The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes - Marie Belloc Lowndes

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seemed hardly aware of her presence. He stared straight before him, a look of rather impatient endurance on his face—not at all, so argued Lord St. Amant to himself, the look of a man from whose path a hitherto impassable obstacle has just been removed.

      Though rather ashamed of letting his mind dwell on such thoughts at such a time, Lord St. Amant told himself that Mrs. Tropenell had doubtless been mistaken as to what she had confided to him on his return from abroad. Mothers are apt to be jealous where only sons are concerned, and Letty—his dear, ardent-natured friend Letty—had always been romantic.

      Lord St. Amant was confirmed in this view by the fact that that very morning Mrs. Tropenell had told him that Oliver was going back to Mexico almost at once. To her mind it confirmed what she believed to be true. But her old friend and some-time lover had smiled oddly. Lord St. Amant judged Oliver by himself—and he had always been a man of hot-foot decisions. It was inconceivable to him that any lover could act in so cold-blooded, careful a fashion as this. No, no—if Oliver cared for Laura as his mother believed he cared, he would not now go off to the other end of the world, simply to placate public opinion.

      To those who had known the man, Godfrey Pavely's will contained only one surprise, otherwise it ran on the most conventional lines. Practically the whole of his very considerable fortune was left, subject to Laura's life interest—an interest which lapsed on re-marriage—in trust for his only child.

      The surprise was the banker's substantial legacy to Mrs. Winslow. That lady was left Rosedean, the only condition attaching to the legacy being that, should she ever wish to sell the little property, the first offer must be made to Alice Pavely's trustees. Also, rather to the astonishment of some of those present, it was found that the will had only been made some two months ago, and the lawyer who read it out was aware that in some important particulars it had been modified and changed. In the will made by Godfrey Pavely immediately after his marriage he had left his wife sole legatee. After Alice was born the banker had naturally added a codicil, but he had still left Laura in a far greater position of responsibility in regard to the estate than in this, his final will.

      After the will had been read, Lord St. Amant spent a few moments alone with Laura. He felt he had a rather disagreeable task before him, and he did not like disagreeable tasks. Still he faced this one with characteristic courage.

      "I've been asked by Sir Angus Kinross to undertake a rather unpleasant duty, my dear Laura—that of persuading you to withdraw the reward you are offering for the discovery of Fernando Apra. He points out that if Apra's story is true, it might easily mean that you would simply be giving a present of a thousand pounds to the person who killed your husband."

      Laura heard him out without interruption. Then she shook her head. "I feel it is my duty to do it," she said in a low voice. "Katty, who was Godfrey's greatest friend, says he would have wished it—and I think she's right. It isn't going to be paid out of the estate, you know. I will pay it—if ever it is earned."

      She went on painfully. "I am very unhappy, Lord St. Amant. Godfrey and I were not suited to one another, but still I feel that I was often needlessly selfish and unkind."

      Lord St. Amant began to see why Oliver Tropenell was going back to Mexico so soon.

      Part Three

       Table of Contents

      Chapter XXI

       Table of Contents

      Those winter and spring months which followed the tragic death of Godfrey Pavely were full of difficult, weary, and oppressive days to his widow Laura. Her soul had become so used to captivity, and to being instinctively on the defensive, that she did not know how to use her freedom—indeed, she was afraid of freedom.

      Another kind of woman would have gone away to the Continent, alone or with her child, taking what in common parlance is described as a thorough change. But Laura went on living quietly at The Chase, feeling in a queer kind of way as if Godfrey still governed her life, as if she ought to do exactly what Godfrey would wish her to do, all the more so because in his lifetime she had not been an obedient or submissive wife.

      As the Commissioner of Police had foretold, the large reward offered by Mrs. Pavely had brought in its train a host of tiresome and even degrading incidents. A man of the name of Apra actually came from the Continent and tried to make out that he had been the banker's unwitting murderer! But his story broke down under a very few minutes' cross-examination at Scotland Yard. Even so, Laura kept the offer of the thousand pounds in being. It seemed to be the only thing that she could still do for Godfrey.

      Though she was outwardly leading the quiet, decorously peaceful life of a newly-made widow, Laura's soul was storm-tossed and had lost its bearings. Her little girl's company, dearly as she loved the child, no longer seemed to content her. For the first time in her life, she longed consciously for a friend of her own age, but with the woman living at her gate, with Katty Winslow, she became less, rather than more, intimate.

      Also, hidden away in the deepest recess of her heart, was an unacknowledged pain. She had felt so sure that Oliver Tropenell would stay on with his mother through the winter and early spring! But, to her bewildered surprise, he had left for Mexico almost at once. He had not even sought a farewell interview to say good-bye to her alone, and their final good-bye had taken place in the presence of his mother.

      Together he and Mrs. Tropenell had walked over to The Chase one late afternoon, within less than a week of Godfrey's funeral, and he had explained that urgent business was recalling him to Mexico at once. He and Laura had had, however, three or four minutes together practically alone; and at once he had exclaimed, in a voice so charged with emotion that it recalled those moments Laura now shrank from remembering—those moments when he had told her of his then lawless love—"You'll let me know if ever you want me? A cable would bring me as quickly as I can travel. You must not forget that I am your trustee."

      And she had replied, making a great effort to speak naturally: "I will write to you, Oliver, often—and I hope you will write to me."

      And he had said: "Yes—yes, of course I will! Not that there's much to say that will interest you. But I can always give you news of Gillie."

      He had said nothing as to when they were to meet again. But after he was gone Mrs. Tropenell had spoken as if he intended to come back the following Christmas.

      Oliver had so far kept his promise that he had written to Laura about once a fortnight. They were very ordinary, commonplace letters—not long, intimate, and detailed as she knew his letters to his mother to be. Mostly he wrote of Gillie, and of whatever work Gillie at the moment was engaged upon.

      On her side, she would write to him of little Alice, of the child's progress with her lessons, of the funny little things that Alice said. Occasionally she would also force herself to put in something about Godfrey, generally on some matter connected with the estate, and she would tell him of what she was doing in the garden, or in the house which had been built by his, Oliver's, forbears.

      She could not tell him, what was yet oddly true, that the spirit of Godfrey still ruled The Chase. He had inherited from his parents certain old-fashioned ways and usages, to which he had clung with a sort of determined obstinacy, and as to such matters, his wife, in the days which were now beginning to seem so far away and so unreal, had never even dreamt of gainsaying him.

      One of these usages was the leaving off of fires, however cold the weather might be, on the first of May, and this year, on the eve of May Day, Laura remembered, and made up her mind that in this, as in so much else, she would now be more submissive to the dead than she had ever been to the living Godfrey.

      Laura sat up late that night destroying and burning certain papers connected with her past life. She had come to realise how transitory a thing is human existence, and she desired to leave nothing behind her which might

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