The Diamond Coterie Part 35

"Capital, Conny! we can make that work I know; your wit is worth more than my wisdom. For three days then, I am your watch dog."

"And your friend's guardian."

"Precisely. I begin to swell with importance. But seriously, Conny, let me have your confidence at the earliest moment. For, whoever does battle with Heath, will find me arrayed against him, and--it's difficult fighting in the dark."

"You shall know all, as soon as possible, Ray, and now--"

"And now," repeated he, rising with alacrity. "Heath's horse stands outside, and Heath himself waits my return; so, lest he should grow impatient, and go where mischief awaits him, I will go now and begin my task."

"Thank you, Ray, I know I can depend upon you. All this seems like a scene out of a melodrama, but it's wretchedly real for all that. Ray, I am just waking up to a knowledge of how much plotting and wickedness there is in this world; even in our little world of W----."

"We all wake to that knowledge," he said, a spasm of pain crossing his face. "You know how the lesson came to me, Conny."

"Yes, poor Ray! and I know that another suffers, even more than you, because of it."

"And the cause of it all is another mystery. But no more of this; unless something noteworthy occurs, you will not see me again for three days."

She gave him her hand, and a look of grat.i.tude, and trust; and, in a few moments more, the red roan steed was speeding back townward.

Francis Lamotte had found the doctor dull company; and, as he scarcely ever remained in the office to read now-a-days, he had taken himself and his dissatisfaction elsewhere, long before Ray returned to the office ready to begin his new _role_.

He found the doctor sitting in a despondent att.i.tude, almost where he had left him, holding in his hand a crumpled letter.

Without appearing to notice his abstraction, Ray came at once to the point at issue.

"Heath," he said, "your red roan is returned to you, and the loan of him encourages me to ask another favor."

"Well!" said the doctor, without looking up or changing his att.i.tude.

"The fact is," said Ray, with splendid ingenuousness, "I am a sort of outcast. My quarters are undergoing that misery they call 'repairs,'

and--the truth is, Heath, I want you to tender me your hospitality, for, say two or three days. I can't go to a public place; I don't feel like facing the music, for I am a little sore yet, and I find that I am still an object for commiseration, and I do get low spirited in spite of myself. It's cheeky, my asking it, I know, and you'll find my constant society a terrible bore; but my heart is set on quartering with you, so don't say no, Heath."

Clifford Heath threw off his listlessness and looked up with his usual cheery smile.

"Why, Ray, you young dog," he cried, "you beseech me like a veritable tramp, just as if you were not as welcome as the sunshine; come along, you shall share my bed, and board, and--I'll be hanged if you shan't share the daily dose of abuse I have to take from my old housekeeper.

I'll make a special arrangement to that effect."

"Thanks, Heath," replied Ray, and then he turned to the window to hide the fire that burned in his cheeks, because of the deceit he was practicing upon this open-hearted friend. "But it's all for his benefit," he thought; "at least I hope so."

"Well!" said the doctor, moving uneasily in his chair; "I hope your mission prospered."

"Oh, yes," carelessly.

"You--found Miss Wardour well, I hope?"

"Quite well; only wanting my valuable a.s.sistance in a little scheme she has on foot, a sort of benefit affair." And Ray congratulated himself on the adaptability of his answer.

"Is it too late to drive, Heath?"

But the doctor made no answer to this question, nor did he seem to hear it. Rising, he walked to the window, looked down thoughtfully into the street for a moment, then, without turning, he said:

"Rumor says, that Miss Wardour will marry Lamotte."

"Yes."

"Lamotte just now made the same statement."

"Ah!" contemptuously, "it's like him to boast; but I'm afraid he tells the truth; Constance admitted as much to me to-day."

A long time Clifford Heath stood motionless and silent at the window; then turning as if spurred by some sudden thought, he threw the crumpled note, which all the time had been clasped in his hand, upon the table between them, saying:

"Here's a mystery, sir; read that and pa.s.s your opinion on it; as you are to become my guest, you should know what society you will find yourself in."

Ray eyed the letter with his head on one side.

"What is it?" he asked in a stage whisper.

"A note, a _billet doux_, a solemn warning; came under the door a little while ago, while I was off in a reverie; came by a spirit hand, maybe, for I never heard a sound, but there lay the letter waiting to be observed and perused." And the doctor laughed contemptuously, and turned away to prepare for his drive. But Ray's face lengthened perceptibly, and he took up the note with sudden eagerness, and read:

DOCTOR HEATH:--Take the advice of a friend and leave W---- for a time; a plot is ripening against you, and your only safety lies in your absence, for your enemies are powerful and have woven a chain about you that will render you helpless, perhaps ruin you utterly.

TRUTH.

Lose no time, for the blow will soon fall.

The note was written in a cramped, reversed hand, and, after a hasty perusal, Ray bent his head and scanned the pen strokes closely, then he looked up with all the color gone from his face, and a strange gleam in his eyes.

"How--how do you say this came, Heath?"

"I didn't say, for I don't know, my lad. It made its first appearance lying just there," and the doctor pointed with his wisp broom, which he had been vigorously applying to a brown overcoat, at the spot just inside the door where he had first perceived the letter, and then resumed his occupation without observing the trouble in Ray's face.

"Sensational, isn't it? but I can't think of quitting W---- just as it begins to grow interesting."

"Then you take no stock in this warning?"

"Bah! why should I?"

"But if you should have secret foes?"

"Let them come on," quoted the doctor, theatrically; "bring along that precious doc.u.ment, Ray, and come along yourself."

Ray Vandyck, still looking troubled and anxious, arose, and, with lagging steps, followed his friend; as he noted with a new curiosity the tall, lithe, well knit figure striding on before him, the handsome, haughtily poised head, and the careless indifference of mien, he asked himself:

"What can it be, this mystery and danger that surrounds him, that has caused Constance Wardour to take such unprecedented measures to insure his safety, and has wrung from Sybil Lamotte this strangely worded, oddly and ineffectually disguised warning," for Ray, seeing not as the world sees, but with the eyes of love, had recognized in the strange scrawl the hand of the woman he had loved and lost.

"Heath _is_ in some peril," thought he, and then, with a rueful sigh, "Oh! I would risk dangers too to be watched over by two such women."