“The woman who looks after the cottage put Lady Hickle to bed and tucked her up; placed a bottle of port in—­all came out at the inquest—­old Hickle’s room, and left the house.  Next thing, about two o’clock in the morning, a shepherd or something saw a blaze and went to look.  Cottage on fire, old Hickle burnt to a cinder, and the girl hauled out of bed just in time, gibbering in French or something in panic I suppose.

“The charwoman thinks the curtains caught fire in the candle, and that the port had made the old man sleep heavily and that he was suffocated by the smoke.

“Full moon, too.  What a sight it must have been!  Place burned to the ground.

“I believe Lady Hickle is quite a girl and very beautiful—­and is starting on a tour round the world or something—­she’ll get most of his millions, I believe.  By the way, who do you think have fixed it up.  Dear old Bumble and Diana Lytham.  Heaven be good to him.  Your turn next, old boy!  Well she’ll be darned lucky who gets you, see how well I trained you, d’you remember, etc., etc.”

The man sat still for some long time, then suddenly sprang to his feet and went aft.

The dressing bugle had sounded but he had not heard; the dinner bugle had sounded and still he had not heard, as he stood at the stern watching the swirling wash of the slow-moving boat.

“Full moon, too!  She was hauled from her bed gibbering in French or something.”

He quoted the words, and crushed the letter savagely in his hands, for even in the fullness of his joy he remembered Leonie’s words, “Terrible things happen wherever I am—­they follow me.”  But in the greatness of his love he figuratively shrugged his shoulders, gathered his beloved into the safe haven of his arms, and closed the moonlit eyes with kisses.

Whilst a jet butterfly fluttered in vain over a very decollete expanse which covered a heart agitated by rage and disappointment on the boat deck.

CHAPTER XXV

  “And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee.”—­The Bible.

Leonie and her aunt were having tea at the Ladies’ Union Club, of which the latter was almost an original member.

You know the place where, arriving on foot or with the trail of the omnibus upon you in the shape of a two-penny ticket grasped tightly in your right hand, you receive a stony stare as welcome from the hall porter, and one of dead fish glassiness from the rest of the staff.

There is a certain air of geniality diffused around a taxi arrival, but a car!—­two or eight cylinder—­owned, borrowed, or stolen, well! there you win in honours, no matter what kind of private address you camouflage with that of your club.

Having cleared a way across the tobacco-laden atmosphere, through which can be spied ladies, young and old, inhaling and exhaling with more vigour than grace, they had ensconced themselves in the seat for two which lies isolated from the jumble of chairs and couches.