For this is what happened. To
Mrs. Devar, gazing darkly at Cynthia’s too innocent
discovery of Medenham standing on the tiny quay, came
the Welsh maid, saying:
“Beg pardon, mam, but iss your
chauf-feur’s name Fitz-roy?”
“Yes.”
“Then he iss wan-ted on the tel-e-phone from
Her-e-ford, mam.”
“There he is, below there, near the river.”
Mrs. Devar smiled sourly at the thought
that the interruption was well-timed, since Medenham
was just raising his cap with a fine assumption of
surprise at finding Miss Vanrenen strolling by the
water’s edge. The civil-spoken maid was
about to trip off in pursuit of him, when Mrs. Devar
changed her mind. The notion suddenly occurred
to her that it would be well if she intervened in this
telephonic conversation, and Fitzroy could still be
summoned a minute later if desirable.
“Don’t trouble,”
she cried, “I think that Miss Vanrenen wishes
to go boating, so I will attend to the call myself.
Perhaps Fitzroy’s presence may be dispensed
with.”
The felt-lined telephone box was well
screened off; as first impressions might be valuable,
she adjusted the receivers carefully over both ears
before she shouted “Hallo!”
“That you, my lord?” said a voice.
“Hallo! who wants
Fitzroy?” she asked in the gruffest tone she
could adopt.
“It’s Dale, my
But who is talking? Is that you, sir?”
“Go on. Can’t you hear?”
“Not very well, my lord, but
I’m that upset.... It wasn’t my fault,
but your lordship’s father dropped on to me at
Bristol, an’ he’s here now. What
am I to do?”
“My lordship’s father!
What are you talking about? Who are you?”
“Isn’t that Lord
Oh, dash it, aren’t you Miss Vanrenen’s
chauffeur, Fitzroy?”
“No. This is the Symon’s
Yat Hotel. The party is out now, and Fitzroy
as well, but I can tell him anything you wish to say.”
Mrs. Devar fancied that the speaker,
whose words thus far had excited her liveliest curiosity,
would imagine that he was in communication with the
proprietors of the hotel. She was not mistaken.
Dale fell into the trap instantly, though, indeed,
he was not to be blamed, since he had asked most earnestly
that “Mr. Fitzroy, Miss Vanrenen’s chauffeur”
should be brought to the telephone.
“Well, mam,” he said,
“if I can’t get hold of of Fitzroy I
must leave a message, as I don’t suppose I’ll
have another chanst. I’m his man, I’m
Dale; have you got it?”
“Yes Dale.”
“Tell him the Earl of Fairholme
turned up in Bristol an’ forced me to explain
everything. I couldn’t help it. The
old gentleman fell from the blooming sky, he did.
Will you remember that name?”
“Oh, yes: the Earl of Fairholme.”
“Well, his lordship will understand.
I mean you must tell Fitzroy what I said. Please
tell him privately. I expect I’ll get the
sack anyhow over this business, but I’m doin’
me best in tryin’ the telephone, so you’ll
confer a favor, mam, if you call Fitzroy on one side
before tellin’ him.”
Though the telephone-box was stuffy
when the door was closed, Mrs. Devar felt a cold chill
running down her spine.
“I don’t quite understand,”
she said thickly. “You’re Dale, somebody’s
man; whose man?”
“His lordship’s.
Oh, d n. Beg pardon, mam, but
I’m Fitzroy’s chauffeur.”
It was a glorious night of early summer,
yet lightning struck in that little shut-off section
of the hotel.
“Do you mean that you are Viscount
Medenham’s chauffeur?” she gasped, and
her hands trembled so much that she could scarce hold
the receivers to her ears.
“Yes’m. Now you’ve
got it. But, look here, I daren’t stop another
minnit. Tell his lordship tell Mr.
Fitzroy that I’ll dodge the Earl
in some way an’ remain here. He says he
has been tricked, wot between me an’ the Frenchman,
but he means to go back to London to-morrow.
Good-by, mam. You won’t forget strickly
private?”
“Oh, no, I won’t forget,”
said Mrs. Devar grimly; nevertheless, she felt weak
and sick, and in her anxiety to rush out into the fresh
air she did forget to hang up the receivers, and the
Symon’s Yat Hotel was cut off from the world
of telephones until someone entered the box early
next morning.
She was of a not uncommon type a
physical coward endowed with nerves of steel, but,
for once in her life, she came perilously near fainting.
It was bad enough that a money-making project of some
value should show signs of tumbling in ruins, but
far worse that she, an experienced tuft-hunter, should
have lived in close companionship with a viscount
for four long days and snubbed him rancorously and
without cease. There was no escaping the net
she had contrived for her own entanglement. She
had actually written to Peter Vanrenen that she deemed
it her duty as Cynthia’s chaperon to acquaint
him with Simmonds’s defection and the filling
of his place by Fitzroy, “a most unsuitable
person to act as Miss Vanrenen’s chauffeur” indeed,
a young man who, she was sure, “would never
have been chosen for such a responsible position”
by Mr. Vanrenen himself.
And Fitzroy was Viscount Medenham,
heir to the Fairholme estates, one of the most eligible
young bachelors in the kingdom! Oh, blind and
crass that she had not guessed the truth! The
car, the luncheon-basket, the rare wine, the crest
on the silver, the very candor of the wretch in giving
his real name, his instant recognition of “Jimmy”
Devar’s mother, the hints of a childhood passed
in Sussex why, even the aunt he spoke of
on Derby Day must be Susan St. Maur, while Millicent
Porthcawl had actually met him in the Bournemouth
hotel! these and many another vivid index
pointed the path of knowledge to one so well versed
as she in the intricacies of Debrett. The very
attributes which she had taken for an impertinent
aping of the manners of society had shouted his identity
into her deaf ears time and again. Even an intelligent
West-end housemaid would have felt some suspicion
of the facts when confronted by these piled-up tokens.
She remembered noticing his hands, the quality of his
linen, his astonishingly “good” appearance
on the only occasion that she had seen him in evening
dress; she almost groaned aloud when she recalled
the manner of her son’s departure from Bristol,
and some imp in her heart raked the burnt ashes of
the fire that had devoured her when she heard why
Captain Devar was requested to resign his commission.
Of course, this proud young aristocrat recognized
him at once, and had brushed him out of his sight
as one might brush a fly off a windowpane.
But how was she to act in face of
the threatened disaster? Why had not her son
warned her? Did Marigny know, and was that the
explanation of his sheepish demeanor when she and
Cynthia were about to enter the car that morning?
Indeed, Marigny’s quiet acceptance of the position
was quite as difficult to understand as her own failure
to grasp the significance of all that happened since
noon on Wednesday. This very day, before breakfast,
he had come to her room with the cheering news that
information to hand from London would certainly procure
the dismissal of “Fitzroy” forthwith.
The Mercury was registered in the name of the Earl
of Fairholme, the obvious deduction being that his
lordship’s chauffeur was careering through England
in a valuable car without a shred of permission; the
merest whisper to Cynthia of this discovery, said
the Frenchman, would send “Fitzroy” packing.
And again, what had Cynthia meant
when she referred at Chepstow to the “Norman
baron scowl” with which “Fitzroy”
had favored Marigny? Was she, too, in the secret?
Unhappy Mrs. Devar! She glowered at the darkening
Wye, and wriggled on her chair in torture.
“Wass it all right a-bout the
tel-e-phone, mam?” said a soft voice at her
ear.
She started violently, and the maid was contrite.
“I’m ver-ry sor-ry,
mam,” she said, “but I see Mr. Fitz-roy
down there on the riv-er ”
“Where, where?” cried
the other, rather to gain time to collect her wits
than to ascertain Medenham’s whereabouts.
The girl pointed.
“In that lit-tle boat, all by its-self, mam,”
she said.
“Oh, it was of no importance.
By the way,” and Mrs. Devar produced her purse,
“you might tell the people in the office not
to pay any attention to the statements of a man named
Dale, if he rings up from Hereford. He is only
a chauffeur, and we shall see him in the morning;
perhaps it will be best, if he asks for Fitzroy again
to-night, to tell him to await our arrival.”
“Yess, mam,” and the maid
went off, the richer by half-a-crown. Mrs. Devar’s
usual “tip” was a sixpence for a week’s
attentions, so it would demand an abstruse arithmetical
calculation to arrive at an exact estimate of the
degree of mental disturbance that led to the present
lack of proportion.
Left alone once more, her gaze followed
a small skiff speeding upstream over the placid surface
of the silvery Wye; Medenham was rowing, and Cynthia
held the tiller ropes; but Mrs. Devar’s thoughts
turned her mind’s eyes inward, and they surveyed
a gray prospect. Dale, the unseen monster who
had struck this paralyzing blow, spoke of “the
Frenchman.” Lord Fairholme had charged both
Dale and “the Frenchman” with tricking
him. Therefore, the Earl and Marigny had met
at Bristol. If so, and there could be little doubt
of it, Marigny would hardly appear in Hereford, and
if she attempted to telephone to the Green Dragon
Hotel, where Cynthia had engaged rooms, she would not
only fail to reach Marigny but probably reveal to a
wrathful Earl the very fact which Dale seemed to have
withheld from him, namely, his son’s address
at the moment.
She assumed that Dale knew how to
communicate with his master because Medenham had telegraphed
the name of the hotel at Symon’s Yat. Therein
she was right. Medenham wanted his baggage, and,
having ascertained that there was a suitable train,
sent instructions that Dale was to travel by it.
This, of course, the man could not do. Lord Fairholme
had carried off his son’s portmanteaux, and had
actually hired a room in the Green Dragon next to
that reserved for Cynthia.
Suddenly grown wise, Mrs. Devar decided
against the telephone. But there remained the
secrecy of the post-office. What harm if she
sent a brief message to both the Green Dragon and the
Mitre Hotels Marigny would be sure to put
up at one or the other if he were in Hereford and
demand his advice? She hurried to the drawing-room
and wrote:
Remaining Symon’s
Yat Hotel to-night. Suppose you are aware
of to-day’s developments.
F. is son of gentleman you met in
Bristol. Wire reply.
DEVAR.
She went to the hotel bureau, but
a sympathetic landlady shook her head.
“The post-office is closed.
No telegrams can be dispatched until eight o’clock
on Monday,” she said. “But there is
the telephone ”
“It is matterless,” said
Mrs. Devar, crushing the written forms in her fingers
as though she had reason to believe they might sting
her.
She resolved to let events drift now.
They had passed beyond her control. Perhaps a
policy of masterly inactivity might rescue her from
the tornado which had swept her off her feet.
In any case, she must fight her own battles, irrespective
of the cabal entered into in Paris. Captain James
Devar was an impossible ally; the French Count was
a negligible quantity when compared with an English
viscount whose ancestry threw back to the Conquest
and whose estates covered half of a midland shire;
but there remained, active as ever, the self-interest
of a poor widow from whose despairing grasp was slipping
a golden opportunity.
“Is it too late?” she
asked herself. “Can anything be done?
Maud, my dear, you are up against it, as they say
in America. Pull yourself together, and see if
you can’t twist your mistakes to your own advantage.”
Cynthia, meanwhile, was enjoying herself
hugely. The placid reaches of the Wye offered
a delightful contrast to the sun-baked roads of Monmouthshire;
and, it may be added, there was enough of Mother Eve
in her composition to render the proceeding none the
less attractive because it was unconventional.
Perhaps, deep hidden in her consciousness, lurked
a doubt but that was successfully stifled
for the hour.
Indeed, her wits were trying to solve
a minor puzzle. Her woman’s eye had seen
and her quick brain was marveling at certain details
in Medenham’s costume. There are conditions,
even in England, in which a flannel suit is hard to
obtain, and the manner of their coming to Symon’s
Yat seemed to preclude the buying of ready-made garments,
a solution which would occur to an American instantly.
Yet here was that incomprehensible chauffeur clad
in the correct regalia of the Thames Rowing Club,
though Cynthia, of course, did not recognize the colors.
“How did you manage it?”
she asked, wide-eyed and smiling.
“I hunted through the hotels
and met a man about my own size who was just off to
town,” he said.
“But there are gaps.”
“I thought they fitted rather
well. In fact, he was slightly the stouter of
the two.”
“Don’t be stupid.
The gaps are in your story. Did you borrow or
buy?”
“I borrowed. Luckily, he
was a decent fellow, and there was no trouble.”
“Did you know him?”
“By name only.”
“Do Englishmen lend their clothes to promiscuous
strangers?”
“More, much more; they give them at times.”
She was silent for a few seconds.
He had persuaded her that oars were preferable to
sails on such a still night, especially as he was not
acquainted with the shallows, but he had not explained
that if he rowed and she steered he would be able
to gaze his fill at her.
“What colors are those?” she demanded
suddenly.
“I ought to have told you that
I happened to find a member of the club to which I
belong,” he countered. Then, before she
could pin him down to a definite statement, he tried
to carry the war into the enemy’s country.
“By the way, I hope I am not
presuming on the fact that you have consented to take
this little excursion, Miss Vanrenen, but may I ask
how you contrive to appear each evening in a
muslin frock? Those hold-alls on the motor are
strictly utilitarian, and a mere man would imagine
that muslin could not escape being crushed.”
“It doesn’t. I have
a maid iron it for me before dinner. At Hereford
I shall receive a fresh one from London, and send
this back by post. But fancy you noticing such
a thing! Have you any sisters?”
“Yes, one.”
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Dear me! A year older
than me. Oh, ought I to have said ‘than
I’? That always puzzles me.”
“You have Milton on your side. He wrote:
Satan than
whom no higher sat.
Still, it is generally allowed that Milton wrote bad
grammar there.”
Cynthia was awed momentarily a
quotation from “Paradise Lost” always
commands respect so she harked back to an
easier topic.
“Is your sister married?”
“Yes.”
“What is her husband?”
“She married rather well, as
the saying is. Her husband is a man named Scarland,
and he is chiefly interested in pedigree cattle.”
“Let me see,” she mused.
“I seem to remember the name; it had something
to do with fat cattle, too.... Scarland?
Does he exhibit?”
Medenham wished then that he had not
been so glib with the Marquis of Scarland’s
pet occupation.
“I have been in England so little
during the past few years ”
he began.
“I hope you haven’t quarreled
with your sister?” she put in promptly.
“What, quarrel with Betty?
I?” And he laughed at the conceit, though he
wondered what Cynthia would say if, on Monday, he deviated
a few miles from the Hereford and Shrewsbury main
road and showed her Scarland Towers and the park in
which the marquis’s prize stock were fattening.
“Oh, is she so nice? And pretty, too, I
suppose?”
“People generally speak of her
as good-looking. It is a recognized fact, I believe,
that pretty girls usually have brothers not so favored ”
“What, fishing now as well as
rowing? Didn’t I say you had a Norman aspect?”
“Consisting largely of a scowl, I understand.”
“But a man is bound to look
fierce sometimes. At least, my father does, though
he is celebrated for his unchanging aspect, no matter
what happens. Perhaps he may look like a Sphinx
when he is carrying through what he calls ‘a
deal,’ but I remember very well seeing lightning
in his eye when an Italian prince was rude to me one
day. We were at Pompeii, and this Prince Monte-something
induced me to look at a horrid fresco under the pretense
that it was very artistic. Without thinking what
I was doing, I ran to father and complained about it.
My goodness! I wonder the lava didn’t melt
again before he got through with his highness, who,
after all, was a bit of a virtuoso, and may have really
admired nasty subjects so long as they conformed to
certain standards of art.”
“Some ideals call for correction
by the toe of a strong boot I share Mr.
Vanrenen’s views on that point most emphatically.”
Medenham’s character was one
that transmuted words to deeds. He drove the
skiff onward with a powerful sweep that discovered
an unexpected shoal. There might have been some
danger of an upset if the oars were in less skillful
hands. As it was, they were back in deep water
within a few seconds.
Cynthia laughed without the least tremor.
“You were kicking my Italian
acquaintance in imagination then; I hope you see now
that you might have been mistaken,” she cried.
“Even in this instance I only touched mud.”
“Well, well, let us forget the
Signor Principe. Tell me about yourself.
How did you come to enlist? In my country, men
of your stamp do not join the army unless some national
crisis arises. But, perhaps, that applies to
your case. The Boers nearly beat you, didn’t
they?”
He took advantage of the opening thus
presented, and was able to interest her in stories
of the campaign without committing himself to details.
Nevertheless, a man who had served on the headquarters
staff during the protracted second phase of the South
African war could hardly fail to exhibit an intimate
knowledge of that history which is never written.
Though Cynthia had met many leaders of thought and
action, she had never before encountered one who had
taken part in a struggle of such peculiar significance
as the Boer revolt. She was not an English girl,
eager only to hear tales of derring-do in which her
fellow-countrymen figure heroically, but a citizen
of that wider world that refuses to look at events
exclusively through British spectacles; therein lay
the germ of real peril to Medenham. He had not
only to narrate but to convince. He was called
on to answer questions of policy and method that few
if any of the women in his own circle would think
of putting. Obviously, this appeal to his intellect
weakened the self-imposed guard on his lips. There
is excellent authority for the belief that Desdemona
loved Othello for the dangers he had passed, and did
with greedy ear devour his discourse, yet it may well
be conceded that an explanatory piquancy would have
been added to the Moor’s account
Of
most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents
by flood and field,
if the lady were not a maid of Venice
but hailed from some kindred city that refused to
range all the virtues on the side of the Mistress
of the Adriatic.
More than once it chanced that Medenham
had to exercise his wits very quickly to trip his
tongue when on the verge of some indiscretion that
would betray him. Perhaps he was unduly cautious.
Perhaps his listener’s heart had mastered her
brain for the time. Perhaps she would not have
woke up in a maze from a dream that was not less a
dream because she was not sleeping even if some unwary
utterance caused her to ask what manner of man this
could be.
But that can never be known, since
Cynthia herself never knew. The one sharp and
clear fact that remained in her mind as a memory of
a summer’s evening passed in a boat on a river
flowing through fairyland, was provided by a set of
circumstances far removed from tales of stormy night-riding
after De Wet or the warp and weft of European politics
as they fashioned the cere-cloths of the two Dutch
republics.
Neither the one nor the other should
be blamed if they found a boat on the Wye a most pleasant
exchange for an eager automobile on roads that tempted
to high speed. At any rate, they gave no heed
to the time until Cynthia happened to glance at the
horizon and saw that the sun was represented by a
thin seam of silver hemming the westerly fringe of
a deep blue sky. If there was a moon, it was hidden
by the hills.
“Whatever o’clock is it?”
she cried in a voice that held almost a sound of scare.
Medenham looked at his watch, and
had to hold it close to his eyes before he could make
out the hour.
“Time you were back at the hotel,”
he said, swinging the boat round quickly. “I
am afraid I have kept you out too long, Miss Vanrenen.
It is a perfect night, but you must not risk catching
a chill ”
“I’m not worrying about
that sort of chill there are others:
what will Mrs. Devar think?”
“The worst,” he could not help saying.
“What time is it, really?”
“Won’t you be happier not to know?
We have the stream with us now ”
“Mr. Fitzroy what time is it?”
“Nearly half-past ten o’clock.
You did not leave the hotel till after half-past eight.”
“Oh, blame me, of course. ‘The woman
tempted me and I did eat.’”
“No, no. Apples are not
the only forbidden fruit. May I vary an unworthy
defense? The woman came with me and I didn’t
care.”
“But I do care. Please
hurry. Mrs. Devar will be real mad, and I shan’t
have a word to say for myself.”
Medenham bent to it, and the outrigger
traveled downstream at a rare pace. Cynthia steered
with fair accuracy by the track they had followed
against the current, but the oarsman glanced over his
shoulder occasionally, and advised her as to the probable
trend of the channel.
“Keep a bit wide here,”
he said when they were approaching a sharp bend.
“I believe we almost touched ground in midstream
as we came up.”
She obeyed, and a wide expanse of
low-lying land opened before her eyes.
“I don’t see the lights
of the hotel yet,” she said, with a note of
anxiety.
“You are not making enough allowance
for the way in which this river turns and twists.
There are sections in which you box the compass during
the course of a short ”
A sharp tearing noise in the bottom
of the boat amidships was followed by an inrush of
water. Medenham sprang upright, leaped overboard,
and caught the port outrigger with his left hand.
He was then immersed to the waist, but he flung his
right arm around Cynthia and lifted her clear of the
sinking craft.
“Sit on my shoulder. Steady
yourself with your hands on my head,” he said,
and his voice was so unemotional that the girl could
almost have laughed. Beyond one startled “Oh!”
when the plank was ripped out she had uttered no sound,
and she followed his instructions now implicitly.
She was perched comfortably well above the river when
she felt that he was moving, not to either bank, but
down the center of the stream. Suddenly he let
go the boat, which had swung broadside on.
“It is sinking, and the weight
was pulling me over,” he explained, still in
the same quiet way, as though he were stating the merest
commonplace. Some thrill that she could not account
for vibrated through her body. She was not frightened
in the least. She had the most complete confidence
in this man, whose head was braced against her left
thigh, and whose arm was clasping her skirts closely
round her ankles.
“Which side do you mean to make for?”
she asked.
“I hardly know. You are
higher up than me. Perhaps you can decide best
as to the set of the current. The boat seems to
have been carried to the right.”
“Yes. I think the river shoals to the left.”
“Suppose we try the other way first. The
hotel is on that side.”
“Anything you like.”
He took a cautious step, then another.
The water was rising. Luckily the current was
not very strong or he could not have stood against
it.
“No good,” he said. “We must
go back.”
“Pity I’m not a circus
lady. Then I might have balanced myself gracefully
on the top of your head.”
He murmured something indistinctly,
but Cynthia fancied she caught the words:
“You’re a dear, anyhow.”
“What did you say?” she asked.
“It is high time we were out
of here,” he answered, turning his back to the
pressure of water, which was very great in that place.
“What will happen if there are
two channels, and we have pitched on a bank in the
middle?”
“I must walk about a bit until
I find the right track. The Wye is not very deep
at this point. It must shelve rapidly in one direction
or the other.”
“But it mayn’t.”
“In that event I shall lower
you into the water, ask you to hold tight to my coat
collar with both hands, and let me swim. It is
only a few yards.”
“But I can swim, too.”
“Not in a long dress.... Ah, here we are.
I thought so.”
In a couple of strides the water was
below his knees. Soon he was standing on a pebbly
beach at the nose of the promontory formed by the
bend where the accident had happened. In order
to lower Cynthia to the ground without bringing her
muslin flounces in contact with his dripping clothes
he had to stoop somewhat. Her hair brushed his
forehead, his eyes, his lips, as he lifted her down.
His hands rested for an instant on the warm softness
of her neck and shoulders. His heart leaped in
a mad riot of joy at the belief that she would have
uttered no protest if he had drawn her nearer instead
of setting her decorously on her feet. He dared
not look at her, but turned and gazed at the river.
“Thank God, that is over!” he said.
Cynthia heard something in his voice
then that was absent when they were both in peril
of being swept away by the silent rush of the black
stream.
“Quite an adventure,”
she sighed, stooping to feel the hem of her frock.
“You are not wet?” he asked, after a pause.
“Not a thread. The water
barely touched my feet. How prompt you were!
I suppose men who fight have often to decide quickly
like that.... What caused it? A whole seam
was torn open.”
“It cannot be a stake.
Such a thing would not be permitted to exist in this
river.... A snag probably. Some old tree
stump undermined by last month’s heavy rain.”
“What of the boat? Is it lost?”
“No. It will be found easily
enough in the morning. The damage is trifling.
How splendid you were!”
“Please don’t. I
haven’t said a word to you, and I don’t
mean to.”
“But ”
“Well, say it, if you must.”
“I am not going to compliment
you in the ordinary terms. Just this nature
intended you to be a soldier’s bride, Miss Vanrenen.”
“Nature, being feminine, may
promise that which she does not always mean to carry
out. Besides, I don’t know many soldiers....
It is charming here, by the river’s edge, but
I must remember that you are soaked to the skin.
Where are we, exactly?”
“About four miles from the hotel,
by water: perhaps a mile and three-quarters as
the crow flies.”
“How far as a girl walks?”
“Let us try,” he said
briskly. “We seem to have landed in a meadow.
If we cross it, all my efforts to save that muslin
frock will count as naught, since there is sure to
be a heavy dew on the grass after this fine day.
Suppose we follow the bank a little way until we reach
some sort of a path. Will you take my hand?”
“No, I need both hands to hold
up my dress. But you might grab my arm.
I am wearing French shoes, which are not built for
clambering over rocks.”
Cynthia was adroit. The use of
one small word had relieved the situation. Medenham
might hold her arm with the utmost tenderness, but
so long as he was “grabbing” it there was
nothing more to be said.
He piloted her to a narrow strip of
turf that bordered the Wye, found a path that ran
close to a small wood, and soon they were in a road.
There was slight excuse for arm-holding now, but Cynthia
seemed to think that her frills still needed safeguarding,
so he did not withdraw the hand which clung to her
elbow.
A light in a laborer’s cottage
promised information; he knocked at the door, which
was not opened, but a voice cried:
“Who is it? What do you want?”
“Tell me the nearest way to
the Symon’s Yat Hotel, please,” said Medenham.
“Keep straight on till you come
to the ferry. If the boat is on this side you
can pull yourself across.”
“But if it is not?”
“You must chance it. The nearest bridge
is a mile the other way.”
“By gad!” said Medenham under his breath.
“I wouldn’t care a pin
if Mrs. Devar wasn’t waiting for me,” whispered
Cynthia, whose mental attitude during this mishap on
the Wye contrasted strangely with her alarm when Marigny’s
motor collapsed on the Mendips.
“Mrs. Devar is the real problem,”
laughed Medenham. “We must find some means
of soothing her agitation.”
“Why don’t you like her?”
“That is one of the things I wish to explain
later.”
“She has been horrid to you, I know, but ”
“I am beginning to think that
I owe her a debt of gratitude I can never repay.”
“What will happen if that wretched
ferryboat is on the wrong side of the river?”
Medenham took her arm again, for the
road was dark where there were trees.
“You are not to think about
it,” he said. “I have been doing all
the talking to-night. Now tell me something of
your wanderings abroad.”
These two already understood each
other without the spoken word. He respected her
desire to sheer off anything that might be construed
as establishing a new relationship between them, and
she appreciated his restraint to the full. They
discussed foreign lands and peoples until the road
bent toward the river again and the ferry was reached at
a point quite half a mile below the hotel.
And there was no boat!
A wire rope drooped into the darkness
of the opposite bank, but no voice answered Medenham’s
hail. Cynthia said not a syllable until her companion
handed her his watch with a request that she should
hold it.
“You are not going into that
river,” she cried determinedly.
“There is not the slightest risk,” he
said.
“But there is. What if you were seized
with cramp?”
“I shall cling to the rope,
if that will satisfy you. I have swum the Zambesi
before to-day, not from choice, I admit, and it is
twenty times the width of the Wye, while it holds
more crocodiles than the Wye holds salmon.”
“Well if you promise about the rope.”
Soon he was out of sight, and her
heart knew its first pang of fear. Then she heard
his cry of “Got the boat,” followed by
the clank of a sculling oar and the creak of the guiding-wheel
on the hawser.
At last, shortly before midnight,
they neared the hotel. Lights were visible on
the quay, and Medenham read their meaning.
“They are sending out a search
party,” he said. “I must go and stop
them. You run on to the hotel, Miss Vanrenen.
Good-night! I shall give you an extra hour to-morrow.”
She hesitated the fraction of a second.
Then she extended a hand.
“Good-night,” she murmured.
“After all, I have had a real lovely time.”
Then she was gone, and Medenham turned
to thank the hotel servants and others who were going
to the rescue.
“I wonder what the guv’nor
will say when he sees Cynthia,” he thought,
with the smile on his face of the lover who deems his
lady peerless among her sex. He recalled that
moment before many days had passed, and his reflections
then took a new guise, for not all the knowledge and
all the experience a man may gather can avail him a
whit to forecast the future when Fate is spinning
her complex web.