A CLOUD APPEARS ON LOVE'S HORIZON
MANNERING remained absent for a week, and during that time I learned
from Evie a good deal about the curious dread which he had inspired in
her mind. Had inspired, I say, for she assured me it had passed away,
and that she felt quite safe now she was promised to be my wife. Our
betrothal had been announced the day after the never-to-be-forgotten
walk to Bricket wood, and I had hastened to make it known as widely as I
could, for I could think of no likelier method of ensuring her against
any further annoyance on the part of Mannering. When he saw that he had
lost, I could not think that he would do otherwise than retire
gracefully from the scene. If, however, he failed to take his failure
kindly, I should not have the slightest hesitation about sending him
about his business. I should have been tempted to do so without further
delay, if there had in reality been anything in Mannering's conduct to
which open exception could have been taken. Evie recognized there was
nothing of the sort as strongly as myself, and she was even averse to do
as I suggested, and ask her father to hint to him that he should, for a
while at least, cease his visits to the house.
"You see," she remarked, "if he had made himself offensive in any other
way, I should have welcomed the opportunity of speaking to papa about
it. But he has not. His attitude has been outwardly perfectly courteous,
and papa would only laugh at me if I were to tell him what I have told
you. He would not believe me if I told him I was afraid of Mr.
Mannering."
"Besides, you are now no longer afraid?" I said.
"No; I am no longer afraid of him. I am quite sure of that," she
repeated.
The manner in which she made the assertion ought to have warned me that
she was not quite so certain on the point as she was willing to believe,
but no such thought crossed my mind at the time.
"Anyhow," I continued, "if when you see Mannering again, you feel any
recurrence of your dread, it will be easy for me to pick a quarrel with
him, and so compel him to absent himself from the house. You see, he
will be unable to come here without meeting me."
Evie pouted a dissent. "You must not do that," she remarked. "A quarrel
with him would make both of us look ridiculous. Everybody would conclude
that you were jealous; and I--I should not like to imagine any one
thinking that I gave you cause."
"My own darling!" I cried.
* * * * *
When once more we resumed our conversation, I bethought me of another
plan, and I suggested to Evie that she could always find a retreat at my
home in Norfolk, if she wanted to get away from Mannering's presence. My
aunt, I knew, would be delighted to entertain her. She agreed at once to
adopt this course if the occasion should arise. Thus I thought I had
provided against every contingency for the short period which was to
elapse before our wedding-day.
When Mannering did return, however, it seemed as if we had been making
preparations to meet a contingency which was never likely to arise. He
learned of Evie's engagement from the Colonel, the morning after his
return to St. Albans. He took the news very well. Much more coolly than
I should have done had I been the disappointed one. In fact, a few
minutes after he had been made acquainted with Evie's engagement, he
came to us where we were in the garden, and congratulated us forthwith.
"You are a lucky fellow, Sutgrove," he said. "I had cherished a faint
hope that your luck might be mine, and now the only consolation I have
is that the best man always wins."
Spoken in a different tone than that which he employed, his words would
have made a very pretty compliment, but from his lips the words seemed
to be very like a sarcasm. However, I could pardon the expression of a
little bitterness under the circumstances, so I made no reply; and,
turning to Evie, he continued--
"I trust your new tie will not put an end to the old friendships, Miss
Maitland?"
"Why should it?" she asked.
"They often do," he replied.
"Not if the old friendships are the real thing," I interjected.
"No; not if they are the real thing," he repeated slowly. "I hope you
will find mine to be the real thing."
A faint smile fluttered across his face as he spoke, and was gone in an
instant. Neither Evie nor myself knew what to reply, and an awkward
pause ensued. He seemed to feel the awkwardness of it just as much as
either of us, and he changed the subject with an inquiry as to whether
anything further had been heard or seen of the Motor Pirate during his
own absence in Paris.
"I have been far too busy to even look at the papers," he explained,
"and he might have been captured for all I know."
"No such luck," I replied. "This time he seems to have disappeared for
good."
"I see I shall have to take up your job, and devote my energies to the
task of his capture," he said laughingly. And, turning to Evie, he said,
"I presume you will not allow Sutgrove to take any risks of that sort
now, Miss Maitland?"
Again there was something sarcastic in his tone, and I could see by the
flush in Evie's cheek that the question had angered her. She answered
almost hotly--
"I am quite sure if any one can capture the Pirate, Jim can."
"I have no intention of giving up the pursuit just at present," I added
quietly, with a glance of thanks to my dear one for her ready
championship.
"I don't think I should trouble myself about any Motor Pirate if I were
in your position," he replied. "I fancy if I were engaged to be married
to the best girl in the world, the first thing I should do would be to
eliminate every risk from my life, instead of looking about for fresh
ones. Besides, it seems scarcely fair on the girl, does it?"
"Surely that depends on what the girl thinks, doesn't it?" asked Evie.
"A good many girls haven't much admiration for the man who would act as
you suggest."
"Ah, well!" returned Mannering. "I see now where Sutgrove has succeeded.
The prize always goes to the adventurous."
Again there was a subtle provocation in his tone--something very like a
sneer. An angry retort was on the tip of my tongue, but a glance from
Evie checked it, and soon after he left us together.
"You must not be angry with him," she said, as soon as we were alone.
"He does not know you as I do; and besides I think he--he must be
disappointed."
"There's not the slightest doubt about that," I answered emphatically.
"He is badly hit, and he takes it pretty well considering. I know I
shouldn't have taken my gruel so coolly. In fact, that is just what I
don't like about him. One never knows what is going on behind that
handsome mask of his."
"Handsome," she said. "Do you call him handsome?"
"Yes. I should say he was one of the handsomest men of my acquaintance.
How could you ever bestow a single glance or thought upon me when----"
Evie placed her hand upon my lips. "You dear, foolish old boy," she
said. "There is only one face in the whole wide world which I think is
really handsome, and I have thought so from the first time I caught
sight of it."
There was another interlude in our conversation--they were pretty
frequent in those days--and the subject dropped for a time. It recurred
frequently, however, and gradually I perceived that whatever subject we
discussed, sooner or later, Mannering's name was bound to crop up. At
first I rather encouraged Evie to talk about him; but, after a while, I
discovered that I was ministering to the feeling which I thought had
been destroyed. I could not help but notice that, soon after Mannering's
return, Evie's high spirits became subdued--her gaiety less spontaneous.
Yet when I asked her whether Mannering's presence produced any effect
upon her, she assured me to the contrary.
Nor did I see how Mannering could possibly exert any influence over her.
I took particular care that he should never have a _tete-a-tete_ with
her. Sometimes she would not even see him for a couple of days at a
time, and when she did, it would be merely for a few minutes, and
nearly always in the presence of Colonel Maitland as well as myself.
It appeared to me, indeed, as if Mannering even took pains to avoid
seeing much of her; and, though I watched him closely, his bearing was
always studiously correct. He was the same _insouciant_ person who had
impressed me so favourably upon my first introduction to him. But
whether it was owing to the distrust which Evie's fear of him had
impressed upon me, or because I could really see things which had before
been hidden from my sight, I certainly did observe about him certain
singularities which I had never before remarked. I saw, for instance,
that, in speaking of his face as a handsome mask, I had been nearer the
truth than I had known. On more than one occasion, while his lips were
parted in a genial smile, I observed in his eyes an expression strangely
at variance therewith. It was the expression of a cat when it crouches
to spring upon a mouse. I have seen that look bent upon my betrothed. I
have caught it directed at myself. There was a restlessness, too, which
gave the lie to his nonchalant manner. I could see that he forced
himself to remain still. His fingers were always busy with something or
other.
These were trifles, and equally trivial seemed the sarcasms which he
directed at me now and again. These I attributed to the ebullitions of
temper, natural enough in a defeated suitor. In my heart I pitied him,
for I fancied I knew what a struggle it must have cost him to stand
aside and watch a successful rival's happiness.
As the days passed, a certain constraint appeared to have arisen between
Evie and myself. I told myself that the idea was foolish, and yet I knew
that it was not so. Mind, I had not the slightest doubt as to the
strength of Evie's love for me. She expressed it clearly, yet there was
something drawing us apart, and I began to be afraid.
Towards the middle of June the tension became so great, that I could see
the time had arrived when it would be necessary to do something; and,
one night, I determined to mention the matter. Accordingly, after
dinner, I persuaded Evie to come into the garden, with the intention to
speak firmly in my mind. There, however, in the faint light of the
summer night, with the sweet scent of the early roses filling the air, I
forgot everything in the blissfulness of my lot. We had paced our
favourite walk once in silence--my heart was too full of delight for
speech--when, as we retraced our steps, to my surprise, Evie burst
suddenly into passionate tears. Some minutes elapsed before I could calm
her, and when I managed at last to do so, it needed all my powers of
persuasion to get her to confide in me the cause of her outburst. At
first she said it was nothing but the hysteria of happiness. Then she
asked me, with a fierce clutch on my arm, if I should think her
unmaidenly if she asked that our wedding-day should be hastened. We had
fixed it for September, so I at once suggested July.
Her mood changed at once. She said she was not feeling well, and that I
must not listen to her. But being now thoroughly alarmed at her
obviously nervous condition, I questioned her until I elicited from her
that all her old dread of Mannering had returned, and with double
intensity, in that it was accompanied by a presentiment of disaster to
myself.
"Jim," she said, looking up into my face with eyes which glowed in the
faint light like stars, "I shall not feel sure of you until I am with
you always. I want to be near you to look after you. Every moment you
are absent from my side, I am imagining all sorts of horrible things
happening to you. And it is worse to bear, because, it seems to me, that
I am the cause of it all."
I strove to laugh away her fears, but, say what I would, I could not
dispel the thought in her mind that some disaster threatened our love.
Probing her mind for the foundation of her belief, I was not surprised
to find that Mannering had something to do with it.
I did my best to make her mind easy, while determining that I would at
once take steps to secure change of air and scene for her at some spot
where my late rival should not come. She became tolerably composed at
last, and I took her back to the drawing-room, where I was glad to find
Mrs. Winter, in whom I recognized a most useful sedative for
over-excited nerves.
We had a little music, and with that and the commonplaces of
conversation, the evening passed until eleven had struck, and the
Colonel's yawns warned me that the time had arrived for taking my
departure.
The Winters and myself had just risen to leave when we heard a hasty
step on the gravel outside, and, turning, we saw a man's figure at one
of the French windows opening on to the garden.
"Hullo!" said the Colonel. "Who's that?"
The new-comer stepped into the room, and, as the light fell upon his
face, I recognized Forrest. He nodded to me and turned to the Colonel.
"I trust you will excuse this unceremonious call of mine, Colonel
Maitland," he said. "But I was desirous of seeing Mr. Sutgrove
immediately, and I guessed I should find him here."
"I'll excuse you, if you will come to the smoking-room and drink Mr.
Sutgrove's health in a whisky-and-seltzer," replied the Colonel,
heartily.
"I don't think I can spare the time," said the detective, quietly.
"Nonsense, man! You must drink the health of my future son-in-law!" he
declared.
"Most certainly," remarked Forrest. "I can find time for that, even
though----" He paused, and then said, with quiet incisiveness, "Even
though the Motor Pirate is upon the road again!"