Part 44 (2/2)

”Don't do that, Harry, please,” she said.

”I won't,” said he, throwing down the paper-knife.

”You might have been sending a telegram.”

”By wireless, eh?” he said with a smile, and then a curious look came into his face. ”I was,” he said slowly. Cynthia drew back in her chair with a queer feeling of uneasiness.

”Not to--?” she began, and stopped short of the name. She glanced furtively around the room. She was suddenly chilled.

”To Challoner? No,” he answered. He had hardly been aware of what he was doing, and he wondered now why the idea to do it had thus irrelevantly entered his head. No doubt an instinctive desire to get relief from the obsession of the sordid tragedy of Challoner's death had prompted him. But, whatever the cause, he had been tapping out, in accordance with the Morse code, a message to the little, black, full-rigged s.h.i.+p far away upon Southern seas.

He sprang up from his chair.

”There's a letter you wanted me to post, Cynthia. I had forgotten it.

Give it to me.”

”It dropped into the fire,” said Cynthia.

Harry looked into the fire; a torn fragment or two had fallen into the grate.

”I dropped it into the fire,” said Cynthia. ”For I had already changed my mind about it.”

The long letter which she had torn up at the first news of Colonel Challoner's defection, the letter which was to commemorate that evening, had been written to Colonel Challoner, and admitted that she was the daughter of his son.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

M. POIZAT AGAIN

”There is a man at the door, madam. He says that he is a Ludsey man, and that he worked for Captain Rames during the election.”

It was midday. Cynthia had her hat on and was at the moment b.u.t.toning her gloves.

”Tell him that Captain Rames is at the House of Commons now, and that he will be back at home by five,” she said.

”The man asked for you,” said the footman.

”For me? Did he give a name?”

”No. But he said that you would know him.”

Cynthia shrugged her shoulders.

”Very well, Howard. Show him in.”

Visitors who would not give their names but claimed to be citizens of Ludsey were not infrequent while Parliament was in session. They usually came with the same request--the loan of their fare home, where they had relations to look after them; and they were usually impostors, who had not so much as seen the spire of St. Anne's Church.

But, on the other hand, there was always a possibility that the case might be genuine, and Cynthia made it a rule to see them. She had already got her purse out of her bag when the door was opened. But she dropped it when she saw her visitor.

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