Voices in the Night. Flora Annie Webster Steel

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СКАЧАТЬ probably thirteen, with but one white stroke!

      She turned to the bookmakers' booths to see if she could verify her guess by their lists, but all save one, round which a few determined old stagers were lounging, had already closed. However, she saw what she wanted there--Kingscraft, No. 2, Bonnie Lesley, No. 13!

      When she turned back again, the little and the big covert coats had disappeared in the crowd; indeed, she was beginning to wonder what had kept them so long, when Jack Raymond's voice called her from behind.

      'This way, Miss Drummond, everything's full up this side, but I'll take you across to the other.'

      Jerry, leaning over the railings below the judge's stand, beamed with delight, but Lesley, finding Mr. Lucanaster and the Rightful Heir next her, felt herself mixed up with the extreme racing set and their nefarious practices. So she glared at her guide resentfully, though he was too much absorbed in his race-glass to notice it.

      'Just in time,' he said, looking round with a cheerful smile. 'Now, Jerry, my man! steady to win, or lose--that's the game!'

      He followed his own advice, anyhow, and Lesley, watching his hands, felt instinctively that the man must be a first-class rifle shot. But Jerry followed the advice also, though, with a wonder as to whether the strain was good or bad for the child, she noticed his fingers clenched white on the white railings in his effort to be calm.

      'They're off!'

      The familiar stir of relief ran through the crowd.

      Then came the familiar silence, while every eye was riveted on the confused onward sweep over the curved tan--that silent half-seen sweep, which, for all its dimness, its silence to the outward ear and eye, holds in it from the first, a sob, a strain of fiercest effort for the inward sight and hearing.

      So, at the curve, the trail of horses clustered, spread out again, settled for the straight run home!

      'Bonnie Lesley's had it in her pocket from start to finish, Jerry,' said Jack Raymond, suddenly lowering his glasses.

      'By Jove! I wish I'd----' He broke off and raised the glasses again.

      But by this time others had seen that the little brown mare was coming home to her stables cheerfully, and a blank half-irritated surprise began to leaven the suspense.

      Then a voice--Mr. Lucanaster's--said, 'What a rotten race!'

      It was, to many; yet as the little mare neared the spectators, there was something in the bronze gleam of her straining muscle, something in the deer-like bound of her forward sweep, something in the eager head with its full anxious eye, outstretched as if to pass the post a second sooner, something in the slack swing of a pair of green sleeves telling of a win, hands down, which made every sportsman present forget personal disappointment in a surge of admiration for the game little beast.

      'By Jove! Raymond!' said one of the judges as he passed out, 'what a flyer! I'd give something to own her!'

      'I'd give something to have known her,' corrected another. 'Twenty to one! Ye Gods! What a chance for my widow and orphans!'--

      'Who gave you the tip, Jack?' asked an envious voice.

      'What tip?' replied Jack Raymond imperturbably.

      'Oh! don't fizzle--I saw you--just at the last--you must have about broken the----'

      'Totalisators don't break, my dear fellow,' interrupted Jack. 'Now, Jerry, if Miss Drummond is ready, we can go and claim your winnings.'

      She made no answer till the comparative solitude of re-crossing the course was reached, then she turned to him and said, in a voice to match his own--

      'And your winnings also.'

      Their eyes met, and he took his cue once more from what he saw. 'I'll get them after. It is a good lot, for I backed the little mare properly because she had your name. Only depreciated rupees though! Jerry! can you do sums yet? What is five thousand rupees at one shilling and threepence farthing? That, I think, is to-day's quotation, is it not, Miss Drummond?'

      His reflected defiance made the original stronger.

      'Tell Mr. Raymond, Jerry, that you haven't yet begun his system of compound multiplication, and, as I hope you never will, he had better drop the subject.'

      She had not looked at the straight line of those bushy fair eyebrows, or she might have realised the futility of high-handedness; but she did realise it, with a certain respect, from the first words he spoke.

      'You have no right to object,' he said coolly. 'The coincidence of name was not your doing--nor mine! Nor are you responsible for the mare's win. Therefore, since neither Jerry nor I consider ourselves in your debt for our ill-gotten gains, we leave you out of the question, and for the life of me I can't see why you should insist on being in it when you dislike it.'

      His sledge-hammer common-sense left her gasping, and ere she found words he had reverted to negligent banter. 'But, of course, if you feel guilty, I'll put the rupees into the poor-box---that is always the refuge of the conscience-stricken! I can afford it easily, for I've had a regular run of luck today. So let it be peace and charity with this man! Now, Jerry! for the rupees, and after your pockets are stuffed, I'll take you to your mother and explain.'

      Lesley, feeling limp, admitted to herself that the suggestion was thoughtful. She also yielded the point of manners as she watched him standing before Lady Arbuthnot with Jerry's hand, as ever, tucked confidingly into a bigger one; and yet Grace Arbuthnot was one of those women who, as a rule, make men look rough.

      'I'm sorry to begin by bringing you a bad boy,' he said, evading her set welcome rather abruptly, 'but Miss Drummond will tell you how demoralising I am, so you must forgive the young sinner for the sake of the old one.'

      The words held no intent, and yet as Grace Arbuthnot stood listening and looking at those two--the man and the child hand-in-hand--the faint shrinking which tells of a sudden enlightenment, bodily or spiritual, came to her eyes. 'You can hardly be held responsible, Mr. Raymond,' she said slowly when the tale was done. 'It is Sir George's fault, and I will tell him----' Then, as if to escape from the situation, she turned to Lesley, 'By the way, have you seen him lately? Gone home, did you say! Why?'

      The reply seemed to take her from the present and the past also, so that her manner had all the elaborate graciousness she accorded to mere acquaintances as she said, 'Then I will follow his example and say good-bye, Mr. Raymond. These English telegrams are so interesting, aren't they? Especially now the general election is on; for it means so much to India, doesn't it?'

      'Possibly,' he replied coolly, 'but it means very little to me, Lady Arbuthnot. I am no politician nowadays.'

      Lesley Drummond, as, driving away, she watched the haggard face pass under the big blackboard with its white sums which rose from the motley crowd to show clear against the dusty levels of India, wondered once more if his tone meant contempt or envy.

      Grace Arbuthnot, however, did not notice the tone at all. She was absorbed in something else, and, as soon as they reached Government House, went straight to her husband's writing-room.

      After ten minutes she was still standing where she had paused beside him, and was drawing her dainty pale gloves through her hands impatiently as she stared at the telegram Sir George СКАЧАТЬ