“So I should judge. Strange you forgot to mention them!”
“There are unexplained gaps in your own letters,” she reminded him audaciously. “It was only by chance that I heard whom you took out, the night of the Leighton dinner.” Then she turned to the others. “We mustn’t go far, this morning,” she added; “not so much on account of your foot, Mr. Barth, as because of our early dinner. Shall we take ourselves to the terrace?”
High up on the glacis in the lee of the King’s Bastion, they found a belated bit of Indian summer. Nancy dropped down on the crisp, dry turf and, turning, beckoned St. Jacques to her side. Crossing the terrace with Barth, she had seen the Frenchman pacing to and fro beside the rail, and she had answered his wishful greeting with a smile of welcome. Leaving Brock and Churchill to lead the way, Nancy had sauntered idly along in the rear, adjusting her quick step to the frailties of Barth’s ankle, her alert happiness to the darker mood which sat heavily upon her other companion.
“You are not going to fail us, this afternoon, M. St. Jacques?” she asked now.
Silently he shook his head.
“Your cousin has a perfect day,” he said, after a pause.
“And he appreciates it. Already, he declares himself the slave of the place.”
“You are coming with me, in the morning?” St. Jacques inquired.
“I am not sure. I hope we can; but Mr. Churchill is not a very good Catholic,” she answered, with a smile.
St. Jacques’s eyes lighted mirthfully.