Part 29

"Yes. I'm in the habit of asking questions."

"Of patients----"

"Of everybody I care for. You don't have to answer, but if you don't I shall know who did the washing."

"Yes, I did it," said Rachel steadily. "It is easily done."

"And then you came over here and got breakfast?"

"Not at all. I helped Mrs. Robeson and Mary McKaim get it. Doctor Barnes, do you know that you are standing directly in my path?"

"Certainly," said the doctor. "It's what I'm here for."

"Then I shall have to go back and take the road home."

"If you do you will evade me only to encounter another man. Lockwood's keeping a ferret's eye on the Robeson house door; and I think Cathcart is already patrolling the road in front of your house."

The girl turned. "You are making me feel very absurd," she said. "I want to go home, Doctor Barnes. Please let me pass you."

"May I go with you?"

"I would rather not."

"Well, that's frank," he said, amusement and chagrin struggling for the uppermost. "I wonder I don't stalk angrily away----"

"I wish you would."

Roger Barnes threw back his head and laughed. "I wish you would give some other girls a leaf out of your book," he said. "The more you turn me down the more ardently I long to be with you; while the opposite sort of thing--I'll tell you, Miss Redding, if you want to be rid of me try these tactics: Say with a languishing smile, 'Oh, Doctor Barnes, won't you take me a little way down this lovely path?' Perhaps that will accomplish your ends. I've often felt an instant desire not to do the thing I'm begged to."

"'Oh, Doctor Barnes,'" said Rachel Redding--and he caught the mischief in her tone--even Rachel could be mischievous, as Juliet had said--"'won't you take me a little way down this lovely path?'"

"With the greatest pleasure in the world," replied the doctor promptly, and stood aside to let her pass him. Whereupon she slipped by him, and before he could realise that she had gone was running fleetly away in the twilight down the winding, willow-hung path. With an exclamation he was off after her, but though he dashed at the pace of a hunter through the intricacies of the way he presently discovered that he was following nothing but the summer breeze rustling the willow leaves and wafting into his face the breath of new-cut hay, the aftermath of late July. He stopped at length and stared about him, baffled and half angry.

"There never was a girl like you," he muttered. "If you are deliberately trying to make men mad to get you you are succeeding infuriatingly well. If I catch you to-night it will be your fault if I tell you what I think of you. I'll tell you now, for I suppose you are hiding somewhere in this undergrowth till I give it up and you can get away home. You shall listen to me if you are here, for you can't help yourself."

He was speaking in a low, even tone, walking slowly along the path and peering sharply into the bushes on both sides. Suddenly he stood still. He had detected a spot beside a low-hanging willow which showed nearly white in the deepening darkness. Rachel was wearing white to-night, he remembered. His heart quickened its paces and he paused an instant to get past a certain tightening in his throat.

Then he bent forward and whispered: "If that's not you there I can say what I like, and there'll be some satisfaction in that. If you'll speak now you may save yourself, but if you don't I've no reason to think it's you, and so I can say----"

There was a sharply perceptible noise farther down the path toward the Redding home. Barnes turned quickly and stood up straight, waiting. Footsteps came rapidly along the path--no footsteps of hers, evidently. A man's voice humming a tune grew momentarily plainer--then the voice stopped humming and began to sing in a subdued but clear and fine barytone:

"Down through the lane Come I again Seeking, my love, for you; Run to me, dear, Losing all fear, Love and----"

The voice stopped. Two men's figures confronted each other in an extremely narrow path. It was not too dark yet for each to be plainly recognisable to the other.

"Hallo--that you, Lockwood?"

"Hi there, Roger Barnes; what you doing here? Fishing?"

"Looking for something I've lost."

"Getting pretty dark to find it. Something valuable?"

"Rather. Think I'll give it up for to-night."