The Message

“To make things even you must call me Arthur.”

“How utterly absurd!”

“That is not my fault. The name was given me. I yelled defiance, but I had to have it, like the measles.”

“You know very well – ”

“’Pon my honor, Evelyn, the greatest of your many charms is your prompt sympathy. In those few words you have reconciled me to my lot.”

“I think Arthur is rather a nice name,” she sighed contentedly. After all, it was best to humor him, and he was the first man who had ever won her confidence.

“I ask for more than pity,” he said. “Nevertheless, if I would gain credence I must propound a plain tale. List, then, while I unfold marvels.”

He was a good talker, and he kept her amused and interested, at times somewhat thrilled, by the recital of his doings in London.

They were in a carriage speeding out into the lovely country westward of Plymouth when he told her the strange history of Domenico Garcia. She shivered a little at the gruesome memory of the “parchment” which she had examined so intently, but she did not interrupt, save for an occasional question, until he reached that part of his narrative which ended in the determination of the previous night to sail to Plymouth forthwith.

“It is all very strange and mysterious,” she said at last. “You were coming to Milford Haven, I gather?”

“Yes.”

“And were it not for the impulse that brought me here you would now be on your way over Dartmoor?”

“That was my fixed intention.”

“Was it so very important that you should know all about the Sans Souci?”

“I would have said so to the Under Secretary.”

There was a pause. Warden deliberately passed the opening given by her words. In broad daylight, and whirling rapidly through a village, it behooved him to be circumspect. Between dinner and nine o’clock he would contrive other opportunities.

“Lady Hilbury must be very nice,” she went on, after a brief silence.

“You will like her immensely when you know her,” he could not help saying, at the same time thanking his stars that he had made no mention of Rosamund Laing.

There was a further pause. Evelyn fancied that her voice was well under control when she asked:

“Have you decided to carry out poor Domenico Garcia’s last request?”

“Before answering, will you tell me what you would do in my place?”

“I would go to Rabat, if it were in my power, and there were no undue risk in the undertaking. I don’t think I would be happy if I had not made the effort. Yet, Rabat is a long way from England. Would you be absent many weeks? Perhaps such a journey would spoil your leave. And then – things may happen in West Africa. You may be needed there.”

“Rabat is a half–way house to Oku, Evelyn,” he said. “I am going, of course, for two reasons. In the first instance, I want to set Garcia’s soul at rest about those masses which, it seems to me, can only be done by obeying the letter of his instructions. And, secondly, I mean to secure that ruby.”

This time she passed no comment.

He caught her arm and bent closer.

“If I bring it to you in Madeira you will not refuse to accept it?” he said.

“Now you are talking nonsense,” she replied, turning and looking at him bravely, with steadfast scrutiny.

“No. There would be a condition, of course. With the ruby you must take the giver.”

“Are you asking me to marry you?” she almost whispered.

“Yes.”

“After knowing me a few idle hours of three days?”

“I was exactly the same mind the first time I met you. I see no valid reason why I should change a well–balanced opinion during the next thirty or forty years.”

He felt her arm trembling in his clasp, and a suspicious moisture glistened in her fine eyes.

“I think, somehow, I know you well enough to believe that you are in earnest,” she faltered. “But let us forget now that you have said those words. Come to me later – when your work is done – and if you care to repeat them – I shall – try to answer – as you would wish.”

And then, for a few hours, they lived in the Paradise that can be entered only by lovers.

Not that there were tender passages between them – squeezings, and pressings and the many phrases of silent languages that mean “I love you.” Neither was formed of the malleable clay that permits such sudden change of habit. Each dwelt rather in a dream–land – the man hoping it could be true that this all–pleasing woman could find it possible to surrender herself to him utterly – the woman becoming more alive each moment to the astounding consciousness that she loved and was beloved.

Their happiness seemed to be so fantastically complete that they made no plans for the future. They were wilfully blind to the shoals and cross currents that must inevitably affect the smooth progress of that life voyage they would make together. Rather, when they talked, did they seek to discover more of the past, of their common tastes, of their friends, of the “little histories” of youth. Thus did they weld the first slender links of sweet intimacy – those links that are stronger than fetters of steel in after years – and the hours flew on golden wings.

Once only did Warden hold Evelyn in his arms – in a farewell embrace ere she left him to join the yacht. And, when that ecstatic moment had passed, and the boat which held his new–found mate was vanishing into the gloom, he awoke to the knowledge that he had much to accomplish before he might ask her to be his bride.

But he thrust aside gray thought for that night of bliss. He almost sang aloud as he walked to the quay where Peter was waiting, after receiving a brief message earlier in the day. He was greeted cheerily.

“I’m main glad to see you again, sir,” said the skipper of the Nancy. “Somehows, I had a notion this mornin’ that we was goin’ to lose you for good an’ all.”

Then Warden remembered the inquiry he had sent to Ilfracombe, and the reply that was surely waiting for him at the post–office, and he laughed with a quiet joyousness that was good to hear.

“Peter,” he said, “you’re a first–class pilot, but neither you nor any other man can look far into the future, eh?”

“No, sir,” came the prompt answer, “that’s a sea without charts or soundin’s an’ full of everlastin’ fog. But sometimes one can do a bit o’ guessin’, an’ that’s wot I’ve bin doin’ since Chris tole me he saw you an’ the young leddy a–drivin’ in a keb!”

CHAPTER VII

TWO WOMEN

Mr. Isidore David Baumgartner was in a state of high good humor. After wasting many hundreds of cartridges he had actually shot a driven grouse. True, the method of slaughter amounted almost to a crime. Traveling fast and low before the wind, the doomed bird flew straight toward the butts. Baumgartner closed his eyes, fired both barrels – the first intentionally, the second from sheer nervousness – and a cloud of feathers, out of which fell all that was left of legs, wings, and body, showed how a gallant moorcock had met his fate.

“There’s a clean hit for you, Sandy,” cried the little man delightedly. “It’s all knack. I knew I could do it, once I got the hang of it.”

“Man, but ye stoppit him,” replied Sandy, who doled out encouragement with a sour grin. The shattered carcass lay in full view on a tuft of heather. Two ounces of shot had riddled it at a distance of ten feet.

“I suppose the second barrel was hardly necessary,” said Baumgartner, more critically.

“It’s best to mak’ sure,” said the sardonic gillie, “but now ye’ve got yer ‘ee in, as the sayin’ is, mebbe ye’ll be droppin’ ithers, Mr. Baumgartner.”