The Zeppelin's Passenger Part 48

"Don't ask me quite that," she begged breathlessly. "Be content to know that I have counted the cost, and that I am willing to come."

He felt the chill of impending disaster. He closed the little gate through which they had been about to pa.s.s, and stood with his back to it. In that faint light which seemed to creep over the world before the moon itself was revealed, she seemed to him at that moment the fairest, the most desirable thing on earth. Her face was upturned towards his, half pathetic, half protesting against the revelation which he was forcing from her.

"Listen, Philippa," he said, "Miss Fairclough warned me of one thing. I put it on one side. It did not seem to be possible. Now I must ask you a question. You have some other motive, have you not, for choosing to come away with me? It is not only because you love me better than any one else in the world, as I do you, and therefore that we belong to one another and it is right and good that we should spend our lives in one another's company? There is something else, is there not, at the root of your determination? Some ally?"

It was a strange moment for Philippa. Nothing had altered within her, and yet a wonderful pity was glowing in her heart, tearing at her emotions, bringing a sob into her throat.

"You mean--Henry?" she faltered.

"I mean your husband," he a.s.sented.

She was suddenly pa.s.sionately angry with herself. It seemed to her that the days of childishness were back. She was behaving like an imbecile whilst he played the great game.

"You see," he went on, his own voice a little unsteady, "this is one of those moments in both our lives when anything except the exact truth would mean s.h.i.+pwreck. You still love your husband?"

"I am such a fool!" she sobbed, clutching at his arm.

"You were willing to go away with me," he continued mercilessly, "partly because of the anger you felt towards him, and partly out of revenge, and just a little because you liked me. Is that not so?"

Her head pressed upon his arm. She nodded. It was just that convulsive movement of her head, with its wealth of wonderful hair and its plain black motoring hat, which dealt the death-blow to his hopes. She was just a child once more--and she trusted him.

"Very well, then," he said, "just let me think--for a moment."

She understood enough not to raise her head. Lessingham was gazing out through the chaotic shadows of the distant banks of clouds from which the moon was rising. Already the pain had begun, and yet with it was that queer sense of exaltation which comes with sacrifice.

"We have been very nearly foolish," he told her, with grave kindliness.

"It is well, perhaps, that we were in time. Those windows which lead into your library,--through which I first came to you, by-the-by,--" he added, with a strange, reminiscent little sigh, "are they open?"

"Yes!" she whispered.

"Come, then," he invited. "Before I leave there is something I want to make clear to you."

They made their way rather like two conspirators along the little terraced walk. Philippa opened the window and closed it again behind them. The room was empty. Lessingham, watching her closely, almost groaned as he saw the wonderful relief in her face. She threw off the cloak, and he groaned again as he remembered how nearly it had been his task to remove it. In her plain travelling dress, she turned and looked at him very pathetically.

"You have, perhaps, a morning paper here?" he enquired.

"A newspaper? Why, yes, the Times," she answered, a little surprised.

He took it from the table towards which she pointed, and held it under the lamplight. Presently he called to her. His forefinger rested upon a certain column.

"Read this," he directed.

She read it out in a tone which pa.s.sed from surprise to blank wonder:

Commander Sir Henry Cranston, Baronet, to receive the D.S.O. for special services, and to be promoted to the rank of Acting Rear-Admiral.

"What does it mean?" she asked feverishly. "Henry? A D.S.O. for Henry for special services?"

"It means," he told her, with a forced smile, "that your husband is, as you put it in your expressive language, a fraud."

CHAPTER x.x.xII

For a moment Philippa was unsteady upon her feet. Lessingham led her to a chair. From outside came the low, cautious hooting of the motor horn, calling to its dilatory pa.s.senger.

"I can not, of course, explain everything to you," he began, in a tone of unusual restraint, "but I do know that for the last two years your husband has been responsible to the Admiralty for most of the mine fields around your east coast. To begin with, his stay in Scotland was a sham. He was most of the time with the fleet and round the coasts. His fis.h.i.+ng excursions from here have been of the same order, only more so.

All the places of importance, from here to the mouth of the Thames, have been mined, or rather the approaches to them have been mined, under his instructions. My mission in this country, here at Dreymarsh--do not shrink from me if you can help it--was to obtain a copy of his mine protection scheme of a certain town on the east coast."

"Why should I shrink from you?" she murmured. "This is all too wonderful! What a little beast Henry must think me!" she added, with truly feminine and marvellously selfish irrelevance.

"You and Miss Fairclough," Lessingham went on, "have rather scoffed at my presence here on behalf of our Secret Service. It seemed to you both very ridiculous. Now you understand."

"It makes no difference," Philippa protested tearfully. "You always told us the truth."

"And I shall continue to do so," Lessingham a.s.sured her. "I am not a clever person at my work which is all new to me, but fortune favoured me the night your husband was s.h.i.+pwrecked. I succeeded in stealing from him, on board that wrecked trawler, the plan of the mine field which I was sent over to procure."

"Of course you had to do it if you could," Philippa sobbed. "I think it was very clever of you."

He smiled.

"There are others who might look at the matter differently," he said. "I am going to ask you a question which I know is unnecessary, but I must have your answer to take away with me. If you had known all the time that your husband, instead of being a skulker, as you thought him, was really doing splendid work for his country, you would not have listened to me for one moment, would you? You would not have let me grow to love you?"

She clutched his hands.

"You are the dearest man in the world," she exclaimed, her lips still quivering, "but, as you say, you know the answer. I was always in love with Henry. It was because I loved him that I was so furious. I liked you so much that it was mean of me ever to think of--of what so nearly happened."

"So nearly happened!" he repeated, with a sudden access of the bitterest self-pity.

Once more the low, warning hoot of the motor horn, this time a little more impatient, broke the silence. Philippa was filled with an unreasoning terror.

"You must go!" she implored. "You must go this minute! If they were to take you, I couldn't bear it. And that man Griffiths--he has sworn that if he can not get the Government authority, he will shoot you!"

"Griffiths has gone to London," he reminded her.

"Yes, but he may be back by this train," she cried, glancing at the clock, "and I have a strange sort of fancy--I have had it all day--that Henry might come, too. It is overdue now. Any one might arrive here. Oh, please, for my sake, hurry away!" she begged, the tears streaming from her eyes. "If anything should happen, I could never forgive myself. It is because you have been so dear, so true and honourable, that all this time has been wasted. If it were to cost you your life!"

She was seized by a fit of nervous anxiety which became almost a paroxysm. She b.u.t.toned his coat for him and almost dragged him to the door. And then she stopped for a moment to listen. Her eyes became distended. Her lips were parted. She shook as though with an ague.

"It is too late!" she faltered hysterically. "I can hear Henry's voice!

Quick! Come to the window. You must get out that way and through the postern gate."

"Your husband will have seen the car," he protested. "And besides, there is your dressing-bag and your travelling coat."

"I shall tell him everything," she declared wildly. "Nothing matters except that you escape. Oh, hurry! I can hear Henry talking to Jimmy Dumble--for G.o.d's sake--"

The words died away upon her lips. The door had been opened and closed again immediately. There was the quick turn of the lock, sounding like the click of fate. Sir Henry, well inside the room, nodded to them both affably.