Part 47 (1/2)

”h.e.l.lo, Jenkins, what is the matter now?”

Jenkins was a sergeant of police whom they knew.

”Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Brand, but an odd thing has happened. A lady, a stranger, met me ten minutes ago, and asked me to direct her to your house. I did so. She appeared to be in great trouble, so I strolled slowly after her. I was surprised to see her looking in through the window of your sitting-room. As far as I could make out, she was crying fit to break her heart, and I imagined she meant to knock at the door, but was afraid.”

”Where is she? What has become of her?”

Brand stepped out into the moonlight. The girls, white and trembling, followed.

”Well, she ran off down the garden path and tumbled in a dead faint near the gate. I was too late to save her. I picked her up and placed her on a seat. She is there now. I thought it best, before carrying her here--to tell you you--”

Before Brand moved, Constance ran out, followed by Enid. In a whirl of pain, the lighthouse-keeper strode after them. He saw Constance stooping over a motionless figure lying p.r.o.ne on the garden seat. To those strong young arms the slight, graceful form offered an easy task.

Brand heard Enid's whisper:

”Oh, Connie, it is she!”

But the daughter, clasping her mother to her breast, said quietly:

”Dad, she has come home, and she may be dying. We must take her in.”

He made no direct answer. What could he say? The girl's fearless words admitted of neither ”Yes” nor ”No.”

He turned to the policeman.

”I am much obliged to you, Jenkins,” he said; ”we know the lady.

Unless--unless there are serious consequences, will you oblige me by saying nothing about her? But stay. When you pa.s.s the Mount's Bay Hotel, please call and say that Mrs. Vansittart has been seized with sudden illness and is being cared for at my house.”

”Yes, sir,” said the sergeant, saluting.

As he walked away down the garden path he wondered who Mrs. Vansittart could be, and why Miss Brand said she had ”come home.”

Then he glanced back at the house, into which the others had vanished.

He laughed.

”Just fancy it,” he said; ”I treated him as if he was a bloomin' lord.

And I suppose my position is a better one than his. Anyhow he is a splendid chap. I'm glad now I did it, for his sake and the sake of those two girls. How nicely they were dressed. It has always been a puzzle to me how they can afford to live in that style on the pay of a lighthouse-keeper. Well, it's none of my business.”

CHAPTER XVIII

ENID WEARS AN OLD ORNAMENT

Lady Margaret took her departure from the hotel at an early hour. Her son went with her. Their house was situated on the outskirts of the town, and, although Stanhope would gladly have remained with the two men to discuss the events of this night of surprises, he felt that his mother demanded his present attention.

Indeed, her ladys.h.i.+p had much to say to him. She, like the others, had been impressed by Mrs. Vansittart's appearance, even under the extraordinarily difficult circ.u.mstances of the occasion. The feminine mind judges its peers with the utmost precision. Its a.n.a.lytical methods are pitilessly simple. It calculates with mathematical nicety those details of toilette, those delicate nuances of manner, which distinguish the woman habituated to refinement and good society from the interloper or mere copyist.

It had always been a matter of mild wonder in Penzance how Constance Brand had acquired her French trick of wearing her clothes. Some women are not properly dressed after they have been an hour posing in front of a full-length mirror; others can give one glance at a costume, twist and pull it into the one correct position, and walk out, perfectly gowned, with a happy consciousness that all is well.

Every Parisienne, some Americans, a few English women, possess this gift. Constance had it, and Lady Margaret knew now that it was a lineal acquisition from her mother. The discovery enhanced the belief, always prevalent locally, that Brand was a gentleman born, and her ladys.h.i.+p was now eager for her son's a.s.sistance in looking up the ”Landed Gentry” and other works of reference which define and glorify the upper ten thousand of the United Kingdom. Perhaps, that way, light would be vouchsafed.