“I was right, and you were wrong. It would have been better if we had never met, and I hope that we may never meet again. If we should do so, it must be as strangers. No one shall ever learn from me that we have ever been anything else.
“Doris Marlowe.”
He pondered over these few lines, word by word, for some minutes, then, with a satisfied nod, re-enclosed the note in its envelope, and neatly re-fastened it.
“I don’t think any one, however sharp and critical his sight, would detect that her little note had been opened,” he murmured. “The gum had scarcely dried. Yes, that will do very well! Admirably; in fact, there is no need for me to add a word. But all the same, my dear young lady, we will not send it to Cecil Neville just yet! No, no, it would be so sudden a shock. No, really, in common charity, we must give him some slight preparation.”
Then he took from his pocket four letters, and, with a soft smile of enjoyment, read them over.
They were in Lord Cecil’s anything but elegant handwriting, and were addressed to Miss Marlowe at the lodgings, and had kindly been taken charge of by Mr. Spenser Churchill.
“Youth, rash youth! How frantically he writes! Dear me, I am very glad Providence permitted me to keep them from the dear young thing’s sight; they would have unsettled her so sadly! Quite eloquent they are! I had no idea Master Cecil had such a ready pen. I am afraid you are spending anything but a pleasant time over there waiting for the answers to these frantic epistles, the answer which will rather surprise you when you get it. What will you do when you find the bird has flown, I wonder? Be as mad as a March hare for a few days, and then——” He shrugged his shoulders, and with a laugh, struck a match and made a bonfire of the intercepted letters, and watched them until all that remained of their imploring eloquence was a little heap of ashes in the empty grate.
In such excellent spirits was Mr. Spenser Churchill, so full of the peace which flows from the possession of a good conscience, that, as he entered the drawing-room a few minutes before dinner that evening, he hummed a few bars from the “Lost Chord,” that cheerful melody being the nearest approach to profane music which he permitted himself; and, going up to the sofa upon which Lady Grace was reclining, raised her white hand to his lips and kissed it with playfully solemn gallantry.
She snatched her hand away impatiently, and drawing her handkerchief over the spot his lips had touched, said:
“You appear conspicuously cheerful to-night. May one inquire the reason? Don’t trouble to tell me if you are not sure it will be interesting. I am quite bored enough already,” and she moved her fan with a weary gesture.