The French windows of the diningroom were open, her father was wearing his coat and on his arm she saw by the reflected starlight from outside he carried a shotgun.
“Nothing,” he said. “The old man hasn’t come tonight.”
She nodded.
“Somehow I didn’t think he would,” she said.
“I don’t see how I can shoot him without making a fuss.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Jean lightly. “Aren’t the police well aware that an elderly gentleman has threatened my life, and would it be remarkable if seeing an ancient man prowl about this house you shot him on sight?”
She bit her lips thoughtfully.
“Yes, I think you can go to bed,” she said. “He will not be here tonight. Tomorrow night, yes.”
She went up to her room, said her prayers and went to bed and was asleep immediately.
Lydia had forgotten about Jean’s story until she saw her writing industriously at a small table which had been placed on the lawn. It was February, but the wind and the sun were warm and Lydia thought she had never seen a more beautiful picture than the girl presented sitting there in a garden spangled with gay flowers, heavy with the scent of February roses, a dainty figure of a girl, almost ethereal in her loveliness.
“Am I interrupting you?”
“Not a bit,” said Jean, putting down her pen and rubbing her wrist. “Isn’t it annoying. I’ve got to quite an exciting part, and my wrist is giving me hell.”
She used the word so naturally that Lydia forgot to be shocked.
“Can I do anything for you?”
Jean shook her head.
“I don’t exactly see what you can do,” she said, “unless you could — but, no, I would not ask you to do that!”
“What is it?” asked Lydia.
Jean puckered her brows in thought.
“I suppose you could do it,” she said, “but I’d hate to ask you. You see, dear, I’ve got a chapter to finish and it really ought to go off to London to-day. I am very keen on getting an opinion from a literary friend of mine — but, no, I won’t ask you.”
“What is it?” smiled Lydia. “I’m sure you’re not going to ask the impossible.”
“The thought occurred to me that perhaps you might write as I dictated. It would only be two or three pages,” said the girl apologetically. “I’m so full of the story at this moment that it would be a shame if I allowed the divine fire of inspiration — that’s the term, isn’t it — to go out.”
“Of course I’ll do it,” said Lydia. “I can’t write shorthand, but that doesn’t matter, does it?”
“No, longhand will be quick enough for me. My thoughts aren’t so fast,” said the girl.
“What is it all about?”
“It is about a girl,” said Jean, “who has stolen a lot of money—”
“How thrilling!” smiled Lydia.
“And she’s got away to America. She is living a very full and joyous life, but the thought of her sin is haunting her and she decides to disappear and let people think she has drowned herself. She is really going into a convent. I’ve got to the point where she is saying farewell to her friend. Do you feel capable of being harrowed?”
“I never felt fitter for the job in my life,” said Lydia, and sitting down in the chair the girl had vacated, she took up the pencil which the other had left.
Jean strolled up and down the lawn in an agony of mental composition and presently she came back and began slowly to dictate.
Word by word Lydia wrote down the thrilling story of the girl’s remorse, and presently came to the moment when the heroine was inditing a letter to her friend.
“Take a fresh page,” said Jean, as Lydia paused halfway down one sheet. “I shall want to write something in there myself when my hand gets better. Now begin:
“MY DEAR FRIEND.”
Lydia wrote down the words and slowly the girl dictated.
“I do not know how I can write you this letter. I intended to tell you when I saw you the other day how miserable I was. Your suspicion hurt me less than your ignorance of the one vital event in my life which has now made living a burden. My money has brought no joy to me. I have met a man I love, but with whom I know a union is impossible. We are determined to die together — farewell—”
“You said she was going away,” interrupted Lydia.
“I know,” Jean nodded. “Only she wants to give the impression—”
“I see, I see,” said Lydia. “Go on.”
“Forgive me for the act I am committing, which you may think is the act of a coward, and try to think as well of me as you possibly can. Your friend—”
“I don’t know whether to make her sign her name or put her initials,” said Jean, pursing her lips.
“What is her name?”
“Laura Martin. Just put the initials L.M.”
“They’re mine also,” smiled Lydia. “What else?”
“I don’t think I’ll do any more,” said Jean. “I’m not a good dictator, am I? Though you’re a wonderful amanuensis.”
She collected the papers tidily, put them in a little portfolio and tucked them under her arm.
“Let us gamble the afternoon away,” said Jean. “I want distraction.”
“But your story? Haven’t you to send it off?”
“I’m going to wrestle with it in secret, even if it breaks my wrist,” said Jean brightly.
She took the portfolio up to her room, locked the door and sorted over the pages. The page which held the farewell letter she put carefully aside. The remainder, including all that part of the story she had written on the previous night, she made into a bundle, and when Lydia had gone off with Marcus Stepney to swim, she carried the paper to a remote corner of the grounds and burnt it sheet by sheet. Again she examined the “letter,” folded it and locked it in a drawer.
Lydia, returning from her swim, was met by Jean halfway up the hill.
“By the way, my dear, I wish you would give me Jack Glover’s London address,” she said as they went into the house. “Write it here. Here is a pencil.” She pulled out an envelope from a stationery rack and Lydia, in all innocence, wrote as she requested.
The envelope Jean carried upstairs, put into it the letter signed “L. M.,” and sealed it down. Lydia Meredith was nearer to death at that moment than she had been on the afternoon when Mordon the chauffeur brought his big Fiat on to the pavement of Berkeley Street.
Chapter XXIX
It was in the evening of the next day that Lydia received a wire from Jack Glover. It was addressed from London and announced his arrival.
“Doesn’t it make you feel nice, Lydia,” said Jean, when she saw the telegram, “to have a man in London looking after your interests — a sort of guardian angel — and another guardian angel prowling round your demesne at Cap Martin?”
“You