"They belong to me, all of them," he declared, bending over her till his lips touched her cheek. "Some day I am very sure that I shall take them all into my charge."
She disengaged herself from his embrace with a sudden start. Wrayson turned his head. Within a yard or two of them, Madame de Melbain had paused in the centre of the little plot of grass. She was looking at them from underneath her lace parasol, with faintly uplifted eyebrows, and the dawn of a smile upon her beautiful lips. Louise sprang to her feet, and Wrayson followed her example. Madame de Melbain lowered her parasol as though to shut out the sight of the two.
"May I come on?" she asked. "I want to speak to Louise, although I am afraid I am shockingly _de trop._"
Wrayson had an idea, and acted upon it promptly.
"Madame de Melbain," he said, "I believe that you have some influence with Louise, I am sure that you are one of those who sympathize with the unfortunate. Can't I bespeak your good offices?"
She lowered her parasol to the ground, and leaned a little forward upon it. Her eyes were fixed steadily upon Wrayson.
"I love Louise," Wrayson said, "and I believe she cares for me. Nevertheless, she refuses to marry me, and will give no intelligible reason. My first meeting with her was of an extraordinary nature. I assisted her to leave a house in which a murder had been committed, since which time I think we have both run a risk of trouble with the authorities. Louise lives always in the shadow of some mystery, and when I, who surely have the right to know her secrets, beg for her confidence, she refuses it."
"And what is it that you wish me to do?" Madame de Melbain asked softly.
"To use your influence with Louise," Wrayson pleaded. "Let her give me her confidence, and let her accept from me the shelter of my name."
Madame de Melbain was silent for several moments. She seemed to be thinking. Louise's face was expressionless. She had made one attempt to check Wrayson, but recognizing its futility she had at once abandoned it. From below in the valley came the faint whir of the reaping machines, from the rose garden a murmur of bees. But between the two women and the man there was silence--silence which lasted so long that Monsieur Jules, who was watching from a window, called softly upon all the saints of his acquaintance to explain to him of what nature was this mystery, which seemed to be developing, as it were, under his own surveillance.