they should sink and someone row in to see what had happened. He
thought, in fact, that the Herr Lieutenant knew the cave.
She must escape. Gheena thought she felt the boat sinking. She grew
suddenly cunning. With a quick stagger she caught at the impressionable
lieutenant and muttered, "Air! air! air!"
"A breath of air--all right," whispered Gheena, reeling.
It was the lieutenant who persuaded them to let her be taken on deck for
a moment. He would see to her not screaming. Gheena was helped up very
tenderly, and left for a minute to herself, gripping the rail.
"I've English friends; I'll look after you," the lieutenant whispered,
and went for brandy. The time was enough to allow her to slip her arms
out of the coat and unfasten her skirt; she had knickerbockers
underneath.
When the perturbed Germans grunted gruffly and discussed their
difficulty, Gheena sprang.
She dived very prettily to the accompaniment of muffled bad language,
and as she came up, heard hoarse whispers concerning immediate death if
she did not return.
The threats were nothing, but the sound of a splash made the girl
shudder. They dared not show a light or fire a shot, but a strong
swimmer would catch her easily. She dived again and swam under water
until her bursting lungs seemed to crack, then shot up, treading water,
to see the long whale still close to her and hear a man swimming, but
not in her direction. Down again and again, until she felt too far away
to be caught. Then lightly she struck out for land, and just as she did
a shrill whistle sounded from the shore.
But cold, fright and those underwater swims had tired Gheena out. She
swam less and less vigorously, swam until her arms seemed lead and every
stroke brought a panting, wheezing breath. Then for the first time
Gheena cried out, a feeble cry for help as her lips tasted salt and she
nearly sank. It was answered by a splash of oars and a boat shooting
out close to her.
The face which she had dreaded to see was outlined for a moment by the
flash of an electric torch. Gheena felt warm hands hurriedly pull her
into the boat, and as she crouched, completely exhausted, Basil
Stafford's voice said "I told you not to" in tones of annoyed
remonstrance.
Some outer covering was wrapped round Gheena, whose teeth had begun to
chatter. Her resentment at the lack of sympathy due to her blended with
a dull sorrow which was stronger than the resentment.
Looking up, Miss Freyne chattered out that she had been nearly drowned,
and wished it had been completely.
"If you will go out alone--" Stafford's oars were making no sound in
the water. "And your boat?"
"That's somewhere near it. You're not--going to take me out again to
it?" said Gheena excitedly. "I won't go! I won't go to Germany!" And
she sat up. "I must tell ... they're waiting for the oil. I must tell!
Oh, why--why did you?" said Miss Freyne, breaking down into unrestrained
sobs. "Oh, why is it you, and why did you?"
She stopped sobbing, because it is difficult to cry comfortably when
someone grips your shoulders and actually shakes you. Gheena knew that
a face which she felt sure was an angry one was close to hers, and a
hoarse whisper was demanding information. She gave it brokenly; she sat
back with a gasp as the noiseless oars shot the boat through the water,
and she could hear Stafford muttering to himself excitedly.
"Don't cry out, do you hear?" he whispered. "Not a sound, or I'll..."
Miss Freyne snapped out "Shoot me, I suppose," with rancorous dignity
and as clearly as chattering teeth would allow.
"To come here ... to eat our food ... with--with us ... and give oil to
that Father Christmas!" were the indistinct words which reached Basil
Stafford, who was breathing heavily. The boat bumped rather sharply
against the shore.
"Don't speak," said Stafford grimly, "or it's Germany for you. This
way.... Don't you dare to speak."
The path in the dark might have been anywhere. Waiting for the first
opportunity to slip away, Gheena was propelled along it. She heard
voices, a door opened, and next minute she was in a big room, with
shutters shut closely and a small fire burning in the grate.
Then Gheena, recovering, demanded liberty, for it was the drawing-room
at Gurtnamurragh, and these traitors were using it to hide in her house.
Stafford's hands fell heavily on her shoulders; his eyes were very sad,
but determined.
"It is all your own fault, and you will stay here until I come for you,"
he said coldly. "You can't get out, I'm going to nail the shutters.
There are blankets in the corner and I'll stoke up the fire. Perhaps
the blanket first."
Gheena put one on hastily, conscious of her costume.
The fury of Gheena's wrath left him unmoved. To be left there alone
while the submarine was fed, to be treated in this fashion! She said
several things about it all.
"You are, of course, quite sure that I was going out to her?" said
Stafford, as he drove big nails home.
"I was afraid. I went alone because I was half sure." Gheena checked
herself. "I found out your cave days ago ... and I've watched." She
began to cry again.
He came close to her. Something lit up his eyes.
"You came out alone--because you were sure you would find me. That was
why you went alone; and having found me, you must tell--you would have
told--or would you?"
"England first," said Gheena, her voice mixing pride and broken
dreariness. "But..."
"Then you won't!" he snapped out quite cheerfully, banging the door.
But he came back with water for the kettle, and pointed out that there
was tea in the basket near the fire.
Then he left again. Gheena heard the muffled voices and silence fell.
She was far too angry to be frightened.
Wrapping herself as thoroughly as possible in a blanket, she put the
kettle on, piled up the fire and stamped wrathfully.
The events of the night now felt to her as though she had been through
an evil dream which could not be real--a submarine close in--waiting for
petrol--and all their suspicions realized. Basil Stafford was that vile
but necessary thing, a spy.
"As I actually met him going out to it," said Gheena wearily--"actually
met him--there is no mistake now."
Gheena did not cry out. Patriotism fought with something which for a
time worsted it completely. Then, rousing herself, she cooed dolefully,
listening to the echo of the cry ringing through the empty house.
Inspiration came to her. The iron fastenings of the old shutters, if
the wood could be burnt round them, might be wrenched free. Gheena
seized a small piece of broken iron paling which someone had used as a
poker and stuck it into the glowing heat.
In a very short time she had burnt quite a good sized hole, and the room
was acrid with the smell of charred wood. Someone had left a candle on
the table. Gheena lighted it to peer at her work. Having seen with
dismay that it would take another half-hour before she could even hope
to move the bar, Gheena swung round to see Stafford's face thrust into
the room.
"Lights!" he said bitterly. "I might have known I could not trust you."
Gheena repeated the word "trust" rather blankly, and gathered her
blanket round her.
"Lights--here," he said again. "Of course, nothing may happen, but
that's not your fault, is it?" He seized the candle.
The door banged. This language from a detected criminal had bereft
Gheena of speech.
She put the poker back slowly, to start in real fear, for, as if
conjured up by the speck of light, voices sounded, rang in anger, bare
and almost animal-like in its sound, and came the paff-paff of revolver
shots--then silence--then voices again.
"Safe and sound we has him, an' I near to be shot"--this was the voice
of Thomas Hassett, one of the coastguards--"safe and sound with the
stroke Ned Murphy drew on him."
Ned Murphy was the village sergeant.
Gheena adjusted her blanket and took out the poker absently, her face
very white.
They--had caught Basil Stafford--other people were on the watch. It was
all over now.
Paff-paff--more shots, the noise of running feet, a yell of someone in
pain.
"God save us! the arrum is hanging on ye, Misther Stafford," said a
sympathetic voice; "an' who could belt away for the docther as quick as
ye could yerself in ye're cyar?"
"They to come along to the wrong sphot, when ye were afther bringin' in
Miss Gheena, an' we only three. Will I run a taste ov rope around the
cross one, sir? He is lively."
"I tell you I---- Put it down, Mr. Stafford." Gheena heard the
Professor's voice, as in English, with no trace of German accent, he
entreated someone not to be an idiot. The door was flung open. Two
coastguards tenderly helped in a man who crumbled and tottered between
them. With a gasp of terror Gheena recognized the polite lieutenant,
and her first thought was that she wished he had not seen her in a
blanket.
Opening wider, the door admitted the Professor holding out something and
talking volubly, and Basil Stafford, his left arm hanging down and his
right gripping a revolver.
"And I--thought," said Stafford apologetically to the Professor, "that
it might be you."
The Professor grinned sweetly; he looked at the wounded officer.
"The sorra a thing wrong with him but a clip on the head, Miss," said
Mr. Dunne. "Let ye not be frightened. He'll be all right when he sees
clear again, an' the sthars is in."
Gheena now observed that Stafford had no coat on, and realized that she
was wearing it; she said so nervously.
He looked at her rather sternly.
"So you were determined," he said quietly, "and you found a way. It
brought them here, anyhow, before I got away."
Gheena let the poker fall slowly; it lay upon the end of her blanket,
singeing it--yes, it was her work.
Stafford soon went out, Murphy with him. The German lieutenant sat up
and groaned heavily. He stared a little wildly when Gheena proffered
him hot tea.
"Treachery," he said bitterly. "I was sent out to look round as the man
did not come, and we rowed to the signal--three flashes--a stop and
one."
Gheena looked thoughtfully at the guilty candle.
The Professor, breaking into fluent German, questioned rapidly, and the
lieutenant replied sulkily to the effect that he did not believe the "U"
boat could safely go down again. Then he fell into a species of stupor,
breathing heavily.
"Light schulls they have," said Murphy pleasantly. "Any of the little
sthrokes I dhrew on him wouldn't have med one of us miss a pint of
porther?"
Completely bewildered, forgetting even her blanket, Gheena breathed fast
and stared.
The old Professor, who appeared to have thrown off several years of
life, chuckled pleasantly.
Then he ceased chuckling to ask gravely if she could possibly keep a
secret, and make no mention of this night's adventuring to anyone save
Darby.
"It was your light which did it," he said. "And Stafford here
practically alone. You flashed it; I saw the gleam. He says he told
you not to."
"You'll imprison him--or----" Gheena's voice was unsteady.
The Professor said "With other prisoners of war," in an absent voice,
and thought Irish girls were impressionable.
"But a spy--a prisoner of war!" Gheena's head was down; she hid her
eyes.
Here the Professor remarked a little impatiently that the officer of an
enemy ship was not a spy.
"Stafford found out the eyrie a week ago"--the old Professor chuckled
again--"and, of course, I got to hear of it. He had men waiting in that
cave until, Murphy tells me, they came out whitened like celery in the
dark. And he got Guinane there easily last night. He told me all about
it outside just now. Guinane has given it all away."
"But--then, who----?" Gheena sat down on an upturned box; she felt she
needed support.
The Professor merely chuckled cryptically, making no reply.
"It's not Mr. Stafford?" said Gheena.
At this the old gentleman also sat down on another box which was not up
to his weight. Extracting himself from the ruins, he said "You too,"
and abused the flimsy nature of grocery boxes.
"The fellow's store full of petrol," grunted the Professor--"his new
house, y'know. Guinane was well paid."
Ned Murphy thrust an anxious face into the room. "If any could guide the
mother, sir?" he whispered. "He is bleedin' and a shiver sot in on him,
an' he won't come anear the fire, but mutherin' words half delarious. If
we could get him where he'd be cared an' there wouldn't be talk! Th'
ould docther, if ye brings him here, 'll be chatterin' for all the world
like a magpie."
Gheena said sharply that she could drive the car, but not in a blanket.
Mr. Murphy was a married man. He produced a penknife eloquently, and
suggested a couple of slashes an' a taste of twine would make a skhirt
while ye'd be waitin'.
Gheena, still bewildered, stood in meek silence, her blanket reft from
her to be rent in twain. The skirt manufactured by Murphy would not
have done for Ascot, but it complied with decency. Very quietly the
girl went out into the still, dim night, looking back once at the polite
lieutenant lying in stupor on the floor. She was not at all sure that
he would not vanish.
Someone walking feebly was helped out by two coastguards. Gheena did not
turn to look; she kept her head down.
"And for Heaven's sake remember you're not driving Darby's tin-kettle
twelve-power," said a weak but unashamed voice, "and go slow. I wanted
them to get a donkey cart for me."
Gheena said "Where to?" as she slipped the clutch--was she in this
nightmare to drive to the county gaol twelve miles away? The Professor
replied, "Why, Mrs. Maloney's, of course!" rather peevishly. He was
watching the nearness of the banks in the narrow lane and the pace at
which their dark shapes were sliding by.
But Gheena drove skilfully; she slid round the corner, and the car
seemed to leap forward at the road.
"Steady; there is not much room," said the Professor, "and Murphy was on
the dickey."
"Begonnes, I am here still, sir," said Murphy cheerlessly, "though that
whip around near spilt me."
The gleam of dawn was in the east, a pinky yellow glow chasing grey
night away.
They slipped past sleeping Castle Freyne and into the village, with the
little dark houses clinging to the edge of the cliff; dun shapes growing
just visible. They pulled up with complete disregard for Stafford's
tyres, and he was helped out; the hall door of his small house stood
open, ready for his return at any time. Gheena's lips tightened as she
saw it. She had now to walk home before any light came. She stood
uncertain, waiting.
The Professor bustled out to order her in, saying that Basil was
feverish; they had sent for the doctor.
Basil was on the sofa in his dressing-gown; he looked wan and lined, and
he had one hand to his chest as if in pain.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly, "for what happened."
"Yes"--Gheena held her own hand to her throat because it hurt her--"yes,
it was all my fault."
"But I simply had to shut you up," he said. "We were watching at the
cave, and your torpedo-destroying in that little boat was spoiling
everything. Of course, I never expected to find you swimming. Then you
flashed that light, and the fellows we caught--they thought that it was
Guinane's lamp and rowed right in to us; they fought. I told you not to
poke round--but--but--they nearly caught you and took you away, and I've
never said----"
Here Stafford's voice grew very weak. He sipped something out of a
tumbler.
"You were watching in the cave to catch Germans? You haven't been
spying? Haven't sold yourself for money?" Gheena's voice took a
clearer note of sheer clear joy.
"Oh, look here!" said Stafford a little grumpily. "It hurts. I used to
watch you and that Western woman. I've learnt a bit of lip language and
it hurts, besides being ridiculous. Now do I look like a spy?"
To which Miss Freyne replied incoherently that he had understood they
always looked like unspies--that was, no spies--and being young and
nice-looking and so on--and she grew confused.
Stafford put his hand on hers for a moment.
"I was in a regiment in India," he said. "Got a funny wound on a little
frontier expedition, so they wouldn't pass me for active service. It's
caught again now. And I had a friend; I badgered him until they sent me
here to spy round on this coast--so they said. And all the time they
had a regular secret service man at it, and were only keeping me quiet
for friendship's sake. But I did find out something in the end. There
was I watching the Professor, and fellows grinning as they read my
reports about him. I knew you suspected me," he went on, "and even that
you believed the money which I spoke of was German money. And it's only
lately I realized that--that it hurt you to believe it, Gheena. You
went alone so that no one else might see me. I hope to get back to my
regiment next year to do real work. And--if you gave me this"--he
fumbled at a note-case--"will you take it back and say it was not
deserved?"
He pulled out a note-case and out of it a feather, once white. Gheena
took it to see it was now stained red in one place--red with blood.
"I never gave it," she whispered. "Not that."
"Gheena," said Stafford, sitting up, "you didn't give it; it was Miss
O'Toole. Oh, I say, Gheena! And you belong to Darby! Oh, I say, and I
cared so much!"
Gheena was sobbing almost wildly over the little stained plume.
"But--I belong to Darby," she said, when she could speak. Somehow,
brought suddenly face to face with the naked realities of life,
explanations seemed useless things.
"Gone," said the Professor, running in, "off in his car." He sat down
and groaned. "Waiting too long, as usual!" he stormed.
"Who has gone?" Gheena hid her face.
"Mrs. Weston, otherwise Heinrich Helshumer. She's left all there--shoes
and stockings, and you might as well look for needles in hay, and she
has a wireless there."
"Mrs. Weston," said Gheena weakly.
"Her man gave her away when we cornered him. I'd suspected for some
time. I knew from her playing on the fiddle. What is it, Stafford?"
"The dam fellow--was always fussing near you," said Stafford, and
fainted.
*CHAPTER XVII*
Gheena Freyne found the household awake, when arrayed in a long coat of
Basil Stafford's she got home. George Freyne, who was on the doorstep,
announced directly she got within earshot that he had sent for Darby.
He would not countenance the absence of his stepdaughter during the
night and her reappearance in knickerbockers in the mornings.
Gheena passed him as if she did not hear. She went heavily to her room
to try to remember that she was not dreaming, that it was all real, and
to try to banish the tingle of bitter shame as she remembered how she
had suspected Stafford, and a hotter blush recalling hours spent with
Violet Weston. To all questioning she merely answered that she had gone
for a row and had upset the boat.
"I can't believe I am me," she said to Psyche over the comfort of hot
tea and toast. "I can't, and I can't tell you even why!" But being a
girl she told some things.
"And now"--Psyche's small face looked peaked--"now you know it is not
only looking on Darby as a friend but caring for someone else."
Gheena said, "And I never thought I could care," very drearily, and Miss
Delorme stamped very gently.
Whispers of great happenings buzzed across the day. Someone had heard
shots and someone else had seen a German crew somewhere. Miss Gheena
could tell and would not.
Dearest George questioned civilly and with authority, his stepdaughter's
return without her skirt and the loss of the boat making him believe
that she knew something. But Gheena merely replied again that she had
lost the boat and swum in near the Dower House, and that was all she
knew. A warm feeling that England depended on her for silence was near
her heart.
She told Darby when he came over and stood leaning on his sticks,
looking down at her as she lay back in a chair. He heard it all.
Some things he knew already.
"They were watching some strange car," Stafford tells me, "which Guinane
met out on the Dublin road at nights, and they've got that and Guinane,
and the 'U' boat--the patrol boat caught her."
Gheena said "It was not a bad haul," a little tremulously; also that she
would like to send her love to the Admiral.
Darby looked at her for quite a long time.
"And you took Basil for a spy," he said slowly. "Of course, egged on by
the real one. And you've been in terrible danger, Gheena."
Gheena replied briefly that she had thought of it first herself, without
any egging.
"I always said he wasn't the sort for a spy." Darby put his hand on
Gheena's shoulder. With a little wry smile he felt her shrink. "Now
we'll go to see him," he said cheerily--"you and I, Gheena, at once."
Limping behind her light quiet movements as they went to the car, laying
his sticks aside as he got in; the wry smile clung to his lips as they
drove to Mrs. Maloney's, where a faint reek of disinfectants wafted to
them through the door. Basil Stafford, very white, was sitting in a big
chair.
"Bullet touched up the old wound," he said. "And you'll stay to tea
with me, won't you?" He avoided looking at Gheena.
Mrs. Maloney produced somewhat mountainous buttered toast, and a cup of
what she called melted chicken tea for Basil.
"Great it should be," she said, stirring the weak-looking compound,
"with every taste of me young Plymouth Rock in it, down to his yelly
legs."
Basil gave it to Crabbit, and took tea instead.
Presently, when Darby went out, they sat silent, the noise of the sea
crooning in through the windows, with the scent of violets strong in the
sunshine. Mrs. Maloney's son grew them for sale.
"And you've forgiven me?" Gheena said at last jerkily.
Basil said that there was nothing to forgive. He scarcely recognized
humbleness in one who had snubbed him for months.
"But if you hadn't misjudged me," he said, "I might have dared to ask
you to--well, to use me as a buffer instead of Darby, and you'll be far
happier with him when you're married--so it's as well."
The complete bleakness of Gheena's voice as she repeated the word
married was too easy to understand; she repeated it almost angrily.
Stafford said that engagements generally ended in marriages, and she
would make Darby happy, for he loved her.
"Oh, yes, of course!" Gheena stood up. "I mean to end in marriage. I
mean to. I would not hurt Darby."
There was a note of interrogation here mixed with defiant firmness.
"No, for he has been hurt enough," said Stafford simply. "I shall never
be unhappy now, knowing you might have----"
Darby limped into the room, slowly even for him.
"The door was open," he said. "Gheena, I never meant to tie you to me.
I knew always it was only for a time to keep Dearest in order. Darby
was just your friend, as he always will be, and one who saw how things
were all along. It's all over now. No, don't talk."
Perhaps as he limped out he had his reward in that low-voiced "Darby!"
as Gheena's whole heart seemed to cry out to happiness.
Mrs. Maloney's house possessed a porch of what she called rusty work. A
long-limbed, feeble-hearted rose of the rambler family trailed over it,
hauled into order here and there by large pieces of old cloth nailed on
by Thomas Maloney, Junior. In this Darby stood alone. The porch faced
the land, the scrambling rusty hills towered high above the harbour.
The harbour smell of tar and salt water came strongly with the scent of
the violets.
Darby leant back against the unstable rusty porch and with the raw pain
came comfort.
It was at least over. Day by day he had found it more difficult to bear
Gheena's careless ignoring of any thought of love for him. He was
Darby, nothing more. Just Darby Dillon, who had always helped her.
Would there not be something almost of relief in the cessation of
friendly endeavours to isolate the lovers, to place them alone in chilly
sitting-rooms, or send them for walks with carefully modest references
to be sure to go down the yew walk, or the walk with the laurel hedges?
And life behind the hedges just the same as in the open; Gheena
unembarrassed, trying to time her quick movements to the cripple's,
Gheena ignoring the word "marriage." Then lately, Gheena downcast,
moody, with watchful eyes fixed on the sea; Gheena afraid for the man
whom she suspected, afraid of his unmasking.
A small white face peered into the porch; little Miss Delorme pushed
back an untrammelled length of rose and spoke feelingly of thorns.
She perched on the unstable bench and chattered for a minute eagerly.