WHAT CONFESSION WOULD MEAN
A SILENCE had fallen between the pair. Again Walter Fetherston glanced at
her.
She was an outdoor girl to the tips of her fingers. At shooting parties
she went out with the guns, not merely contenting herself, as did the
other girls, to motor down with the luncheon for the men. She never got
dishevelled or untidy, and her trim tweed skirt and serviceable boots
never made her look unwomanly. She was her dainty self out in the country
with the men, just as in the pretty drawing-room at Hill Street, while
her merry laugh evoked more smiles and witticisms than the more studied
attempts at wit of the others.
At that moment she had noticed the change in the man she had so gradually
grown to love, and her heart was beating in wild tumult.
He, on his part, was hating himself for so foolishly allowing her to
steal into his heart. She had lied to him there, just as she had lied to
him at Biarritz. And yet he had been a fool, and had allowed himself to
be drawn back to her side.
Why? he asked himself. Why? There was a reason, a strong reason. He loved
her, and the reason he was at that moment at her side was to save her, to
rescue her from a fate which he knew must sooner or later befall her.
She made some remark, but he only replied mechanically. His countenance
had, she saw, changed and become paler. His lips were pressed together,
and, taking a cigar from his case, he asked her permission to smoke, and
viciously bit off its end. Something had annoyed him. Was it possible
that he held any suspicion of the ghastly truth?
The real fact, however, was that he was calmly and deliberately
contemplating tearing her from his heart for ever as an object of
suspicion and worthless. He, who had never yet fallen beneath a woman's
thraldom, resolved not to enter blindly the net she had spread for him.
His thoughts were hard and bitter--the thoughts of a man who had loved
passionately, but whose idol had suddenly been shattered.
Again she spoke, remarking that it was time she turned back, for already
they were at the opposite end of the wood, with a beautiful panorama of
valley and winding river spread before them. But he only answered a
trifle abruptly, and, acting upon her suggestion, turned and retraced
his steps in silence.
At last, as though suddenly rousing himself, he turned to her, and said
in an apologetic tone: "I fear, Enid, I've treated you rather--well,
rather uncouthly. I apologise. I was thinking of something else--a
somewhat serious matter."
"I knew you were," she laughed, affecting to treat the matter lightly.
"You scarcely replied to me."
"Forgive me, won't you?" he asked, smiling again in his old way.
"Of course," she said. "But--but is the matter very serious? Does it
concern yourself?"
"Yes, Enid, it does," he answered.
And still she walked on, her eyes cast down, much puzzled.
Two woodmen passed on their way home from work, and raised their caps
politely, while Walter acknowledged their salutation in French.
"I shall probably leave here to-morrow," her companion said as they
walked back to the high road. "I am not yet certain until I receive my
letters to-night."
"You are now going back to your village inn, I suppose," she laughed
cheerfully.
"Yes," he said. "My host is an interesting old countryman, and has told
me quite a lot about the war. He was wounded when the Germans shelled
Verdun. He has told me that he knows Paul Le Pontois, for his son Jean is
his servant."
"Why, Mr. Fetherston, you are really ubiquitous," cried the girl in
confusion. "Why have you been watching us like this?"
"Merely because I wished to see you, as I've already explained," was his
reply. "I wanted to ask you those questions which I have put to you this
afternoon."
"About poor Harry?" she remarked in a hoarse, low voice. "But you begged
me to reply to you in my own interests--why?"
"Because I wished to know the real truth."
"Well, I've told you the truth," she said with just the slightest tinge
of defiance in her voice.
For a moment he did not speak. He had halted; his grave eyes were fixed
upon her.
"Have you told me the whole truth--all that you know, Enid?" he asked
very quietly a moment later.
"What more should I know?" she protested after a second's hesitation.
"How can I tell?" he asked quickly. "I only ask you to place me in
possession of all the facts within your knowledge."
"Why do you ask me this?" she cried. "Is it out of mere idle curiosity?
Or is it because--because, knowing that Harry loved me, you wish to cause
me pain by recalling those tragic circumstances?"
"Neither," was his quiet answer in a low, sympathetic voice. "I am your
friend, Enid. And if you will allow me, I will assist you."
She held her breath. He spoke as though he were aware of the truth--that
she had not told him everything--that she was still concealing certain
important and material facts.
"I--I know you are my friend," she faltered. "I have felt that all along,
ever since our first meeting. But--but forgive me, I beg of you. The very
remembrance of that night of the second of September is, to me,
horrible--horrible."
To him those very words of hers increased his suspicion. Was it any
wonder that she was horrified when she recalled that gruesome episode of
the death of a brave and honest man? Her personal fascination had
overwhelmed Harry Bellairs, just as it had overwhelmed himself. The devil
sends some women into the hearts of upright men to rend and destroy them.
Upon her cheeks had spread a deadly pallor, while in the centre of each
showed a scarlet spot. Her heart was torn by a thousand emotions, for the
image of that man whom she had seen lying cold and dead in his room had
arisen before her vision, blotting out everything. The hideous
remembrance of that fateful night took possession of her soul.
In silence they walked on for a considerable time. Now and then a rabbit
scuttled from their path into the undergrowth or the alarm-cry of a bird
broke the evening stillness, until at last they came forth into the wide
highway, their faces set towards the autumn sunset.
Suddenly the man spoke.
"Have you heard of the doctor since you left London?" he asked.
She held her breath--only for a single second. But her hesitation was
sufficient to show him that she intended to conceal the truth.
"No," was her reply. "He has not written to me."
Again he was silent. There was a reason--a strong reason--why Weirmarsh
should not write to her, he knew. But he had, by his question, afforded
her an opportunity of telling him the truth--the truth that the
mysterious George Weirmarsh was there, in that vicinity. That Enid was
aware of that fact was certain to him.
"I wish," she said at last, "I wish you would call at the château and
allow me to introduce you to Paul and his wife. They would be charmed to
make your acquaintance."
"Thank you," he replied a trifle coldly; "I'd rather not know them--in
the present circumstances."
"Why, how strange you are!" the girl exclaimed, looking up into his face,
so dark and serious. "I don't see why you should entertain such an
aversion to being introduced to Paul. He's quite a dear fellow."
"Perhaps it is a foolish reluctance on my part," he laughed uneasily.
"But, somehow, I feel that to remain away from the château is best.
Remember, your stepfather and your mother are in ignorance of--well, of
the fact that we regard each other as--as more than close friends. For
the present it is surely best that I should not visit your relations.
Relations are often very prompt to divine the real position of affairs.
Parents may be blind," he laughed, "but brothers-in-law never."
"You are always so dreadfully philosophical!" the girl cried, glad that
at last that painful topic of conversation had been changed. "Paul Le
Pontois wouldn't eat you!"
"I don't suppose any Frenchman is given to cannibalistic diet," he
answered, smiling. "But the fact is, I have my reasons for not being
introduced to the Le Pontois family just now."
The girl looked at him sharply, surprised at the tone of his response.
She tried to divine its meaning. But his countenance still bore that
sphinx-like expression which so often caused his friends to entertain
vague suspicions.
Few men could read character better than Walter Fetherston. To him the
minds of most men and women he met were as an open book. To a marvellous
degree had he cultivated his power of reading the inner working of the
mind by the expression in the eyes and on the faces of even those
hard-headed diplomats and men of business whom, in his second character
of Mr. Maltwood, he so frequently met. Few men or women could tell him a
deliberate lie without its instant detection. Most shrewd men possess
that power to a greater or less degree--a power that can be developed by
painstaking application and practice.
Enid asked her companion when they were to meet again.
"At least let me see you before you go from here," she said. "I know what
a rapid traveller you always are."
"Yes," he sighed. "I'm often compelled to make quick journeys from one
part of the Continent to the other. I am a constant traveller--too
constant, perhaps, for I've nowadays grown very world-weary and
restless."
"Well," she exclaimed, "if you will not come to the château, where shall
we meet?"
"I will write to you," he replied. "At this moment my movements are most
uncertain--they depend almost entirely upon the movements of others. At
any moment I may be called away. But a letter to Holles Street will
always find me, you know."
He seemed unusually serious and strangely preoccupied, she thought. She
noticed, too, that he had flung away his half-consumed cigar in
impatience, and that he had rubbed his chin with his left hand, a habit
of his when puzzled.
At the crossroads where the leafless poplars ran in straight lines
towards the village of Fresnes, a big red motor-car passed them at a
tearing pace, and in it Enid recognised General Molon.
Fetherston, although an ardent motorist himself, cursed the driver under
his breath for bespattering them with mud. Then, with a word of apology
to his charming companion, he held her gloved hand for a moment in his.
Their parting was not prolonged. The man's lips were thin and hard, for
his resolve was firm.
This girl whom he had grown to love--who was the very sunshine of his
strange, adventurous life--was, he had at last realised, unworthy. If he
was to live, if the future was to have hope and joy for him, he must tear
her out of his life.
Therefore he bade her adieu, refusing to give her any tryst for the
morrow.
"It is all so uncertain," he repeated. "You will write to me in London if
you do not hear from me, won't you?"
She nodded, but scarce a word, save a murmured farewell, escaped her dry
lips.
He was changed, sadly changed, she knew. She turned from him with
overflowing heart, stifling her tears, but with a veritable volcano of
emotion within her young breast.
He had changed--changed entirely and utterly in that brief hour and a
half they had walked together. What had she said? What had she done? she
asked herself.
Forward she went blindly with the blood-red light of the glorious sunset
full in her hard-set face, the great fortress-crowned hills looming up
before her, a barrier between herself and the beyond! They looked grey,
dark, mysterious as her own future.
She glanced back, but he had turned upon his heel, and she now saw his
retreating figure swinging along the straight, broad highway.
Why had he treated her thus? Was it possible, she reflected, that he had
actually become aware of the ghastly truth? Had he divined it?
"If he has," she cried aloud in an agony of soul, "then no wonder--no
wonder, indeed, that he has cast me from his life as a criminal--as a
woman to be avoided as the plague--that he has said good-bye to me for
ever!"
Her lips trembled, and the corners of her pretty mouth hardened.
She turned again to watch the man's disappearing figure.
"I would go back," she cried in despair, "back to him, and beg his
forgiveness upon my knees. I love him--love him better than my life! Yet
to crave forgiveness would be to confess--to tell all I know--the whole
awful truth! And I can't do that--no, never! God help me! I--I--I--can't
do that!"
And bursting into a flood of hot tears, she stood rigid, her small hands
clenched, still watching him until he disappeared from her sight around
the bend of the road.
"No," she murmured in a low, hoarse voice, still speaking to herself,
"confession would mean death. Rather than admit the truth I would take
my own life. I would kill myself, yes, face death freely and willingly,
rather than he--the man I love so well--should learn Sir Hugh's
disgraceful secret."