第58章 CHAPTER XXII(2)

"I will admit," Mr. Fentolin replied, "that I read his papers. They were of no great consequence, however, and he has taken them away with him. Mr. Dunster. as a matter of fact, turned out to be rather a mare's-nest. Now, come, since you are here, finish everything you have to say to me. I am not angry. I am willing to listen quite reasonably."

Gerald shook his head.

"Oh, I can't!" he declared bitterly. "You always get the best of it.

I'll only ask you one more question. Are you having the wireless hauled down?"

Mr. Fentolin pointed out of the window. Gerald followed his finger.

Three men were at work upon the towering spars.

"You see," Mr. Fentolin continued tolerantly, "that I am keeping my word to Lieutenant Godfrey. You are suffering from a little too much imagination, I am afraid. It is really quite a good fault.

By-the-by, how do you get on with our friend Mr. Hamel?"

"Very well," the boy replied. "I haven't seen much of him."

"He and Esther are together a great deal, eh?" Mr. Fentolin asked quickly.

"They seem to be quite friendly."

"It isn't Mr. Hamel, by any chance, who has been putting these ideas into your head?"

"No one has been putting any ideas into my head," Gerald answered hotly. "It's simply what I've seen and overheard. It's simply what I feel around, the whole atmosphere of the place, the whole atmosphere you seem to create around you with these brutes Sarson and Meekins; and those white-faced, smooth-tongued Marconi men of yours, who can't talk decent English; and the post-office man, who can't look you in the face; and Miss Price, who looks as though she were one of the creatures, too, of your torture chamber.

That's all."

Mr. Fentolin waited until he had finished. Then be waved him away.

"Go and take a long walk, Gerald," he advised. "Fresh air is what you need, fresh air and a little vigorous exercise. Run along now and send Miss Price to me."

Gerald overtook Hamel upon the stairs.

"By this time," the latter remarked, "I suppose that our friend Mr. Dunster is upon the sea."

Gerald nodded silently. They passed along the corridor. The door of the room which Mr. Dunster had occupied was ajar. As though by common consent, they both stopped and looked in. The windows were all wide open, the bed freshly made. The nurse was busy collecting some medicine bottles and fragments of lint. She looked at them in surprise.

"Mr. Dunster has left, sir," she told them.

"We saw him go," Gerald replied.

"Rather a quick recovery, wasn't it, nurse?" Hamel asked.

"It wasn't a recovery at all, sir," the woman declared sharply.

"He'd no right to have been taken away. It's my opinion Doctor Sarson ought to be ashamed of himself to have permitted it."

"They couldn't exactly make a prison of the place, could they?"

Hamel pointed out. "The man, after all, was only a guest."

"That's as it may be, sir," the nurse replied. "All the same, those that won't obey their doctors aren't fit to be allowed about alone.

That's the way I look at it."

Mrs. Fentolin was passing along the corridor as they issued from the room. She started a little as she saw them.

"What have you two been doing in there?" she asked quickly.

"We were just passing," Hamel explained. "We stopped for a moment to speak to the nurse."

"Mr. Dunster has gone," she said. "You saw him go, Gerald. You saw him, too, didn't you, Mr. Hamel?"

"I certainly did," Hamel admitted.

Mrs. Fentolin pointed to the great north window near which they were standing, through which the clear sunlight streamed a little pitilessly upon her worn face and mass of dyed hair.

"You ought neither of you to be indoors for a minute on a morning like this," she declared. "Esther is waiting for you in the car, I think, Mr. Hamel."

Gerald passed on up the stairs to his room, but Hamel lingered.

A curious impulse of pity towards his hostess stirred him. The morning sunlight seemed to have suddenly revealed the tragedy of her life. She stood there, a tired, worn woman, with the burden heavy upon her shoulders.

"Why not come out with Miss Fentolin and me? he suggested. "We could lunch at the Golf Club, out on the balcony. I wish you would. Can't you manage it?"

She shook her head.

"Thank you very much," she said. "Mr. Fentolin does not like to be left."

Something in the finality of her words seemed to him curiously eloquent of her state of mind. She did not move on. She seemed, indeed, to have the air of one anxious to say more. In that ruthless light, the advantages of her elegant clothes and graceful carriage were suddenly stripped away from her. She was the abject wreck of a beautiful woman, wizened, prematurely aged.

Nothing remained but the eyes, which seemed somehow to have their message for him.

"Mr. Fentolin is a little peculiar, you know," she went on, her voice shaking slightly with the effort she was making to keep it low. "He allows Esther so little liberty, she sees so few young people of her own age. I do not know why he allows you to be with her so much. Be careful, Mr. Hamel."

Her voice seemed suddenly to vibrate with a curious note of suppressed fear. Almost as she finished her speech, she passed on.

Her little gesture bade him remain silent. As she went up the stairs, she began to hum scraps of a little French air.