Читать книгу Crime & Mystery Collection: 110+ Thrillers & Detective Tales in One Volume (Illustrated Edition) - E. Phillips Oppenheim, E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 11

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SOME inscrutable impulse led Goade to choose the loneliest ways for the last month of his holiday ramblings. More than once he lost himself completely on Dartmoor and spent the night, to Flip’s great disgust, in any sort of outhouse or shelter he could find. He traversed some of those great stretches of uncultivated land lying to the northwest of the county, where the roads have fallen into disuse, where an occasional blackcock, rising with a whirr at his feet, a lonely curlew, or a drifting hawk were almost the only signs of life. Late one September evening, with a boiling radiator and an engine knocking its sides out, he climbed to the ridge of the Five Tors and paused, almost as breathless as the car, to gaze at them—five lichen-stained, time-worn obelisks, standing around what seemed to be a pit. In the twilight they appeared ghoul-like, menacing, and Goade abandoned his first intention of scrambling over the broken ridges and bare strip of moorland to examine them more closely.

There was a village, or rather a hamlet, marked upon the map, and he pushed on along the road. He had a fancy that night for shelter, for cheerful company, if it could be gained, for a refuge from the storm which he felt somehow was gathering behind the blackened horizon. His road was little better than a cart track, but it suddenly straightened itself out, and before he realised it he was in the hamlet itself. He brought his labouring vehicle to a crawl, and looked from one side to the other with an uneasy sense of the unusual. The hamlet seemed to consist only of grey stone cottages of the humbler sort, a few on one side of the road and a few on the other. Some might have been small shops. There might have been an inn. There might even have been a letter box, but of none of these things was there any sign.

It was barely half-past eight, but every blind in every cottage was drawn. Not a single glimmer of light shone out from behind the curtains—not a voice, not a sign of any human being. He made his way, his car groaning and sobbing, from one end of the street to the other, and more than ever it seemed to him like some burying-place of the dead. Even Flip looked up at him uneasily. She too felt the presence of something unusual, almost supernatural. The place had no air of being deserted. The windows were still there, and the blinds; only everything was closed and a grave and ghastly stillness prevailed.

As he neared the last of the cottages, Goade brought the car to a standstill, left it by the side of the road, and tramped noisily back down the sidewalk. Nowhere did he see a chink of light; nowhere did he hear the sound of curious fingers fumbling at the bedroom windows. He reached the last house on the left, and was pausing in utter despair when suddenly from inside he heard the low cry of a baby.

Without a moment’s hesitation he knocked at the door. The silence within was unbroken, yet somehow or other Goade, standing outside in the twilight which was now almost darkness, felt conscious of the near presence of human beings. Without hearing their voices, he knew that there were people gathered in the little room, that in a whisper unheard to him they were discussing his summons. He tapped a cheerful tune upon the window-pane. The door was suddenly opened a few inches—a little wider. He caught a glimpse of an interior almost Hogarth-like in its vivid intensity. A log fire was burning on an open stove fireplace; an old man was sitting looking into it and mumbling to himself; there were two women, a girl and a baby, a youth and a man of middle age in rough labourer’s clothes, who looked out at him half menacingly, half with fear.

“Sorry to disturb you,” Goade apologised, “but what’s the matter with this place? I’ve been from one end to the other and can’t see a light. Is there an inn here?”

“An inn?” the man of middle age repeated, his voice shaking a little. “Up here, in High Tors? Noa, there bean’t no inn. Who be ‘e?”

“A traveller,” Goade replied—“a tourist, if you like. I’ve lost my way. Can I come in for a moment?”

Flip slipped past him and curled herself up in front of the fire. The old man leaned forward, and his eyes seemed to be starting out of his head.

“It be a leetle white dog,” he said. “My, her’s fat!”

Flip opened one eye, looked at him for a moment, and rolled over upon her back to enjoy the delicious warmth. One of the women turned around.

“Shut the door, Tom,” she ordered. “Look at the sky, thou idiot. The moon’s most over the Lesser Tor.”

Uninvited, Goade stepped forward; the door was closed; he was inside. The youth pushed a decrepit oak chair towards him.

“Sit ‘e down,” he invited. “Ye’ll have to stop now.”

Goade looked about him, seeking for the most intelligent face. There was a girl there about sixteen years old, burnt brown with the sun, darker of hair and eyes than the others. Her hands and face and her slight, early stoop spoke of labour in the fields.

“Why is every one shutting themselves indoors?” Goade asked. “And can I buy some of that food?” he added, pointing to a basket half covered by a coarse cloth, in which was a loaf of bread, some fruit, two uncooked rabbits, and a packet which might have contained tea.

The girl for some unknown reason seemed shocked at the question.

“That’s not for sale,” she said. “I don’t know if there’s anything you can have. We don’t eat much to-night. There’s a bit of cold bacon.”

“Get ‘im, thick-en,” the old woman muttered, without turning her head from the window.

“If you have some water,” Goade went on, “I have whisky in my pocket.”

The old man at the fire looked up.

“Whisky!” he exclaimed, his voice shaking with excitement. “Cum twelve months last Christmas I’d a sup o’ whisky. Set him summat to eat, Rachel. He’s well indoors.”

“But why am I well indoors?” Goade demanded. “Why is Grandmother there listening at the window? Why are you all behaving as though the plague was upon you?”

“You’re furrin to these parts, ‘tis clear,” the man who had admitted him said. “This is the night when the September moon crawls over the Lesser Tor—the night when Black John comes down.”

“And who the devil is Black John?”

There was a moment’s silence.

“He be furrin to these parts,” the woman repeated, half under her breath.

The girl in a rough way had laid the table. She brought a pitcher of water, and Goade produced his whisky flask. He seated himself. There was a strip of cheese, a fragment of bacon, some stale bread, and a dish of apples.

“Give me a glass for Granfer, and I’ll give him some whisky,” he announced.

The old man tapped impatiently with his stick.

“Quick, Rachel—quick, before the trumpet do blow.”

Goade poured him out some whisky. The girl filled the tumbler with water and gave it to him. The old man clutched it with both hands and lifted it greedily to his mouth.

“May I know, please,” Goade begged the girl, “who Black John is, and why we must all sit here without a lamp, and why Black John is coming here, and what he’s going to do when he does come?”

The girl’s features were unexpressive, but something like awe for a moment gave them life.

“Black John be him they call John the Hermit,” she explained. “He lives in a hole in the ground up by the Five Tors. Once a year he comes down. He walks through the village, and what he wants he takes.”

The old man had been noisily sipping the whisky. He still clutched the tumbler with both hands.

“He be a man of God,” he volunteered.

“And is that basketful of things for him?”

“Surely,” the woman answered. “When the trumpet blows we lay it down outside.”

“And does every one else in the village do the same?”

“Prutty well,” the woman acknowledged. “Each gives summat. We talk together before ‘and, to get the things different. As he passes through he shouts the Word of God to our ears, he takes what’s given, and, if there’s any special message or any special house to visit, for a moment we see him. Then when he’s gathered all up he goes; and for a year you may tramp the hills, you may search the valleys, you may wander wherever the fancy takes ‘e, but no sign will ‘e see of Black John. They do say that for them months he lives with them as ain’t human.”

“Well, I’ve heard some quaint stories in these parts,” Goade muttered, half to himself, “but this is the quaintest.”

All the time the old man was sipping his whisky and water with long, gurgling breaths. He leaned across towards Goade.

“Two years agone,” he recounted, “there was a fine showing for him when he cum. The harvests had been good and a great year it had been for the ‘tatoes; and, when he’d helped himself to all he’d a fancy for, he stood in the middle of the street and he cried out in the words of the Book that the gift of continency had passed from him, and that he maun take a wife. The maidens they were scared, and they lay still as the hares in the bracken before a storm, but he took Garge Dunbridge’s darter—tuk her away wi’ him up to the Tors, and her so scared that she did nothing but moan like.”

“What happened to her?” Goade asked.

There was a moment’s silence. The old man took a long and noisy sip of his drink.

“She cum back to have her baby,” he replied, “but not a word would she say. She died wi’out a word. She were like a wild thing.”

There was a quality of awe in the silence which prevailed. Goade caught once more an expression in the face of the girl. She was shivering from head to foot. Her black eyes were filled with a nameless dread. Even whilst they spoke she crept into the shadows of the room. Suddenly the tenseness passed. There was a breath of relief from every one. Goade, keenly interested, left his chair and moved nearer to the window. The stillness outside was broken in a strange and thrilling fashion—by a single, long note, which might have been from a reed pipe or a trumpet—some melancholy, homemade instrument, with a long minor call, sweet yet compelling. As it died away a man’s voice rang out—a voice of tremendous volume, yet not without quality.

“Listen all ye who wait, for ye know not at what hour the Redeemer cometh.”

There was instantly a queer sound as of the fluttering of wings. The blinds of every house in the village seemed for a moment to be lifted. Out on the sidewalk were heaped the offerings. Then silence again, and the voice, nearer this time.

“The angel of the Lord comes like a thief in the night. Listen, for all ye may hear, from the hills is the sound as of footsteps upon wool. Nearer, nearer, nearer they come. Sinners, incline your ears, and ye watchers of the night. The heavens have opened and the truth has gone forth. The Day of Judgment is at hand.”

The younger woman began to sob. The girl in the far corner was shaking with fear. The old man inclined his head.

“That’s him,” he muttered. “He’s at one with the Lord. Stand away from the window, stranger. He must see no shadow upon the blind as he passes by.”

The footsteps outside grew nearer. Goade, notwithstanding a natural vein of materialism, found himself drawn to some extent into the outer edges of the maelstrom of strange, unreasoning excitement with which all the little company seemed imbued. The footsteps of the man and the pattering hoofs of the donkey were now clearly audible. When they paused almost outside, a little shiver passed through the womenkind. The old grandmother was shaking like a leaf; the girl had drawn so far back into the corner that only her dark eyes were visible, coupled with which the sound of her hurried breathing alone betrayed her presence. Then the voice of the man rang out once more—this time only a few feet from the window, resonant, almost triumphant.

“Is it thus you treat the Servant of the Lord God, O ye of little faith? I asked for bread and ye gave me a stone.”

There was a fearsome silence. Then the old woman spoke with quavering voice.

“I knew he wouldn’t like them rabbits.”

No one else uttered a sound. Then the footsteps were heard again. The door was opened, and, stooping low, the huge form of a man entered. He closed the door behind him and stood upright—a giant of six feet and a half in height, long and hard, lean of face, black-bearded and black-haired, his head nearly touching the ceiling.

“Let there be light,” he ordered.

The man of the family lit a candle. The great, horny fingers trembled as he struck the match. The newcomer lifted the candle over his head and gazed across the room to where the girl was shrinking back.

“Come ye,” he cried, “to be the hand-maiden of the Lord. Thou art chosen above all others.”

The girl gave a little wail—the cry of one who parts with life. Nevertheless, she crept forward. The man took her by the arm and led her to the door. Goade caught a glimpse of her face, filled with frozen terror, framed against the indigo sky. He stepped forward.

“Look here,” he interposed, in words which seemed idiotically prosaic, “you can’t take that girl away against her will.”

The man turned and looked at him. From his eyes the anger flamed. There was something, too, of real and horrified surprise as he stretched out his hand.

“It is not for the stranger,” he declared, “to raise his voice in the house of the godly. Whatsoever my will may accomplish, wheresoever my footsteps shall travel, it is the Will of the Lord which guides. Kneel and pray that your sin may be atoned.”

They fell on their knees. Even the old man slipped somehow from his chair. There were seven of them all around him. Goade, with an exclamation of anger, started for the door through which the man and the girl had issued. In a moment he was stifled. The woman threw their arms about him; the man blocked the way. He was hemmed in on every side.

“You people are mad!” he cried angrily. “You will let a crazy lunatic like that rob you of your daughter, ruin her life just because he has learned the trick of texts and religious gabble. Let me go!”

He wrenched himself loose, but the man and the lad confronted him at the door: the man, a solid lump of flesh and muscle; the lad as doggedly in earnest.

“You’re a stranger,” the former said. “You’ve no understanding of these things. The girl’s mine, and, since she’s chosen, I say let her go.”

“The girl’s not yours,” Goade rejoined furiously. “She belongs to herself. Couldn’t you see that she was terrified to death. If you’re her father, man, come on with me and we’ll fetch her back.”

“She’s given to the Lord,” the man pronounced.

Then Goade knew that words were hopeless. He paused for a moment. Behind him the old woman was sobbing and the old man snivelling—then the sound of his long, gurgling drink as he raised the tumbler to his lips. Goade braced himself. With an unexpected movement he swung the lad out of the way, closed with the man, who was like a lump of helpless flesh in his hands, and, with a flick of the knee and a touch of the arm, laid him on his back and passed out into the night. The streets were still deserted, but here and there the flame of a candle was flickering now in the windows. Southwards, by the light of the rising moon, he saw the man and the girl and the donkey leave the road and commence the upward track to the Five Tors. He hurried back to the car, took something from the tool-box, and, with Flip at his heels, started for the moor. Not a door was opened, not even the one through which he had issued. As he passed he heard a mumble of voices, the sobbing of the women, the angry growl of the man, yet no one followed him.

Goade made no undue haste, for he realised that the climb was a steep one, and the light was at first imperfect. A hundred yards in front he could dimly see the man and the girl and the donkey struggling upwards. The man walked a foot or two apart—a dark, gloomy figure, muttering or singing to himself all the time. The girl, with her hand upon the donkey, walked with weary footsteps, her eyes fixed upon the ground, her body shaking every now and then with sobs. Goade waited until they reached a little plateau below where the five monuments of stone were reared, and then, quickening his pace, called out. The man swung round; the donkey came to a standstill; the girl looked over her shoulder in terrified fashion. So they stood until Goade, holding a short stick in his hand, drew level. The moon, shining through a faint, drifting cloud of mist, gave a spectral clearness to the little scene. The man waited, sinister and motionless. He still stood a little apart from the girl and the donkey—something, as it were, detached, yet with a curiously dominating influence over both. It was he who spoke first, and his tone was unexpectedly composed. It had lost the sing-song chant of his progress through the village. It was deep and rich and calm.

“Why are you following me, stranger?” he asked. “What brings you—a trespasser—upon my lulls?”

“The hills are common land,” Goade replied, “and I have come to take that girl back to her people.”

“The girl comes with me willingly,” was the calm rejoinder. “Her parents have given her willingly. Who are you that you dare to interfere?”

“You may take me,” Goade proclaimed, “as representing an ordinary man of the world. The ordinary man of civilised places does not permit a girl to be carried off to the life you are proposing for her, even though her parents are ignorant enough and superstitious enough to yield her up. Come to me, young woman. I am going to take you back.”

As though in a trance, yet with a certain shining eagerness in her eyes, she moved a step or two towards him. Her captor swung in between them.

“I am a man of peace,” he announced, “because the love of peace is in my heart, yet I tell you that the girl remains with me. Come a little higher with us and I will show you her home. I will show you the spot where no goatherd or shepherd of these parts dares to climb by day or by night. I will show you the spot no gabbling tourist knows of, because no guide dare bring him. You shall see the Tarn of the High Tors.”

Goade yielded to what he afterwards recognised as an absurd impulse. He walked on by the side of the girl, and a little way behind them—bringing up the rear this time, in case they should try to escape—came their guide. Presently, however, he took the lead. They passed round a mass of huge boulders, traversed the narrow edge of a precipitous combe, and came suddenly through a passage of overhanging rock to an amazing and unexpected panorama. The Five Tors, some hundred yards each apart, formed a circle, and below was a great chasm, black at the bottom with stagnant water. Its sides were steep and jagged. There was scarcely a bush to relieve the hardness of the stone. The man picked up a pebble and threw it down. It fell into the water with a quaint, resounding splash, and afterwards there was silence. Ripples flowed away upon the oily surface.

“Near here,” John the Hermit confided, “is where I live. Near here is where you will die.”

Without a moment’s warning, with a movement of amazing swiftness, he sprang at Goade. The latter felt the long, lithe arms gripping his body as though in a vice, and from the first he realised that death was very near indeed. The man’s limbs seemed made of steel and whipcord. He wrestled at such close quarters that none of the ordinary skill which Goade possessed availed him at all. They rocked backwards and forwards on the narrow shelf which overhung the tarn. Even in those moments of agony, with the sweat upon his forehead, with every fibre in his body striving to resist the terrible pressure of those entwining hands and limbs, Goade carried away with him a curious impression of the amazing serenity of his assailant’s face. There was no anger there, no passion; simply a stern, inflexible resolve. Goade was a powerful man, but he was at a disadvantage. He struggled bravely, making every use of his weight, but he was losing ground. Every sense in his body during those few seconds seemed to be vividly and keenly alive. He was conscious of Flip darting wildly about, snapping at his adversary’s legs. And then he saw the girl, he saw the idea frame itself in her mind, saw a light flash in her sombre, hopeless eyes. She picked up a great fragment of stone and crept towards them. Goade felt the courage to withstand suddenly intensified. They were within half a yard now of the edge, and for the first time his assailant’s face showed some expression. A smile of dawning triumph parted his lips. He seemed to be preparing himself for the final effort. Then the girl braced herself. He had stooped just a little, and suddenly her arm flashed out. There was a dull thud as the stone, swung with all her force, came crashing on to his head. His arms suddenly weakened, his eyes closed, he spun round. Then, as though with the last strength in his body, he flung himself at Goade. This time, however, Goade, prepared, met him with upraised knee, caught at his arm and jerked him round. They watched his body—a strange sight—rolling at first, whilst the hands grasped convulsively at the jagged pieces of rock and dead sticks of bushes, until it gathered speed, fall through the air from rock to rock, and finally down that last smooth wall until it dropped with a great crash into the tarn. They looked over, breathless. For a minute or two they saw the face gleaming white underneath. Then it sank… The girl began to laugh softly.

“I’ve always hated he,” she confided. “I’ve seed he watching since I were a slip of a girl, and I’ve knowed. Now he’s dead, and God be thanked!”

Goade took her hand, which she gave him gladly. Exhausted, they sat for a moment side by side.

“You saved my life,” he gasped, still breathing heavily.

“I am right glad of that, I am,” she rejoined, clutching passionately at his fingers, “and glad I be too that it was I who killed him.”

Presently they scrambled down the jagged path towards the hamlet. The donkey, without a word from either, turned and followed them. Flip, relieved of a certain amount of mysterious apprehension, trotted a few yards ahead, making periodical excursions in search of rabbit burrows. The girl had suddenly drawn herself upright. She walked with light and buoyant footsteps. Sometimes she crooned little fragments of song to herself, a song not one word of which could Goade catch. Once or twice she came and clung to his arm like a dumb animal.

“There’s something inside me,” she confided, as they turned the last corner and the sleeping village lay in the moonlight beneath them, “something inside me, that’s rested heavy on my heart for years gone. I knowed he’d cum for me—knowed it always. Now he’s safe. He’ll never climb up out of the hole where he’s lying. Us’ll never lie shivering again when the Lammas moon climbs over the Tors.”

They reached the entrance to the village. She raised her finger. As she stood against the stile in the moonlight Goade was amazed. There was a new light in her face, a new intelligence. She carried herself with the slim grace of expectant girlhood. Even her speech was clearer and more distinct.

“We’ll tether the donkey here,” she whispered, “and make no sound. Now, you do as I bid you. Take off your shoes and carry them; walk down with me on tiptoe. We must be away before a window opens.”

“I must take you home,” Goade protested in a puzzled tone. “I must go in and explain to your people.”

“May the Lord have mercy on ye if ye say a word in this place,” she warned him earnestly. “Outside there’s others’ll think as you think, and understand as you understand, but here John the Hermit was as nigh as ‘twere ordained to go to God Almighty. You let ‘em think that you took me away from he, that John the Hermit lies stark at the bottom of the tarn, and they’ll stone ‘e to death.”

The girl spoke with queer, convincing authority. For a man of resource Goade was a little confused.

“Then what are we to do?” he enquired.

She pointed down the silent, moon-blanched street.

“We pass down yon to car,” she said. “Not a footfall, not a whisper. It be downhill for four miles. God send we travel that far.”

There were times afterwards when Goade realised the immense selfishness of his sex. It flared into being with his next words. A sense of shame sometimes troubled him as he thought about them.

“But what am I going to do with you?” he asked.

She looked at him in frank but somewhat hurt surprise.

“What do you need to do with me?” she rejoined. “I be young, I be strong, all my days I have worken like a beastie in the fields. There bean’t a farmer who wouldn’t hire me, or a housewife who wouldn’t be glad of the chance. All I ask of ‘e is to take me a safe distance from where they’d tear the heart out of us’n. You’re not afraid I’d be a burden to ‘e?”

“I beg your pardon,” he answered humbly. “I’d no thought of that sort.”

So he obeyed her. Down the sleeping village street they crept and into the car. The descent was so steep that fortunately there was no need for cranking. Flip, at first a little annoyed at being deposed, curled herself up on the girl’s knees. They glided downhill, and presently the engine commenced to beat. The road was rough but straight, the moonlight as clear as day. They crossed, almost as though in a dream, stretches of moorland, thin strips of pasture, up again over bare, granite-covered hills, on to a great open plateau which led northwards. The girl asked no questions. She lay back perfectly content. As they travelled on, little wreaths of morning mist hung over the marshes. The black of the eastern sky was streaked with fingers of lavender and mauve. An added freshness seemed to creep into the breeze. Away ahead of them were some paling lights.

“What place is that?” Goade asked.

“The township of Wryde,” she answered.

“Then we’re jolly well in luck,” he declared joyfully.

Even at two o’clock in the morning they were glad to see Goade at the Wryde Arms. They asked no questions about the girl. She was carried away to the back quarters, and Goade conducted to his accustomed bedroom. At ten o’clock the next morning, as he ate bacon and eggs and drank Mrs. Delbridge’s perfect tea, he began to unburden himself to his hostess.

“What about the girl I brought with me last night?” he enquired.

“She was up at cockcrow,” Mrs. Delbridge replied. “We’re a maid short. It’s market day, and she fell to helping. She’d be rare and useful to me for a bit.”

“She is yours,” Goade declared promptly. “She is only looking for a job. We’ve had a queer experience. I’ll tell you about it some day. In the meanwhile I must go across to the police station. Any news?”

“News?” Mrs. Delbridge exclaimed, with the air of one who has much to impart. “I should say so. Will you have the bad first?”

He nodded. For a moment his appetite faltered.

“It’s about Miss Adelaide,” she continued. “After the young ladies had got back, and after Sir Martin he’d been down and the engagement was all announced, it did seem as though she were the happiest woman on God’s earth. Day after day, at half-past eleven, through the iron gates and down the village street they came, and all on us were glad to see them, I can tell ‘e, and then, quite happily, without falling ill, without a pain, without a word of sorrow or grief, she just died.”

“A wonderful end!” he murmured.

The landlady sighed.

“She were a queer body!” was her mournful comment. “Well, then, before we knew where we was, Miss Henrietta she were married to Sir Martin and off they goes to Italy, and there up at the Red House is Miss Rosalind all alone.”

“Ah!” Goade murmured, pushing aside his plate and helping himself to marmalade. “All alone, eh?”

“And more beautiful than ever. If there’s any sense left in mankind, it won’t be for long.”

Goade finished his breakfast and lit his pipe.

“Can I speak to my protégée, Mrs. Delbridge?”

“Were you meaning the young woman you brought with you last night?” the landlady enquired. “She’s outside in the yard, waiting for a word with you.”

Goade stepped into the cobbled yard. The girl came forward eagerly. Her face was a little flushed, her eyes were bright with the joy of living.

“Sir,” she said, “the woman here would like to keep me, and I would sure like to stay. It’s work I can do easy, and a happy life it would be. We’re far enough away, too, from Five Tors.”

Goade smiled.

“Bless you, child,” he replied, “go to it! I’ll see that no trouble comes to you because of Five Tors, and you couldn’t have a better mistress.”

There was one moment in her life during which she rose to heights. She suddenly gripped his wrists.

“I’m not a prayerful soul,” she cried, “and words are things I be short of, but there’s no night I’ll not thank God for what you’ve done!”

She hurried off, and Goade paused in a secluded corner of the archway to relight his pipe. Afterwards he spent an hour with the police sergeant. Later still, he started for the Red House, but halfway down the avenue he met Rosalind.

“You!” she exclaimed, holding out her hands.

They stood for a moment or two perfectly speechless. Everything between them seemed to express itself in that eloquent silence. Then he passed his arm through hers and led her gently back to the house.

“I want to have one more look at your parlour,” he begged, “where I sat with your dear sister Adelaide. And, Rosalind, I have only a month left of a wonderful holiday.”

“A month,” she murmured, a little breathlessly.

“I have squandered my time,” he continued softly, “but not my money. I think I could afford a special licence. And then, you see, there would be still time—”

They had reached the front door. She opened it. Everything was spotless as ever. As she led the way to the parlour there seemed to come to him a little waft of that sweet country air, of cleanliness and perfume, of calf-bound volumes, of precious things laid in lavender. She closed the door.

“Time for what?” she whispered.

He drew her into his arms. Flip gave them one look, trotted round, and settled herself for a long doze upon the hearthrug. She was not a jealous dog.

THE END