She smiled a strange little wavering smile, and Mottram was deeply moved by the gentleness with which Catherine Nagle had listened to his story. He had been prepared for an averted glance, for words of cold rebuke—such words as his own long-dead mother would surely have uttered to a man who had come to her with such a tale.
They walked on for a while, and Catherine again broke the silence by a question which disturbed her companion. "Then your agent's letter was not really urgent, James?"
"The letters of an honest agent always call for the owner," he muttered evasively.
They reached the orchard gate. Catherine held the key in her hand, but she did not place it in the lock—instead she paused awhile. "Then there is no special urgency?" she repeated. "And James—forgive me for asking it—are you, indeed, leaving England because of this—this matter of which you have just told me?"
He bent his head in answer.
Then she said deliberately: "Your conscience, James, is too scrupulous. I do not think that there is any reason why you should not stay. When Charles and I were in Italy," she went on in a toneless, monotonous voice, "I met some of those young noblemen who in times of pestilence go disguised to nurse the sick and bury the dead. It is that work of charity, dear friend, which you have been performing in our unhappy house. You have been nursing the sick—nay, more, you have been tending"—she waited, then in a low voice she added—"the dead—the dead that are yet alive."
Mottram's soul leapt into his eyes. "Then you bid me stay?" he asked.
"For the present," she answered, "I beg you to stay. But only so if it is indeed true that your presence is not really required in Jamaica."
"I swear, Catherine, that all goes sufficiently well there." Again he fixed his honest, ardent eyes on her face.