His Lordship's Leopard Part 16

"As a proof of her reconciliation, your aunt included a copy of your book in her last mission box to the Ojibway Indians. I shall always be glad to receive and make welcome any of your friends at the palace, no matter how different their tastes and principles may be to my own well-defined course of action.

"In the hope of better things,

"YOUR AFFECTIONATE FATHER."

"Of course you'll go," Violet said softly.

"Oh, I don't know about that," he replied.

"I do," she returned. "It's your duty. What a dear old chap he must be!--so thoroughly prosy and honest. I'm sure I should love him. I know just the sort of man he is. A downright Nonconformist minister of the midland counties, who was consecrated a Bishop by mistake."

Cecil paused a minute, thinking it over.

"How about the others?" he said.

"Ah, yes," she replied, "the others. But perhaps you don't cla.s.s them as your friends."

"Oh, it isn't that," he answered. "Only I was wondering--"

"What the Bishop would say?" she asked, looking at him with a roguish smile. "Well, why not take him at his word and find out."

"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "I will! I believe you've hit on the very best possible solution of our difficulty. The episcopal palace at Blanford is absolutely the last place in the world where any one would think of looking for a political conspirator, and, by some freak of fortune, the police are entirely ignorant that I'm in any way connected with your flight."

"Good! then it's settled!" she cried. "And we'll all accompany you."

"Ye-es, only the governor wouldn't go within a hundred yards of a theatre, and my aunt calls actors children of--I forget whom--some one in the Old Testament."

"Belial," suggested Miss Arminster.

"That's it. How did you know?"

"You forget," she said, "I was brought up in a convent."

"It'll never do," he continued, "for them to suspect who you really are."

"Are we not actors?"

"Of course. We must have a dress rehearsal at once, and cast you for your parts. But there's Friend Othniel--"

"Ah, yes," she said. "He's impossible."

"We must drop him somehow."

"That's easily managed," she replied. "Pay his hotel bill, and leave him a note with a nice little cheque in it to be delivered after we've gone."

"Then we must get away quickly, or he'll suspect."

"The sooner the better."

"I noticed that there was a s.h.i.+p sailing from Montreal for England this afternoon."

"That'll just suit our purpose," she said. "Friend Othniel told me he was going to walk up Mount Royal after lunch and wouldn't be back before six."

"And you'll really come to Blanford?" he asked, taking her hand.

"Of course," she said. "Why should you doubt it?"

"Because," he replied, "it seems too good to be true. I was thinking, hoping, that perhaps I might persuade you to come there for good, and never go away."

"Ah," she interrupted him, "you're not going to say that?"

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because we've been such friends," she answered, "and it's quite impossible."

"Are you sure?"

"Perfectly. And oh, I didn't want you to say it."

"But can't we be friends still?" he insisted.

"With all my heart, if you'll forget this mad dream. It would have been impossible, even if I were free. Your people would never have accepted me, and I would only have been a drag on you."

"No, no!" he denied vehemently.

"There," she said, "we won't talk about it. You've been one of the best friends I ever had, and--what's in that locket you wear?"

"That?" he replied, touching a little blue-enamelled case that hung from his watch-chain. "It has nothing more interesting in it at present than a picture of myself. But I'd hoped--"

"Give it to me, will you," she asked, "in remembrance of to-day?"

He detached it silently from his chain, and, pressing it to his lips, placed it in her hand.

"I'll always wear it," she said.

There was an awkward silence for a moment, and then, pulling himself together, he remarked brusquely:

"I suppose we'd better be starting for town."

"I'll join you later," she replied. "I want to go to mid-day service in the little church next to this convent. Such a pretty little church. I was married there once."

"You were what? Are you really serious, Miss Arminster?"

"Perfectly," she answered, giving him a bewitching little smile as she tripped out of the garden.

PART II.