A Damsel in Distress Part 35

"I am not afraid!"

"Then, perhaps, you will be kind enough to listen. I won't detain you long. My explanation is quite simple. I have been made a fool of. I seem to be in the position of the tinker in the play whom everybody conspired to delude into the belief that he was a king.

First a friend of yours, Mr. Byng, came to me and told me that you had confided to him that you loved me."

Maud gasped. Either this man was mad, or Reggie Byng was. She choose the politer solution.

"Reggie Byng must have lost his senses."

"So I supposed. At least, I imagined that he must be mistaken. But a man in love is an optimistic fool, of course, and I had loved you ever since you got into my cab that morning ..."

"What!"

"So after a while," proceeded George, ignoring the interruption, "I almost persuaded myself that miracles could still happen, and that what Byng said was true. And when your father called on me and told me the very same thing I was convinced. It seemed incredible, but I had to believe it. Now it seems that, for some inscrutable reason, both Byng and your father were making a fool of me. That's all.

Good night."

Maud's reply was the last which George or any man would have expected. There was a moment's silence, and then she burst into a peal of laughter. It was the laughter of over-strained nerves, but to George's ears it had the ring of genuine amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I'm glad you find my story entertaining," he said dryly. He was convinced now that he loathed this girl, and that all he desired was to see her go out of his life for ever. "Later, no doubt, the funny side of it will hit me. Just at present my sense of humour is rather dormant."

Maud gave a little cry.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, Mr. Bevan. It wasn't that. It wasn't that at all. Oh, I am so sorry. I don't know why I laughed. It certainly wasn't because I thought it funny. It's tragic. There's been a dreadful mistake!"

"I noticed that," said George bitterly. The darkness began to afflict his nerves. "I wish to G.o.d we had some light."

The glare of a pocket-torch smote upon him.

"I brought it to see my way back with," said Maud in a curious, small voice. "It's very dark across the fields. I didn't light it before, because I was afraid somebody might see."

She came towards him, holding the torch over her head. The beam showed her face, troubled and sympathetic, and at the sight all George's resentment left him. There were mysteries here beyond his unravelling, but of one thing he was certain: this girl was not to blame. She was a thoroughbred, as straight as a wand. She was pure gold.

"I came here to tell you everything," she said. She placed the torch on the wagon-wheel so that its ray fell in a pool of light on the ground between them. "I'll do it now. Only--only it isn't so easy now. Mr. Bevan, there's a man--there's a man that father and Reggie Byng mistook--they thought ... You see, they knew it was you that I was with that day in the cab, and so they naturally thought, when you came down here, that you were the man I had gone to meet that day--the man I--I--"

"The man you love."

"Yes," said Maud in a small voice; and there was silence again.

George could feel nothing but sympathy. It mastered other emotion in him, even the grey despair that had come her words. He could feel all that she was feeling.

"Tell me all about it," he said.

"I met him in Wales last year." Maud's voice was a whisper. "The family found out, and I was hurried back here, and have been here ever since. That day when I met you I had managed to slip away from home. I had found out that he was in London, and I was going to meet him. Then I saw Percy, and got into your cab. It's all been a horrible mistake. I'm sorry."

"I see," said George thoughtfully. "I see."

His heart ached like a living wound. She had told so little, and he could guess so much. This unknown man who had triumphed seemed to sneer scornfully at him from the shadows.

"I'm sorry," said Maud again.

"You mustn't feel like that. How can I help you? That's the point.

What is it you want me to do?"

"But I can't ask you now."

"Of course you can. Why not?"

"Why--oh, I couldn't!"

George managed to laugh. It was a laugh that did not sound convincing even to himself, but it served.

"That's morbid," he said. "Be sensible. You need help, and I may be able to give it. Surely a man isn't barred for ever from doing you a service just because he happens to love you? Suppose you were drowning and Mr. Plummer was the only swimmer within call, wouldn't you let him rescue you?"

"Mr. Plummer? What do you mean?"

"You've not forgotten that I was a reluctant ear-witness to his recent proposal of marriage?"

Maud uttered an exclamation.

"I never asked! How terrible of me. Were you much hurt?"

"Hurt?" George could not follow her.

"That night. When you were on the balcony, and--"

"Oh!" George understood. "Oh, no, hardly at all. A few scratches. I sc.r.a.ped my hands a little."

"It was a wonderful thing to do," said Maud, her admiration glowing for a man who could treat such a leap so lightly. She had always had a private theory that Lord Leonard, after performing the same feat, had bragged about it for the rest of his life.

"No, no, nothing," said George, who had since wondered why he had ever made such a to-do about climbing up a perfectly stout sheet.

"It was splendid!"

George blushed.

"We are wandering from the main theme," he said. "I want to help you. I came here at enormous expense to help you. How can I do it?"

Maud hesitated.

"I think you may be offended at my asking such a thing."

"You needn't."

"You see, the whole trouble is that I can't get in touch with Geoffrey. He's in London, and I'm here. And any chance I might have of getting to London vanished that day I met you, when Percy saw me in Piccadilly."

"How did your people find out it was you?"

"They asked me--straight out."

"And you owned up?"