“Julia!” This time the voice was savage. “If you don’t come out, I’ll break in. What I’ve got to say won’t keep.”
Julia unfastened the jalousie. Tay stood there in his evening clothes, and without a hat. His face was distraught.
“Dan!” gasped Julia.
He put his hands about her waist and lifted her down. “Now,” he said, “take me to some place where we can talk, and as far from the house and the gates as possible. They’ll be coming home presently.”
She walked swiftly down a path, turned to the right, and pushing aside the heavy growth from an older path, long out of use, led the way to the ruins of a bath-house in a corner of the garden. It was surrounded by heavy palms, but its paneless windows admitted the full moon’s light. Julia sat limply down on the circular seat before the empty pool. Through the open doorway she could see and hear the sea. The moonlight was dazzling, Nevis having forgotten to shake out her night-robes. Her bewildered mind took note of details while Tay walked back a few steps to make sure they had not been followed.
He came in and stood before her.
“There’s the devil to pay!” he exclaimed. “Did you get a cable last Monday?”
“Yes. Didn’t you?”
“I did not, or I shouldn’t be wanting to shoot myself. Dark promised to cable the moment it happened, and only to-night, half an hour ago, I got a cable from Lady Dark telling me that France died last Monday, and that she had only just heard it. Confound Dark! Talk about the wrath of God. It’s chain lightning compared to an Englishman.”
“No doubt the duke suppressed the notice. It would be like him.”