The Doctor of Pimlico Part 16

"Have you heard of the doctor since you left London?" he asked.

She held her breath--only for a single second. But her hesitation was sufficient to show him that she intended to conceal the truth.

"No," was her reply. "He has not written to me."

Again he was silent. There was a reason--a strong reason--why Weirmarsh should not write to her, he knew. But he had, by his question, afforded her an opportunity of telling him the truth--the truth that the mysterious George Weirmarsh was there, in that vicinity. That Enid was aware of that fact was certain to him.

"I wish," she said at last, "I wish you would call at the chateau and allow me to introduce you to Paul and his wife. They would be charmed to make your acquaintance."

"Thank you," he replied a trifle coldly; "I'd rather not know them--in the present circ.u.mstances."

"Why, how strange you are!" the girl exclaimed, looking up into his face, so dark and serious. "I don't see why you should entertain such an aversion to being introduced to Paul. He's quite a dear fellow."

"Perhaps it is a foolish reluctance on my part," he laughed uneasily.

"But, somehow, I feel that to remain away from the chateau is best.

Remember, your stepfather and your mother are in ignorance of--well, of the fact that we regard each other as--as more than close friends. For the present it is surely best that I should not visit your relations.

Relations are often very prompt to divine the real position of affairs.

Parents may be blind," he laughed, "but brothers-in-law never."

"You are always so dreadfully philosophical!" the girl cried, glad that at last that painful topic of conversation had been changed. "Paul Le Pontois wouldn't eat you!"

"I don't suppose any Frenchman is given to cannibalistic diet," he answered, smiling. "But the fact is, I have my reasons for not being introduced to the Le Pontois family just now."

The girl looked at him sharply, surprised at the tone of his response.

She tried to divine its meaning. But his countenance still bore that sphinx-like expression which so often caused his friends to entertain vague suspicions.

Few men could read character better than Walter Fetherston. To him the minds of most men and women he met were as an open book. To a marvellous degree had he cultivated his power of reading the inner working of the mind by the expression in the eyes and on the faces of even those hard-headed diplomats and men of business whom, in his second character of Mr. Maltwood, he so frequently met. Few men or women could tell him a deliberate lie without its instant detection. Most shrewd men possess that power to a greater or less degree--a power that can be developed by painstaking application and practice.

Enid asked her companion when they were to meet again.

"At least let me see you before you go from here," she said. "I know what a rapid traveller you always are."

"Yes," he sighed. "I'm often compelled to make quick journeys from one part of the Continent to the other. I am a constant traveller--too constant, perhaps, for I've nowadays grown very world-weary and restless."

"Well," she exclaimed, "if you will not come to the chateau, where shall we meet?"

"I will write to you," he replied. "At this moment my movements are most uncertain--they depend almost entirely upon the movements of others. At any moment I may be called away. But a letter to Holles Street will always find me, you know."

He seemed unusually serious and strangely preoccupied, she thought. She noticed, too, that he had flung away his half-consumed cigar in impatience, and that he had rubbed his chin with his left hand, a habit of his when puzzled.

At the crossroads where the leafless poplars ran in straight lines towards the village of Fresnes, a big red motor-car pa.s.sed them at a tearing pace, and in it Enid recognised General Molon.

Fetherston, although an ardent motorist himself, cursed the driver under his breath for bespattering them with mud. Then, with a word of apology to his charming companion, he held her gloved hand for a moment in his.

Their parting was not prolonged. The man's lips were thin and hard, for his resolve was firm.

This girl whom he had grown to love--who was the very suns.h.i.+ne of his strange, adventurous life--was, he had at last realised, unworthy. If he was to live, if the future was to have hope and joy for him, he must tear her out of his life.

Therefore he bade her adieu, refusing to give her any tryst for the morrow.

"It is all so uncertain," he repeated. "You will write to me in London if you do not hear from me, won't you?"

She nodded, but scarce a word, save a murmured farewell, escaped her dry lips.

He was changed, sadly changed, she knew. She turned from him with overflowing heart, stifling her tears, but with a veritable volcano of emotion within her young breast.

He had changed--changed entirely and utterly in that brief hour and a half they had walked together. What had she said? What had she done? she asked herself.

Forward she went blindly with the blood-red light of the glorious sunset full in her hard-set face, the great fortress-crowned hills looming up before her, a barrier between herself and the beyond! They looked grey, dark, mysterious as her own future.

She glanced back, but he had turned upon his heel, and she now saw his retreating figure swinging along the straight, broad highway.

Why had he treated her thus? Was it possible, she reflected, that he had actually become aware of the ghastly truth? Had he divined it?

"If he has," she cried aloud in an agony of soul, "then no wonder--no wonder, indeed, that he has cast me from his life as a criminal--as a woman to be avoided as the plague--that he has said good-bye to me for ever!"

Her lips trembled, and the corners of her pretty mouth hardened.

She turned again to watch the man's disappearing figure.

"I would go back," she cried in despair, "back to him, and beg his forgiveness upon my knees. I love him--love him better than my life! Yet to crave forgiveness would be to confess--to tell all I know--the whole awful truth! And I can't do that--no, never! G.o.d help me! I--I--I--can't do that!"

And bursting into a flood of hot tears, she stood rigid, her small hands clenched, still watching him until he disappeared from her sight around the bend of the road.

"No," she murmured in a low, hoa.r.s.e voice, still speaking to herself, "confession would mean death. Rather than admit the truth I would take my own life. I would kill myself, yes, face death freely and willingly, rather than he--the man I love so well--should learn Sir Hugh's disgraceful secret."

CHAPTER XV

THREE GENTLEMEN FROM PARIS

GASTON DARBOUR'S comedy, _Le Pyree_, had been played to a large audience a.s.sembled in one of the bigger rooms of the long whitewashed artillery barracks outside Ronvaux, where General Molon had his official residence.

The humorous piece had been applauded to the echo--the audience consisting for the most part of military officers in uniform and their wives and daughters, with a sprinkling of the better-cla.s.s civilians from the various chateaux in the neighbourhood, together with two or three aristocratic parties from Longuyon, Spincourt, and other places.

The honours of the evening had fallen to the young English girl who had played the amusing part of the demure governess, Miss Smith--p.r.o.nounced by the others "Mees Smeeth." Enid was pa.s.sionately fond of dramatic art, and belonged to an amateur club in London. Among those present were the author of the piece himself, a dark young man with smooth hair parted in the centre and wearing an exaggerated black cravat.

When the curtain fell the audience rose to chatter and comment, and were a long time before they dispersed. Paul Le Pontois waited for Enid, Sir Hugh accompanying Blanche and little Ninette home in the hired brougham.

As the party had a long distance to go, some twelve kilometres, General Molon had lent Le Pontois his motor-car, which now stood awaiting him with glaring headlights in the barrack-square.

As the hall emptied Paul glanced around him while awaiting Enid. On the walls the French tricolour was everywhere displayed, the revered _drapeau_ under which he had so gallantly and n.o.bly served against the Huns.

He presented a spruce appearance in his smart, well-cut evening coat, with the red b.u.t.ton of the Legion d'Honneur in his lapel, and to the ladies who wished him "bon soir" as they filed out he drew his heels together and bowed gallantly.

Outside, the night was cloudy and overcast. In the long rows of the barrack windows lights shone, and somewhere sounded a bugle, while in the shadows could be heard the measured tramp of sentries, the clank of spurs, or the click of rifles as they saluted their officers pa.s.sing out.