"Have I not proof you do?" I answered. "Not from Clutterbuck, but from yourself. Have I not proof into what despair your love could throw you?" And I took from my pocket the silk scarf. "Where did I get this?"
She took it from my hands, while her face softened. She drew it through her fingers, and a smile parted her lips. She raised her eyes to me with a certain shyness, and she answered shyly:
"Yet you say you were not curious to know anything of me in London before you started to the West."
The answer was no answer at all. I repeated my question:
"I can but guess," she said; "I did not know that Lieutenant Clutterbuck possessed it. But it could be no one else. You asked it of Lieutenant Clutterbuck in London."
For a moment I could not believe that I had heard a right. I stared at her. It was impossible that any woman could carry effrontery to so high a pitch. But she repeated her words.
"Lieutenant Clutterbuck gave it to you no doubt in London, and--will you tell me?--I should like to know. Did you ask him for it?"
Should I strip away this pretence? Should I compel her to own where I found it and how I came by it? But it seemed not worth while. I turned on my heel without a word, and went straight out through the open door and on to the hillside.
And so this was the second night which I spent in the gorse of Castle Down. One moment I was hot to go back to London and speak to no woman for the rest of my days. The next I was all for finding Cullen Mayle and heaping coals of fire upon Helen's head. The coals of fire carried the day in the end.
As morning broke I walked down to the Palace Inn fully resolved. I would search for Cullen Mayle until I found him. I would bring him back. I would see him married to Helen from a dark corner in St. Mary's Church, and when the pair were properly unhappy and miserable, as they would undoubtedly become--I was very sorry, but miserable they would be--why then I would send her a letter. The writing in the letter should be "Ha! ha!"--not a word more, not even a signature, but just "Ha! ha!" on a blank sheet of paper.
But, as I have said, I had grown very young these last few days.
The search was entirely unsuccessful. Through the months of November and December I travelled hither and thither, but I had no hint as to Cullen Mayle's whereabouts; and towards the end of the year I took passage in a barque bound for St. Mary's, where I landed the day before Christmas and about the fall of the dusk. It was my intention to cross over that night to Tresco and report my ill-success, which I was resolved to do with a deal of stateliness. I was also curious to know whether Peter Tortue was still upon the island.