'But he——'
'No. Yes, he did, but we are not engaged.'
'You mean to say that you refused him?'
'Yes.'
Dick thought it over, tapping the while on a tree-trunk like a woodpecker.
'Why?' he asked at last.
Mary shrugged her shoulders, but said nothing.
'You seemed exceedingly friendly,' said Dick, 'when you returned here together.'
'I suppose,' Mary said bitterly, 'that the proper thing in the circumstances would have been to wound his feelings unnecessarily as much as possible?'
'Forgive me, dear,' Dick said kindly; 'of course I misunderstood—but this will be a blow to our father.'
Mary looked troubled.
'I could not marry him, you know, Dick,' she faltered.
'Certainly not,' Dick said, 'if you don't care sufficiently for him; and yet he seems a man that a girl might care for.'
'Oh, he is,' Mary exclaimed. 'He was so manly and kind that I wanted to be nice to him.'
'You have evidently made up your mind, sister mine,' Dick said, 'to die a spinster.'
'Yes,' said Mary, with a white face.
Suddenly Dick took both her hands, and looked her in the face.
'Do you care for any other person, Mary?' he asked sharply.
Mary shook her head, but she did not return her brother's gaze. Her hands were trembling. She tried to pull them from him, but he held her firmly until she looked at him. Then she drew up her head proudly. Her hands ceased to shake. She had become marble again.
Dick was not deceived. He dropped her hands, and leant despondently against a tree.
'Angus——' he began.
'You must not,' Mary cried; and he stopped abruptly.
'It is worse than I could have feared,' Dick said.
'No, it is not,' said Mary quickly. 'It is nothing. I don't know what you mean.'
'It was my fault bringing you together. I should have been more——'
'No, it was not. I met him before. Whom are you speaking about?'
'Think of our father, Mary.'
'Oh, I have!'
'He is not like you. How could he dare——'
'Dick, don't.'
Will bounced towards them with a hop, step, and jump, and Mrs. Meredith was signalling that she wanted both.
'Never speak of this again,' Mary said in a low voice to Dick as they walked toward the others.
'I hope I shall never feel forced to do so,' Dick replied.
'You will not,' Mary said, in her haste. 'But, Dick,' she added anxiously, 'surely the others did not think what you thought? It would be so unpleasant for Sir Clement.'
'Well, I can't say,' Dick answered.
'At all events, he did not?'
'Who is he?'
'Oh, Dick, I mean Mr. Angus?'
Dick bit his lip, and would have replied angrily; but perhaps he loved this sister of his more than any other person in the world.
'Angus, I suppose, noticed nothing,' he answered, in order to save Mary pain, 'except that you and Dowton seemed very good friends.'
Dick knew that this was untrue. He did not remember then that the good-natured lies live for ever like the others.
Evening came on before they returned to the river, and Sunbury, now blazing with fireworks, was shooting flaming arrows at the sky. The sweep of water at the village was one broad bridge of boats, lighted by torches and Chinese lanterns of every hue. Stars broke overhead, and fell in showers. It was only possible to creep ahead by pulling in the oars and holding on to the stream of craft of all kinds that moved along by inches. Rob, who was punting Dick and Mary, had to lay down his pole and adopt the same tactics, but boat and punt were driven apart, and soon tangled hopelessly in different knots.
'It is nearly eight o'clock,' Dick said, after he had given up looking for the rest of the party. 'You must not lose your train, Angus.'
'I thought you were to stay overnight, Mr. Angus,' Mary said.
Possibly she meant that had she known he had to return to London, she would have begun to treat him better earlier in the day, but Rob thought she only wanted to be polite for the last time.
'I have to be at the Wire,' he replied, 'before ten.'
Mary, who had not much patience with business, and fancied that it could always be deferred until next day if one wanted to defer it very much, said, 'Oh!' and then asked, 'Is there not a train that would suit from Sunbury?'
Rob, blinder now than ever, thought that she wanted to get rid of him.
'If I could catch the 8.15 here,' he said, 'I would reach Waterloo before half-past nine.'
'What do you think?' asked Dick. 'There is no time to lose.'
Rob waited for Mary to speak, but she said nothing.
'I had better try it,' he said.
With difficulty the punt was brought near a landing-stage, and Rob jumped out.
'Good-bye,' he said to Mary.
'Good-night,' she replied. Her mouth was quivering, but how could he know?
'Wait a moment,' Dick exclaimed. 'We might see him off, Mary?' Mary hesitated.
'The others might wonder what had become of us,' she said.
'Oh, we need not attempt to look for them in this maze,' her brother answered. 'We shall only meet them again at the Tawny Owl.'
The punt was left in charge of a boatman, and the three set off silently for the station, Mary walking between the two men. They might have been soldiers guarding a deserter.
What were Mary's feelings? She did not fully realise as yet that Rob thought she was engaged to Dowton. She fancied that he was sulky because a circumstance of which he knew nothing made her wish to treat Sir Clement with more than usual consideration; and now she thought that Rob, having brought it on himself, deserved to remain miserable until he saw that it was entirely his own fault. But she only wanted to be cruel to him now to forgive him for it afterwards.
Rob had ceased to ask himself if it was possible that she had not promised to be Dowton's wife. His anger had passed away. Her tender heart, he thought, made her wish to be good to him—for the last time.
As for Dick, he read the thoughts of both, and inwardly called himself a villain for not reading them out aloud. Yet by his merely remaining silent these two lovers would probably never meet again, and was not that what would be best for Mary?
Rob leant out of the carriage window to say good-bye, and Dick, ill at ease, turned his back on the train. It had been a hard day for Mary, and, as Rob pressed her hand warmly, a film came over her eyes. Rob saw it, and still he thought that she was only sorry for him. There are far better and nobler things than loving a woman and getting her, but Rob wanted Mary to know, by the last look he gave her, that so long as it meant her happiness his misery was only an unusual form of joy.
Chapter XV.
Colonel Abinger Takes Command
One misty morning, about three weeks after the picnic,