He stopped short, but his sister’s eyes were fixed upon him enquiringly.
“At one time,” he continued, “I used to think that she was mad about Jocelyn Thew. Not that that made any difference so far as he was concerned. He never seemed to find time or place in his life for women.”
They finished their luncheon and made their way up-stairs once more to Katharine’s sitting room. Richard stretched himself in any easy-chair and lit a cigar with an air of huge content.
“I am to be transferred when our first division comes across,” he told her. “Our Squadron Commander’s going to make that all right with the W.O. We’ve had some grand flights lately, I can tell you, Katharine.”
There was a knock at the door, a few moments later. The waiter entered, bearing a card upon a tray, which he handed to Katharine. She read it with a perplexed frown.
“Sir Denis Cathley. — But I don’t know of any one of that name,” she declared, glancing up. “Are you sure that he wants to see me?”
“Perhaps I had better explain,” a quiet voice interposed from outside. “May I come in?”
Katharine gave a little cry and Richard sprang to his feet. Sir Denis pushed past the waiter. For a moment Katharine had swayed upon her feet. “I am so sorry,” he said earnestly. “Please forgive me, Miss Beverley, and do sit down. It was an absurd thing to force my way upon you like this. Only, you see,” he went on, as he helped her to a chair, “the circumstances which required my use of a partially assumed name have changed. I ought to have written you and explained. Naturally you thought I was dead, or at the other end of the world.”
Katharine smiled a little weakly. She was back again in her chair, but Sir Denis seemed to have forgotten to release her hand, which she made no effort to withdraw.
“It was perfectly ridiculous of me,” she murmured, “but I was just telling Dick — he is back again for another four days’ leave and we were talking about you at luncheon time — that I wasn’t feeling very well, and your coming in like that was quite a shock. I am absolutely all right now. Do please sit down and explain,” she begged, motioning him to a chair.
The waiter had disappeared. Sir Denis shook hands with Richard, who wheeled an easy-chair forward for him. He sat down between them and commenced his explanation.
“You see,” he went on, “as a criminal I am really rather a fraud. When I tell you that I am an Irishman — perhaps you may have guessed it from my name — and a rabid one, a Sinn Feiner, and that for ten years I have lived with a sentence probably of death hanging over me, you will perhaps understand my hatred of England and my somewhat morbid demeanour generally.”
Katharine was speechless. Richard Beverley indulged in a long whistle.
“So that’s the explanation!” he exclaimed. “That was why you got mixed up with that German crew, eh?”
“That,” Sir Denis admitted, “was the reason for my attempted enterprise.”
“Attempted?” Richard protested. “But you brought it off, didn’t you?”
“The end of the affair was really curious,” Sir Denis explained. “I suppose, in a way, I did bring it off. I caught the mail train from Euston that night, got away with the papers and took them where I always meant to — to my old home on the west coast of Ireland. There, whilst I was waiting to keep an appointment with a German U-boat, I found out what happens to a man who has sworn an oath that he will never again look inside an English newspaper, and been obstinate enough to keep his word.”
“Say, this is interesting!” Richard declared enthusiastically. “Why, of course, there have been great changes, haven’t there? You Irish are going to have all that you want, after all.”
“It looks like it,” Sir Denis assented. “I found that my home was the rendezvous of a lot of my old associates, only instead of meeting underneath trapdoors at the risk of their lives, they were meeting quite openly and without fear of molestation. From them I heard that the Government had granted me, together with some others, a free pardon many months ago. I heard, too, of the coming Convention and of the altered spirit in English politics. I heard of these things just in time, for the U-boat was waiting outside in the bay.”
“You didn’t part with the stuff?” Richard exclaimed eagerly.
Sir Denis shook his head.
“I burnt the papers upon my hearth,” he told them. “Crawshay ran me to ground there, but his coming wasn’t necessary. A great deal besides the ashes of those documents went up in smoke that night.”
Richard Beverley had risen to his feet and was pacing up and down the room. He found some vent for his feelings by wringing his friend’s hand.
“If this doesn’t beat the band!” he exclaimed. “My head isn’t strong enough to take it all in. So Crawshay found you out?”
“He arrived,” Sir Denis replied, “to find the papers burning upon the hearth. As a matter of fact, he took the ashes with him.”
“He didn’t arrest you, then, after all? There was no charge made?”
“None whatever. He was perfectly satisfied. He stayed until the next morning and we parted friends. A few days ago I had his wedding cards. You know whom he married?”
“Saw them together down-stairs,” Richard declared. “I’m off in a moment to see if I can get hold of Crawshay and shake his hand. — So you’re Sir Denis Cathley, eh, and you’ve chucked that other game altogether?”
“Naturally,” the other replied— “Sir Denis Jocelyn Cathley. As a matter of fact, I am up in town to arrange for some one else to take my place at the Convention. I am not much use as a maker of laws. They’ve promised me a commission in the Irish Guards. That will be settled in a few days. Then I shall go back home to see what I can do amongst my tenantry, and afterwards — well,” he concluded, with a little gleam in his dark eyes, “they promise me I shall go out with the first drafts of the new battalion.”
Richard gripped his friend’s hand once again and turned towards the door.
“It’s great!” he declared. “I must try and catch Crawshay before he goes.”
He hurried out. The door was closed. Sir Denis turned at once towards Katharine. He rose to his feet and leaned over her chair. His voice was not quite so steady.
“So much that I had thought lost for ever,” he said, “has come back to me. So much that I had never thought to realise in this world seems to be coming true. Is it too late for me to ask for the one greatest thing of all of the only person who could count — who ever has counted? You know so well, Katharine, that even as a soured and disappointed man I loved you, and now it is just you, and you only, who could give me — what I want in life.”
She laid her fingers upon his shoulders. Her eyes shone as he drew her into his arms.
“I ought to keep you waiting such a long time,” she murmured, “because I had to ask you first — for your friendship, and you weren’t very kind to die. But I can’t.”
.