Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/163

 see about it—I don't know whether there'll be time before tea or not."

A moment more Varge stood without movement, then he laid down the spade, crossed quickly to the barn, and withdrew out of sight behind one of the stalls. He had barely a minute to wait. The carriage wheels rattled on the gravel drive coming toward him past the side of the house, a shadow fell across the barn doors—and as the stamp of hoofs rang loudly on the wooden flooring, he stepped suddenly from the stall to the horse's head. With a little neigh and whinny that was almost human in its recognition and greeting, the animal rubbed its nose against his shoulder.

"Lady Mine," he answered softly—but his eyes played coldly upon Harold Merton on the buggy seat.

Merton's face on the instant had gone grey-white, and the reins had fallen from nerveless hands across the dashboard.

Varge's eyes still held upon the other, not a flicker in their steady gaze, a question in their depths that needed no words to amplify it.

Merton wet his lips with the tip of his tongue.

"You—you here?" he stammered. "I—I thought you were at Berley Falls this afternoon."

"You thought I was at Berley Falls!"—the words came with quick significance from Varge's lips. "Well?"

"At—at the trial, you know," stumbled Merton, realising that his remark had been unfortunate and clumsily trying to gloss it over. "Everybody knew, of course, that you were there, and everybody thought it would last for several days yet. I—I thought you