"You mean that she won't mind?"
"Oh, no, she won't mind. She's a remarkably sensible girl——" then he burst into a roar of laughter. "Look here, Sir John," he gasped, "it's no good, I have a horrible confession to make to you. I shall have to murder Miss Perkins!" Again he shouted with childish, almost painfully loud laughter, and Sir John laughed with him.
At last Sir John wiped his eyes. "I take it you will be able to kill the lady without much bloodshed?" he asked. "I—I have been suspecting as much."
The moon was flooding the rain bejewelled garden with light as Griselda Walbridge came down the steps. She walked slowly, as if her little feet were heavy, and her smooth dark head was bent. At the foot of the steps she stopped and looked around. "John," she called softly, "John, are you there?"
No one answered, and she shrank back against the rose-festooned handrail. The moonlight was very bright, but the shadows were black and solid-looking, and it was later, too, than she had ever been alone in the garden.
In the silence she turned and looked up the steps to the open house door. Her mother had told her that Barclay was waiting for her in the garden and now where was he, she wondered. In the clear light her small face, a little hard in reality, looked unusually child-like and spiritual. She stared up at the sky, and across the garden, and then, thinking that Barclay for some reason had not waited for her after all, walked slowly along across the tennis lawn.
She was dressed in true sapphire blue, the best colour of all for moonlight, and presently she stopped by a rose tree and pulled a deep red rose, her big ruby glowing as she tugged at the tough stem and then, emboldened and soothed by the perfect quiet, she went slowly on, holding the rose against her cheek.
Near the old bench where her mother and Oliver had sat on Hermione's wedding day, she started back frightened and then gave a nervous little laugh.
"Oh, here you are," she cried.