"You will perhaps deny that here, within six yards of this very spot,
you stopped and burst forth into tears?" I exclaimed, with cold
cynicism.
"I admit that. The words he uttered were of sufficient significance to
bring tears to my eyes," she replied vaguely.
"He must have spoken words of love to you," I argued. "I watched you
both."
"I deny that he did, Geoffrey," she cried fiercely, starting up. "To
satisfy you, I am even ready to take an oath before my Creator that the
subject of our conversation was not love."
"What was Beck persuading you to do?" I demanded.
"No, no," she cried, as if the very thought was repulsive to her. "No,
do not ask me. I can never tell you, never!"
"Then there is a secret between you that you decline to reveal," I said
reproachfully.
She laughed a harsh metallic laugh, answering in a tone of feigned
flippancy,--
"Really, Geoffrey, you are absurdly and unreasonably suspicious. I tell
you I love no other man but yourself, yet merely because it pleases you
to misconstrue what you have witnessed you brand me as base and
faithless. It is unjust."
"But your letter!" I cried.
"I had no intention of conveying the idea that any secret existed
between Mr Beck and myself. He was, as you well know, an old friend of
my father's, and has known me since a child. Towards me he is always
friendly and good-natured, but I swear he has never spoken to me of
love."
"But you cannot deny, Ella, that a secret--some fact that you are
determined to keep from me--exists, and that if not of love, it was of
that secret Beck spoke to you so earnestly in the garden here!"
Her dry lips moved, but no sound escaped them. She shivered. I saw my
question had entirely nonplussed her, and I felt instinctively that I
had uttered the truth.
At that instant, however, a servant crossed the lawn in the moonlight,
and approaching, handed me a telegram, stating that Juckes, my man, had
brought it over from Shepperton, fearing that it might be of importance.
Hastily I thrust it into my pocket unopened, and when the servant was
out of hearing I repeated the plain question I had put to my
well-beloved.
In the bright moonlight I watched how pale and agitated was her face,
while involuntarily she shuddered, as if the thought that I might
ascertain the truth terrified her.
"Geoffrey," she said at last, in a low, plaintive voice as, sitting
beside me, her slim fingers suddenly closed convulsively upon mine, "why
cannot you trust me, when you know I love you so dearly?"
"Why cannot you tell me the truth instead of evading it? You say you
are unworthy of my love. Why?"
"I--I cannot tell you," she cried wildly, breaking into hysterical sobs.
"Ah! You do not know how I have suffered, Geoffrey, or you would not
speak thus to me. If you can no longer trust me, then we must, alas!
part. But if we do, I shall think ever of you as one who misjudged me
and cast me off, merely because of my inability to give you an
explanation of one simple incident."
"But I love you, Ella," I cried. "Why should we part--why should--"
"Hulloa, Deedes!" interrupted Beck's high-pitched, genial voice. "I've
been looking for you everywhere. We're all going for a moonlight row.
Come along."
Further conversation was, I saw, out of the question, and a few minutes
later we had all embarked, with the exception of Mrs Laing, and were
gliding slowly down the stream, now glittering in the brilliant
moonbeams. Dudley had brought Ella's mandoline from the house, and as
our prow cut the rippling waters he played a soft, charming gondolier's
song. My love sat beside me in the stern, and her eyes mutely asked
forgiveness as ever and anon she turned to me. I saw how beautiful she
was, how full of delicate grace, and how varying were her moods; yet she
seemed nervous, highly-strung, with a strange harshness in her voice
that I had never before noticed. She spoke no word to Beck, and I
remarked within myself that she avoided him, while once, when he leant
over to grasp her hand, she shrank shudderingly from its contact.
An hour later, when, after rowing down to Laleham, we had returned to
the "Nook" and, at the instigation of the ladies, were enjoying cigars,
I accidentally placed my hand in the breast-pocket of my dress-coat and
there felt the telegram which I had until that moment entirely
forgotten. Opening it, I was amazed to find it in cipher. The cipher
signature was that of the Earl of Warnham, and I saw it had been
transmitted over the private wire from Warnham, his seat in Sussex.
Taking a pencil from my pocket I at once proceeded to transcribe the
mysterious array of letters, and when I at last discovered the purport
of the message, I sat back in my chair, breathless and rigid, while the
flimsy paper nearly fell from my nerveless fingers.
"Why, Geoffrey!" cried Ella, starting up in alarm and rushing towards
me, "what's the matter? You are as pale as death. Have you had bad
news?"
"Bad news!" I answered, trying to laugh and slowly rousing myself. "No
bad news at all, except that I must leave for town at once."
"Well, you certainly look as if you've been hard hit over a race," Beck
exclaimed, laughing.
"You can't possibly get a train now till 11:30. It's hardly ten yet,"
said my well-beloved, exchanging a strange, mysterious glance with
Dudley.
"Then I must go by that," I answered, again re-reading the pink paper,
replacing it in my pocket, and endeavouring to preserve an outward calm.