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Lady Mary sighed gently. "It is almost a relief," she said, "to hear you admit that you have seen him before at all. Please tell me where it was that you met," she added, studying the effect of a tiara upon her splendidly coiffured hair. "I met him," Rochester answered, "sitting with his back to a rock on the top of one of my hills." "What, you mean here at Beauleys?" Lady Mary asked.
Saton knew in a moment that it was one of the doctors who had been summoned to Beauleys, by telephone and telegraph, from all parts. "You are watching the house of your patron," she said, drily. "Patron no longer!" Saton exclaimed, rolling himself another cigarette. "We are enemies, declared enemies so far as he is concerned, at any rate." "You are a fool!" the woman said.
"You have been spending your time alone?" "No!" he answered, with scarcely a second's hesitation. "I have been once or twice to Beauleys." "To see your friend Henry Rochester, I suppose?" she asked. Saton's face darkened. "No!" he answered. "I would not move a step to see him. I hate him, and I think he knows it." "Who were the ladies of the party?" the woman asked. "Their names one by one, mind.
"Bertrand," she said, "you talk like a coward. What are you going to do?" "To bring her here," he answered hoarsely. "She has gone back to Beauleys. She is passing up through the plantation, on her way to the house, perhaps, at this very moment. She wore white, and she carried her hat in her hand. There were rims under her eyes. She walks slowly. She is afraid a little hysterical. You see her?"
He hurried along like a man feverishly anxious to make use of his last stint of strength. He was in search of food! Rochester was walking slowly along the country lane which led from the main road to Beauleys, when the hoot of a motor overtaking him caused him to slacken his pace and draw in close to the hedge-side.
There are points about your behaviour, ever since in a foolish moment I asked you to stay at Beauleys, which I do not understand. I do not understand Lord Guerdon's sudden recognition of you, and even suddener death. I do not understand why it has amused you to fill the head of my young ward, Lois Champneyes, with foolish thoughts.
"I daresay he was very different in those days," she said. "Before the Beauleys property came to him, he was quite poor, and he was very much in love with the dearest woman Pauline Hambledon. It was impossible for them to marry her people wouldn't hear of it so he went abroad, and she married Sir Walter Marrabel! Such a pig! Everyone hated him. Then old Mr.
"Then we may as well go and have some really good bridge," she said, "until you men take it into your heads to come and disturb us." Afternoon tea was being served in the hall at Beauleys on the day after Saton's arrival. Saton himself was sitting with Lois Champneyes in a retired corner. "I was going to ask you," he remarked, as he handed her some cakes, "about Mr. Rochester's marriage.
He sighed. "After all," he said, "perhaps I had better have taken that train to town." Saton was only a few minutes being whirled down the avenue of Beauleys and up along the narrow country lane, wreathed with honeysuckle and wild roses, to Blackbird's Nest. He leaned back in the great car, his unseeing eyes travelling over the quiet landscape.
"I do hope I'm not too dreadfully late!" she exclaimed, setting the dog down, and taking his hand a little shyly. "It seems such an age since I saw you last. Where can we go and talk?" "You are not frightened at me any more, then?" "Of course not," she answered. "We spoke about that at Beauleys. I do not want to think any more of that evening. It is over and done with.
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