Part 57 (2/2)

I am sorry I did not relieve your mind by telling you before. But I could not possibly guess her absence could afflict you so severely. She said something this morning about going to see Mabel.”

”I dare say,” quietly.

The minutes drag. Miss Beauchamp gets through an unlimited quant.i.ty of dried fruit and two particularly fine pears in no time. She is looking longingly at a third, when Guy rises impatiently.

”If she is at Mabel's I suppose I had better go and bring her home,” he says, glancing at the clock. ”It is a quarter to nine.”

”I really do not think you need trouble yourself,” speaking somewhat warmly for her: ”Mabel is sure to send her home in good time, if she is there!” She says this slowly, meaningly, and marks how he winces and changes color at her words. ”Then think how cold the night is!” with a comfortable s.h.i.+ver and a glance at the leaping fire.

”Of course she is at Steynemore,” says Guy, hastily.

”I would not be too sure: Lilian's movements are always uncertain: one never quite knows what she is going to do next. Really,”--with a repet.i.tion of her unpleasant laugh,--”when I saw her stepping into the dog-cart with her cousin to-day, I said to myself that I should not at all wonder if----”

”What?” sternly, turning full upon her a pale face and flas.h.i.+ng eyes.

Miss Beauchamp's pluck always melts under Guy's anger.

”Nothing,” sullenly; ”nothing at least that can concern you. I was merely hurrying on in my own mind a marriage that must eventually come off. The idea was absurd, of course, as any woman would prefer a fas.h.i.+onable wedding to all the inconvenience attendant on a runaway match.”

”You mean----”

”I mean”--complacently--”Lilian's marriage with her cousin.”

”You speak”--biting his lips to maintain his composure--”as though it was all arranged.”

”And is it not?” with well-affected surprise. ”I should have thought you, as her guardian, would have known all about it. Perhaps I speak prematurely; but one must be blind indeed not to see how matters are between them. Do sit down, Guy: it fidgets one to see you so undecided.

Of course, if Lilian is at Steynemore she is quite safe.”

”Still, she may be expecting some one to go for her.”

”I think, if so, she would have told you she was going,” dryly.

”Tom hates sending his horses out at night,” says Guy,--which is a weak remark, Tom Steyne being far too indolent a man to make a point of hating anything.

”Does he?” with calm surprise, and a prolonged scrutiny of her cousin's face. ”I fancied him the most careless of men on that particular subject. Before he was married he used to drive over here night after night, and not care in the least how long he kept the wretched animals standing in the cold.”

”But that was when he was making love to Mabel. A man in love will commit any crime.”

”Oh, no, long before that.”

”Perhaps, then, it was when he was making love to you,” with a slight smile.

This is a sore point.

”I don't remember that time,” says Miss Beauchamp with perfect calmness but a suspicious indrawing of her rather meagre lips. ”If some one must go out to-night, Guy, why not send Thomas?”

”Because I prefer going myself,” replies he, quietly.

Pa.s.sing through the hall on his way to the door, he catches up a heavy plaid that happens to be lying there, on a side-couch, and, springing into the open trap outside, drives away quickly under the pale cold rays of the moon.

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