The Zeppelin's Passenger
they would never do for any other reason. If you must go, come back
to-night, Henry. Come back, and if you are obstinate, and won't tell
Philippa all that she has a right to know, tell her about that luncheon
in town.”
Sir Henry frowned.
“It's all very well, you know, Helen,” he said, “but a woman ought to
trust her husband.”
“I am your friend, remember,” Helen replied, “and upon my word, I
couldn't trust and believe even in Dick, if he behaved as you have done
for the last twelve months.”
Sir Henry made a grimace.
“Well, that settles it, I suppose, then,” he observed. “I'll have one
more try and see what I can do with Philippa. Perhaps a hint of what's
going on may satisfy her.”
He climbed the stairs, meeting Nora on her way down, and knocked at his
wife's door. There was no reply. He tried the handle and found the door
locked.
“Are you there, Philippa?” he asked.
“Yes!” she replied coldly.
“I am going to London this morning. Can I have a few words with you
first?”
“No!”
Sir Henry was a little taken aback.
“Don't be silly, Philippa,” he persisted. “I may be away for four or
five days.”
There was no answer. Sir Henry suddenly remembered another entrance
from a newly added bathroom. He availed himself of it and found Philippa
seated in an easy-chair, calmly progressing with her breakfast. She
raised her eyebrows at his entrance.
“These are my apartments,” she reminded him.
“Don't be a little fool,” he exclaimed impatiently.
Philippa deliberately buttered herself a piece of toast, picked up her
book, and became at once immersed in it.
“You don't wish to talk to me, then?” he demanded.
“I do not,” she agreed. “You have had all the opportunities which any
man should need, of explaining certain matters to me. My curiosity
in them has ended; also my interest--in you. You say you are going to
London. Very well. Pray do not hurry home on my account.”
Sir Henry, as he turned to leave the room, made the common mistake of a
man arguing with a woman--he attempted to have the last word.
“Perhaps I am better out of the way, eh?”
“Perhaps so,” Philippa assented sweetly.
CHAPTER XXVI
Philippa, late that afternoon, found what she sought--solitude. She had
walked along the sands until Dreymarsh lay out of sight on the other
side of a spur of the cliffs. Before her stretched a long and level
plain, a fringe of sand, and a belt of shingly beach. There was not a
sign of any human being in sight, and of buildings only a quaint tower
on the far horizon.
She found a dry place on the pebbles, removed her hat and sat down, her
hands clasped around her knees, her eyes turned seaward. She had
come out here to think, but it was odd how fugitive and transient her
thoughts became. Her husband was always there in the background, but
in those moments it was Lessingham who was the predominant figure. She
remembered his earnestness, his tender solicitude for her, the courage
which, when necessity demanded, had flamed up in him, a born and natural
quality. She remembered the agony of those few minutes on the preceding
day, when nothing but what still seemed a miracle had saved him. At one
moment she felt herself inclined to pray that he might never come back.
At another, her heart ached to see him once more. She knew so well
that if he came it would be for her sake, that he would come to ask her
finally the question with which she had fenced. She knew, too, that his
coming would be the moment of her life. She was so much of a woman, and
the passionate craving of her sex to give love for love was there in her
heart, almost omnipotent. And in the background there was that bitter
desire to bring suffering upon the man who had treated her like a child,
who had placed her in a false position with all other women, who had
dawdled and idled away his days, heedless of his duty, heedless of every
serious obligation. When she tried to reason, her way seemed so clear,
and yet, behind it all, there was that cold impulse of almost Victorian
prudishness, the inheritance of a long line of virtuous women, a
prudishness which she had once, when she had believed that it was part
of her second nature, scoffed at as being the outcome of one of the
finer forms of selfishness.
She told herself that she had come there to decide, and decision came no
nearer to her. A late afternoon star shone weakly in the sky. A faint,
vaporous mist obscured the horizon and floated in tangled wreaths upon
the face of the sea. Only that line of sand seemed still clear-cut and
distinct, and as she glanced along it her eyes were held by something
approaching, something which seemed at first nothing but a black, moving
speck, then gradually resolved itself into the semblance of a man on
horseback, galloping furiously. She watched him as he drew nearer and
nearer, the sand flying from his horse's hoofs, his figure motionless,
his eyes apparently fixed upon some distant spot. It was not until he
had come within fifty yards of her that she recognised him. His horse
shied at the sight of her and was suddenly swung round with a powerful
wrist. Little specks of sand, churned up in the momentary stampede
of hoofs, fell upon her skirt. For the rest, she watched the struggle
composedly, a struggle which was over almost as soon as it was begun.
Captain Griffiths leaned down from his trembling but subdued horse.
“Lady Cranston!” he exclaimed in astonishment.
“That's me,” she replied, smiling up at him. “Have you been riding off
your bad temper?”
He glanced down at his horse's quivering sides. Back as far as one could
see there was that regular line of hoof marks.
“Am I bad-tempered?” he asked.
“Well,” she observed, “I don't know you well enough to answer that
question. I was simply thinking of yesterday evening.”
He slipped from his horse and stood before her. His long, severe face
had seldom seemed more malevolent.
“I had enough to make me bad-tempered,” he declared. “I had tracked
down a German spy, step by step, until I had him there, waiting for
arrest--expecting it, even--and then I got that wicked message.”
“What was that wicked message after all?” she enquired.
“That doesn't matter,” he answered. “It was from a quarter where they
ought to know better, and it ordered me to make no arrest. I have sent
to the War Office to-day a full report, and I am praying that they may
change their minds.”
Philippa sighed.
“If you hadn't received that telegram last night,” she observed, “it
seems to me that I should have been a widow to-day.”
He frowned, and struck his boot heavily with his riding whip.
“Yes, I heard of that,” he admitted. “I dare say if he hadn't gone,
though, some one else would.”
“Would you have gone if you had been there?” she asked.
“If you had told me to,” he replied, looking at her steadfastly.
Philippa felt a little shiver. There was something ominous in the
intensity of his gaze and the meaning which he had contrived to impart
to his tone. She rose to her feet.
“Well,” she said, “don't let me keep you here. I am getting cold.”
He passed his arm through the bridle of his horse. “I will walk with
you, if I may,” he proposed. She made no reply, and they set their faces
homewards.
“I hear Lessingham has left the place,” he remarked, a little abruptly.
“Oh, I expect he'll come back,” Philippa replied.
“How long is it, Lady Cranston, since you took to consorting with German
spies?” he asked.
“Don't be foolish--or impertinent,” she enjoined. “You are making a
ridiculous mistake about Mr. Lessingham.”
He laughed unpleasantly.
“No need for us to fence,” he said. “You and I know who he is. What I
do want to know, what I have been wondering all the way from the point
there--four miles of hard galloping and one question--why are you his
friend? What is he to you?”
“Really, Captain Griffiths,” she protested, looking up at him, “of what
possible interest can that be to you?”
“Well, it is, anyhow,” he answered gruffly. “Anything that concerns you
is of interest to me.”
Philippa realised at that moment, perhaps for the first time, what it
all meant. She realised the significance of those apparently purposeless
afternoon calls, when through sheer boredom she had had to send for
Helen to help her out; the significance of those long silences, the
melancholy eyes which seemed to follow her movements. She felt an
unaccountable desire to laugh, and then, at the first twitchings of her
lips, she restrained herself. She knew that tragedy was stalking by her
side.
“I think, Captain Griffiths,” she said gravely, “that you are talking
nonsense, and you are not a very good hand at it. Won't you please ride
on?”
He made no movement to mount his horse. He plodded along the soft sand
by her side--a queer, elongated figure, his gloomy eyes fixed upon the
ground.
“Until this fellow Lessingham came you were never so hard,” he
persisted.
She looked at him with genuine curiosity.
“I was never so hard?” she repeated. “Do you imagine that I have ever
for a single moment considered my demeanour towards you--you of all
persons in the world? I simply don't remember when you have been there
and when you haven't. I don't remember the humours in which I have been
when we have conversed. All that you have said seems to me to be the
most arrant nonsense.”
He swung himself into the saddle and gathered up the reins.
“Thank you,” he said bitterly, “I understand. Only let me tell you
this,” he went on, his whip poised in his hand. “You may have powerful
friends who saved your--”
He hesitated so long that she glanced up at him and read all that he had
wished to say in his face.
“My what?” she asked.
His courage failed him.
“Mr. Lessingham,” he proceeded, “from arrest. But if he shows his face
here again in Dreymarsh, I sha'n't stop to arrest him. I shall shoot him
on sight and chance the consequences.”
“They'll hang you!” she declared savagely.
He laughed at her.
“Hang me for shooting a man whom I can prove to be a German spy? They
won't dare! They won't even dare to place me under arrest for an hour.
Why, when the truth becomes known,” he went on, his voice gaining
courage as the justice of his case impressed itself upon him, “what do
you suppose is going to happen to two women who took this fellow in and
befriended him, introduced him under a false name to their friends, gave
him the run of their house--this man whom they knew all the time was a
German? You, Lady Cranston, chafing and scolding your husband by night
and by day because he isn't where you think he ought to be; you, so
patriotic that you cannot bear the sight of him out of uniform; you--the
hostess, the befriender, the God knows what of Bertram Maderstrom! It
will be a pretty tale when it's all told!”
“I really think,” Philippa asserted calmly, “that you are the most
utterly impossible and obnoxious creature I have ever met.”
His face was dangerous for a moment. They had not yet reached the
promontory which sheltered them from Dreymarsh.
“Perhaps,” he muttered, leaning malignly towards her, “I could make
myself even more obnoxious.”
“Quite possibly,” she replied, “only I want to tell you this. If you
come a single inch nearer to me, one of them shall shoot you.”
“Your friend or your husband, eh?” he scoffed.
She waved him on.
“I think,” she told him, “that either of them would be quite capable of
ridding the world of a coward like you.”
“A coward?” he repeated.
“Precisely! Isn't it a coward's part to terrorise a woman?”
“I don't want to terrorise you,” he said sulkily.
“Well, you must admit that you haven't shown any particular desire to
make yourself agreeable,” she pointed out.
He turned suddenly upon her.