An Eye for an Eye Part 16

As, walking at her side, I looked into her handsome face there came upon me a feeling of mournful disappointment.

Had we met like this a week before and she had spoken so softly to me I should, I verily believe, have repeated my declaration of love. But the time had pa.s.sed, and all had changed. My gaze had been lost in the immensity of a pair of wondrous azure eyes. I, who tired before my time, world-weary, despondent and cynical, was angry and contemptuous at the success of my companions, had actually awakened to a new desire for life.

So I allowed this woman I had once loved to chatter on, listening to her light gossip, and now and then putting a question to her with a view to learning something of her connexion with that house of mystery. Still she told me nothing--absolutely nothing. Without apparent intention she evaded any direct question I put to her, and seemed br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with good spirits and merriment.

"It has been quite like old times to have a stroll and a chat with you, Frank," she declared, as we emerged at last upon the lawn, where tennis was still in progress. The sun was now declining, the shadows lengthening, and a refreshing wind was already beginning to stir the tops of the elms.

"Yes," I laughed. "Of our long walks around Harwell I have many pleasant recollections. Do you remember how secretly we used to meet, fearing the anger of your people; how sometimes I used to wait hours for you, and how we used to imagine that our love would last always?"

"Oh, yes," she answered. "I recollect, too, how I used to send you notes down by one of the stable lads, and pay him with sweets."

I laughed again.

"All that has gone by," I said. "In those days of our experience we believed that our mutual liking was actual love. Even if we now smile at our recollections, they were, nevertheless, the happiest hours of all our lives. Love is never so fervent and devoted as in early youth."

"Ah!" she answered in a serious tone. "You are quite right. I have never since those days known what it is to really love."

I glanced at her sharply. Her eyes were cast upon the ground in sudden melancholy.

Was that speech of hers a veiled declaration that she loved me still! I held my breath for an instant, then looking straight before me, saw, standing a few yards away, in conversation with Mrs. Blain, a female figure in a boating costume of cream flannel braided with coral pink.

"Look?" I exclaimed, glad to avoid responding. "You have another visitor, I think."

She glanced in the direction I indicated, then hastened forward to greet the new-comer.

The slim-waisted figure turned, and next second I recognised the strikingly handsome profile of Eva Glaslyn, the mysterious woman I secretly loved with such pa.s.sionate ardour and affection.

"Come, Frank, let me introduce you," Mary cried, after enthusiastically kissing her friend.

I stepped forward, and as I did so, she turned and fixed on me her large, blue laughing eyes. Not a look, not an expression of her pure countenance was altered.

As I gazed into those eyes I saw that they were as dear as the purest crystal, and that I could look through them straight into her very soul.

I bowed and grasped the tiny, refined hand she held forth to me--that soft hand which I had once before touched--when it was cold and lifeless.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

BEAUTY AT THE HELM.

Together we stood on the lawn near the river-bank gossiping, and as I looked into Eva's flawless face, whereon the expression had now become softened, I longed to tell her the most sacred secret of my heart. Had she, I wondered, recognised in me the man she encountered in St. James's Park when on that mysterious errand of hers? What could have been the nature of that errand? Whom did she go there to meet?

One fact was at that moment to me more curious than all others, namely, her friendship with Mrs. Blain, the woman who, according to the landlord, rented that house of mystery. By the exercise of care and discretion, I might, I told myself, learn something which would perhaps lead, if not to the solution of the enigma, then to some clue upon which the police might work. But to accomplish this I should be compelled to exercise the most extreme caution, for both mother and daughter were evidently acute to detect any attempt to gain their secret, while it seemed more than probable that Eva herself--if actually aware of the affair, which was, of course, not quite certain--had some motive in keeping all knowledge of it concealed.

Who, a hundred times I wondered, was the man who, after lingering opposite Buckingham Palace, had entered the house in Ebury Street?

Without doubt Eva had gone to the park to meet him, but it seemed that, growing impatient, or fearful of recognition by others, she had left before his arrival.

True, the police had watched the house wherein the man disappeared, but up to the present he had not been seen again. Boyd had told me, when I had seen him that very morning, that he had left by some exit at the rear, and that his entry there was only to throw any watcher off the scent.

It was evident that the man, whoever he was, had very ingeniously got clear away.

d.i.c.k, who was playing tennis, at last came forward to be introduced to my divinity, and presently whispered to me his great admiration for her.

I was about to tell him who she really was, but on reflection felt that I could act with greater discretion if the truth remained mine alone, together with the secret of my love for her. Therefore I held my peace, and he, in ignorance that she was the missing victim of that amazing tragedy, walked at her side along the water's edge, laughing merrily, and greatly enjoying her companionship.

Mrs. Blain invited us all to dine, but the Moberlys were compelled to decline, they having a party of friends at home. Therefore, we saw them oil amid many shouts, hand-wavings and peals of laughter, and when they had gone we sat again on the lawn, now brilliant in the golden blaze of sundown.

It still wanted an hour to dinner, therefore Mary suggested that we all four should go out on the water, a proposal accepted with mutual enthusiasm. As I was not an expert in punting, Mary and d.i.c.k pushed off in the punt, the former handling the long pole with a deftness acquired by constant practice, while, with Eva Glaslyn in the stern of a gig, I rolled up my sleeves and bent to the oars.

The sunset was one of those gorgeous combinations of crimson and gold which those who frequent the Thames know so well. Upstream the flood of crimson of the dying day caused the elms and willows to stand out black against the cloudless sky, while every ripple caused by the boat caught the sun-glow until the water seemed red as blood.

A great peace was there. Not a single boat was in sight, not a sound save the quiet lapping of the water against the bows and the slight dripping of the oars as I feathered them. We were rowing upstream, so that the return would be easier, while d.i.c.k and his companion had punted down towards Chertsey. For the first time I was now alone with her.

She was lovely.

She had settled herself lazily among the cushions, lying back at her ease and enjoying to the full the calm of the sunset hour, remarking now and then upon the beauty of the scene and the charm of summer days upstream. Her countenance was animated and perfect in feature, distinctly more beautiful than it had been on that well-remembered night when I had found her lying back cold and lifeless. How strange it all was, I thought, that I should actually be rowing her there, when only a few days before I had beheld her stiff and dead. Alone, with no one to overhear, I would have put a direct inquiry to her regarding the past, but I feared that such question, if put prematurely, might prevent the elucidation of the secret. To get at the truth I must act diplomatically, and exercise the greatest caution.

I sat facing her, bending with the oars, while she chatted on in a voice that sounded as music to my ears.

"I love the river," she said. "Last year we had a house-boat up beyond Boulter's, and it was delightful. There is really great fun in being boxed up in so small a s.p.a.ce, and one can also make one's place exceedingly artistic and comfortable at very small expense. We had a ripping time."

"It is curious," I remarked, "that most owners of house-boats go in for the same style of external decoration--rows of geraniums along the roof, and strings of Chinese lanterns--look at that one over there."

"Yes," she laughed, glancing in the direction I indicated. "I fear we were also sinners in that respect. It's so difficult to devise anything new." And she added, "Are you up the river much?"

"No," I responded, "not much, unfortunately. My profession keeps me in London, and I generally like to spend my three weeks' vacation on the Continent. I'm fond of getting a glance at other cities, and one travels so quickly that the thing is quite easy."

"There are always more girls than men up the river," she said. "I suppose it is because men are at business and girls have to kill time.

We live down at Hampton, not far from the river. It's a quiet, dead-alive sort of place, and if it were not for boating and punting it would be horribly dull."

"And in winter?"

"Oh, in winter we are always on the Riviera. We go to Cannes each December and stay till the end of April. Mother declares she could not live through an English winter."

This statement did not coincide with what the innkeeper's wife had told me, namely, that the Glaslyns were much pressed for money.

"I spent one season in Nice a few years ago," I said. "It is certainly charming, and I hope to go there again."

"But is not our own Thames, with all its natural picturesqueness, quite as beautiful in its way?" she asked, looking around. "I love it.

People who have been up the Rhine and the Rhone, the Moselle and the Loire, say that for picturesque scenery none of those great European rivers compare with ours."

"I believe that to be quite true," I answered. "Like yourself, I am extremely fond of boating and picnicking."

"We often have picnics," she said. "I'll get mother to invite you to the next--if you'll come."

"Certainly," I answered, much gratified. "I shall be only too delighted."

We were at that moment pa.s.sing two fine house-boats moored near one another, one of which my companion explained belonged to a well-known City stockbroker, and the other to a barrister of repute at the Chancery Bar. Both were gay with the usual geraniums and creepers, having inviting-looking deck-chairs on the roof and canaries in gilded cages hanging at the windows.

"Shall we go up the backwater?" she suddenly suggested. "It is more beautiful there than the main stream. We might get some lilies."

"Of course," I answered, and with a pull to the left turned the boat into the narrower stream branching out at the left, a stream that wound among fertile meadows yellow with b.u.t.tercups, and where long lines of willows trailed in the water.