Part 25 (1/2)

In the pa.s.sage he caught sight of Meg going from one room to another with her arms full of little garments.

”Ah,” he cried, striding towards her. ”Good night, Miss Morton. I hope we shall meet again soon,” and he held out his hand.

Meg ignored the hand, her own arms were so full of clothes: ”I'm afraid that's not likely,” she said, with unfeeling cheerfulness. ”We all go down to the country on Monday.”

”Yes, yes, I know. Jolly part of the world it is, too. I expect I shall be thereabouts a good deal this summer, my relations positively swarm in that county.”

”Good-bye,” said Meg, and turned to go. Jan stood at the end of the pa.s.sage, holding the door open.

”I say, Miss Morton, you'll try and like my William, won't you?”

”I like all sensible animals,” was Meg's response, and she vanished into a bedroom.

CHAPTER XIV

PERPLEXITIES

”Don't you think it is very extraordinary that I have never had one line from Hugo since the letter I got at Aden?” asked Jan.

It was Friday evening, the Indian mail was in, and there was a letter from Peter--the fourth since her return.

”But you've heard of him from Mr. Ledgard,” Meg pointed out.

”Only that he had gone to Karachi from Bombay just before Fay died--surely he would see papers there. It seems so heartless never to have written me a line--I can't believe it, somehow, even of Hugo--he must be ill or something.”

”Perhaps he was ashamed to write. Perhaps he felt you would simply loathe him for being the cause of it all.”

”I did, I do,” Jan exclaimed; ”but all the same he is the children's father, and he was her husband--I don't want anything very bad to happen to him.”

”It would simplify things very much,” Meg said dreamily.

Jan held up her hand as if to ward off a blow.

”Don't, Meg; sometimes I find myself wis.h.i.+ng something of the kind, and I know it's wrong and horrible. I want as far as I can to keep in the right with regard to Hugo, to give him no grievance against me. I've written to that bank where he left the money, and asked them to forward the letters if he has left any address. I've told him exactly where we are and what we propose to do. Beyond the bare facts of Fay's death--I told him all about her illness as dispa.s.sionately as I could--I've never reproached him or said anything cruel. You see, the man is down and out; though Mr. Ledgard always declared he had any amount of mysterious wires to pull. Yet, I can't help wondering whether he is ill somewhere, with no money and no friends, in some dreadful native quarter.”

”What about the money in the bank, then? Did you use it?”

Jan blushed. ”No, I couldn't bear to touch his money ... Mr. Ledgard said it was idiotic....”

”So it was; it was Fay's money, not his. For all your good sense, Jan, sometimes you're sentimental as a schoolgirl.”

”I daresay it was stupid, and I didn't dare to tell Mr. Ledgard I'd left it,” Jan said humbly; ”but I felt that perhaps that money might help him if things got very desperate; I left it in his name and a letter telling him I had done so ... I didn't _give_ him any money....”

”It was precisely the same thing.”

”And he may never have got the letter.”

”I hope he hasn't.”