"Your Great-aunt Rachel is dead, Roger."

Lady Gertrude made this announcement the following morning at breakfast. In her hand she held the letter which contained the news--written in an old-fashioned, sloping style of penmanship on thin, heavily black-bordered note-paper. No one made any reply unless a sympathetic murmur from Isobel could be construed as such.

"Cousin Emily writes that the funeral is to take place next Thursday,"

pursued Lady Gertrude, referring to the letter she held. "We shall have to attend it, of course."

"Must we?" asked Roger, with obvious lack of enthusiasm. "I haven't seen her for at least five years."

"I know." The reply came so sharply that it was evident he had touched upon a sore subject. "It is very much to be regretted that you haven't. After all, she must have left at least a hundred thousand to divide."

"Even the prospect of a share of the spoil wouldn't have compensated for the infliction of visiting an old termagant like Great-aunt Rachel," averred Roger unrepentantly.

"I shall be interested to hear the will read, nevertheless," rejoined Lady Gertrude. "After all, you were her only great-nephew and, in spite of your inattentiveness, I don't suppose she has overlooked you.

She may even have remembered Isobel to the extent of a piece of jewellery."

Isobel's brown eyes gleamed--like the alert eyes of a robin who suddenly perceives the crumbs some kindly hand has scattered on the lawn.

"I'm afraid we shall have to leave you alone for a night, Nan," pursued Lady Gertrude with a stiff air of apology.

Nan, engrossed in a long epistle from Penelope, failed to hear and made no answer. The tremendous fact of great-aunt's death, and the possible disposition of her property, had completely pa.s.sed her by. It was little wonder that she was so much absorbed. Penelope's letter had been written on board ship and posted from Liverpool, and it contained the joyful tidings that she and her husband had returned to England and proposed going straight to the Edenhall flat. "You must come up and see us as soon as your visit to Trenby comes to an end," wrote Penelope, and Nan devoutly wished it could end that very moment.

"I don't think you heard me, Nan." Lady Gertrude's incisive voice cut sharply across the pulsing excitement of the girl's thoughts.

"I--I--no. Did you speak to me?" she faltered. Her usual dainty a.s.surance was fast disappearing beneath the nervous strain of living with Lady Gertrude.

The facts concerning great-aunt's death were recapitulated for her benefit, together with the explanation that, since Lady Gertrude, Roger, and Isobel would be obliged to stay the night with "Cousin Emily" in order to attend the funeral, Nan would be reluctantly left to her own devices.

"I can't very well take you with us--on such an occasion," meditated Lady Gertrude aloud. "To Cousin Emily you would be a complete stranger, you see. Besides, she will no doubt have other relatives besides ourselves to put up at the house. Would you care for me to ask someone over to keep you company while we're away?"

"Oh, no, thank you," replied Nan hastily. "Please don't worry about me at all, Lady Gertrude. I don't in the least mind being left alone--really."

A sudden ecstatic thought had come into her mind which could only be put into execution if she were left alone at Trenby, and the bare possibility of any other arrangement now being made filled her with alarm.

"Well, I regret the necessity of leaving you," said Lady Gertrude, meticulous as ever in matters of social observance. "But the servants will look after you well, I hope. And in any case, we shall be home again on Thursday night. We shall be able to catch the last train back."

During the day or two which intervened before the family exodus, Nan could hardly contain her impatience. Their absence would give her the opportunity she longed for--the opportunity to get away from Trenby!

The idea had flashed into her mind the instant Lady Gertrude had informed her she would be left alone there, and now each hour that must elapse before she could carry out her plan seemed an eternity.

Following upon the prolonged strain of the preceding three months, that last terrible scene with Roger had snapped her endurance. She could not look back upon it without shuddering. Since the day of its occurrence she had hardly spoken to him, except at meal times when, as if by mutual consent, they both conversed as though nothing had happened--for Lady Gertrude's benefit. Apart from this, Nan avoided him as much as possible, treating him with a cool, indifferent reserve he found difficult to break down. At least, he made no very determined effort to do so. Perhaps he was even a little ashamed of himself. But it was not in his nature to own himself wrong.

Like many men, he had a curiously implicit faith in the principle of "letting things blow over." On occasion this may prove the wisest course to adopt, but very rarely in regard to a quarrel between a man and woman. Things don't "blow over" with a woman. They lie hidden in her heart, gradually permeating her thoughts until her whole att.i.tude towards the man in question has hardened and the old footing between them become irrecoverable.

Nan felt that she had made her effort--and failed. Roger had missed the whole meaning of her attempt to bring about a mutual feeling of good comradeship, brushed it aside as of no importance. And instead, he had subst.i.tuted his own imperious demands, rousing her, once the stress of the actual interview itself was past, to fierce and bitter revolt. No matter what happened in the future, she must get away now--s.n.a.t.c.h a brief respite from the daily strain of her life at the Hall.

But with an oddly persistent determination she put away from her all thought of breaking off her engagement. To most women similarly situated this would have been the obvious and simplest solution of the problem. But it seemed to Nan that her compact with Roger demanded a finer, more closely-knit interpretation of the word honour than would have been necessary in the case of an engagement entered into under different circ.u.mstances. The personal emergency which had driven her into giving Roger her promise weighed heavily upon her, and she felt that nothing less than his own consent would ent.i.tle her to break her pledge to him. When she gave it she had thought she was buying safety for herself and happiness for Penelope--cutting the tangled threads in which she found herself so inextricably involved--and now, as Lord St.

John had reminded her, she could not honourably refuse to pay the price. She could not plead that she had mistaken her feelings towards him. She had pledged her word to him, open-eyed, and she was not free, as other women might be, to retract the promise she had given.

Added to this, Roger's sheer, dominant virility had imbued her with a fatalistic sense of her total inability to escape him. She had had a glimpse of the primitive man in him--of the man with the club. Even were she to violate her conscience sufficiently to end the engagement between them, she knew perfectly well that he would refuse to accept or acknowledge any such termination. Wherever she hid herself he would find out her hiding-place and come in search of her, and insist upon the fulfilment of her promise. And supposing that, in desperation, she married someone else, what was it he had said? "I swear to you if any man takes you from me I'll kill him first and you after!"

So, there was no escape for her. Roger would dog her footsteps round the world and back again sooner than let her go free of him. In a vaguely aloof and apathetic manner she felt as though it was her destiny to marry him. And no one can escape from destiny. Life had shown her many beautiful things--even that rarest thing of all, a beautiful and unselfish love. But it had shown them only to s.n.a.t.c.h them away again once she had learned to value them.

If only she had never met Peter, never known the secret wonder and glory, the swift, sudden strength, the exquisite mingling of pa.s.sion and selflessness which go to the making of the highest in love, she might have been content to become Roger's wife and bear his children.

His big strength and virile, primitive possessiveness would appeal to many women, and Nan reflected that had she cared for him it would have been easy enough to tame him--with his tempestuous love, his savage temper, and his shamefaced "little boy" repentances! A woman who loved him in return might have led him by a thread of gossamer! It was the very fact that Nan did not love him, and that he knew it, which drove the brute in him uppermost in his dealings with her. He wanted to _make_ her care, to bend her to his will, to force from her some response to his own over-mastering pa.s.sion.

Wearily she faced the situation for the hundredth time and knew that in the long run she must abide by it. She had learned not to cry for the moon any longer. She wanted nothing now either in this world or the next except the love that was denied her.

Her thoughts went back to the day when she and Peter had first met and driven together through the twilit countryside to Abbencombe. She remembered the sudden sadness which had fallen upon him and how she had tried to cheer him by repeating the verses of a little song. It all seemed very long ago:

"But sometimes G.o.d on His great white Throne Looks down from the Heaven above, And lays in the hands that are empty The tremulous Star of Love."

The words seemed to speak themselves in her brain just as she herself had spoken them that day, with the car slipping swiftly through the winter dusk. She could feel again the throb of the engine--see Peter's whimsical grey-blue eyes darken suddenly to a stern and tragic gravity.

For him and for her there could be no star. To the end of life they two must go empty-handed.

CHAPTER XXIV

FLIGHT!

The big limousine was already at the door when Lady Gertrude and Isobel, clothed from head to foot in sombre black, descended from their respective rooms. Roger, also clad in the same funereal hue and wearing a black tie--and looking as though his garments afforded him the acme of mental discomfort--stood waiting for them, together with Nan, in the hall.

Lady Gertrude bestowed one of her chilly kisses upon her son's fiancee and stepped into the car, Isobel followed, and Roger, with a muttered: "Confound Great-aunt Rachel's fortune!" brought up the rear. A minute later the car and its black-garbed occupants disappeared down the drive.

Nan turned back into the house. There was a curiously lightened feeling in the atmosphere, she thought--as though someone had lifted the roof of a dungeon and let in the sunlight and fresh air. She stretched her arms luxuriously above her head and exhaled a long sigh of relief. Then, running like a child let out of school, she fled down the long hall to the telephone stand. Lifting the receiver, her fingers fairly danced upon the forked clip which had held it.

Her imperative summons was answered with a most unusual promptness by the exchange--it was going to be a lucky day altogether, she told herself. Demanding, "Trunks, please!" she gave the number of the Edenhall flat and prepared to possess her soul in patience till her call came through.

At lunch she was almost too excited to eat, and when finally Morton, entering quietly, announced: "You are wanted on the telephone, miss,"

she hardly waited to hear the end of the sentence but flew past him to the telephone stand and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the instrument.

"h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo! That you, Penny? . . . Yes, of _course_ it's Nan!

Oh, my dear, I'm so glad you're back! Listen. I want to run up to town for a few days. . . . Yes. Roger's away. They're all away. . . . You can put me up? To-morrow? Thanks awfully, Penny. . . . Yes, Waterloo. At 4.16. Good-bye. Give my love to Ralph. . . . Good-bye."

She hung up the receiver and, returning to the dining-room, made a pretence of finishing her lunch. Afterwards, with as much composure as she could muster up--seeing that she wanted to dance and sing out of pure happiness--she informed Morton that she had been called away suddenly to London and would require the car early the next morning to take her to the station. Whatever curiosity Morton may have felt concerning this unexpected announcement, he concealed it admirably, merely replying with his usual imperturbability: "Very good, miss."

"I'm leaving a letter for Mr. Trenby--to explain. See that he has it as soon as he gets back to-morrow."

And once again Morton answered respectfully:

"Very good, miss."

The writing of the letter did not occupy much time. She reflected that she must take one of two courses. Either she must write him at length, explaining everything--and somehow she felt it would be impossible to explain to Roger her desperate need for flight, for a respite from things as they were--or she must leave a brief note merely stating that she had gone away. She decided on the latter and after several abortive attempts, which found their ultimate fate in the fire, she achieved the following telegraphic epistle: