"I suppose he was very much cut up?" remarked Lady Chesney.
"That goes without saying," replied Luce. "Of course. He was very fond
of me; or, why should he have asked me to marry him? You wouldn't ask
the question if you had seen him the day I broke with him. I never saw a
man so cut up. It made me quite ill."
"Then the love was not altogether on one side, dear?" said Lady Chesney.
Lady Luce shrugged her white shoulders in eloquent silence.
"Where did the dramatic parting take place?" asked Lady Chesney.
"Here," said Lady Luce.
"Here?"
"Well, near here. At a little port--fishing place, called--I forget the
name--something Mills."
"Oh! you mean Shorne Mills."
Nell's discomfort increased, and yet a keen interest reluctantly awoke
in her. It seemed so strange to be listening to what seemed to her a
life's drama, the scene of which was pitched in Shorne Mills.
"The yacht put in quite unexpectedly," continued Luce. "I didn't want to
land at all, but Archie worried me into doing so. We climbed a miserable
kind of steep place. I refused to go any farther. They went on, and I
turned into a kind of recess to rest--and found Drake there."
For a moment the name did not strike with its full significance upon
Nell's mind, and the soft voice had continued for a sentence or two
before she realized that the man of whom this woman was speaking, the
lover whose loss she was regretting, bore the same name as Drake. She
had no suspicion that the men were the same; it only seemed strange and
almost incredible that there should be two Drakes at Shorne Mills.
"I can imagine the scene," said Lady Chesney; "and I can quite
understand how you feel about it. But, Luce, is it altogether hopeless?"
Lady Luce laughed bitterly.
"You don't know Drake," she said. There was a pause. "And yet"--she
hesitated, and her tone became thoughtful and speculative--"sometimes I
think that I could get him back. He is very fond of me; it must have
nearly broken his heart. Yes; sometimes I feel sure that if I could have
him to myself for, say, ten minutes, it would all come right."
"Don't you know where he is?"
"No. There was a row royal between his uncle and him, and he
disappeared. No one knows where he is. It is just possible that he has
gone abroad."