ds. It was all I could
do to avoid speech.

"Come," he said, "do you agree? Will you leave this place? I promise
you that your schemes here at any rate are at an end."

She turned to me. Perhaps something in my face had spoken the sympathy
which I could not wholly suppress.

"Guy," she said, "I want to be rid of this man, because every word he
speaks--hurts. But I cannot even look at him any more. At this war of
words he has won. I am beaten. I admit it. I am crushed. I am not
going away. I spoke truthfully when I said that I came to England in
search of your father. We may both of us be the creatures that man
would have you believe, but we have been husband and wife for eighteen
years, and it is my duty to find out what has become of him. Therefore
I stay."

I could see Ray's black eyes flashing. He almost gripped my arm as he
drew me away. We three left the house together. At the bottom of the
drive we met a carriage sent down from Rowchester. Ray stopped it.

"Blenavon and I will take this carriage to the station," he said. "Will
you, Ducaine, return to Lady Angela and tell her exactly what has
happened?"

"Oh, come, I'm not going to have that," Blenavon exclaimed.

"It will not be unexpected news," Ray said sternly. "Your sister
suspects already."

"I'm not going to be bundled away and leave you to concoct any precious
story you think fit," Blenavon declared, doggedly. "I--"

Ray opened the carriage door and gripped Blenavon's arm. "Get in," he
said in a low, suppressed tone. There was something almost animal in
the fury of Ray's voice. I looked away with a shudder. Blenavon
stepped quietly into the carriage. Then Ray came over to me, and as he
looked searchingly into my face, he pointed up the carriage drive.

"Boy," he said, "you are young, and in hell itself there cannot be many
such as she. You think me brutal. It is because I remember--your
mother!"

He stepped into the carriage. I turned round and set out for
Rowchester.

CHAPTER XXV

MY SECRET

There followed for me another three days of unremitting work. Then
midway through one morning I threw my pen from me with a great sense of
relief. They might come or send for me when they chose. I had
finished. My eyes were hot and my brain weary. Instinctively I threw
open my front door, and it seemed to me that the sun and the wind and
the birds were calling.

So I walked northwards down on the beach, across the grass-sprinkled
sandhills and