The Secret of the Silver Car Part 15

Arthur Grenvil had taken the mastership of the North Cornwall Foxhounds and persuaded Trent to follow them. The American had added a couple of better-bred faster horses to his hack and now enjoyed the gallop after a fox as much as any hardened foxhunter of them all.

A fox was discovered almost immediately when the Trenewth covers were drawn and got well away making in a westerly direction for the Wadebridge road. Daphne and Trent made a pretense of following but soon drew apart from the rest. The music of hounds became fainter and they turned back to the moors.

"You might have told me," she said reproachfully.

"I didn't know," he answered, "I only realized when your father spoke that it was more or less a command."

"My father may be the lord-lieutenant of the county," she said, "but he has no power to send a man away if the man doesn't want to go."

"Can you think I want to go?" he demanded.

"I only know you are not going to stay."

She touched her horse lightly on the shoulder and put him to a canter.

Trent saw that she was heading for Rough Tor, one of the two mountains guarding the moorlands. Once or twice they had ridden to its rocky top and looked at the hamlets through whose chimneys the peat smoke rose, and those strange hut circles of a prehistoric people. The path along which she went was too narrow to permit him to ride by her side and he was forced to ride in silence for almost an hour.

When she dismounted at Rough Tor and he tethered the horses to a short wind shorn tree he could see she was not the same cheerful girl of yesterday.

"Why did you stay here so long?" she asked presently.

"Because I love you," he answered.

"Why do you go away?"

"Because I love you better than I knew."

She looked at him with a faint smile.

"That is very hard to understand, Tony."

It was the first time she had ever called him by the name her brother used. He took one of her gauntleted hands and kissed it.

"My dear," he said tenderly, "it is crucifixion for me."

She looked at him still with the little wistful smile on her face.

"And are you the only one to suffer?"

The knowledge that she cared as much as he did brought a look of misery to his face where only triumph should have reigned.

"Ada Barham told me about the girl in America," she continued. "Of course I imagined there would be a girl somewhere whom you cared for but I think you might have confided in me. Weren't we good friends enough for that?"

"There is no girl anywhere," he said. "I told Miss Barham that because I didn't want her to suspect it was you."

"Then why must you go away?" There was almost a wail in her voice.

"I have told you," he answered, trying desperately to keep his voice even, "I must go because I love you better than anything else in life."

She laughed a little bitterly.

"And so that is how men behave when they are in love!"

"When a man really loves a girl he should think first of her happiness."

She looked at him simply. There was none of the false shame that lesser natures might feel in avowing love.

"Don't you understand," she said in a low voice, "that you are my happiness?"

For a moment the devil tempted him even as the Son of Man had been tempted upon a mountain top. Why should he think of the future when today was so sweet? In the big Lion car in the castle garage he could make Southampton in time enough for the White Star liner which went out tomorrow. They could be married on board or at any rate directly they reached America. Then with the money he had saved they could be happy.

She was the woman he wanted, the woman he worshipped.

Then the other side of the picture presented itself. He saw them married on board and radiantly happy as they approached the land that was to be her home. Then the hard-faced men who showed official badges and informed him he was wanted for a series of crimes which would keep him away from wife and home and liberty until she was an old woman. One ending to the trip was just as likely as the other. Situated as he was he could never be certain of safety. This period in quiet Cornwall was the first time since he had taken to crime that he had become almost careless. He would break Daphne's heart for she was of the kind who would never love another man. And the disgrace he would bring upon this kindly family of hers which had suffered enough already. The screeching headlines in the press of the earl's daughter who married a crook. It was not to be thought of.

"Dear," he said softly, "if there were any obstacles which could be removed by human effort I should not say goodbye like this. Please don't ask me to tell you anything more."

"You said at Dereham that you felt you could sell your soul for a past.

Is that it?"

"That is the irrevocable thing," he told her.

"Pasts can be lived down," she whispered.

"Not mine," he said dismally. "Daphne I have not been here all this time without knowing you and the sort of people from whom you spring. It is because of your tradition of honor that you felt Arthur's misfortunes so much. I can bring upon you and yours a greater disgrace than he could."

"I won't believe it," she cried.

"I don't want you to," he said gratefully. "I remember the thing said about your family, 'the Grenvils for Loyalty' and I love you for it, but Lady Polruan was right when she called me an unknown adventurer from America. The other countrymen of mine you meet here, like Conington Warren for instance, have their place at home. I haven't. I am without the pale. They don't know me and I can't know them. There is that great gulf fixed which you can never understand. I want to go away leaving you still my friend. If you ask me questions about myself and I answer them truly I may have to carry away with me the picture of your scorn. Be kind, Daphne and don't ask any more."

"I should never scorn you," she cried.

He put his arms about her and kissed her.

"My dear," he whispered, "my sweet, believe always that there is something G.o.d himself could not alter or I would never give you up like this."

"It is very hard," she said presently, "to have found love and then to know it must only be a little dream that pa.s.ses."

"It is my just punishment," he answered.

"When do you go?"

"Tomorrow."

She put her arms about his neck and looked him full in the eyes.

"Darling," she said, "I shall never love anybody but you. Girls always say that, I know, but I have always been a little afraid of love and its exactions and the sorrow it brings. You see I was right in being afraid for directly I find you I must lose you." She leaned forward, one elbow on her knee, and looked at the countryside spread out at her feet. "I shall probably live here to be an old woman and look after other old women and see they have tea and warm wraps for the bad weather, and give the old men tobacco. That's all I look forward to. Tony, Tony, why is it one can't die on the day when one is killed?"

He sat in silence. Bitterly as he regretted his past which had risen to prevent happiness, he regretted his staying here in Cornwall even more.

If he alone had suffered it were well enough, part indeed of the punishment he merited. But to have dragged this girl into it and to have made her love a man who could never marry her was the blackest of all.

Perhaps she suspected it for she turned to him and put her hand on his.