"If she wished me to have it—" he said in a low voice.
"If not, why, then, did she write it? Didn't she say she was glad I posted it?"
A moment followed, in which neither spoke. Lady Tynemouth's eyes were turned to the window; Stafford stood looking into the fire.
"Tynie is sure to go to South Africa with his Yeomanry," she continued at last. "He'll be back in England next week. I can be of use out there, too. I suppose you think I'm useless because I've never had to do anything, but you are quite wrong. It's in me. If I'd been driven to work when I was a girl, if I'd been a labourer's daughter, I'd have made hats—or cream-cheeses. I'm not really such a fool as you've always thought me, Ian; at any rate, not in the way you've thought me."
His look was gentle, as he gazed into her eyes. "I've never thought you anything but a very sensible and alluring woman, who is only wilfully foolish at times," he said. "You do dangerous things."
"But you never knew me to do a really wrong thing, and if you haven't, no one has."
Suddenly her face clouded and her lips trembled. "But I am a good friend, and I love my friends. So it all hurts. Ian, I'm most upset. There's something behind Adrian Fellowes' death that I don't understand. I'm sure he didn't kill himself; but I'm also sure that some one did kill him." Her eyes sought his with an effort and with apprehension, but with persistency too. "I don't care what the jury said—I know I'm right."
"But it doesn't matter now," he answered, calmly. "He will be buried to-morrow, and there's an end of it all. It will not even be the usual nine days' wonder. I'd forget it, if I were you."
"I can't easily forget it while you remember it," she rejoined, meaningly. "I don't know why or how it affects you, but it does affect you, and that's why I feel it; that's why it haunts me."
Gleg appeared. "A gentleman to see you, sir," he said, and handed Ian a card.