Part 34 (1/2)

”Well, as I reached the south side of the park, and was close by Park Place, the cab came towards me again, and pulled up. Callon got out. I saw him clearly. I saw quite clearly, too, who was within the cab. So you see there is danger. Mere friends do not drive round and round Regent's Park at night.”

Mr. Mudge rose, and held out his hand.

”I must get back to town. I have a fly waiting to take me to the station,” he said.

Pamela walked with him to the door of the house. As they stood in the hall she said--

”I thanked you, before you spoke at all, for putting your business aside for my sake, and coming down to me. I thank you still more now, and for another reason. I thank you for telling me what you have told me about yourself. Such confessions,” and she smiled upon the word, ”cannot be made without great confidence in the one they are made to.”

”I have that confidence,” said Mudge.

”I know. I am glad,” replied Pamela; and she resumed: ”They cannot be made, either, without creating a difference. We no longer stand where we did before they were made. I always looked upon you as my friend; but we are far greater friends now, is not that so?”

She spoke with great simplicity and feeling, her eyes glistened a little, and she added, ”You are not living now with merely acquaintances around you.”

Mr. Mudge took her hand.

”I am very glad that I came,” he said; and, mounting into the fly, he drove away.

Pamela went back to the house and wrote out a telegram to Warrisden.

She asked him to come at once to--and then she paused. Should he come here? No; there was another place, with a.s.sociations for her which had now grown very pleasant and sweet to her thoughts. She asked him to meet her at the place where they had once kept tryst before--the parlour of the inn upon the hill in the village of the Three Poplars.

Thither she had ridden before from Lady Millingham's house of Whitewebs. Her own house stood, as it were, at one end of the base of an obtuse triangle, of which Whitewebs made the other end, and the three poplars the apex.

CHAPTER XXIII

ROQUEBRUNE REVISITED

There, accordingly, they met on the following afternoon. Pamela rode across the level country between the Croft Hill which overhung her house, and the village. In front of her the three poplars pointed skywards from the ridge. She was anxious and troubled. It seemed to her that Millie Stretton was slipping beyond her reach; but the sight of those trees lightened her of some portion of her distress. She was turning more and more in her thoughts towards Warrisden whenever trouble knocked upon her door. In the moment of greatest perplexity his companions.h.i.+p, or even the thought of it, rested her like sleep.

As she came round the bend of the road at the foot of the hill, she saw him coming down the slope towards her. She quickened her horse, and trotted up to him.

”You are here already?” she said. ”I am very glad. I was not sure that I had allowed you time enough.”

”Oh yes,” said Warrisden. ”I came at once. I guessed why you wanted me from the choice of our meeting-place. We meet at Quetta, on the same business which brought us together at Quetta before. Is not that so?”

”Yes,” said Pamela.

They walked to the door of the inn at the top of the hill. An ostler took charge of Pamela's horse, and they went within to the parlour.

”You want me to find Stretton again?” said Warrisden.

Pamela looked at him remorsefully.

”Well, I do,” she answered; and there was compunction in the tone of her voice. ”I would not ask you unless the matter was very urgent. I have used you for my needs, I know, with too little consideration for you, and you very generously and willingly have allowed me to use you.

So I am a little ashamed to come to you again.”

Here were strange words from Pamela. They were spoken with hesitation, too, and the colour burned in her cheeks. Warrisden was surprised to hear them. He laid his hand upon her arm and gave it a little affectionate shake.

”My dear, I am serving myself,” he said, ”just as much as I am serving you. Don't you understand that? Have you forgotten our walk under the elms in Lady Millingham's garden? If Tony returned, and returned in time, why, then you might lay your finger on the turnpike gate and let it swing open of its own accord. I remember what you said. Tony's return helps me, so I help myself in securing his return.”