She had been in the act of turning away. She paused.
“Everything may be changed here in a few days,” he went on, “and, of course, I may be pretty unpopular. Will you promise me that you will not go away without seeing me?”
She hesitated for a moment. Then she gave him her hand quickly. To his surprise there were tears in her eyes.
“I promise,” she said. “You have been kind to me, at any rate. You are the first person who has been really kind to me for years.”
She moved away too quickly for him to detain her. Mr. Johnson returned slowly to the house, over which the shadow of tragedy seemed once more to be brooding.
CHAPTER XIII
“Doing me well for our farewell dinner, Dad,” Gregory murmured appreciatively, as he set down his glass with a little gesture of reverence. “’70 Port.”
Sir Bertram smiled pleasantly. It was not for the two footmen standing motionless at either end of the magnificent sideboard, or even for Rawson behind his master’s chair, to know that this was anything but an ordinary function. Conversation throughout the meal had taken no account of possible catastrophe. They had talked of the sporting side of Gregory’s expedition; Sir Bertram himself had shot big game in Canada more than once.
“There are only a few bottles left, I regret to say,” Sir Bertram remarked. “We started on the last bin at the commencement of the year.”
“This is the Cockburn’s shipping,” Henry put in. “We have always considered it the finer wine. If you will pass the decanter, Bertram, I will indulge in my second glass.”