The Avenger Part 41

"But since I am here," he continued, "and since we have met again, I must ask you this. Your husband is trying to divorce you?"

"Yes!" she murmured.

"And why?"

"Because he is a brute," she answered quietly. "We have been separated for more than a year. I think that he wants to marry again."

"And you permit this?" he asked.

"No!" she answered, "I contest it. Up to now, the courts have been in my favour."

"Up to now! They must always be in your favour!" he declared vehemently.

"What can they say against a saint like you?"

She smiled up at him tenderly, a little wistfully.

"They would say a good deal," she whispered, "if they could see you here now."

He drew abruptly away.

"I am a thoughtless brute," he declared. "It was for that that I decided to remain dead. I will go away at once."

Her fingers closed over his. She drew him a little nearer with glad recklessness.

"You shall not," she murmured. "It is worth a little risk, this."

Wrayson touched Louise on the arm and they turned away. He found her a seat in a quiet corner of the fruit garden, where a tall row of hollyhocks shielded them from observation. She was very white, and in a semi-hysterical state.

"I can't believe," she said, "that that is really Duncan--Duncan himself.

It is too wonderful!"

"There is no doubt about it being your brother," he answered. "What I don't quite understand is why he has kept away so long."

"It is because of her," she answered. "If they had been on the same continent, I believe that nothing could have kept them apart!"

"And now?" he asked.

"I cannot tell," she answered, "I, nor any one else! G.o.d made them for one another, I am very sure!"

He took her hand and held it tightly in his.

"And you for me, dearest," he whispered. "Shall I tell you why I am sure of it?"

She leaned back with half-closed eyes. Endurance has its limits, and the mesmeric influence of the drowsy summer day was in her veins.

"If you like," she murmured, simply....

And only a few yards away, the man from the dead and the woman who had loved him seemed to have drifted into a summer day-dream. The strangeness of this thing held them both--ordinary intercourse seemed impossible.

What they spoke about they scarcely knew! There were days, golden days to be whispered about and lived again; treasured minutes to be recalled, looks and words remembered. Of the future, of the actual present, save of their two selves, they scarcely spoke. It was an hour s.n.a.t.c.hed from Paradise for her! She would not let it go lightly. She would not suffer even a cloud to pa.s.s across it!

In time, Monsieur Jules found himself constrained to announce that _dejeuner_ was served. He found it useless to try to attract the attention of either Madame de Melbain or Duncan, so he went in search of Wrayson.

"Monsieur is served," he announced, looking blandly upwards at a pa.s.sing cloud. "There remains the wine only."

"Chablis of the best, and ice, and mineral water," Wrayson ordered.

"Come, Louise."

She sighed a little as she rose and followed him along the narrow path, where the rose-bushes brushed against her skirt, and the air was fragrant with lavender. It had been an interlude only, after all, though the man whose hand she still held would never have admitted it. But--he did not know! She prayed to Heaven that he never might.

Luncheon, after all, with a waiter within hearing, and Monsieur Jules hovering round, banished in a great measure the curious sense of unreality from which none of them were wholly free. And when coffee came, Madame leaned a little towards Duncan, and with her hand upon his arm whispered a question.

"My letters, Duncan! What became of them?"

He sighed.

"I was a little rash, perhaps," he said, "but--they were all I had left.

They were with me at Colenso, in an envelope, sealed and addressed, to be burnt unopened. When I was. .h.i.t, I got a Red Cross man to cut them out of my coat and destroy them."

Madame de Melbain looked at him for a moment, and her eyes were soft with unshed tears. Then she turned away, though her hand still rested upon his.

"Duncan," she said quietly, "don't think that I mind. You did all that you could, and indeed I would rather that you cared so much. But the letters were not destroyed."

For a moment he failed to realize the import of her words.

"Not destroyed?" he repeated, a little vaguely.

"No!" she answered. "They came into the hands of some one in London.

Terrible things have happened in connexion with them. Duncan, if you will listen to me quietly, I will tell you about it. Sit down, dear."

She saw the gathering storm. The man's face was black with anger. He was still a little dazed however.

"You mean--that the man to whom I trusted them--"

"He kept them for his own purpose," she said softly.

"Don't look like that, Duncan. He has paid his debt. He is dead!"

"And the letters?"

"We do not know. My husband's advisers are trying to get possession of them. That is why the courts have not yet p.r.o.nounced their judgment."

He had risen to his feet, but she drew him gently down again.

"Remember, Duncan, that the man is dead! Be calm, and I will tell you all about it."

He looked at her wonderingly.

"You are not angry with me?"