第45章

She leaned hack in the corner of the sofa to which he had led her, her eyes dry now but still very soft and sweet. He sat by her side, fingering some of the things in her work basket. Once she held out her hand and seemed to find comfort in his clasp. He raised her fingers to his lips without any protest from her. She looked at him with a little smile.

"You know, I'm not at all an Ibsen heroine," she declared. "I can't see my way like those wonderful emancipated women."

"Yet," he said thoughtfully, "the way to the simple things is so clear."

Confidences were at an end for a time, broken up by the entrance of Nora and Helen, and some young men from the Depot, who had looked in for a game of billiards. Lessingham rose to leave as soon as the latter had returned to their game. His tone and manner now were completely changed. He seemed ill at ease and unhappy.

"I am going to have a day's fishing to-morrow," he told Philippa, "but I must admit that I have very little faith in this man Oates.

They all tell me that your husband has any number of charts of the coast. Do you think I could borrow one?"

"Why, of course," she replied, "if we can find it."

She took him over to her husband's desk, opened such of the drawers as were not locked, and searched amongst their contents ruthlessly.

By the time they had finished the last drawer, Lessingham had quite a little collection of charts, more or less finished, in his hand.

"I don't know where else to look," she said. "You might go through those and see if they are of any use. What is it, Mills?" she added, turning to the door.

Mills had entered noiselessly, and was watching the proceedings at Sir Henry's desk with a distinct lack of favour. He looked away towards his mistress, however, as he replied.

"The young woman has called with reference to a situation as parlour-maid, your ladyship," he announced. "I have shown her into the sewing room." Lady Cranston glanced at the clock.

"I sha'n't be more than five or ten minutes," she promised Lessingham.

"Just look through those till I come back."

She hurried away, leaving Lessingham alone in the room. He stood for a moment listening. On the left-hand side, through the door which had been left ajar, he could hear the click of billiard balls and occasional peals of laughter. On the right-hand side there was silence. He moved swiftly across the room and closed the door leading into the billiard room, deposited on the sofa the charts which he had been carrying, and hurried back to the secretary. With a sickening feeling of overwhelming guilt, he drew from his pocket a key and opened, one by one, the drawers through which they had not searched.

It took him barely five minutes to discover - nothing. With an air of relief he rearranged everything. When Philippa returned, he was sitting on the lounge, going through the charts which they had looked out together.

"Well?" she asked.

"There is nothing here," he decided, "which will help me very much.

With your permission I will take this," he added, selecting one at random.

She nodded and they replaced the others. Then she touched him on the arm.

"Listen," she said, "are you perfectly certain that there is no one coming?"

He listened for a moment.

"I can't hear any one," he answered. "They've started a four-handed game of pool in the billiard room.

She smiled.

"Then I will disclose to you Henry's dramatic secret. See!"

She touched the spring in the side of the secretary. The false back, with its little collection of fishing flies, rolled slowly up. The large and very wonderful chart on which Sir Henry had bestowed so much of his time, was revealed. =20Lessingham gazed at it eagerly.

"There!" she said. "That has been a great labour of love with Henry. It is the chart, on a great scale, from which he works. I don't know a thing about it, and for heaven's sake never tell Henry that you have seen it."

He continued to examine the chart earnestly. Not a part of it escaped him. Then he turned back to Philippa.

"Is that supposed to be the coast on the other side of the point?" he asked.

"I don't exactly know where it is," she replied. "Every time Henry finds out anything new, he comes and works at it. I believe that very soon it will be perfect. Then he will start on another part of the coast."

"This is not the only one that he has prepared, then?" Lessingham enquired.

She shook her head.

"I believe it is the fifth," she replied. "They all disappear when they are finished, but I have no idea where to. To me they seem to represent a shocking waste of time."

Lessingham was suddenly taciturn. He held out his hand. "You are dining with us to-morrow night, remember," she said.

"I am not likely to forget," he assured her.

"And don't get drowned," she concluded. "I don't know any of these fishermen - I hate them all - but I'm told that Oates is the worst."

"I think that we shall be quite all right," he assured her. "Thanks very much for finding me the charts. What I have seen will help me."

Helen came in for a moment and their farewell was more or less perfunctory. Lessingham was almost thankful to escape. There was an unusual flush in his cheeks, a sense of bitter humiliation in his heart. All the fervour with which he had started on his perilous quest had faded away. No sense of duty or patriotism could revive his drooping spirits. He felt himself suddenly an unclean and dishonoured being.