the sufferings of one whom she shrewdly suspected of being very near to the heart of her dearest friend, and this naturally brought Geoffrey to the little group surrounding him, and enabled him to study his attitude at close quarters.
The more he saw of Sir Philip Clavering's son and heir, the better he liked him; but although the young man occasionally turned an adoring look upon Lady Katharine, and appeared to be doing his best to share her evident high spirits, it was apparent to Cleek, after a moment's study, that his attitude was for the most part assumed. He made no attempt to get away from the others and have the lady of his heart all to himself, and whenever he and she were for a moment separated from Mrs. Raynor and Ailsa Lorne, he was nervous, distressed, and acted with an air of restraint that was as puzzling as it was pronounced.
A chance remark regarding the state of Lord St. Ulmer's health brought from Lord St. Ulmer's daughter the happy, excited remark:
"Oh, Geoff, dear, he's improving every hour, and he has been so wonderfully kind and tender to me this afternoon that I could kiss him. Just think, he says that things can go on now just as they did before Count de Louvisan came; that there is nothing now to come between us, Geoff; nothing to keep us apart for another moment!"
"Really? That's ripping!" said young Clavering, and in his effort to appear delighted smiled the ghastliest parody of a smile possible to conceive. It was so pronounced that even Lady Katharine herself noticed it and looked puzzled and distressed.
"You don't seem very glad," she said, a note of pain in her voice, a look of pain in her reproachful eyes. "Aren't you glad, Geoff? And is that why you did not come over to see me before?"
"Don't be silly, Kathie. I couldn't come any earlier because—well, because I couldn't, that's all."
"A very lucid explanation, I must say. What is the matter with you, Geoff? You're not a bit like yourself to-day—is he, Ailsa?"
But Ailsa made no reply. There was none really needed. Geoffrey had taken hardly any notice, but as if struck with a sudden thought, whipped out a notebook and began shuffling the pages nervously through his fingers.
"I'd nearly forgotten, Kathie," he said apologetically; "my mother asked if you would lend her these books." He handed her the torn leaf with something scribbled upon it. "Any time will do, but she said you would have them."
Lady Katharine looked down at the writing, and a wave of colour surged over her face.
"But——" she commenced.
"I don't want them now; in fact, I can't stop even now, only I just wanted to know that you were all right."
There was no mistaking the look of adoration on the young man's face, but she looked at him reproachfully.
"Going back again, so soon!" she said softly, averting her head, while her lips trembled and her hand clutched painfully on the leaf of the notebook.
"I'm afraid I must, dear," responded Geoff. Then he turned swiftly to Cleek, who had been watching the little scene, the peculiar one-sided smile looping up the corners of his mouth.
"Good-bye, Mr. Barch; pleased to have met you," he said without, however, coming forward and offering his hand.
"Thanks! same to you; good-bye," replied Cleek, and that same smile was still on his face when a minute or two later, young Clavering having taken his departure, Cleek was rejoined by Ailsa Lorne.
"What do you think about it?" she asked abruptly. "What is it that is wrong? Oh, Mr. Cleek, do you think——"
"I'll be beyond 'thinking' before the morning. I shall know," he interposed. "Now, show me the way to that ruin, please. I want a word or two with Mr. Harry Raynor if he is there. Down that path, is it? Thanks very much." And swinging down from the veranda, he moved away in the direction indicated.
A brisk two minutes' walk brought him to the picturesque ruin with its ivy-wrapped walls, its gaping Gothic windows, and its fern-bedded battlements, so artfully copied that the stones actually seemed to be crumbling and the plants to have been set there by Nature rather than by man. Even the appearance of a dried-up moat and a ruined drawbridge was not wanting to complete the picture and to give an air of genuine antiquity; and he had just stepped on the latter to make his way across to the wide arch of the entrance when he was hailed, not from within, but from behind.
He faced round suddenly to see young Raynor moving quickly toward him. He was walking rapidly, and appeared to be in a state of great excitement.
"I say, Barch, hold on a moment, will you?" he sang out. Cleek gave him time to get to the drawbridge and then the reason for his excitement became known. "Look here, old chap, I'm afraid we shall have to give up our little 'lark' for this evening, after all. Rotten bad luck, but I've just got a message that will call me to—well, somewhere else; and I've got to go at once. Don't expect I shall be able to get back this side of midnight; but if you don't mind prolonging your stay and making it two nights instead of one——"
"Not in the least. Delighted, old chap."
"Oh, well, then, that's all right. Have our night out to-morrow instead—eh, what? Look here, Barch, blest if I don't like you immensely. Let you into the secret. It'll be with 'Pink Gauze.'"
"Pink Gauze? Don't mean the little Frenchy, do you—the little beauty of the photograph?"
"The very identical. Be a good boy, Barchie, and I'll take you to see her to-morrow night. What do you think—eh, what?"
Cleek didn't say what he thought; it would have surprised the young man if he had.
"Well, ta-ta until midnight or thereabouts, old chap. So long!" And with a wave of the hand he was gone.
Cleek stood and looked after him for a moment, a curl on his lip, an expression of utter contempt in his eyes; then he gave his head a jerk indicative of a disgust beyond words, and, facing about, walked on into the ruins.
The General had done the thing well, at all events. The atmosphere of antiquity was very cleverly reproduced: walls, roof, floor—all had the appearance of not having been disturbed by the hand of any one for ages. Half-defaced armorial bearings, iron-studded doors, winding staircases, even a donjon keep.
This he came to realize when the sight of a rusted iron ring in the floor tempted him to pull up and lay back a slab of stone that appeared centuries old, and to expose in doing so a twisting flight of stone steps leading downward into the very depths of the earth.
Really, you know, the old chap had done it well. Cells down there, no doubt—cells and chains and all that sort of thing. Well, he had time to spare; he'd go down and have a look at those cells. And, leaving the stone trap-slab open, he went down the black stairway into the blacker depths below, flicking the light of his torch about and going from cell to cell. One might swear that the place was centuries old. Rusty old barred doors, rustier old chains hanging from rings in the walls. Nothing modern, nothing that looked as if it had known use or been disturbed for these hundreds of years; nothing that—— Hello! There was a break in the illusion, at all events: a garden spade, with fresh earth clinging to the blade of it, leaning against the wall. Fancy a man so careful of preserving an atmosphere of antiquity letting one of the gardeners leave—— No, b'gad! it hadn't been left merely by chance. It had been brought here for use, and was probably left for further use. There was a place over in that corner that most decidedly had been recently dug up.
He walked over to the place in question
