She stood looking at him a moment. “I didn’t mean to be flippant, Frank—nothing but kind. Shall we go a walk together? It’s such a lovely morning. Only you must promise.”
“I think I know what you mean by kind, Audrey—kind in forbearing. Very well, I will promise.”
He stowed his music away, and they went out together—out through the green and shadowed churchyard, with its old headboards and epitaphs. There was one to a merry maid dead at sixteen, whose thoughtless laughter had served some mortuary rhymster for a theme on the perishableness of sweet things, with an earnest recommendation to the Christian to be wise while he might—as if wisdom lay in melancholy. There was a fine opportunity for drawing a moral; but Sir Francis did not draw it. Perhaps he thought he would rather have marriage as a jest than no wife at all.
Soon they were outside the village and making for the free Downs. Audrey was always at her best and frankest on the Downs.
“I had wanted to speak to you,” said her companion. “Is it really true that our friend the Baron’s man has been arrested in connexion with this horrible affair?”
“Yes, it is quite true. Poor Baron! I am not allowed to know much about it all; but it seems that everything points to this Louis being the culprit. He went out on the afternoon of the murder with the express purpose of seeking Annie, and did not come home till long afterwards. The police have taken him into custody on suspicion.”
“It must be awkward for you all, having the Baron for a guest.”
“It is, in a way; but we can’t very well ask him to go elsewhere while his man is in peril. He offered; but papa wouldn’t hear of it. He said the best thing for them both was to go on playing chess.”
“How’s Hugo?”
“He’s all right. Why shouldn’t he be?”