Part 47

‘Not a pledged one--but I don’t touch alcohol unless I get wet, or anything of that sort.’

‘Don’t you sometimes forget this vow of yours to my mother?’

‘No, I wear a reminder.’

‘What is that like?’

De Stancy held up his left hand, on the third finger of which appeared an iron ring.

Dare surveyed it, saying, ‘Yes, I have seen that before, though I never knew why you wore it. Well, I wear a reminder also, but of a different sort.’

He threw open his shirt-front, and revealed tattooed on his breast the letters DE STANCY; the same marks which Havill had seen in the bedroom by the light of the moon.

The captain rather winced at the sight. ‘Well, well,’ he said hastily, ‘that’s enough.... Now, at any rate, you understand my objection to know Miss Power.’

‘But, captain,’ said the lad coaxingly, as he fastened his shirt; ‘you forget me and the good you may do me by marrying? Surely that’s a sufficient reason for a change of sentiment. This inexperienced sweet creature owns the castle and estate which bears your name, even to the furniture and pictures. She is the possessor of at least forty thousand a year--how much more I cannot say--while, buried here in Outer Wessex, she lives at the rate of twelve hundred in her simplicity.’

‘It is very good of you to set this before me. But I prefer to go on as I am going.’

‘Well, I won’t bore you any more with her to-day. A monk in regimentals!--‘tis strange.’ Dare arose and was about to open the door, when, looking through the window, Captain De Stancy said, ‘Stop.’ He had perceived his father, Sir William De Stancy, walking among the tombstones without.

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Dare, turning the key in the door. ‘It would look strange if he were to find us here.’

As the old man seemed indisposed to leave the churchyard just yet they sat down again.

‘What a capital card-table this green cloth would make,’ said Dare, as they waited. ‘You play, captain, I suppose?’

‘Very seldom.’

‘The same with me. But as I enjoy a hand of cards with a friend, I don’t go unprovided.’ Saying which, Dare drew a pack from the tail of his coat. ‘Shall we while away this leisure with the witching things?’

‘Really, I’d rather not.’

‘But,’ coaxed the young man, ‘I am in the humour for it; so don’t be unkind!’

‘But, Willy, why do you care for these things? Cards are harmless enough in their way; but I don’t like to see you carrying them in your pocket. It isn’t good for you.’

‘It was by the merest chance I had them. Now come, just one hand, since we are prisoners. I want to show you how nicely I can play. I won’t corrupt you!’

‘Of course not,’ said De Stancy, as if ashamed of what his objection implied. ‘You are not corrupt enough yourself to do that, I should hope.’

The cards were dealt and they began to play--Captain De Stancy abstractedly, and with his eyes mostly straying out of the window upon the large yew, whose boughs as they moved were distorted by the old green window-panes.

‘It is better than doing nothing,’ said Dare cheerfully, as the game went on. ‘I hope you don’t dislike it?’

‘Not if it pleases you,’ said De Stancy listlessly.

‘And the consecration of this place does not extend further than the aisle wall.’

‘Doesn’t it?’ said De Stancy, as he mechanically played out his cards. ‘What became of that box of books I sent you with my last cheque?’

‘Well, as I hadn’t time to read them, and as I knew you would not like them to be wasted, I sold them to a bloke who peruses them from morning till night. Ah, now you have lost a fiver altogether--how queer! We’ll double the stakes. So, as I was saying, just at the time the books came I got an inkling of this important business, and literature went to the wall.’

‘Important business--what?’