The Wicked Marquis Part 48

"Is it my fancy," she asked, "or have you something on your mind? The note which reached you contained no ill news, I hope?"

"I don't know," he answered, with unexpected candour. "I have a great deal on my mind."

"I am so sorry," she murmured.

They had reached the further end of the gallery now. She sank into the window seat and made room for him by her side. For a moment he looked out across the park. In the moonless night the trees were like little dark blurs, the country rose and fell like a turbulent sea. And very close at hand, ominously close at hand as it seemed to him, a bright light from Richard Vont's cottage was burning steadily.

"Let me ask you a question," he begged a little abruptly. "Supposing that you had given your word of honour, solemnly, in return for a vital service rendered, to commit a dishonourable action; what should you do?"

"Well, that is rather a dilemma, isn't it?" she acknowledged. "To tell you the truth, I can't quite reconcile the circ.u.mstances. I can't, for instance, conceive your promising to do a dishonourable thing."

"At the time," he explained, "it did not seem dishonourable. At the time it seemed just an act of justice. Then circ.u.mstances changed, new considerations intervened, and the whole situation was altered."

"Is it a monetary matter?" she enquired, "one in which money would make any difference, I mean?"

He shook his head.

"Money has nothing to do with it," he replied. "It is just a question whether one is justified in breaking a solemn oath, one's word of honour, because the action which it entails has become, owing to later circ.u.mstances, hideously repugnant."

"Why ask my advice?"

"I do not know. Anyhow, I desire it."

"I should go," she said thoughtfully, "to the person to whom I had bound myself, and I should explain the change in my feelings and in the circ.u.mstances. I should beg to be released from my word."

"And if they refused?"

"I don't see how you could possibly break your word of honour," she decided reluctantly. "It is not done, is it?"

He looked steadily down the gallery, through the darkened portion, to where the soft, overhead lights fell upon the two card tables. There was very little conversation. They could even hear the soft fall of the cards and Sylvia's musical laugh in the background. All the time Let.i.tia watched him. The strength of his face seemed only intensified by his angry indecision.

"You are right," he a.s.sented finally. "I must not."

"Perhaps," she suggested, "you can find some way of keeping it, and yet keeping it without that secondary dishonour you spoke of. Now I must really go and see that my guests are behaving properly."

She rose to her feet. Sylvia's laugh rang out again from the far corner of the gallery, where she and Grantham were seated, their heads very close together. Let.i.tia watched them for a moment tolerantly.

"I will recall my fianc to his duty," she declared, "and you can go and talk nonsense to Sylvia."

"Thank you," he answered, "I am afraid that I am not in the humour to talk nonsense with anybody."

She turned her head slightly and looked at him.

"Sylvia is such an admirer of yours," she said, "and she has such a delightful way of being light-hearted herself and affecting others in the same fashion. If I were a man--"

"Yes?"

"I should marry Sylvia."

"And if I," he declared, with a sudden flash in his eyes, "possessed that ridiculous family tree of Lord Charles Grantham's--"

"Well?"

"I should marry you."

She looked at him through half-closed eyes. There was a little smile on her lips which at first he thought insolent, but concerning which afterwards he permitted himself to speculate. He stopped short.

"Lady Let.i.tia," he pleaded, "there is a door there which leads into the hall. You don't expect manners of me, anyway, but could you accept my farewell and excuse me to the others? I have really a serious reason for wishing to leave--a reason connected with the note I received at dinner time."

"Of course," she answered, "but you are sure that you are well? There is nothing that we can do for you?"

He paused for a moment with his hand upon the fastening of the door.

"There is nothing anybody can do for me, Lady Let.i.tia," he said.

"Good-by!"

She stood for a moment, watching the door through which he had pa.s.sed with a puzzled frown upon her face. Then she continued her progress down the room. Arrived at the bridge table, she stooped for a moment to look over her aunt's score.

"Finished your flirtation, my dear?" the latter asked coolly.

Let.i.tia accepted the challenge.

"So effectually," she replied, "that the poor man has gone home. I am to present his excuses to every one."

The d.u.c.h.ess paused for a moment in the playing of her hand. Her brother, with unfailing tact, threw himself into the breach.

"I suppose," he said, "that we can scarcely realise the responsibilities which these kings of finance carry always upon their shoulders. They tell me that Mr. Thain has his telegrams and cables stopped in London by a secretary and telephoned here, just to save a few minutes. He receives sometimes as many as half a dozen messages during the night."

The d.u.c.h.ess continued to play her hand.

"After all," she remarked, "I fear that I shall not be able to ask Mr.

Thain to Scotland. One would feel the responsibility so much if he were to lose anything he valued, by coming."

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

Richard Vont, as though he had been sitting there listening for the raising of the latch, was on his feet before David could enter the sitting room.

"The Lord's day has come," he muttered, dragging him in. "It's been a weary while, but it's come."

David threw off his overcoat in silence, and the old man looked wonderingly at his clothes.

"You've been taking your dinner up with them--at the house?" he asked.

David nodded.