That May Farncombe knew him was apparent. The slight quiver in the man’s eyelids, and the almost imperceptible curl of the lips had not passed him unnoticed. There was some secret between them, of what nature he, of course, knew not.
“I wonder who that man is?” Geoffrey remarked quite casually, as soon as he was out of hearing.
“I don’t know,” was her prompt reply. “He’s often out with the hounds.”
Falconer smiled within himself. He saw that she did not intend to admit that she had any knowledge of him. Like all women, she was a clever diplomat. But the man had made a sign to her—a sign of secrecy.
And at that moment Sylvia rode up with their host, George Barclay, and joined them, crying:
“Oh! what a run! I was left quite out of it. You were both at the kill, I suppose?”
That night Geoffrey sat alone with his host after the others had retired, and from him learnt that Mr. Farncombe, his wife’s uncle, had lived a long time in Marseilles as agent of a great English shipping company, and that May had been born in France. Falconer then mentioned the stranger who had exchanged those meaning glances with the girl, to which Barclay replied:
“I often see the fellow hunting. He comes from London, and stays at the George, at Stamford, I have heard.”
The days passed. Geoffrey managed to obtain an extension of his leave, and with Sylvia and May went to several meets—at King’s Cliffe, at Laxton Park, and also at Castor Hanglands. On each occasion the stranger from London was there. His name, Geoffrey found out from the George, at Stamford, was Ralph Phillips, but who or what he was nobody knew. So long as he paid a generous subscription to the Fitzwilliam pack, nobody cared.
That May Farncombe in denying all knowledge of the man had deliberately told an untruth, was quite plain. Geoffrey, however, kept his own counsel, and while spending many happy hours with Sylvia—Lord Hendlewycke being away at Cannes staying with an aunt—he nevertheless made no mention of his discovery.