“In a female, I do. Besides, she spills it On her clothes. Ugh! Oh, I did not mean you, sir!” she added, with a ripple of sudden laughter. “You do it with such an air!”
“Thank you!” he said.
A waiter came in to lay the covers for dinner, and presented a small, twisted note to Sir Richard on a large tray.
He picked it up unhurriedly, and spread it open. Pen, anxiously watching him, could detect nothing in his face but boredom. He read the note through to the end, and consigning it to his pocket, glanced towards Pen. “Let me see: what were we discussing?”
“Snuff,” replied Pen, in a hollow voice.
“Ah, yes! I myself use King’s Martinique, but there are many who consider it a trifle light in character.”
She returned a mechanical answer, and upon the waiter’s leaving the room, interrupted Sir Richard’s description of the proper way to preserve snuff in good condition, by demanding impetuously: “Who was it from, sir?”
“Don’t be inquisitive!” said Sir Richard calmly.
“You can’t deceive me! I feel sure it was from that hateful man.”
“It was, but there is no occasion for you to trouble your head over it, believe me.”
“Only tell me! Does he mean to do you some mischief?”
“Certainly not. It would, in all events, be a task quite beyond his power.”
“I feel very uneasy.”
“So I perceive. You will be the better for your dinner.”
The waiter came in with the duck at that opportune moment, and set it upon the table. Pen was, in fact, so hungry that her thoughts were instantly diverted. She made a very good dinner, and did not again refer to the note.
Sir Richard, maintaining a flow of easy conversation, seemed to be wholly devoid of care, but the note had annoyed him. There was very little fear, he considered, of Beverley’s being able to harm Miss Creed, since he could have no knowledge of her identity; and his veiled threat of exposing Sir Richard was a matter of indifference to that gentleman. But he would certainly meet Beverley in the spinney at the proposed hour, for it now became more than ever necessary to despatch him to London immediately. While he remained in the neighbourhood there would be no question of delivering Pen into Lady Luttrell’s care, and although Sir Richard had not the least desire to relinquish his self-appointed guardianship of that enterprising damsel, he was perfectly well aware that he must do so, and without any loss of time.
Accordingly, he sent her to bed shortly after half-past-nine, telling her that if she were not tired she deserved to be. She went without demur, so probably her day spent in the open had made her sleepy. He waited until a few minutes before ten o’clock, and then took his hat and walking-cane, and strolled out of the inn.
There was a full moon, and not a cloud to be seen in the sky. Sir Richard had no difficulty in seeing his way, and soon came to the track through the wood. It was darker here, for the trees held out the moonlight. A rabbit scuttled across the path, an owl hooted somewhere at hand, and there were little rustlings in the undergrowth, but Sir Richard was not of a nervous disposition, and did not find these sounds in any way disturbing.
But he was hardly prepared to come upon a lady lying stretched across the path, immediately round a bend in it. This sight was, indeed, so unexpected that it brought him up short. The lady did not move, but lay in a crumpled heap of pale muslin and darker cloak. Sir Richard, recovering from his momentary surprise, strode forward, and dropped on to his knee beside her. It was too dark under the trees for him to be able to distinguish her features clearly, but he thought she was young. She was not dead, as he had at first feared, but in a deep faint. He began to chafe her hands, and had just bethought him of the tiny stream which he had observed that morning, when she showed signs of returning consciousness. He raised her in his arms, hearing a sigh flutter past her lips. A moan succeeded the sigh; she said something he could not catch, and began weakly to cry.
“Don’t cry!” Sir Richard said. “You are quite safe.”
She caught her breath on a sob, and stiffened in his hold. He felt her little hands close on his arm. Then she began to tremble.
“No, there is nothing to frighten you,” he said in his cool way. “You will be better directly.”
“Oh!” The exclamation sounded terrified. “Who are you? Oh, let me go!”
“Certainly I will let you go, but are you able to stand yet? You do not know me, but I am perfectly harmless, I assure you.”
She made a feeble attempt to struggle up, and succeeded only in crouching on the path in a woebegone huddle, saying through her sobs: “I must go! Oh, I must go! I ought not to have come!”
“That I can well believe,” said Sir Richard, still on his knee beside her. “Why did you come? Or is that an impertinent question?”
It had the effect of redoubling her sobs. She buried her face in her hands, shuddering, and rocking herself to and fro, and gasping out unintelligible phrases.
“Well!” said a voice behind Sir Richard.
He looked quickly over his shoulder. “Pen! What are you doing here?”
“I followed you,” replied Pen, looking critically down at the weeping girl. “I brought a stout stick too, because I thought you were going to meet the odious stammering-man, and I feel sure he means to do you a mischief. Who is this?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” replied Sir Richard. “And presently I shall have something to say to you on the subject of this idiotic escapade of yours! My good child, can’t you stop crying?”
“What is she doing here?” asked Pen, unmoved by his strictures.
“Heaven knows! I found her lying on the path. How does one make a female stop crying?”
“I shouldn’t think you could. She’s going to have a fit of the vapours, I expect. And I do not see why you should hug people, if you don’t know who they are.”
“I was not hugging her.”
“It looked like it to me,” argued Pen.
“I suppose,” said Sir Richard sardonically, “you would have had me step over her, and walk on?”
“Yes, I would,” replied Pen promptly.
“Don’t be a little fool! The girl had fainted.”
“Oh!” Pen moved forward. “I wonder what made her do that? You know, it all seems extremely odd to me.”
“It seems quite as odd to me, let me tell you.” He laid his hand on the sobbing girl’s shoulder. “Come! You will not help matters by crying. Can’t you tell me what has happened to upset you so?”
The girl made a convulsive effort to choke back her hysterical tears, and managed to utter: “I was so frightened!”
“Yes, that I had realized. What frightened you?”
“There was a man!” gasped the girl. “And I hid, and then another man came, and they began to quarrel, and I dared not move for fear they should hear me, and the big one hit the other, and he fell down and lay still, and the big one took something out of his pocket, and went away, and oh, oh, he passed so close I c-could have touched him only by stretching out my hand! The other man never moved, and I was so frightened I ran, everything went black, and I think I fainted.”
“Ran away?” repeated Pen in disgusted accents. “What a poor-spirited thing to do! Didn’t you go to help the man who was knocked down?”
“Oh no, no, no!” shuddered the girl.
“I must say, I don’t think you deserve to have such an adventure. And if I were you I wouldn’t continue sitting in the middle of the path. It isn’t at all helpful, and it makes you look very silly.”
This severe speech had the effect of angering the girl. She reared up her head, and exclaimed: “How dare you? You are the rudest young man I ever met in my life!”
Sir Richard put his hand under her elbow, and assisted her to her feet. “Ah—accept my apologies on my nephew’s behalf, ma’am!” he said, with only the faintest quiver in his voice. “A sadly ill-conditioned boy! May I suggest to you that you should rest on this bank for a few moments, while I go to investigate the—er—scene of the assault you so graphically described? My nephew—who has, you perceive, provided himself with a stout stick—will charge himself with your safety.”