The Truants Part 6

"There's my little fortune, Tony," she said, when once or twice he tried to check the leap of her antic.i.p.ations; "that will provide the capital."

"I knew you would offer it," Tony replied simply. "Your help will shorten our separation by a good deal. So I'll take half."

"All!" cried Millie.

"And what would you do when you wanted a new frock?" asked Tony, with a smile.

Millie shrugged her shoulders.

"I shall join you so soon," she said.

It dawned upon Tony that she was making too little of the burden which she would be called upon to bear--the burden of dull lonely months in that great shabby house.

"It will be a little while before I can send for you, Millie," he protested. But she paid no heed to the protest. She fetched her bank book and added up the figures.

"I have three thousand pounds," she said.

"I'll borrow half," he repeated. "Of course, I am only borrowing.

Should things go wrong with me, you are sure to get it back in the end."

They drove down to Millie's bank the next morning, and fifteen hundred pounds were transferred to his account.

"Meanwhile," said Tony, as they came out of the door into Pall Mall, "we have not yet settled where our farm is to be. I think I will go and see Chase."

"The man in Stepney Green?" Millie asked.

"Yes. He's the man to help us."

Tony called a cab and drove off. It was late in the afternoon when he returned, and he had no opportunity to tell his wife the results of his visit before dinner was announced. Millie was in a fever to hear his news. Never, even in this house, had an evening seemed so long.

Sir John sat upright in his high-backed chair, and, as was his custom, bade her read aloud the evening paper. But that task was beyond her.

She pleaded a headache and escaped. It seemed to her that hours pa.s.sed before Tony rejoined her. She had come to dread with an intense fear that some hindrance would, at any moment, stop their plan.

"Well?" she asked eagerly, when Tony at last came into their sitting-room.

"It's to be horses in Kentucky," answered Tony. "Farming wants more knowledge and a long apprentices.h.i.+p; but I know a little about horses."

"Splendid!" cried Millie. "You will go soon?"

"In a week. A week is all I need."

Millie was quiet for a little while. Then she asked, with an anxious look--

"When do you mean to tell your father?"

"To-morrow."

"Don't," said she. She saw his face cloud, she was well aware of his dislike of secrecies, but she was too much afraid that, somehow, at the last moment an insuperable obstacle would bar the way. "Don't tell him at all," she went on. "Leave a note for him. I will see that it is given to him after you have gone. Then he can't stop you. Please do this, I ask you."

"How can he stop me?

"I don't know; but I am afraid that he will. He could threaten to disinherit you; if you disobeyed, he might carry out the threat. Give him no opportunity to threaten."

Very reluctantly Tony consented. He had all a man's objections to concealments, she all a woman's liking for them; but she prevailed, and since the moment of separation was very near, they began to retrace their steps through the years of their married life, and back beyond them to the days of their first acquaintance. Thus it happened that Millie mentioned the name of Pamela Mardale, and suddenly Tony drew himself upright in his chair.

"Is she in town, I wonder?" he asked, rather of himself than of his wife.

"Most likely," Millie replied. "Why?"

"I think I must try to see her before I go," said Tony, thoughtfully; and more than once during the evening he looked with anxiety towards his wife; but in his look there was some perplexity too.

He tried next day; for he borrowed a horse from a friend, and rode out into the Row at eleven o'clock. As he pa.s.sed through the gates of Hyde Park, he saw Pamela turning her horse on the edge of the sand. She saw him at the same moment and waited.

"You are a stranger here," she said, with a smile, as he joined her.

"Here and everywhere," he replied. "I came out on purpose to find you."

Pamela glanced at Tony curiously. Only a few days had pa.s.sed since Warrisden had pointed out the truants from the window of Lady Millingham's house, and had speculated upon the seclusion of their lives. The memory of that evening was still fresh in her mind.

"I want to ask you a question."

"Ask it and I'll answer," she replied carelessly.

"You were Millie's bridesmaid?"

"Yes."

"You saw a good deal of her before we were married?"

"Yes."

They were riding down the Row at a walk under the trees, Pamela wondering to what these questions were to lead, Tony slowly formulating the point which troubled him.

"Before Millie and I were engaged," he went on, "before indeed there was any likelihood of our being engaged, you once said to me something about her."

"I did?"

"Yes. I remembered it last night. And it rather worries me. I should like you to explain what you meant. You said, 'The man who marries her should never leave her. If he goes away shooting big game, he should take her with him. On no account must she be left behind.'"

It was a day cloudless and bright. Over towards the Serpentine the heat filled the air with a soft screen of mist, and at the bottom of the Row the rhododendrons glowed. As Pamela and Tony went forward at a walk the sunlight slanting through the leaves now shone upon their faces and now left them in shade. And when it fell bright upon Pamela it lit up a countenance which was greatly troubled. She did not, however, deny that she had used the words. She did not pretend that she had forgotten their application.

"You remember what I said?" she remarked. "It is a long while ago."

"Before that," he explained, "I had begun to notice all that was said of Millie."

"I spoke the words generally, perhaps too carelessly."

"Yet not without a reason," Tony insisted. "That's not your way."