The Witness for the Defense | Page 4

was breathing quickly and she looked at him with a
wonder in her trouble.
"And it hurts you to say this!" she said. "Yes, it actually hurts you."
"What else could I say?"
Her face softened as she looked and heard. It was not that he was cold
of blood or did not care. There was more than discomfort in his voice,
there was a very real distress. And in his eyes his heart ached for her to
see. Something of her pride was restored to her. She fell at once to his
tune, but she was conscious that both of them talked treacheries.
"Yes, you are right. It wouldn't have been possible. You have your
name and your fortune to make. I too--I shall marry, I suppose, some
one"--and she suddenly smiled rather bitterly--"who will give me a
Rolls-Royce motor-car." And so they rode on very reasonably.
Noon had passed. A hush had fallen upon that high world of grass and
sunlight. The birds were still. They talked of this and that, the latest
crisis in Europe and the growth of Socialism, all very wisely and with
great indifference like well-bred people at a dinner-party. Not thus had
Stella thought to ride home when the message had come that morning
that the horses would be at her door before ten. She had ridden out
clothed on with dreams of gold. She rode back with her dreams in
tatters and a sort of incredulity that to her too, as to other girls, all this
pain had come.
They came to a bridle-path which led downwards through a thicket of
trees to the weald and so descended upon Great Beeding. They rode
through the little town, past the inn where Thresk was staying and the
iron gates of a Park where, amidst elm-trees, the blackened ruins of a
great house gaped to the sky.
"Some day you will live there again," said Thresk, and Stella's lips
twitched with a smile of humour.
"I shall be very glad after to-day to leave the house I am living in," she

said quietly, and the words struck him dumb. He had subtlety enough to
understand her. The rooms would mock her with memories of vain
dreams. Yet he kept silence. It was too late in any case to take back
what he had said; and even if she would listen to him marriage wouldn't
be fair. He would be hampered, and that, just at this time in his life,
would mean failure--failure for her no less than for him. They must be
prudent--prudent and methodical, and so the great prizes would be
theirs.
A mile beyond, a mile of yellow lanes between high hedges, they came
to the village of Little Beeding, one big house and a few thatched
cottages clustered amongst roses and great trees on the bank of a small
river. Thither old Mr. Derrick and his wife and his daughter had gone
after the fire at Hinksey Park had completed the ruin which disastrous
speculations had begun; and at the gate of one of the cottages the riders
stopped and dismounted.
"I shall not see you again after to-day," said Stella. "Will you come in
for a moment?"
Thresk gave the horses to a passing labourer to hold and opened the
gate.
"I shall be disturbing your people at their luncheon," he said.
"I don't want you to go in to them," said the girl. "I will say goodbye to
them for you."
Thresk followed her up the garden-path, wondering what it was that she
had still to say to him. She led him into a small room at the back of the
house, looking out upon the lawn. Then she stood in front of him.
"Will you kiss me once, please," she said simply, and she stood with
her arms hanging at her side, whilst he kissed her on the lips.
"Thank you," she said. "Now will you go?"
He left her standing in the little room and led the horses back to the inn.

That afternoon he took the train to London.
CHAPTER III
IN BOMBAY
It was not until a day late in January eight years afterwards that Thresk
saw the face of Stella Derrick again; and then it was only in a portrait.
He came upon it too in a most unlikely place. About five o'clock upon
that afternoon he drove out of the town of Bombay up to one of the
great houses on Malabar Hill and asked for Mrs. Carruthers. He was
shown into a drawing-room which looked over Back Bay to the great
buildings of the city, and in a moment Mrs. Carruthers came to him
with her hands outstretched.
"So you've won. My husband telephoned to me. We do thank you!
Victory means so much