Part 57 (1/2)

He rises, smiling always, but as if to put a termination to the interview.

”No, but listen,” says Minnie, who, now she has entered upon her plan, would be difficult to beat. ”Do you remember when you and Mrs.

Bethune were standing on the balcony at Warbeck Towers--that night?”

Rylton starts, but in a second collects himself.

”Yes,” returns he calmly.

He feels it would be madness to deny it.

”Very well,” says Minnie, ”I was there too, and I went down the steps--to the garden. Your wife went down before me.”

Rylton grows suddenly interested. He had seen Minnie go down those steps--but the other!

”Then?” asks he; his tone is breathless.

”Oh, yes--just then,” says Minnie, ”and that is what I wanted to talk to you about. You and Mrs. Bethune were on the balcony above, and t.i.ta pa.s.sed just beneath, and I saw Mrs. Bethune lean over for a _second_ as it were--it seemed to me a most evil second, and she saw t.i.ta--and her eyes!” Minnie pauses. ”Her eyes were awful! I felt frightened for t.i.ta.”

”You mean to tell me that Mrs. Bethune _saw_ t.i.ta that night pa.s.sing beneath the balcony?”

The memory of his bet with Marian, that strange bet, so strangely begun, comes back to him--and other things too! He loses himself a little. Once again he is back on that balcony; the lights are low, the stars are over his head. Marian is whispering to him, and all at once she grows silent. He remembers it; she takes a step forward. He remembers that too--a step as though she would have checked something, and then thought better of it.

Is this girl speaking the truth? _Had_ Marian seen and then made her bet, and then deliberately drawn him step by step to that accursed arbour? And all so quietly--so secretly--without a thought of pity, of remorse!

No, it is not true! This girl is false---- And yet--that quick step Marian had taken; it had somehow, in some queer way, planted itself upon his memory.

Had she seen t.i.ta go by with Hescott? She had called it a fair bet!

Was it fair? Was there any truth anywhere? If she had seen them--if she had deliberately led him to spy upon them----

A very rage of anger swells up within his heart, and with it a first doubt--a first suspicion of the honour of her on whom he had set his soul! Perhaps the ground was ready for the sowing.

”Saw her? Yes, indeed,” says Minnie, still with the air of childish candour. ”It was _because_ I saw her that I was so frightened about t.i.ta. Do you know, Sir Maurice,”--most ingenuously this--”I don't think Mrs. Bethune likes t.i.ta.”

”Why should you suppose such a thing?” says Rylton. His face is dark and lowering. ”t.i.ta seems to me to be a person impossible to dislike.”

”Ah, that is what I think,” says Minnie. ”And it made me the more surprised that Mrs. Bethune should look at her so unkindly. Well,”

smiling very naturally and pleasantly, ”I suppose there is nothing in it. It was only my love for t.i.ta that made me come and tell you what was troubling me.”

”Why not tell t.i.ta?”

”Ah, t.i.ta is a little angel,” says Minnie Hescott. ”I might as well speak to the winds as to her. I tried to tell her, you know, and----”

”And----”

He looked up eagerly.

”And she wouldn't listen. I tell you she is an angel,” says Minnie, laughing. She stops. ”I suppose it is all nonsense--all my own folly; but I am so fond of t.i.ta, that I felt terrified when I saw Mrs. Bethune look so unkindly at her on the balcony.”