“Love’s reason’s without reason.”
The cob was all the fresher for the impatience which he had suffered
in standing for nearly an hour in the lane, and he bowled the
dog-cart along the level roads at a tremendous pace. Theodore arrived
at the Priory before eleven, and found Juanita sitting on the lawn
with her baby in her lap, and the dog Styx at her side. His heart
leapt with gladness at the sight of her sitting there, safe and
happy, in the morning sunshine, for his morbid imagination had been
at work as he drove along, and he had been haunted by hideous visions
of some swift and bloody act which might be done by the fugitive
mad woman before he could reach the Priory. What deed might not be
done by a woman in the state of mind which that woman must have been
in when she left the evidence and the confession of her crime upon
the table and fled out of her house in the early morning? A silent
thanksgiving went up from his heart to his God as he saw Juanita
sitting in the sunshine, smiling at him, holding out her hand to him
in surprised welcome. She was safe, and it was his business to guard
her against that deadly enemy. He knew now whence the danger was
to come—whose the hand he had to fear. It was no longer a nameless
enemy, an inscrutable peril from which he had to defend her.
“How early you are, Theodore. Everybody is well, I hope—there is
nothing wrong at home?”
“No. Every one is well. Your father is going to London for a few
days, and your mother is coming to stay with you during his absence,
and I come to throw myself on your hospitality while she is here.
His lordship has heard of some suspicious characters in your
neighbourhood, and has taken it into his head that it will be well
for you to have me as your guest until your brothers-in-law come to
you for the shooting. I hope you won’t mind having me, Juanita?”
“Mind, no; I am delighted to have you, and my mother, too. I was
beginning to feel rather lonely, and had half decided on carrying
baby off to Swanage. Isn’t he a fortunate boy to have two doating
grandmothers?” She checked herself with a sudden sigh, remembering in
what respect the richly-dowered infant was so much poorer than other
babies. “Yes, darling,” she murmured, bending over the sleeping
face, rosy amidst its lace and ribbons as it nestled against her arm.
“Yes, there is plenty of love for you upon earth, my fatherless one;
and, who knows, perhaps _his_ love is watching over you in heaven.”
After this maternal interlude she remembered the obligations of
hospitality.
“Have you breakfasted, Theodore? You must have left Cheriton very
early.”
Theodore did not tell her how early, but he confessed to having taken
only a cup of tea.
“Then I will order some breakfast out here for you. It is such a
perfect morning. Baby and I will stay with you while you take your
breakfast.”
She called the nurse, who was close by, and gave her orders, and
presently the gipsy table was brought out, and a cosy breakfast was
arranged upon the shining damask, and Theodore was having his coffee
poured out for him by the loveliest hands he had ever seen, while the
nurse paraded up and down the lawn with the newly-awakened baby.
“I cannot understand my father taking an alarm of that kind,” Juanita
said, presently, after a thoughtful silence. “It is so unlike him.
As if any harm could come to me from tramps or gipsies, or even
professional burglars, with half a dozen men-servants in the house,
and all my jewels safe at the Bank. Theodore, does it mean anything?”
she asked, suddenly. “Does it mean that my father has found out
something about the murder?”
He was silent, painfully embarrassed by this home question. To answer
it would be to break faith with Lord Cheriton; to refuse to answer
was in some manner to break his promise to Juanita.
“I must ask you to let me leave that question unanswered for a few
days,” he said. “Whatever discovery has been made it is your father’s
discovery, and not mine. His lips alone can tell it to you.”
“You know who murdered my husband?”
“No. Juanita, I know nothing. The light we are following may be a
false one.”
He remembered how many lying confessions of crime had been made by
lunacy since the history of crime began—how poor distraught creatures
who would not have killed a worm had taken upon themselves the burden
of notorious assassinations, and had put the police to the trouble of
proving them self-accusing perjurers. Might not Mrs. Porter be such
a one as these?
“Ah! but you are following some new light—you are on the track of his
murderer?”
“I think we are. But you must be patient, Juanita. You must wait till
your father may choose to speak. The business is out of my hands now,
and has passed into his.”
“And he is going to London to-day, you say—he is going upon that
business?”
“I have said too much already, Juanita. I entreat you to ask me no
more.”
She gave an impatient sigh, and turned from her cousin to the dog, as
if he were the more interesting companion of the two.
“Well, I suppose I must be content to wait,” she said; “but if you
knew what I have suffered—what I shall suffer till that mystery is
solved—you would not wonder if I feel angry at being kept in the
dark. Has your friend gone back to London?”
“Yes; but he is coming again before my holiday is over. You like him,
I know, Juanita,” he added, looking at her somewhat earnestly.
“Yes, I like him,” she answered, carelessly, but with a faint blush.
“I suppose most people like him, do they not? He is so bright and
clever.”
“I am very glad you like him. He is the most valued friend I
have—indeed, I might almost say he is the only friend I made for
myself at the University. I made plenty of acquaintances, but very
few I cared to meet in after-life. Ramsay was like a brother. It
would have been a real grief to me if our friendship had not lasted.”
“He is ambitious, is he not?”
“Very ambitious.”
“And proud?”
“Very proud; but it is a noble pride—the pride that keeps a man
straight in all his doings—the pride that prefers bread and cheese in
a garret to turtle and venison at a parvenu’s table. He is a splendid
fellow, Nita, and I am proud of his friendship.”
“Is he very busy, that he should be so determined to leave
Dorchester?”
“Yes; he is full of work always. I thought he might have been content
to take two or three weeks’ quiet reading in our sleepy old town, but
he wanted to get back to the hospital. He will come back for a day
or two when the whim seizes him. He has always been erratic in his
pleasures, but steady as a rock in his work.”