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In the unhappy circumstances, she explained, she was naturally precluded from writing. So Betty's letter was the first direct communication that had passed between them for nearly two years. That is why to my meddlesome-minded self it appeared to have some significance. "You did, did you?" said I. Then I looked at her quickly, with an idea in my head. "What did Mrs. Boyce say in reply?"
Bankruptcy must come in the course of a few weeks; his entailed property would pass into the hands of a receiver; and whatever recovery might be ultimately possible, by the end of August he would be, for the moment, socially and politically undone. There could be no question of his proposing seriously to Marcella Boyce.
At the same time, curiously enough, the stress of his financial position was reflected even in what, to himself, at any rate, he was boldly beginning to call his "passion" for her. It had come to his knowledge that Mr. Boyce had during the past year succeeded beyond all expectation in clearing the Mellor estate.
Gedge had no desire to bring Boyce to justice and thereby incriminate himself. His visit to Sir Anthony was actuated by sheer malignity. Without doubt, he counted on his story being believed. But he knew enough of the hated and envied aristocracy to feel assured that Sir Anthony would not subject his beloved dead to such ghastly disinterment as a public denunciation of Boyce would necessitate.
"Well, what's going to happen now?" he asked, in his soft, dangerous voice. Somers replied, "I must leave that to you, sir." Boyce regarded him glitteringly for a long time. A scheme of salvation was taking vivid shape in his mind.... "My report of this occurrence will be that as soon as, say, three men dropped here, the rest of the troop got into a panic and made a bolt of it.
She was tired and over-excited, and the contrast between the atmosphere of flattery and consideration which surrounded her in Aldous's company, in the village, or at the Winterbournes, and this tone which her mother so often took with her when they were alone, was at the moment hardly to be endured. Mrs. Boyce looked up more gravely. "You misunderstand me, my dear," she said quietly.
I remember making your brother and yourself vow eternal secrecy." "You can take it from me that we haven't breathed a word to anybody. As a matter of fact, the whole damn thing had gone out of my head for years. Then I begin to hear of a fellow called Boyce of the Rifles doing the most crazy magnificent things. I make enquiries and find it's the same Leonard Boyce of the Vilboek Farm story.
For the first time in my life I took refuge in my invalidity, whereby I earned the commendation of Cliffe. Betty sent me flowers. Mrs. Boyce sent me grapes and an infallible prescription for heart attacks which, owing to the hopeless mess she had made in trying to copy the wriggles indicating the quantities of the various drugs, was of no practical use.
What a lark!" I hastened to explain that Davidson was in a kind of somnambulistic trance. Boyce was interested at once. We both did all we could to rouse the fellow out of his extraordinary state. He answered our questions, and asked us some of his own, but his attention seemed distracted by his hallucination about a beach and a ship.
Weston laughed. "Stay a moment at least. I want to know. Harry's father is Colonel Boyce ?" "Yes, there it is. That is all you want to pry into all the story. It is nothing to you. He is nothing to you now." The door closed behind her. RETURN OF CAPTAIN McBEAN Harry was not gone far.
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