Part 22

Opening wider, the door admitted the Professor holding out something and talking volubly, and Basil Stafford, his left arm hanging down and his right gripping a revolver.

"And I--thought," said Stafford apologetically to the Professor, "that it might be you."

The Professor grinned sweetly; he looked at the wounded officer.

"The sorra a thing wrong with him but a clip on the head, Miss," said Mr. Dunne. "Let ye not be frightened. He'll be all right when he sees clear again, an' the sthars is in."

Gheena now observed that Stafford had no coat on, and realized that she was wearing it; she said so nervously.

He looked at her rather sternly.

"So you were determined," he said quietly, "and you found a way. It brought them here, anyhow, before I got away."

Gheena let the poker fall slowly; it lay upon the end of her blanket, singeing it--yes, it was her work.

Stafford soon went out, Murphy with him. The German lieutenant sat up and groaned heavily. He stared a little wildly when Gheena proffered him hot tea.

"Treachery," he said bitterly. "I was sent out to look round as the man did not come, and we rowed to the signal--three flashes--a stop and one."

Gheena looked thoughtfully at the guilty candle.

The Professor, breaking into fluent German, questioned rapidly, and the lieutenant replied sulkily to the effect that he did not believe the "U" boat could safely go down again. Then he fell into a species of stupor, breathing heavily.

"Light schulls they have," said Murphy pleasantly. "Any of the little sthrokes I dhrew on him wouldn't have med one of us miss a pint of porther?"

Completely bewildered, forgetting even her blanket, Gheena breathed fast and stared.

The old Professor, who appeared to have thrown off several years of life, chuckled pleasantly.

Then he ceased chuckling to ask gravely if she could possibly keep a secret, and make no mention of this night's adventuring to anyone save Darby.

"It was your light which did it," he said. "And Stafford here practically alone. You flashed it; I saw the gleam. He says he told you not to."

"You'll imprison him--or----" Gheena's voice was unsteady.

The Professor said "With other prisoners of war," in an absent voice, and thought Irish girls were impressionable.

"But a spy--a prisoner of war!" Gheena's head was down; she hid her eyes.

Here the Professor remarked a little impatiently that the officer of an enemy ship was not a spy.

"Stafford found out the eyrie a week ago"--the old Professor chuckled again--"and, of course, I got to hear of it. He had men waiting in that cave until, Murphy tells me, they came out whitened like celery in the dark. And he got Guinane there easily last night. He told me all about it outside just now. Guinane has given it all away."

"But--then, who----?" Gheena sat down on an upturned box; she felt she needed support.

The Professor merely chuckled cryptically, making no reply.

"It's not Mr. Stafford?" said Gheena.

At this the old gentleman also sat down on another box which was not up to his weight. Extracting himself from the ruins, he said "You too," and abused the flimsy nature of grocery boxes.

"The fellow's store full of petrol," grunted the Professor--"his new house, y'know. Guinane was well paid."

Ned Murphy thrust an anxious face into the room. "If any could guide the mother, sir?" he whispered. "He is bleedin' and a shiver sot in on him, an' he won't come anear the fire, but mutherin' words half delarious. If we could get him where he'd be cared an' there wouldn't be talk! Th' ould docther, if ye brings him here, 'll be chatterin' for all the world like a magpie."

Gheena said sharply that she could drive the car, but not in a blanket.

Mr. Murphy was a married man. He produced a penknife eloquently, and suggested a couple of slashes an' a taste of twine would make a skhirt while ye'd be waitin'.

Gheena, still bewildered, stood in meek silence, her blanket reft from her to be rent in twain. The skirt manufactured by Murphy would not have done for Ascot, but it complied with decency. Very quietly the girl went out into the still, dim night, looking back once at the polite lieutenant lying in stupor on the floor. She was not at all sure that he would not vanish.

Someone walking feebly was helped out by two coastguards. Gheena did not turn to look; she kept her head down.

"And for Heaven's sake remember you're not driving Darby's tin-kettle twelve-power," said a weak but unashamed voice, "and go slow. I wanted them to get a donkey cart for me."

Gheena said "Where to?" as she slipped the clutch--was she in this nightmare to drive to the county gaol twelve miles away? The Professor replied, "Why, Mrs. Maloney's, of course!" rather peevishly. He was watching the nearness of the banks in the narrow lane and the pace at which their dark shapes were sliding by.

But Gheena drove skilfully; she slid round the corner, and the car seemed to leap forward at the road.

"Steady; there is not much room," said the Professor, "and Murphy was on the dickey."

"Begonnes, I am here still, sir," said Murphy cheerlessly, "though that whip around near spilt me."

The gleam of dawn was in the east, a pinky yellow glow chasing grey night away.

They slipped past sleeping Castle Freyne and into the village, with the little dark houses clinging to the edge of the cliff; dun shapes growing just visible. They pulled up with complete disregard for Stafford's tyres, and he was helped out; the hall door of his small house stood open, ready for his return at any time. Gheena's lips tightened as she saw it. She had now to walk home before any light came. She stood uncertain, waiting.

The Professor bustled out to order her in, saying that Basil was feverish; they had sent for the doctor.

Basil was on the sofa in his dressing-gown; he looked wan and lined, and he had one hand to his chest as if in pain.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly, "for what happened."

"Yes"--Gheena held her own hand to her throat because it hurt her--"yes, it was all my fault."

"But I simply had to shut you up," he said. "We were watching at the cave, and your torpedo-destroying in that little boat was spoiling everything. Of course, I never expected to find you swimming. Then you flashed that light, and the fellows we caught--they thought that it was Guinane's lamp and rowed right in to us; they fought. I told you not to poke round--but--but--they nearly caught you and took you away, and I've never said----"

Here Stafford's voice grew very weak. He sipped something out of a tumbler.

"You were watching in the cave to catch Germans? You haven't been spying? Haven't sold yourself for money?" Gheena's voice took a clearer note of sheer clear joy.

"Oh, look here!" said Stafford a little grumpily. "It hurts. I used to watch you and that Western woman. I've learnt a bit of lip language and it hurts, besides being ridiculous. Now do I look like a spy?"

To which Miss Freyne replied incoherently that he had understood they always looked like unspies--that was, no spies--and being young and nice-looking and so on--and she grew confused.

Stafford put his hand on hers for a moment.

"I was in a regiment in India," he said. "Got a funny wound on a little frontier expedition, so they wouldn't pass me for active service. It's caught again now. And I had a friend; I badgered him until they sent me here to spy round on this coast--so they said. And all the time they had a regular secret service man at it, and were only keeping me quiet for friendship's sake. But I did find out something in the end. There was I watching the Professor, and fellows grinning as they read my reports about him. I knew you suspected me," he went on, "and even that you believed the money which I spoke of was German money. And it's only lately I realized that--that it hurt you to believe it, Gheena. You went alone so that no one else might see me. I hope to get back to my regiment next year to do real work. And--if you gave me this"--he fumbled at a note-case--"will you take it back and say it was not deserved?"

He pulled out a note-case and out of it a feather, once white. Gheena took it to see it was now stained red in one place--red with blood.

"I never gave it," she whispered. "Not that."

"Gheena," said Stafford, sitting up, "you didn't give it; it was Miss O'Toole. Oh, I say, Gheena! And you belong to Darby! Oh, I say, and I cared so much!"

Gheena was sobbing almost wildly over the little stained plume.

"But--I belong to Darby," she said, when she could speak. Somehow, brought suddenly face to face with the naked realities of life, explanations seemed useless things.

"Gone," said the Professor, running in, "off in his car." He sat down and groaned. "Waiting too long, as usual!" he stormed.

"Who has gone?" Gheena hid her face.

"Mrs. Weston, otherwise Heinrich Helshumer. She's left all there--shoes and stockings, and you might as well look for needles in hay, and she has a wireless there."

"Mrs. Weston," said Gheena weakly.

"Her man gave her away when we cornered him. I'd suspected for some time. I knew from her playing on the fiddle. What is it, Stafford?"

"The dam fellow--was always fussing near you," said Stafford, and fainted.

*CHAPTER XVII*

Gheena Freyne found the household awake, when arrayed in a long coat of Basil Stafford's she got home. George Freyne, who was on the doorstep, announced directly she got within earshot that he had sent for Darby. He would not countenance the absence of his stepdaughter during the night and her reappearance in knickerbockers in the mornings.

Gheena passed him as if she did not hear. She went heavily to her room to try to remember that she was not dreaming, that it was all real, and to try to banish the tingle of bitter shame as she remembered how she had suspected Stafford, and a hotter blush recalling hours spent with Violet Weston. To all questioning she merely answered that she had gone for a row and had upset the boat.

"I can't believe I am me," she said to Psyche over the comfort of hot tea and toast. "I can't, and I can't tell you even why!" But being a girl she told some things.

"And now"--Psyche's small face looked peaked--"now you know it is not only looking on Darby as a friend but caring for someone else."

Gheena said, "And I never thought I could care," very drearily, and Miss Delorme stamped very gently.

Whispers of great happenings buzzed across the day. Someone had heard shots and someone else had seen a German crew somewhere. Miss Gheena could tell and would not.

Dearest George questioned civilly and with authority, his stepdaughter's return without her skirt and the loss of the boat making him believe that she knew something. But Gheena merely replied again that she had lost the boat and swum in near the Dower House, and that was all she knew. A warm feeling that England depended on her for silence was near her heart.

She told Darby when he came over and stood leaning on his sticks, looking down at her as she lay back in a chair. He heard it all.

Some things he knew already.

"They were watching some strange car," Stafford tells me, "which Guinane met out on the Dublin road at nights, and they've got that and Guinane, and the 'U' boat--the patrol boat caught her."

Gheena said "It was not a bad haul," a little tremulously; also that she would like to send her love to the Admiral.

Darby looked at her for quite a long time.

"And you took Basil for a spy," he said slowly. "Of course, egged on by the real one. And you've been in terrible danger, Gheena."

Gheena replied briefly that she had thought of it first herself, without any egging.

"I always said he wasn't the sort for a spy." Darby put his hand on Gheena's shoulder. With a little wry smile he felt her shrink. "Now we'll go to see him," he said cheerily--"you and I, Gheena, at once."

Limping behind her light quiet movements as they went to the car, laying his sticks aside as he got in; the wry smile clung to his lips as they drove to Mrs. Maloney's, where a faint reek of disinfectants wafted to them through the door. Basil Stafford, very white, was sitting in a big chair.

"Bullet touched up the old wound," he said. "And you'll stay to tea with me, won't you?" He avoided looking at Gheena.

Mrs. Maloney produced somewhat mountainous buttered toast, and a cup of what she called melted chicken tea for Basil.

"Great it should be," she said, stirring the weak-looking compound, "with every taste of me young Plymouth Rock in it, down to his yelly legs."

Basil gave it to Crabbit, and took tea instead.

Presently, when Darby went out, they sat silent, the noise of the sea crooning in through the windows, with the scent of violets strong in the sunshine. Mrs. Maloney's son grew them for sale.

"And you've forgiven me?" Gheena said at last jerkily.

Basil said that there was nothing to forgive. He scarcely recognized humbleness in one who had snubbed him for months.

"But if you hadn't misjudged me," he said, "I might have dared to ask you to--well, to use me as a buffer instead of Darby, and you'll be far happier with him when you're married--so it's as well."

The complete bleakness of Gheena's voice as she repeated the word married was too easy to understand; she repeated it almost angrily. Stafford said that engagements generally ended in marriages, and she would make Darby happy, for he loved her.

"Oh, yes, of course!" Gheena stood up. "I mean to end in marriage. I mean to. I would not hurt Darby."

There was a note of interrogation here mixed with defiant firmness.

"No, for he has been hurt enough," said Stafford simply. "I shall never be unhappy now, knowing you might have----"

Darby limped into the room, slowly even for him.

"The door was open," he said. "Gheena, I never meant to tie you to me. I knew always it was only for a time to keep Dearest in order. Darby was just your friend, as he always will be, and one who saw how things were all along. It's all over now. No, don't talk."

Perhaps as he limped out he had his reward in that low-voiced "Darby!" as Gheena's whole heart seemed to cry out to happiness.

Mrs. Maloney's house possessed a porch of what she called rusty work. A long-limbed, feeble-hearted rose of the rambler family trailed over it, hauled into order here and there by large pieces of old cloth nailed on by Thomas Maloney, Junior. In this Darby stood alone. The porch faced the land, the scrambling rusty hills towered high above the harbour. The harbour smell of tar and salt water came strongly with the scent of the violets.

Darby leant back against the unstable rusty porch and with the raw pain came comfort.

It was at least over. Day by day he had found it more difficult to bear Gheena's careless ignoring of any thought of love for him. He was Darby, nothing more. Just Darby Dillon, who had always helped her. Would there not be something almost of relief in the cessation of friendly endeavours to isolate the lovers, to place them alone in chilly sitting-rooms, or send them for walks with carefully modest references to be sure to go down the yew walk, or the walk with the laurel hedges? And life behind the hedges just the same as in the open; Gheena unembarrassed, trying to time her quick movements to the cripple's, Gheena ignoring the word "marriage." Then lately, Gheena downcast, moody, with watchful eyes fixed on the sea; Gheena afraid for the man whom she suspected, afraid of his unmasking.

A small white face peered into the porch; little Miss Delorme pushed back an untrammelled length of rose and spoke feelingly of thorns.

She perched on the unstable bench and chattered for a minute eagerly.

Mrs. Weston had disappeared and Ned Murphy had let out that she was a spy and the old Swiss a man with her. "Hadn't they found pipes and tobacco in his room and men's boots and what not, an' he seen to lep to the car like a mountain goat?"

"She put Gheena up to everything," pattered Psyche, "to keep suspicion away from herself."

"And Gheena suspected Basil, and Basil suspected the Professor, and they all ran round in rings," said Darby smilingly, surprised to find that he could smile.

"Gheena?" asked Miss Delorme.

Darby replied steadily that Gheena was looking after Mr. Stafford, and was, in fact, going to look after him for the rest of her life.

Psyche's small face grew peaked and hard. She looked at Darby.

"You'll go in to congratulate her," he said quietly. "I was never really in the hunt, you know. It was just a play for me."

"I won't," said Psyche. "I can't. Because--she has made you unhappy!" seemed to almost float back across the garden full of violets, as Miss Delorme ran away back to Castle Freyne.

Later, Darby was able to sit listening to Basil talking, and almost wonder why his pain was not deeper.

Basil Stafford told, laughing at it now, how he had tracked and watched the old Professor over slippery rocks and on the sands and along the cliffs. Also how that it was quite certain that the Guinanes had knocked down Nat Leary when he came close to them unexpectedly. And then put him upon the shale cliff to slip over or no as Providence ordained. In fact, Guinane had confessed to it.

"Spying was bad enough," grunted Basil, "but to"--he looked at Gheena jealously--"dozens of times," he burst out, "before everyone's eyes."

Miss Freyne, behind a mantle of blushes, observed frigidly that Violet was always more affectionate in public than elsewhere, to which Stafford replied that he trusted so, somewhat coldly.

When Dearest George heard it he was quite upset. In war time he considered trifling with two men was almost prodigal coquetry. He gloomed before a large fire until Matilda told him that Gheena had made up her mind to go about with Basil's regiment for some years--that is, if Dearest George thought there would be any regiment to go about with--as, of course, he would know.

Mr. Freyne, glaring at the fire, then decided that he would grow potatoes at Girtnamurragh, and also that Lancelot had played his cards very badly indeed not to have worked his wounds for more.

Mrs. Freyne thought that it was the fault of the cart wheel. "If it had been a gun," she said--"but Gheena said it was not."

Mr. Freyne grunted again; then he whistled. He began to see a vista of many years of saving, with Castle Freyne at his mercy and a growing quotia of solid investments.

"After all," he said briskly, "she will be much better away travelling, Matilda, and Darby has an eye like a hawk, a nasty way of saying things too, behind a smile."

Someone said a smile of gold, startling Dearest George exceedingly. He felt sure that it was his wife until she assured him that she had been silent, so he took to whistling again and shut the open door.

"Lancelot," said Mrs. Freyne, looking out, "is driving up in Miss O'Toole's pony trap. She seems quite attached to him, don't you think, Dearest?"

Mr. Freyne's reply contained some mention of grandmothers as he marched to the door to admit Lancelot, who had forgotten his courtship, and who had found someone who understood his symptoms.

The installing of Basil Stafford as an invalid at Castle Freyne, with Gheena waiting on him and and wondering if she had ever felt alive before, was followed by a spell of dry weather, chill nights, days of bright sunshine, evenings and mornings swathed in silver fog.

May was with them, the sea dimpling to her summer blue, with discreet return to steel in the shade.

Darby stood one morning with his hounds, the scratch pack, leaping clamorously at the bars, and decided to take them home. They knew him now; they would not run riotously when he let them out, but trot at his horse's heels.

Hunting was over; Grandjer and Beauty and Greatness were never likely to come to Dillon's Court again. The sadness of all endings tinged his glances at the medley of hounds. They had possessed noses, they had hunted keenly and with infinite patience; they had pulled down foxes and had given him many hours of pleasure, many hearty laughs.

It was early morning. The sun had not lifted the mist wraiths from the hollows; dew lay everywhere and a maze of silver gossamer threads caught the glints of light. Scarlet anemones, blood red, peered from the beds; in the front, narcissi were replacing the yellow daffodils.

"I came--you said they were to go back this morning." Psyche dropped off Whitebird. "Oh, I shall never love anything again as I have running after them, the darlings! Anne gave me some early breakfast."

"You'll run after real packs," said Darby, "and forget my assortment."

"But they--the others--will never be my first pack," said Psyche with logic, "and I want to stay here with them."

They pattered out of the yard, the hounds going dejectedly, the horses stale from working for too long; Carty's chestnut apathetic even as to whip lashes, Andy with tears in his eyes. A wondrous winter had ended and school loomed before him. They passed from the mists to the higher ground, where they could cut across the hills to the house of Andy's mother.

What brought an old fox out on that May morning, sunning himself close to a patch of gorse? And he must have wondered what brought a pack of mongrel dogs, all related to hounds, trotting through the heather and over the shining slates. Grandjer threw his tongue almost savagely; the old fox turned tail and fled, and in a moment the whole pack were yowling in pursuit as he topped the crest of the hill.

The rusty-coated horses woke up; Andy screamed Barty's "Forrard away!" rolled down the hillsides, and the four turned to ride over a country with all the gaps fenced up, with corn sown, meadows growing.

"This," said Darby philosophically, "will cost me twenty pounds. Be careful, Psyche." Her name slipped out as Whitebird topped a newly-bushed-up bank and pecked in the tangle.

"Isn't it great entirely? That same is Thady Lawless's rye grass, an' he will be upset over it," piped Andy. "Have ye the nippers, Barty; there is wire oberight us."

They got round the wire. Red clods of dry earth, wheat sown, rattled up from their heels. The scratch pack pounced on a breast-high scent down the slopes and into the fertile valley, with the woods of Dillon's Court on their left.

Here the old fox was plainly making for Castletown Roche, four miles ahead and up hill.

"An' a planted counthry," said Andy. "Look at Grandjer! Isn't he the boy?"

Scent failed as the sun rose higher; where the mist clung hounds ran fast, but more slowly in the open, a they sped across meadows, while astounded owners remarked bitterly that it was a damn shame entirely, until assured by Darby that hounds had got away were being chased until caught.

"Lie back a field, then," advised Andy, "an' if they thrun up we could not do that same excuse for the next man."

"The worst man of all," said Darby, "will be Sir Hercules Roche. This is all rye grass we are crossing."

Sorrow died as they galloped, with the horses fencing accurately, with hounds driving steadily ahead, the music echoing and ringing, with little Psyche, her face aglow, close by the Master, crying out in pure rapture, oblivious of crops or damage.

The first wood of Castletown Roche lay on a steep slope. The servants, going to the left, got into the place with difficulty. Darby pulled up, listening; then he scrambled off. The old fox, sorely astonished, had saved his brush, and was safe in a big rabbit-hole.

Sun had now filtered through the trees; the soft carpet of mist was almost warm.

"I am no master of hounds. I am glad he got in," said Darby. "We took him unawares."

"And he'll run next year." Psyche slipped off, a glow on her small pale face; she took off her hat, her light gold hair shining.