"I told him," he spoke very distinctly and slowly, "that I certainly could not hope to press the suit of another."

    There was a pause whilst she was taking this in.

    "Of another?" she repeated. "Do you mean—oh, no, you cannot mean—"

    "I mean," said Mr Merrivan, very quietly, and, as before, very distinctly, "myself. The disparity in our ages, Miss Nelson, is apparently an insuperable obstacle to my happiness."

    "Age has nothing to do with it, Mr Merrivan," she said hastily, "only I—I don't want to get married. You do mean that? You want to marry me? I hope you don't—it would make me look a little foolish if you didn't, but—I'd rather feel foolish."

    "That is what I mean," said Darius Merrivan in his stateliest manner. "I have for a long time contemplated such a step. Miss Nelson, and every day I have seen you I have become more and more convinced that you are the only woman in the world with whom life would be in any way agreeable."

    Stella laughed.

    "I'm a little hysterical, I think," she excused herself. "I never dreamt that you—Of course, I am very honoured, Mr Merrivan, I cannot tell you how honoured, and you have been so good to me."

    He raised his hand in protest.

    "Do not let us speak of that matter," he said. "I can offer you—"

    "Wait," she interrupted urgently. "I don't want to be married; that is the truth. I am very young, and I have no fixed ideas about matrimony, and I don't want to be married. It isn't because it is you, Mr Merrivan, any more than it was because it was Arthur. I just don't want to be married!"

    She might have thought that he had expected some such reply, he took her refusal so calmly and with such a little show of chagrin.

    "The matter can wait," he said. "I cannot expect a young lady to make up her mind on the spot, but I shall not give up hoping."

    She shook her head.

    "I think it would be kinder to tell you not to hope," said she. "I like you awfully, and you have been very kind to me."

    Again his hands protested.

    "But I don't want to marry you, Mr Merrivan, any more than I want to marry your nephew, and I don't think any time you may allow me to reconsider the matter will cause me to change my views. They are fixed and immutable."

    Still he did not make any attempt to rise, but sat there feeling his smooth check and staring past her, until she began to wonder what there was to attract his gaze.

    "Are things well with you, Miss Nelson?"

    "Very well indeed," she answered brightly.

    "You are not troubled at all?"

    She shook her head.

    "Another delicate matter," he said. "I am a very rich man and have no relatives and few calls upon my purse. If a matter of two thousand would be of any use to you, to tide over these hard times, you may command me."

    "No, Mr Merrivan," she answered quietly, "it is big and generous of you. I have once trespassed upon your kindness, but—it wasn't a nice experience. Oh, yes, you were very sweet about it, but I can't accept anything more."

    He got up to his feet, flicked a speck of dust from his sleeve, and picked up his hat.

    "Arthur knows," he said. "I told him."

    "Told him what?" she demanded, startled.

    "That I was going to ask you to marry me."

    He laughed softly.

    "He was very violent. Miss Nelson, and threatened—I think he threatened to kill me." He turned at the door. "By the way, did he say anything to you about knowing your secret?"

    "Did he tell you that, too?"

    He shook his head.

    "No, I guessed that. The secret he knew was that you had borrowed money from me, and how he came to know is beyond my understanding. Perhaps I can induce you to change your mind?"

    She shook her head.

    He was standing in the doorway, his hand on the handle, looking out into the garden.

    "When is the twenty-fourth of the month?" he asked, not turning his head,

    A very considerable space of time elapsed before she replied.

    "Next Monday," she breathed, and stood motionless as he dosed the door behind him.

    So he knew. He really did know. And the detective was here, for what other purpose than to serve Mr Merrivan in his discretion?

 

 

CHAPTER 7

 

 

    Andy spent two unprofitable days at Beverley Green—unprofitable because the person he had come to meet had studiously avoided him. Once he saw a girl walking on the other side of the green. She was accompanied by two dogs, which ran erratically before and behind, and occasionally around her, and, quickening his steps, found that it was a Miss Sheppard, a girl to whom he had been introduced on the links.

    He dined the first night with Mr Merrivan and Sheppard, the architect, a man of such elusive personality that thereafter Andrew could never form a mental picture of him. Mr Merrivan was a bachelor, he told them; not an incorrigible one by any means. He was open to conviction, and, if he dare talk about himself, though he was sure nobody was particularly interested, he had been convinced.

    "Indeed?" said his guests, variously impressed.

    Andy wondered what kind of woman his host would marry.