LITMIR.BIZ

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friend,” he said, “you know very well that when we walk in the great paths of life I am unscrupulous. In those other hours, alas! I have a weakness,—I love women.”

      “Well?” Dominey muttered.

      “I will admit,” the other continued, “that you are placed in a delicate and trying position. Lady Dominey seems disposed to offer to you the affection which, notwithstanding their troubles together, she doubtless felt for her husband. I risk your anger, my friend, but I warn you to be very careful how you encourage her.”

      A light flashed in Dominey’s eyes. For the moment angry words seemed to tremble upon his lips. Seaman’s manner, however, was very gentle. He courted no offence.

      “If you were to take advantage of your position with—with any other, I would shrug my shoulders and stand on one side, but this mad Englishman’s wife, or rather his widow, has been mentally ill. She is still weak-minded, just as she is tender-hearted. I watched her as she passed through the hall with you just now. She turns to you for love as a flower to the sun after a long spell of cold, wet weather. Von Ragastein, you are a man of honour. You must find means to deal with this situation, however difficult it may become.”

      Dominey had recovered from his first wave of weakness. His companion’s words excited no sentiment of anger. He was conscious even of regarding him with a greater feeling of kindness than ever before.

      “My friend,” he said, “you have shown me that you are conscious of one dilemma in which I find myself placed, and which I confess is exercising me to the utmost. Let me now advise you of another. The Princess Eiderstrom has brought me an autograph letter from the Kaiser, commanding me to marry her.”

      “The situation,” Seaman declared grimly, “but for its serious side, would provide all the elements for a Palais Royal farce. For the present, however, you have duties below. I have said the words which were thumping against the walls of my heart.”

      Their descent was opportune. Some of the local guests were preparing to make their departure, and Dominey was in time to receive their adieux. They all left messages for Lady Dominey, spoke of a speedy visit to her, and expressed themselves as delighted to hear of her return and recovery. As the last car rolled away, Caroline took her host’s arm and led him to a chimney seat by the huge log fire in the inner hall.

      “My dear Everard,” she said, “you really are a very terrible person.”

      “Exactly why?” he demanded.

      “Your devotion to my sex,” she continued, “is flattering but far too catholic. Your return to England appears to have done what we understood to be impossible—restored your wife’s reason. A fiery-headed Hungarian Princess has pursued you down here, and has now gone to her room in a tantrum because you left her side for a few minutes to welcome your wife. And there remains our own sentimental little flirtation, a broken and, alas, a discarded thing! There is no doubt whatever, Everard, that you are a very bad lot.”

      “You are distressing me terribly,” Dominey confessed, “but all the same, after a somewhat agitated evening I must admit that I find it pleasant to talk with some one who is not wielding the lightnings. May I have a whisky and soda?”

      “Bring me one, too, please,” Caroline begged. “I fear that it will seriously impair the note which I had intended to strike in our conversation, but I am thirsty. And a handful of those Turkish cigarettes, too. You can devote yourself to me with a perfectly clear conscience. Your most distinguished guest has found a task after his own heart. He has got Henry in a corner of the billiard-room and is trying to convince him of what I am sure the dear man really believes himself—that Germany’s intentions towards England are of a particularly dove-like nature. Your Right Honourable guest has gone to bed, and Eddy Pelham is playing billiards with Mr. Mangan. Every one is happy. You can devote yourself to soothing my wounded vanity, to say nothing of my broken heart.”

      “Always gibing at me,” Dominey grumbled.

      “Not always,” she answered quietly, raising her eyes for a moment. “There was a time, Everard, before that terrible tragedy—the last time you stayed at Dunratter—when I didn’t gibe.”

      “When, on the contrary, you were sweetness itself,” he reflected.

      She sighed reminiscently.

      “That was a wonderful month,” she murmured. “I think it was then for the first time that I saw traces of something in you which I suppose accounts for your being what you are to-day.”

      “You think that I have changed, then?”

      She looked him in the eyes.

      “I sometimes find it difficult to believe,” she admitted, “that you are the same man.”

      He turned away to reach for his whisky and soda.

      “As a matter of curiosity,” he asked, “why?”

      “To begin with, then,” she commented, “you have become almost a precisian in your speech. You used to be rather slangy at times.”

      “What else?”

      “You used always to clip your final g’s.”

      “Shocking habit,” he murmured. “I cured myself of that by reading aloud in the bush. Go on, please?”

      “You carry yourself so much more stiffly. Sometimes you have the air of being surprised that you are not in uniform.”

      “Trifles, all these things,” he declared. “Now for something serious?”

      “The serious things are pretty good,” she admitted. “You used to drink whiskys and sodas at all hours of the day, and quite as much wine as was good for you at dinner time. Now, although you are a wonderful host, you scarcely take anything yourself.”

      “You should see me at the port,” he told her, “when you ladies are well out of the way! Some more of the good, please?”

      “All your best qualities seem to have come to the surface,” she went on, “and I think that the way you have come back and faced it all is simply wonderful. Tell me, if that man’s body should be discovered after all these years, would you be charged with manslaughter?”

      He shook his head. “I do not think so, Caroline.”

      “Everard.”

      “Well?”

      “Did you kill Roger Unthank?”

      A portion of the burning log fell on to the hearth. Then there was silence. They heard the click of the billiard balls in the adjoining room. Dominey leaned forward and with a pair of small tongs replaced the burning wood upon the fire. Suddenly he felt his hands clasped by his companion’s.

      “Everard dear,” she said, “I am so sorry. You came to me a little tired to-night, didn’t you? I think that you needed sympathy, and here I am asking you once more that horrible question. Forget it, please. Talk to me like your old dear self. Tell me about Rosamund’s return. Is she really recovered, do you think?”

      “I saw her only for a few minutes,” Dominey replied, “but she seemed to me absolutely better. I must say that the weekly reports I have received from the nursing home quite prepared me for a great improvement. She is very frail, and her eyes still have that restless look, but she talks quite coherently.”

      “What about that horrible woman?”

      “I have pensioned Mrs. Unthank. To my surprise I hear that she is still living in the village.”

      “And your ghost?”

      “Not a single howl all the time that Rosamund has been away.”

      “There is one thing more,” Caroline began hesitatingly.

      That one thing lacked forever the clothing of words. There came a curious, almost a dramatic interruption. Through the silence of the hall there pealed the summons of the great bell which hung over the

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