“I think not, sir. He took his luggage. But I will inquire if you’ll step in a moment.”
The man had conducted him across the wide old-fashioned stone hall into a pleasant morning-room which looked out upon the flower-garden and was flooded with sunshine, and after the lapse of a few moments the door reopened and there entered Mary herself, a charming figure in a fresh white blouse and linen skirt.
“Why, Mr Macbean!” she cried, extending her hand gaily. “You are quite an unexpected visitor! Davis says you want to see Count Dubard. He left for Paris this morning.”
“And is he not coming back?”
“No, I believe not,” was her answer. “He received a letter this morning calling him to Paris at once, and dashed off to try and catch the eleven o’clock service from Charing Cross. He just had time, he said. He was anxious to see you, I think.”
“Anxious to see me—why?” asked Macbean quickly.
“Last night he told me that he recognised you as you were driving home with Mr Sinclair, and asked if I knew you. I, of course, told him that you had been playing tennis here. He seemed very eager to see you, and made quite a lot of inquiries about you.”
Her companion was silent. The recognition had been mutual, then, and the story of the urgent letter was only an excuse of the Frenchman’s to escape from a very ugly and compromising position! His flight showed Macbean that the fellow was in fear of him, and yet he had fortunately avoided a scene between them, and a result which, in all probability, might have caused his own ruin.
He looked at the bright, sweet-faced woman before him, and wondered—wondered how she could allow her affection to be attracted towards such a fellow. And yet what an admirable actor the man was! She was, alas! in ignorance of it all.
How could he tell her? To explain, would only be to condemn himself. No. He resolved that for the present he must conceal his secret—for his own sake. Nevertheless how strange it was, he thought, that he should thus suddenly be drawn so closely towards her. Yesterday she was a mere acquaintance of the tea-table and the tennis-lawn, like dozens of other girls he knew, while to-day he was there as her friend and protector, the man who intended to save her and her family from the ingenious trap that he now saw was already prepared.