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Mannering sat alone in the shade of his cedar tree. He had walked in his rose-garden amongst a wilderness of drooping blossoms, for the season of roses was gone. He had crossed the marshland seawards, only to find a little crowd of holiday-makers in possession of the golf links and the green tufted stretch of sandy shore. The day had been long, almost irksome. A fit of restlessness had driven him from his study. He seemed to have lost all power of concentration. For once his brain had failed him. The shadowy companions who stood ever between him and solitude remained uninvoked. His cigar had burnt out between his fingers. He threw it impatiently away. These were the days, the hours he dreaded.
Clara came down the garden from the house, and seeing him, crossed the lawn and sat down beside him.
"Why, my dear uncle," she exclaimed, "you look almost as dull as I feel! Let us be miserable together!"
"With all my heart," he answered. "Whilst we are about it, can we invent a cause?"
"Invent!" she repeated. "I do not think we need either of us look very far. Every one seems to have gone away whose presence made this place endurable. Uncle, do you know when Mrs. Handsell is coming back? She promised to write, and I have never heard a word!"
Mannering turned his head. A little rustling wind had stolen in from seaward. Above their heads flights of sea-gulls were floating out towards the creeks. He watched them idly until they dropped down.
"I do not think that she will come back at all," he said, quietly. "I heard to-day that the place was to let again."
"And Sir Leslie Borrowdean?"
"I think you may take it for granted," Mannering remarked, dryly, "that we shall see no more of him."
The girl leaned back and sighed.
"Uncle, what is it that makes you such a hermit?" she asked.
"Age, perhaps, and experience," he answered, lightly. "There are not many people in the world, Clara, who are worth while!"
"Mrs. Handsell was worth while," she murmured.
Mannering did not reply.
"And Sir Leslie Borrowdean," she continued, "was more than just worth while. I think that he was delightful."
"Very young ladies, and very old ones," Mannering remarked, grimly, "generally like Borrowdean."
"And what about Mrs. Handsell?" she asked, with a spice of malice in her tone.
"Mrs. Handsell," Mannering answered, coolly, "was a very charming woman. Since both these people have passed out of our lives, Clara, I scarcely see why we need discuss them."
"One must talk about something," she answered. "At least I must talk, and you must pretend to listen. I positively cannot exist in the house by myself any longer."
"Where is Richard?" Mannering asked.
"Gone into Norwich to dine at the barracks with some stupid men. Not that I mind his going," she added, hastily. "I wish he'd stay away for a month. Of course he's a very good sort, and all that, but he's deadly monotonous. Uncle, really, as a matter of curiosity, before I get to be an old woman I should like to see one other young man."
"Plenty on the links just now!"
"I know it. I sat out near the ninth hole all this morning. There are some Cambridge boys who looked quite nice. One of them was really delightful when I showed him where his ball was, but I can't consider that an introduction, can I? Heavens, who's this?"
Behind the trim maid-servant already crossing the lawn, and within a few yards of them, came a strange, almost tragical, figure. Her plain black clothes and hat were powdered with dust, there were deep lines under her eyes, she swayed a little when she walked, as though with fatigue. She seemed to bring with her into the cool, quiet garden, with its country odours and general air of peace, an alien note. One almost heard the deep undercry from a far-away world of suffering—the great, ever-moving wheels seemed to have caught her up and thrown her down in this most incongruous of places. Clara, in her cool white dress, her fresh complexion, her general air of health and girlish vigour, seemed, as she rose to her feet, a creature of another sex, almost of another world. The two girls exchanged for a moment wondering glances. Then Mannering intervened.
"Hester!" he exclaimed. "Why—is there anything wrong?"
"Nothing—very serious," she answered. "But I had to see you. I thought that I had better come."
He held out his hands.
"You have had a tiring journey," he said. "You must come into the house and let them find you something to eat. Clara, this is Hester Phillimore, the daughter of an old friend of mine. Will you see about a room for her, and lend her anything she requires?"
"Of course," Clara answered. "Won't you come into the house with me?" she added pleasantly to the girl. "You must be horribly tired travelling this hot weather, and this is such an out-of-the-way corner of the world!"
Hester lingered for a moment, glancing nervously at Mannering.
"I must go back to-night," she said. "I only came because I thought that it would be quicker than writing."
"To-night?" he exclaimed. "But, my dear girl, that is impossible. There are no trains, and you are tired out already. Go into the house with my niece, and we will have a talk afterwards."
He walked across the lawn with them, talking pleasantly to Hester, as though her visit were in no sense of the word unpleasant, or an extraordinary event. But when he returned to his seat under the cedar tree his whole expression was changed. The lines about his face had insensibly deepened. He leaned a little forward, looking with weary, unseeing eyes into the tangled shrubbery. Had all men, he wondered, this secret chapter in their lives—the one sore place so impossible to forget, the cupboard of shadows never wholly closed, shadows which at any moment might steal out and encompass his darkening life? He sat there motionless, and his thoughts travelled backwards. There were many things in his life which he had forgotten, but never this. Every word that had been spoken, every detail in that tragic little scene seemed to glide into his memory with a distinctness and amplitude which time had never for one second dimmed. So it must be until the end. He forgot the girl and her errand. He forgot the carefully cultivated philosophy which for so many years had helped him towards forgetfulness. So he sat until the sound of their voices upon the lawn recalled him to the present.
"I will leave you to have your talk with uncle," Clara said. "Afterwards I will come back to you. There he is, sitting under the cedar tree."
The girl came swiftly over to his side. For a moment the compassion which he had always felt for her swept away the memory of his own sorrow. Her pallid, colourless face had lost everything except expression. If the weariness, which seemed to have found a home in her eyes, was just now absent, it was because a worse thing was shining out of them—a fear, of which there were traces even in her hurried walk and tone. He rose at once and held out his hands.
"Come and sit down, Hester," he said, "and don't look so frightened."
She obeyed him at once.
"I am frightened," she said, "because I feel that I ought not to have come here, and yet I thought that you ought to know at once what has happened. Sir Leslie Borrowdean has been coming to see mother. Last night he took her out to dinner. She came home—late—she was not quite herself. This morning she was frightened and hysterical. She said—that she had been talking."
"To Sir Leslie Borrowdean?"
"Yes."
Mannering showed no signs of dismay. He took the girl's thin white hand in his, and held it almost affectionately.
"I am very glad to know this at once, dear," he said, "and you did what was right and kind when you came to see me. But Sir Leslie Borrowdean has no reason to make himself my enemy. On the contrary, just now he seems particularly anxious to cultivate my friendship."
"Then why," the girl asked, "has he gone out of his way to—to—"
Mannering stopped her.
"He had a motive, of course. Borrowdean is one of those men who do nothing without a motive. I believe that I can even guess what it is. Don't let this thing distress you too much, Hester. I do not think that we have anything to worry about."
"But he knows!"
"I could not imagine a man," Mannering answered, "better able to keep a secret."
The girl sat silent for a moment.
"I suppose I have been an idiot," she remarked.
"You have been nothing of the sort," Mannering asserted, firmly. "You have done just what is kind, and what will help me to save the situation. I must confess that I should not like to have been taken by surprise. You have saved me from that. Now let us put the whole subject away for a time. How I wish that you could stay here for a few days."
The girl smiled a little piteously.
"I ought not to have left her even for so long as this," she said. "I must go back to-morrow morning by the first train."
He nodded. He felt that it was useless to combat her resolution.
"You and I," he said, gravely, "have both our burdens to carry. Only it seems a little unfair that Providence should have made my back so much the broader. Listen, Hester!"
The full murmur of the sea growing louder and louder as the salt water flowed up into the creeks betokened the change of tide. Faint wreaths of mist were rising up from over the shadowy marshland. Above them were the stars. He laid his hand upon her shoulder.
"Dear child!" he said, "I think that you understand how it is that the burden, after all, is easier for me. A man may forget his troubles here, for all the while there is this eternal background of peaceful things."
Her hand stole into his.
"Yes," she murmured, "I understand. Don't let them ever bring you away."