protected against the sun. “I am glad the little girls are taught good manners in these days.”
They went out into the garden, and Mr. Berry, in directing Clara to the path that led to the strawberry-beds, performed a clever manoeuvre, for the child went skimming away like a glad bird to the place he pointed out, and Mrs. Berry, in accordance with her nature, immediately followed the child to prevent her unrestrained enjoyment. Yet Mrs. Berry had been a mother, and, as has been said, a doting one.
“I am here to consult you,” said Arthur Lygon, hurriedly, the moment her sharp ears were out of range, “upon a sad affair. How can we speak without interruption?”
“Easily. But a word. Not an affair of your own?”
“Indeed, yes.”
The elder man touched his friend’s hand for a second only.
“You want to telegraph to town,” he said. “I’ll drive you over to Marfield, as it is just as well that our Lipthwaite gossips—you understand.”
They walked to the strawberries, at which Clara had made her first dash with all the delight of a child who had never seen such things, except in dishes, and to whom, therefore, the red fruit, lurking under the leaves, seemed downright treasures—jewels.
“Come off the mould, dear,” Mrs. Berry was crying to her, “and come off at once, or you will stain your frock.”
“Let her stain it,” said Mr. Berry, deprecatingly
“That Mrs. Lygon may infer, even if she should not say, that I am incompetent to take the charge of a child for a single day. I am obliged to you, Mr. Berry.”
“Mrs. Lygon has not to form her opinion of you after all these years, my dear.”
“If she happen to have formed a good one, I prefer that she should retain it, Mr. Berry.”
“All right, my dear. But look here. Which of the horses had I better have put to the chaise? For here is Lygon, like all the Londoners I ever knew, no sooner gets out of town than he wants to be sending a message back, and so I must drive him to Marfield. There’s a telegraph station there.”
“But why not telegraph from Lipthwaite?” replied Mrs. Berry.
“Why,” replied Mr. Berry, artfully, “you put me on my guard there, with what you said about Thomas Letts being fool enough to let his young wife come into the office and learn things, and how that business of Wendale’s got wind. A message to Somerset House may not exactly concern little Mrs. Letts.”
“I am glad that a hint I take the liberty of giving may, sometimes, be worth attention,” said Mrs. Berry, immediately dispatching a gardener to order the chaise.
“I would go with you,” said she, “only aunt is coming over.”
Arthur Lygon felt more kindly towards that relative than he had done when her name was first mentioned. He hoped to see the lady on his return. Clara would stay, and say so.
Clara did not look exactly delighted at the idea of being left with Mrs. Berry, but was much too good a child to show discontent. In a few minutes more the gentlemen had driven off.
“That’s not the way to Marfield,” said Mrs. Berry, watching the chaise as it turned to the right, at the cross road, instead of keeping on straight, up Bolk’s Hill. That was an oversight of Mr. Berry’s, who was so anxious to hear what Arthur had to say, that he hurried on to Rinckley Common, the place he had mentally decided on for their conversation.
They were speedily at the Common, a wide, wild-looking, high-lying expanse, studded with gorse patches; and here Mr. Berry pulled up.
“We could as easily have shut ourselves up in the library, you know, but then it would have been known that we had been shut up for a talk,” he said.
They left the chaise, and the horse, accustomed to such intervals of work, set himself quietly to graze.
“Now, my dear Arthur, what is it?”
CHAP. IV.
Much as Arthur Lygon had to tell, it needed but few words to tell it, and it was told.
Mr. Berry looked at him earnestly, sorrowfully, for a few moments.
“You have told me all?” he asked.
“All,” replied Lygon.
“And why have you told it me?”
“Why?” returned Arthur. “Are you surprised that in such a sorrow I should come to consult the oldest and the best friend I have in the world?”
“No,” said Berry, “I am not surprised, and if the word were not out of place on such an occasion, I would say that I am gratified. At all events you do what is both natural and wise. Of course I accept your confidence, and of course I will do my best for you. But now go on.”
“I do not understand. I have given you every detail.”
“Of Laura’s flight, yes. But come, be a man. You must speak out, if any good is to be done.”
“But I have no more to say,” said Lygon, surprised, and a little impatiently. “I repeat that I don’t understand you. Ask me any question.”
“That is just what I am doing, but you evade my question.”
“I evade a question! Put it again.”
“Why did Mrs. Lygon leave your home?”
“My God,” said Arthur, “is not that the mystery which you must help me to solve.”
“I repeat, be a man, Arthur. Come.”
“I swear,” said Lygon, “that your meaning is a mystery to me.”
“Arthur,” said Mr. Berry, “it is not kind of you to force me to use words that even hint at shame. But if you will have it so, tell me. Do you believe that Mrs. Lygon left your house with a lover, or to join one?”
The young husband turned a ghastly white, and he felt his limbs tremble under him at the presence of the foul phantom which these words had called up. But he confronted the phantom only