During the next few days all outward circumstances seemed to combine in one direction. The weather was perfect; Evelyn the most tactful of chaperons; Merle itself surpassed in beauty all that the sisters had heard of it. Their host—for such he practically was, as nearly every day saw them Mr Gresham’s guests—quietly exerted all the powers he possessed to enhance the charms of his home. And Philippa lived in the sunshine of the present, in happy confidence as to the future.

“It must be all right,” she told herself. Only—once or twice—an almost imperceptible hesitation in the young man’s manner struck her, or her imagination, with a faint shadow of misgiving, and occasionally an unspoken inquiry in Evelyn’s eyes startled her a little.

Why did he not speak definitely?

Though even as she thought this, she dismissed the question.

“I should have no misgiving,” she said; “I have no reason for it. It is only that miserable secret in the background! If he would but give me a chance of telling him about it; it would be so delightful to find, as I know I should, how fanciful and exaggerated I have been in fearing that a man like him would really be changed to me because of it.”

The opportunity was to come, as such things often do, when she was least expecting it. Two or three days before Easter, Michael Gresham made his appearance at Merle. His cousin welcomed him cordially, though, truth to tell, he had almost forgotten this arranged-for visit.

“So you’re all alone,” said Michael at breakfast the first morning—he had travelled down by a night train—“I am all the better pleased, though rather surprised. You are not generally so contented with your own society.”

Bernard Gresham did not at once reply. He stooped to pat Solomon, who, needless to say, was in attendance; an unusual piece of amiability which did not escape Michael’s attention, any more than the slightly heightened colour on his cousin’s face, as he turned to reply.

“Well,” he began, “I did mean to ask two or three people down, but it rather went out of my head. I’ve only been here for a week, and I’ve been pretty busy looking after the Headforts. They are at Palden Grange; did you know? It’s very rough, of course. They are getting it into order, so it was only common humanity to ask them to come over here as much as they liked.”

“Oh, indeed,” said Michael. “Duke Headfort and his wife, of course, you mean?”

“Ye-es,” Bernard resumed, “and—her sister. She is helping her.”

Michael said nothing. Bernard wished he would speak, but as he gave no signs of breaking the silence, Mr Gresham began again.

“You remember,” he said, with as near an approach to awkwardness as was possible for him, “our conversation that evening some weeks ago?”

“Yes,” Michael replied, “I remember it.”

“I have heard nothing more,” said Bernard. “I have not come across those people again; the Worthings, I mean. And—well, I think I’ve made up my mind to risk it; to go through with it. Fate seems leading up to it somehow. I was by no means sure that she was here when I came down, though it did occur to me as possible that she might be with her sister, and—I have seen a great deal of her these last few days. I cannot associate her with any unladylike escapade of the kind that was hinted at I cannot believe that there is really any risk to run. There must have been some absurd mistake.”

“And,” said Michael, “you have no misgivings as—as to her reciprocating your—” He hesitated.

Bernard smiled.

“In ordinary cases that would hardly be a fair question,” he said, “but as I have given you my full confidence so far, I think I may allow that that part of it appears to be all right.”

Michael got up from his seat, and strolled across to the fireplace. There, leaning against the mantelpiece, he calmly surveyed his cousin. “Then,” he said, “I may almost congratulate you at once? You will doubtless allow me to do so formally as soon as possible?”

“Certainly,” Bernard replied. “You shall be the very first to hear of it.”

“And you intend to leave that piece of gossip at rest then?” said Michael, after a moment’s silence.

A shadow crossed Mr Gresham’s face.

“What else can I do?” he inquired.

“Nothing,” Michael replied. “Most certainly nothing; but granting that she is all that I feel sure she must be, if there is any truth in the story, anything that a man could dislike his wife having been mixed up in, there is her point of view to be considered. She will not let it rest.”

“How do you mean?” said Bernard, raising his eyebrows.

“She will tell you about it herself, of course,” said Michael, curtly.

Bernard seemed considerably discomposed.

“You had better be prepared for the possibility,” Michael continued. “There is generally some root for gossip, however exaggerated. I advise you to face this for both your sakes.”

“You certainly are a Job’s comforter if ever there was one,” said his cousin, in a tone of annoyance. “Do you mean to say that I should make further inquiry, or give her an opportunity of explaining it before I commit myself? It would be so awkward, you see. I scarcely—”

“Good heavens! no,” said Michael, with angry contempt. “Would I suggest your insulting a woman? I am only forewarning you that if there is anything that requires explanation she will volunteer it, and on this account you had better be sure of your own mind, or you may find yourself in a very awkward position, to put it mildly.”

Mr Gresham’s perceptions were not of the order to detect the covert sarcasm of the last few words.

“I see,” he replied, consideringly. “Thank you for the suggestion. It can do no harm to be prepared. But I flatter myself if any one can steer their way through a tangle of the kind, I can do so. Thanks, Michael, all the same,” and with his serenity quite restored, he got up from the breakfast-table.

The expression of Michael’s face when he found himself alone grew hard and dark.

“What evil genius,” he said to himself, “brought me down here at this crisis? I wish I were at the antipodes! I almost think I shall go back to town at once, but—it is just possible that, mixed up as I am in this affair, I may be of use to her. Heaven knows what is going to come of it all! That unlucky secret of hers, and Bernard’s smallness of character! Will she be disillusioned? or does he really care enough for her to rise above himself? And will she perhaps spend the rest of her life in worshipping an ideal and never find out her mistake? Such things have been with such a woman.” He sighed and turned away from the window where he had been standing.

“No,” he said, “I’ll stay and see it out.”

That same afternoon, when writing in the room which at Merle was always considered his own, Michael heard through the open window the sound of voices on the terrace below. One he recognised immediately as belonging to Mrs Marmaduke Headfort, then a man’s voice, which he supposed to be that of her husband; Michael had never met Captain Headfort. Himself of course unobserved, he approached the window. Yes, there was a third visitor. It was the first time he had seen Miss Raynsworth in her own character, and suddenly there flashed upon him the full strangeness of the position.

“I shall have to be introduced to her,” he thought. “Will little Mrs Headfort be equal to it? She knows at least that her sister and I were travelling companions, even if she has been told no more as to my part in it. And how will the girl herself stand it? I know how essentially candid she must be. I must do my best to make it as little awkward as possible. They have come over to tea, no doubt; I will keep out of the way till we meet in the drawing-room.”

A moment or two later his cousin put his head in at the door.

“The Headforts are here, Michael,” he said. “We are going through the woods to the old fish-ponds; do you care to come or not?”

Michael shook his head.

“I am not quite ready,” he said; “you’ll be back to tea, I suppose? You can introduce me to your friends then. To Miss Raynsworth and Headfort, I mean—Mrs Headfort of course I know.”

Bernard Gresham scarcely stayed to hear his reply.

“All right,” he said. “They’re waiting for me,” and he shut the door.

Half-way to the fish-ponds, Evelyn’s strength showed signs of giving out.

“Duke,” she said, plaintively, “if I go much farther you will have to carry me back. You forget that we walked here from Palden!”

Duke looked intensely penitent.

“Of course,” he said; “why didn’t you say so before, Evey, when Gresham proposed it?”

“I didn’t know how far it was,” she replied. “Is it much farther, Mr Gresham?”

Bernard hesitated.

“I am extremely sorry, Mrs Headfort,” he said. “I’m afraid I must own we haven’t come half-way. But of course if it is too much for you we had better give it up.”

“Oh, dear, no,” said Evelyn, quickly. “That would vex me dreadfully. It is such a lovely day. You three go on, and I’ll easily find my way back to Merle, and wait on the terrace for you. I shall enjoy the quiet, and it would be a shame to stay indoors on such a perfect afternoon.”

“Nonsense,” said Duke. “Of course I’ll take you back, and then I’ll stroll this way again and meet you and Philippa on your return,” he added to Mr Gresham.

Philippa opened her lips as if about to remonstrate, but before she had time to speak Bernard broke in.

“Don’t say you are tired too, Miss Raynsworth. I had set my heart on showing you the fish-ponds. The woods there are in perfection at this time of year.”

“I am not tired,” said Philippa, quietly. “Perhaps it is the best thing to do. Be sure you rest well, Evey, for there’s the walk home to consider.”

“Oh, no, you must let me send you back, of course,” said Mr Gresham. “Au revoir, then,” and the quartet separated.

Philippa and her host walked on some little way in silence. Both, though neither fully realised it for the other, were making up their minds to a decided step. For the last few days had made the girl resolve that if circumstances combined to render her doing so possible, she would tell Mr Gresham the facts of the travesty she had since so bitterly regretted. And if anything had been wanting to confirm her in this decision, Michael Gresham’s arrival would have done so.

But the task before her was far from an easy one. Independently of her own not unnatural shrinking from the subject, there was the terror lest in volunteering this confidence she should appear prematurely to take for granted any special interest in her affairs on the part of her companion; any right, so to say, on his side, to know all details of her life. How could she broach the subject?

She glanced at him; he was not looking at her, but gazing before him with a preoccupied expression. And in some degree to her relief, just as she was nervously clearing her throat to begin to speak, he suddenly turned towards her.

“We have still fully a mile before we get to the fish ponds,” he said, “but I do not think we need walk quite as fast as we are doing.”

Philippa slackened her pace without speaking.

“I am so glad,” Mr Gresham continued, “of this lucky chance of speaking to you uninterruptedly.” Then for the first time he hesitated.

“I—you,” he went on, “you must know, Miss Raynsworth, how much interest I have come to feel in—you, and—in all that concerns you.”

Philippa glanced up quickly. What was coming? His words would normally have admitted of but one interpretation, but something in his tone, its calm, almost business-like deliberateness, made her doubtful. For the moment she was on the point of availing herself of this preamble as an opening for what she had made up her mind to say. Then she hesitated, and while she did so he went on.

“I—I am not impulsive, Miss Raynsworth. I am considerate by nature, and in anything involving not only my own happiness but that of another, I am deeply conscious that it behoves me to be doubly so. A mistake may be made in two minutes which a lifetime cannot undo. So you will not misunderstand me if I confess that it has taken me many weeks—nay, months—to decide upon—”

There was no doubt now, he was going to propose to her, and with the disappearance of all uncertainty on this head, her own resolution revived. In her nervousness she was for the moment unconscious of the curious egotism of his words, of the entire absence of any nobility of self-forgetfulness, any touch of impassioned feeling in his manner. Her own generosity of character failed to realise its absence in him; her one uppermost impulse was to prevent him in the slightest degree from acting in the dark.

“Stop, Mr Gresham,” she said, hurriedly; “before you say any more I have something to say to you.”

She gave a little gasp; she felt herself growing pale. Something made her look up. Instead of the expression of surprise which she had unconsciously expected to meet in his face, her quick instincts perceived a slight stiffening, a sort of indescribable drawing-back instead of eager protest that nothing she could say would alter his longing for her to hear him out.

And could she have seen into her companion’s mind at that moment, she would scarcely have believed the reflections she would there have read.

“She has something to tell,” he was thinking to himself. “I have not been too cautious.”

And aloud he said, quietly:

“As you wish, of course, Miss Raynsworth.”

She plunged into it.

“You may remember,” she began, “a little incident at Cannes which annoyed you at the time—naturally so—and annoyed you still more, I imagine, afterwards, when I refused to let you resent the impertinence I had been subjected to. I could not have done otherwise, as you will hear. I had promised my mother before leaving home to tell no one what I am now going to tell you, without her leave.”

As she spoke there was an imperceptible lightening of Mr Gresham’s expression.

“Your mother knew!” he ejaculated.

“Of course,” she exclaimed, too bent upon her recital to feel surprise at his words. “This was how it all happened.” And forcing herself to speak with perfect calmness, she began at the beginning of the story and told it all, simply and without comment, only omitting the names of any not immediately concerned in the little drama—such as those of Michael Gresham and Mrs Shepton—and carefully exonerating from all shadow of blame in the matter her sister and her parents.

When she had finished there fell a dead silence. With all her self-control Philippa could not bring herself to raise her eyes—the conflicting feelings in her mind made her almost physically giddy.

Then as the silence continued, a new element began to make itself felt. Her pride awoke and she reared her head half defiantly.

“Does he think I am going tamely to await his judgment upon me?” she thought to herself. “If so, he shall—”

But at that moment Mr Gresham’s voice at last made itself heard.

“I have to thank you, Miss Raynsworth,” he said, gently, “for giving me your confidence. You will find it has not been misplaced. You have done the best thing possible in telling me what you have done. Though—” he hesitated, “it is best to be perfectly candid,” he went on, “I cannot but own that it is—a terrible disappointment to me to have to associate anything of so extraordinary a kind with one whom—”

Philippa turned upon him abruptly, her face crimsoning. Something in his measured tone, more than in his actual words, began slowly to insinuate into her a strange, chill misgiving. And why at that moment did there recur to her memory, in advantageous contrast to Mr Gresham’s carefully considered and gently expressed disapproval, his cousin Michael’s stern, almost rough censure of what she had done?

Before she had time to open her lips, her companion began again.

“Excuse me,” he said, “for interrupting you—I think you were going to speak. I must ask you to listen to me first. I will be perfectly frank. I was not wholly unprepared for this strange disclosure. The incident at Cannes never quite left my memory, and it was followed up by certain remarks or hints as to something peculiar in which you had been mixed up, which came to my ears more recently.”

“How? and where?” demanded Philippa. For one half instant the thought crossed her brain—could Michael Gresham have been faithless to his trust?—but it was as quickly dismissed. Rough and rugged he might be, but true, she felt certain he was.

“I scarcely know that I have any right to reply to your question,” said Mr Gresham, “and no purpose would be fulfilled by my doing so. All that was said to me was very vague, so vague that I have allowed myself to be buoyed up by hopes—now alas! shattered—that the warn—hints I should say, rested on no real foundation. But do not mistake me, Miss Raynsworth,” as Philippa again seemed on the point of speaking.

“Your confidence, I repeat, has not been misplaced. I do not think—no, deliberately speaking—I do not think any lasting annoyance or ill-results need be anticipated—especially when—” But here even his self-assurance shrank from completing the sentence. “I want to say,” he went on, “that notwithstanding all the pain and regret which I cannot deny I am feeling, my attitude towards you is not radically shaken. In time, I trust and believe, the whole miserable episode will be forgotten—not only by the few outsiders who may have suspected any mystery, but by myself.”

He glanced at Philippa as he spoke, expecting to detect a flush of grateful relief on her face. What he did see there, was less easy to interpret. She was no longer red, though, on the other hand, but slightly paler than usual, and she turned her eyes fully upon him without uttering a word.

“I must express myself still more plainly,” he said, almost as if addressing a child, “as my wife, there will, I feel sure, be nothing, comparatively speaking, to dread in the future. Your candour has disarmed my scruples, for I know I can trust that never, under any conceivable circumstances, could you again be tempted so to set propriety and—and dignity at nought.”

Still she did not speak.

“Miss Raynsworth,” he said at last, “Miss Raynsworth—Philippa,” he exclaimed. “Do you not understand me?” and for the first time a very shadowy apprehension that possibly, just possibly he had appeared too sure of his ground suggested itself. “I—the circumstances have been so exceptional—I have had no opportunity so far of assuring you of the depth and sincerity of my feelings towards you—of my devotion. You must allow they have been well tested. And they have stood the test! I ask you now to be my wife—my happiness is in your hands.”

“And I, Mr Gresham,” Philippa said at last, her dark eyes turned full upon him, “decline, distinctly and definitely decline, the honour you have done me.” He grew scarlet.

“What do you mean?” he said, for once almost rudely. “What has all this conversation been about, if this was what you intended? What was your motive for telling me all you have done? Have I offended you, and how? Your pride has taken fire in some unreasonable way. How can I assure you that the thing will not weigh further with me—that—that—I shall do my best to forget it? Where would you be so protected as in the position of my wife?”

“I understand you perfectly, Mr Gresham,” Philippa replied in a calm even voice, “though at the same time I confess that previously to this conversation I had lamentably failed to do so. On my side, I thank you for your candour, and I repeat, as decidedly as words can convey my meaning, that I decline the proposal you have made me.”

He still seemed unable to believe her.

“Have you been playing with me all this time?” he said, harshly. “It is inconceivable. But what can be your reason for changing so suddenly? I have a right to ask, and a right to know.”

“Yes,” she said, “perhaps you have, though I do not know that my reason will much enlighten you. It is simply this. I am entirely convinced that we are utterly unsuited to each other, and that in marrying you I should be entering upon what would prove a tremendous mistake. You do not, and never would, understand me; surely that should suffice.”

He smiled, bitterly enough. Something in her manner carried conviction home to him, through all the thick folds of his self-esteem.

“And may I inquire further,” he said, “what has thus magically caused the scales to fall from your eyes as regards my poor desserts? For you allow, you could not indeed do otherwise, that the change, however complete, is a very sudden one?”

She turned and looked at him. There was a strange wistfulness in her expression.

“No,” she said, sadly; “I am sorry if I have caused you any pain, but I cannot explain anything more. You would not understand. I am very tired,” she continued, “I do not want to go farther. Would you mind walking back to meet my brother-in-law and tell him I have gone straight home to Palden? I can find my way from here.”

He bowed without speaking and turned away, too absorbed by his own intense mortification to give much heed to her last words, or to feel any compassion for the suffering too plainly betrayed by her white face and faltering voice.

The sound of his retreating footsteps on the crisp, dry path died rapidly away, and Philippa was alone.