of realising what he had done he became aware of a stillmore disquieting circumstance: the gate behind him clicked and the soundof rapid footsteps fell upon his ear. Hastily, with a change of colourwhich suggested a conscience not altogether free from guilt, heproceeded to drag the glove off his hand. But the thing resistedstubbornly, and the girl was almost at his elbow. He desisted from hisefforts, and swung round and faced her, concealing his hand awkwardlybehind his back. There was nothing in the expression of the demure facethat met his gaze to betray that the girl had any suspicion why thatright arm of his should be doubled behind his back; but to one familiarwith Peggy the guilelessness of her look might have suggested knowledge.
"I'm sorry to trouble you again," she said softly, "but I have dropped aglove. It's a new glove, and I don't wish to lose it. I thought itmight be in the garden, perhaps."
Mr Musgrave hesitated, and was lost. He dissembled. To have admittedin the first instance having found the glove, even though he had toconfess to having spoilt it, would have been simple, but he had let theopportunity slip; to own to it now would prove embarrassing. He lookedwith discomfited eyes along the path.
"I do not see it," he said.
"No," replied Peggy, "neither do I. But I thought..."
"Perhaps," said Mr Musgrave quickly, "you left it in the kitchen. Iwill tell the servants to look. It shall be returned to you."
"I had it," Peggy persisted, "when I was talking with you in the hall."
"Yes?" he said. "Then--then perhaps it is there. It shall be found."
A spirit of wickedness entered into Peggy.
"Never mind," she said brightly. "It serves me right if I have lost it.Don't trouble to hunt for it, Mr Musgrave. I came back because Ithought I might find it near the gate; but plainly it isn't here.Good-bye again."
She held out a determined hand. Mr Musgrave was faced with thegreatest dilemma he had ever experienced. What was he to do? Courtesydemanded that he should take her hand; to ignore it would beunpardonable. To extend the left hand was equally impossible; to offerthe right was to acknowledge his duplicity, and might lead to analtogether wrong conception of his motives. A man when he acts uponimpulse is not necessarily guided by any motive. For the fraction of asecond he hesitated; then, with perfect gravity, he drew his arm frombehind his back, and with the hand still wearing the torn fragments ofthe lost glove he silently touched her fingers. Peggy's grey eyes wereon his face; they did not fall, he observed, once to his hand. He feltgrateful to her. A little tact--and tact is but the dictates of akindly nature--smoothes over many awkward situations.
He returned with her to the gate and opened it for her, and raised hishat gravely as she passed through, to be greeted with boisterouseffusiveness by Diogenes, who had reluctantly waited outside.
"He's rather a dear, Diogenes," she said, as she proceeded down theroad, a little more soberly now. "He made me feel a little mean femalecad."
John Musgrave, returning along the path, drew off the torn glove andslipped it into his pocket. Another link had been formed in the chainof impressions.
By the time Peggy reached the Hall her self-abasement had evaporated,and her usual good spirits reasserted themselves. She made directly forthe drawing-room, where Mrs Chadwick, after a disappointing afternoon,lay limply against the cushions of a sofa, solacing herself with theinevitable cigarette. She looked round at Peggy's entrance, and was sorelieved to see some one bright and young and wholesome that theresentment she was prepared to show vanished--in her welcoming smile.Peggy was one of those fortunate people who disarm wrath by reason ofunfailing good temper.
"You are late," Mrs Chadwick said. "If you want fresh tea you willhave to ring for it."
"I don't mind it cold," Peggy returned, attending to her needs at thetea-table and smiling pleasantly to herself the while. "Tired?" sheasked, dropping comfortably into a seat, and surveying her auntinquiringly above the tea-cup in her hand.
"Tired and bored," Mrs Chadwick answered.
"Been entertaining the aborigines, I suppose?"
"Yes. You might have stayed to help me. These people... Peggy, Iconsider it is in the nature of a solecism to be so dull; it's a breachof good taste."
"They can't help it," Peggy said soothingly. "I expect if we had livedall our days in Moresby we should be dull too. It's stultifying. I amsorry you have had such a slow time. I've been enjoying myself--hugely.I've had most surprising adventures."
Mrs Chadwick laughed.
"You generally do," she answered. "But it puzzles me to think how youcontrive adventures in Moresby. Nothing ever happens when I pass beyondthe gates. It would cause me a shock if it did."
"It caused me several shocks," Peggy replied, looking amused. "Iexperience them again when I review the afternoon's doings. You'd neverguess where I've been."
"Then I won't try to. Tell me. If you give me a shock it may shake offthe _ennui_ I am suffering. You have done something audacious, Isuppose."
Peggy ceased munching her cake and tried to look serious, but failed.Two tantalising dimples played at the corners of her mouth and her eyesshone wickedly.
"A little audacious, perhaps," she allowed. "In the first place, I'vebeen walking out with the sexton. He was quite interesting andagreeable until he began to discuss corpses. That made me feeluncomfortable; so I left him and went to call on Mr Musgrave."
"_What_!" exclaimed Mrs Chadwick.
"It is all right," Peggy proceeded reassuringly. "Nobody saw me. Islipped in through the tradesmen's entrance and interviewed him in thekitchen chaperoned by the cook and a sour-faced parlourmaid. Havingsatisfied the proprieties thus far, we proceeded to the hall for moreintimate conversation. He is not as fossilised as he looks. Heaccompanied me through the garden and kept my glove for a souvenir ofthe visit. And I think," Peggy paused and looked into the fire with adancing gleam of mischief in the grey eyes, "I think," she added,smiling, "that he will send me a present of a new pair. Now confess,you would never have credited John with being such a sport."
"When you have finished romancing," Mrs Chadwick said severely,"perhaps you will explain exactly what you have been up to. If you hadwished to see Mr Musgrave you could have accomplished your purpose byremaining at home. He was here this afternoon."
"That wouldn't have proved so exciting," Peggy returned. "He doesn'topen out in front of other people. I like John best in his own home."
She rose with a laugh, and, approaching the sofa, seated herself at MrsChadwick's side.
"I couldn't help it," she said with an affectation of contrition. "Itall just happened. Things will, you know."
And then she gave a more detailed account of the afternoon's doings.Mrs Chadwick was amused, in spite of a slight vexation. Peggy'sveracious version of her intrusion on Mr Musgrave was disconcerting toher listener; and the anecdote of the glove, which lost nothing in thetelling, seemed to Mrs Chadwick, who possessed a certain insight intoJohn Musgrave's sensitive mind, the last straw in the load of prejudicewhich would bias John Musgrave's opinion of her niece. She couldcheerfully at the moment have boxed Peggy's ears. But Peggy, laughingand unrepentant, hung over her aunt and kissed her. Mrs Chadwick wasas weak as water when Peggy coaxed.
"I hope he doesn't send you that pair of gloves," was all she said.
But John Musgrave did send the gloves. He drove into Rushleigh himselffor the purpose of matching the torn glove in his possession, and,failing to do this, posted it to London, and received a similar pair byreturn. He posted this pair to Peggy with a brief note of apology,which, when she had read it, Peggy, for some unexplained reason, lockedaway in a drawer.
The note read as follows:
"Dear Miss Annersley,--
"You will, I trust, pardon me for having destroyed in a moment of abstraction the glove you dropped in my garden. I believe I have succeeded in matching it, and hope that the pair enclosed will serve as well as that which my awkwardness ruined. I apologise for my carele
ssness, and the consequent delay in returning your property.
"Yours faithfully,--
"John Musgrave."
"But he hasn't returned my property," mused Peggy, with the new pair ofgloves in one hand and Mr Musgrave's note in the other. "I wonder whathe has done with it?"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
With the approach of Christmas Mr Musgrave's quiet home took on the airof an over-populated city. A strange woman in a nurse's uniform swelledthe party in the kitchen when she was not in the nursery with the twoyoungest members of