Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/98

78 The eye of the guest was on him till it dropped with weariness; and at sunrise they both retired.

Claire in her room had never closed an eye. She did not come down to breakfast, and her aunt presided in her stead.

Lady Starkie thought her brother and his guest a pair of wrecks, and did not wonder at it when they told her to what hour they had sat up. But that was all they did tell her; and the lieutenant-general’s widow departed for Bath in the forenoon, little dreaming what a storm was to burst within the hour.

When she was gone Mr. Harding ordered his coach for another expedition to West End. Daintree again accompanied him, and looking back as they drove away, saw a white face vanish from the window whence the light had disappeared on their return from the earlier pilgrimage overnight. He gnashed his teeth, but said nothing; and they drove on in a common preoccupation.

The fields were dazzling green in the sweet, hot sunshine; the hedgerows sparkled with a million emeralds; and up the hill to the right, beneath a row of horse-chestnuts clouded over with young leaves, the white trousers and shiny hats of a body of police caught without riveting Mr. Harding’s roving eye. The sun shone brilliantly upon the cool green spot where they stood; but yet another constable, with a tall companion in plain clothes, was descending the right-of-way, and reached the road-side stile as the coach passed.

“There seems to be something astir there,” observed Daintree, pointing to the group up above.

Mr. Harding glanced in the direction indicated, and then sat looking straight in front of him until the red roofs of West End rose above the hedge to the left.