A Traitor's Wooing

by Headon Hill

During the six minutes which it took to cover the distance from the Manor House into the town Nugent closed his eyes and leaned back, indifferent to the autumn glories of the fair Devon landscape. The fern-girt lanes, with occasional peeps of the blue sea and the red point at the mouth of the river, the golden harvest-fields, the lush orchards with their drooping loads of cider apples, the old cob-built farmsteads—all these flashed past him unheeded as he sat with folded arms wrapped in deepest reverie.

But when the car took the steep dip at the eastern end of the parade, and the road, first on one side only and then on both, became flanked with houses, he braced himself for social amenities. People were about in plenty, mostly known to him, and many of them eager for recognition by the cool-looking gentleman in the car who had the reputation of being a personage in London society. Nearly all the ladies of Ottermouth, at any rate, were proud of their Travers Nugent, and rejoiced greatly that for a month or two in the year he deigned to sojourn in their midst. And the dowdier the ladies and the less he had to do with them the prouder were they.

But the dowdy ladies at Ottermouth were an insignificant minority. Certainly not to be classed in that category was the winsome maiden, dressed in immaculate white flannel and carrying a tennis racquet, to whom Nugent raised his soft grey hat as the car struck into the main street. A vision of dainty, if very youthful, loveliness, Enid Mallory was smart from the crown of her well-poised little head to the soles of her natty shoes. She returned Nugent's bow with a trace of brusqueness, and immediately turned and made a grimace at the clean-shaven young fellow who was with her. Nugent, though not intending to do so, saw the grimace out of the tail of his eye, and frowned slightly when the car had passed.

"Old Mallory's daughter," he murmured. "She has done her hair up and lengthened her dress since last year, and she appears to have been infected with the paternal antipathy. I must not forget that Mr. Vincent Mallory, formerly of the Foreign Office, is a resident in this Arcadian spot. He might, under certain circumstances, become a factor to be reckoned with."

Aloud he said to his chauffeur, who had come down with the car some days in advance: "Dixon, do you know who that young gentleman was who was walking with Miss Mallory?"

"It's Mr. Beauchamp, sir," was the reply. "Son of Mrs. Beauchamp, who lives in Lorne Villas. He's a lieutenant in the Navy, I've heard, commanding a torpedo-boat at Plymouth. He is at home on leave just at present, sir."

"Thank you, Dixon; you are always a mine of information," Nugent said with the suave urbanity he always used towards inferiors.

But under his breath he added, "A curious combination, and one that may be worth watching."

The house in which Mr. Travers Nugent enjoyed his summer leisure lay on the hill beyond the western limits of the town. Though he spoke of it as a cottage, it was really a luxurious bachelor abode, standing in a secluded garden and removed from the main road to Exmouth by a serpentine drive, not, of course, to be compared with the noble avenue at the Manor House, but long enough to separate the owner of The Hut from the madding crowd by quite a respectable distance.

Descending at his front door, Mr. Nugent passed through a porch smothered in purple clematis into a small, square hall, deliciously cool and shaded. Here he was met by a quiet-looking man of middle age, with a face like a sphinx, and wearing a black cutaway coat. Nugent was not one to make his confidential servant the receptacle of more secrets than he could help, but he knew that if he chose to do so this personification of reticence and discretion would never betray them.