The man gave her a few directions as to the road she was to follow, and then drove off with her box, leaving her free to indulge Mr. Bate’s evident wish for a walk and confidential talk along the country road.
Bates seemed to be in a happy frame of mind that morning.
“Quite a simple affair, this, Miss Brooke,” he said: “a walk over the course, I take it, with you working inside the castle walls and I unearthing without. No complications as yet have arisen, and if that girl does not find herself in jail before another week is over her head, my name is not Jeremiah Bates.”
“You mean the French maid?”
“Why, yes, of course. I take it there’s little doubt but what she performed the double duty of unlocking the safe and the window too. You see I look at it this way, Miss Brooke: all girls have lovers, I say to myself, but a pretty girl like that French maid, is bound to have double the number of lovers than the plain ones. Now, of course, the greater the number of lovers, the greater the chance there is of a criminal being found among them. That’s plain as a pikestaff, isn’t it?”
“Just as plain.”
Bates felt encouraged to proceed.
“Well, then, arguing on the same lines, I say to myself, this girl is only a pretty, silly thing, not an accomplished criminal, or she wouldn’t have admitted leaving open the safe door; give her rope enough and she’ll hang herself. In a day or two, if we let her alone, she’ll be bolting off to join the fellow whose nest she has helped to feather, and we shall catch the pair of them ’twixt here and Dover Straits, and also possibly get a clue that will bring us on the traces of their accomplices. Eh, Miss Brooke, that’ll be a thing worth doing?”
“Undoubtedly. Who is this coming along in this buggy at such a good pace?”
The question was added as the sound of wheels behind them made her look round.
Bates turned also. “Oh, this is young Holt; his father farms land about a couple of miles from here. He is one of Stephanie’s lovers, and I should imagine about the best of the lot. But he does not appear to be first favourite; from what I hear someone else must have made the running on the sly. Ever since the robbery I’m told the young woman has given him the cold shoulder.”
As the young man came nearer in his buggy he slackened pace, and Loveday could not but admire his frank, honest expression of countenance.
“Room for one—can I give you a lift?” he said, as he came alongside of them.
And to the ineffable disgust of Bates, who had counted upon at least an hour’s confidential talk with her, Miss Brooke accepted the young farmer’s offer, and mounted beside him in his buggy.
As they went swiftly along the country road, Loveday explained to the young man that her destination was Craigen Court, and that as she was a stranger to the place, she must trust to him to put her down at the nearest point to it that he would pass.
At the mention of Craigen Court his face clouded.
“They’re in trouble there, and their trouble has brought trouble on others,” he said a little bitterly.
“I know,” said Loveday sympathetically; “it is often so. In such circumstances as these suspicions frequently fastens on an entirely innocent person.”
“That’s it! that’s it!” he cried excitedly; “if you go into that house you’ll hear all sorts of wicked things said of her, and see everything setting in dead against her. But she’s innocent. I swear to you she is as innocent as you or I are.”
His voice rang out above the clatter of his horse’s hoots. He seemed to forget that he had mentioned no name, and that Loveday, as a stranger, might be at a loss to know to whom he referred.
“Who is guilty Heaven only knows,” he went on after a moment’s pause; “it isn’t for me to give an ill name to anyone in that house; but I only say she is innocent, and that I’ll stake my life on.”
“She is a lucky girl to have found one to believe in her, and trust her as you do,” said Loveday, even more sympathetically than before.
“Is she? I wish she’d take advantage of her luck, then,” he answered bitterly. “Most girls in her position would be glad to have a man to stand by them through thick and thin. But not she! Ever since the night of that accursed robbery she has refused to see me—won’t answer my letters—won’t even send me a message. And, great Heavens! I’d marry her tomorrow, if I had the chance, and dare the world to say a word against her.”
He whipped up his pony. The hedges seemed to fly on either side of them, and before Loveday realized that half her drive was over, he had drawn rein, and was helping her to alight at the servants’ entrance to Craigen Court.
“You’ll tell her what I’ve said to you, if you get the opportunity, and beg her to see me, if only for five minutes?” he petitioned before he remounted his buggy. And Loveday, as she thanked the young man for his kind attention, promised to make an opportunity to give his message to the girl.
Mrs. Williams, the housekeeper, welcomed Loveday in the servants’ hall, and then took her to her own room to pull off her wraps. Mrs. Williams was the widow of a London tradesman, and a little beyond the average housekeeper in speech and manner.
She was a genial, pleasant woman, and readily entered into conversation with Loveday. Tea was brought in, and each seemed to feel at home with the other. Loveday in the course of this easy, pleasant talk, elicited from her the whole history of the events of the day of the robbery, the
