“If you can’t succeed in persuading Sir William not to carry out his absurd intention, but to declare—before he leaves the house that he has given it up, I advise you to look after him, Mr. Buckland.”
“To look after him! What do you mean?”
She raised her eyelids slowly, and looked at him with a strange, arresting steadiness.
“Oh, I only mean, of course, that since it’s plain that he is scarcely in his right senses, he ought to be—closely watched.”
CHAPTER XX
Gerard stood still in a state approaching stupefaction as Miss Davison, having given him this extraordinary warning, turned quickly away.
He did not know whether she was speaking in the interest of Sir William Gurdon or in that of the Van Santens, but after a little reflection he decided that he had better profit by her words, at least to the extent of ascertaining exactly what the young baronet was going to do, and how he fared in doing it.
Gerard had, on this occasion, come down by train by himself, instead of in Arthur Aldington’s car. Full of his resolution, and confirmed in it by Miss Davison’s manner when he said good-bye, he went down the drive by himself, and then waited outside the gates for the coming of Sir William’s motor-car.
Sir William came out a few minutes later, driving his car himself, as usual. Perceiving Gerard, he stopped, and apparently anxious to have someone to confide his grievances to once more, he asked him, as Gerard had expected and hoped, whether he should give him a lift back to town.
Gerard thanked him and took the seat beside Sir William, while the chauffeur got inside the car. As Gerard expected, the baronet broke out into fresh denunciation of the Van Santens without delay.