The God in the Car Part 25

"Adela! I never thought----" She did not end, conscious, perhaps, that her flushed face gave her words the lie. Adela swept on.

"You! He's not coming to see you. I don't believe he's coming to see anyone--no, not even Maggie--I mean no one, at all."

The girl's look marked the fatal slip.

"Oh!" she gasped, just audibly.

"I don't believe he cares _that_ for any of us--for anyone alive.

Marjory, I didn't mean what I said about Maggie, I didn't indeed. Don't look like that. Oh, what a stupid girl you are!" and she ended with a half-hysterical laugh.

For some moments they stood facing one another, saying nothing. The meaning of Adela's words was sinking into Marjory's mind.

"Let's walk on. People will wonder," said she at last; and she enlaced Adela's arm again. After another long pause, during which her face expressed the turmoil of her thoughts, she whispered,

"Adela, is that why Mr. Loring went away?"

"I don't know why he went away."

"You think me a child, so you say you don't mean it now. You do mean it, you know. You wouldn't say a thing like that for nothing. Tell me what you do mean, Adela." It was almost an order. Adela suddenly realised that she had struck down to a force and a character. "Tell me exactly what you mean," insisted Marjory; "you ought to tell me, Adela."

Adela found herself obeying.

"I don't know about him; but I'm afraid of her," she stammered, as if confessing a shameful deed of her own. A moment later she broke into entreaty. "Go away, dear. Don't get mixed up in it. Don't have anything to do with him."

"Do you go away when your friends are in trouble or in danger?"

Adela felt suddenly small--then wise--then small because her wisdom was of a small kind. Yet she gave it utterance.

"But, Marjory, think of--think of yourself. If you----."

"I know what you're going to say. If I care for him? I don't. I hardly know him. But, if I did, I might--I might be of some use. And are you going to leave her all alone? I thought you were her friend. Are you just going to look on? Though you think--what you think!"

Adela caught hold of the girl's hands. There was a choking in her throat, and she could say nothing.

"But if he sees?" she murmured, when she found speech.

"He won't see. There's nothing to see. I shan't show it. Adela, I shall stay. Why do you think what--what you think?"

People might wonder, if they would--perhaps they did--when Adela drew Marjory towards her, and kissed her lips.

"I couldn't, my dear," she said, "but, if you can, for heaven's sake do.

I may be wrong, but--I'm uneasy."

Marjory's lips quivered, but she held her head proudly up; then she sobbed a short quick-stifled sob, and then smiled.

"I daresay it's not a bit true," she said.

Adela pressed her hand again, saying,

"I'm an emotional old creature."

"Why did Mr. Loring go away?" demanded Marjory.

"I don't know. He thought it----"

"Best? Well, he was wrong."

Adela could not hear Tom attacked.

"Maggie turned him out," she said--which account of the matter was, perhaps, just a little one-sided, though containing a part of the truth.

Marjory meditated on it for a moment, Adela still covertly looking at her. The discovery was very strange. Half-an-hour ago she had smiled because the girl hinted a longing after something beyond frocks, and had laughed at her simple acceptance of Semingham's joke. Now she found herself turning to her, looking to her for help in the trouble that had puzzled her. In her admiration of the girl's courage, she forgot to wonder at her intuition, her grasp of evil possibilities, the knowledge of Maggie Dennison that her resolve implied. Adda watched her, as, their farewell said, she walked, first quickly, then very slowly, towards the villa which Mrs. Dennison had hired, on the cliff-side, near the old Castle. Then, with a last sigh, she put up her parasol and sauntered back to the Hotel de Rome. Costume number two would be on by now, and Bessie Semingham ready for luncheon.

Marjory, finally sunk into the slow gait that means either idleness or deep thought, made her way up to the villa. With every step she drew nearer, the burden she had taken up seemed heavier. It was not sorrow for the dawning dream that the storm-cloud had eclipsed that she really thought of. But the task loomed large in its true difficulty, as her first enthusiasm spent itself. If Adela were right, what could she do?

If Adela were wrong, what unpardonable offence she might give. Ah, was Adela right? Strange and new as the idea was, there was an unquestioning conviction in her manner that Marjory could hardly resist. Save under the stress of a conviction, speech on such a matter would have been an impossible crime. And Marjory remembered, with a sinking heart, Maggie Dennison's smile of happy triumph when she read out the lines in which Ruston told of his coming. Yes, it was, or it might be, true. But where lay her power to help?

Coming round the elbow of the rising path, she caught sight of Maggie Dennison sitting in the garden. Mrs. Dennison wore white; her pale, clear-cut profile was towards Marjory; she rested her chin on her hand, and her elbow on her knee, and she was looking on the ground. Softly Marjory drew near. An unopened letter from Harry lay on a little table; the children had begun their mid-day meal in the room, whose open window was but a few feet behind; Mrs. Dennison's thoughts were far away.

Marjory stopped short. A stronger buffet of fear, a more overwhelming sense of helplessness, smote her. She understood better why Adela had been driven to do nothing--to look on. She smiled for an instant; the idea put itself so whimsically; but she thought that, had Mrs. Dennison been walking over a precipice, it would need all one's courage to interfere with her. She would think it such an impertinence. And Ruston?

Marjory saw, all in a minute, his cheerful scorn, his unshaken determination, his rapid dismissal of one more obstacle. She drew in her breath in a long inspiration, and Mrs. Dennison raised her eyes and smiled.

"I believe I felt you there," she said, smiling. "At least, I began to think of you."

Marjory sat near her hostess.

"Did you meet anyone?" asked Mrs. Dennison.

"Adela Ferrars and Lord Semingham."

"Well, had they anything to say?"

"No--I don't think so," she answered slowly.

"What should they have to say in this place? The children have begun.

Aren't you hungry?"

"Not very."

"Well, I am," and Mrs. Dennison arose. "I forgot it, but I am."

"They didn't know Mr. Ruston was coming."

"Didn't they?" smiled Mrs. Dennison. "And has Adela forgiven you? Oh, you know, the poor boy is a friend of hers, as he is of mine."

"We didn't talk about it."

"And you don't want to? Very well, we won't. See, here's a long letter--it's very heavy, at least--from Harry. I must read it afterwards."

"Perhaps it's to say he can come sooner."