When Mr Musgrave entered the yard on the following morning, from force
of habit rather than in the expectation of finding Diogenes there, it
was to discover Diogenes in his kennel, for all the world as though he
had never absented himself in the interval.
Diogenes' welcome of Mr Musgrave was almost as effusive as his greeting
of Peggy on the previous evening; he was beginning to realise his
position as a dog with two homes and a divided allegiance. Doubtless
were he received back at the Hall he would on occasion find his way to
Mr Musgrave's home as a matter of course. There were many things in
Mr Musgrave's home that Diogenes approved of. He approved of Martha's
attentions in the matter of table delicacies, and he appreciated the
thick skin rug before the fire in Mr Musgrave's drawing-room; but the
kennel and the chain were indignities against which he felt constrained
to protest.
Mr Musgrave unfastened the chain and took Diogenes for his walk, an
attention which Diogenes did not merit, but Mr Musgrave felt so
ridiculously pleased to see him again that he forgave the overnight
defection, as he had forgiven the smashing of his dinner-service; he
simply ignored it.
In view of this magnanimous treatment it was distinctly ungracious of
Diogenes to repeat his truant performance within a fortnight of his
previous escapade; yet repeat it he did, as soon as by his docile
behaviour he had allayed Mr Musgrave's doubts of him so far as to lead
to a decrease of vigilance, and a greater laxity in the matter of open
doors.
Diogenes broke bounds again at about the same hour on a balmy evening in
June; and Mr Musgrave hastened as before to the vicarage with a second
note to be entrusted to the handy sexton. But here a check awaited him.
Robert, on being appealed to by the vicar, stoutly refused to go to the
Hall on any business after dusk.
"Not if you was to offer me a hund'ed pounds, sir," he affirmed
earnestly. "I wouldn' go up thicky avenue in the dimpsy again, not for
a thousand--no, I wouldn'. Leave it bide till the mornin' an' I'll take
it."
Mr Errol returned to John Musgrave with the tale of his non-success.
"I daresay I could find someone else to take it, John," he said, with a
whimsical smile. "But my reputation is likely to suffer, unless you
sanction the note being delivered at the door, instead of into Miss
Annersley's own hand. That stipulation is highly compromising."
Mr Musgrave flushed.
"I am afraid I didn't think of that," he said, and took the note from
the vicar and tore it in half. "I am glad you mentioned it. It is not
fair, either, to Miss Annersley."
"What is to be done now?" the vicar said.
"I will," returned Mr Musgrave quietly, "go to the Hall myself, and
bring Diogenes back."
"Well, I rather wonder you didn't do that before."
Mr Musgrave wondered also. The idea had not, as a matter of fact,
presented itself to him until the delicacy of entrusting the mission to
a third person had been pointed out. Now that it had presented itself
it occurred to him not only as the proper course to pursue, but the more
agreeable. He therefore scattered the fragments of his note to the
winds of heaven, and set forth on his walk to the Hall.
It was dusk when he started; when he arrived at the gates and passed
through, the dusk appeared to deepen perceptibly, and as he pursued his
way, as Robert had done, along the avenue beneath the green archway of
interlacing boughs, it seemed to him that night descended abruptly and
dispersed the last lingering gleams of departing day.
Mr Musgrave was not superstitious, and his thoughts, unlike his
footsteps, did not follow in the direction which Robert's had taken.
Nothing was farther from his mind at the moment than ghosts; therefore
when an ungainly-looking object pounded towards him in the gloom,
instead of his imagination playing him tricks, he recognised immediately
the clumsy, familiar figure of Diogenes, even before Diogenes rushed at
him with a joyous bark of welcome. Mr Musgrave's thought on the spur
of the moment was to secure Diogenes and take him home; but, as though
suspicious of his motives in grabbing at his collar, Diogenes broke away
from the controlling hand, and dived hastily for cover, making for some
bushes of rhododendrons, into which Mr Musgrave plunged recklessly in
pursuit, so intent on the capture of his elusive trust that he failed to
note the figure of a man, which, bearing in sight as he broke into the
bushes, hurried forward in hot pursuit, and, following close upon his
heels, seized him with a pair of strong arms and dragged him, choking
and amazed, into the open path.
"Musgrave!" said Mr Chadwick. He released Mr Musgrave's collar, and
stood back and stared at his captive. "What, in the name of fortune,
are you up to?"
Mr Musgrave inserted two fingers inside his collar, felt his throat
tenderly, and coughed.
"You need not have been so rough," he complained.
"Upon my word, I mistook you for a tramp," Mr Chadwick explained,
laughing. "What on earth were you playing hide-and-seek in the bushes
for? I begin to believe this path must be bewitched, by the
extraordinary manner in which people using it behave. Have you been
seeing ghosts too?"
"I saw my dog," Mr Musgrave explained with dignity. "I was following
him."
"Oh, that's it, is it? Well, you had better come on to the house. I
expect we shall find Diogenes there. He was, before you arrived, taking
a stroll with me. Seems to be pretty much at home here. Why can't you
keep him at your place?"
"He is--" Mr Musgrave coughed again, as though his throat still
troubled him--"very much attached to Miss Annersley."
"Rather sudden in his attachments, isn't he?" Mr Chadwick suggested.
"Miss Annersley takes considerable notice of him," Mr Musgrave replied.
"I have been thinking that, subject to your permission, I would like to
make her a present of the dog."
"I am at least gratified to find that you realise I have a right to a
say in the matter," Diogenes' lawful owner remarked with irony. "I
should like to ask you a question, Musgrave. Possession being
nine-tenths of the law, should you say that constituted the right to
give away what doesn't, in the strict sense of the word, belong to you?"
Mr Musgrave, experiencing further difficulty with his throat, was
thereby prevented from replying to this question. His interlocutor
tapped him lightly on the chest.
"There is another inquiry I would like to put while we are on the
subject," he said. "Don't you think you might offer to pay for the
collar?"
John Musgrave regained his voice and his composure at the same time.
"No," he said; "I don't. If there has been any ill-practice over this
transaction, my conscience at least is clear."
Abruptly Will Chadwick put out a hand and grasped the speaker's.
"Come along to the house," he said, "and make your offering to Peggy."
When they were within full view of the house Mr Musgrave became
suddenly aware of two significant facts; these, in their order, being
the presence of Peggy walking on the terrace companioned by Diogenes,
and the disturbing knowledge that the sight of her pacing leisurely
among the shadows beyond the lighted windows filled him with a strange,
almost overwhelming shyness, an emotion at once so unaccountable and so
impossible to subdue that, had it not been for the restraining influence
of Mr Chadwick's presence at his elbow, he would in all probability
have beaten a retreat.
Arrived below the terrace he halted, and Peggy, having advanced to meet
them as they approached, leaned down over the low stone parapet and gave
him her hand.
"You!" she said softly.
This greeting struck Mr Chadwick as peculiar. He was conscious of an
immense curiosity to hear Mr Musgrave's response; he was also conscious
of feeling _de trop_. Plainly he and Diogenes had no place in this
conspiracy. They had both been hoodwinked.
"You must not blame me," Mr Musgrave said. "It is Diogenes who has
given us away. I fear the secret is out."
"You don't flatter my intelligence," Mr Chadwick interposed, "by
suggesting there was any secret to come out. If it hadn't been for
implicating my niece I would have run you in for dog-stealing. A fine
figure you'd cut in court, Musgrave."
Peggy laughed quietly.
"Don't take any notice of uncle, Mr Musgrave," she said. "He is really
obliged to you. So am I," she added, and the grey eyes, looking
straight into John Musgrave's, were very kind. "Come up here and talk
to me," she said.
John Musgrave ascended the steps, and, since the invitation had not
seemed to include himself, Mr Chadwick turned on his heel and continued
the stroll which Mr Musgrave's arrival had interrupted. Peggy and John
Musgrave paced the terrace slowly side by side; and Mrs Chadwick,
reading a novel in solitary enjoyment in the drawing-room, listened to
the low hum of their voices as they passed and re-passed the windows,
and wondered between the diversion of her story who Peggy was talking
with.
"You came to fetch Diogenes?" Peggy said.
"Not altogether," Mr Musgrave replied. "I wanted... to see you... You
haven't been down for some days."
"No," Peggy admitted, and blushed in the darkness.
"Why?" he asked.
The blush deepened. Had it been light enough to see her face Mr
Musgrave must have observed how shy she looked at his question. Since
it was impossible to explain that those visits, once so light-heartedly
made to Diogenes in Mr Musgrave's stable-yard, had become an
embarrassment for reasons too subtle to analyse, she remained silent, in
her self-conscious agitation playing with a rose in her belt with
nervous, inconsequent fingers.
"I believe," Mr Musgrave continued, "that Diogenes has felt neglected."
"He is forgiving," she answered. "He came to find me."
John Musgrave looked at her steadily.
"Do you think it is altogether kind--to Diogenes," he asked, "to stay
away so long? Don't you think that perhaps he misses you--badly?"
Peggy smiled faintly.
"I think it is better he should forget," she replied.
"It isn't always possible to forget," he returned slowly. "I am so sure
he will never forget that I am glad our secret is exposed. I am going
to return you your pet, Miss Annersley."
Peggy turned to him quickly in protest, and put out a small hand and
laid it on his sleeve.
"No," she cried, "no. You have more right to him than anyone. You are
fond of him too. You must keep him. I _want_ you to keep him."
John Musgrave looked at the hand on his sleeve. He had seen it there
once before, and the sight of it had caused him embarrassment. It did
not cause him embarrassment now; he enjoyed the feel of the slight
pressure on his arm. Suddenly, without pausing to consider, he put his
own hand over it, and kept it there.
"I want you to have him, and I want to keep him too," he said. "How are
we going to get over that?"
Peggy laughed nervously.
"I don't know," she replied. "I don't see how that can be."
"I hoped you would see," he returned gravely, and halted and imprisoned
her other hand, and stood facing her. "There is a way, if only I wasn't
so old and dull for your bright youth." He released her hands gently.
"I suppose you are right, and it isn't possible."
"You don't appear old or dull to me," she said softly. "I--didn't mean
that."
He went closer to her and remained gazing earnestly into the downcast
face, his own tense features and motionless pose not more still than the
girl's, as she waited quietly in the silent dusk with a heart which
thumped so violently that it seemed to her he must hear its rapid beat.
"It appears to me preposterous," he said, in a voice which held a ring
of wonder in its tones, "that I, so much older than you, so unsuited in
every sense, should find the courage to tell you how greatly I love you.
It is scarcely to be expected that you can care for me sufficiently to
allow me any hope... And yet... Miss Annersley, am I too
presumptuous?"
"No," Peggy whispered. She slipped a hand shyly into his and laughed
softly. "I think you have discovered the best way of settling the
ownership of our dog," she said.
"I am not thinking of the dog," he answered, bending over her.
"I wasn't thinking of the dog either," she replied.
With her hand still in John Musgrave's she walked to the parapet and sat
down. Mr Musgrave seated himself beside her, and, gaining courage from
the contact of the warm hand lying so confidingly in his own, he felt
emboldened to proceed with his avowal of love.
"My feeling for you, Miss Annersley, is as unchangeable as it is deep.
It has developed so imperceptibly that, until you went away, and I
realised how greatly I missed you, what a blank in my days your absence
made, I never suspected how dear you were becoming to me. When I
suspected it I was distressed, because it seemed to me incredible that
you, young and beautiful and so greatly admired, could ever entertain
for me any kinder feeling than that of friendship. I can scarcely
believe even now that you feel more than friendship for me. I must
appear old to you, and my ideas are old-fashioned, and, I begin to see
now, intolerant."
"Not intolerant," Peggy corrected. "If I wasn't confident that your
heart is so kind, and your sympathies so wide, that it will be as easy
for you to give and take as for me to meet you in this respect, I should
be afraid to risk the happiness of both our futures. But I haven't any
fears at all. I think I have loved you from the moment when you met me
weeping in the road, and took charge of Diogenes."
"That," he said a little doubtfully, "is gratitude."
She shook her head.
"No," she insisted, "it is something more enduring than that."
At which interesting point in the discussion, to John Musgrave's
annoyance, a shrill scream penetrated the stillness, and Mrs Chadwick's
voice was heard exclaiming in accents of astonishment and delight:
"Oh, Diogenes, Diogenes, dear old fellow!... Wherever did you come
from? And how did you get your coat in that horrible mess?"
Diogenes, finding it slow on the terrace, had sauntered into the
drawing-room and discovered himself to Mrs Chadwick.
Peggy glanced swiftly into the face of the man beside her and laughed
happily, and John Musgrave, finding to his vast amazement the laughing
face held firmly between his two hands, bent his head suddenly and
kissed the curving lips.
It is possible that could he have looked back into the days before he
knew Peggy he would have failed to recognise as himself the man who, in
response to the vicar's assertion that occasionally people married for
love, had made the shocked ejaculation: "Do they, indeed?" John
Musgrave was learning.