I shook my head.
"It is not a relationship which I shall claim," I answered, slowly. "If I should see you again before I go, Miss Devereux, it will be as Mr. Arbuthnot."
Her eyes were speaking to me—speaking words which her lips could not utter, but I avoided them.
Eager voices were hurrying through the garden, and Maud held out her hand with a hurried gesture.
"At any rate, you will let me thank you for your timely aid this evening. But for you I don't know what might not have happened."
I took her hand and raised it to my lips. Then I let it drop, and moved towards the door.
"I think I ought to thank you rather," I answered, with a pretence at a laugh, "for giving me the alarm. If those fellows had got into the house and taken me by surprise, things might have been worse for me, at any rate."
I opened the door and admitted Groves and several of the other servants. Francis Devereux was there, too, but he stood on the pathway outside, without offering to enter, neither did I invite him. Maud went out to him at once, and then I explained to the gaping little crowd what had happened.
"What became of the one you knocked over, sir?" asked Groves, after the little chorus of wondering exclamations had subsided.
"There now, most likely," I answered, with a start. "I'd forgotten all about him."