Cynthia's Chauffeur
before he could make out the hour.
"Time you were back at the hotel," he said, swinging the boat round
quickly. "I am afraid I have kept you out too long, Miss Vanrenen. It
is a perfect night, but you must not risk catching a chill----"
"I'm not worrying about that sort of chill--there are others: what
will Mrs. Devar think?"
"The worst," he could not help saying.
"What time is it, really?"
"Won't you be happier not to know? We have the stream with us now----"
"Mr. Fitzroy--what time is it?"
"Nearly half-past ten o'clock. You did not leave the hotel till after
half-past eight."
"Oh, blame me, of course. 'The woman tempted me and I did eat.'"
"No, no. Apples are not the only forbidden fruit. May I vary an
unworthy defense? The woman came with me and I didn't care."
"But I do care. Please hurry. Mrs. Devar will be real mad, and I
shan't have a word to say for myself."
Medenham bent to it, and the outrigger traveled downstream at a
rare pace. Cynthia steered with fair accuracy by the track they
had followed against the current, but the oarsman glanced over his
shoulder occasionally, and advised her as to the probable trend of
the channel.
"Keep a bit wide here," he said when they were approaching a sharp
bend. "I believe we almost touched ground in midstream as we came up."
She obeyed, and a wide expanse of low-lying land opened before her
eyes.
"I don't see the lights of the hotel yet," she said, with a note of
anxiety.
"You are not making enough allowance for the way in which this river
turns and twists. There are sections in which you box the compass
during the course of a short----"
A sharp tearing noise in the bottom of the boat amidships was followed
by an inrush of water. Medenham sprang upright, leaped overboard, and
caught the port outrigger with his left hand. He was then immersed to
the waist, but he flung his right arm around Cynthia and lifted her
clear of the sinking craft.
"Sit on my shoulder. Steady yourself with your hands on my head," he
said, and his voice was so unemotional that the girl could almost
have laughed. Beyond one startled "Oh!" when the plank was ripped
out she had uttered no sound, and she followed his instructions now
implicitly. She was perched comfortably well above the river when she
felt that he was moving, not to either bank, but down the center of
the stream. Suddenly he let go the boat, which had swung broadside on.
"It is sinking, and the weight was pulling me over," he explained,
still in the same quiet way, as though he were stating the merest
commonplace. Some thrill that she could not account for vibrated
through her body. She was not frightened in the least. She had the
most complete confidence in this man, whose head was braced against
her left thigh, and whose arm was clasping her skirts closely round
her ankles.
"Which side do you mean to make for?" she asked.
"I hardly know. You are higher up than me. Perhaps you can decide best
as to the set of the current. The boat seems to have been carried to
the right."
"Yes. I think the river shoals to the left."
"Suppose we try the other way first. The hotel is on that side."
"Anything you like."
He took a cautious step, then another. The water was rising. Luckily
the current was not very strong or he could not have stood against it.
"No good," he said. "We must go back."
"Pity I'm not a circus lady. Then I might have balanced myself
gracefully on the top of your head."
He murmured something indistinctly, but Cynthia fancied she caught the
words:
"You're a dear, anyhow."
"What did you say?" she asked.
"It is high time we were out of here," he answered, turning his back
to the pressure of water, which was very great in that place.
"What will happen if there are two channels, and we have pitched on a
bank in the middle?"
"I must walk about a bit until I find the right track. The Wye is not
very deep at this point. It must shelve rapidly in one direction or
the other."
"But it mayn't."
"In that event I shall lower you into the water, ask you to hold tight
to my coat collar with both hands, and let me swim. It is only a few
yards."
"But I can swim, too."
"Not in a long dress.... Ah, here we are. I thought so."
In a couple of strides the water was below his knees. Soon he was
standing on a pebbly beach at the nose of the promontory formed by
the bend where the accident had happened. In order to lower Cynthia
to the ground without bringing her muslin flounces in contact with
his dripping clothes he had to stoop somewhat. Her hair brushed his
forehead, his eyes, his lips, as he lifted her down. His hands rested
for an instant on the warm softness of her neck and shoulders. His
heart leaped in a mad riot of joy at the belief that she would have
uttered no protest if he had drawn her nearer instead of setting her
decorously on her feet. He dared not look at her, but turned and gazed
at the river.
"Thank God, that is over!" he said.
Cynthia heard something in his voice then that was absent when they
were both in peril of being swept away by the silent rush of the black
stream.
"Quite an adventure," she sighed, stooping to feel the hem of her
frock.
"You are not wet?" he asked, after a pause.
"Not a thread. The water barely touched my feet. How prompt you were!
I suppose men who fight have often to decide quickly like that....
What caused it? A whole seam was torn open."
"It cannot be a stake. Such a thing would not be permitted to exist in
this river.... A snag probably. Some old tree stump undermined by
last month's heavy rain."
"What of the boat? Is it lost?"
"No. It will be found easily enough in the morning. The damage is
trifling. How splendid you were!"
"Please don't. I haven't said a word to you, and I don't mean to."
"But----"
"Well, say it, if you must."
"I am not going to compliment you in the ordinary terms. Just
this--nature intended you to be a soldier's bride, Miss Vanrenen."
"Nature, being feminine, may promise that which she does not always
mean to carry out. Besides, I don't know many soldiers.... It is
charming here, by the river's edge, but I must remember that you are
soaked to the skin. Where are we, exactly?"
"About four miles from the hotel, by water: perhaps a mile and
three-quarters as the crow flies."
"How far as a girl walks?"
"Let us try," he said briskly. "We seem to have landed in a meadow. If
we cross it, all my efforts to save that muslin frock will count as
naught, since there is sure to be a heavy dew on the grass after this
fine day. Suppose we follow the bank a little way until we reach some
sort of a path. Will you take my hand?"
"No, I need both hands to hold up my dress. But you might grab my
arm. I am wearing French shoes, which are not built for clambering
over rocks."
Cynthia was adroit. The use of one small word had relieved the
situation. Medenham might hold her arm with the utmost tenderness, but
so long as he was "grabbing" it there was nothing more to be said.
He piloted her to a narrow strip of turf that bordered the Wye, found
a path that ran close to a small wood, and soon they were in a road.
There was slight excuse for arm-holding now, but Cynthia seemed to
think that her frills still needed safeguarding, so he did not
withdraw the hand which clung to her elbow.
A light in a laborer's cottage promised information; he knocked at the
door, which was not opened, but a voice cried:
"Who is it? What do you want?"
"Tell me the nearest way to the Symon's Yat Hotel, please," said
Medenham.
"Keep straight on till you come to the ferry. If the boat is on this
side you can pull yourself across."
"But if it is not?"
"You must chance it. The nearest bridge is a mile the other way."
"By gad!" said Medenham under his breath.
"I wouldn't care a pin if Mrs. Devar wasn't waiting for me," whispered
Cynthia, whose mental attitude during this mishap on the Wye
contrasted strangely with her alarm when Marigny's motor collapsed on
the Mendips.
"Mrs. Devar is the real problem," laughed Medenham. "We must find some
means of soothing her agitation."
"Why don't you like her?"
"That is one of the things I wish to explain later."
"She has been horrid to you, I know, but----"
"I am beginning to think that I owe her a debt of gratitude I can
never repay."
"What will happen if that wretched ferryboat is on the wrong side of
the river?"
Medenham took her arm again, for the road was dark where there were
trees.
"You are not to think about it," he said. "I have been doing all the
talking to-night. Now tell me something of your wanderings abroad."
These two already understood each other without the spoken word. He
respected her desire to sheer off anything that might be construed as
establishing a new relationship between them, and she appreciated his
restraint to the full. They discussed foreign lands and peoples until
the road bent toward the river again and the ferry was reached--at a
point quite half a mile below the hotel.
And there was no boat!
A wire rope drooped into the darkness of the opposite bank, but no
voice answered Medenham's hail. Cynthia said not a syllable until her
companion handed her his watch with a request that she should hold
it.
"You are not going into that river," she cried determinedly.
"There is not the slightest risk," he said.
"But there is. What if you were seized with cramp?"
"I shall cling to the rope, if that will satisfy you. I have swum the
Zambesi before to-day, not from choice, I admit, and it is twenty
times the width of the Wye, while it holds more crocodiles than the
Wye holds salmon."
"Well--if you promise about the rope."
Soon he was out of sight, and her heart knew its first pang of fear.
Then she heard his cry of "Got the boat," followed by the clank of a
sculling oar and the creak of the guiding-wheel on the hawser.
At last, shortly before midnight, they neared the hotel. Lights were
visible on the quay, and Medenham read their meaning.
"They are sending out a search party," he said. "I must go and stop
them. You run on to the hotel, Miss Vanrenen. Good-night! I shall give
you an extra hour to-morrow."
She hesitated the fraction of a second. Then she extended a hand.
"Good-night," she murmured. "After all, I have had a real lovely
time."
Then she was gone, and Medenham turned to thank the hotel servants
and others who were going to the rescue.
"I wonder what the guv'nor will say when he sees Cynthia," he thought,
with the smile on his face of the lover who deems his lady peerless
among her sex. He recalled that moment before many days had passed,
and his reflections then took a new guise, for not all the knowledge
and all the experience a man may gather can avail him a whit to
forecast the future when Fate is spinning her complex web.
CHAPTER X
THE HIDDEN FOUNTS OF EVIL
It was a flushed and somewhat breathless Cynthia who ran into the
quiet country hotel at an hour when the Licensing Laws of Britain have
ordained that quiet country hotels shall be closed. But even the laws
of the Medes and Persians, which altered not, must have bulged a
little at times under the pressure of circumstances. The daughter of
an American millionaire could not be reported as "missing" without a
buzz of commotion being aroused in that secluded valley. As a matter
of fact, no one in the house dreamed of going to bed until her
disappearance was accounted for, one way or the other.
Mrs. Devar, now really woebegone, screamed shrilly at sight of her.
The lady's nerves were in a parlous condition--"on a raw edge" was her