No doubt this was not a normal standpoint for any young woman to occupy; but she was scarcely to be judged by the same standards as the average girl. If blame there were, it should attach to the circumstances which compelled her, like an athlete, to keep herself continually in training for the race which must be run.
"Hilda and Jacqueline are quite well," she said, folding her paper with a smile. "They are having great fun. There is a mysterious yacht at Ryde which is causing great excitement; have you heard about it, by chance?"
"I wonder if it is the same that I heard about from a man I know at Cowes? Is it called the Swan?"
"Yes, that is the name. It belongs to a Mr. Percivale, of whom nobody seems to know anything, except that he is very rich and very retiring—nobody can get up anything like an intimacy with him. He speaks English perfectly; but they do not seem to think that he is English in spite of his name. It is interesting, isn't it?"
"Yes, I think it is; but I expect, after all, it is nonsense. Why should a man make a mystery about his identity, if you come to think of it, unless he's ashamed of it? But, as a novelist, I suppose you have an appetite for mystery?"
"Yes, I do think I must own to a weakness that way; you see mystery is rare in these days," said Wynifred, meditatively.
"Well, I don't know; we have a good rousing mystery up here in the Combe just now—a mystery that I don't think we shall solve in a hurry," said Claud, with a baffled sigh, as they drew near the fatal spot in the lane.
The girl's face grew grave.
"Yes, indeed," she said, abstractedly.
As if by mutual consent they came to a stand-still, and stood gazing, not at the grassy road-side where the crime had been perpetrated, but down the fair valley, where the long crescent of the waxing moon hung in the dark-blue air over the darkening sea.