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"If I could answer you these questions," I said, "I should feel much easier in my own mind. But I cannot. I know no more about it than you do." We were both silent for a time, but I saw that there was a new look in her face. It was a welcome relief when a groom from Rowchester overtook us and pulled up his horse by our side. "Are you Mr. Ducaine, sir?" he asked, touching his hat.
Bring Mr. Ducaine along, Blanche." I held out my hand. "I am sorry that I cannot stop, Mrs. Moyat," I said. "Good-afternoon, Miss Moyat." She looked me in the eyes. "You are not going," she murmured. "I am afraid," I answered, "that it is imperative. I ought to have been at Rowchester long ago. We are too near neighbours, though, not to see something of one another again before long."
At the door, drawn up in front of Lord Cheisford's brougham, was a carriage with a tall footman standing facing me. I recognized him and the liveries in a moment. It was the Rowchester carriage. Some one from Rowchester House was even now with Lord and Lady Chelsford. Fresh complications, then! Had the Duke come to see me off, or had his suspicions been aroused?
She kept looking at me as though anxious that I should remember our common secret. More than once I was almost sorry that I had not let her speak. "You've had swell callers again," she remarked, as we sat side by side at supper-time. "A carriage from Rowchester was outside your door when I passed." "Ah, he's a good sort is the Duke," Mr. Moyat declared appreciatively. "A clever chap, too.
Lady Angela apparently was used to him, for she rose at once. She did not shake hands, but she nodded to me pleasantly. Colonel Ray handed her into the wagonette, and I heard the quicker throbbing of the engine as it glided off into the darkness. It was several minutes before he returned. I began to wonder whether he had changed his mind, and returned to Rowchester with Lady Angela.
After three days the house party at Rowchester was somewhat unexpectedly broken up. Lord Chelsford departed early one morning by special train, and the Duke himself and the remainder of his guests left for London later on in the day. I remained behind with three weeks' work, and a fear which never left me by day or by night.
Further, if there was any other persons who were able honestly to say that the name of the Duke of Rowchester upon the prospectus had induced them to invest their money in this concern, his offer extended also to them. There were roars of applause, wild enthusiasm. It was magnificent, but the lowest estimate of what it would cost the Duke was a hundred thousand pounds.
Then Ray came over to me, and as he looked searchingly into my face, he pointed up the carriage drive. "Boy," he said, "you are young, and in hell itself there cannot be many such as she. You think me brutal. It is because I remember your mother!" He stepped into the carriage. I turned round and set out for Rowchester. There followed for me another three days of unremitting work.
Go back to Braster and wait. Something may happen within the next twenty-four hours which will be very much to your benefit. Go back to Braster and wait." "You will tell me nothing, then?" I asked. "It is treating me like a child. I am not a sentimentalist. If the man deserved death the matter is between you and your conscience. But he came to Rowchester to see me. I want to know why."
I tore it open with trembling fingers. The handwriting was firm and yet delicate. I knew at once whose it was. "Rowchester, Tuesday. "DEAR MR. DUCAINE, My father wishes me to say that he and Lord Chelsford will call upon you to-morrow morning, between ten and eleven o'clock. With best regards, I am, "Yours sincerely, The letter slipped from my hands on to the table.
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