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Page 54
"The reason of my interest," I replied, "is that Mr. Camber asked me to
call upon him, and I propose to do so later this morning."
"Really?"
Again I detected the startled expression upon Val Beverley's face.
"That is rather curious, since you are staying here."
"Why?"
"Well," she looked about her nervously, "I don't know the reason, but
the name of Mr. Camber is anathema in Cray's Folly."
"Colonel Menendez told me last night that he had never met Mr. Camber."
Val Beverley shrugged her shoulders, a habit which it was easy to see
she had acquired from Madame de St�mer.
"Perhaps not," she replied, "but I am certain he hates him."
"Hates Mr. Camber?"
"Yes." Her expression grew troubled. "It is another of those mysteries
which seem to be part of Colonel Menendez's normal existence."
"And is this dislike mutual?"
"That I cannot say, since I have never met Mr. Camber."
"And Madame de St�mer, does she share it?"
"Fully, I think. But don't ask me what it means, because I don't know."
She dismissed the subject with a light gesture and poured me out a
second cup of coffee.
"I am going to leave you now," she said. "I have to justify my
existence in my own eyes."
"Must you really go?"
"I must really."
"Then tell me something before you go."
She gathered up the bunches of roses and looked down at me with a
wistful expression.
"Yes, what is it?"
"Did you detect those mysterious footsteps again last night?"
The look of wistfulness changed to another which I hated to see in her
eyes, an expression of repressed fear.
"No," she replied in a very low voice, "but why do you ask the
question?"
Doubt of her had been far enough from my mind, but that something in
the tone of my voice had put her on her guard I could see.
"I am naturally curious," I replied, gravely.
"No," she repeated, "I have not heard the sound for some time now.
Perhaps, after all, my fears were imaginary."
There was a constraint in her manner which was all too obvious, and
when presently, laden with the spoil of the rose garden, she gave me a
parting smile and hurried into the house, I sat there very still for a
while, and something of the brightness had faded from the coming, nor
did life seem so glad a business as I had thought it quite recently.
CHAPTER XIII
AT THE GUEST HOUSE
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