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“Oh—you mean, he’s gone?”

“Don’t worry about that,” the matron advised kindly. “Your father is in good hands with Doctor Blonheim, and he is going on as well as can be expected.”

“May I see him?” Ruth asked nervously. “Is it possible —so soon?”

“For five minutes,” the matron told her. “I know that you will be sensible and not speak too much.”

Ruth followed her along a narrow hall and up the flight of thickly carpeted stairs to the room where her father lay. She approached the bed and knelt down near the head. Her father’s eyes were closed, and she caught her breath in sharply at sight of his pale face. The vague scent of the anaesthetic still lingered about the cage-supported bedclothes.

There was little need for speech when William Farday opened his eyes and looked up at his daughter. That look—the loving tenderness of it—went deeper than words. Ruth felt for his hand and clasped it gently.

“Father,” she whispered, “you’re going to be well now.”

“Yes, lass! Back to the plough soon,” he smiled, with a spark of eagerness somewhere deep in his eyes.

“We will prepare such a—welcome for you at Conningscliff,” she said. “Don’t be—too long.”

She felt a returning pressure from his thin fingers, and as she followed the matron’s trim figure down the stairs to the waiting-room again, there was a prayer of thanksgiving in her heart.

“Your father came through wonderfully well,” the matron told her. “He has a marvellous constitution for a man of his age, and his powers of recuperation should be good. All the same,” she added, on a note of warning, “his recovery will necessarily be a long, slow process. Still, I can see that you are sensible, and will not expect miraculous results in little more than a few weeks.”

“I think I can find the patience,” Ruth smiled wanly.

“That’s the spirit!” the matron replied, with one of her most encouraging smiles, as she led the way out to the door.

“You said,” Ruth asked hesitantly, “that Doctor Kelwyn had gone back to London?”

The matron glanced at her watch.

“He’s leaving by a train about four o’clock,” she said. “He asked me to express his regret to you that he had not seen you before he left.”

“He is so kind,” Ruth said, pulling on her gloves. Then, suddenly, thoughts of John Travayne assailed her. She believed that she had yet time to get to the station before Kelwyn’s train left. “May I come again this evening to inquire for my father?” she asked.

“At any time—until nine o’clock,” the matron assured her.

Ruth made the journey to the Central Station, with her nerves stretched like a taut cord. She ran through the station entry in time to see Philip Kelwyn presenting his ticket at the barrier.

He was not alone, however, and at sight of his companion all the blood drained from Ruth’s face. Kelwyn and Travayne saw her standing there at the same moment, but it was John who reached her first.

“Ruth—is there anything wrong? Your father—?”

She felt his supporting arm close round her.

“No—my father is all right,” she breathed. “I came—to find you.”

Travayne turned towards the barrier.

“Philip is going on this train,” he said. “Shall we see him off first?”

“Then—you weren’t going?” Ruth asked.

“I came down with Philip,” John told her, as he piloted her through the barrier to where Kelwyn had found his reservation on the train.

“Ah, Miss Farday, I had hoped to see you before I left your father,” the doctor greeted her. “I’ve been telling John here that I’ve never been more confident of the result of an operation

before.”

Ruth tried to thank him, but she felt at the end of her little speech that it had been hopelessly inadequate. When the whistle blew, Kelwyn bent from the window and patted her hand encouragingly.

“Six months will see him on his feet again,” he predicted. “Leave everything to Doctor Blonheim. He’s a splendid man!” When the train had drawn away, John led Ruth out into the street again.

“Let me give you some tea,” he said. “You look tired, and your coat is quite wet”

Ruth followed him into the hotel he had chosen, and was glad when she noticed that they were the only occupants of the cosy lounge at this hour of the day. Not until the tea was set before them, however, would he permit her to speak. When the waiter had withdrawn, Ruth said: “John—I know who you are.”

He glanced at her quickly, but there was little change in his expression.

“And—?” he asked.

“Your father wants you to come home.”

She put it to him that way because she herself could not have spurned such a plea.

“He found out that you had been at Conningscliff,” she went on quickly, “and he sent for me to ask for your address. He couldn’t come to Newcastle himself—he suffers from gout—but I know he would have come much farther than this if he had been able—just to find you.”

“Was that your only reason for coming down to the station just now?” he asked slowly.

The tell-tale colour flooded into her cheeks.

“I felt that I—had to beg you to go back to Carbay Hall to your father,” she said. “He wants it so much.”

“You have not answered my question, Ruth!”

He was looking directly into her eyes. There was a strange, leaping flame in his.

“I felt that I had to do something for you, in return for all you have done for us,” she confessed haltingly, “and because I misjudged you so about Conningscliff.”

“Had
to?” he asked.

“I—I wanted to,” she confessed, in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

“Ruth!” He took her hand between both his own, holding it tenderly. “Ruth, I’m going to ask you again. Will you marry me?”

She could not answer him at first, and her hand began to tremble in his firm grasp. His fingers closed over it more securely.

“Because,” he said, “your reply to that question decides whether I will return to the Hall or not.”

She found herself laughing nervously.

“Must you be bribed to return for your birthright?”

“I must! The greatest bribe in the world—your love, Ruth!” His lips were near her hair now, and he was drawing her towards him.

“What is it to be, Ruth? Do we go back to Carbay together?” “Together!”

She gave him the answer he wanted, and he swept her into his arms to kiss her passionately before he would let her go again.

“Why did you buy Conningscliff?” she asked.

“Because, right from the beginning, I wanted to farm that land, Ruth,” he said more gravely. “That was the cause of the original quarrel between my father and me. The years had taught me how stupid it all was, of course, and I came back to find how things stood. You know what I found, Ruth. Edmund Hersheil installed at the Hall and my father seemingly as hard and ruthless about things as ever. It gave me little heart to make myself known to him. The years had not softened him as they had taught me to control a hasty temper. I thought it useless to approach him at all. Then, when Conningscliff was about to be sold over your head, I bought the place.”

“To save us!” Ruth said.

He did not speak for a moment, and then he said slowly: “Partly that, and partly because I suppose I was human enough to want a part of what was my own land. The place seemed doomed to be ruined by that precious cousin of mine.”

For the first time Ruth thought of Edmund Hersheil, and found herself wondering how he would take the change in his fortunes.

“When I first saw the new heir,” John confessed, “I almost sank my pride and went to my father.”

“Pride!” Ruth mused. “It’s such a stupid thing!”

“It’s going to have no place in our lives in the future,” he declared, as he paid the bill, “unless it’s pride in Carbay and all your father will be doing at Conningscliff. We’ve such a lot of time to make up, Ruth!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Ruth stayed in Newcastle that night at a little hostel the matron of the nursing home recommended, and in the morning, since her father’s condition had improved, and there was still no hope of seeing him for more than ten minutes each day, she motored back to Carbay village with John in the car he had hired for the purpose.

“I want you to come to the Hall with me,” he said, as they approached across the dunes.

Ruth would have protested.

“I think you should see your father alone—just at first,” she pleaded. “After all, he doesn’t know about—about us!”

“That’s just why I want you to come,” he told her. “One other pleasant surprise in a day won’t do him any harm!”

Had John known it, it had, indeed, been a day of surprises for the Squire, and the unpleasant nature of his first surprise had plunged him into one of his old, fiery moods. At that moment he was glaring across the expanse of his desk at the visitor Mead had just shown into the room.

“You’re a Customs official, my butler tells me,” he said. “What can I do for you, sir?”

The man at the other side of the desk shifted uneasily in his chair.

“I’ve come about the matter of some uncustomed goods believed to have been landed from an aeroplane on your estate,” he explained.

Alric Veycourt’s lips tightened perceptibly.

“What’s that you say?” he demanded.

“A case of evasion of Customs duty, I’m afraid,” the man began.

“Smuggling, do you mean? Why not call it what it is?” the Squire demanded.

“Very well. Contraband is correct!” the man declared. “It seems it has been going on for some months. An aeroplane from the Continent drops the goods, and they are picked up later and eventually taken by car to London. We’ve had trouble all down the coast, but we believed we had stamped it out until this affair came to light.”

“You don’t suspect me?” the Squire demanded acidly.

“Hardly,” the man replied, “but we do believe that someone has been taking advantage of your standing to use your land. They believed themselves safe within the confines of your estate, sir.”

Alric Veycourt’s eyes narrowed.

“Have you any suspicion as to who this person—or persons— might be?” he asked.

The man hesitated for a moment.

“Go on,” the Squire urged. “You’re quite at liberty to speak out.”

“I have instructions to—interview your nephew, sir,” the man admitted.

Veycourt’s hands clenched.

“I suspected as much!” He threw a hastily pencilled note across the desk towards the stranger. “I’m not trying to interfere with the law,” he said, “but I think you’re going to have some considerable trouble to find—my nephew for questioning or anything else. He didn’t return here last night, and this note arrived for me this morning.” He paused, glancing angrily at the other, as if the man was in some way responsible for the blow which had just been dealt to his pride. “You see what it says,” he went on, indicating the note. “He must have realised that things were getting too hot for him, and so he decided to clear out. ‘Gone abroad,’ he says!”

“You have no idea where, sir?”

“None whatever.”

Alric Veycourt turned in his chair with a gesture which his visitor took as one of dismissal.

“I guess he’s made for the Continent,” the man said, rising. “No doubt he imagines he can clear up the rest of the money due to him there. We have no definite evidence against him and there was no question of arrest yet, but we had hoped to trace the men at the head of this group through him. Good-day, sir, and thank you.”

Alric Veycourt sank back in his seat when the door had closed on his visitor, and his eyes fell on the postmark on the envelope which had brought his nephew’s letter. Glasgow, he read, and the date and time of posting.

Stupid of the fellow not to have asked about that, he thought. Edmund’s destination was probably America, Alric Veycourt stretched forward and crumpled the note and envelope in his hand, casting it into the waste-paper basket beneath his desk, and so hoped that he had closed what had been, from first to last, a most unpleasant episode in his life.

It was ten minutes later that Mead tapped on the study door to announce another visitor.

Those ten minutes alone seemed to have changed the Squire into an old man. The habitual fiery look had gone from his eyes and they looked tired and a little dispirited. He smiled, though, when the butler announced Ruth.

“Show her in, Mead,” he commanded.

Ruth thought she would remember for ever afterwards the look on his face as his eyes went beyond her to rest on his son for the first time in over eight years. John did not hesitate, but went straight to his father and clasped his hand.

She left them then, slipping out unnoticed to wait in the hall. The great main door was open and the perfume of August’s flowers drifted in to her from the garden—the scent of stocks and roses and the first chrysanthemums. There was the sound of laughter, too—a girl’s voice, gay and fresh, familiar, but curiously unaffected. Ruth knew that it was Valerie Grenton, and a moment later she saw her framed in the arch of the doorway, a striking figure in white from head to foot, with her arm linked in that of Victor Monset.