Chapter XXVI

The dull tramp of heavy Service boots, following the maid who was that day John Hazel's guide, over the carpeted stone flags of the corridor to the little panelled morning parlour, brought an unexpected, welcome sense of relief to Katharine's overstrained nerves. The door opened, and she moved swiftly to him--stopping him with both hands held out, when he would have made his strange, half-Eastern salutation--saying in her full, womanly tones:

"How can I thank you, Mr. Hazel?"

He answered, tritely and clumsily, but with very evident sincerity:

"By showing me straight off the reel, how I can be of use to you."

Some aching spot in her sore heart was touched by his genuine eagerness to serve her. For a moment she could not speak.... So they stood, her fine white hand engulfed by Hazel's great brown one, his strong black eyes, unrebuked, dwelling on his lady's face.

She looked older, with wide purplish shadows round about her beautiful eyes, and their clear golden-amber changed to sorrowful rust-colour. The clear cream and carnation of her skin was dulled to a pale olive.... The rich brown hair upon her temples, and above her brow, showed here and there a thread of silver. She began, speaking with a curious, hurried breathlessness:

"Mr. Hazel, I know you must have seen newspaper accounts of the inexplicable disappearance of--a friend who--I have no need to hide the fact!--is very, very dear to me.... You must know that I speak of Colonel Yaill. You saw him here the Saturday you came here first, and later at my father's funeral. You--_Ah--!_ ..."

Her eyes were on John Hazel's when the memory leaped into them. They dilated, blazed with tawny fire.... John thought of a lioness.... She snatched her hand instantly away from his, crying:

"What am I thinking of? Why,--it was you who threatened him!--he told me so himself! You said you would save him the trouble if he did not tell me of his marriage. How could I have forgotten? Is my memory failing me? And you.... How could you have come by the knowledge with which you menaced him? ... In Hospital? ... No! Where and how, then? The whole thing is a horrible mystery to me! ..."

John Hazel told her, in a few bluntly-spoken sentences, just how the story of Yaill's marriage had been given him. She heard him to the end of it, and said, with the ghost of a smile:

"So you entered upon your hereditary office of champion, straightway. And Lady Wastwood got the story from her Headquarters--I understand the whole thing clearly! She is a dear, and I love her, but a terror of a talker.... The whole county must have rung with scandal, ages before I dreamed that anybody knew...." She shuddered. "Oh, me! what things they must have said about Edward!--must be saying about him at this moment when he--"

Her voice broke in a sob, and her full heart brimmed over. John Hazel said roughly, for he could not bear to see her tears:

"They may talk, but there's one thing nobody on earth--or elsewhere!--will ever be able to say of him. That he isn't a thundering brave man!"

The sudden, fierce carnation that had flooded the wide oval of her face a moment before, had given place to the olive paleness. Now a faint tinge of the banished red came creeping back again.

"You threatened Edward Yaill--yet you defend him?"

John Hazel answered simply enough:

"I had to see that you were undeceived. You were, first of all, my business. But knowing what shell-shock means--as men have learned to know the hellish thing in this damned War--how, in common justice, can I condemn Colonel Yaill?"

"Thank you! Oh, thank you! That does my heart good!"

The wide, sweet smile curved Katharine's mouth again, and her dimmed eyes found a sparkle to cheer their sombre rust-colour. She went on:

"To know that somebody besides myself pities him--you don't know--you can't know, what it means to me! For no one will have a kind thing to say for Edward. Beyond the newspaper flummery and flapdoodle, there won't be a word, nor a thought, that isn't--merciless to him! ..."

She was sitting now in her hearthside chair and John was standing on the other side of the fireplace. The antique mirror above the little Tudor clock, that had reflected Yaill's thin, handsome face and haunted grey eyes, gave back an image of the huge black head, the portentous hooked nose, and swarthy countenance of this new and strangely dominating force that had moved across the threshold of Kerr's Arbour, out of the veiled, mysterious Past, but a few days previously. His elbow rested on the mantelshelf, where the other man had leaned his: he clenched his great hand as he answered Katharine:

"'Merciless.' ... And why on this rotten little planet should people be merciless to the man?"

"Because"--she frowned and looked at John from between her narrowed eyelids--"because of the odd, clandestine fashion in which--after his strange marriage--Colonel Yaill has gone away.... I am not brilliant, it may be, nor very highly cultured. But I know, and very thoroughly--the world to which we belong. I speak, be it understood, of his world and mine." John felt himself an alien. "The world we choose to call Society. And Society will never pardon nor condone, nor exonerate this act of Colonel Yaill's."

"Do you think the pardon of Society particularly worth having? Do you think the good opinion of a Society as fat-headed, as thick-witted and as narrow-minded as you represent it--matters a tin of ration apple-jam? ... Now listen, Miss Forbis! If you think me rude, an offensive brute, say to yourself, 'This man can't help it! He isn't in Society--but he is out to work for me! The wag of a finger of my hand would bring him from the ends of the world to serve or fight for me!' Please don't interrupt, for time is time--and I have more to say--"

He drew a big breath that hurt his wounded lung, and went on speaking:

"When you sent for me, I believed you thought that Colonel Yaill had put an end to himself. When I saw you I knew you had never for a minute entertained the idea--"

She broke in now:

"Never! The suggestion of suicide has been spread by people who know nothing of the man they slander. In absolute confidence I will tell you now--for how could you be of any help to me unless I absolutely trust you!--Edward Yaill has gone to the East to find my lost Julian--my dear brother, whom I have since heard was killed on August 21st--"

John Hazel's black eyes flashed. He broke in:

"Miss Forbis, something of that sort is what I have suspected."

"Wait," she said. "_He_ told me that he would not return to--to his wife--upon the old footing.... She had cruelly tricked and deceived him--he could not, once he knew the truth--endure to live with her! ... So he made up his mind to go secretly away. He might have applied to the War Office--he has powerful friends at Whitehall--for a transfer to the Eastern Front. Why didn't he? That's one of the things I can't understand! ..."

"Don't you know? ..."

John's big voice boomed out, drowning the little silvery chime of the Tudor timepiece.

"When questions like that crop up, the answer is, shell-shock. A man who is possessed of ordinary, healthy nerves, will act in an ordinary way. But the man who's been subject to the devilries of High Explosive, will pop up queer byways in his impatience of circumlocution--adopt unexpected measures; reach his objective by methods as destructively simple as--the rat's way of getting into a cheese. He _might_--supposin' he'd been a normal man--have engineered the thing at Whitehall. Being shell-shocked, he simply burns his boats and swims."

Katharine begged:

"Oh, go on! You're helping me!--you're helping me wonderfully. Things that seemed crazy--out of the comprehensible--are beginning to arrange themselves.... Now there's another point. You saw, perhaps, a newspaper reference to Sir Arthur Ely? Well, it has occurred to me as possible that Edward confided his plans to Sir Arthur--that impenetrable sarcophagus of Society secrets. You may have noticed that Sir Arthur's reply to Press inquiries showed a--a considerable degree of reserve?"

John had noticed it. He admired Katharine's cool, clear, masterful way of assembling her evidence, and making her points tellingly, each in its turn. He kept back his own solid piece of conviction until she finished--

"He has gone, I am convinced that I know where--though I can't make out how he managed going.... But one thing is clear. I must get word to him! ... He has gone to find Julian, whom he loved!--my Julian, who was killed by a Turkish shell, in the storming of Scimitar Hill on August 21st. That is where you come in!--that is where you can help me. In getting the news through to Colonel Yaill in case he does not know! ..."

John thought a moment and said:

"We might--in case he has gone out to the East believing your brother to be living--get the news to him _per_ advertisement in sundry foreign rags. Personals, discreetly worded, might do the trick--inserted in French and British papers, published in the Levant,--in Egypt,--and at Salonika, and in such others as are printed and disseminated by the Germans in the Near East."

She caught her breath.

"Can you manage that last stroke? ..."

"I'll not swear I can, but there's a chance I may engineer it. Write out the ads. and let me have them at once! In English, French and German. Worded so that he'll understand.... Some ought to be in Turkish,--and others in Arabic, and some in Egyptian Arabic. For--your man's a bit of a linguist, unless I judge him wrong!"

Katharine's eyes brightened with pride in her man as she answered:

"He speaks most of the languages of the Orient, and Nearer East."

"Good! Now, are you quite sure your brother has been killed?" He went on, meeting her startled look.... "Because the War Office isn't infallible.... A pal of mine--reported dead over eleven months ago--has spent about three in trying to convince the authorities that he's very much alive! Last week he heard from them, asking him to reconsider the matter! and send in another detailed statement; and now that he's convinced 'em of his existence--they've docked his pay for the eleven months he's been officially dead! ... And I know another man, a virtuous unmarried one-pipper,--who gets paid an allowance, monthly, for a missus and three kids.... They don't exist--and never did, but the Pay Department says they do,--and returns him the money when he tries to pay it back! One day they'll say he's robbed 'em--and call a Court Martial--but till then he spends the cash in cigars, and other forms of crime. Not as applicable as the first illustration, but still a case in point." He grinned.... "And hasn't it struck you, that Colonel Yaill, knowing the dudheads at Whitehall--would be likely to go on looking for Father Forbis as long as a chance remained? Now, what about those ads. you were going to write for me? I'm quite certain they ought to go in.... But mind you make it clear to Colonel Yaill that you've no private, first-hand information.... Put it '_Julian reported killed_' and then he'll understand!"

She levelled her fine brows and thought a moment, then rose from her chair, saying:

"Would this do? '_Edward ... Julian reported killed Gallipoli, August 21st. Seek no further_' or '_Search useless. Send address for communication. K._" Then as he nodded his approval, "Very well, I'll write the advertisements at once," she said. "Of course I don't know any Arabic, and my Italian is simply rocky--it always sent Father into fits of laughter.... But my German is passable, and my French is--quite decent.... I was educated at the _Sacré Cœur_ Convent, Chalkcliff--where most of the nuns are Parisian ladies.... Smoke if you care to, while I'm writing.... And do find yourself a comfortable chair...."

She crossed the room to a well-used escritoire, inlaid ebony of Indian workmanship, glancing back to smile at John Hazel as she drew up her writing-chair. Her Persian cat leaped purring on her shoulder, and she rubbed her cheek against his warm silver-grey coat, giving the caress craved by his cattish little soul, before she gently set him down.... Then she began to write, and John sat watching her, revelling in her vigorous, healthful uprightness, and the grace with which her long limbs disposed themselves in the seated pose....

"Don't rush it.... Take your time!" ... He was speaking from behind her. "I'll see that the others are cautiously worded.... A man in disguise as an Arab or a Turk might betray himself unconsciously, if his eye happened to drop on a line that was meant for him, you know."

"'A man in disguise.' ..." She caught her breath. "Oh!--you are wonderful!"

"Not even my mother ever thought that," said Hazel, with his gleaming grin. "But I'm ready to put money on my theory that the Colonel--to get out of England in the quietest way possible--has enlisted in some unit of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force."

"As a common soldier--an ordinary Tommy! ... You think so meanly of him? ..."

For a moment her broad front of displeasure was turned upon John Hazel. Then the anger died out of her as he said quietly:

"I've learned to think a lot of ordinary Tommies, since I've been in this beastly War. And I stick to my opinion--for a reason!"

He got up. His big hand had been in his bulging tunic-pocket. He pulled out a Brass Hat, ignominiously squashed, and with the peak broken--and said as he offered it to Katharine:

"Here's my reason! Good enough, I think!"

"Oh!" she cried, "where did you get that? ... It is Edward's!" ... And snatched it almost fiercely, and crushed it against her breast....

"This too!" ... John thrust on her the silver whistle.... "A child was playing with it near the plantation below your Private Road.... That put me on the scent.... I annexed the whistle--here it is for you!--you'll see his name is on it!--and went in and poked about.... To discover the complete uniform of a British C.O., Field jacket, badges, Bedford cords, and the whole posh kit, wrapped up in a trencher, strapped with a Sam Browne, and stuffed into a fox's hole. Presently when it's dark enough, I'll lug the rest of the kit up to you.... Now, do you think I've grounds for my belief? ..."

Katharine was trembling.

"You frighten me!" she said to him. "The police and their helpers have searched and found nothing.... You come--and these hidden things are uncovered at your feet.... What does it mean? Do you believe that you and I have lived on earth before now? ... Are we taking up old threads that were broken ages ago? ..."

"Not for a second do I believe that!" answered John Hazel. "But that we are influenced and guided by others who have walked this earth before us,--yes!--I certainly think we are! While they were about it they might have shown me where the Colonel got the suit of civvies he changed into when he gave his swank rags to Brother Fox for keeps. Plain clothes!" ... He answered Katharine's inquiring look as though she had spoken. "And pretty well worn.... Don't stop to ask me how I know!" ...

"'Plain clothes'! ... A shabby shooting-suit...." Katharine repeated. "Wait one minute--I must look! ..."

And she was gone.... The sixty seconds were barely ticked off by the gilded arrow of the Tudor timepiece before the door opened to admit her, minus the finds of the plantation,--panting a little, with flushed cheeks and radiant eyes of joy....

"I have been to his room," she told John Hazel, breathlessly. "There is a camphor-wood press there where--since August, 1914,--I have kept the suit Edward was wearing when the War call came to him. Rough grey homespun--with a Norfolk jacket. And the things have gone out of the press. He must have taken them--"

"I'm dead sure he took them! Now another question crops up, Miss Forbis. In these days of Compulsory Service--though the Act's not a fortnight old--how's an able-bodied man in plain clothes to avoid being captured by the Government's Fine Tooth Comb? Tapped on the shoulder by a Recruiting Officer or a policeman--and challenged to cough up his Conscription papers, or produce his Exemption Sheet? What would the Colonel's age be? Anything over the Limit?"

The coarseness of his tone offended delicacy.... Her brows contracted as she answered with chilly dignity:

"He was thirty-nine in May. (_Thirty-nine. And he might have married me when he was thirty-one!_)" her heart cried rebelliously. What had Edward thought to gain by those continued delays? She had been at her loveliest, she knew, when they had first loved each other.... Twenty-three--and between twenty-three and thirty-one--eight worse than wasted years!

Years lost--foregone--wilfully forfeited.... Her heart wailed like a plover over its rifled nest.... And yet not lost.... Five of them at least had been glorious with happiness. There had been rare glimpses of sweetness even in these last three years of War....

"Forgive me!" she said, wakened from sad memories by John Hazel's taking leave of her. "I was thinking.... I did not hear you.... Must you absolutely go?"

"I must not stay, Miss Forbis. The other things that are hidden in the plantation I shall leave you to find for yourself. The fox-hole is at the bottom of the bank facing south beside a big stone--you can hardly miss it! You will hear from me, when there is anything you should know--until there is, good-bye!"

She said, with her characteristic, cordial imperiousness: "Good-bye comes after luncheon! ... You must not leave this house again without breaking bread! ..."

He yielded, and soon they were seated at a long, well-covered table in a room whose sombre panelling was relieved by inset portraits of dead-and-gone Forbises, glittering trophies of Indian weapons, horns and heads of big game; some fine pieces of Oriental porcelain and a noble buffet of silver plate. That sense of strangeness still remained. Strongly as the good things of the palate appealed to John Hazel's sensuous nature, he found himself swallowing hot savoury Scotch broth--demolishing cold game-pie and salad with the barest appreciation of their excellence--and gulping down the Chateau Margaux of the Kerr's Arbour cellars, as indifferently as though it had been the beer of the canteen....

"Good-bye, Mr. Hazel," Katharine said at parting, "and God bless you! I shall never forget what you have done. Should I hear from Colonel Yaill, I shall communicate to the address you have given me. Should you hear of him--you will write to me here at Kerr's."

She gave him both her white hands, returning his big strong grasp with warm, sisterly friendliness, sending a strange and wonderful thrill through the giant frame of the man.

"May I--" he asked, almost humbly, with his black eyes entreating hers, in the way that a woman who has been wooed can never misunderstand....

"If you wish!" she answered, cordially, and he stooped and touched with his fleshy lips the beautiful hands he held. Then he released them.... He was at the door, looking back at Katharine.... As he turned the handle she spoke impulsively:

"Where are you going?--you haven't yet told me!"

"I suppose because I thought you would guess," John Hazel returned. "The fact is, I got orders yesterday to join my old crowd--the 'Fenchurch Streets'--at Salonika. So I'm going out to the Near East--to look for your friend!"

"Not to fight?" Katharine asked, smiling, though touched by his rugged simplicity.

He answered:

"To do that, and the other job too...."

"It is almost certain that I, myself, shall be going out to Egypt shortly," she told him, "to work at the Hospital of Montana near Alexandria--with my friends of the Red Cross."

He nodded gravely.

"Good luck to you and them! There's a thing I'd like to hear you say, Miss Forbis. Do you mind just telling me to carry on?"

"Carry on, John Hazel!" said Katharine royally.

He waved a hand to her, and was gone. And the great lonely, empty House of Kerr's Arbour was tenfold emptier and lonelier without that vital, powerful embodiment of faith and loyalty....

_Book the Third:_ THE FINDING