CHAPTER VII

CHECK!

At five minutes past four he was back again at that white-walled, green-shuttered Hostel, that, seemed now as familiar as if he'd spent years of his youth there.

Upon the broad sill of the open window beside the porch, a still damp bathing-costume of scarlet silk was spread out like a "DANGER" flag. Inside, that girl of his was still sitting at her bureau, writing. He was about to apologise for being a little early, when she raised her small, burnished head on its creamy neck and said, quietly, "Oh, you have come back. I am very sorry, but I am afraid I am not coming out with you this afternoon, after all."

What?

"Not coming?" He stared blankly at her. She was putting a letter into an envelope; to her hand lay two or three other letters, addressed and stamped; also, his quick glance took in, that the envelope of a newly-torn-open telegram lay upon the bureau.

He said quickly, "I say, I hope nothing has happened? I mean, I do hope you haven't had any bad news----"

"Oh dear no," broke in Rosamond Fayre, quickly and lightly. "Nothing of the kind."

"Then why---- You said you'd come. You promised."

"I know," she said, and a coldness seemed wrapped about her, hiding the sweetness and colour of her like a suddenly-risen sea-mist. "But I am not coming."

"But----!" He stood there dumfounded against that background of pink roses and plaster-white laughing Cupids with the blue blink of the sea beyond the garden. "If I may ask, why not?"

"Oh! I changed my mind," she said.

Urquhart for a moment did not trust himself to speak. He thought, "Talk about those refractory mules we had such a fearful to-do with, that time in Montana! Tractable and reasonable and sweet-tempered, compared to a woman! All right!"

He picked up his walking-stick.

"Good-afternoon, then," he said, and wasted no time in further leave-taking.

"Please!" added the girl, raising her voice a trifle as he turned. "Do you mind posting these letters for me as you pass the box by the crossroads?"

"Not at all." He took the three or four letters, of which she had laid one rather carefully on the top of the others.

"Thank you."

He was out of the gate without even a look.

Tingling with disappointment, astonishment and rage, Ted Urquhart tramped back to the crossroads where he had parted that morning from that resourceful match-maker, Pansy.

Not much of a success--her plan!

What on earth was the meaning of all this?

Nell's look at him! Her tone! That _curt_ snub!

After her promise!

"Changed my mind----!"

What had happened to change it between his leaving her, at half-past two, and his reappearance just now?

Was it that wire?

She said there was nothing, though.

Changed her mind!

Sent him to the right-about, carrying this dashed tea-basket, and her letters to post.

Pretty cool, that last touch!

Her letters, indeed! He scowled down at them. Then his brows rose. The address in the curly, clear handwriting upon that topmost envelope, forced itself upon, his recognition. He had seen it so many times already.

"To E. Urquhart, Esqre."

To himself!

Nell had been writing to him. That very afternoon. While the man to whom she wrote was perhaps within a stone's throw of her!

He stood still in the road, staring at that envelope....

With a hoot of derision, a big touring-car went scorching softly by him on the way to Hardelot; tossing a dazzle of brass into his eyes, a smother of white dust all over him. He merely blinked, and stared at that envelope.... A couple of fisher-girls passed him, their voluminous stuff petticoats swinging like kilts, their high, stiff corsets, covered in corn-flower blue cloth, clipping them over their white bodices. They called a friendly "Bon jour!" to Urquhart.

He stared at that envelope addressed to him.... "Now _what's_ inside?" he thought. So familiar was each letter of the writing that he could make for himself a mental copy of the sheet within, as far as the date, and the Hostel address and the "My dear Ted."

And then what?

Anything that would explain her behaviour just now?

If he thought that--It was almost enough to tempt a man to open--A letter addressed to him, _meant_ for him to read!

Yes, but not now. No, dash it. A man couldn't. She'd given it to him to post. The thing, whatever it was about, would have to be posted and reach him after much wandering and many days. He made a rough calculation.

"Eight weeks, perhaps," he thought. "It'll turn up, readdressed, at The Court. Ah! With luck it will have to be readdressed from The Court again, and sent on somewhere else, supposing I was--supposing we were off by that time, on our honeymoon. After all, we're engaged----"

The sun-tanned face cleared. He started off again, and presently smiled down with increasing cheerfulness at that unbetraying grey envelope.

"Probably this is a description of the scenery of this place, and about how the phosphorescence on the high tide in the evening is like summer lightning on the waves!" he reflected. "Telling me what is to be found flourishing in the Hostel garden.... H'm ... Cupids and 'Match-Me'! Possibly some ultra-meek version of those girls and their cliff-adventure, and of the young man--some stranger--who.... Or wouldn't she? Wouldn't Nell mention him?"

He had reached the black-and-white post-box in the wall which the facteur, even in that tiny hamlet, visited thrice daily.

He dropped in the three other letters, held his own in his hand for another moment.

"It'll be something to smile over when we do get it," he told himself with a half-amused, impatient sigh. "Well! So long!"

And, with a "final" sounding little click of the iron flap, he dropped into the box his letter from Nell.

Her fair face, proud, withheld and lovely, rose above every other image in his mind. Again he saw her, sitting there at that window writing; her supple white hand on the green cloth of that bureau....

Suddenly, irrelevantly, he remembered something else about her. The first thing any woman would have looked for. He--an engaged man--had only subconsciously noticed it, and had then forgotten all about it.

He remembered now.

For though Eleanor had written back to him at the beginning of their betrothal that she had decided upon no new stones, but that she would wear an old Urquhart heirloom of a sapphire with brilliants for her engagement-ring, he was sure that the girl, sitting writing to the _fiancé_ whom she believed far away--the girl wore no ring at all.