Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/52

32 those pleading, praying, upturned lips. He was not worthy to touch them with his. He remembered this up to the end.

She leaned against the cold wall as he darted from her. The last thing she saw him do was to pick up the thick stick she had noticed lying in the grass; and that sinister final act struck a chill to her heart that was felt at the time, not afterwards imagined. That he could think of such a thing in such an hour! And she locked the gate and hurried down the gravel walks with eyes suddenly dried and a heart already at war with its own warmth. But when she came in sight of the arbour, and had to skulk once more behind the leaves, all in a moment she sounded the depth of her love and found it fathomless; for since the last like manœuvre the thought of Daintree had never once crossed her mind. Indeed he was recalled now chiefly by the smell of a particular cheroot which he smoked incessantly. He was smoking one at this moment in the arbour, where he had remained ever since she left him.

The other gentlemen were still at their wine—in those days they would sit over it till midnight—and Claire went first to her own room, which she gained unobserved. Here she changed her slippers for a precisely similar pair; also her stockings, which were wet to the ankles. Then she rang for her maid.

A pallid young woman, with black eyes set close together beneath a stunted brow, knocked promptly at the door, and entered with a downcast glance which swept straight to her mistress’s feet.

“Has Captain Blaydes arrived?”

The black eyes gleamed. “I haven’t heard, miss; shall I see?”