So long did the correspondence take that the rector and his nephew were invited to remain to dine informally, George being placed, to his great delight, next the unhappy woman whom he so dearly loved. It was the last time he would dine with her, he told himself during the meal, and through his brain crowded memories of those happy hours spent at her side amid the brilliant glitter of the salons in Rome when, although hundreds were around him, he had only eyes for her, and her alone. And he, by that relentless fate that held him silent, was compelled to stand by and watch her noble self-sacrifice!
Chapter Thirty Eight.
“Silence for Silence!”
On the following night, as eleven o’clock slowly chimed from the pointed steeple of Orton church, George Macbean was walking along the narrow path that led from the highroad to Rugby first across the wide cornfields and then through the small dark wood until he reached the river bank. Here he halted at a low stile which barred the path, and waited.
Before him ran the river grey and placid beneath the clouded moon, behind him the pitch darkness of the covert where hounds were always certain of finding a fox or two in the course of the season. The cry of a night bird, the rustling of a rat among the rushes, and the distant howl of a dog up at the village were the only sounds that broke the quiet. Not a breath of wind ruffled the surface of the deep stream, not a leaf was stirred until of a sudden there came the sound of footsteps, and the dark figure of a man loomed up against the misty grey.
“Eh bien?” inquired the man in French as he approached; for the new-comer was none other than Jules Dubard. He was staying at an hotel in Rugby, and they had met that afternoon under Morini’s roof, greatly to the Frenchman’s surprise. But he had managed to conceal his chagrin, to greet the secretary so that none should suspect the truth, and now, at Macbean’s suggestion, had come forth to meet him alone.
The pair were once again face to face.
“And well?” George asked, speaking in the same language the Frenchman had used. “It is I who should demand the reason of your presence here, m’sieur.”