The Greatest Works of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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then, walking into his room at the Bank one morning, he saw on the top of the pile of his letters another common-looking envelope marked Private. He took it up with a sick feeling of half eager, half shrinking, expectancy—
"A sincere well-wisher wishes once more to inform Mr. Pavely that all Pewsbury is discussing him and his private affairs. The lady and gentleman in question are more together than ever they were. The other day some one who met them walking together on the downs took them for an engaged couple."
This second anonymous letter greatly added to Godfrey Pavely's wretchedness and discomfort, all the more that it was so moderately worded. It seemed to confirm, to make certain, the fact of growing gossip and scandal.
At last something happened which to a small extent relieved the tension. Laura quietly informed him one evening that she much wished to go away for three days to see a friend of her childhood, who had written and begged her to come, and to bring little Alice with her.
She was surprised at the eagerness with which Godfrey assented to her wish. In certain ways Godfrey Pavely, from the modern point of view, was a tyrannical husband. He very much disliked Laura's paying visits by herself, and she had long ago given up even suggesting that she should do so. Also, she on her side much disliked asking him the smallest favour.
The day his wife left The Chase was the first happy day Godfrey had had for three weeks. He spent a pleasant hour with Katty; and on his arrival home his feeling of satisfaction was increased by a note from Mrs. Tropenell inviting him to come and spend at Freshley Manor the three nights Laura was to be away. He wrote accepting with more cordiality of phrase than was his wont, even with so old a friend as was Oliver's mother.
Surely he and Oliver Tropenell, at last alone together, could combine to put an end to this foolish, vulgar gossip? It would be so much easier to speak to and consult with Oliver in Laura's absence.
Once he had made up his mind to speak to the other man, Pavely was able, almost, to forget the whole hateful business. Still, he said nothing till the second morning of his visit. Then, at breakfast, he made a proposal.
"I feel as if I'd like to take this afternoon off. Would you care for a good long walk, eh? We might start about half-past two, have tea in Witanbury, and be back here for dinner."
Oliver nodded. He was at once glad and sorry that Godfrey was so entirely unaware of the growing tide of dislike, nay of hatred, that he felt for him. Secretive as he was by nature, and by the life he had now led for so long, Oliver Tropenell was yet no hypocrite. He loathed the part fate had forced on him, that of pretending a cordial friendship for this man whom he so utterly despised. His mother had invited Godfrey Pavely to stay with them for three nights without first telling Oliver that she was thinking of doing so; and then, when she had realised, too late, his annoyance, she could only explain that Godfrey had always stayed with her on the very rare occasions when Laura had been away.
Mother and son were together when Godfrey started off on his daily walk into Pewsbury.
"I wonder what he's going to talk to you about?" said Mrs. Tropenell a little nervously. The thought of the coming afternoon expedition made her vaguely uneasy.
"He's never at a loss for a word, though he very seldom says anything worth hearing."
Oliver was looking with unhappy, frowning eyes after the other man's trim, rather jaunty figure.
All that morning Mrs. Tropenell watched her son with anxious fear. He wandered restlessly in and out of the house, and though he never mentioned Laura, his mother knew that he was missing her with an almost agonised sense of loss.
Oliver was fighting a losing battle with himself—a battle in which no help from outside could be of any avail. He no longer spoke of going away; instead, he had told his mother of his scheme for bringing Gillie to Europe, and of sending Laura and her brother off to Italy, for a happy little holiday. She ventured to say that she thought that plan to be quite out of the question. Godfrey would never allow it—he had not forgiven Gillie, in spite of the fact that Gillie had now "made good."
It was nearer three than half-past two, when the two men started out, and they had been walking for a full hour, with snatches of talk, and such comfortable intervals of silence as is possible only between intimates, when suddenly Godfrey Pavely stopped walking.
Surprised, Tropenell also came to a stand. They were on a stretch of lonely upland, with nothing save a couple of birds in sight.
"Look here, Oliver, there's something I want to say to you! I hope you won't be offended. But we're such good friends, you and I, that I think you'll understand."
The colour rushed into Oliver Tropenell's face. He turned and faced the other squarely, but he felt tense with excitement, and a sense of challenge. He knew, instinctively, that Pavely was going to say something about Laura—Laura, and perhaps Gillie, her brother.
"Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, Godfrey? What is it? I can't imagine your saying anything to me that would offend me."
"I want you to read what's inside that," said Godfrey in a low voice, and he handed Oliver an envelope.
Oliver was relieved, but he looked down at the envelope suspiciously.
"But this isn't to be opened till you're dead!" he exclaimed.
"Open it now," said Godfrey roughly, "I only put that in case I met with an accident—you'll see why I did it, in a moment."
With a queer feeling of misgiving Oliver Tropenell drew the common little sheet of notepaper out of the envelope, and in silence read over what was written there in those deceitful, printed characters.
He read it once, twice—thrice. Then he handed the sheet of paper back, with a look of disgust and contempt on his dark face, to the man standing by his side.
"Well!" he exclaimed. "I don't know what you expect me to say? If you'd had as many anonymous letters as I've had in my time—they rain in Mexico—you wouldn't give much thought to this kind of garbage!"
Holding out the letter as if it were something dirty, he handed it back to the other man.
"I haven't given much thought to it——" and then Godfrey stopped short. He felt as if some other man, and not his sober self, were uttering the lie.
"No," said Oliver quickly, "I don't suppose you have. But still, I can't help being rather sorry you kept it, and—and that you showed it to me. There's nothing to be done! I suppose it's the work of some clerk whom you've dismissed in the last few weeks?"
"I've dismissed no one," said Pavely shortly. Somehow Tropenell was not taking this disagreeable business quite as he had meant him to take it.
In a rather different voice Oliver went on: "Show me the letter again. I want to see if there's a date to it."
"It arrived exactly three weeks ago to-day," said Pavely slowly, "and it was posted in Pewsbury."
Light broke in on Tropenell. This, then, was why Godfrey had taken to coming home at such odd hours, and why he had telephoned several times from the Bank, sending messages to Laura, and, on at least one occasion, a message to Tropenell himself!
He set his lips tightly together, and a flood of bitter wrath welled up from his heart.
"Then in my place you would do nothing?" asked Godfrey uncertainly.
More and more he was disappointed in the other's attitude. He had thought Oliver would suggest something which might be useful, or at any rate laugh the matter off.
But Oliver only looked grim—grim and angry.
"I don't see that you can do anything. It isn't the sort of thing about which you would care to go to the local police, and even if you knew who wrote that infamous scrawl I don't see how you could take action. We can't have Laura's name dragged into this kind of business."
Then he asked in a lower voice, "Have you said anything to her?"
The other shook his head. "I've no intention of saying anything to Laura. It