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Updated: May 25, 2025
At St. Etarpe you were content to accept what, believe me, is quite inevitable. Here well, you have been doing all you can to avoid me, haven't you?" "Perhaps," she admitted. "St. Etarpe was an interlude. I told you so. You ought to have understood that." They entered the Park, and Wrayson was silent for a few minutes. He led the way towards an empty seat.
Wrayson bit his lip. "I fancy," he said, "that he is not in the habit of having people stay here." "I am afraid," the little fair man said, "that it is not an hospitable village. I tried to get a room elsewhere, but, alas! with no success. They do not seem to want tourists at St. Etarpe." Wrayson looked at the knapsack, at the camera, and at the little man himself.
It was of great height, and again the curiously shaped windows were filled with stained glass. The oak-panelled walls, black with age, were hung with portraits, sombre and yet vivid, and upon a marble pedestal at the end of the room, lifelike, and untouched by the centuries, stood a wonderful presentation of Ralph de St. Etarpe, the founder of the house, clad in the armour of his days.
"I asked you," the Baron remarked, helping himself to hors d'oeuvres, "to dine with me here, because I fancy that the little inn at St. Etarpe is being closely watched. Always when one has private matters to discuss, I believe in a certain amount of publicity. Here we are in a quiet corner, it is true, but we are surrounded by several hundreds of other people.
With what figures, Wrayson wondered, idly, was he peopling that empty avenue, what were the fancies which had crept out from his brain and held him spellbound? He had admitted a more or less intimate acquaintance with the place: was he, perhaps, a former lover of the Baroness, when she had been simply Amy de St. Etarpe?
"He is very much to be pitied," Wrayson said seriously. "I, at any rate, can feel for him." He turned towards her as he spoke, and his words were charged with meaning. She began quickly to speak of something else, but he interrupted her. "Louise," he said, "is London so far from St. Etarpe?" "What do you mean?" she asked. "I think that you know very well," he answered. "I am sure that you do.
To the left a rolling mass of woods was pierced by one long green avenue, at the summit of which stretched the grey front and towers of the Chateau de St. Etarpe. Wrayson looked long at the fertile and beautiful country, which seemed to fade so softly away in the horizon; but he looked longest at the chateau amongst the woods. "I wonder who lives there," he remarked.
They were seated in a garden behind the old inn of the Lion d'Or, in the village of St. Etarpe.
They spoke of the journey, suddenly determined upon by Madame de Melbain on receipt of his telegram, of the beauty of St. Etarpe, of the wonderful reappearance of her brother. "I can scarcely realize even now," she said, "that he is really alive. He is so altered. He seems a different person altogether." "He has gone through a good deal," Wrayson remarked. She sighed. "Poor Duncan!" she murmured.
"Now would you mind asking yourself whether friendship between us is possible! Remember St. Etarpe, and ask yourself that! Remember our seat amongst the roses remember what you will of that long golden day." She covered her face with her hands. "Ah, no!" he went on. "You know yourself that only one thing is possible. I cannot force you into my arms, Louise.
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