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She thinks Nevill's heart's been caught in the rebound," he told himself. But Nevill remained modestly unconscious. "Miss Ray may arrive yet," he suggested. "We'd better stop to-day, anyhow, on the chance; don't you think so, Stephen? and then, if there's no news of her when we get back to Algiers, go on to interview the bride in Grand Kabylia?"
For Diane, weary of being made a cat's-paw for an unscrupulous villain, remorseful for the misery she had brought on one who once loved her, had confessed in writing all of Victor Nevill's dark deeds. She had not known at first, she said, that his sole aim had been to injure his trusting friend, else she would have refused to help him.
Little was said on that brief journey. It was happiness enough to sit, hand clasped in hand, and know that our time of trial was past; that no cross of Fate could ever part us now. The astonished cabman set us down, according to instructions, at the entrance to Nevill's Court, and watched us with open mouth as we vanished into the narrow passage.
"Oh, I think she misunderstood Nevill's interest in Miss Ray, and that helped her to understand herself. When she finds out that it's for her he still cares, not some one else, she'll do anything he asks." Afterwards it proved that he was right. The day after the arrival at Touggourt, the house in its garden near the oasis was very quiet.
Early in the morning of the second day after the coming of Victoria's letter, the two men started in Nevill's yellow car, the merry-eyed chauffeur charmed at the prospect of a journey worth doing. He was tired, he remarked to Stephen, "de tous ces petits voyages d'une demi-heure, comme les tristes promenades des enfants, sans une seule aventure."
"She may be here day after to-morrow, if she started at once," Stephen reflected aloud. "She did, and she will," said Lady MacGregor, drily. "You've heard?" "The day I wired." "You have quite a nice way of breaking things to people, you dear little ladyship," said Stephen. And for some reason which he could not in the least understand, this speech caused Nevill's aunt to break into tears.
The slow grin, however, for which I was watching, never came; on the contrary, he not only heard me through quite gravely, but when I had finished said with some warmth, and using my old hospital pet name: "I'll say one thing for you, Polly; you're a good chum, and you always were. I hope your Nevill's Court friends appreciate the fact."
I walked on briskly up Fetter Lane until a narrow arched opening, bearing the superscription "Nevill's Court," arrested my steps, and here I turned to encounter one of those surprises that lie in wait for the traveler in London by-ways.
In front of the dogs bounded a small African monkey, who leaped to the back of Nevill's chair, and behind them toddled with awkward grace a baby panther, a mere ball of yellow silk. "They don't like the thunder, poor dears," Nevill apologised. "That's why they howled, for they're wonderfully polite people really. They always come at the end of lunch.
Always, however, it is those who attack, in a short siege, who suffer most; and the Europeans were not proud of the many corpses they had to their credit. There was some patching for the surgeon to do for all, but Nevill's was the only serious case. The French doctor, De Vigne, did not try to hide the truth from the wounded man's friend; there was danger.
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