Page:The Yellow Book - 07.djvu/356

 She had steadfastly refused to return, and Shergold had supported her in her refusal. He had shortly after this given up his appointment at Saint Helier's for a better one in London, where he had lived near Lily, influencing her as much as ever, seeing her, doubtless, every day. In the few letters which Lily had written her husband since the separation—letters dealing always with points or business, with money arrangements, rendered necessary by their altered relations—Le Mesurier recognised, in the cold, judicial tone, the well-arranged phrases, Shergold's guiding hand. He at first had answered them briefly, latterly not at all, and it was his final persistent silence which had brought his enemy in person to Le Tas, and delivered him into his hands.—Oh, he was glad he had killed him! Shergold had ruined his life, and he had taken Shergold's. They were quits at last. No, he felt no remorse.

But neither did he feel any fear; and this surprised him, for that the transgressor should fear discovery and retribution was within every man's experience. He began to ask himself how this was, and he came to believe that it arose from the fact that he had in reality no cause for fear. Discovery was practically an impossibility. In the first place, no one knew that Shergold had come to Saint Maclou at all. He had told Le Mesurier it was a sudden idea which had occurred to him during dinner, on which he had acted the same night. Then the boat had been so late, that, to save time, he had not gone into the hotel, where he might have been remembered, but had come up to Le Tas over the cliffs, without notice or recognition from anybody. That he should have been seen between leaving the cottage and reaching the Coupée was impossible. Le Mesurier had followed him closely enough