"No," he replied, deftly throwing off his "society" manner, and, with the consummate skill of the genuine artist, speaking almost harshly. "I wish it was, Miss Maynard. I am here on very serious business—so serious that if I did not know you were a brave woman I should not dare to approach you about it. As it is I am sorely tempted to run away and leave matters as they are."
"I beg you will not do that," said Violet gravely. "It would be more cruel than if you had not come to me at all. I presume that it is about the suspicion that has been cast on Mr. Chermside?"
Nugent smiled inwardly as he noticed the change in her tone since last night. No longer did she heap contempt upon the inference as to Chermside's meeting with Levison. She was serious, and almost pathetically meek. Like Mr. Mallory he had watched the lovers on their return from the orangery to the drawing-room, and he had at the time gloated over the coolness that had evidently arisen between them. That ineffable idiot Chermside had, he congratulated himself, said or done something to shake her confidence—just as he, Nugent, had expected and intended.
But aloud he said, "Yes, it is about Chermside. Greatly against my will, I have consented to be his ambassador—to bring you a message from him, Miss Maynard. It will be kindest to break the worst to you without beating about the bush. Chermside is leaving England to-night. He is going to sail for South America in the yacht which has been kept in readiness for him at Weymouth."
"Sailing to-night? Without coming to say good-bye—without a word of explanation?" And the sweet eyes brimmed with unshed tears at the conduct of the man who had so recently held her in his arms at that very spot.
"It is so hard to wound you," Nugent protested, and the faultlessly simulated note of self-pity with which he tinged his speech carried conviction. "He dared not come to you, Miss Maynard. Somehow the police have got wind of the appointment he had with the dead man, and he is in danger of arrest. He is in hiding, and it is touch and go whether he will get on board safely after dark. I am a selfish man, and I would give a good deal if Leslie Chermside's letters of introduction had been to any one but myself. All this has placed me in a most unpleasant position."
"But I do not understand," Violet protested. "Mr. Chermside has not committed this murder. Why does he not laugh at the charge, and stay and meet it? He must be able to prove his innocence."
Travers Nugent's shrug was eloquent—so eloquent that Violet fired up instantly, rising and confronting him. "You cannot mean that you deem him guilty?" she demanded, with ominous restraint.
"My dear lady, no—a thousand times no," came the quick repudiation. "But you must pardon my expressing the candid opinion that he is a fool, a chivalrous, misguided fool, perhaps, who is risking his future from some silly motive that would be brushed aside in a second if he would only enlighten his friends about it. I have pleaded with him to adopt that course but it was of no avail. Nothing would satisfy him but to fly the country, he avowed, till the murder of Levison had been cleared up—I presume by the detection of the real criminal."
"And in the meanwhile he is going to wander about the world in exile, resting under a stigma which he does not deserve, till the end of his days?"