Grit Lawless Part 45

"At Kraaifontein."

She thought for a moment.

"And Karl Van Bleit was at Kraaifontein too?"

"Yes... He's back now."

Mrs Lawless looked straight into the Colonel's eyes.

"He got the letters for you," she said, and he knew that she referred to Lawless though she did not utter his name.

"Yes."

For the life of him the Colonel could think of nothing further to say.

He was aware that the same suspicion that was in his own mind was in hers; and he had no rea.s.surance to offer. He could find no word to supplement his bald affirmative. The pause lengthened.

"Another life!" she whispered... "I always felt--"

She touched Tom Hayhurst's sleeve.

"Tell him to drive home," she said, and sat back in her seat.

Colonel Grey stepped quickly to the door.

"Don't worry," he said... "I'm going up to-morrow... I'll let you know immediately."

The car drove away, and the two men were left staring blankly into one another's eyes.

"What's he to her?" Tom Hayhurst asked.

But the Colonel shook his head. Here was a complication he had not foreseen. They turned and walked on together. Hayhurst was excited and inclined to hunt up Van Bleit and have an explanation, but his companion quashed the idea.

"You are positive, I suppose, it was Van Bleit you saw?"

"Of course I am. I got quite close to him once, and he grinned at me.

I tell you, I didn't like that grin. I followed after him. I wanted to hit his face for showing his teeth at me, but he got into a taxi and drove off. He was looking sick too, beastly sick... There's been foul play,--I'm certain of it. I'd have suspected it by Van Bleit turning up and Grit not; but when I saw that beast's smug, vindictive grin, I knew it."

"Well, I'll find out to-morrow," Colonel Grey said.

"I'm going up the line with you. If anything's happened to Grit, whatever hole Van Bleit sneaks into, I'll see he pays."

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

Colonel Grey flung a suit of pyjamas and a few toilet accessories into a handbag and started out for the station. He was very much perturbed.

Against his judgment he was greatly affected by Mrs Lawless'

forebodings of the previous night; her softly uttered, prophetic--they seemed to him prophetic--words: "I have always felt those letters would cost another life."

And as a foundation for this belief, Tom Hayhurst had turned up with his tale of suspicion and his unreserved misgivings that had insensibly given rise to similar doubts in his own mind. What a finish to a life of failure! ... If this, indeed, should prove the end! He recalled his recently formulated plans for the man's future... the chance he had thought to give him; and a hard look came into his eyes, his lips tightened. Those ashes in the grate had indeed cost dear!

Tom Hayhurst was already on the platform when he made his appearance from the direction of the booking-office. He came forward quickly to meet him, his boyish face grave and concerned.

"I saw Van Bleit come out of the s.h.i.+pping-office when I pa.s.sed on my way here," he said. "I tried to stop him, but he eluded me, and I daren't give chase for fear of missing the train. I take it he was booking his pa.s.sage to England. He means clearing out... Looks queer, eh?"

Colonel Grey nodded briefly.

"It'll take a bigger world than this for him to lose himself in, if he's killed Grit," the young man said.

They turned and walked the length of the platform side by side. The train was in the station, and pa.s.sengers were leisurely selecting their seats. From the door of the booking-office as they came opposite to it, among a hurrying group of late arrivals, Mrs Lawless emerged, tall and composed and very pale, with a cl.u.s.ter of early roses, fresh gathered with the dew still on them, drooping in her hands. A servant accompanied her carrying luggage. It was evident that she too was going by the train.

The Colonel was the first to see her; Hayhurst in his preoccupation had eyes for no one. He stopped, regarded her in surprise, and raised his hat.

"Mrs Lawless!" he exclaimed. "You! ... Surely you are not thinking--"

She looked him steadily in the eyes.

"I am going to Kraaifontein, Colonel Grey," she interrupted him--"to find my husband."

It was not often that the Colonel was startled beyond all power of lucid expression, but in the extremity of his amazement words failed him.

"Your--Eh?" he said, and stood still on the platform and stared at her.

He felt a touch on his arm.

"Unless you want to be left behind, you'd better take your seat."

Tom Hayhurst stood at his elbow, his blue eyes on the woman's face, with a mingling of respect in them and wondering resentment. He hurried them to the train, opened the door of an empty carriage, and shut it on them with a bang.

"Send me a wire," he said.

The Colonel thrust his head out of the window.

"You're not coming?"

"No." The young man gave an expressive glance in the direction of Mrs Lawless, seated in the far corner of the carriage with the fragrant drooping flowers in her lap. "Grit wouldn't thank us for making a picnic, or a funeral party, of it with her there," he said.

Colonel Grey understood.

"I'll let you know immediately," he promised, and sank back on the cus.h.i.+ons, taking off his hat and mopping his much perplexed and perspiring brow as the train moved slowly out.

He looked across at Mrs Lawless. She was gazing out of the window at the sunny country as it swept past her view with eyes that saw nothing consciously, and with thoughts, he rightly conjectured, far away from her surroundings. He tried to think of her in this new connection that she had sprung on him so suddenly and for which he had been so wholly unprepared; tried, but failed to remember, what Lawless had said in respect of his relations.h.i.+p with her that had so entirely misled him.

He recalled that he had asked point blank whether he was a connection of hers, recalled too the ambiguous answer to his question: "By marriage only." Truly a man may usually be said to be related to his wife by marriage only. But the answer had been given with intent to deceive.

And Lawless had said other things that had tended to turn his mind from any such suspicion. For private reasons he had desired to conceal the fact of his marriage.

It was long before Mrs Lawless turned her face in his direction; when she did he saw that her eyes were filled with a great hopelessness, and something that resembled dread. Unconsciously she fingered the roses in her lap, touching them with a nervous caressing hand.

"I am afraid," she said, and looked at him wistfully. "I have never imagined anything like this... I thought I was going Home without ever seeing his face again. I had reconciled myself to that. And now... It ought not to be more difficult to part from the dead than to part irrevocably from the living. But it is."

She looked down suddenly at the roses, and lifted them gently, and laid them against her face.