Félice looked across the tea table. She smiled into the kindly face of her guest, although there was something a little strained in those great, lustrous eyes.
“It was very kind of Sir Richard,” she agreed. “I was afraid that they might be angry with me and think me very foolish because I could tell them so little. It was all like a dream—a terrible, terrible dream. You will come again soon, perhaps, Sir Richard?”
“I will come again as soon as I can,” he promised, after a momentary hesitation. “There is one contingency which would certainly bring me here—to look after you both, to try my best to be a friend to you, Marchioness.”
“Quelle mystère!” Félice laughed softly. “You will not tell me what that contingency must be, cher Sir Richard?”
“I shall come again,” he confided, “if they should arrest the man who climbed through the window to your room—who stole your jewels.”
“And why?” she asked. “Why?”
He tapped a cigarette upon the table and lit it.
“All that could be known of this terrible affair, dear wife of my friend,” he said, “notwithstanding your very clear evidence this morning at the coroner’s inquest, is not yet known.”
“Par exemple?”
He shook his head.
“In this world,” he told her, “speech is perhaps one of the most dangerous and poisonous things with which we have to contend. One talks too much all the time. One speaks when silence is often better, but, nevertheless, if the time should come when the man who climbed his ladder to your room and stole your jewels should be found and put on his trial for murder, then I may again seek your hospitality.”
“But I must ask you again why?” she persisted.
He flicked the ash from his cigarette. There was nothing menacing about his tone. His expression was sincere and entirely kindly.
“A few questions—a word here or there. As things are, let me offer you, dear people, the advice at which I have hinted. It is a mistake to know too much, to surmise too much, to speak too much. I myself could have given evidence this afternoon which would have disturbed our friend the coroner, which would have set my friend in the corner thinking, and which would certainly have upset the jury-men…. It was a very just verdict—and my car, I see, waits.”
Félice gave both her hands to her departing visitor. The expression in her eyes was very wonderful, but behind it all there was the reflection of some hidden fear lurking in her heart. His host walked with him to the front door.
“I say, old chap,” he remonstrated, “aren’t you being a little mysterious?”
“I hope not,” Sir Richard answered thoughtfully. “I don’t mean to be. On the other hand there are certain things I don’t want to say outright. You see, I have been in rather a difficult position down here. I am a criminal lawyer, often employed by the Government, and I believe I can truthfully say that I have all the instincts of the born detective. There are things which have occurred to me, little matters which have come under my notice in connection with De Besset’s death, which, in the interests of the law, I am half inclined to think should be investigated. But then I am a man as well as a lawyer. Perhaps in the interests of justice they should remain unknown. We cannot really tell. All that we do know is that De Besset had the reputation of shooting like a madman, and we were all terrified at the idea of being placed next to him; he smoked French cigarettes with your ‘70 port, poured your fine champagne into his coffee, and looked often at your wife with the expression in his eyes which men of the Latin countries seem to have cultivated and which always makes an Anglo-Saxon want to knock them down. Apart from all these minor sins, neither I nor any one else liked him. Therefore, perhaps all is for the best. If you need me at any time, Andrew, you know where to find me. Look me up anyhow if you come to town.”
The car drove off, and Glenlitten remained upon the broad, curved steps, the affable, farewell-bidding host.
“If I need him?” he repeated to himself, as he made his way back to the hall. “The fellow’s got a bee in his bonnet.”
Félice and her husband wandered on to the terrace after they had lighted their cigarettes, crossed the avenue, and passed into the wood. Andrew sent back for a gun and tried to stalk a rabbit. Félice walked by his side in rapt and dreamy silence. Somewhere in a corner of the walled kitchen garden a huge bonfire had been started, and the aromatic perfume of burning wood and weeds floated to their nostrils with the falling dusk—a perfume somehow reminiscent of the change of seasons, the first reminder of the coming winter. Up in the trees an owl hooted, late homecoming pigeons—more exciting than rabbits—came drifting past, too high, alas, for a shot.
“It is very peaceful here,” Félice murmured, with a little tug at her husband’s arm. “I love your beautiful home, Andrew. Sometimes I wonder what I have done to deserve such happiness.”
He stooped down and kissed her. A rabbit hopped across the path without undue haste.
“Are you really happy then?” he whispered. “You do not regret France?”
“Never,” she answered passionately. “This is the life I adore, and you are the man.”
“I am ten years older than you,” he reminded her, a little sadly, as they turned up one of the side avenues which led homeward.
“In knowledge and wisdom, and all the dear things of life,” she agreed. “Otherwise, no. There we are both the same, Andrew. I have twenty years, and you thirty, but you have the great strength. You see with large eyes. You have those noble things in your heart. I sometimes fear that I am weak, that I am not worthy—now more than ever I am afraid.”
“Why now more than ever?” he asked.
They walked on in silence. The dry twigs broke under their feet, rabbits scurried to and fro in the bracken, unheeded. A grey owl floated over their heads with a melancholy cry, pigeons swooped down within easy gun-fire, unnoticed.
“Because you see,” she explained, “I feel that I am the cause of so much trouble in your great home. It is for my sake you asked Raoul de Besset here? and your jewels—your beautiful diamond necklace, which so many of your womenkind have worn—it is through my carelessness that it is lost.”
He slipped the cartridges from his gun, stooped down, and gathered her into his arms.
“My little sweetheart,” he exclaimed, “all the jewels of Glenlitten are yours for the losing or keeping! All that I need in life is your heart.”
“You will always feel like that?” she begged, with a sudden passionate choke in her voice.
“Always,” he promised.
A wild strength seemed suddenly to possess her arms. She drew his face down to hers. Her eyes were ablaze.
“And I have always hated Englishmen!” she cried. “I thought them jealous and suspicious. This man De Besset—Raoul de Besset—he was shot in my room. The whole world knows that now. You do not care. You have asked no single question. There are things which seem to need explanation. Your friend the great lawyer, he looks at me with those kind grey eyes, and he leaves because he has thoughts there, there, there,” she went on, tapping her forehead, “which for your sake he will keep secret, but you—you smile like a prince. You ask nothing.”
He laughed happily—a soft, strangely sweet laugh for a man of his strength and physique.
“Félice,” he whispered, “you are my life, my happiness. When I doubt you, the blood will turn sour in my veins, and life itself will pass. But that day will not come.”
Again the owl floated over their heads, and this time Félice drew away with a little shiver.
“Shoot it,” she cried, almost fiercely.
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