CHAPTER XXVI

Philippa, late that afternoon, found what she sought--solitude. She had

walked along the sands until Dreymarsh lay out of sight on the other

side of a spur of the cliffs. Before her stretched a long and level

plain, a fringe of sand, and a belt of shingly beach. There was not a

sign of any human being in sight, and of buildings only a quaint tower

on the far horizon.

She found a dry place on the pebbles, removed her hat and sat down, her

hands clasped around her knees, her eyes turned seaward. She had

come out here to think, but it was odd how fugitive and transient her

thoughts became. Her husband was always there in the background, but

in those moments it was Lessingham who was the predominant figure. She

remembered his earnestness, his tender solicitude for her, the courage

which, when necessity demanded, had flamed up in him, a born and natural

quality. She remembered the agony of those few minutes on the preceding

day, when nothing but what still seemed a miracle had saved him. At one

moment she felt herself inclined to pray that he might never come back.

At another, her heart ached to see him once more. She knew so well

that if he came it would be for her sake, that he would come to ask her

finally the question with which she had fenced. She knew, too, that his

coming would be the moment of her life. She was so much of a woman, and

the passionate craving of her sex to give love for love was there in her

heart, almost omnipotent. And in the background there was that bitter

desire to bring suffering upon the man who had treated her like a child,

who had placed her in a false position with all other women, who had

dawdled and idled away his days, heedless of his duty, heedless of every

serious obligation. When she tried to reason, her way seemed so clear,

and yet, behind it all, there was that cold impulse of almost Victorian

prudishness, the inheritance of a long line of virtuous women, a

prudishness which she had once, when she had believed that it was part

of her second nature, scoffed at as being the outcome of one of the

finer forms of selfishness.

She told herself that she had come there to decide, and decision came no

nearer to her. A late afternoon star shone weakly in the sky. A faint,

vaporous mist obscured the horizon and floated in tangled wreaths upon

the face of the sea. Only that line of sand seemed still clear-cut and

distinct, and as she glanced along it her eyes were held by something

approaching, something which seemed at first nothing but a black, moving

speck, then gradually resolved itself into the semblance of a man on

horseback, galloping furiously. She watched him as he drew nearer and

nearer, the sand flying from his horse's hoofs, his figure motionless,

his eyes apparently fixed upon some distant spot. It was not until he

had come within fifty yards of her that she recognised him. His horse

shied at the sight of her and was suddenly swung round with a powerful

wrist. Little specks of sand, churned up in the momentary stampede

of hoofs, fell upon her skirt. For the rest, she watched the struggle

composedly, a struggle which was over almost as soon as it was begun.

Captain Griffiths leaned down from his trembling but subdued horse.

“Lady Cranston!” he exclaimed in astonishment.

“That's me,” she replied, smiling up at him. “Have you been riding off

your bad temper?”

He glanced down at his horse's quivering sides. Back as far as one could

see there was that regular line of hoof marks.

“Am I bad-tempered?” he asked.

“Well,” she observed, “I don't know you well enough to answer that

question. I was simply thinking of yesterday evening.”

He slipped from his horse and stood before her. His long, severe face

had seldom seemed more malevolent.

“I had enough to make me bad-tempered,” he declared. “I had tracked

down a German spy, step by step, until I had him there, waiting for

arrest--expecting it, even--and then I got that wicked message.”

“What was that wicked message after all?” she enquired.

“That doesn't matter,” he answered. “It was from a quarter where they

ought to know better, and it ordered me to make no arrest. I have sent

to the War Office to-day a full report, and I am praying that they may

change their minds.”

Philippa sighed.

“If you hadn't received that telegram last night,” she observed, “it

seems to me that I should have been a widow to-day.”

He frowned, and struck his boot heavily with his riding whip.

“Yes, I heard of that,” he admitted. “I dare say if he hadn't gone,

though, some one else would.”

“Would you have gone if you had been there?” she asked.

“If you had told me to,” he replied, looking at her steadfastly.

Philippa felt a little shiver. There was something ominous in the

intensity of his gaze and the meaning which he had contrived to impart

to his tone. She rose to her feet.

“Well,” she said, “don't let me keep you here. I am getting cold.”

He passed his arm through the bridle of his horse. “I will walk with

you, if I may,” he proposed. She made no reply, and they set their faces

homewards.

“I hear Lessingham has left the place,” he remarked, a little abruptly.

“Oh, I expect he'll come back,” Philippa replied.

“How long is it, Lady Cranston, since you took to consorting with German

spies?” he asked.

“Don't be foolish--or impertinent,” she enjoined. “You are making a

ridiculous mistake about Mr. Lessingham.”

He laughed unpleasantly.

“No need for us to fence,” he said. “You and I know who he is. What I

do want to know, what I have been wondering all the way from the point

there--four miles of hard galloping and one question--why are you his

friend? What is he to you?”

“Really, Captain Griffiths,” she protested, looking up at him, “of what

possible interest can that be to you?”

“Well, it is, anyhow,” he answered gruffly. “Anything that concerns you

is of interest to me.”

Philippa realised at that moment, perhaps for the first time, what it

all meant. She realised the significance of those apparently purposeless

afternoon calls, when through sheer boredom she had had to send for

Helen to help her out; the significance of those long silences, the

melancholy eyes which seemed to follow her movements. She felt an

unaccountable desire to laugh, and then, at the first twitchings of her

lips, she restrained herself. She knew that tragedy was stalking by her

side.

“I think, Captain Griffiths,” she said gravely, “that you are talking

nonsense, and you are not a very good hand at it. Won't you please ride

on?”

He made no movement to mount his horse. He plodded along the soft sand

by her side--a queer, elongated figure, his gloomy eyes fixed upon the

ground.

“Until this fellow Lessingham came you were never so hard,” he

persisted.

She looked at him with genuine curiosity.

“I was never so hard?” she repeated. “Do you imagine that I have ever

for a single moment considered my demeanour towards you--you of all

persons in the world? I simply don't remember when you have been there

and when you haven't. I don't remember the humours in which I have been

when we have conversed. All that you have said seems to me to be the

most arrant nonsense.”

He swung himself into the saddle and gathered up the reins.

“Thank you,” he said bitterly, “I understand. Only let me tell you

this,” he went on, his whip poised in his hand. “You may have powerful

friends who saved your--”

He hesitated so long that she glanced up at him and read all that he had

wished to say in his face.

“My what?” she asked.

His courage failed him.

“Mr. Lessingham,” he proceeded, “from arrest. But if he shows his face

here again in Dreymarsh, I sha'n't stop to arrest him. I shall shoot him

on sight and chance the consequences.”

“They'll hang you!” she declared savagely.

He laughed at her.

“Hang me for shooting a man whom I can prove to be a German spy? They

won't dare! They won't even dare to place me under arrest for an hour.

Why, when the truth becomes known,” he went on, his voice gaining

courage as the justice of his case impressed itself upon him, “what do

you suppose is going to happen to two women who took this fellow in and

befriended him, introduced him under a false name to their friends, gave

him the run of their house--this man whom they knew all the time was a

German? You, Lady Cranston, chafing and scolding your husband by night

and by day because he isn't where you think he ought to be; you, so

patriotic that you cannot bear the sight of him out of uniform; you--the

hostess, the befriender, the God knows what of Bertram Maderstrom! It

will be a pretty tale when it's all told!”

“I really think,” Philippa asserted calmly, “that you are the most

utterly impossible and obnoxious creature I have ever met.”

His face was dangerous for a moment. They had not yet reached the

promontory which sheltered them from Dreymarsh.

“Perhaps,” he muttered, leaning malignly towards her, “I could make

myself even more obnoxious.”

“Quite possibly,” she replied, “only I want to tell you this. If you

come a single inch nearer to me, one of them shall shoot you.”

“Your friend or your husband, eh?” he scoffed.

She waved him on.

“I think,” she told him, “that either of them would be quite capable of

ridding the world of a coward like you.”

“A coward?” he repeated.

“Precisely! Isn't it a coward's part to terrorise a woman?”

“I don't want to terrorise you,” he said sulkily.

“Well, you must admit that you haven't shown any particular desire to

make yourself agreeable,” she pointed out.

He turned suddenly upon her.

“I am a fool, I know,” he declared bitterly. “I'm an awkward, nervous,

miserable fool, my own worst enemy as they say of me in the Mess,

turning the people against me I want to have like me, stumbling into

every blunder a fool can. I'm the sort of man women make sport of, and

you've done it for them cruelly, perfectly.”

“Captain Griffiths!” she protested. “When have I ever been anything but

kind and courteous to you?”

“It isn't your kindness I want, nor your courtesy! There's a curse upon

my tongue,” he went on desperately. “I'm not like other men. I don't

know how to say what I feel. I can't put it into words. Every one

misunderstands me. You, too! Here I rode up to you this afternoon and

my heart was beating for joy, and in five minutes I had made an enemy of

you. Damn that fellow Lessingham! It is all his fault!”

Without the slightest warning he brought down his hunting crop upon his

horse's flanks. The mare gave one great plunge, and he was off, riding

at a furious gallop. Philippa watched him with immense relief. In the

far distance she could see two little specks growing larger and larger.

She hurried on towards them.

“Whatever did you do to Captain Griffiths, Mummy?” Nora demanded. “Why

he passed us without looking down, galloping like a madman, and his face

looked--well, what did it look like, Helen?”

Helen was gazing uneasily along the sands.

“Like a man riding for his enemy,” she declared.