The Missioner Part 57

He laughed.

"Don't ever brood over grisly impossibilities," he said. "The man never breathed who could have kept you from me. Across the hills home, or are your shoes too thin?"

He swung open the gate, and they pa.s.sed through, only to descend the other side, along the broad green walk strewn with grey rocks and bordered with gorse bushes, aglow with yellow blossom. They skirted the fir plantation, received the respectful greetings of Mrs. Green at the gamekeeper's cottage, and, crossing the lower range of hills, approached the house by the back avenue. And Wilhelmina laughed softly as they pa.s.sed along the green lane, for her thoughts travelled back to one wild night when, with upraised skirts and flying, trembling footsteps, she had sped along into a new world. She clung to her husband's arm.

"I came this way, dear, when I set out that night--to kiss you."

He stooped down and kissed her full on the lips.

"A nice state you flung me into," he remarked.

"It was rather an exciting evening," she said demurely.

They walked straight into the morning-room, which was indiscreet, and Wilhelmina screamed.

"Peggy," she cried, "Peggy, you bad girl!"

The two women went off together, of course, to talk about it, and Deyes and Macheson, like Englishmen all the world over, muttered something barely comprehensible, and then looked at one another awkwardly.

"Care for a game of billiards?" Macheson suggested.

"Right oh!" Deyes answered, in immense relief.

THE END