FullReads

“I shall write to-night.”

“Oh! To-night?”

“Yes. Now promise me you will too.”

“It’s harder for me than you.”

“Not if he really—-.”

“Oh, indeed, he really does, Mr. Ellerton.”

“Then you’ll write?”

“Perhaps.”

“No. Promise!”

“Well–it must be right. Yes, I will.”

“I feel the better for our talk, Miss Bellairs, don’t you?”

“I do a little.”

“We shall be friends now, you know; even if I bring it off I shan’t be content unless you do too. Won’t you give me your good wishes?”

“Indeed I will.”

“Shake hands on it.”

They shook hands and began to stroll back to the tennis-courts.

“They look a little better,” observed Sir Roger Deane, who had been listening to an eloquent description of the gaming-tables.

Dora and Charlie walked on towards the hotel.

“Hi!” shouted Sir Roger. “Tea’s coming out here.”

“I’ve got a letter to write,” said Charlie.

“Well, Miss Bellairs, you must come. Who’s to pour it out?”

“I must catch the post, Sir Roger,” answered Dora.

They went into the house together. In the hall they parted.

“You’ll let me know what happens, Mr. Ellerton, won’t you? I’m so interested.”

“And you?”

“Oh–well, perhaps,” and the sallow of her cheeks had turned to a fine dusky red as she ran upstairs.

Thus it happened that a second letter for John Ashforth and a second letter for Mary Travers left Cannes that night.

And if it seems a curious coincidence that Dora and Charlie should meet at Cannes, it can only be answered that they were each of them just as likely to be at Cannes as anywhere else. Besides, who knows that these things are all coincidence?

CHAPTER III

A PROVIDENTIAL DISCLOSURE

On Wednesday the eleventh of April, John Ashforth rose from his bed full of a great and momentous resolution. There is nothing very strange in that, perhaps it is just the time of day when such things come to a man, and, in ordinary cases, they are very prone to disappear with the relics of breakfast. But John was of sterner stuff. He had passed a restless night, tossed to and fro by very disturbing gusts of emotion, and he arose with the firm conviction that if he would escape shipwreck he must secure his bark by immovable anchors while he was, though not in honor, yet in law and fact, free; he could not trust himself. Sorrowfully admitting his weakness, he turned to the true, the right, the heroic remedy.

“I’ll marry Mary to–day fortnight,” said he. “When we are man and wife I shall forget this madness and love her as I used to.”

He went down to breakfast, ate a bit of toast and drank a cup of very strong tea. Presently Mary appeared and greeted him with remarkable tenderness. His heart smote him, and his remorse strengthened his determination.

“I want to speak to you after breakfast,” he told her.

His manner was so significant that a sudden gleam of hope flashed into her mind. Could it be that he had seen, that he would be generous? She banished the shameful hope. She would not accept generosity at the expense of pain to him.

Miss Bussey, professing to find bed the best place in the world, was in the habit of taking her breakfast there. The lovers were alone, and, the meal ended, they passed together into the conservatory. Mary sat down and John leant against the glass door opposite her.

“Well?” said she, smiling at him.

It suddenly struck John that, in a scene of this nature, it ill-befitted him to stand three yards from the lady. He took a chair and drew it close beside her. The thing had to be done and it should be done properly.

“We’ve made a mistake, Mary,” he announced, taking her hand and speaking in a rallying tone.

“A mistake!” she cried; “oh, how?”

“In fixing our marriage—-.”

“So soon?”

“My darling!” said John (and it was impossible to deny admiration to the tone he said it in), “no. So late! What are we waiting for? Why are we wasting all this precious time?”