Love and hatred

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

A queer chap? Oliver was certainly that.

Lord St. Amant forced himself to consider the man whom his intellect, if not his heart, was compelled to recognise as a cold-blooded murderer.

What had been his and Laura's real attitude to one another during Godfrey Pavely's lifetime? Was Laura absolutely innocent? Or, had she played with Tropenell as women sometimes do play with men—as a certain kind of beautiful, graceful, dignified cat sometimes plays with a mouse? He was still inclined to think not,—before yesterday he would certainly have said not. But one never can tell—with a woman....

And what was going to happen now? Oliver had always been a fighter—no doubt Oliver would be prepared to take the "sporting chance."

When he and his guest had gone into the drawing-room last evening, Laura and Oliver had almost at once passed through into the smaller drawing-room. They had moved away unconcernedly, as if it was quite natural that they should desire to be by themselves, rather than in the company of Oliver's mother and Laura's host; and Lord St. Amant, looking furtively at Mrs. Tropenell, had felt a sudden painful constriction of the heart as he had noted the wistful glance she had cast on the two younger people. It had been such a touching look—the look of the mother who gives up her beloved to the woman who has become his beloved.

At ten o'clock tea had been brought in—an old-fashioned habit which was, perhaps, the only survival of the late Lady St. Amant's reign at the Abbey, and, to the surprise of Mrs. Tropenell, her companion had poured himself out a cup and had drunk it off absently.

She had smiled, exclaiming, "You shouldn't have done that! You know you never can take tea and coffee so near together!" And he had said, "Can't I? No, of course I can't. How stupid of me!"

And Laura, hearing the opening and the shutting of doors, had come back, and said that she felt sleepy. They had had another glorious walk, she and Oliver....

Yes, that had been how the evening had worn itself out, so quiet and pleasant, so peaceful—outwardly. It was, indeed, outwardly just the kind of evening which Lord St. Amant had promised himself only yesterday should be repeated many times, after his marriage to his old friend. But now he knew that that had been the last apparently pleasant, peaceful evening that was ever likely to fall to his share in this life. Even if Oliver Tropenell, aided by his great wealth and shrewd intellect, escaped the legal consequences of his wicked deed, his mother would ever be haunted by the past—if indeed the fiery ordeal did not actually kill her.

The old man, sitting by the fire, began to feel very, very tired—tired, yet excited, and not in the least sleepy. He turned and looked over at his bed, and then he shook his head. Yet he would have to get into that bed and pretend that he had slept in it, before his valet came into the room at half-past seven.