A Lost Leader Part 15

"You have had a tiring journey," he said. "You must come into the house and let them find you something to eat. Clara, this is Hester Phillimore, the daughter of an old friend of mine. Will you see about a room for her, and lend her anything she requires?"

"Of course," Clara answered. "Won't you come into the house with me?" she added pleasantly to the girl. "You must be horribly tired travelling this hot weather, and this is such an out-of-the-way corner of the world!"

Hester lingered for a moment, glancing nervously at Mannering.

"I must go back to-night," she said. "I only came because I thought that it would be quicker than writing."

"To-night?" he exclaimed. "But, my dear girl, that is impossible. There are no trains, and you are tired out already. Go into the house with my niece, and we will have a talk afterwards."

He walked across the lawn with them, talking pleasantly to Hester, as though her visit were in no sense of the word unpleasant, or an extraordinary event. But when he returned to his seat under the cedar tree his whole expression was changed. The lines about his face had insensibly deepened. He leaned a little forward, looking with weary, unseeing eyes into the tangled shrubbery. Had all men, he wondered, this secret chapter in their lives--the one sore place so impossible to forget, the cupboard of shadows never wholly closed, shadows which at any moment might steal out and encompa.s.s his darkening life? He sat there motionless, and his thoughts travelled backwards. There were many things in his life which he had forgotten, but never this. Every word that had been spoken, every detail in that tragic little scene seemed to glide into his memory with a distinctness and amplitude which time had never for one second dimmed. So it must be until the end. He forgot the girl and her errand. He forgot the carefully cultivated philosophy which for so many years had helped him towards forgetfulness. So he sat until the sound of their voices upon the lawn recalled him to the present.

"I will leave you to have your talk with uncle," Clara said. "Afterwards I will come back to you. There he is, sitting under the cedar tree."

The girl came swiftly over to his side. For a moment the compa.s.sion which he had always felt for her swept away the memory of his own sorrow. Her pallid, colourless face had lost everything except expression. If the weariness, which seemed to have found a home in her eyes, was just now absent, it was because a worse thing was s.h.i.+ning out of them--a fear, of which there were traces even in her hurried walk and tone. He rose at once and held out his hands.

"Come and sit down, Hester," he said, "and don't look so frightened."

She obeyed him at once.

"I am frightened," she said, "because I feel that I ought not to have come here, and yet I thought that you ought to know at once what has happened. Sir Leslie Borrowdean has been coming to see mother. Last night he took her out to dinner. She came home--late--she was not quite herself. This morning she was frightened and hysterical. She said--that she had been talking."

"To Sir Leslie Borrowdean?"

"Yes."

Mannering showed no signs of dismay. He took the girl's thin white hand in his, and held it almost affectionately.

"I am very glad to know this at once, dear," he said, "and you did what was right and kind when you came to see me. But Sir Leslie Borrowdean has no reason to make himself my enemy. On the contrary, just now he seems particularly anxious to cultivate my friends.h.i.+p."

"Then why," the girl asked, "has he gone out of his way to--to--"

Mannering stopped her.

"He had a motive, of course. Borrowdean is one of those men who do nothing without a motive. I believe that I can even guess what it is.

Don't let this thing distress you too much, Hester. I do not think that we have anything to worry about."

"But he knows!"

"I could not imagine a man," Mannering answered, "better able to keep a secret."

The girl sat silent for a moment.

"I suppose I have been an idiot," she remarked.

"You have been nothing of the sort," Mannering a.s.serted, firmly. "You have done just what is kind, and what will help me to save the situation.

I must confess that I should not like to have been taken by surprise. You have saved me from that. Now let us put the whole subject away for a time. How I wish that you could stay here for a few days."

The girl smiled a little piteously.

"I ought not to have left her even for so long as this," she said. "I must go back to-morrow morning by the first train."

He nodded. He felt that it was useless to combat her resolution.

"You and I," he said, gravely, "have both our burdens to carry. Only it seems a little unfair that Providence should have made my back so much the broader. Listen, Hester!"

The full murmur of the sea growing louder and louder as the salt water flowed up into the creeks betokened the change of tide. Faint wreaths of mist were rising up from over the shadowy marshland. Above them were the stars. He laid his hand upon her shoulder.

"Dear child!" he said, "I think that you understand how it is that the burden, after all, is easier for me. A man may forget his troubles here, for all the while there is this eternal background of peaceful things."

Her hand stole into his.

"Yes," she murmured, "I understand. Don't let them ever bring you away."

CHAPTER XI

MANNERING'S ALTERNATIVE

Once again Mannering found himself in the over-scented, overheated room, which was perhaps of all places in the world the one he hated the most.

Fresh from the wind-swept places of his country home, he found the atmosphere intolerable. After a few minutes' waiting he threw open the windows and leaned out. Hester was walking in the Square somewhere. He had a shrewd idea that she had been sent out of the way. With a restless impatience of her absence he awaited the interview which he dreaded.

Her mother's coming took him a little by surprise. She seemed to have laid aside all her usual customs. She entered the room quietly. She greeted him almost nervously. She was dressed, without at any rate any obvious attempt to attract, in a plain black gown, and with none of the extravagances in which she sometimes delighted. Her usual boisterous confidence of manner seemed to have deserted her. Her face, without its skilful touches of rouge, looked thin, and almost peaked.

"I am so glad that you came, Lawrence," she said. "It was very good of you."

She glanced towards the opened windows, and he closed them at once.

"I am afraid," he said, "that you have not been well!"

There was a touch of her old self in the hardness of her low laugh.

"It is remorse!" she declared. "I think that for once in my life I have permitted myself to think! It is a great mistake. One loses confidence when one realizes what a beast one is."

He waited in silence. It seemed to him the best thing. She sat down a little wearily. He remained standing a few feet away.

"I have given you away, Lawrence," she said, quietly.

"So," he remarked, "I understand."

"Hester has told you, of course. I am not blaming her. She did quite right. Only I should have told you myself. I wanted to be the first to a.s.sure you of this. Our secret is quite safe. The man--with whom I made a fool of myself--has given me his word of honour."

"Sir Leslie Borrowdean's--word of honour!" Mannering remarked, with slow scorn. "Do you know the man, I wonder?"

"I know that he wishes to be your friend, and not your enemy," she said.