The Second Honeymoon Part 29

Christine looked at him timidly.

She liked his face; something about his eyes made her think of Jimmy.

"Are you travelling far?" he asked presently.

She told him--only to Osterway.

He smiled suddenly.

"I am going there, too. Do you happen to know a place called Upton House?"

Christine flushed.

"It's my home," she said. "I live there."

"What a coincidence. I heard it was in the market--I am going down with a view to purchase."

Her face saddened.

"Yes--it is to be sold. My mother died last month. . . . Everything is to be sold."

"You are sorry to have to part with it?" he asked her sympathetically.

"Yes." Tears rose to her eyes, and she brushed them, ashamedly away.

"I've lived there all my life," she told him. "All my happiest days have been spent there." She was thinking of Jimmy, and the days when he rode old Judas barebacked round the paddock.

The stranger was looking at Christine interestedly; he glanced down at her left hand, from which she had removed the glove; he was surprised to see that she wore a wedding ring.

Surely she could not be married--that child! He looked again at the mourning she wore; perhaps her husband was dead. He forgot for the moment that she had just told him of the death of her mother.

He questioned her interestedly about Osterway. What sort of a place was it? Were the people round about sociable? He liked plenty of friends, he said.

Christine answered eagerly that everyone was very nice. To hear her talk one would have imagined that Osterway was a little heaven on earth. The last few weeks, with their excitement and disillusionment, had made the past seem all the more roseate by contrast. She told this man that she would rather live in Osterway than anywhere else; that she only wished she were sufficiently well off to keep Upton House.

When the train ran into the station he asked diffidently if he might be allowed to drive her home.

"My car is down here," he explained. "I sent it on with my man. I am staying in the village for a few days. . . . Upton House is some way from the station, I believe?"

"Two miles. . . . I should like to drive home with you," she told him shyly. "Only I am meeting a friend here."

"Perhaps your friend will drive with us, too," he said.

Christine thought it a most excellent arrangement. She looked eagerly up and down the platform for Gladys Leighton, but there was no sign of her.

"Perhaps she never got my telegram," she said in perplexity. She asked the stationmaster if there had been a lady waiting for the train; but he had seen n.o.body.

The man with whom she had travelled down from London stood patiently beside her.

"Shall we drive on?" he suggested. "We may meet your friend on the road."

They went out to the big car; there was a smart man in livery to drive them. Christine and her companion sat together in the back seat. They drove slowly the first half-mile, but there was no sign of Gladys anywhere. Christine felt depressed. She had counted on Gladys; she had been so sure that she would not fail her; she began to wonder if Jimmy had sent that wire; she hated herself for the thought, but her whole belief and idea of him had got hopelessly inverted during the past days.

They seemed to reach Upton House very quickly.

"You are evidently expected," her companion said; "judging by the look of the house."

The front door stood open; the wide gate to the drive was fastened back. As the car stopped the housekeeper came to the door; she looked interestedly at Christine, and with faint amazement at her companion.

For the first time Christine felt embarra.s.sed: she wondered if perhaps she had been foolish to accept this man's offer of an escort. When they were inside the house she turned to him timidly.

"Will you tell me your name? It--it seems so funny not to know your name. Mine is Christine Wyatt--Challoner, I mean," she added with a flush of embarra.s.sment.

"My name is Kettering--Alfred Kettering." He smiled down at her. "The name Challoner is very familiar to me," he said. "My greatest friend is a man named Challoner."

Christine caught her breath.

"Not--Jimmy?" she asked.

"No--Horace. He has a young brother named Jimmy, though--a disrespectful young scamp, who always called Horace 'the Great Horatio.' You don't happen to know them, I suppose?"

Christine had flushed scarlet.

"He is my husband," she said in a whisper.

"Your--husband!" Kettering stared at her with amazed eyes, then suddenly he held our his hand. "That makes us quite old friends, then, doesn't it?" he said with change of voice. "I have known Horace Challoner all my life; as a matter of fact, I was with him all last summer in Australia. I have been home myself only a few weeks."

Christine did not know what to say. She knew that this man must be wondering where Jimmy was; that it was more than probable that he would write to the Great Horatio and inform him of their chance meeting, and of anything else which he might discover about her mistaken marriage.

"I don't think Horace knows that his brother is married, does he?" the man said again, Christine raised her eyes.

"We've only been married ten days," she said tremulously.

"Is that so? Then I am not too late to offer you my most sincere congratulations, and to wish you every happiness." He took her hand in a kindly grip.

Christine tried to thank him, but somehow she seemed to have lost her voice. She moved on across the hall into the dining-room, where there was a cheery fire burning and tea laid.

"You will have some tea with me," she said. "And then afterwards I will show you over the house--if you really want to see it?" She looked up at him wistfully. "I should like you to have it, I think,"

she told him hesitatingly. "If it has got to be sold, I should like to know that somebody--nice--has bought it."

"Thank you." He stood back to the fire, watching her as she poured out the tea.

Married--this child! It seemed so absurd. She looked about seventeen.

Suddenly:

"And where is Jimmy?" he asked her abruptly. "I wonder if he would remember me! Hardly, I expect; it's a great many years since we met."

Christine had been expecting the question; she kept her face averted as she answered: