Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/288

 of no possibility of misunderstanding. "It was the day I got pneumonia."

Through Lady Drewitt's mind there flashed the thought of some designing country girl, who had entrapped her nephew. Probably she had helped to nurse him, had heard who he was and, convinced that his aunt would see he was well provided for, had determined to marry him.

"Who is she?" With an effort Lady Drewitt regained her self-control, "and what was she doing on a stile?"

"It was a gate," corrected Beresford. "It led from the high-road into a meadow and"

"What—was—she—doing—on—a—gate?" Lady Drewitt was not to be denied.

"She was smoking a cigarette," he explained, "and it was raining. That's what struck me"

"But what was she doing there at all?" Lady Drewitt drew in her lips until nothing but a thin, grey line was visible.

"She was tramping," he explained, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world for a girl to do.

"A tramp!" cried Lady Drewitt, the full horror of the situation seeming to dawn upon her. "A tramp!"

"It was rather a coincidence, wasn't it?" he smiled.

"You're mad, Richard," she cried, "you've always been a fool; but now you're mad." She snapped her jaws with an incisiveness that made him shudder. "It must be put a stop to."