After this interview Sir Francis spent a good part of the night weighing the risks of the all-too-tempting course open to him; and, with this revelation of Juliana’s self-will before him, decided to take them. It was quite useless for her to declare (as she had done) that the Frenchman had not attempted in the slightest degree to make love to her, or that he was not jointly responsible, at the very least, for the meeting; Sir Francis simply did not believe her. Yet without Juliana’s early departure next morning he could hardly have carried through his unscrupulous design. His one really uncomfortable moment in Bannister’s office was when his victim threatened to call a witness of Miss Forrest’s whereabouts; but, since he did not do it, and Juliana had said nothing of any one having seen them together, Sir Francis decided that this threat was mere bravado. Bannister’s mouth he subsequently shut by the very reasonable-sounding request that he would abstain from mentioning in Wanfield the ground on which des Sablières had been sent to prison, because Miss Forrest’s name had been brought—though unjustifiably—into the affair. The one risk against which it was impossible to guard was that of the Frenchman’s writing from prison to Juliana in person and asking her to corroborate his challenged statement; indeed, it was not until Sir Francis received Juliana’s own letter of enquiry that he knew for certain that this had not happened.
After that it remained only to provide against Juliana herself making inconvenient investigations at Wanfield on her return, and this, too, the ingenious gentleman had devised a means of preventing. He put his plan into practice when, on the third day of her stay at Northover, she drove, with Laetitia Bentley, to call on Mrs. Mulholland, bearing with her for the old lady a large shawl of Siberian wool edged with sealskin.
Juliana’s future home, which stood upon an eminence, had been Grecianized and stuccoed over at the end of the last century, and one looked from between an intolerable number of pillars down a good mile or so of park-like distance which included fallow deer. The other two ladies tactfully remaining in the drawing-room (from which indeed Mrs. Mulholland rarely stirred), Sir Francis drew his betrothed through the pillars on to the terrace.
“You have very much improved the view from here since I last saw it, Francis,” remarked Juliana with appreciation.
“I am so glad that you think so, my dearest. I hoped it would please you.” He took her hand and carried it tenderly to his lips.
He was to-day much more the man who had swept her off her feet in January, strong, self-confident, handsome, smiling, yet lover-like, and as she looked at him Juliana began to feel that she had been unduly hard on him that afternoon in the Chinese room at Northover, that it was she, perhaps, who had exaggerated his care and devotion into jealousy. He had behaved so well over the test—Fawley Bridge!
But what of her companion that day by the stream? Her face clouded. Sir Francis, watching it, felt that he knew on what subject she was about to embark, and welcomed the topic, for the finishing stroke had to be put to his own security.
He was right. “Francis,” she said in a troubled voice, sinking down on a stone seat which faced the view, “this sad business about Monsieur des Sablières? I cannot believe what is said of him! I want to go into the matter more fully—I want you to institute enquiries. I am certain there is a mistake somewhere. Yet you told me in your letter that Mr. Bannister will not say a word, and Mr. Bentley, I find, knows nothing, distressed as he is about the affair. And you know nothing. . . . But I am determined to find out. You must recognize that gratitude alone——”
“Oh, yes, my dear, I recognize that, and I quite agree with you,” said the follower of Machiavelli. “But since I wrote to you Bannister has told me the story—the whole story. My lips, however, are unfortunately sealed, even to you, Juliana, for it involves the honour of someone of consequence.” (He was not referring to himself, but to some entirely mythical personage.) “No good to des Sablières, I assure you, could come of investigation, and it would only bring shame on this other person—if you succeeded, that is. So I implore you, my dear one, to give up the attempt.”
This man, the lover of four months ago, she would listen to, and so she looked at him mutely, impressed, and with no thought of doubting what he said.
“You realize, Juliana, do you not,” he went on gently, “that des Sablières, who was undoubtedly a favourite of Bannister’s and had received privileges from him, would never have been sent off to a prison without strong proof of his guilt?”
“And you know the story,” said Juliana slowly, looking at him as if she only wished she could read it on his face. “Can you not assure me, at least, that it was not very disgraceful—from M. des Sablières’ point of view?”
How she fought for him! But the shade of Machiavelli inspired Sir Francis to his best stroke. Instead of replying, in the style of Mr. Ramage, that it was disgraceful, scandalous and disgraceful, he said temperately: “I suppose, Juliana, that one must make allowances for a poor devil of a prisoner who is tempted to regain his liberty at the price of his honour. Perhaps we, who are perfectly free, have not the right to blame him very much.”
Juliana Forrest sighed and looked away at the long vista, and her betrothed looked at her. The doubt had already begun to work, perhaps? If she thought the fellow had really behaved ill, he believed she had too much feeling for him (curse him!) ever to set to work to unveil the details of his misconduct.
“And the other man involved?” asked Juliana after a moment.
Sir Francis slightly smiled and shook his head. “I have given my word to Bannister that not a syllable shall pass my lips. You, surely, are not the woman to tempt me to break it, my Juliana? . . . Will you look at the new shrubbery before we go in again?”
She assented, and in the shrubbery allowed him to kiss her.
* * * * *
“Did you have an agreeable talk in the garden, Francis, you and dear Juliana?” quavered old Mrs. Mulholland when, some half hour later, her son returned from handing the ladies into the Northover barouche. “I thought the dear girl looked a little sad when she came in, but you seemed in such spirits that I daresay I was mistaken and I had mislaid my spectacles. . . . Dear Laetitia Bentley and I had such an interesting discussion about woolwork while you were out there.”
“We had a very satisfactory conversation indeed,” replied he, “and she quite approves of the new shrubbery.”
“Dear Juliana has very good taste,” rippled on Mrs. Mulholland, gazing fondly at her new acquisition. “This exquisite shawl—so warm, too! I wished to ask her if she liked my new cap, but I feared that it might be crooked and thought it better not to draw her attention to it.”
“It is certainly crooked now,” observed Sir Francis. “I will put it straight for you.” He did so, and gave his mother a kiss—a somewhat rare event. But when a man has just brought off a very delicate stroke of diplomacy, he is naturally rather expansive.
* * * * *
So Juliana became once more a part of the merry little gatherings at Northover which, as the weather grew warmer, tended to overflow from the drawing room and the pianoforte into the spring-decked garden. Another French officer or two had superseded Raoul des Sablières, whose name was practically never heard there now, for the discussion of the crop of black surmises raised by Mr. Bannister’s determined refusal to give even a hint of why he had been sent to prison was dying down by this time. Yet Juliana had declared to her friend that she did not believe one of the damaging conjectures which were repeated to her, had even declared it once or twice vehemently in public; after which she never spoke of the young Frenchman again. Only Laetitia noticed that on the day when young Mr. Curtis from Stoneleigh Manor sang “Since First I Saw Your Face” in her hearing she made an excuse and slipped from the room.
But inwardly Juliana still told herself that she never doubted there had been some misunderstanding; indeed she