Not a word did Leslie say about her interview with Gilder, and her brother seemed just as anxious to avoid the topic as she. They drove down from town, and all the time he kept up a ceaseless flow of talk about affairs which he thought might interest her. He was nervous, and once, when she woke him from a reverie with a question, he started and turned red.
“Sorry!” he stammered. “I was thinking of something.”
“And something unpleasant, Arthur,” she said gently.
He was staring straight ahead of him.
“Yes, something damnably unpleasant!”
They were nearing Chelfordbury now, and she put the question that had trembled on her lips throughout that long journey.
“Arthur, do you know what Mr. Gilder asked me?” And, when he did not reply: “He proposed to me,” she said.
Still he avoided her eyes.
“Did he?” he asked awkwardly. “Well, that’s an extraordinary thing for him to do!”
“Arthur, did you know he was going to propose to me when you left us alone?”
“He isn’t a bad fellow,” said Arthur Gwyn lamely. “Of course, the idea is preposterous. But, after all, it is no sin for a fellow to fall in love with a girl and want to marry her--I mean, one can see his point of view.”
Leslie was a little shocked; she was more than a little angry. But she kept a tight rein on her tongue.
“But, Arthur, you wouldn’t agree to that? You know I am engaged to Harry--why, you told me that it was the dream of your life to see me wearing a coronet! Not that I want to wear the beastly thing, but that was what you said.”
Ordinarily, Arthur Gwyn was possessed of a ready tongue and a nimble wit. He had lied his way out of many an embarrassing situation with more worldly wise people than Leslie. But, somehow, in her presence his brain refused to function, and his witticisms were banal and vulgar even to himself.
“My dear little girl,” he said, with an attempt at cheerfulness, “it really doesn’t matter to me whom you marry so long as you’re happy. Gilder is a very solid man; he has a considerable private fortune.”
This time she swung round on her seat and faced him.
“Arthur, why do you insist upon the fortune? Where is my money?”
The question came point-blank and was not to be fenced with. He roused himself to meet a situation which had never before arisen.
“Your money? Why, invested, of course!”
He tried very hard, but he could not produce that convincing note which was so necessary.
“Your fortune is in all sorts of shares and bonds. What a queer question to ask me, girlie!”
“How much money have I?” she demanded ruthlessly.
“About a quarter of a million--a little more or a little less. For goodness’ sake don’t talk about money, my dear.”
“But I will talk about it,” she said. “Arthur, have I any at all?”
His laughter did not carry conviction. And usually people accepted his word. Harry Chelford had asked him only a week before in what stocks was his late mother’s fortune invested. And Arthur had replied glibly enough. It was the Miriam Chelford Trust that had occupied his mind through the journey. Something must be done there. Dick Alford had started to ask questions, and Dick had a memory like a recording machine. As for Leslie and her tiresome questions:
“What a silly kid you are! Of course you’ve got money! I wish to heaven I had half your wad! You’re a very rich little girl, and you ought to be a very happy little girl.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t think I have a penny,” she said, and his heart sank.
With a tremendous effort of will he met her questioning eyes.
“Why do you say that?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know--in a way I hope I’m poor. I know I had money left me, because you showed me the will a long time ago. But you’ve been handling it, Arthur, and I’ve an idea that things haven’t been going too well with you.”
“Do you mean I’ve stolen your fortune?” he asked loudly, and she smiled.
“I wouldn’t accuse you of that. I think it is possible you may have invested my fortune--unwisely! And it is quite possible that that quarter of a million has dwindled and dwindled until it has disappeared. Is that so?”
He did not answer.
“Is that so?”
“I wish to God you wouldn’t ask such stupid questions,” he said irritably. “Of course it isn’t so!”
For one wild moment he had the impulse to tell her the truth; but vanity, a shrinking from the possible effects the news would have upon the one person in the world for whom he had a grain of affection, inhibited the confession.
Back he came naturally to the one thought present in his mind, as he chattered and as he brooded. His last hope lay in the discovery of the Chelford treasure. If that were found, he could snap his fingers at Gilder, could restore the wasted fortune of his sister, and establish himself beyond assail. Gilder would never dare bring his story of the four bills to a court of law, and if he did, backed by the Chelford fortune, Arthur could face the storm, confident that, if he made restoration to the man he had robbed, no evil consequences would follow. He was grasping at a straw, and knew it. But Mary Wenner was a shrewd little devil, not the kind of girl who, for the sake of making a sensation, would come to him with a cock-and-bull story. She might have been mistaken; on the other hand, she was so brimful of confidence that he could not believe the story was altogether without foundation.
The road to Willow House skirted the grounds of Fossaway Manor, and he saw the crumbling arch, red in the setting sun, standing like a fiery question mark that attuned with his mood of doubt and hope.
Arrived at his home, he went up to his room to bathe and change before dinner, and it was with a positive sense of freedom that he found himself alone. He was a fool not to have told her the truth, he thought. After dinner he would get her in a softer mood and make a clean breast of it. And then, at the tail of this decision, came the recollection of his interview with Mary Wenner. Suppose she had told the truth? Suppose he found these millions of pounds that had lain for centuries in the ground? He formed yet another plan.
