The Betrayal - E. Phillips Oppenheim (the snowy day read aloud txt) 📗

she looked across at me.

"You are a long time, Mr. Ducaine. I am waiting for you to give me a lesson at billiards."

I crossed the hall to her side.

"I thought that as Lord Blenavon had gone out—"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"That you would evade your duty, which is clearly to stay and entertain your hostess."

She closed the door and glanced at me curiously.

"What has happened to you?" she asked. "You look as though you had been with ghosts."

"Is it so impossible?" I asked, moving a little nearer to the huge log fire. "What company is more terrifying than the company of our dead thoughts and dead hopes and dead memories?"

"Really, I am afraid that Blenavon must have been a very depressing companion!" she said, leaning her elbow upon the broad mantelpiece.

It was absurd! I tried to shake myself free from the miseries of the last hour.

"I am afraid it must have been the other way," I said, "for your brother has gone out."

"Yes," she said quietly, "he has gone to that woman at Braster Grange.
I wish I knew what brought her into this part of the country."

I looked round at the billiard-table.

"Did you mean that you would like a game?" I asked. "I am rather out of practice, but I used to fancy myself a little."

"I have no doubt," she answered, sinking into a low chair, "that you are an excellent player, but I am willing to take it for granted. I do not wish to play billiards. Draw that chair up to the fire and talk to me."

It was of all things what I wished to avoid that night. But there was no escape. I obeyed her.

"What your brother has told me is, I presume, no secret," I said. "I am to wish you happiness, am I not?"

She looked up at me in quick surprise.

"Did Blenavon tell you—"

"That you had promised to marry Colonel Mostyn Ray. Yes."

"That is very strange," she said thoughtfully. "Blenavon is not as a rule needlessly communicative, and at present it is almost a secret."

"Nevertheless," I said, turning slowly towards her, "I presume that it is true."

"It is perfectly true," she answered.

There was silence between us for several minutes. One of the footmen came softly in to see whether we required a marker, and finding us talking, withdrew. I was determined that the onus of further speech should remain with her.

"You are surprised?" she asked at last.

"Very."

"And why?"

"I scarcely know," I answered, "except that I have never associated the thought of marriage with Colonel Ray, and he is very much older than you."

"Yes, he is a great deal older," she answered. "I think that his history has been rather a sad one. He was in love for many years with a woman who married—some one else. I have always felt sorry for him ever since I was a little girl."

"Do you know who that woman was?"

"I have never heard her name," she answered.

I found courage to lift my eyes and look at her.

"May I ask when you are going to be married?"

Her eyes fell. The question did not seem to please her.

"I do not know," she said. "We have not spoken of that yet. Everything is very vague."

"Colonel Ray is coming down here, of course?" I remarked.

"Not to my knowledge," she declared. "Not at any rate until the next meeting of the Council. I shall be back in town before then."

"I begin to believe," I said, with a grim smile, "that your brother was right."

"My brother right?"

"He finds you enigmatic! You become engaged to a man one day, and you leave him the next—without apparent reason."

She was obviously disturbed. A slight wave of trouble passed over her face. Her eyes failed to meet mine.

"That I cannot altogether explain to you," she said. "There are reasons why I should come, but apart from them this place is very dear to me. I think that whenever anything has happened to me I have wanted to be here. You are a man, and you will not altogether understand this."

"Why not?" I protested. "We, too, have our sentiment, the sentiment of places as well as of people. If I could choose where to die I think that it would be here, with my windows wide open and the roar of the incoming tide in my ears."

"For a young man," she remarked, looking across at me, "I should consider you rather a morbid person."

"There are times," I answered, "when I feel inclined to agree with you.
To-night is one of them."

"That," she said coolly, "is unfortunate. You have been over-working."

"I am worried by a problem," I told her. "Tell me, are you a great believer in the sanctity of human life?"

"What a question!" she murmured. "My own life, at any rate, seems to me to be a terribly important thing."

"Suppose you had a friend," I said, "who was one night attacked in a quiet spot by a man who sought his life, say, for the purpose of robbery. Your friend was the stronger and easily defended himself. Then he saw that his antagonist was a man of ill repute, an evildoer, a man whose presence upon the earth did good to no one. So he took him by the throat and deliberately crushed the life out of him. Was your friend a murderer?"

She smiled at me—that quiet, introspective smile which I knew so well.

"Does the end justify the means? No, of course not. I should have been very sorry for my friend; but if indeed there is a Creator, it is He alone who has power to take back what He has given."

"Your friend, then—"

"Don't call him that!"

I rose up and moved towards the door. I think that she saw something in my face which checked any attempt she might have made to detain me.

"You must forgive me," I said. "I cannot stay."

She said nothing. I looked back at her from the door. Her eyes were fixed upon me, a little distended, full of mute questioning. I only shook my head. So I left her and passed out into the night.

CHAPTER XVII MORE TREACHERY

There followed for me a period of unremitting hard work, days during which I never left my desk save at such hours when I knew that the chances of meeting any one scarcely existed. Several times I saw Lady Angela from my window on the sands below, threading her way across the marshes to the sea. Once she passed my window very slowly, and with a quick backward glance as she turned to descend the cliff. But I sat still with clenched teeth. I had nailed down my resolutions, I had determined to hold fast to such threads of my common sense as remained. Only in the night-time, when sleep mocked me and all hope of escape was futile, was I forced to grapple with this new-born monster of folly. It drove me up across the Park to where the house, black and lightless, rose a dark incongruous mass above the trees, down to the sea, where the wind came booming across the bare country northwards, and the spray leaped white and phosphorescent into the night like flakes of wind-hurled snow. I stood as close to the sea as I dared, and I prayed. Once I saw morning lighten the mass of clouds eastwards, and the grey dawn break over the empty waters. I heard the winds die away, and I watched the sea grow calm. Far across on the horizon there was faint glimmer of cold sunlight. Then I went back to my broken rest. It was my solitude in those days which drove me to seek peace or some measure of it from these things.

At last a break came, a summons to London to a meeting of the Council. I was just able to catch my train and reach the War Office at the appointed time. There were two hours of important work, and I noticed a general air of gravity on the faces of every one present. After it was over Ray came to my side.

"Ducaine," he said, "Lord Chelsford wishes to speak' to you for a few moments. Come this way."

He led me into a small, barely-furnished room, with high windows and only one door. It was empty when we entered it. Ray looked at me as he closed the door, and I fancied that for him his expression was not unfriendly.

"Ducaine," he said, "there has been some more of this damned leakage. Chelsford will ask you questions. Answer him simply, but tell him everything—everything, you understand."

"I should not dream of any concealment," I answered.

"Of course not! But it is possible—Ah!"

He broke off and remained listening. There was the sound of a quick footstep in the hall.

"Now you will understand what I mean," he whispered. "Remember!"

It was not Chelsford, but the Duke, who entered and greeted me cordially. With a farewell nod to me Ray disappeared. The Duke looked round and watched him close the door. Then he turned to me.

"Ducaine," he said, "a copy of our proposed camp at Winchester, and the fortifications on Bedler's Hill, has reached Paris."

"Your Grace," I answered, "it was I who pointed out to you that our papers dealing with those matters had been tampered with. I am waiting now to be cross-questioned by Lord Chelsford. I have done all that is humanly possible. It goes without saying that my resignation is yours whenever you choose to ask for it."

The Duke sat down and looked at me thoughtfully.

"Ducaine," he said, "I believe in you."

I drew a little breath of relief. The Duke was a hard man and a man of few words. I felt that in making that speech he had departed a great deal from his usual course of action, and I knew that he meant it.

"I am very much obliged to your Grace," I answered.

"I think," he continued, "that Lord Chelsford and in fact all the others are inclined to accept you on my estimate. We all of us feel that we are the victims of some unique and very marvellous piece of roguery on the part of some one or other. I believe myself that we are on the eve of a discovery."

"Thank Heaven!" I murmured.

"We shall only succeed in unravelling this mystery," the Duke continued deliberately, "by very cautious and delicate manoeuvring. I have an idea which I propose to carry out. But its success depends largely upon you."

"Upon me?" I repeated, amazed.

"Exactly! Upon your common sense and judgment." The Duke paused to listen for a moment. Then he continued, speaking very slowly, and leaning over towards me—

"Lord Chelsford proposes for his own satisfaction to cross-examine you. It occurs to me that you will probably tell him of your fancied disturbance of those papers in the safe, and of your little adventure with the Prince of Malors." I looked at him in surprise. "Have they not all been told of this?" I asked. "No."

There was a moment's dead silence. I was a little staggered. The Duke remained imperturbable.

"They have not been told," he repeated. "No one has been told. The matter was one for my discretion, and I exercised it."

There seemed to be no remark which I could make, so I kept silence.

"We have discussed this matter before," the Duke said, "and my firm conviction is that you were mistaken. That safe could only have been opened by yourself, Ray, or myself. I think I am justified in saying that neither of us did open it."

"Nevertheless that safe was opened," I objected. "Those were the very papers, copies of which have found their way to Paris."

"Exactly," the Duke answered. "Only you must remember that every member of the Board was sufficiently acquainted with their contents to have sent those particulars to Paris, without opening the safe for a further investigation of them. Any statement of your suspicion would only result in attention being diverted from the proper quarters to members of my household. I believe that even if you are right, even if those papers were disturbed, it was done simply to throw dust in your eyes. Do you follow me?"

"Yes, your Grace," I answered.

"Lord Chelsford, if you were able