little commotion. Lessingham went down on his hands and knees to help +collect the fragments, and she found an opportunity to whisper in his +ear. + +"Be careful. That woman is a cat. Stay and talk to me. Please don't +bother, Mr. Lessingham. Won't you ring the bell instead?" she continued, +raising her voice. + +Lessingham did as he was asked, and affected not to notice Mrs. +Johnson's inviting smile as he returned. Philippa made room for him by +her side. + +"Helen and I were talking this afternoon, Mr. Lessingham," she said, "of +the days when you and Dick were both in the Magdalen Eleven and both +had just a chance of being chosen for the Varsity. You never played, did +you?" + +He shook his head. + +"No such luck. In any case, Richard would have been in well before me. I +always maintained that he was the first of our googlie bowlers." + +"So you were at Magdalen with Major Felstead?" another caller remarked +in mild wonder. + +"Mr. Lessingham and my brother were great friends," Philippa explained. +"Mr. Lessingham used to come down to shoot in Cheshire." + +Lady Cranston's guests were all conscious of a little indefinable +disappointment. The gossip concerning this stranger's appearance in +Dreymarsh was practically strangled. Mrs. Johnson, however, fired a +parting shot as she rose to go. + +"You were not in the same regiment as Major Felstead, were you, Mr. +Lessingham?" she asked. "No," he answered calmly. + +Philippa was busy with her adieux. Mrs. Johnson remained indomitable. + +"What was your regiment, Mr. Lessingham?" she persisted. "You must +forgive my seeming inquisitive, but I am so interested in military +affairs." + +Lessingham bowed courteously. + +"I do not remember alluding to my soldiering at all," he said coolly, +"but as a matter of fact I am in the Guards." + +Mrs. Johnson accepted Philippa's hand and the inevitable. Her good-by to +Lessingham was most affable. She walked up the road with the vicar. + +"I think, Vicar," she said severely, "that for a small place, Dreymarsh +is becoming one of the worst centres of gossip I ever knew. Every one +has been saying all sorts of unkind things about that charming Mr. +Lessingham, and there you are--Major Felstead's friend and a Guardsman! +Somehow or other, I felt that he belonged to one of the crack regiments. +I shall certainly ask him to dinner one night next week." + +The vicar nodded benignly. He had the utmost respect for Mrs. Johnson's +cook, and his own standard of social desirability, to which the object +of their discussion had attained. + +"I should be happy to meet Mr. Lessingham at any time," he pronounced, +with ample condescension. "I noticed him in church last Sunday morning." + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +"My dear man, whatever shall I do with you!" Philippa exclaimed +pathetically, as the door closed upon the last of her callers. "The +Guards, indeed!" + +Lessingham smiled as he resumed his place by her side. + +"Well," he said, "I told the dear lady the truth. You will find my +name well up in the list of the thirty-first battalion of the Prussian +Guards." + +She threw herself back in her chair and laughed. "How amusing it would +be if it weren't all so terrible! You really are a perfect political +Raffles. Do you know that this afternoon you have absolutely +reestablished yourself? Mr. Johnson will probably call on you +to-morrow--they may even ask you to dine--the vicar will write and ask +for a subscription, and Dolly Fenwick will invite you to play golf with +her." + +"Do not turn my head," he begged. + +"All the same," Philippa continued, more gravely, "I shall never have +a moment's peace whilst you are in the place. I was thinking about you +last night. I don't believe I have ever realised before how terrible it +would be if you really were discovered. What would they do to you?" + +"Whatever they might do," he replied, a little wearily, "I must obey +orders. My orders are to remain here, but even if I were told that I +might go, I should find it hard." + +"Do you mean that?" she asked. + +"I think you know," he answered. + +"You men are so strange," she went on, after a moment's pause. "You give +us so little time to know you, you show us so little of yourselves and +you expect so much." + +"We offer everything," he reminded her. + +"I want to avoid platitudes," she said thoughtfully, "but is love quite +the same thing for a man as for a woman?" + +"Sometimes it is more," was the prompt reply. "Sometimes love, for a +woman, means only shelter; often, for a man, love means the blending of +all knowledge, of all beauty, all ambition, of all that he has learned +from books and from life. Sometimes a man can see no further and needs +to look no further." + +Philippa suddenly felt that she was in danger. There was something in +her heart of which she had never before been conscious, some music, some +strange turn of sentiment in Lessingham's voice or the words themselves. +It was madness, she told herself breathlessly. She was in love with +her husband, if any one. She could not have lost all feeling for him so +soon. She clasped her hands tightly. Lessingham seemed conscious of his +advantage, and leaned towards her. + +"If I were not offering you my whole life," he pleaded, "believe me, I +would not open my lips. If I were thinking of episodes, I would throw +myself into the sea before I asked you to give me even your fingers. But +you, and you alone, could fill the place in my life which I have always +prayed might be filled, not for a year or even a decade of years, but +for eternity." + +"Oh, but you forget!" she faltered. + +"I remember so much," he replied, "that I know it is hard for you to +speak. There are bonds which you have made sacred, and your +fingers shrink from tearing them asunder. If it were not for this, +Philippa--hear the speech of a renegade--my mandate should be torn in +pieces. My instructions should flutter into the waste-paper basket, +To-morrow should see us on our way to a new country and a new life. But +you must be very sure indeed." + +"Is it because of me that you are staying here?" she asked. + +"Upon my honour, no," he assured her. "I must stay here a little longer, +whatever it may mean for me. And so I am content to remain what I am to +you at this minute. I ask from you only that you remain just what you +are. But when the moment of my freedom comes, when my task here is +finished and I turn to go, then I must come to you." + +She rose suddenly to her feet, crossed the floor, and threw open the +window. The breeze swept through the room, flapping the curtains, +blowing about loose articles into a strange confusion. She stood there +for several moments, as though in search of some respite from the +emotional atmosphere upon which she had turned her back. When she +finally closed the window, her hair was in little strands about her +face. Her eyes were soft and her lips quivering. + +"You make me feel," she said, taking his hand for a moment and looking +at him almost piteously, "you make me feel everything except one thing." + +"Except one thing?" he repeated. + +"Can't you understand?" she continued, stretching out her hand with a +quick, impulsive little movement. "I am here in Henry's house, his wife, +the mistress of his household. All the years we've been married I have +never thought of another man. I have never indulged in even the idlest +flirtation. And now suddenly my life seems upside down. I feel as +though, if Henry stood before me now, I would strike him on the cheek. I +feel sore all over, and ashamed, but I don't know whether I have ceased +to love him. I can't tell. Nothing seems to help me. I close my eyes +and I try to think of that new world and that new life, and I know that +there is nothing repulsive in it. I feel all the joy and the strength of +being with you. And then there is Henry in the background. He seems to +have had so much of my love." + +He saw the tears gathering in her eyes, and he smiled at her +encouragingly. + +"Remember that at this moment I am asking you for nothing," he said. +"Just think these things out. It isn't really a matter for sorrow," he +continued. "Love must always mean happiness--for the one who is loved." + +She leaned back in the corner of the sofa to which he had led her, +her eyes dry now but still very soft and sweet. He sat by her side, +fingering some of the things in her work basket. Once she held out her +hand and seemed to find comfort in his clasp. He raised her fingers to +his lips without any protest from her. She looked at him with a little +smile. + +"You know, I'm not at all an Ibsen heroine," she declared. "I can't see +my way like those wonderful emancipated women." + +"Yet," he said thoughtfully, "the way to the simple things is so clear." + +Confidences were at an end for a time, broken up by the entrance of Nora +and Helen, and some young men from the Depot, who had looked in for a +game of billiards. Lessingham rose to leave as soon as the latter had +returned to their game. His tone and manner now were completely changed. +He seemed ill at ease and unhappy. + +"I am going to have a day's fishing to-morrow," he told Philippa, "but +I must admit that I have very little faith in this man Oates. They all +tell me that your husband has any number of charts of the coast. Do you +think I could borrow one?" + +"Why, of course," she replied, "if we can find it." + +She took him over to her husband's desk, opened such of the drawers as +were not locked, and searched amongst their contents ruthlessly. By the +time they had finished the last drawer, Lessingham had quite a little +collection of charts, more or less finished, in his hand. + +"I don't know where else to look," she said. "You might go through those +and see if they are of any use. What is it, Mills?" she added, turning +to the door. + +Mills had entered noiselessly, and was watching the proceedings at Sir +Henry's desk with a distinct lack of favour. He looked away towards his +mistress, however, as he replied. + +"The young woman has called with reference to a situation as +parlour-maid, your ladyship," he announced. "I have shown her into the +sewing room." Lady Cranston glanced at the clock. + +"I sha'n't be more than five or ten minutes," she promised Lessingham. +"Just look through those till I come back." + +She hurried away, leaving Lessingham alone in the room. He stood for a +moment listening. On the left-hand side, through the door which had +been left ajar, he could hear the click of billiard balls and occasional +peals of laughter. On the right-hand side there was silence. He moved +swiftly across the room and closed the door leading into the billiard +room, deposited on the sofa the charts which he had been carrying, and +hurried back to the secretary. With a sickening feeling of overwhelming +guilt, he drew from his pocket a key and opened, one by one, the drawers +through which they had not searched. It took him barely five minutes to +discover--nothing. With an air of relief he rearranged everything. +When Philippa returned, he was sitting on the lounge, going through the +charts which they had looked out together. + +"Well?" she asked. + +"There is nothing here," he decided, "which will help me very much. With +your permission I will take this," he added, selecting one at random. + +She nodded and they replaced the others. Then she touched him on the +arm. + +"Listen," she said, "are you perfectly certain that there is no one +coming?" + +He listened for a moment. + +"I can't hear any one," he answered. "They've started a four-handed game +of pool in the billiard room." + +She smiled. + +"Then I will disclose to you Henry's dramatic secret. See!" + +She touched the spring in the side of the secretary. The false back, +with its little collection of fishing flies, rolled slowly up. The large +and very wonderful chart on which Sir Henry had bestowed so much of his +time, was revealed. Lessingham gazed at it eagerly. + +"There!" she said. "That has been a great labour of love with Henry. +It is the chart, on a great scale, from which he works. I don't know +a thing about it, and for heaven's sake never tell Henry that you have +seen it." + +He continued to examine the chart earnestly. Not a part of it escaped +him. Then he turned back to Philippa. + +"Is that supposed to be the coast on the other side of the point?" he +asked. + +"I don't exactly know where it is," she replied. "Every time Henry finds +out anything new, he comes and works at it. I believe that very soon it +will be perfect. Then he will start on another part of the coast." + +"This is not the only one that he has prepared, then?" Lessingham +enquired. + +She shook her head. + +"I believe it is the fifth," she replied. "They all disappear when they +are finished, but I have no idea where to. To me they seem to represent +a shocking waste of time." + +Lessingham was suddenly taciturn. He held out his hand. "You are dining +with us to-morrow night, remember," she said. + +"I am not likely to forget," he assured her. + +"And don't get drowned," she concluded. "I don't know any of these +fishermen--I hate them all--but I'm told that Oates is the worst." + +"I think that we shall be quite all right," he assured her. "Thanks very +much for finding me the charts. What I have seen will help me." + +Helen came in for a moment and their farewell was more or less +perfunctory. Lessingham was almost thankful to escape. There was an +unusual flush in his cheeks, a sense of bitter humiliation in his heart. +All the fervour with which he had started on his perilous quest had +faded away. No sense of duty or patriotism could revive his drooping +spirits. He felt himself suddenly an unclean and dishonoured being. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Towards three o'clock on the following afternoon, the boisterous wind +of an uncertain morning settled down to worse things. It tore the spray +from the crest of the gathering waves, dashed it even against the +French windows of Mainsail Haul, and came booming down the open spaces +cliffwards, like the rumble of some subterranean artillery. A little +group of fishermen in oilskins leaned over the railing and discussed +the chances of Ben Oates bringing his boat in safely. Philippa, also, +distracted by a curious anxiety, stood before the blurred window, +gazing into what seemed almost a grey chaos. "Captain Griffiths, your +ladyship." + +She turned around quickly at the announcement. Even an unwelcome caller +at that moment was almost a relief to her. + +"How nice of you to come and see me on such an afternoon, Captain +Griffiths," she exclaimed, as they shook hands. "Helen is over at the +Canteen, Nora is hard at work for once in her life, and I seem most +dolefully alone." + +Her visitor's reception of Philippa's greeting promised little in the +way of enlivenment. He seemed more awkward and ill at ease than ever, +and his tone was almost threatening. + +"I am very glad to find you alone, Lady Cranston," he said. "I came +specially to have a few words with you on a certain matter." + +Her momentary impulse of relief at his visit passed away. There seemed +to her something sinister in his manner. She was suddenly conscious that +there was a new danger to be faced, and that this man's attitude towards +her was, for some reason or other, inimical. After the first shock, +however, she prepared herself to do battle. + +"Well, you seem very mysterious," she observed. "I haven't broken any +laws, have I? No lights flashing from any of my windows?" + +"So far as I am aware, there are no complaints of the sort," the +Commandant acknowledged, still speaking with an unnatural restraint. "My +call, I hope, may be termed, to some extent, at least, a friendly one." + +"How nice!" she sighed. "Then you'll have some tea, won't you?" + +"Not at present, if you please," he begged. "I have come to talk to you +about Mr. Hamar Lessingham." + +"Really?" Philippa exclaimed. "Whatever has that poor man been doing +now." + +"Dreymarsh," her visitor proceeded, "having been constituted, during the +last few months, a protected area, it is my duty to examine and enquire +into the business of any stranger who appears here. Mr. Hamar Lessingham +has been largely accepted without comment, owing to his friendship with +you. I regret to state, however, that certain facts have come to my +knowledge which make me wonder whether you yourself may not in some +measure have been deceived." + +"This sounds very ridiculous," Philippa interposed quietly. + +"A few weeks ago," Captain Griffith continued, "we received information +that this neighbourhood would probably be visited by some person +connected with the Secret Service of Germany. There is strong evidence +that the person in question is Mr. Hamar Lessingham." + +"A graduate of Magdalen, my brother's intimate friend, and a frequent +visitor at my father's house in Cheshire," Philippa observed, with faint +sarcasm. + +"The possibility of your having made a mistake, Lady Cranston," Captain +Griffiths rejoined, "has, I must confess, only just occurred to me. The +authorities at Magdalen College have been appealed to, and no one of the +name of Lessingham was there during any one of your brother's terms." + +Philippa took the blow well. She simply stared at her caller in a +noncomprehending manner. + +"We have also information," he continued gravely, "from Wood Norton +Hall--from your mother, in fact, Lady Cranston--that no college friend +of your brother, of that name, has ever visited Wood Norton." + +"Go on," Philippa begged, a little faintly. "Did I ever live there +myself? Was Richard ever at Magdalen?" + +Captain Griffiths proceeded with the air of a man who has a task to +finish and intends to do so, regardless of interruptions. + +"I have had some conversation with Mr. Lessingham, in the course of +which I asked him to explain his method of reaching here, and his last +habitation. He simply fenced with me in the most barefaced fashion. He +practically declined to give me any account of himself." + +Philippa rose and rang the bell. + +"I suppose I must give you some tea," she said, "although you seem to +have come here on purpose to make my head ache." + +"My object in coming here," Captain Griffiths rejoined, a little +stiffly, "is to save you some measure of personal annoyance." + +"Oh, please don't think that I am ungrateful," Philippa begged. "Of +course, it is all some absurd mistake, and I'm sure we shall get to the +bottom of it presently--Tell me what you think of the storm?" she added, +as Mills entered with the tea tray. "Do you think it will get any worse, +because I am terrified to death already?" + +"I am no judge of the weather here," he confessed. "I believe the +fishermen are preparing for something unusual." + +She seated herself before the tea tray and insisted upon performing +her duties as hostess. Afterwards she laid her hand upon his arm and +addressed him with an air of complete candour. + +"Now, Captain Griffiths," she began, "do listen to me. Just one moment +of common sense, if you please. What do you suppose there could possibly +be in our harmless seaside village to induce any one to risk his life by +coming here on behalf of the Secret Service of Germany?" + +"Dreymarsh," Captain Griffiths replied, "was not made a prohibited area +for nothing." + +"But, my dear man, be reasonable," Philippa persisted. "There are +perhaps a thousand soldiers in the place, the usual preparations along +the cliff for coast defence, a small battery of anti-aircraft guns, and +a couple of searchlights. There isn't a grocer's boy in the place who +doesn't know all this. There's no concealment about it. You must +admit that Germany doesn't need to send over a Secret Service agent to +acquaint herself with these insignificant facts." + +Her visitor smiled very faintly. It was the first time he had relaxed +even so far as this. + +"I am not in possession of any information which I can impart to you, +Lady Cranston," he said, "but I am not prepared to accept your statement +that Dreymarsh contains nothing of greater interest than the things +which you have mentioned." + +There was no necessity for Philippa to play a part now. The suggestion +contained in her visitor's words had really left her in a state of +wonder. + +"You are making my flesh creep!" she exclaimed. "You don't mean to say +that we have secrets here?" + +"I have said the last word which it is possible for me to say upon the +subject," he declared. "You will understand, I am sure, that I am not +here in the character of an inquisitor. I simply thought it my duty, in +view of the fact that you had made yourself the social sponsor for +Mr. Lessingham, to place certain information before you, and to ask, +unofficially, of course, if you have any explanation to give? You may +even," he went on, hesitatingly, "appreciate the motives which led me to +do so." + +"My dear man, what explanation could I have?" Philippa protested, "it is +an absolute and undeniable fact that Mr. Lessingham was at Magdalen +with my brother, and also that he visited us at Wood Norton. I know +both these things of my own knowledge. The only possible explanation, +therefore, is that you have been misinformed." + +"Or," Captain Griffiths ventured, "that Mr. Hamar Lessingham in those +days passed under another name." + +"Another name?" Philippa faltered. + +"Some such name, perhaps," he continued, "as Bertram Maderstrom." + +There was a short silence. Captain Griffiths had leaned back in his +chair and was caressing his upper lip. His eyes were fixed upon Philippa +and Philippa saw nothing. Her little heel dug hard into the carpet. In a +few seconds the room ceased to spin. Nevertheless, her voice sounded to +her pitifully inadequate. + +"What an absurdity all this is!" she exclaimed. + +"Maderstrom," Captain Griffiths said thoughtfully, "was, curiously +enough, an intimate college friend of your brother's. He was also a +visitor at Wood Norton Hall. At neither place is there any trace of +Mr. Hamar Lessingham. Perhaps you have made a mistake, Lady Cranston. +Perhaps you have recognised the man and failed to remember his name. If +so, now is the moment to declare it." + +"I am very much obliged to you," Philippa retorted, "but I have never +met or heard of this Mr. Maderstrom--" + +"Baron Maderstrom," he interrupted. + +"Baron Maderstrom, then, in my life; whereas Mr. Lessingham I remember +perfectly." + +"I am sorry," Captain Griffiths said, setting down his empty teacup and +rising slowly to his feet. "We cannot help one another, then." + +"If you want me to transfer Mr. Lessingham, whom I remember perfectly, +into a German baron whom I never heard of," Philippa declared boldly, "I +am afraid that we can't." + +"Baron Maderstrom was a Swedish nobleman," Captain Griffiths observed. + +"Swedish or German, I know nothing of him," Philippa persisted. + +"There remains, then, nothing more to be said." + +"I am afraid not," Philippa agreed sweetly. + +"Under the circumstances," Captain Griffiths asked, "you will not, I am +sure, expect me to dine to-night." + +"Not if you object to meeting Mr. Hamar Lessingham," Philippa replied. + +Her visitor's face suddenly darkened, and Philippa wondered vaguely +whether anything more than professional suspicion was responsible +for that little storm of passion which for a moment transformed his +appearance. He quickly recovered, however. + +"I may still," he concluded, moving towards the door, "be forced to +present myself here in another capacity." + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +The confinement of the house, after the departure of her unwelcome +visitor, stifled Philippa. Attired in a mackintosh, with a scarf around +her head, she made her way on to the quay, and, clinging to the railing, +dragged herself along to where the fishermen were gathered together in a +little group. The storm as yet showed no signs of abatement. + +"Has anything been heard of Ben Oates' boat?" she enquired. + +An old fisherman pointed seawards. + +"There she comes, ma'am, up on the crest of that wave; look!" + +"Will she get in?" Philippa asked eagerly. + +There were varied opinions, expressed in indistinct mutterings. + +"She's weathering it grand," the fisherman to whom she had first spoken, +declared. "We've a line ready yonder, and we're reckoning on getting 'em +ashore all right. Lucky for Ben that the gentleman along with him is a +fine sailor. Look at that, mum!" he added in excitement. "See the way he +brought her head round to it, just in time. Boys, they'll come in on the +next one!" + +One by one the sailors made their way to the very edge of the +wave-splashed beach. There were a few more minutes of breathless +anxiety. Then, after the boat had disappeared completely from sight, +hidden by a huge grey wall of sea, she seemed suddenly to climb to the +top of it, to hover there, to become mixed up with the spray and the +surf and a great green mass of waters, and then finally, with a harsh +crash of timbers and a shout from the fishermen, to be flung high and +dry upon the stones. Philippa, clutching the iron railing, saw for a +moment nothing but chaos. Her knees became weak. She was unable to move. +There was a queer dizziness in her ears. The sound of voices sounded +like part of an unreal nightmare. Then she was aware of a single figure +climbing the steps towards her. There was blood trickling down his face +from the wound in the forehead, and he was limping slightly. + +"Mr. Lessingham!" she called out, as he reached the topmost step. + +He took an eager step towards her. + +"Philippa!" he exclaimed. "Why, what are you doing here?" + +"I was frightened," she faltered. "Are you hurt?" + +"Not in the least," he assured her. "We had a rough sail home, that's +all, and that fellow Oates drank himself half unconscious. Come along, +let me help you up the steps and out of this." + +She clung to his arm, and they struggled up the private path to the +house. Mills let them in with many expressions of concern, and Helen +came hurrying to them from the background. + +"I went out to see the storm," Philippa explained weakly, "and I saw Mr. +Lessingham's boat brought in." + +"And Mr. Lessingham will come this way at once," Helen insisted. "I +haven't had a real case since I got my certificate, and I'm going to +bind his head up." + +Philippa began to feel her strength returning. The horror which lay +behind those few minutes of nightmare rose up again in her mind. Mills +had hurried on into the bathroom, and the other two were preparing to +follow. She stopped them. + +"Mr. Lessingham," she said, "listen. Captain Griffiths has been here. He +knows or guesses everything." + +"Everything?" + +Philippa nodded. + +"Helen must bind your head up, of course," she continued. "After that, +think! What can we do? Captain Griffiths knows that there was no Hamar +Lessingham at college with Dick, that he never visited Wood Norton, that +there is some mystery about your arrival here, and he told me to my face +that he believes you to be Bertram Maderstrom." + +"What a meddlesome fellow!" Lessingham grumbled, holding his +handkerchief to his forehead. + +"Oh, please be serious!" Helen begged, looking up from the bandage which +she was preparing. "This is horrible!" + +"Don't I know it!" Philippa groaned. "Mr. Lessingham, you must please +try and escape from here. You can have the car, if you like. There must +be some place where you can go and hide until you can get away from the +country." + +"But I'm dining here to-night," Lessingham protested. "I'm not going to +hide anywhere." + +The two women exchanged glances of despair. + +"Can't I make you understand!" Philippa exclaimed pathetically. "You're +in danger here--really in danger!" + +Lessingham's demeanour showed no appreciation of the situation. + +"Of course, I can quite understand," he said, "that Griffiths is +suspicious about me, but, after all, no one can prove that I have broken +the law here, and I shall not make things any better by attempting an +opera bouffe flight. Can I have my head tied up and come and talk to you +about it later on?" + +"Oh, if you like," Philippa assented weakly. "I can't argue." + +She made her way up to her room and changed her wet clothes. When she +came down, Lessingham was standing on the hearth rug in the library, +with a piece of buttered toast in one hand and a cup of tea in the +other. His head was very neatly bound up, and he seemed quite at his +ease. + +"You know," he began, as he wheeled a chair up to the fire for her, +"that man Griffiths doesn't like me. He never took to me from the first, +I could see that. If it comes to that, I don't like Griffiths. He is +one of those mean, suspicious sort of characters we could very well do +without." + +Philippa, who had rehearsed a little speech several times in her +bedroom, tried to be firm. + +"Mr. Lessingham," she said, "you know that we are both your friends. Do +listen, please. Captain Griffiths is Commandant here and in a position +of authority. He has a very large power. I honestly believe that it is +his intention to have you arrested--if not to-night, within a very few +days." + +"I do not see how he can," Lessingham objected, helping himself to +another piece of toast. "I have committed no crime here. I have played +golf with all the respectable old gentlemen in the place, and I have +given the committee some excellent advice as to the two new holes. I +have played bridge down at the club--we will call it bridge!--and I +have kept my temper like an angel. I have dined at Mess and told them at +least a dozen new stories. I have kept my blinds drawn at night, and I +have not a wireless secreted up the chimney. I really cannot see what +they could do to me." + +Philippa tried bluntness. + +"You have served in the German army, and you are living in a protected +area under a false name," she declared. + +"Well, of course, there is some truth in what you say," he admitted, +"but even if they have tumbled to that and can prove it, I should do no +good by running away. To be perfectly serious," he added, setting his +cup down, "there is only one thing at the present moment which would +take me out of Dreymarsh, and that is if you believe that my presence +here would further compromise you and Miss Fairclough." + +Philippa was beginning to find her courage. "We're in it already, up to +the neck," she observed. "I really don't see that anything matters so +far as we are concerned." + +"In that case," he decided, "I shall have the honour of presenting +myself at the usual time." + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Philippa and Helen met in the drawing-room, a few minutes before +eight that evening. Philippa was wearing a new black dress, a model of +simplicity to the untutored eye, but full of that undefinable appeal to +the mysterious which even the greatest artist frequently fails to create +out of any form of colour. Some fancy had induced her to strip off her +jewels at the last moment, and she wore no ornaments save a band of +black velvet around her neck. Helen looked at her curiously. + +"Is this a fresh scheme for conquest, Philippa?" she asked, as they +stood together by the log fire. + +Philippa unexpectedly flushed. + +"I don't know what I was thinking about, really," she confessed. "Is +that the exact time, I wonder?" + +"Two minutes to eight," Helen replied. + +"Mr. Lessingham is always so punctual," Philippa murmured. "I wonder if +Captain Griffiths would dare!" + +"We've done our best to warn him," Helen reminded her friend. "The man +is simply pig-headed." + +"I can't help feeling that he's right," Philippa declared, "when he +argues that they couldn't really prove anything against him." + +"Does that matter," Helen asked anxiously, "so long as he is an enemy, +living under a false name here?" + +"You don't think they'd--they'd--" + +"Shoot him?" Helen whispered, lowering her voice. "They couldn't do +that! They couldn't do that!" + +The clock began to chime. Suddenly Philippa, who had been listening, +gave a little exclamation of relief. + +"I hear his voice!" she exclaimed. "Thank goodness!" + +Helen's relief was almost as great as her companion's. A moment later +Mills ushered in their guest. He was still wearing his bandage, but his +colour had returned. He seemed, in fact, almost gay. + +"Nothing has happened, then?" Philippa demanded anxiously, as soon as +the door was closed. + +"Nothing at all," he assured them. "Our friend Griffiths is terribly +afraid of making a mistake." + +"So afraid that he wouldn't come and dine. Never mind, you'll have to +take care of us both," she added, as Mills announced dinner. + +"I'll do my best," he promised, offering his arm. + +If the sword of Damocles were indeed suspended over their heads, it +seemed only to heighten the merriment of their little repast. Philippa +had ordered champagne, and the warmth of the pleasant dining room, the +many appurtenances of luxury by which they were surrounded, the glow of +the wine, and the perfume of the hothouse flowers upon the table, seemed +in delicious contrast to the fury of the storm outside. They all three +appeared completely successful in a strenuous effort to dismiss all +disconcerting subjects from their minds. Lessingham talked chiefly of +the East. He had travelled in Russia, Persia, Afghanistan, and India, +and he had the unusual but striking gift of painting little word +pictures of some of the scenes of his wanderings. It was half-past nine +before they rose from the table, and Lessingham accompanied them into +the library. With the advent of coffee, they were for the first time +really alone. Lessingham sat by Philippa's side, and Helen reclined in a +low chair close at hand. + +"I think," he said, "that I can venture now to tell you some news." + +Helen put down her work. Philippa looked at him in silence, and her eyes +seemed to dilate. + +"I have hesitated to say anything about it," Lessingham went on, +"because there is so much uncertainty about these things, but I believe +that it is now finally arranged. I think that within the next week or +ten days--perhaps a little before, perhaps a little later--your brother +Richard will be set at liberty." + +"Dick? Dick coming home?" Philippa cried, springing up from her +reclining position. + +"Dick?" Helen faltered, her work lying unheeded in her lap. "Mr. +Lessingham, do you mean it? Is it possible?" + +"It is not only possible," Lessingham assured them, "but I believe that +it will come to pass. I have had to exercise a little duplicity, but +I fancy that it has been successful. I have insisted that without help +from an influential person in Dreymarsh, I cannot bring my labours here +to a satisfactory conclusion, and I have named as the price of that +help, Richard's absolute and immediate freedom. I heard only this +morning that there would be no difficulty." + +Helen snatched up her work and groped her way towards the door. + +"I will come back in a few minutes," she promised, her voice a little +broken. + +Lessingham, who had opened the door for her, returned to his place. +There were no tears in Philippa's brilliant eyes, but there was a faint +patch of colour in her cheeks, and her lips were not quite steady. She +caught at his hands. + +"Oh, my dear, dear friend!" she said. "If only that little nightmare +part of you did not exist. If only you could be just what you seem, and +one could feel that you were there in our lives for always! I feel that +I want to talk to you so much, to you and not the sham you. What shall I +call you?" + +"Bertram, please," he whispered. + +"Then Bertram, dear," she went on, "for my sake, because you have really +become dear to me, because my heart aches at the thought of your danger, +and because--see how honest I am--I am a little afraid of myself--will +you go away? The thought of your danger is like a nightmare to me. It +all seems so absurd and unreasonable--I mean that the danger which I +fear should be hanging over you. But I think that there is just a little +something back of your brain of which you have never spoken, which it +was your duty to keep to yourself, and it is just that something which +brings the danger." + +"I am not afraid for myself, Philippa," he told her. "I took a false +step in life when I came here. What it was that attracted me I do not +know. I think it was the thought of that wild ride amongst the +clouds, and the starlight. It seemed such a wonderful beginning to any +enterprise. And, Philippa, for one part of my adventure, the part which +concerns you, it was a gorgeous prelude, and for the other--well, it +just does not count because I have no fear. I have faith in my fortune, +do you know that? I believe that I shall leave this place unharmed, but +I believe that if I leave it without you, I shall go back to the worst +hell in which a man could ever..." + +"Bertram," she pleaded, "think of it all. Even if I cared enough--and I +don't--there is something unnatural about it. Doesn't it strike you as +horrible? My brother, my cousins, my father, are all fighting the men of +the nation whose cause you have espoused! There is a horrible, eternal +cloud of hatred which it will take generations to get rid of, if ever it +disappears. How can we two speak of love! What part of the world could +we creep into where people would not shrink away from us? I may have +lost a little of my heart to you, Bertram, I may miss you when you go +away, I may waste weary hours thinking, but that is all. Oh, you know +that it must be all!" + +"I do not," he answered stubbornly. + +"Oh, you must be reasonable," she begged, with a little break in her +voice. "You know very well that I ought not to listen to you. I ought +not to welcome you here. I ought to be strong and close my ears." + +"But you will not do that!" + +"No!" she faltered. "Please don't come any nearer. I--" + +She broke off suddenly. The struggle in her face was ended, her +expression transformed. Her finger was held up as though to bid him +listen. With her other hand she clutched the back of the couch. Her eyes +were fixed upon the door. The little patch of wonderful colour faded +from her cheeks. + +"Listen!" she cried, with a note of terror in her voice. "That was the +front door! Some one has come! Can't you hear them?" + +Lessingham's hand stole suddenly to his pocket. She caught the glitter +of something half withdrawn, and shrank back with a half-stifled moan. + +"Not before you, dear," he promised. "Please do not be afraid. If this +is the end, leave me alone with Griffiths. I shall not hurt him. I +shall not forget. And if by any chance," he added, "this is to be our +farewell, Philippa, you will remember that I love you as the flowers of +the world love their sun. Courage!" + +The door facing them was opened. + +"Captain Griffiths," Mills announced. + +Through the open door they caught a vision of two other soldiers and +Inspector Fisher. Griffiths came into the room alone, however, and +waited until the door was closed before he spoke. He carried himself +as awkwardly as ever, but his long, lean face seemed to have taken +to itself a new expression. He had the air of a man indulging in some +strange pleasure. + +"Lady Cranston," he said, "I am very sorry to intrude, but my visit here +is official." + +"What is it?" she asked hoarsely. + +"I have received confirmatory evidence in the matter of which I spoke to +you this afternoon," he went on. "I am sorry to disturb you at such an +hour, but it is my duty to arrest this man on a charge of espionage." + +Lessingham to all appearance remained unmoved. + +"A most objectionable word," he remarked. + +"A most villainous profession," Captain Griffiths retorted. "Thank +heaven that in this country we are learning the art of dealing with its +disciples." + +"This is all a hideous mistake," Philippa declared feverishly. "I assure +you that Mr. Lessingham has visited my father's house, that he was +well-known to me years ago." + +"As the Baron Maderstrom! What arguments he has used, Lady Cranston, to +induce you to accept him here under his new identity, I do not know, but +the facts are very clear." + +"He seems quite convinced, doesn't he?" Lessingham remarked, turning to +Philippa. "And as I gather that a portion of the British Army, assisted +by the local constabulary, is waiting for me outside, perhaps I had +better humour him." + +"It would be as well, sir," Captain Griffiths assented grimly. "I am +glad to find you in the humour for jesting." + +Lessingham turned once more to Philippa. This time his tone was more +serious. + +"Lady Cranston," he begged, "won't you please leave us?" + +"No!" she answered hysterically. "I know why you want me to, and I won't +go! You have done no harm, and nothing shall happen to you. I will not +leave the room, and you shall not--" + +His gesture of appeal coincided with the sob in her throat. She broke +down in her speech, and Captain Griffiths moved a step nearer. + +"If you have any weapon in your possession, sir," he said, "you had +better hand it over to me." + +"Well, do you know," Lessingham replied, "I scarcely see the necessity. +One thing I will promise you," he added, with a sudden flash in his +eyes, "a single step nearer--a single step, mind--and you shall have +as much of my weapon as will keep you quiet for the rest of your life. +Remember that so long as you are reasonable I do not threaten you. Help +me to persuade Lady Cranston to leave us." + +Captain Griffiths was out of his depths. He was not a coward, but he had +no hankering after death, and there was death in Lessingham's threat and +in the flash of his eyes. While he hesitated, there was a knock upon the +door. Mills came silently in. He carried a telegram upon a salver. + +"For you, sir," he announced, addressing Captain Griffiths. "An orderly +has just brought it down." + +Griffiths looked at the pink envelope and frowned. He tore it open, +however, without a word. As he read, his long, upper teeth closed +in upon his lip. So he stood there until two little drops of blood +appeared. + +Then he turned to Mills. + +"There is no answer," he said. + +The man bowed and left the room. He walked slowly and he looked back +from the doorway. It was scarcely possible for even so perfectly trained +a servant to escape from the atmosphere of tragedy. + +"Something tells me," Lessingham remarked coolly, as soon as the door +was closed, "that that message concerns me." + +The Commandant made no immediate reply. He straightened out the telegram +and read it once more under the lamplight, as though to be sure there +was no possible mistake. Then he folded it up and placed it in his +waistcoat pocket. + +"The notion of your arrest, sir," he said to Lessingham harshly, "is +apparently distasteful to some one at headquarters who has not digested +my information. I am withdrawing my men for the present." + +"You're not going to arrest him?" Philippa cried. + +"I am not," Captain Griffiths answered. "But," he added, turning to +Lessingham, "this is only a respite. I have more evidence behind all +that I have offered. You are Baron Bertram Maderstrom, a German spy, +living here in a prohibited area under a false name. That I know, and +that I shall prove to those who have interfered with me in the execution +of my duty. This is not the end." + +He left the room without even a word or a salute to Philippa. Lessingham +looked after him for a moment, thoughtfully. Then he shrugged his +shoulders. + +"I am quite sure that I do not like Captain Griffiths," he declared. +"There is no breeding about the fellow." + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Philippa, even for some moments after the departure of Captain Griffiths +and his myrmidons, remained in a sort of nerveless trance. The crisis, +with its bewildering denouement, had affected her curiously. Lessingham +rose presently to his feet. + +"I wonder," he asked, "if I could have a whisky and soda?" + +She stamped her foot at him in a little fit of hysterical passion. + +"You're not natural!" she cried. "Whisky and soda!" + +"Well, I don't know," he protested mildly, helping himself from the +table in the background. "I rather thought I was being particularly +British. When in doubt, take a drink. That is Richard all the world +over, you know." + +She broke into a little mirthless laugh. + +"I shall begin to think that you are a poseur!" she exclaimed. + +He crossed the room towards her. + +"Perhaps I am, dear," he confessed. "I want you just to sit up and lose +that unnatural look. I am not really full of cheap bravado, but I am a +philosopher. Something has happened to postpone--the end. Good luck to +it, I say!" + +He raised his tumbler to his lips and set it down empty. Philippa rose +to her feet and walked restlessly to the window and back. + +"I'll try and be reasonable too," she promised, resuming her seat. "I +was right, you see. Captain Griffiths has discovered everything. Can +you tell me what possible reason any one in London could have had for +interference?" + +"I seem to have got a friend up there without knowing it, don't I?" he +observed. + +"This is aging me terribly," Philippa declared, throwing herself back +into her seat. "All my life I have hated mysteries. Here I am face to +face with two absolutely insoluble ones. Captain Griffiths has assured +me that there is here in Dreymarsh something of sufficient importance to +account for the presence of a foreign spy. You have confirmed it. I have +been torturing my brain about that for the last twenty-four hours. Now +there happens something more inexplicable still. You are arrested, and +you are not arrested. Your identity is known, and Captain Griffiths is +forbidden to do his duty." + +"It seems puzzling, does it not?" Lessingham agreed. "I shouldn't worry +about the first, but this last little episode takes some explaining." + +"If anything further happens this evening, I think I shall go mad," +Philippa sighed. + +"And something is going to happen," Lessingham declared, rising to his +feet. "Did you hear that?" + +Above even the roar of the wind they heard the brazen report of a gun +from almost underneath the window. The room was suddenly lightened by a +single vivid flash. + +"A mortar!" Lessingham exclaimed. "And that was a rocket, unless I'm +mistaken." + +"The signal for the lifeboat!" Philippa announced. "I wonder if we can +see anything." + +She hastened towards the window, but paused at the abrupt opening of the +door. Nora burst in, followed more sedately by Helen. + +"Mummy, there's a wreck!" the former cried in excitement. "I heard +something an hour ago, and I got up, and I've been sitting by the +window, watching. I saw the lifeboat go out, and they're signalling now +for the other one." + +"It's quite true, Philippa," Helen declared. "We're going to try and +fight our way down to the beach." + +"I'll go, too," Lessingham decided. "Perhaps I may be of use." + +"We'll all go," Philippa agreed. "Wait while I get my things on. What +is it, Mills?" she added, as the door opened and the latter presented +himself. + +"There is a trawler on the rocks just off the breakwater, your +ladyship," he announced. "They have just sent up from the beach to know +if we can take some of the crew in. They are landing them as well as +they can on the line." + +"Of course we can," was the prompt reply. "Tell them to send as many as +they want to. We will find room for them, somehow. I'll go upstairs and +see about the fires. You'll all come back?" she added, turning around. + +"We will all come back," Lessingham promised. + +They fought their way down to the beach. At first the storm completely +deafened all sound. The lanterns, waved here and there by unseen hands, +seemed part of some ghostly tableau, of which the only background was +the raging of the storm. Then suddenly, with a startling hiss, another +rocket clove its way through the darkness. They had an instantaneous but +brilliant view of all that was happening,--saw the trawler lying on its +side, apparently only a few yards from the shore, saw the line stretched +to the beach, on which, even at that moment, a man was being drawn +ashore, licked by the spray, his strained face and wind-tossed hair +clearly visible. Then all was darkness again more complete than ever. +They struggled down on to the shingle, where the little cluster of +fishermen were hard at work with the line. Almost the first person +they ran across was Jimmy Dumble. He was standing on the edge of the +breakwater with a great lantern in his hand, superintending the line, +and, as they drew near, Lessingham, who was a little in advance, could +hear his voice above the storm. He was shouting towards the wreck, his +hand to his mouth. + +"Send the master over next, you lubbers, or we'll cut the line. Do you +hear?" + +There was no reply or, if there was, it was drowned in the wind. +Lessingham gripped the fisherman by the arm. + +"Whom do you mean by 'master'?" he demanded. Dumble scarcely glanced at +his interlocutor. + +"Why, Sir Henry Cranston, to be sure," was the agitated answer. "These +lubbers of sea hands are all coming off first, and the line won't stand +for more than another one or two," he added, dropping his voice. + +Then the thrill of those few minutes' excitement unrolled itself into a +great drama before Lessingham's eyes. Sir Henry was on that ship as near +as any man might wish to be to death. + +"'Ere's the next," Jimmy muttered, as they turned the windlass +vigorously. "Gosh, 'e's a heavy one, too!" + +Then came a cry which sounded like a moan and above it the shrill +fearful yell of a man who feels himself dropping out of the world's +hearing. Lessingham raised the lantern which stood on the beach by +Jimmy's side. The line had broken. The body of its suspended traveller +had disappeared! And just then, strangely enough, for the first time for +over an hour, the heavens opened in one great sheet of lightning, +and they could see the figure of one man left on the ship, clinging +desperately to the rigging. + +"Tie the line around me," Jimmy shouted. "Let her go. Get the other end +on the windlass." + +They paid out the rope through their hands. Jimmy kicked off his boots +and plunged into the cauldron. He swam barely a dozen strokes before he +was caught on the top of an incoming wave, tossed about like a cork and +flung back upon the beach, where he lay groaning. There was a little +murmur amongst the fisherman, who rushed to lean over him. + +"Swimming ain't no more use than trying to walk on the water," one of +them declared. + +Lessingham raised the lantern which he was carrying, and flashed it +around. + +"Where are the young ladies?" he asked. + +"Gone up to the house with two as we've just taken off the wreck," some +one informed him. + +Lessingham stooped down. Willing hands helped him unfasten the cord from +Jimmy's waist. He tore off his own coat and waistcoat and boots. Some +helped, other sought to dissuade him, as he secured the line around his +own waist. + +"We've sent for more rockets," one man shouted in his ear. "The man will +be back in half an hour." + +Lessingham pushed them on one side. He stood on the edge of the beach +and, borrowing a lantern, watched for his opportunity. Then suddenly +he vanished. They looked after him. They could see nothing but the rope +slipping past their feet, inch by inch. Sometimes it was stationary, +sometimes it was drawn taut. The first great wave that came flung a yard +or so of slack amongst them. Then, after the roar of its breaking had +died away, they saw the rope suddenly tighten, and pass rapidly out, and +the excitement began to thicken. + +"That 'un didn't get him, anyway," one of them muttered. + +"He'll go through the next, with luck," another declared hopefully. + +Lessingham, fighting for his consciousness, deafened and half stunned +by the roar of the waters about him, still felt the exhilaration of +that great struggle. He looked once into seas which seemed to touch the +clouds, drew himself stiff, and plunged into the depths of a mountain of +foaming waters, whose summit seemed to him like one of those grotesque +and nightmare-distorted efforts of the opium-eating brain. Then the roar +sounded all behind him, and he knew that he was through the breakers. +He swam to the side of the ship and clutched hold of a chain. It was Sir +Henry's out-stretched hand which pulled him on to the deck. + +"My God, that was a swim!" the latter declared, as he pulled his rescuer +up, not in the least recognising him. "Let's have the end of that cord, +quick! So!" he went on, paying it out through his fingers until the end +of the rope appeared. "You'd better get your breath, young man, and then +over you go. I'll follow." + +"I'm damned if I do!" was the vigorous reply. "You start off while I get +my breath." + +They were suddenly half drowned with a shower of spray. Sir Henry held +Lessingham in a grip of iron, or he would have been swept overboard. + +"Get one arm through the chains, man," he shouted. "My God!" he added, +peering through the gloom. "Lessingham!" + +"Well, don't stop to worry about that," was the fierce reply. "Let's get +on with our job." + +Sir Henry threw off his oilskins and his underneath coat. + +"Follow me when they wave the lantern twice," he directed. "If we either +of us get the knock--well, thanks!" + +Lessingham felt the grip of Sir Henry's hand as he passed him and went +overboard into the darkness. Then, with one arm through the chains, +he drew towards him by means of his heel the coat which Sir Henry had +thrown upon the deck. Gradually it came within reach of his disengaged +hand. He seized it, shook it out, and dived eagerly into the breast +pocket. There were several small articles which he threw ruthlessly +away, and then a square packet, wrapped in oilcloth, which bent to his +fingers. Another breaking wave threw him on his back. One arm was still +through the chain, the other gripped what some illuminating instinct +had already convinced him was the chart! As soon as he had recovered +his breath, a grim effort of humour parted his lips. He lay there for a +moment and laughed till the spray, this time with a rush of green water +underneath, very nearly swept him from his place. + +They were waving a lantern on the beach when he struggled again to his +feet. + +He slipped the little packet down his clothes next to his skin, and +groped about to find the end of the line which Sir Henry and he had +fastened to a staple below the chains. Then he drew a long breath, +gripped the rope and shouted. A second or two later he was back in the +cauldron. + +As they pulled him on to the beach, he had but one idea. Whatever +happened, he must not lose consciousness. The packet was still there +against the calf of his leg. It must be his own hands which removed his +clothes. It seemed to him that those few bronzed faces, those half a +dozen rude lanterns, had become magnified and multiplied a hundredfold. +It was an army of blue-jerseyed fishermen which patted him on the back +and welcomed him, lanterns like the stars flashing everywhere around. +He set his teeth and fought against the buzzing in his ears. He tried to +speak, and his voice sounded like a weak, far away whisper. + +"I am all right," he kept on saying. + +Then he felt himself leaning on two brawny arms. His feet followed the +mesmeric influence of their movement. Was he going into the clouds, he +wondered? They stopped to open a gate, the gate leading to the gardens +of Mainsail Haul. How did he get there? He had no idea. More movements +of his feet, and then unexpected warmth. He looked around him. There +were voices. He listened. The one voice? The one face bending over his, +her eyes wet with tears, her whispers an incoherent stream of broken +words. Then the warmth seemed to come back to his veins. He sat up and +found himself on the couch in the library, the rain dripping from him in +little pools, and he knew that he had succeeded. He had not fainted. + +"I am all right," he repeated. "What a mess I am making!" + +The voices around him were still a little tangled, but the hand which +held a steaming tumbler to his lips was Philippa's. + +"Drink it all," she begged. + +He felt the tears come into his eyes, felt the warm blood streaming +through his body, felt a little wet patch at the back of the calf of his +leg, and the hand which set down the empty tumbler was almost steady. + +"There's a hot bath ready," Philippa told him; "some dry clothes, and a +bedroom with a fire in. Do let Mills show you the way." + +He rose at once, prepared to follow her. His feet were not quite so +steady as he would have wished, but he made a very presentable show. +Mills, with a little apology, held out his arm. Philippa walked by his +other side. + +"As soon as you have finished your bath and got into some dry clothes," +Philippa whispered, "please ring, or send Mills to let us know." + +He was even able to smile at her. + +"I am quite all right," he assured her once more. + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Philippa, unusually early on the following morning, glanced at the empty +breakfast table with a little air of disappointment, and rang the bell. + +"Mills," she enquired, "is no one down?" + +"Sir Henry is, I believe, on the beach, your ladyship," the man +answered, "and Miss Helen and Miss Nora are with him." + +"And Mr. Lessingham?" + +"Mr. Lessingham, your ladyship," Mills continued, looking carefully +behind him as though to be sure that the door was closed, "has +disappeared." + +"Disappeared?" Philippa repeated. "What do you mean, Mills?" + +"I left Mr. Lessingham last night, your ladyship," Mills explained, +"in a suit of the master's clothes and apparently preparing for bed--I +should say this morning, as it was probably about two o'clock. I called +him at half past eight, as desired, and found the room empty. The bed +had not been slept in." + +"Was there no note or message?" Philippa asked incredulously. + +"Nothing, your ladyship. One of the maid servants believes that she +heard the front door open at five o'clock this morning." + +"Ring up the hotel," Philippa instructed, "and see if he is there." + +Mills departed to execute his commission. Philippa stood looking out +of the window, across the lawn and shrubbery and down on to the beach. +There was still a heavy sea, but it was merely the swell from the day +before. The wind had dropped, and the sun was shining brilliantly. +Sir Henry, Helen, and Nora were strolling about the beach as though +searching for something. About fifty yards out, the wrecked trawler +was lying completely on its side, with the end of one funnel visible. +Scattered groups of the villagers were examining it from the sands. In +due course Mills returned. + +"The hotel people know nothing of Mr. Lessingham, your ladyship, beyond +the fact that he did not return last night. They received a message +from Hill's Garage, however, about half an hour ago, to say that their +mechanic had driven Mr. Lessingham early this morning to Norwich, where +he had caught the mail train to London, The boy was to say that Mr. +Lessingham would be back in a day or so." + +Philippa pushed open the windows and made her way down towards the +beach. She leaned over the rail of the promenade and waved her hand to +the others, who clambered up the shingle to meet her. + +"Scarcely seen you yet, my dear, have I?" Sir Henry observed. + +He stooped and kissed her forehead, a salute which she suffered without +response. Helen pointed to the wreck. + +"It doesn't seem possible, does it," she said, "that men's lives should +have been lost in that little space. Two men were drowned, they say, +through the breaking of the rope. They recovered the bodies this +morning." + +"Everything else seems to have been washed on shore except my coat," Sir +Henry grumbled. "I was down here at daylight, looking for it." + +"Your coat!" Philippa repeated scornfully. "Fancy thinking of that, when +you only just escaped with your life!" + +"But to tell you the truth, my dear," Sir Henry explained, "my +pocketbook and papers of some value were in the pocket of that coat. I +can't think how I came to forget them. I think it was the surprise +of seeing that fellow Lessingham crawl on to the wreck looking like a +drowned rat. Jove, what a pluck he must have!" + + +"The fishermen can talk of nothing else," Nora put in excitedly. "Mummy, +it was simply splendid! Helen and I had gone up with two of the rescued +men, but I got back just in time to see them fasten the rope round his +waist and watch him plunge in." + +"How is he this morning?" Helen asked. + +"Gone," Philippa replied. + +They all looked at her in surprise. + +"Gone?" Sir Henry repeated. "What, back to the hotel, do you mean?" + +"His bed has not been slept in," Philippa told them. "He must have +slipped away early this morning, gone to Hill's Garage, hired a car, and +motored to Norwich. From there he went on to London. He has sent word +that he will be back in a few days." + +"I hope to God he won't!" Sir Henry muttered. + +Philippa swung round upon him. + +"What do you mean by that?" she demanded. "Don't you want to thank him +for saving your life?" + +"My dear, I certainly do," Sir Henry replied, "but just now--well, I am +a little taken aback. Gone to London, eh? Tore away without warning +in the middle of the night to London! And coming back, too--that's the +strange part of it!" + +One would think, from Sir Henry's expression, that he was finding +food for much satisfaction in this recital of Lessingham's sudden +disappearance. + +"He is a wonderful fellow, this Lessingham," he added thoughtfully. "He +must have--yes, by God, he must have--In that storm, too!" + +"If you could speak coherently, Henry," Philippa observed, "I should +like to say that I am exceedingly anxious to know why Mr. Lessingham has +deserted us so precipitately." + +Sir Henry would have taken his wife's arm, but she avoided him. He +shrugged his shoulders and plodded up the steep path by her side. + +"The whole question of Lessingham is rather a problem," he said. "Of +course, you and Helen have seen very much more of him than I have. Isn't +it true that people have begun to make curious remarks about him?" + +"How did you know that, Henry?" Philippa demanded. + +"Well, one hears things," he replied. "I should gather, from what I +heard, that his position here had become a little precarious. Hence his +sudden disappearance." + +"But he is coming back again," Philippa reminded her husband. + +"Perhaps!" + +Philippa signified her desire that her husband should remain a little +behind with her. They walked side by side up the gravel path. Philippa +kept her hands clasped behind her. + +"To leave the subject of Mr. Lessingham for a time," she began, "I feel +very reluctant to ask for explanations of anything you do, but I must +confess to a certain curiosity as to why I should find you lunching at +the Canton with two very beautiful ladies, a few days ago, when you left +here with Jimmy Dumble to fish for whiting; and also why you return here +on a trawler which belongs to another part of the coast?" + +Sir Henry made a grimace. + +"I was beginning to wonder whether curiosity was dead," he observed +good-humouredly. "If you wouldn't mind giving me another--well, to be +on the safe side let us say eight days--I think I shall be able to offer +you an explanation which you will consider satisfactory." + +"Thank you," Philippa rejoined, with cold surprise; "I see no reason why +you should not answer such simple questions at once." + +Sir Henry sighed deprecatingly, and made another vain attempt to take +his wife's arm. + +"Philippa, be a little brick," he begged. "I know I seem to have been +playing the part of a fool just lately, but there has been a sort of +reason for it." + +"What reason could there possibly be," she demanded, "which you could +not confide in me?" + +He was silent for a moment. When he spoke again there was a new +earnestness in his tone. + +"Philippa," he said, "I have been working for some time at a little +scheme which isn't ripe to talk about yet, not even to you, but which +may lead to something which I hope will alter your opinion. You couldn't +see your way clear to trust me a little longer, could you?" he begged, +with rather a plaintive gleam in his blue eyes. "It would make it so +much easier for me to say no more but just have you sit tight." + +"I wonder," she answered coldly, "if you realise how much I have +suffered, sitting tight, as you call it, and waiting for you to do +something!" + +"My fishing excursions," he went on desperately, "have not been +altogether a matter of sport." + +"I know that quite well," she replied. "You have been making that chart +you promised your miserable fishermen. None of those things interest me, +Henry. I fear--I am very much inclined to say that none of your doings +interest me. Least of all," she went on, her voice quivering with +passion, "do I appreciate in the least these mysterious appeals for my +patience. I have some common sense, Henry." + +"You're a suspicious little beast," he told her. + +"Suspicious!" she scoffed. "What a word to use from a man who goes +off fishing for whiting, and is lunching at the Carlton, some days +afterwards, with two ladies of extraordinary attractions!" + +"That was a trifle awkward," Sir Henry admitted, with a little burst of +candour, "but it goes in with the rest, Philippa." + +"Then it can stay with the rest," she retorted, "exactly where I have +placed it in my mind. Please understand me. Your conduct for the last +twelve months absolves me from any tie there may be between us. If this +explanation that you promise comes--in time, and I feel like it, very +well. Until it does, I am perfectly free, and you, as my husband, are +non-existent. That is my reply, Henry, to your request for further +indulgence." + +"Rather a foolish one, my dear," he answered, patting her shoulder, "but +then you are rather a child, aren't you?" + +She swung away from him angrily. + +"Don't touch me!" she exclaimed. "I mean every word of what I have said. +As for my being a child--well, you may be sorry some day that you have +persisted in treating me like one." + +Sir Henry paused for a moment, watching her disappearing figure. There +was an unusual shade of trouble in his face. His love for and confidence +in his wife had been so absolute that even her threats had seemed to him +like little morsels of wounded vanity thrown to him out of the froth +of her temper. Yet at that moment a darker thought crossed his mind. +Lessingham, he realised, was not a rival, after all, to be despised. He +was a man of courage and tact, even though Sir Henry, in his own mind, +had labelled him as a fool. If indeed he were coming back to Dreymarsh, +what could it be for? How much had Philippa known about him? He stood +there for a few moments in indecision. A great impulse had come to him +to break his pledge, to tell her the truth. Then he made his disturbed +way into the breakfast room. + +"Where's your mother, Nora?" he asked, as Helen took Philippa's place at +the head of the table. + +"She wants some coffee and toast sent up to her room." Nora explained. +"The wind made her giddy." + +Sir Henry breakfasted in silence, rang the bell, and ordered his car. + +"You going away again, Daddy?" Nora asked. + +"I am going to London this morning," he replied, a little absently. + +"To London?" Helen repeated. "Does Philippa know?" + +"I haven't told her yet." + +Helen turned towards Nora. + +"I wish you'd run up and see if your mother wants any more coffee, +there's a dear," she suggested. + +Nora acquiesced at once. As soon as she had left the room, Helen leaned +over and laid her hand upon Sir Henry's arm. + +"Don't go to London, Henry," she begged. + +"But my dear Helen, I must," he replied, a little curtly. + +"I wouldn't if I were you," she persisted. "You know, you've tried +Philippa very high lately, and she is in an extremely emotional state. +She is all worked up about last night, and I wouldn't leave her alone if +I were you." + +Sir Henry's blue eyes seemed suddenly like points of steel as he leaned +towards her. + +"You think that she is in love with that fellow Lessingham?" he asked +bluntly. + +"No, I don't," Helen replied, "but I think she is more furious with you +than you believe. For months you have acted--well, how shall I say?" + +"Oh, like a coward, if you like, or a fool. Go on." + +"She has asked for explanations to which she is perfectly entitled," +Helen continued, "and you have given her none. You have treated her like +something between a doll and a child. Philippa is as good and sweet as +any woman who ever lived, but hasn't it ever occurred to you that women +are rather mysterious beings? They may sometimes do, out of a furious +sense of being wrongly treated, out of a sort of aggravated pique, what +they would never do for any other reason. If you must go, come back +to-night, Henry. Come back, and if you are obstinate, and won't tell +Philippa all that she has a right to know, tell her about that luncheon +in town." + +Sir Henry frowned. + +"It's all very well, you know, Helen," he said, "but a woman ought to +trust her husband." + +"I am your friend, remember," Helen replied, "and upon my word, I +couldn't trust and believe even in Dick, if he behaved as you have done +for the last twelve months." + +Sir Henry made a grimace. + +"Well, that settles it, I suppose, then," he observed. "I'll have one +more try and see what I can do with Philippa. Perhaps a hint of what's +going on may satisfy her." + +He climbed the stairs, meeting Nora on her way down, and knocked at his +wife's door. There was no reply. He tried the handle and found the door +locked. + +"Are you there, Philippa?" he asked. + +"Yes!" she replied coldly. + +"I am going to London this morning. Can I have a few words with you +first?" + +"No!" + +Sir Henry was a little taken aback. + +"Don't be silly, Philippa," he persisted. "I may be away for four or +five days." + +There was no answer. Sir Henry suddenly remembered another entrance +from a newly added bathroom. He availed himself of it and found Philippa +seated in an easy-chair, calmly progressing with her breakfast. She +raised her eyebrows at his entrance. + +"These are my apartments," she reminded him. + +"Don't be a little fool," he exclaimed impatiently. + +Philippa deliberately buttered herself a piece of toast, picked up her +book, and became at once immersed in it. + +"You don't wish to talk to me, then?" he demanded. + +"I do not," she agreed. "You have had all the opportunities which any +man should need, of explaining certain matters to me. My curiosity +in them has ended; also my interest--in you. You say you are going to +London. Very well. Pray do not hurry home on my account." + +Sir Henry, as he turned to leave the room, made the common mistake of a +man arguing with a woman--he attempted to have the last word. + +"Perhaps I am better out of the way, eh?" + +"Perhaps so," Philippa assented sweetly. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Philippa, late that afternoon, found what she sought--solitude. She had +walked along the sands until Dreymarsh lay out of sight on the other +side of a spur of the cliffs. Before her stretched a long and level +plain, a fringe of sand, and a belt of shingly beach. There was not a +sign of any human being in sight, and of buildings only a quaint tower +on the far horizon. + +She found a dry place on the pebbles, removed her hat and sat down, her +hands clasped around her knees, her eyes turned seaward. She had +come out here to think, but it was odd how fugitive and transient her +thoughts became. Her husband was always there in the background, but +in those moments it was Lessingham who was the predominant figure. She +remembered his earnestness, his tender solicitude for her, the courage +which, when necessity demanded, had flamed up in him, a born and natural +quality. She remembered the agony of those few minutes on the preceding +day, when nothing but what still seemed a miracle had saved him. At one +moment she felt herself inclined to pray that he might never come back. +At another, her heart ached to see him once more. She knew so well +that if he came it would be for her sake, that he would come to ask her +finally the question with which she had fenced. She knew, too, that his +coming would be the moment of her life. She was so much of a woman, and +the passionate craving of her sex to give love for love was there in her +heart, almost omnipotent. And in the background there was that bitter +desire to bring suffering upon the man who had treated her like a child, +who had placed her in a false position with all other women, who had +dawdled and idled away his days, heedless of his duty, heedless of every +serious obligation. When she tried to reason, her way seemed so clear, +and yet, behind it all, there was that cold impulse of almost Victorian +prudishness, the inheritance of a long line of virtuous women, a +prudishness which she had once, when she had believed that it was part +of her second nature, scoffed at as being the outcome of one of the +finer forms of selfishness. + +She told herself that she had come there to decide, and decision came no +nearer to her. A late afternoon star shone weakly in the sky. A faint, +vaporous mist obscured the horizon and floated in tangled wreaths upon +the face of the sea. Only that line of sand seemed still clear-cut and +distinct, and as she glanced along it her eyes were held by something +approaching, something which seemed at first nothing but a black, moving +speck, then gradually resolved itself into the semblance of a man on +horseback, galloping furiously. She watched him as he drew nearer and +nearer, the sand flying from his horse's hoofs, his figure motionless, +his eyes apparently fixed upon some distant spot. It was not until he +had come within fifty yards of her that she recognised him. His horse +shied at the sight of her and was suddenly swung round with a powerful +wrist. Little specks of sand, churned up in the momentary stampede +of hoofs, fell upon her skirt. For the rest, she watched the struggle +composedly, a struggle which was over almost as soon as it was begun. +Captain Griffiths leaned down from his trembling but subdued horse. + +"Lady Cranston!" he exclaimed in astonishment. + +"That's me," she replied, smiling up at him. "Have you been riding off +your bad temper?" + +He glanced down at his horse's quivering sides. Back as far as one could +see there was that regular line of hoof marks. + +"Am I bad-tempered?" he asked. + +"Well," she observed, "I don't know you well enough to answer that +question. I was simply thinking of yesterday evening." + +He slipped from his horse and stood before her. His long, severe face +had seldom seemed more malevolent. + +"I had enough to make me bad-tempered," he declared. "I had tracked +down a German spy, step by step, until I had him there, waiting for +arrest--expecting it, even--and then I got that wicked message." + +"What was that wicked message after all?" she enquired. + +"That doesn't matter," he answered. "It was from a quarter where they +ought to know better, and it ordered me to make no arrest. I have sent +to the War Office to-day a full report, and I am praying that they may +change their minds." + +Philippa sighed. + +"If you hadn't received that telegram last night," she observed, "it +seems to me that I should have been a widow to-day." + +He frowned, and struck his boot heavily with his riding whip. + +"Yes, I heard of that," he admitted. "I dare say if he hadn't gone, +though, some one else would." + +"Would you have gone if you had been there?" she asked. + +"If you had told me to," he replied, looking at her steadfastly. + +Philippa felt a little shiver. There was something ominous in the +intensity of his gaze and the meaning which he had contrived to impart +to his tone. She rose to her feet. + +"Well," she said, "don't let me keep you here. I am getting cold." + +He passed his arm through the bridle of his horse. "I will walk with +you, if I may," he proposed. She made no reply, and they set their faces +homewards. + +"I hear Lessingham has left the place," he remarked, a little abruptly. + +"Oh, I expect he'll come back," Philippa replied. + +"How long is it, Lady Cranston, since you took to consorting with German +spies?" he asked. + +"Don't be foolish--or impertinent," she enjoined. "You are making a +ridiculous mistake about Mr. Lessingham." + +He laughed unpleasantly. + +"No need for us to fence," he said. "You and I know who he is. What I +do want to know, what I have been wondering all the way from the point +there--four miles of hard galloping and one question--why are you his +friend? What is he to you?" + +"Really, Captain Griffiths," she protested, looking up at him, "of what +possible interest can that be to you?" + +"Well, it is, anyhow," he answered gruffly. "Anything that concerns you +is of interest to me." + +Philippa realised at that moment, perhaps for the first time, what it +all meant. She realised the significance of those apparently purposeless +afternoon calls, when through sheer boredom she had had to send for +Helen to help her out; the significance of those long silences, the +melancholy eyes which seemed to follow her movements. She felt an +unaccountable desire to laugh, and then, at the first twitchings of her +lips, she restrained herself. She knew that tragedy was stalking by her +side. + +"I think, Captain Griffiths," she said gravely, "that you are talking +nonsense, and you are not a very good hand at it. Won't you please ride +on?" + +He made no movement to mount his horse. He plodded along the soft sand +by her side--a queer, elongated figure, his gloomy eyes fixed upon the +ground. + +"Until this fellow Lessingham came you were never so hard," he +persisted. + +She looked at him with genuine curiosity. + +"I was never so hard?" she repeated. "Do you imagine that I have ever +for a single moment considered my demeanour towards you--you of all +persons in the world? I simply don't remember when you have been there +and when you haven't. I don't remember the humours in which I have been +when we have conversed. All that you have said seems to me to be the +most arrant nonsense." + +He swung himself into the saddle and gathered up the reins. + +"Thank you," he said bitterly, "I understand. Only let me tell you +this," he went on, his whip poised in his hand. "You may have powerful +friends who saved your--" + +He hesitated so long that she glanced up at him and read all that he had +wished to say in his face. + +"My what?" she asked. + +His courage failed him. + +"Mr. Lessingham," he proceeded, "from arrest. But if he shows his face +here again in Dreymarsh, I sha'n't stop to arrest him. I shall shoot him +on sight and chance the consequences." + +"They'll hang you!" she declared savagely. + +He laughed at her. + +"Hang me for shooting a man whom I can prove to be a German spy? They +won't dare! They won't even dare to place me under arrest for an hour. +Why, when the truth becomes known," he went on, his voice gaining +courage as the justice of his case impressed itself upon him, "what do +you suppose is going to happen to two women who took this fellow in and +befriended him, introduced him under a false name to their friends, gave +him the run of their house--this man whom they knew all the time was a +German? You, Lady Cranston, chafing and scolding your husband by night +and by day because he isn't where you think he ought to be; you, so +patriotic that you cannot bear the sight of him out of uniform; you--the +hostess, the befriender, the God knows what of Bertram Maderstrom! It +will be a pretty tale when it's all told!" + +"I really think," Philippa asserted calmly, "that you are the most +utterly impossible and obnoxious creature I have ever met." + +His face was dangerous for a moment. They had not yet reached the +promontory which sheltered them from Dreymarsh. + +"Perhaps," he muttered, leaning malignly towards her, "I could make +myself even more obnoxious." + +"Quite possibly," she replied, "only I want to tell you this. If you +come a single inch nearer to me, one of them shall shoot you." + +"Your friend or your husband, eh?" he scoffed. + +She waved him on. + +"I think," she told him, "that either of them would be quite capable of +ridding the world of a coward like you." + +"A coward?" he repeated. + +"Precisely! Isn't it a coward's part to terrorise a woman?" + +"I don't want to terrorise you," he said sulkily. + +"Well, you must admit that you haven't shown any particular desire to +make yourself agreeable," she pointed out. + +He turned suddenly upon her. + +"I am a fool, I know," he declared bitterly. "I'm an awkward, nervous, +miserable fool, my own worst enemy as they say of me in the Mess, +turning the people against me I want to have like me, stumbling into +every blunder a fool can. I'm the sort of man women make sport of, and +you've done it for them cruelly, perfectly." + +"Captain Griffiths!" she protested. "When have I ever been anything but +kind and courteous to you?" + +"It isn't your kindness I want, nor your courtesy! There's a curse upon +my tongue," he went on desperately. "I'm not like other men. I don't +know how to say what I feel. I can't put it into words. Every one +misunderstands me. You, too! Here I rode up to you this afternoon and +my heart was beating for joy, and in five minutes I had made an enemy of +you. Damn that fellow Lessingham! It is all his fault!" + +Without the slightest warning he brought down his hunting crop upon his +horse's flanks. The mare gave one great plunge, and he was off, riding +at a furious gallop. Philippa watched him with immense relief. In the +far distance she could see two little specks growing larger and larger. +She hurried on towards them. + +"Whatever did you do to Captain Griffiths, Mummy?" Nora demanded. "Why +he passed us without looking down, galloping like a madman, and his face +looked--well, what did it look like, Helen?" + +Helen was gazing uneasily along the sands. + +"Like a man riding for his enemy," she declared. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +Philippa and Helen looked at one another a little dolefully across the +luncheon table. + +"I suppose one misses the child," Helen said. + +"I feel too depressed for words," Philippa admitted. + +"A few days ago," Helen reminded her companion, "we were getting all the +excitement that was good for any one." + +"And a little more," Philippa agreed. "I don't know why things seem +so flat now. We really ought to be glad that nothing terrible has +happened." + +"What with Henry and Mr. Lessingham both away," Helen continued, "and +Captain Griffiths not coming near the place, we really have reverted to +the normal, haven't we? I wonder--if Mr. Lessingham has gone back." + +"I do not think so," Philippa murmured. + +Helen frowned slightly. + +"Personally," she said, with some emphasis, "I hope that he has." + +"If we are considering the personal point of view only," Philippa +retorted, "I hope that he has not." + +Helen looked her disapproval. + +"I should have thought that you had had enough playing with fire," she +observed. + +"One never has until one has burned one's fingers," Philippa sighed. +"I know perfectly well what is the matter with you," she continued +severely. "You are fretting because curried chicken is Dick's favourite +dish." + +"I am not such a baby," Helen protested. "All the same, it does make one +think. I wonder--" + +"I know exactly what you were going to say," Philippa interrupted. "You +were going to say that you wondered whether Mr. Lessingham would keep +his promise." + +"Whether he would be able to," Helen corrected. "It does seem so +impossible, doesn't it?" + +"So does Mr. Lessingham himself," Philippa reminded her. "It isn't +exactly a usual thing, is it, to have a perfectly charming and well-bred +young man step out of a Zeppelin into your drawing-room." + +"You really believe, then," Helen asked eagerly, "that he will be able +to keep his promise?" + +Philippa nodded confidently. + +"Do you know," she said, "I believe that Mr. Lessingham, by some means +or another, would keep any promise he ever made. I am expecting to see +Dick at any moment now, so you can get on with your lunch, dear, and not +sit looking at the curry with tears in your eyes." + +"It isn't the curry so much as the chutney," Helen protested faintly. +"He never would touch any other sort." + +"Well, I shouldn't be surprised if he were here to finish the bottle," +Philippa declared. "I have a feeling this morning that something is +going to happen." + +"How long has Nora gone away for?" Helen enquired, after a moment's +pause. + +"A fortnight or three weeks," Philippa answered. "Her grandmother wired +that she would be glad to have her until Christmas." + +"Just why," Helen asked seriously, "have you sent her away?" + +Philippa toyed with her curry, and glanced around as though she +regretted Mills' absence from the room. + +"I thought it best," she said quietly. "You see, I am not quite sure +what the immediate future of this menage is going to be." + +Helen leaned across the table and laid her hand upon her friend's. + +"Dear," she sighed, "it worries me so to hear you talk like that." + +"Why?" + +"Because you know perfectly well, although you profess to ignore it, +that at the bottom of your heart there is no one else but Henry. It +isn't fair, you know." + +"To whom isn't it fair?" Philippa demanded. + +"To Mr. Lessingham." + +Philippa was thoughtful for a few moments. + +"Perhaps," she admitted, "that is a point of view which I have not +sufficiently considered." + +Helen pressed home her advantage. + +"I don't think you realise, Philippa," she said, "how madly in love with +you the man is. In a perfectly ingenuous way, too. No one could help +seeing it." + +"Then where does the unfairness come in?" Philippa asked. "It is within +my power to give him all that he wants." + +"But you wouldn't do it, Philippa. You know that you wouldn't!" Helen +objected. "You may play with the idea in your mind, but that's just as +far as you'd ever get." + + +Philippa looked her friend steadily in the face. "I disagree with you, +Helen," she said. Helen set down the glass which she had been in the act +of raising to her lips. It was her first really serious intimation of +the tragedy which hovered over her future sister-in-law's life. Somehow +or other, Philippa had seemed, even to her, so far removed from that +strenuous world of over-drugged, over-excited feminine decadence, to +whom the changing of a husband or a lover is merely an incident in +the day's excitements. Philippa, with her frail and almost flowerlike +beauty, her love of the wholesome ways of life, and her strong +affections, represented other things. Now, for the first time, Helen was +really afraid, afraid for her friend. + +"But you couldn't ever--you wouldn't leave Henry!" + +Philippa seemed to find nothing monstrous in the idea. + +"That is just what I am seriously thinking of doing," she confided. + +Helen affected to laugh, but her mirth was obviously forced. Their +conversation ceased perforce with the return of Mills into the room. + +Then the wonderful thing happened. The windows of the dining room faced +the drive to the house and both women could clearly see a motor car turn +in at the gate and stop at the front door. It was obviously a hired +car, as the driver was not in livery, but the tall, mulled-up figure +in unfamiliar clothes who occupied the front seat was for the moment a +mystery to them. Only Helen seemed to have some wonderful premonition of +the truth, a premonition which she was afraid to admit even to herself. +Her hand began to shake. Philippa looked at her in amazement. + +"You look as though you had seen a ghost, Helen!" she exclaimed. "Who on +earth can it be, coming at this time of the day?" + +Helen was speechless, and Philippa divined at once the cause of her +agitation. She sprang to her feet. + +"Helen, you don't imagine--" she gasped. "Listen!" + +There was a voice in the hail--a familiar voice, though strained a +little and hoarse; Mills' decorous greetings, agitated but fervent. And +then--Major Richard Felstead! + +"Dick!" Helen screamed, as she threw herself into his arms. "Oh, Dick! +Dick!" + +It was an incoherent, breathless moment. Somehow or other, Philippa +found herself sharing her brother's embrace. Then the fire of questions +and answers was presently interrupted by Mills, triumphantly bearing in +a fresh dish of curry. + +"What will the Major take to drink, your ladyship?" he asked. + +Felstead laughed a little chokingly. + +"Upon my word, there's something wonderfully sound about Mills!" he +said. "It's a ghoulish thing to ask for in the middle of the day, isn't +it, Philippa, but can I have some champagne?" + +"You can have the whole cellarful," Philippa assured him joyously. "Be +sure you bring the best, Mills." + +"The Perrier Jonet 1904, your ladyship," was the murmured reply. + +Mills' disappearance was very brief, and in a very few moments they +found themselves seated once more at the table. They sat one on +either side of him, watching his glass and his plate. By degrees their +questions and his answers became more intelligible. + +"When did you get here?" they wanted to know. + +"I arrived in Harwich about daylight this morning," he told them; "came +across from Holland. I hired a car and drove straight here." + +"When did you know you were coming home?" Helen asked. + +"Only two days ago," he replied. "I never was so surprised in my life. +Even now I can't realise my good luck. I can't see what I've done. The +last two months, in fact, seem to me to have been a dream. Jove!" he +went on, as he drank his wine, "I never thought I should be such a pig +as to care so much for eating and drinking!" + +"And think what weeks of it you have before you?" Helen explained, +clapping her hands. "Philippa and I will have a new interest in life--to +make you fat." + +He laughed. + +"It won't be very difficult," he promised them. "I had several months of +semi-starvation before the miracle happened. It was all just the chance +of having had a pal up at Magdalen who's been serving in the German +Army--Bertram Maderstrom was his name. You remember him, Philippa? He +was a Swede in those days." + +"What a dear he must have been to have remembered and to have been so +faithful!" Philippa observed, looking away for a moment. + +"He's a real good sort," Felstead declared enthusiastically, "although +Heaven knows why he's turned German! He worked like a slave for me. I +dare say he didn't find it so difficult to get me better quarters and a +servant, and decent food, but when they told me that I was free--well, +it nearly knocked me silly." + +"The dear fellow!" Philippa murmured pensively. + +"Do you remember him, either of you?" Felstead continued. "Rather +good-looking he was, and a little shy, but quite a sportsman." + +"I--seem to remember," Philippa admitted. + +"The name sounds familiar," Helen echoed. "Do have some more chutney, +Dick." + +"Thanks! What a pig I am making of myself!" he observed cheerfully. +"You girls will think I can't talk about any one but Maderstrom, but the +whole business beats me so completely. Of course, we were great pals, in +a way, but I never thought that I was the apple of his eye, or anything +of that sort. How he got the influence, too, I can't imagine. And oh! +I knew there was something else I was going to ask you girls," +Felstead went on. "Have you ever had a letter, or rather a letter each, +uncensored? Just a line or two? I think I mentioned Maderstrom which I +should not have been allowed to do in the ordinary prison letters." + +Felstead was helping himself to cheese, and he saw nothing of the quick +glance which passed between the two women. + +"Yes, we had them, Dick," Philippa told him. "It was one afternoon--it +doesn't seem so very long ago. And oh, how thankful we were!" + +Felstead nodded. + +"He got them across all right, then. Tell me, did they come through +Holland? What was the postmark?" + +"The postmark," Philippa repeated, a little doubtfully. "You heard what +Dick asked, Helen? The postmark?" + +"I don't think there was one," Helen replied, glancing anxiously at +Philippa. + +Felstead set down his glass. + +"No postmark? You mean no foreign postmark, I suppose? They were posted +in England, eh?" + +Philippa shook her head. + +"They came to us, Dick," she said, "by hand." + +Felstead was, without a doubt, astonished. He turned round in his chair +towards Philippa. + +"By hand?" he repeated. "Do you mean to say that they were actually +brought here by hand?" + +Perhaps something in his manner warned them. Philippa laughed as she +bent over his chair. + +"We will tell you how they came, presently," she declared, "but +not until you have finished your lunch, drunk the last drop of that +champagne, and had at least two glasses of the port that Mills has been +decanting so carefully. After that we will see. Just now I have only one +feeling, and I know that Helen has it, too. Nothing else matters except +that we have you home again." + +Felstead patted his sister on the cheek, drew her face down to his and +kissed her. + +"It's so wonderful to be at home!" he exclaimed apologetically. "But I +must warn you that I am the rabidest person alive. I went out to the +war with a certain amount of respect for the Germans. I have come back +loathing them like vermin. I spent--but I won't go on." + +Mills made his appearance with the decanter of port. + +"I beg your ladyship's pardon," he said, as he filled Felstead's glass, +"but Mr. Lessingham has arrived and is in the library, waiting to see +you." + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +To Major Richard Felstead, Mills' announcement was without significance. +For the first time he became conscious, however, of something which +seemed almost like a secret understanding between his sister and his +fiancee. + +"Tell Mr. Lessingham I shall be with him in a minute or two, if he will +kindly wait," Philippa instructed. + +"Who is Mr. Lessingham?" Richard enquired, as soon as the door had +closed behind Mills. "Seems a queer time to call." + +Helen glanced at Philippa, whose lips framed a decided negative. + +"Mr. Lessingham is a gentleman staying in the neighbourhood," the +latter replied. "You will probably make his acquaintance before long. +Incidentally, he saved Henry's life the other night." + +"Sounds exciting," Richard observed. "What form of destruction was Henry +courting?" + +"There was a trawler shipwrecked in the storm," Philippa explained. "You +can see it from all the front windows. Henry was on board, returning +from one of his fishing excursions. They were trying to find Dumble's +anchorage and were driven in on to that low ridge of rock. A rope broke, +or something, they had no more rockets, and Mr. Lessingham swam out with +the line." + +"Sounds like a plucky chap," Richard admitted. + +Philippa rose to her feet regretfully. + +"I expect he has come to wish us good-by," she said. "I'll leave you +with Helen, Dick. Don't let her overfeed you. And you know where the +cigars are, Helen. Take Dick into the gun room afterwards. You'll have +it all to yourselves and there is a fire there." + +Philippa entered the library in a state of agitation for which she was +glad to have some reasonable excuse. She held out both her hands to +Lessingham. + +"Dick is back--just arrived!" she exclaimed. "I can't tell you how happy +we are, and how grateful!" + +Lessingham raised her fingers to his lips. + +"I am glad," he said simply. "Do you mean that he is in the house here, +now?" + +"He is in the dining room with Helen." + +Lessingham for a moment was thoughtful. + +"Don't you think," he suggested, "that it would be better to keep us +apart?" + +"I was wondering," she confessed. + +"Have you told him about my bringing the letters?" + +She shook her head. + +"We nearly did. Then I stopped--I wasn't sure." + +"You were wise," he said. + +"Are you wise?" she asked him quickly. + +"In coming back here?" + +She nodded. + +"Captain Griffiths knows everything," she reminded him. "He is simply +furious because your arrest was interfered with. I really believe that +he is dangerous." + +Lessingham was unmoved. + +"I had to come back," he said simply. + +"Why did you go away so suddenly?" + +"Well, I had to do that, too," he replied, "only the governing causes +were very different. We will speak, if you do not mind, only of the +cause which has brought me back. That I believe you know already." + +Philippa was curiously afraid. She looked towards the door as though +with some vague hope of escape. She realised that the necessity for +decision had arrived. + +"Philippa," he went on, "do you see what this is?" + +He handed her two folded slips of paper. She started. At the top of one +she recognised a small photograph of herself. + +"What are they?" she asked. "What does it mean?" + +"They are passports for America," he told her. + +"For--for me?" she faltered. + +"For you and me." + +They slipped from her fingers. He picked them up from the carpet. Her +face was hidden for a moment in her hands. + +"I know so well how you are feeling," he said humbly. "I know how +terrible a shock this must seem to you when it comes so near. You are +so different from the other women who might do this thing. It is so much +harder for you than for them." + +She lifted her head. There was still something of the look of a scared +child in her face. + +"Don't imagine me better than I am," she begged. "I am not really +different from any other woman, only it is the first time this sort of +thing has ever come into my life." + +"I know. You see," he went on, a little wistfully, "you have not taken +me, as yet, very far into your confidence, Philippa. You know that I +love you as a man loves only once. It sounds like an empty phrase to say +it, but if you will give me your life to take care of, I shall only have +one thought--to make you happy. Could I succeed? That is what you have +to ask yourself. You are not happy now. Do you think that, if you stay +on here, the future is likely to be any better for you?" + +She shook her head drearily. + +"I believe," she confessed, "that I have reached the very limit of my +endurance." + +He came a little nearer. His hands rested upon her shoulders very +lightly, yet they seemed like some enveloping chain. More than ever in +those few moments she realised the spiritual qualities of his face. +His eyes were aglow. His voice, a little broken with emotion, was +wonderfully tender. He looked at her as though she were some precious +and sacred thing. + +"I am rich," he said, "and there are few parts of the world where we +could not live. We could find our way to the islands, like your great +writer Stevenson in whom you delight so much; islands full of colour, +and wonderful birds, and strange blue skies; islands where the peace of +the tropics dulls memory, and time beats only in the heart. The world is +a great place, Philippa, and there are corners where the sordid crime of +this ghastly butchery has scarcely been heard of, where the horror and +the taint of it are as though they never existed, where the sun and +moon are still unashamed, and the grey monsters ride nowhere upon the +sapphire seas." + +"It sounds like a fairy tale," she murmured, with a half pathetic smile. + +"Love always fashions life like a fairy tale," he replied. + +She stood perfectly still. + +"You must have my answer now, at this moment?" she asked at last. + +"There are yet some hours," he told her. "I have a very powerful +automobile here, and to-night there is a full moon. If we leave here at +ten o'clock, we can catch the steamer to-morrow afternoon. Everything +has been made very easy for me. And fortune, too, is with us--your +vindictive commandant, Captain Griffiths, is in London. You see, +you have the whole afternoon for thought. I want you only for your +happiness. At ten o'clock I shall come here. If you are coming with me, +you must be ready then. You understand?" + +"I understand," she assented, under her breath. "And now," she went +on, raising her eyes, "somehow I think that you are right. It would be +better for you and Dick not to meet." + +"I am sure of it," he agreed. "I shall come for my answer at ten +o'clock. I wonder--" + +He stood looking at her, his eyes hungry to find some sign in her face. +There was so much kindness there, so much that might pass, even, +for affection, and yet something which, behind it all, chilled his +confidence. He left his sentence uncompleted and turned towards the +door. Suddenly she called him back. She held up her finger. Her whole +expression had changed. She was alarmed. + +"Wait!" she begged. "I can hear Dick's voice. Wait till he has crossed +the hail." + +They both stood, for a moment, quite silent. Then they heard a little +protesting cry from Helen, and a good-humoured laugh from Richard. The +door was thrown open. + +"You don't mind our coming through to the gun room, Phil?" her brother +asked. "We're not--My God!" + +There was a queer silence, broken by Helen, who stood on the threshold, +the picture of distress. + +"I tried to get him to go the other way, Philippa." + +Richard took a quick step forward. His hands were outstretched. + +"Bertram!" he exclaimed. "Is this a miracle? You here with my sister?" + +Lessingham held out his hand. Suddenly Richard dropped his. His +expression had become sterner. + +"I don't understand," he said simply. "Somebody please explain." + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +For a few brief seconds no one seemed inclined to take upon themselves +the onus of speech. Richard's amazement seemed to increase upon +reflection. + +"Maderstrom!" he exclaimed. "Bertram! What in the name of all that's +diabolical are you doing here?" + +"I am just a derelict," Lessingham explained, with a faint smile. "Glad +to see you, Richard. You are a day earlier than I expected." + +"You knew that I was coming, then?" Richard demanded. + +"Naturally," Lessingham replied. "I had the great pleasure of arranging +for your release." + +"Look here," Richard went on, "I'm groping about a bit. I don't +understand. Forgive me if I run off the track. I'm not forgetting our +friendship, Maderstrom, or what I owe to you since you came and found me +at Wittenburg. But for all that, you have served in the German Army and +are an enemy, and I want to know what you are doing here, in England, in +my brother-in-law's house." + +"No particular harm, Richard, I promise you," Lessingham replied mildly. + +"You are here under a false name!" + +"Hamar Lessingham, if you do not mind," the other assented. "I prefer my +own name, but I do not fancy that the use of it would ensure me a very +warm welcome over here just now. Besides," he added, with a glance +at Philippa, "I have to consider the friends whose hospitality I have +enjoyed." + +In a shadowy sort of way the truth began to dawn upon Richard. His tone +became grimmer and his manner more menacing. + +"Maderstrom," he said, "we met last under different circumstances. I +will admit that I cut a poor figure, but mine was at least an honourable +imprisonment. I am not so sure that yours is an honourable freedom." + +Philippa laid her hand upon her brother's arm. + +"Dick, dear, do remember that they were starving you to death!" she +begged. + +"You would never have lived through it," Helen echoed. + +"You are talking to Mr. Lessingham," Philippa protested, "as though he +were an enemy, instead of the best friend you ever had in your life." + +Richard waved them away. + +"You must leave this to us," he insisted. "Maderstrom and I will be +able to understand one another, at any rate. What are you doing in this +house--in England? What is your mission here?" + +"Whatever it may have been, it is accomplished," Lessingham said +gravely. "At the present moment, my plans are to leave your country +to-night." + +"Accomplished?" Richard repeated. "What the devil do you mean? +Accomplished? Are you playing the spy in this country?" + +"You would probably consider my mission espionage," Lessingham admitted. + +"And you have brought it to a successful conclusion?" + +"I have." + +Philippa threw her arms around her brother's neck. "Dick," she pleaded, +"please listen. Mr. Lessingham has been here, in this district, ever +since he landed in England. What possible harm could he do? We haven't +a single secret to be learned. Everybody knows where our few guns are. +Everybody knows where our soldiers are quartered. We haven't a harbour +or any secret fortifications. We haven't any shipping information which +it would be of the least use signalling anywhere. Mr. Lessingham has +spent his time amongst trifles here. Take Helen away somewhere and +forget that you have seen him in the house. Remember that he has saved +Henry's life as well as yours." + +"I invite no consideration upon that account," Lessingham declared. "All +that I did for you in Germany, I did, or should have attempted to do, +for my old friend. Your release was different. I am forced to admit +that it was the price paid for my sojourn here. I will only ask you to +remember that the bargain was made without your knowledge, and that you +are in no way responsible for it." + +"A price," Richard pronounced fiercely, "which I refuse to pay!" + +Lessingham shrugged his shoulders. + +"The alternative," he confessed, "is in your hands." + +Richard moved towards the telephone. + +"I am sorry, Maderstrom," he said, "but my duty is clear. Who is +Commandant here, Philippa?" + +Philippa stood between her brother and the telephone. There was a queer, +angry patch of colour in her cheeks. Her eyes were on fire. + +"Richard," she exclaimed, "you shall not do this from my house! I forbid +you!" + +"Do what?" + +"Give information. Do you know what it would mean if they believed you?" + +"Death," he answered. "Maderstrom knew the risk he ran when he came to +this country under a false name." + +"Perfectly," Lessingham admitted. + +"But I won't have it!" Philippa protested. "He has become our friend. +Day by day we have grown to like him better and better. He has saved +your life, Dick. He has brought you back to us. Think what it is that +you purpose!" + +"It is what every soldier has to face," Richard declared. + +"You men drive me crazy with your foolish ideas!" Philippa cried +desperately. "The war is in your brains, I think. You would carry it +from the battlefields into your daily life. Because two great countries +are at war, is everything to go by--chivalry?--all the finer, sweeter +feelings of life? If you two met on the battlefield, it would be +different. Here in my drawing-room, I will not have this black demon of +the war dragged in as an excuse for murder! Take Dick away, Helen!" she +begged. "Mr. Lessingham is leaving to-night. I will pledge my word that +until then he remains a harmless citizen." + +"Women don't understand these things, Philippa--" Richard began. + +"Thank heavens we understand them better than you men!" Philippa +interrupted fiercely. "You have but one idea--to strike--the narrow +idea of men that breeds warfare. I tell you that if ever universal peace +comes, if ever the nations are taught the horror of this lust for blood, +this criminal outrage against civilisation, it is the women who will +become the teachers, because amongst your instincts the brutish ones of +force are the first to leap to the surface at the slightest provocation. +We women see further, we know more. I swear to you, Richard, that if you +interfere I will never forgive you as long as I live!" + +Richard stared at his sister in amazement. There seemed to be some new +spirit born within her. Throughout all their days he had never known her +so much in earnest, so passionately insistent. He looked from her to the +man whom she sought to protect, and who answered, unasked, the thoughts +that were in his mind. + +"Whatever harm I may have been able to do," Lessingham announced, "is +finished. I leave this place to-night, probably for ever. As for the +Commandant," he went on with a faint smile, "he is already upon my +track. There is nothing you can tell him about me which he does not +know. It is just a matter of hours, the toss of a coin, whether I get +away or not." + +"They've found you out, then?" Richard exclaimed. + +"Only a miracle saved me from arrest a week ago," Lessingham +acknowledged. "Your Commandant here is at the present moment in London +for the sole purpose of denouncing me." + +"And yet you remain here, paying afternoon calls?" Richard observed +incredulously. "I'm hanged if I can see through this!" + +"You see," Lessingham explained gently. "I am a fatalist!" + +It was Helen who finally led her lover from the room. He looked back +from the door. + +"Maderstrom," he said, "you know quite well how personally I feel +towards you. I am grateful for what you have done for me, even though I +am beginning to understand your motives. But as regards the other things +we are both soldiers. I am going to talk to Helen for a time. I want to +understand a little more than I do at present." + +Lessingham nodded. + +"Let me help you," he begged. "Here is the issue in plain words. All +that I did for you at Wittenberg, I should have done in any case for +the sake of our friendship. Your freedom would probably never have been +granted to me but for my mission, although even that I might have tried +to arrange. I brought your letters here, and I traded them with your +sister and Miss Fairclough for the shelter of their hospitality and +their guarantees. Now you know just where friendship ended and the other +things began. Do what you believe to be your duty." + +Richard followed Helen out, closing the door after him. Lessingham +looked down into Philippa's face. + +"You are more wonderful even than I thought," he continued softly. "You +say so little and you live so near the truth. It is those of us who feel +as you do--who understand--to whom this war is so terrible." + +"I want to ask you one question before I send you away," she told him. +"This journey to America?" + +"It is a mission on behalf of Germany," he explained, "but it is, after +all, an open one. I have friends--highly placed friends--in my own +country, who in their hearts feel as I do about the war. It is through +them that I am able to turn my back upon Europe. I have done my share +of fighting," he went on sadly, "and the horror of it will never quite +leave me. I think that no one has ever charged me with shirking my duty, +and yet the sheer, black ugliness of this ghastly struggle, its criminal +inutility, have got into my blood so that I think I would rather pass +out of the world in some simple way than find myself back again in that +debauch of blood. Is this cowardice, Philippa?" + +She looked at him with shining eyes. + +"There isn't any one in the world," she said, "who could call you a +coward. Whatever I may decide, whatever I may feel towards you, that at +least I know." + +He kissed her fingers. + +"At ten o'clock," he began-- + +"But listen," she interrupted. "Apart from anything which Dick might +do, you are in terrible danger here, all the more if you really have +accomplished something. Why not go now, at this moment? Why wait? These +few hours may make all the difference." + +He smiled. + +"They may, indeed, make all the difference to my life," he answered. +"That is for you." + +He followed Mills, who had obeyed her summons, out of the room. Philippa +moved to the window and watched him until he had disappeared. Then very +slowly she left the room, walked up the stairs, made her way to her own +little suite of apartments, and locked the door. + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +It was a happy, if a trifle hysterical little dinner party that evening +at Mainsail Haul. Philippa was at times unusually silent, but Helen had +expanded in the joy of her great happiness. Richard, shaved and with +his hair cut, attired once more in the garb of civilisation, seemed +a different person. Even in these few hours the lines about his mouth +seemed less pronounced. They talked freely of Maderstrom. + +"A regular 'Vanity Fair' problem," Richard declared, balancing his wine +glass between his fingers, "a problem, too, which I can't say I have +solved altogether yet. The only thing is that if he is really going +to-night, I don't see why I shouldn't let the matter drift out of my +mind." + +"It is so much better," Helen agreed. "Try as hard as ever I can, I +cannot picture his doing any harm to anybody. And as for any information +he may have gained here, well, I think that we can safely let him take +it back to Germany." + +"He was always," Richard continued reminiscently, "a sort of cross +between a dreamer, an idealist, and a sportsman. There was never +anything of the practical man of affairs about him. He was scrupulously +honourable, and almost a purist in his outlook upon life. I have met +a great many Germans," Richard went on, "and I've killed a few, thank +God!--but he is about as unlike the ordinary type as any one I ever met. +The only pity is that he ever served his time with them." + +Philippa had been listening attentively. She was more than ever silent +after her brother's little appreciation of his friend. Richard glanced +at her good-humouredly. + +"You haven't killed the fatted calf for me in the shape of clothes, +Philippa," he observed. "One would think that you were going on a +journey." + +She glanced down at her high-necked gown and avoided Helen's anxious +eyes. + +"I may go for a walk," she said, "and leave you two young people to talk +secrets. I am rather fond of the garden these moonlight nights." + +"When is Henry coming back?" her brother enquired. + +Philippa's manner was quiet but ominous. + +"I have no idea," she confessed. "He comes and goes as the whim seizes +him, and I very seldom know where he is. One week it is whiting and +another codling. Lately he seems to have shown some partiality for +London life." + +Richard's eyes were wide open now. + +"You mean to say that he is still not doing anything?" + +"Nothing whatever." + +"But what excuse does he give--or rather I should say reason?" Richard +persisted. + +"He says that he is too old for a ship, and he won't work in an office," +Philippa replied. "That is what he says. His point of view is so +impossible that I can not even discuss it with him." + +"It's the rummest go I ever came across," Richard remarked +reminiscently. "I should have said that old Henry would have been up and +at 'em at the Admiralty before the first gun was fired." + +"On the contrary," Philippa rejoined, "he took advantage of the war to +hire a Scotch moor at half-price, about a week after hostilities had +commenced." + +"It's a rum go," Richard repeated. "I can't fancy Henry as a skulker. +Forgive me, Philippa," he added. + +"You are entirely forgiven," she assured him drily. + +"He comes of such a fine fighting stock," Richard mused. "I suppose his +health is all right?" + +"His health," Philippa declared, "is marvellous. I should think he is +one of the strongest men I know." + +Her brother patted her hand. + +"You've been making rather a trouble of it, old girl," he said +affectionately. "It's no good doing that, you know. You wait and let me +have a talk with Henry." + +"I think," she replied, "that nearly everything possible has already +been said to him." + +"Perhaps you've put his back up a bit," Richard suggested, "and he may +really be on the lookout for something all the time." + +"It has been a long search!" Philippa retorted, with quiet sarcasm. "Let +us talk about something else." + +They gossiped for a time over acquaintances and relations, made their +plans for the week--Richard must report at the War Office at once. + +Philippa grew more and more silent as the meal drew to a close. It was +at Helen's initiative that they left Richard alone for a moment over +his port. She kept her arm through her friend's as they crossed the hall +into the drawing-room, and closed the door behind them. Philippa stood +upon the hearth rug. Already her mouth had come together in a straight +line. Her eyes met Helen's defiantly. + +"I know exactly what you are going to say, Helen," she began, "and I +warn you that it will be of no use." + +Helen drew up a small chair and seated herself before the fire. + +"Are you going away with Mr. Lessingham, Philippa?" she asked. + +"I am," was the calm response. "I made up my mind this afternoon. We are +leaving to-night." + +Helen stretched out one foot to the blaze. + +"Motoring?" she enquired. + +"Naturally," Philippa replied. "You know there are no trains leaving +here to-night." + +"You'll have a cold ride," Helen remarked. "I should take your heavy fur +coat." + +Philippa stared at her companion. + +"You don't seem much upset, Helen!" + +"I think," Helen declared, looking up, "that nothing that has ever +happened to me in my life has made me more unhappy, but I can see that +you have reasoned it all out, and there is not a single argument I could +use which you haven't already discounted. It is your life, Philippa, not +mine." + +"Since you are so philosophical," Philippa observed, "let me ask +you--should you do what I am going to do, if you were in my place?" + +"I should not," was the firm reply. + +Philippa laughed heartily. + +"Oh, I know what you are going to say!" Helen continued quickly. "You'll +tell me, won't you, that I am not temperamental. I think in your heart +you rather despise my absolute fidelity to Richard. You would call it +cowlike, or something of that sort. There is a difference between us, +Philippa, and that is why I am afraid to argue with you." + +"What should you do," Philippa demanded, "if Richard failed you in some +great thing?" + +"I might suffer," Helen confessed, "but my love would be there all the +same. Perhaps for that reason I should suffer the more, but I should +never be able to see with those who judged him hardly." + +"You think, then," Philippa persisted, "that I ought still to remain +Henry's loving and affectionate wife, ready to take my place amongst the +pastimes of his life--when he feels inclined, for instance, to wander +from his dark lady-love to something petite and of my complexion, or +when he settles down at home for a few days after a fortnight's sport on +the sea and expects me to tell him the war news?" + +"I don't think that I should do that," Helen admitted quietly, "but I am +quite certain that I shouldn't run away with another man." + +"Why not?" + +"Because I should be punishing myself too much." + +Philippa's eyes suddenly flashed. + +"Helen," she said, "you are not such a fool as you try to make me think. +Can't you see what is really at the back of it all in my mind? Can't you +realise that, whatever the punishment it may bring, it will punish Henry +more?" + +"I see," Helen observed. "You are running away with Mr. Lessingham to +annoy Henry?" + +"Oh, he'll be more than annoyed!" Philippa laughed sardonically. "He has +terrible ideas about the sanctity of things that belong to him. He'll be +remarkably sheepish for some time to come. He may even feel a few little +stabs. When I have time, I am going to write him a letter which he can +keep for the rest of his life. It won't please him!" + +"Where are you--and Mr. Lessingham going to live?" Helen enquired. + +"In America, to start with. I've always longed to go to the States." + +"What shall you do," Helen continued, "if you don't get out of the +country safely?" + +"Mr. Lessingham seems quite sure that we shall," Philippa replied, "and +he seems a person of many expedients. Of course, if we didn't, I should +go back to Cheshire. I should have gone back there, anyway, before now, +if Mr. Lessingham hadn't come." + +"Well, it all seems very simple," Helen admitted. "I think Mr. +Lessingham is a perfectly delightful person, and I shouldn't wonder if +you didn't now and then almost imagine that you were happy." + +"You seem to be taking my going very coolly," Philippa remarked. + +"I told you how I felt about it just now," Helen reminded her. "Your +going is like a great black cloud that I have seen growing larger and +larger, day by day. I think that, in his way, Dick will suffer just as +much as Henry. We shall all be utterly miserable." + +"Why don't you try and persuade me not to go, then?" Philippa demanded. +"You sit there talking about it as though I were going on an ordinary +country-house visit." + +Helen raised her head, and Philippa saw that her eyes were filled with +tears. + +"Philippa dear," she said, "if I thought that all the tears that were +ever shed, all the words that were ever dragged from one's heart, could +have any real effect, I'd go on my knees to you now and implore you to +give up this idea. But I think--you won't be angry with me, dear?--I +think you would go just the same." + +"You seem to think that I am obstinate," Philippa complained. + +"You see, you are temperamental, dear," Helen reminded her. "You have a +complex nature. I know very well that you need the daily love that Henry +doesn't seem to have been willing to give you lately, and I couldn't +stop your turning towards the sun, you know. Only--all the time there's +that terrible anxiety--are you quite sure it is the sun?" + +"You believe in Mr. Lessingham, don't you?" Philippa asked. + +"I do indeed," Helen replied. "I am not quite sure, though, that I +believe in you." + +Philippa was a little startled. + +"Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "Exactly what do you mean by that, +Helen?" + +"I am not quite sure," Helen continued, "that when the moment has really +come, and your head is upturned and your arms outstretched, and your +feet have left this world in which you are now, I am not quite sure that +you will find all that you seek." + +"You think he doesn't love me?" + +"I am not convinced," Helen replied calmly, "that you love him." + +"Why, you idiot," Philippa declared feverishly, "of course I love him! +I think he is one of the sweetest, most lovable persons I ever knew, +and as to his being a Swede, I shouldn't care whether he were a Fiji +Islander or a Chinese." + +Helen nodded sympathetically. + +"I agree with you," she said, "but listen. You know that I haven't +uttered a single word to dissuade you. Well, then, grant me just one +thing. Before you start off this evening, tell Mr. Lessingham the truth, +whatever it may be, the truth which you haven't told me. It very likely +won't make any difference. Two people as nice as you and he, who are +going to join their lives, generally do, I believe, find the things they +seek. Still, tell him." + +Philippa made no reply. Richard opened the door and lingered upon the +threshold. Helen rose to her feet. + +"I am coming, Dick," she called out cheerfully. "There's a gorgeous fire +in the gun room, and two big easy-chairs, and we'll have just the time I +have been looking forward to all day. You'll tell me things, won't you?" + +She looked very sweet as she came towards him, her eyes raised to him, +her face full of the one happiness. He passed his arm around her waist. + +"I'll try, dear," he said. "You won't be lonely, Philippa?" + +"I'll come and disturb you when I am," she promised. + +The door closed. She stood gazing down into the fire, listening to their +footsteps as they crossed the hall. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Lessingham stood for a moment by the side of the car from which he had +just descended, glanced at the huge tyres and the tins of petrol lashed +on behind. + +"Nothing more you want, chauffeur?" he asked. + +"Nothing, sir," was the almost inaudible reply. + +"You have the route map?" + +"Yes, sir, and enough petrol for three hundred miles." + +Lessingham turned away, pushed open the gate, and walked up the drive +of Mainsail Haul. Decidedly it was the moment of his life. He was +hard-pressed, as he knew, by others besides Griffiths. A few hours now +was all the start he could reasonably expect. He was face to face with a +very real and serious danger, which he could no longer ignore, and from +which escape was all the time becoming more difficult. And yet all +the emotionalism of this climax was centred elsewhere. It was from +Philippa's lips that he would hear his real sentence; it was her answer +which would fill him once more with the lust for life, or send him on in +his rush through the night for safety, callous, almost indifferent as to +its result. + +He walked up the drive, curiously at his ease, in a state of suspended +animation, which knew no hope and feared no disappointment. Just before +he reached the front door, the postern gate in the wall on his left-hand +side opened, and Philippa stood there, muffled up in her fur coat, +framed in the faint and shadowy moonlight against the background of +seabounded space. He moved eagerly towards her. + +"I heard the car," she whispered. "Come and sit down for a moment. It +isn't in the least cold, and the moon is just coming up over the sea. +I came out," she went on, as he walked obediently by her side, "because +the house somehow stifled me." + +She led him to a seat. Below, the long waves were breaking through upon +the rocks, throwing little fountains of spray into the air. The village +which lay at their feet was silent and lifeless--there was, indeed, a +curious absence of sound, except when the incoming waves broke upon the +rocks and ground the pebbles together in their long, backward swish. +Very soon the sleeping country, now wrapped in shadows, would take form +and outline in the light of the rising moon; hedges would divide the +square fields, the black woods would take shape and the hills their +mystic solemnity. But those few minutes were minutes of suspense. +Lessingham was to some extent conscious of their queer, allegorical +significance. + +"I have come," he reminded her quite steadily, "for my answer." + +She showed him the small bag by her side upon the seat, and touched her +cloak. She was indeed prepared for a journey. + +"You see," she told him, "here I am." + +His face was suddenly transformed. She was almost afraid of the effect +of her words. She found herself struggling in his arms. + +"Not yet," she begged. "Please remember where we are." + +He released her reluctantly. A few yards away, they could hear the soft +purring of the six-cylinder engine, inexorable reminder of the passing +moments. He caught her by the hand. + +"Come," he whispered passionately. "Every moment is precious." + +She hesitated no longer. The open postern gate seemed to him suddenly to +lead down the great thoroughfare of a new and splendid life. He was to +be one of those favoured few to whom was given the divine prize. And +then he stopped short, even while she walked willingly by his side. He +knew so well the need for haste. The gentle murmur of that engine was +inviting him all the while. Yet he knew there was one thing more which +must be said. + +"Philippa," he began, "you know what we are doing? We can escape, I +believe. My flight is all wonderfully arranged. But there will be no +coming back. It will be all over when our car passes over the hills +there. You will not regret? You care enough even for this supreme +sacrifice?" + +"I shall never reproach you as long as I live," she promised. "I have +made up my mind to come, and I am ready." + +"But it is because you care?" he pleaded anxiously. + +"It is because I care, for one reason." + +"In the great way?" he persisted. "In the only way?" + +She hesitated. He suddenly felt her hand grow colder in his. He saw her +frame shiver beneath its weight of furs. + +"Don't ask me quite that," she begged breathlessly. "Be content to know +that I have counted the cost, and that I am willing to come." + +He felt the chill of impending disaster. He closed the little gate +through which they had been about to pass, and stood with his back to +it. In that faint light which seemed to creep over the world before the +moon itself was revealed, she seemed to him at that moment the fairest, +the most desirable thing on earth. Her face was upturned towards his, +half pathetic, half protesting against the revelation which he was +forcing from her. + +"Listen, Philippa," he said, "Miss Fairclough warned me of one thing. I +put it on one side. It did not seem to be possible. Now I must ask you a +question. You have some other motive, have you not, for choosing to come +away with me? It is not only because you love me better than any one +else in the world, as I do you, and therefore that we belong to one +another and it is right and good that we should spend our lives in one +another's company? There is something else, is there not, at the root of +your determination? Some ally?" + +It was a strange moment for Philippa. Nothing had altered within her, +and yet a wonderful pity was glowing in her heart, tearing at her +emotions, bringing a sob into her throat. + +"You mean--Henry?" she faltered. + +"I mean your husband," he assented. + +She was suddenly passionately angry with herself. It seemed to her that +the days of childishness were back. She was behaving like an imbecile +whilst he played the great game. + +"You see," he went on, his own voice a little unsteady, "this is one +of those moments in both our lives when anything except the exact truth +would mean shipwreck. You still love your husband?" + +"I am such a fool!" she sobbed, clutching at his arm. + +"You were willing to go away with me," he continued mercilessly, "partly +because of the anger you felt towards him, and partly out of revenge, +and just a little because you liked me. Is that not so?" + +Her head pressed upon his arm. She nodded. It was just that convulsive +movement of her head, with its wealth of wonderful hair and its plain +black motoring hat, which dealt the death-blow to his hopes. She was +just a child once more--and she trusted him. + +"Very well, then," he said, "just let me think--for a moment." + +She understood enough not to raise her head. Lessingham was gazing out +through the chaotic shadows of the distant banks of clouds from which +the moon was rising. Already the pain had begun, and yet with it was +that queer sense of exaltation which comes with sacrifice. + +"We have been very nearly foolish," he told her, with grave kindliness. +"It is well, perhaps, that we were in time. Those windows which lead +into your library,--through which I first came to you, by-the-by,--" he +added, with a strange, reminiscent little sigh, "are they open?" + +"Yes!" she whispered. + +"Come, then," he invited. "Before I leave there is something I want to +make clear to you." + +They made their way rather like two conspirators along the little +terraced walk. Philippa opened the window and closed it again behind +them. The room was empty. Lessingham, watching her closely, almost +groaned as he saw the wonderful relief in her face. She threw off the +cloak, and he groaned again as he remembered how nearly it had been his +task to remove it. In her plain travelling dress, she turned and looked +at him very pathetically. + +"You have, perhaps, a morning paper here?" he enquired. + +"A newspaper? Why, yes, the Times," she answered, a little surprised. + +He took it from the table towards which she pointed, and held it under +the lamplight. Presently he called to her. His forefinger rested upon a +certain column. + +"Read this," he directed. + +She read it out in a tone which passed from surprise to blank wonder: + +Commander Sir Henry Cranston, Baronet, to receive the D.S.O. for special +services, and to be promoted to the rank of Acting Rear-Admiral. + +"What does it mean?" she asked feverishly. "Henry? A D.S.O. for Henry +for special services?" + +"It means," he told her, with a forced smile, "that your husband is, as +you put it in your expressive language, a fraud." + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +For a moment Philippa was unsteady upon her feet. Lessingham led her to +a chair. From outside came the low, cautious hooting of the motor horn, +calling to its dilatory passenger. + +"I can not, of course, explain everything to you," he began, in a tone +of unusual restraint, "but I do know that for the last two years your +husband has been responsible to the Admiralty for most of the mine +fields around your east coast. To begin with, his stay in Scotland was +a sham. He was most of the time with the fleet and round the coasts. His +fishing excursions from here have been of the same order, only more so. +All the places of importance, from here to the mouth of the Thames, have +been mined, or rather the approaches to them have been mined, under +his instructions. My mission in this country, here at Dreymarsh--do +not shrink from me if you can help it--was to obtain a copy of his mine +protection scheme of a certain town on the east coast." + +"Why should I shrink from you?" she murmured. "This is all too +wonderful! What a little beast Henry must think me!" she added, with +truly feminine and marvellously selfish irrelevance. + +"You and Miss Fairclough," Lessingham went on, "have rather scoffed at +my presence here on behalf of our Secret Service. It seemed to you both +very ridiculous. Now you understand." + +"It makes no difference," Philippa protested tearfully. "You always told +us the truth." + +"And I shall continue to do so," Lessingham assured her. "I am not a +clever person at my work which is all new to me, but fortune favoured +me the night your husband was shipwrecked. I succeeded in stealing from +him, on board that wrecked trawler, the plan of the mine field which I +was sent over to procure." + +"Of course you had to do it if you could," Philippa sobbed. "I think it +was very clever of you." + +He smiled. + +"There are others who might look at the matter differently," he said. "I +am going to ask you a question which I know is unnecessary, but I must +have your answer to take away with me. If you had known all the time +that your husband, instead of being a skulker, as you thought him, was +really doing splendid work for his country, you would not have listened +to me for one moment, would you? You would not have let me grow to love +you?" + +She clutched his hands. + +"You are the dearest man in the world," she exclaimed, her lips still +quivering, "but, as you say, you know the answer. I was always in love +with Henry. It was because I loved him that I was so furious. I liked +you so much that it was mean of me ever to think of--of what so nearly +happened." + +"So nearly happened!" he repeated, with a sudden access of the bitterest +self-pity. + +Once more the low, warning hoot of the motor horn, this time a +little more impatient, broke the silence. Philippa was filled with an +unreasoning terror. + +"You must go!" she implored. "You must go this minute! If they were to +take you, I couldn't bear it. And that man Griffiths--he has sworn that +if he can not get the Government authority, he will shoot you!" + +"Griffiths has gone to London," he reminded her. + +"Yes, but he may be back by this train," she cried, glancing at the +clock, "and I have a strange sort of fancy--I have had it all day--that +Henry might come, too. It is overdue now. Any one might arrive here. Oh, +please, for my sake, hurry away!" she begged, the tears streaming from +her eyes. "If anything should happen, I could never forgive myself. It +is because you have been so dear, so true and honourable, that all this +time has been wasted. If it were to cost you your life!" + + +She was seized by a fit of nervous anxiety which became almost a +paroxysm. She buttoned his coat for him and almost dragged him to the +door. And then she stopped for a moment to listen. Her eyes became +distended. Her lips were parted. She shook as though with an ague. + +"It is too late!" she faltered hysterically. "I can hear Henry's voice! +Quick! Come to the window. You must get out that way and through the +postern gate." + +"Your husband will have seen the car," he protested. "And besides, there +is your dressing-bag and your travelling coat." + +"I shall tell him everything," she declared wildly. "Nothing matters +except that you escape. Oh, hurry! I can hear Henry talking to Jimmy +Dumble--for God's sake--" + +The words died away upon her lips. The door had been opened and closed +again immediately. There was the quick turn of the lock, sounding like +the click of fate. Sir Henry, well inside the room, nodded to them both +affably. + +"Well, Philippa? You weren't expecting me, eh? Hullo, Lessingham! Not +gone yet? Running it a trifle fine, aren't you?" + +Lessingham glanced towards the fastened door. + +"Perhaps," he admitted, "a trifle too fine." + +Sir Henry was suddenly taken by storm. Philippa had thrown herself into +his arms. Her fingers were locked around his neck. Her lips, her eyes, +were pleading with him. + +"Henry! Henry, you must forgive me! I never knew--I never dreamed what +you were really doing. I shall never forgive myself, but you--you will +be generous." + +"That's all right, dear," he promised, stooping down to kiss her. +"Partly my fault, of course. I had to humour those old ladies down at +Whitehall who wanted me to pose as a particularly harmless idiot. You +see," he went on, glancing towards Lessingham, "they were always afraid +that my steps might be dogged by spies, if my position were generally +known." + +Philippa did not relinquish her attitude. She was still clinging to her +husband. She refused to let him go. + +"Henry," she begged, "oh, listen to me! I have so much to confess, so +much of which I am ashamed! And yet, with it all, I want to entreat--to +implore one great favour from you." + +Sir Henry looked down into his wife's face. + +"Is it one I can grant?" he asked gravely. + +"If you want me ever to be happy again, you will," she sobbed. "For +Helen's sake as well as mine, help Mr. Lessingham to escape." + +Lessingham took a quick step forward. He had the air of one who has +reached the limits of his endurance. + +"You mean this kindly, Lady Cranston, I know," he said, "but I desire no +intervention." + +Sir Henry patted his wife's hand and held her a little away from him. +There was a curious but unmistakable change in his deportment. His mouth +had not altogether lost its humorous twist, but his jaw seemed more +apparent, the light in his eyes was keener, and there was a ring of +authority in his tone. + +"Come," he said, "let us understand one another, Philippa, and you had +better listen, too, Mr. Lessingham. I can promise you that your chances +of escape will not be diminished by my taking up these few minutes of +your time. Philippa," he went on, turning back to her, "you have always +posed as being an exceedingly patriotic Englishwoman, yet it seems to +me that you have made a bargain with this man, knowing full well that he +was in the service of Germany, to give him shelter and hospitality here, +access to my house and protection amongst your friends, in return for +certain favours shown towards your brother." + +Philippa was speechless. It was a view of the matter which she and Helen +had striven so eagerly to avoid. + +"But, Henry," she protested, "his stay here seemed so harmless. You +yourself have laughed at the idea of espionage at Dreymarsh. There is +nothing to discover. There is nothing going on here which the whole +world might not know." + +"That was never my plea," Lessingham intervened. + +"Nor is it the truth," Sir Henry added sternly. + +"The Baron Maderstrom was sent here, Philippa, to spy upon me, to gain +access by any means to this house, to steal, if he could, certain plans +and charts prepared by me." + +Philippa began to tremble. She seemed bereft of words. + +"He told me this," she faltered. "He told me not half an hour ago." + +There was a tapping at the door. Sir Henry moved towards it but did not +turn the key. + +"Who is that?" he asked. + +"Captain Griffiths is here with an escort, sir," Mills announced. "He +has seized the motor car outside, and he begs to be allowed to come in." + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +Mills' words were plainly audible throughout the room. Philippa made +eager signs to Lessingham, pointing to the French windows. Lessingham, +however, shook his head. + +"I prefer," he said gently, "to finish my conversation with your +husband."' + +There was another and more insistent summons from outside. This time it +was Captain Griffiths' raucous voice. + +"Sir Henry Cranston," he called out, "I am here with authority. I beg to +be admitted." + +"Where is your escort?" + +"In the hall." + +"If I let you come in," Sir Henry continued, "will you come alone?" + +"I should prefer it," was the eager reply. "I wish to make this business +as little unpleasant to--to everybody as possible." + +Sir Henry softly turned the key, opened the door, and admitted +Griffiths. The man seemed to see no one else but Lessingham. He would +have hastened at once towards him, but Sir Henry laid his hand upon his +arm. + +"You must kindly restrain your impatience for a few moments," he +insisted. "This is a private conference. Your business with the Baron +Maderstrom can be adjusted later." + +"It is my duty," Griffiths proclaimed impatiently, "to arrest that man +as a spy. I have authority, granted me this morning in London." + +"Quite so," Sir Henry observed, "but we are in the midst of a very +interesting little discussion which I intend to conclude. Your turn will +come later, Captain Griffiths." + +"I can countenance no discussion with such men as that," Griffiths +declared scornfully. "I am here in the execution of my duty, and I +resent any interference with it." + +"No one wishes to interfere with you," Sir Henry assured him, "but until +I say the word you will obey my orders." + +"So far as I am concerned," Lessingham intervened, "I wish it to be +understood that I offer no defence." + +"You have no defence," Sir Henry reminded him suavely. "I gather that +not only had you the effrontery to steal a chart from my pocket in the +midst of a life struggle upon the trawler, but you have capped this +exploit with a deliberate attempt to abduct my wife." + + +Griffiths seemed for a moment almost beside himself. His eyes glowed. +His long fingers twitched. He kept edging a little nearer to Lessingham. + +"Both charges," the latter confessed, looking Sir Henry in the eyes, +"are true." + +Then Philippa found herself. She saw the sudden flash in her husband's +eyes, the grim fury in Griffiths' face. She stepped once more forward. + +"Henry," she insisted, "you must listen to what I have to say." + +"We have had enough words," Griffiths interposed savagely. + +Sir Henry ignored the interruption. + +"I am listening, Philippa," he said calmly. + +"It was my intention an hour ago to leave this place with Mr. Lessingham +to-night," she told him deliberately. + +"The devil it was!" Sir Henry muttered. + +"As for the reason, you know it," she continued, her tone full of +courage. "I am willing to throw myself at your feet now, but all the +same I was hardly treated. I was made the scapegoat of your stupid +promise. You kept me in ignorance of things a wife should know. You even +encouraged me to believe you a coward, when a single word from you +would have changed everything. Therefore, I say that it is you who are +responsible for what I nearly did, and what I should have done but for +him--listen, Henry--but for him!" + +"But for him," her husband repeated curiously. + +"It was Mr. Lessingham," she declared, "who opened my eyes concerning +you. It was he who refused to let me yield to that impulse of anger. +Look at my coat there. My bag is on that table. I was ready to leave +with him to-night. Before we went, he insisted on telling me everything +about you. He could have escaped, and I was willing to go with him. +Instead, he spent those precious minutes telling me the truth about you. +That was the end." + +"Lady Cranston omits to add," Lessingham put in, "that before I did +so she told me frankly that her feelings for me were of warm +friendliness--that her love was given to her husband, and her husband +only." + +"How long is this to go on?" Griffiths asked harshly. "I have +the authority here and the power to take that man. These domestic +explanations have nothing to do with the case." + +"Excuse me," Sir Henry retorted, with quiet emphasis, "they have a great +deal to do with it." + +"I am Commandant of this place--" Griffiths commenced. + +"And I possess an authority here which you had better not dispute," Sir +Henry reminded him sternly. + +There was a moment's tense silence. Griffiths set his teeth hard, but +his hand wandered towards the back of his belt. + +"I am now," Sir Henry continued, "going to announce to you a piece +of news, over which we shall all be gloating when to-morrow morning's +newspapers are issued, but which is not as yet generally known. During +last night, a considerable squadron of German cruisers managed to cross +the North Sea and found their way to a certain port of considerable +importance to us." + +Lessingham started, His face was drawn as though with pain. He had the +air of one who shrinks from the news he is about to hear. + +"Incidentally," Sir Henry continued, "three-quarters of the squadron +also found their way to the bottom of the sea, and the other quarter met +our own squadron, lying in wait for their retreat, and will not return." + +Lessingham swayed for a moment upon his feet. One could almost fancy +that Sir Henry's tone was tinged with pity as he turned towards him. + +"The chart of the mine field of which you possessed yourself," he said, +"which it was the object of your visit here to secure, was a chart +specially prepared for you. You see, our own Secret Service is not +altogether asleep. Those very safe and inviting-looking channels for +British and Allied traffic--I marked them very clearly, didn't I?--were +where I'd laid my mines. The channels which your cruisers so carefully +avoided were the only safe avenues. So you see why it is, Maderstrom, +that I have no grudge against you." + +Lessingham's face for a moment was the face of a stricken man. There was +a look of dull horror in his eyes. + +"Is this the truth?" he gasped. + +"It is the truth," Sir Henry assured him gravely. + +"Does this conclude the explanations?" Captain Griffiths demanded +impatiently. "Your news is magnificent, Sir Henry. As regards this +felon--" + +Sir Henry held up his hand. + +"Maderstrom's fate," he said, "is mine to deal with and not yours, +Captain Griffiths." + +Philippa was the first to grasp the intentions of the man who was +standing only a few feet from her. She threw herself upon his arm and +dragged down the revolver which he had raised. Sir Henry, with a shout +of fury, was upon them at once. He took Griffiths by the throat and +threw him upon the sofa. The revolver clattered harmlessly on to the +carpet. + +"His Majesty's Service has no use for madmen," he thundered. "You know +that I possess superior authority here." + +"That man shall not escape!" Griffiths shouted. + +He struggled for his whistle. Sir Henry snatched it from him and picked +up the revolver from the carpet. + +"Look here, Griffiths," he remonstrated severely, "one single move +in opposition to my wishes will cost you your career. Let there be +no misunderstanding about it. That man will not be arrested by you +to-night." + +Griffiths staggered to his feet. He was half cowed, half furious. + +"You take the responsibility for this, Sir Henry?" he demanded thickly. +"The man is a proved traitor. If you assist him to escape, you are +subject to penalties--" + +Sir Henry threw open the door. + +"Captain Griffiths," he interrupted, "I am not ignorant of my position +in this matter. Believe me, your last chance of retaining your position +here is to remember that you have had specific orders to yield to my +authority in all matters. Kindly leave this room and take your soldiers +back to their quarters." + +Griffiths hesitated for a single moment. He had the appearance of a man +half demented by a passion which could find no outlet. Then he left the +room, without salute, without a glance to the right or to the left. Out +in the hall, a moment later, they heard a harsh voice of command. +The hall door was opened and closed behind the sound of retreating +footsteps. + +"Sir Henry," Lessingham reminded him, "I have not asked for your +intervention." + +"My dear fellow, you wouldn't," was the prompt reply. "As for the little +trouble that has happened in the North Sea, don't take it too much to +heart, it was entirely the fault of the people who sent you here." + +"The fault of the people who sent me here," Lessingham repeated. "I +scarcely understand." + +"It's simple enough," Sir Henry continued. "You see, you are about as +fit to be a spy as Philippa, my wife here, is to be a detective. You +possess the one insuperable obstacle of having the instincts of a +gentleman.--Come, come," he went on, "we have nothing more to say to one +another. Open that window and take the narrow path down to the beach. +Jimmy Dumble is waiting for you at the gate. He will row you out to a +Dutch trawler which is lying even now off the point." + +"You mean me to get away?" Lessingham exclaimed, bewildered. + +"Believe me, it will cost nothing," Sir Henry assured him. "I was not +bluffing when I told Captain Griffiths that I had supreme authority +here. He knows perfectly well that I am within my rights in aiding your +escape." + +Philippa moved swiftly to where Lessingham was standing. She gave him +her hands. + +"Dear friend," she begged, "so wonderful a friend as you have been, +don't refuse this last thing." + +"Be a sensible fellow, Maderstrom," Sir Henry said. "Remember that you +can't do yourself or your adopted country a ha'porth of good by playing +the Quixote." + +"Besides," Philippa continued, holding his hands tightly, "it is, after +all, only an exchange. You have saved Henry's life, set Richard free, +and brought us happiness. Why should you hesitate to accept your own +liberty?" + +Sir Henry threw open the window and looked towards a green light out at +sea. + +"There's your trawler," he pointed out, "and remember the tide will turn +in half an hour. I don't wish to hurry you." + +Lessingham raised Philippa's fingers to his lips. + +"I shall think of you both always," he said simply. "You are very +wonderful people." + +He turned towards the window. Sir Henry took up the Homburg hat from the +table by his side. + +"Better take your hat," he suggested. + +Lessingham paused, accepted it, and looked steadfastly at the donor. + +"You knew from the first?" he asked. + +"From the very first," Sir Henry assured him. "Don't look so +confounded," he went on consolingly. "Remember that espionage is the +only profession in which it is an honour to fail." + +Philippa came a little shyly into her husband's arms, as he turned back +into the room. The tenderness in his own face, however, and a little +catch in his voice, broke down at once the wall of reserve which had +grown up between them. + +"My dear little woman!" he murmured. "My little sweetheart! You don't +know how I've ached to explain everything to you--including the Russian +ladies." + +"Explain them at once, sir!" Philippa insisted, pretending to draw her +face away for a moment. + +"They were the wife and sister-in-law of the Russian Admiral, Draskieff, +who was sent over to report upon our method of mine laying," he told +her. + +"You and I have to go up to a little dinner they are giving to-morrow or +the next day." + +"Oh, dear, what an idiot I was!" Philippa exclaimed ruefully. "I +imagined--all sorts of things. But, Henry dear," she went on, "do you +know that we have a great surprise for you--here in the house?" + +"No surprise, dear," he assured her, shaking his head. "I knew the very +hour that Richard left Wittenberg. And here he is, by Jove!" + +Richard and Helen entered together. Philippa could not even wait for the +conclusion of the hearty but exceedingly British greeting which passed +between the two men. + +"Listen to me, both of you!" she cried incoherently. "Helen, you +especially! You never heard anything so wonderful in your life! They +weren't fishing excursions at all. There weren't any whiting. Henry was +laying mines all the time, and he's blown up half the German fleet! It's +all in the Times this morning. He's got a D.S.O.--Henry has--and he's a +Rear-Admiral! Oh, Helen, I want to cry!" + +The two women wandered into a far corner of the room. Richard wrung his +brother-in-law's hand. + +"Philippa isn't exactly coherent," he remarked, "but it sounds all +right." + +"You see," Sir Henry explained, "I've been mine laying ever since the +war started. I always had ideas of my own about mine fields, as you may +remember. I started with Scotland, and then they moved me down here. +The Admiralty thought they'd be mighty clever, and they insisted upon my +keeping my job secret. It led to a little trouble with Philippa, but I +think we are through with all that.--I suppose you know that those two +young women have been engaged in a regular conspiracy, Dick?" + +"I know a little," Richard replied gravely, "and I'm sure you will +believe that I wouldn't have countenanced it for a moment if I'd had any +idea what they were up to." + +"I'm sure you wouldn't," Sir Henry agreed. "Anyway, it led to no harm." + +"Maderstrom, then," Richard asked, with a sudden more complete +apprehension of the affair, "was over here to spy upon you?" + +"That's the ticket," Sir Henry assented. + +Richard frowned. + +"And he bribed Philippa and Helen with my liberty!" + +"Don't you worry about that," his brother-in-law begged. "They must have +known by instinct that a chap like Maderstrom couldn't do any harm." + +"Where is he now?" Richard asked eagerly. "Helen insisted upon keeping +me out of the way but we've heard all sorts of rumours. The Commandant +has been up here after him, hasn't he?" + +"Yes, and I sent him away with a flea in his ear! I don't like the +fellow." + +"And Maderstrom?" + +"The pseudo-Mr. Lessingham, eh?" Sir Henry observed. "Well, to tell you +the truth, Dick, if there is one person I am a little sorry for in the +history of the last few weeks, it's Maderstrom." + +"You, too?" Richard exclaimed. "Why, every one seems crazy about the +fellow." + +Sir Henry nodded. + +"I remember him in your college days, Dick. He was a gentleman and a +good sort, only unfortunately his mother was a German. He did his bit of +soldiering with the Prussian Guards at the beginning of the war, got a +knock and volunteered for the Secret Service. They sent him over here. +The fellow must have no end of pluck, for, as I dare say you know, they +let him down from the observation car of a Zeppelin. He finds his +way here all right, makes his silly little bargain with our dear but +gullible womenkind, and sets himself to watch--to watch me, mind. The +whole affair is too ridiculously transparent. For a time he can't bring +himself even to touch my papers here, although, as it happens, they +wouldn't have done him the least bit of good. It was only the stress +and excitement of the shipwreck last week that he ventured to steal the +chart which I had so carefully prepared for him. I really think, if +he hadn't done that, I should have had to slip it into his pocket or +absolutely force it upon him somehow. He sends it off like a lamb and +behold the result! We've crippled the German Navy for the rest of the +war." + +"It was a faked chart, then, of course?" Richard demanded breathlessly. + +"And quite the cleverest I ever prepared," Sir Henry acknowledged. "I +can assure you that it would have taken in Von Tirpitz himself, if he'd +got hold of it." + +"But where is Maderstrom now, sir?" Richard asked. + +Sir Henry moved his head towards the window, where Philippa, for the +last few moments, had softly taken her place. Her eyes were watching +a green light bobbing up and down in the distance. Suddenly she gave a +little exclamation. + +"It's moving!" she cried. "He's off!" + +"He's safe on a Dutch trawler," Sir Henry declared. "And I think," he +added, moving towards the sideboard, "it's time you and I had a drink +together, Dick." + +They helped themselves to whisky and soda. There were still many +explanations to be given. Half-concealed by the curtain, Philippa stood +with her eyes turned seawards. The green light was dimmer now, and the +low, black outline of the trawler crept slowly over the glittering track +of moonlight. She gave a little start as it came into sight. There was +a sob in her throat, tears burning in her eyes. Her fingers clutched the +curtains almost passionately. She stood there watching until her eyes +ached. Then she felt an arm around her waist and her husband's whisper +in her ear. + +"I haven't let you wander too far, have I, Phil?" + +She turned quickly towards him, eager for the comfort of his extended +arms. Her face was buried in his shoulder. + +"You know," she murmured. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Zeppelin's Passenger, by E. 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