“Are you sure he meant … you?”
“He mentioned my name; there could be no doubt about it.”
Brenda rose suddenly from her seat and crossed the room towards the window. There she stood with her back towards him, a graceful, dark silhouette against the dying light, looking into the street.
He moved slightly, but did not attempt to follow her.
“It is rather strange,” she said at length, “that the first name she mentioned on landing at Plymouth should be yours.”
A look of blank surprise flashed across his face, and then he reflected gravely for some moments.
“I am sorry to hear it,” he said slowly, “because it would seem that my name has been bandied between them, and if that is the case my hands are tied. I cannot help Alice as I should have liked to do.”
“I told Alice some time ago that it would be much better for us to manage this … this miserable affair without your help.”
“You are equal to it,” he said deliberately.
She laughed with a faint gleam of her habitual brightness.
“Thank you. That is a very pretty sentiment, but it is hardly the question.”
“My help,” he continued, “need not be obvious to every casual observer. But I am not going to leave you to fight this out alone, Brenda. I was forced to leave you once, and I am not going to do it again. What does Mrs. Wylie say to it all?”
“Nothing as yet. She is waiting on events.”
“Ah, then, she is in reserve as usual. When the time comes, we may rely upon her help. But until then …”
“Theo,” interrupted Brenda in an agonized voice, “the time has come!”
She started back from the window, her face as white as her snowy throat, her eyes contracted with horror.
“He is there!” she whispered hoarsely, pointing towards the window—“in the street. Coming into the house!”
Her little hands clutched his sleeve with a womanly abandonment of restraint, and he stood quite still in his self-reliant manhood. Then he found with surprise that his right arm was round her shoulders protecting her.
“Come,” he said with singular calmness—“come into another room. I will see him here.”
As he spoke he gently urged her towards the door, but she resisted, and for a moment there was an actual physical struggle.
“No,” she said, “I will see him. It is better. Alice may come in at any moment, and before then I must know how matters stand between them.”
Trist hesitated, and at that moment the bell rang. They stood side by side looking at the closed door, listening painfully.
“Perhaps,” whispered Trist, “the maid will say that Mrs. Wylie is out.”
They could hear the light footstep of the servant, then the click of the latch.
A murmur of words followed, ending in the raised tone of a male voice and a short sharp exclamation of fear from the maid.
Instinctively Trist sprang towards the door.
There was a sound of heavy footsteps in the passage. Trist’s fingers were on the handle. He glanced towards Brenda appealingly.
“Leave it!” she exclaimed. “Let him come in.”
Before the words were out of her lips the door was thrown open, concealing Theodore Trist.
V
Under Fire
A tall, well-built man entered the room hurriedly and stopped short, facing Brenda, who met his gaze with gentle self-possession.
“Ah!” he muttered in a thick voice, and his unsteady hand went to his long fair moustache.
It was a terribly unhealthy face upon which Brenda’s eyes rested inquiringly. The skin was cracked in places, and the cheeks were almost blue. The eyelids were red and the eyes bloodshot, while there was a general suggestion of puffiness and discomfort in the swollen features. The man was distinctly repulsive, and yet, with a small amount of tolerance, he was a figure to demand pity. Despite his dissipated air, there was that indefinite sense of refinement which belongs to birth and breeding, and which never leaves a man who has once moved among gentlemen. There was even a faint suggestion of military vanity in his dress and carriage, though his figure was by no means so smart as it must have been in bygone days.
The room was rather dark, and he glanced round, failing to see Theo Trist, who was leaning against the wall behind him.
“Ah!” he repeated; “Brenda. I suppose you are in it, too!”
She made no reply, but stood before him in all her maidenly sweetness and strength, looking into his face through the twilight with clear and steady eyes which he hesitated to meet. Into his weak soul a flood of bitter memories rushed tumultuously—memories of a time when he could meet those eyes without that sudden feeling of self-hatred which was gnawing at his heart now. His tone was not harsh nor violent, but there was an undernote of determination which was not pleasant to the ear.
“Tell me,” he continued thickly, “where my wife is to be found.”
Trist noticed that she never took her eyes off Huston’s face, never glanced past the sleek, closely-cropped head towards himself. In some subtle way her wish was conveyed to him—the wish that he should remain there and continue, if possible, to be unnoticed by Huston. This he did, leaning squarely against the wall, his meek eyes riveted on the girl’s face with a calm, expectant attention. From his presence Brenda gathered that strength and self-reliance which, I think, God intends women to gather from the companionship of men.
“No, Alfred,” she answered, using his Christian name with a gentle diplomacy which made him waver for a moment and sway backwards upon his rigid legs; “I must not tell you that yet.”
“What right have you to withhold it?”
“She is my sister. I must do the best I can for her.”
He laughed in an unpleasant way.
“By throwing her into the path of the man she has always—”
“Stop!” commanded Brenda.
“Why? Why should I stop? I suppose Trist is in England. That is why she came home, no doubt.”
“She has never spoken to Theodore Trist since she married you.
