you are a tower of strength. I am in great trouble."
"You aren't looking too well, George, my dear," she said, as they entered the wood.
"Lot of fever lately," he replied, and added: "I feel as fit as six people now," and pressed the hand that he had seized.
"Give it up and come home, George," said Lady Brandon, and he turned quickly toward her, his eyes opening widely. "And let me find you a wife," she continued.
Lawrence sighed and ignored the suggestion.
"How is Ffolliot?" he asked instead.
"Perfectly well, thank you. Why shouldn't he be?" was the reply--in the tone of which a careful listener, such as George Lawrence, might have detected a note of defensiveness, almost of annoyance, of repudiation of an unwarrantable implication.
If Lawrence did detect it, he ignored this also.
"Where is the good Sir Hector Brandon?" he asked, with casual politeness.
"Oh, in Thibet, or Paris, or East Africa, or Monte Carlo, or the South Sea Islands, or Homburg. Actually Kashmir, I believe, thank you, George," replied Lady Brandon, and added: "Have you brought a suit-case or must you wire?"
"I--er--am staying at the Brandon Arms, and have one there," admitted Lawrence.
"And how long have you been at the Brandon Arms, George?" she enquired.
"Five minutes," he answered.
"You must be tired of it then, dear," commented Lady Brandon, and added: "I'll send Robert down for your things."
§2.
That evening, George Lawrence told Lady Brandon all that Major de Beaujolais had told him, adding his own ideas, suggestions, and theories. But whereas the soldier had been concerned with the inexplicable events of the day, Lawrence was concerned with the inexplicable paper and the means by which it had reached the hand of a dead man, on the roof of a desert outpost in the Sahara.
Throughout his telling of the tale, Lady Brandon maintained an unbroken silence, but her eyes scarcely left his face.
At the end she asked a few questions, but offered no opinion, propounded no theory.
"We'll talk about it after dinner, George," she said.
And after a poignantly delightful dinner à deux--it being explained that the Reverend Maurice Ffolliot was dining in his room to-night, owing to a headache--George Lawrence found that the talking was again to be done by him. All that Lady Brandon contributed to the conversation was questions. Again she offered no opinion, propounded no theory.
Nor, as Lawrence reluctantly admitted to himself, when he lay awake in bed that night, did she once admit, nor even imply, that the "Blue Water" had been stolen. His scrupulous care to avoid questioning her on the subject of the whereabouts of the sapphire and of her nephew, Michael Geste, made this easy for her, and she had availed herself of it to the full. The slightly painful realisation, that she now knew all that he did whereas he knew nothing from her, could not be denied.
Again and again it entered his mind and roused the question, "Why cannot she confide in me, and at least say whether the sapphire has been stolen or not?"
Again and again he silenced it with the loyal reply, "For some excellent reason. . . . Whatever she does is right."
After breakfast next day, Lady Brandon took him for a long drive. That the subject which now obsessed him (as it had, in a different way and for a different reason, obsessed de Beaujolais) was also occupying her mind, was demonstrated by the fact that, from time to time, and à propos of nothing in particular, she would suddenly ask him some fresh question bearing on the secret of the tragedy of Zinderneuf.
How he restrained himself from saying, "Where is Michael? Has anything happened? Is the 'Blue Water' stolen?" he did not know. A hundred times, one or the other of these questions had leapt from his brain to the tip of his tongue, since the moment when, at their first interview, he had seen that she wished to make no communication or statement whatever.
As the carriage turned in at the park gates on their return, he laid his hand on hers and said:
"My dear--I think everything has now been said, except one thing--your instructions to me. All I want now is to be told exactly what you want me to do."
"I will tell you that, George, when you go. . . . And thank you, my dear," replied Lady Brandon.
So he possessed his soul in patience until the hour struck.
§3.
"Come and rest on this chest a moment, Patricia," he said, on taking his departure next day, when she had telephoned to the garage, "to give me my orders. You are going to make me happier than I have been since you told me that you liked me too much to love me."
Lady Brandon seated herself beside Lawrence and all but loved him for his chivalrous devotion, his unselfishness, his gentle strength, and utter trustworthiness.
"We have sat here before, George," she said, smiling, and, as he took her hand:
"Listen, my dear. This is what I want you to do for me. Just nothing at all. The 'Blue Water' is not at Zinderneuf, nor anywhere else in Africa. Where Michael is I do not know. What that paper means, I cannot tell. And thank you so much for wanting to help me, and for asking no questions. And now, good-bye, my dear, dear friend. . . ."
"Good-bye, my dearest dear," said George Lawrence, most sorely puzzled, and went out to the door a sadder but not a wiser man.
§4.
As the car drove away, Lady Brandon stood in deep thought, pinching her lip.
"To think of that now!" she said. . . . "'Be sure your sins.' . . . The world is a very small place . . ." and went in search of the Reverend Maurice Ffolliot.
§5.
In regard to this same gentleman, George Lawrence entertained feelings which were undeniably mixed.
As a just and honest man, he recognised that the Reverend Maurice Ffolliot was a gentle-souled, sweet-natured, lovable creature, a finished scholar, a polished and cultured gentleman who had never intentionally harmed a living creature.
As the jealous, lifelong admirer and devotee of Lady Brandon, the rejected but undiminished lover, he knew that he hated not so much Ffolliot himself, as the fact of his existence.
Irrationally, George Lawrence felt that Lady Brandon would long outlive that notorious evil-liver, her husband. But for Ffolliot, he believed, his unswerving faithful devotion would then get its reward. Not wholly selfishly, he considered that a truer helpmeet, a sturdier prop, a stouter shield and buckler for this lady of many responsibilities, would be the world-worn and experienced George Lawrence, rather than this poor frail recluse of a chaplain.
Concerning the man's history, all he knew was, that he had been the curate, well-born but penniless, to whom Lady Brandon's father had presented the living which was in his gift. With the beautiful Patricia Rivers, Ffolliot had fallen disastrously and hopelessly in love.
Toward
