"That's all right," he said, smiling kindly at her. "Show your gratitude by playing the game like a sportsman. If there is any way out of the mess I'll find it for you. Keep a stout heart. Good-bye."
He walked away from the house apparently absorbed in thought, but when he was out of sight he fairly rubbed his hands.
"It's like a bally game of chess," he said with glee, "and the chess-board's like Tom Tiddler's ground; there's gold and silver for me on every bally square simply waiting to be picked up. Just now it's Sir Geoffrey sending me to the assistance of the queen, who's in a tight place: starving, if you please, on about a thousand a year; and if for any reason that source of revenue dries up, the queen can be driven into the arms of Sir Ross. More bigamy, unless Sir Geoffrey is translated to another sphere, and if he is it won't matter very much to me. If my polygamous aunt marries Sir Ross Buchanan at all I shall be able to draw a very respectable percentage of her annual income. Oh, these knights and ladies!"
But indoors, Lavender Sinclair, with a very white face, sat thinking, thinking, thinking, and the only thought which was really clear before her mind was how fortunate it was that she had met Melville Ashley when she did. In him, at any rate, she possessed one loyal friend on whom she could rely.
CHAPTER X.
LIGHT COME, LIGHT GO.
Lucille's forebodings were justified by the event. Days passed by and Sir Ross Buchanan neither wrote nor called; but while the maid was filled with real concern at this interruption in a love story of which she had been so sympathetic an eye-witness, her mistress regarded it with indifference. At first she even hailed it as a relief, for it did away with all possibility of her being called upon to give explanations for what she saw must be the definite postponement of her marriage with him. She lost no time in verifying Melville's statement about the invalidity of her marriage with Mr. Sinclair, and the more she considered her position the uneasier she grew. She was afraid to take a legal opinion upon it, and to her fear of losing the income she derived from a charge upon Mr. Sinclair's estate was added terror of the pains and penalties to which, in her ignorance of all legal matters, she thought her bigamous marriage had rendered her liable. That she had acted in good faith at the time afforded her but little consolation. She had done something punishable by law, and she was in terror of anyone else finding it out.
In Melville's discretion she had perfect confidence; it never occurred to her that the danger might lie upon his side. Why she should feel such security in the case of the only man who had any knowledge of her offence she would have been at a loss to explain. Anything like self-analysis was quite foreign to her temperament; probably she recognised in Melville Ashley some fellowship of nature and of habit, none the less real because undefinable. And yet in spite of this fellowship there was this vast difference between them, that he was a bad man, entirely unprincipled and utterly selfish, while she was not a bad woman. Her terribly ill-assorted marriage as a child with Sir Geoffrey Holt had been too great a tax upon her uncurbed nature, and she had put an end to it in the summary, reckless way that any savage child would do; yet had it been possible for that strange couple to bear and forbear with each other, a little time might have worked what then seemed a miracle, and the story of their lives might have been very different.
While, however, Lavender Sinclair regarded Sir Ross's temporary defection with equanimity, being indeed convinced that it was only temporary, and that when she chose she could whistle him back to her side, she felt that Melville Ashley's attendance was daily growing more necessary to her. To women of the type to which she belonged, the companionship of men is indispensable. But Melville, too, absented himself from The Vale. As a matter of fact, he was playing for big stakes, and had no intention of losing the game from any failure to give it due consideration.
His return from Monte Carlo and the few days of absolute impecuniosity, culminating in his so nearly executed idea of suicide, had marked a period in his career. Up to that moment he had drifted along in a happy-go-lucky fashion, enjoying himself when in funds, existing somehow when he was hard up, but always contriving in an irresponsible way to have what he called a pretty good time. But that night when he looked death squarely in the face had altered him. He vowed that such necessity should not arise again, and his evil genius had come to his assistance by placing him in possession of Sir Geoffrey Holt's old secret. In concocting the story of Mrs. Sinclair's destitution, Melville had not aimed solely at getting a single sum of money from his uncle. He determined to secure an annual subsidy to be paid to him on her behalf, and the negotiations were beset with difficulty.