Nest was by this time on much the same level, but a good ten yards lay between them. This distance the young man made no effort to lessen. He simply remained where he was, whether remembering that formerly his close proximity had alarmed Miss Meredith, or conscious that there was no reason for attributing to her any desire for further speech with him. So that Nest, after a moment’s hesitation, was obliged to advance towards her quarry; and somehow all her design of affecting surprise at seeing him went by the board.
“I have just come from Tan-y-bach, Mr. Thompson,” she began, and the trouble in her voice was evident. “I was extremely sorry to learn there that Mr. Griffiths had discharged you on account of . . . on account of your being lame.”
He looked at her with a certain astonishment showing in his long-lashed grey eyes, cast them down, and fumbling with the ragged brim of his hat replied, “ ’Tis very good of you to give the matter a thought, miss—very good indeed!”
“But of course I have given it a thought,” returned Nest with vivacity, “seeing that it is, I fear, my dog’s fault that you are lame. I am . . . I am much concerned about it.”
The ex-haymaker shook his head. “Your dog only did his duty, miss. I don’t wonder at his distrusting . . . a man in these clothes.”
There was a kind of dull yet amused bitterness in his voice. Now that she was nearer to him Nest thought that he looked rather ill. Thin in the face he had been before—she had noticed that in the lane—but not, surely, pale with that curious effect of pallor beneath tan, as now.
“Mr. Thompson,” she said after a moment, “have you had any treatment for that bite?”
“I have washed the place, miss.”
“But that, evidently, is not sufficient. If you are so lame it must be that it is worse—and painful, too, I am afraid?”
“I’ve no doubt, miss, that it will heal in time,” said he.
“Yes, but meanwhile . . . and you have lost your employment on account of it. Mr. Thompson, you must go to a medical man. Dr. Walters——”
“That’s impossible,” he cut in shortly.
Nest coloured. “But, naturally, Dr. Meredith would pay for treatment, since it was my dog which bit you.” Then she remembered that Dr. Meredith was unaware of this fact, and could not be told of it.
The sardonic look which she had seen before appeared for a moment. “If Dr. Meredith was to pay for anything, miss, I reckon ’twould be for to have me clapped by the heels in gaol. But I wouldn’t have you think neither,” went on the runaway in a softer tone, “that I would have used violence on the reverend gentleman that evening, seeing he was your father, if I could ’a helped it!”
“But it was my fault,” asserted Nest impulsively. “It was my fault for so foolishly screaming. If I had not——”
But she broke off in astonishment, for Mark Thompson had suddenly hurled away the disreputable hat, and muttering, “I cannot keep this up any longer!” advanced several steps nearer. “Madam,” he said in quite a different tone, “you do nothing but blame yourself when you have, on the contrary, shown the most extraordinary kindness and courage, both in keeping my secret from the beginning, and in striving so generously to avoid recognising me on that unfortunate occasion. Believe me, it was partly in order to save you from an unpleasant dilemma that I was driven to resort to force. I deeply regretted it; I hope you believe that?”
Speechless, Nest took a step backwards, as there burst upon her the full shock of the discovery which she knew now that she had been more than once on the point of making already. Not so talked any privateersman, runaway or no. That hybrid, intermittent accent and diction were as much thrown aside as the speaker’s lamentable hat; the mask was off with a vengeance. She grew crimson.
“You are not a sailor or a labourer at all!” she exclaimed indignantly.
“But I admitted, madam, at our first meeting, that I was not.”
“Yet you pretended to be . . . you spoke as if . . . and all the time you are a gentleman!”
“Your tone, madam, if I may say so, seems to imply some doubt of it!” returned the masquerader pleasantly.
“If I had known, I should . . . I should not have . . .” Nest turned aside, tears of annoyance in her eyes, and began to poke at the close-growing wild thyme with the point of her shoe.
“You mean,” interpreted the runaway, “that had you known I was . . . an educated man, let us say . . . you would have gone to a magistrate and had me taken back to Liverpool to pay the penalty of my desertion?”
“No, sir, indeed I should not, but——”
“At any rate, it seems that it was because you believed me of inferior station that you were willing to save me from that fate, and very nearly to tell a lie on my behalf to your father—a deed,” he added in a softer tone, “which I shall remember all my life with wonder and gratitude.”
“I did tell a lie,” returned the heroine, almost crying. “At least, it amounted to a lie.”
“For Mark Thompson, who never existed! ’Tis all the more miraculous and kind, then! Will you allow Mar—— the real individual to kiss your hand in sincerest gratitude, and then to go upon his way?” As she did not answer, the ex-haymaker very gently took her hand, lifted it to his lips, and let it drop again passive; Nest had once more turned her head away.
“I fully understand,” went on the agreeable voice, “that while Miss Meredith can without fear of scandal be seen talking to a ragged unfortunate in whom she is good enough to interest herself, she would not wish it to be known that she had spent the same amount of time and charity over a man of her own class, even though the same rags covered him—and his plight was in fact much worse than that of a mere runaway sailor who could not find work!”
This exact penetration of her feelings at once astonished and exasperated Miss Meredith. If he realised that, then he had no business to deceive her as he had done about his social position—and with such ease too! She ought to have recognised sooner—at moments she had almost recognised—that there was something odd about this deserter. Then curiosity and alarm began to battle with outraged feelings. What did the concluding phrase of that short speech signify?
There was not much time left in which to find out, for its maker was obviously preparing to move on, since he was limping back to the spot where he had left his staff and bundle and was stooping to pick them up. What was his real plight then? An awful thought suddenly smote Nest—suppose he had committed forgery and that the gallows loomed in front of him? Forgery was the kind of crime which (she imagined) only an educated man would be able to commit. But surely not a man so young! Dr. Dodd, of whose fate not quite twenty years previously she had heard, had been, she believed, middle-aged . . . No, it could not be that; he must have been involved in some unfortunate “affair of honour” in which he had killed his man. That at least was a more respectable, even romantic, misdeed, though of course one must disapprove of the custom of duelling.
The duellist (or forger) now had his stick and bundle and was going after his discarded hat. Nest followed him.
“Sir,” she said, not without timidity, “I wish that you would tell me what your plight really is. I assure you that I would not divulge it.”
The runaway faced her, his meagre belongings in his hand. “No, madam, I have troubled you too much already. I do not, believe me, wish to burden you still further.” But his tone was not repressive, and he gave her the attractive smile which she had seen once in the lane. No, he couldn’t be a forger!
“But even though you are not . . . what I took you for, perhaps I could help you