Part 11 (2/2)
Myra hesitated, but only for the fraction of a second. ”No; it is my own.
Lord Ingleby gave it to me.”
”_Lord_ Ingleby?” Jim Airth's voice sounded like knitted brows. ”Why not _Lady_ Ingleby?”
”It was not hers, to give. All that is hers, was his.”
”I see. Which of them did you know first?”
”I have known Lady Ingleby all my life,” said Myra, truthfully; ”and I have known Lord Ingleby since his marriage.”
”Ah. Then he became your friend, because he married her?”
Myra laughed. ”Yes,” she said. ”I suppose so.”
”What's the joke?”
”Only that it struck me as an amusing way of putting it; but it is undoubtedly true.”
”Have they any children?”
Myra's voice shook slightly. ”No, none. Why do you ask?”
”Well, in the campaign, I often shared Lord Ingleby's tent; and he used to talk in his sleep.”
”Yes?”
”There was one name he often called and repeated.”
Lady Ingleby's heart stood still.
”Yes?” she said, hardly breathing.
”It was 'Peter',” continued Jim Airth. ”The night before he was killed, he kept turning in his sleep and saying: 'Peter! Hullo, little Peter!
Come here!' I thought perhaps he had a little son named Peter.”
”He had no son,” said Lady Ingleby, controlling her voice with effort.
”Peter was a dog of which he was very fond. Was that the only name he spoke?”
”The only one I ever heard,” replied Jim Airth.
Then suddenly Lady Ingleby clasped both hands round his arm.
”Jim,” she whispered, brokenly, ”Not once have you spoken my name. It was a bargain. We were to be old and intimate friends. I seem to have been calling you 'Jim' all my life! But you have not yet called me 'Myra,' Let me hear it now, please.”
Jim Airth laid his big hand over both of hers.
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