THE LURE OF LOVE
Leslie Chermside walked away from the inquest like a man in a dream. It
was only a few steps to the house where he lodged, and he at once sought
the seclusion of his own sitting-room--a shady apartment with long
windows opening on to a cool verandah, whence there was a distant view
of the headland at the river's mouth and of the sea beyond.
"At any rate, I do not think that I am an object of suspicion--yet," he
murmured with a bitter laugh when he had stood staring from one of the
windows with unseeing eyes for some minutes. "And, as I more than half
expected, Travers Nugent did not disclose my appointment with that
wretched little scally-wag."
Turning away, he lit his pipe and flung himself into a long chair to
review the situation. At the best his position was a perilous one, and
he was very conscious of the necessity of not lulling himself into a
false security because of that day's immunity. But he had at least
obtained a reprieve, and for the present he was free to concentrate all
his energies on keeping watch and ward over Violet. That Travers Nugent
had not abandoned his compact with the Maharajah because of his own
defection he felt sure. For, looked at by the light of the event of that
afternoon, the inactivity of Bhagwan Singh's agent seemed ominously
sinister--the more so as it was entirely problematical.
If Nugent had played the obvious card of revealing what he knew about
the meeting on the marsh arranged between Levison and Leslie, the latter
would almost certainly have been arrested, and so had his wings clipped
for further opposition to Nugent's plans. But this obvious and drastic
course would have laid Nugent's flank open to the counter-attack of full
confession by a desperate man, and he had been far too cunning to run
that risk. No, he must be working by subtler and more tortuous methods
towards the attainment of his purpose--the embarkation of Violet Maynard
on board the turbine yacht _Cobra_.
Leslie gave his antagonist full credit for cold calculation of all the
chances. He was under no illusion as to the apparent complaisance with
which his rebellion had been accepted, and as to Nugent's quiescence in
the matter of Levison's murder. He was assured that he was only sitting
there at liberty because he was of more use to Mr. Travers Nugent in the
freedom of that comfortable room than he would have been in a cell at
the police-station charged with murder.
Rising from his chair with a sudden impulse, Leslie knocked the ashes
out of his pipe. As always happens to the man in love, he had persuaded
himself that the wisest course to pursue was the one which jumped with
his inclinations.
"I will force his hand," he said half aloud. "I will spend all the time
I can with Violet, and I will begin at once. My constant presence will
be the best safeguard she can have."
Mounting his bicycle, he made short work of the two miles to the lodge
gates of the Manor House, and as luck would have it whom should he see
coming towards him along the drive but Violet herself. She was looking
deliciously cool and dainty in a coat and skirt of white drill, which
set off her tall, graceful figure to perfection. Leslie's pulses
quickened at sight of the pleased surprise and heightened colour in her
face as she saw him.
"I didn't expect you to-day," she said, when he had jumped off his
machine. "I thought that you would be kept by that horrid affair in the
town, but I suppose you couldn't shed any light on it."
"It was soon over--adjourned for a week," replied Leslie. "As I was able
to get away, I saw no reason why this should be a day entirely wasted."
Violet shot a glance at him from under the deep-fringed lids which had
given the critics their cue for their ravings over her Academy picture.
There was a warmth in the tone of the neatly-turned little speech that
had been lacking in their intercourse of late. The millionaire's
daughter had never disguised from herself the singular attraction which
this sun-browned, well-knit young soldier from India had for her from
the moment of their first meeting a month ago. And he had begun to woo
her so bravely and openly, only to slacken his ardour after a week into
an indifference which was almost insult after such warm beginnings.
No woman of spirit cares to be treated like goods sent out "on
approval"--to be analytically inspected and then cast aside as not quite
up to the mark. Especially if she happens to be the acknowledged beauty
of the London season, and so lavishly dowered as to have had half the
bachelor peerage at her feet. It speaks wonders, therefore, for the
efficiency as a lover which Leslie Chermside had shown when he wasn't in
love, that now, when he was, Violet should have behaved as she did.
"Let us go and be lazy on that seat by the sundial in the rose garden,"
she said, with a smile of invitation.
It was all that Leslie asked for--to be near her, to worship her, to
feel her gracious presence, and, above all, by his unceasing
watchfulness, to avert the peril of the steamer with the giant
horse-power lurking thirty miles away along the coast. That was all that
was in his mind as he wheeled his bicycle at her side over the turf that
lay between the drive and the rosery. But half an hour amid the late
blooms of the old world pleasaunce was to alter all that modest scheme.
Leslie Chermside had made the mistake of reckoning without heed to the
power that had them in thrall--the mighty power of love.
Neither of them ever knew how it came about. When they first sat down
there was a shy constraint between them that seemed to hold them apart.
They talked at random of trifles, with an obvious effort at searching
for subjects. Violet even referred to the inquest on Levison, though in
such a manner as to show that she plainly took only a superficial
interest in it. It made Leslie shudder to hear her touch so lightly on
a matter in which, though she was not aware of it, she was so nearly
concerned.
Gradually and imperceptibly the awkward attempt at making conversation
ceased, and the silence that supervened was threatening to become more
awkward still, when Violet said suddenly:
"I believe that your heart is in India, Mr. Chermside--anywhere but in
Ottermouth. You always--latterly at least--seem to me to be living in
the past, or, perhaps, in the future. When your yacht is ready for sea,
I suppose that you will lose no time in going back to the East?"
Leslie started, and came back to earth. "If you only knew the price I
paid to get out of India you would not say that," he answered gravely.
"And I am afraid that you are incorrect in your other surmises, Miss
Maynard. I am neither living in a past which has nothing to recommend
it, or in a future which is not alluring. As a matter of fact, I am just
drifting--and revelling in the present."
He did not look at her as he spoke. He was staring straight before him
at a trellis arch groaning under a weight of crimson rambler roses, but
at the suggestion of trouble in his voice the girl swayed nearer to him.
"I wish you would be as frank with me as I am with you," she said. "A
woman's sympathy counts for much sometimes. Forgive me for saying that
you puzzle me, and one isn't puzzled where one isn't interested. You
don't convey the impression of a man with a discreditable career behind
him, and from the accepted accounts of your position your prospects are
assured from a worldly point of view. A month ago I thought--I
hoped--that we were going to be friends. We had begun to exchange
confidences in a mild sort of way. Will you not confide in me now more
fully, and tell me if there is anything in which I can help?"
In that moment, listening to her sweet proffer of womanly aid, Leslie
suffered the most exquisite torture. This was the girl whom he had
lightly condemned to a fate worse than death--a fate which he had
pledged himself to compass by deceitfully gaining her love. He turned
and looked at her, and he knew that the priceless guerdon which he had
played for as a mere counter in a disgraceful game had been won. And now
that it was his--now that he valued it for its own sake more than all
the treasures in the world--he could not take it. His reawakened sense
of honour forbade him to think of such desecration. How could he,
wastrel and pauper, have aspired to this queenly maiden, even if his
soul had not been soiled by the memory of his infamous bargain?
"I am not worthy one passing thought from you--still less to give you my
confidence," he faltered. "Confidence!" he went on, with something like
a groan of anguish. "Why, I would rather lose the power of speech for
ever than befoul your ears with the record of my shame."
Her eyes, like twin pools of shining radiance, were searching his face.
"That is for me to judge," she said softly. "But I do not, on second
thoughts, ask you for your confidence, Mr. Chermside. I have faith in my
instinct. I do not believe that you have done anything really
base--whatever, perhaps, after sore temptation, you may have
contemplated. You would have stopped short when you realized that you
were on the brink of an evil deed. And--and if you hadn't stopped short
I--well, I, perhaps, should have tried to make allowances. So, if you
cannot give me your confidence, at least let me give you my help."
"Help?" came the man's sobbing cry, as the blood surged into his brain,
and all barriers of conscience, expedience, and common-sense were swept
away in a whirlpool of riotous passion--"it is your love I want, my
darling. The love of such as you means not only help but regeneration,
life itself, to such as I."
By the great laws that govern us, these things happen so, and the love
of Leslie Chermside and Violet Maynard had passed beyond the region of
words and of petty sophistries. They were locked in each other's arms,
eye to eye and lip to lip, at that moment of glad surrender in the
solitude of the rose garden--a solitude that was not entirely solitary.
For from behind the high box-hedge that hemmed them in, the French maid,
Louise Aubin, glided across the silent turf back to the house, her
piquant features contracted in a venomous frown. She had come out to
seek her young mistress on some trifling errand, but, having found her,
decided to retreat without fulfilling it.