So she took it that he was only going on the Continent. Better enlighten her at once, thought Dick. Mrs. Parish had disappeared mysteriously from the room.
'This time to-morrow,' Dick accordingly said, 'I shall be on board the Rome.'
The effect of this statement upon Alice was startling.
'What!' cried she, raising herself a few inches in suddenly aroused interest. 'Are you going to see them off?'
'See whom off?' Dick was mystified.
'My dear good nurse—the first and the best of my nurses—and her brother the Sergeant.'
'Do you mean Compton?'
'Yes. They sail in the Rome to-morrow.'
'So the brother,' Dick thought to himself, 'is taking the sister back to her own people, to be welcomed and forgiven, and to lead a better kind of life. Poor thing! poor thing! Perhaps her husband's death was the best thing that could have befallen her. She will be able to start afresh. She is a widow now.'
Aloud, he only said: 'I am glad—very glad to hear it.'
'Did you know,' said Alice, seeing that he was thinking more than he said, 'that she was a widow?'
'Yes,' said Dick.
It was plain to him that Alice did not know whose widow the poor woman was. She suspected no sort of bond between the woman who had nursed her and the man who had made love to her. She did not know the baseness of that love on his part. This was as it should be. She must never suspect; she must never, never know.
'Yes,' said Dick slowly, 'I knew that.'
'Oh!' cried out Alice. 'How dreadful it all was! How terrible!'
'Ay,' said Dick, gravely; 'it was that indeed.'
There was a pause between them. It was Alice who broke it.
'Dick,' she said frankly—and honest shame trembled through her utterance—'I want to ask your pardon for something—no, you shall not stop me! I want to tell you that I am sorry for having said something—something that I just dimly remember saying, but something that I know was monstrous and inexcusable. It was just before—but I was accountable enough to know better. Ah! I see you remember; indeed, you could never forget—please— please—try to forgive!'
Dick felt immensely uneasy.
'Say no more, Alice. I deserved it all, and more besides. I was fearfully at fault. I should never have approached you as I did, my discovery once made. I shall never forgive myself for all that has happened. But he took me in—he took me in, up there, playing the penitent thief, the—poor fellow!'
His voice dropped, his tone changed: many things came back to him in a rush.
'Papa has told me the whole history of the relations between you,' Alice said quietly, 'and we think you behaved nobly.'
'There was precious little nobility in it,' Dick said grimly. Nor was there any mock modesty in this. He knew too well that he had done nothing to be proud of.
There was another pause. Dick broke this one.
'Forgive me,' he said, 'if I refer to anything very painful, but I am going away to-morrow, and—there was something else you said, just after you administered that just rebuke to me. You said you would tell us what Miles had said to you. Now I do not mean it as presumption, but we are old friends'—she winced—'and I have rather suspected that he made some confession to you which he never made to anyone else. There was a lot of gold ——'
Alice interrupted him in a low voice.
'I would rather not tell you what he said; it was nothing to do with anything of that kind.'
Dick's question had not been unpremeditated. He had had his own conviction as to the 'confession' Alice had listened to; he only wanted that conviction confirmed. Now, by her hesitation and her refusal to answer, it was confirmed. Miles had proposed marriage on the way from Melmerbridge Church, and been accepted! Well, it was a satisfaction to have that put beyond doubt. He had put his question in rather an underhand way, but how was he to do otherwise? He had got his answer; the end justified the means.
'Pray don't say another word,' said Dick impulsively. 'Forgive me for prying. Perhaps I can guess what he said.'
Alice darted at him a swift glance, and saw his meaning in a flash.
'Do not get up,' said she quietly, for Dick was rising to go. 'Since it is possible that you may guess wrong, I will tell you all. I insist in telling you all! Here, then, are the facts: Mr. Miles scarcely spoke a word on the way from church, until suddenly, when we were almost in sight of home, he—he caught hold of my hand.'
Dick knew that already. He was also quite sure that he knew what was coming. It was no use Alice going on; he could see that she was nervous and uncomfortable over it; he reproached himself furiously for making her so; he made a genuine effort to prevail upon her to say no more. In vain; for now Alice was determined. Seeing that it was so, he got up from his chair and walked over to the windows, and watched the brown leaves being whisked about the lawn and the sky overhead turning a deeper grey.
Alice continued in a voice that was firm for all its faintness:
'I suppose I looked surprised, and taken aback, and indignant, but he held my hand as if his was a vice, and still we walked on. Then I looked at him, and he was pale. Then he stared down upon me, closely and long, as if he meant to read my soul, and a great shudder seemed to pass through him. He almost flung my hand away from him, and faced me in the road. We were then on that little bridge between two hills, not far from the shooting-
