He saw their faces for a moment in the starlight, and in that moment he knew they were lovers. He waited until they were out of sight, then he hurried back to the farm.
Sir Reginald Crichton's son was in love with his sister Marjorie. Here was a fresh complication which at first seemed to add to the tragedy which threatened him. "Jim" and he had been old friends as boys. Crichton was his senior, and when he left Woolwich and was eventually attached to the Royal Flying Corps, they lost sight of one another. Presently, Rupert's discovery suggested a loophole of escape—if matters turned out badly for him. If Jim Crichton and Marjorie were engaged to be married Sir Reginald might be persuaded not to push enquiries concerning the altered cheque too far!
There was something not quite pleasant in the thought, and he dismissed it. But before he had reached his home it had returned again. He entered the parlour; the lamp was burning on the table, the peat fire glowed in the grate.
Despard sat in the arm-chair before it, his feet stretched on to the mantelshelf, a pipe between his lips. An old-fashioned photograph album was on his knees. Rupert walked to his side and bent over his shoulders.
"What on earth are you looking at?" he asked with exaggerated carelessness.
Despard pointed to an amateur photograph of Marjorie. She was seated on a stool in one of the fields milking a cow.
"Rather good, isn't it?" Rupert said. "The local parson took it last year."
Despard nodded. "It would make a very fine picture. It's the sort of thing which, if properly done, would create a sensation in our Academy." He knocked his pipe out into the grate. "Do you know your sister's a jolly sight too pretty and too intelligent to be shut up in a wild, God-forsaken place like this? It's criminal, old man. When you go back to London, you ought to take her with you; give her a chance of mixing with decent people and seeing life, eh?"
"She's happy enough here," Rupert said uneasily.
Despard smiled and closed the book. "She would be happier in London. See if you really can't take her back with you, Rupert.... Perhaps I'd better confess at once that I've fallen in love with her! It's sudden, I know, and, of course, I shouldn't dream of breathing a word to her yet. But—one good turn deserves another, and if you get a chance put in a word for me, will you?"