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 the young man, Patricia Rivers had entertained a sentiment of affection, compounded more of pity than of love.
Under parental pressure, assisted by training and comparative poverty, ambition had triumphed over affection, and the girl, after some refusals, had married wealthy Sir Hector Brandon.
Later, and too late, she had realised the abysmal gulf that must lie between life with a selfish, heartless, gross roué, and that with such a man as the companion of her youth, with whom she had worked and played and whose cleverness, learning, sweet nature, and noble unselfishness she now realised.
Lawrence was aware that Lady Brandon fully believed that the almost fatal nervous breakdown which utterly changed Ffolliot in body and mind, was the direct result of her worldly and loveless marriage with a mean and vicious man. In this belief she had swooped down upon the poor lodgings where Ffolliot lay at death's door, wrecked in body and unhinged of mind, and brought him back with her to Brandon Abbas as soon as he could be moved. From there he had never gone--not for a single day, nor a single hour.
When he recovered, he was installed as chaplain, and as "the Chaplain" he had been known ever since.
Almost reluctantly, George Lawrence admitted that most of what was good, simple, kind, and happy in that house emanated from this gentle presence. . . .
Pacing the little platform of the wayside station, it occurred to George Lawrence to wonder if he might have more to tell the puzzled de Beaujolais had his visit to Brandon Abbas included the privilege, if not the pleasure, of a conversation with the Reverend Maurice Ffolliot.
Part II.
The Mystery of the "Blue Water"
Chapter I.
Beau Geste and His Band
"I think, perhaps, that if Very Small Geste were allowed to live, he might retrieve his character and find a hero's grave," said the Lieutenant.
"And what would he do if he found a hero's grave?" enquired the Captain.
"Pinch the flowers off it and sell them, I suppose.
