Annie Haynes Premium Collection – 8 Murder Mysteries in One Volume. Annie Haynes

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СКАЧАТЬ went back to his paint-box.

      “Oh, to catch that wonderful sheen!” he cried as he turned over the tubes despairingly. “But it is hope-less!” rumpling up his hair. “How can one dream of obtaining it with paint and canvas?”

      “I am sorry I am such a difficult subject,” Hilda said demurely, “but I have never been painted before, and I must plead that as an excuse.”

      Dorothy lifted her brown eyes and glanced at her cousin; the significance of the remark was apparently lost on him. With evident love in his eyes he was gazing at his beautiful model.

      Dorothy saw that if advantage was to be taken of this apparent return of memory on their mysterious visitor’s part she must be the one to avail herself of it; her cousin’s absorption in his work and his model was so great that he had not even noticed it.

      She put a stitch or two in her work before she spoke, then she said in a carefully matter-of-fact tone:

      “Have you ever been photographed, Hilda? A good photograph is often a great help.”

      The blue eyes looked at her for a second vaguely.

      “I don’t think I have a very good one,” the girl began slowly, then her face clouded over, and she put up her hands to her head. “I think I have a photograph somewhere—in fancy dress—I seem to see it—but I can’t remember. Oh, why did you ask me? It is so dreadful not to know.” She burst into a passion of tears.

      Dorothy drew back in dismay.

      “I did not mean—Indeed, I am so sorry,” she faltered.

      Sir Arthur flung down his palette, his eyes full of a passionate pity.

      “Do not think of it, do not try to remember. It will come back some day—all the doctors are agreed upon that. In the meantime you know how delighted we are to have you with us; if we could only teach you to look upon the Manor as your home.”

      “You are all so kind to me,” the girl said as she sobbed, “far too kind, and I am very stupid and ungrateful. But it seems to bring it home to me somehow what an absolute waif I am when I am asked a simple question like that and cannot answer it.”

      Sir Arthur’s face darkened as he glanced impatiently at his cousin.

      “Dorothy should not have asked it,” he said shortly. “I thought you had been warned, Dorothy—that you had been told all excitement was to be avoided.’’

      Two hot red spots burned in Dorothy’s cheeks; it was the first time her cousin had ever spoken to her in that tone and the tears were very near the surface.

      “Indeed, Arthur, I am very sorry,” she said penitently. “But Hilda spoke of not having been painted before, and I thought if I answered her in the same strain it was possible that she might recollect.”

      Arthur frowned irritably.

      “Thought!” he repeated testily. “I wish you would use a little more discretion, Dorothy. Don’t you see how bad all this is for her?”

      The girl made no reply, her lips were trembling, her eyes were full of unshed tears.

      Sir Arthur glanced from her to Hilda. The latter was apparently making a brave attempt to conquer her sobs.

      “I shall be all right directly, thank you!” she murmured. “You must not be vexed with Miss Dorothy, it was all my own stupidity; she did not mean to hurt me.”

      “I am sure she did not,” Arthur assented more calmly; his momentary annoyance with his cousin was passing, and he gave her a kindly glance. “I am very sorry it has happened. I cannot have my Elaine upset.”

      This was too much for Dorothy’s equanimity. That Arthur should blame her—as she felt unjustly—was bad enough, but that Hilda should make excuses for her to him was the last straw. Forgetting that Lady Laura and Mavis were both out, and that she had promised to sit in the improvised studio until their return, she caught up her work and hurried out of the room.

      Upstairs, throwing herself down by her bed, she burst into an agony of sobs. Those shy, sweet hopes, which she had hitherto hardly dared to put into words, even to herself, but which a month ago had seemed so near fruition, were now withering away. Ever since Hilda’s coming to the Manor she had fancied that there was a distinct change in Arthur’s manner; she had done her best to persuade herself that she was mistaken, that he was the same as ever, but this morning she told herself that it would be folly to deceive herself any longer.

      Evidently Arthur had found out that his feeling for her was merely cousinly affection, and this beautiful stranger was absorbing his whole thoughts in a fashion which, she knew well, she had never been able to do.

      There, on her knees, wrestling with her first agony of humiliation that she should have given her love unsought, Dorothy told herself that she could have borne it if she could have believed that the object of Arthur’s devotion was worthy of it—that the love itself would make for his happiness; but despite her best efforts, though she knew that Lady Laura and Mavis had succumbed to her charm, Dorothy had never been able to bring herself to like Hilda, and the utmost she could do was to resolve that no word or look of hers should reveal her feelings to others.

      In the meantime, in the morning-room, Arthur was making dangerous strides in his intimacy with Hilda.

      She, finding herself left alone with him, had made obvious efforts to control her agitation, and smiled resolutely through her tears into his concerned face.

      “Do go on with your picture, Sir Arthur, or I shall feel that I have wasted your morning, and you will say that I am a shocking model.”

      “You are so absolutely an ideal Elaine that the impossibility of doing the subject justice is almost driving me crazy,” Arthur declared, tossing his fair hair back from his forehead as he gazed despairingly at his morning’s work. Nevertheless, he went to work with feverish energy and painted away with a sort of fierce absorption for a short time.

      Presently he looked up.

      “That is better, I think. I am not tiring you, I hope, Miss Hilda!”

      The girl twisted up her hair with a laugh as she nestled into her cushions.

      “I am the most luxuriously-served of models, and one could hardly get tired of lying on this couch, but I must confess it is a relief to turn over sometimes.”

      “I was a brute not to remember before,” Arthur said contritely, “but the fact is, when I am looking at you, I can think of nothing but Elaine.”

      He was mixing his paints on his palette as he spoke.

      Hilda looked at him in silence for a few minutes. At last she spoke in a subdued tone:

      “Sir Arthur, may I ask you something?”

      Sir Arthur looked up, palette knife in hand, in some surprise.

      “Anything I can tell you—”

      Hilda glanced round her fearfully a moment before she spoke.

      “Where is Nurse Marston, Sir Arthur?”

      The СКАЧАТЬ