S.O. for
special services, and to be promoted to the rank of Acting
Rear-Admiral.
"What does it mean?" she asked feverishly. "Henry? A D.S.O. for
Henry for special services?"
"It means," he told her, with a forced smile, "that your husband is,
as you put it in your expressive language, a fraud."
CHAPTER XXXII
For a moment Philippa was unsteady upon her feet. Lessingham led
her to a chair. From outside came the low, cautious hooting of the
motor horn, calling to its dilatory passenger.
"I can not, of course, explain everything to you," he began, in a
tone of unusual restraint, "but I do know that for the last two
years your husband has been responsible to the Admiralty for most
of the mine fields around your east coast. To begin with, his stay
in Scotland was a sham. He was most of the time with the fleet and
round the coasts. His fishing excursions from here have been of
the same order, only more so. All the places of importance, from
here to the mouth of the Thames, have been mined, or rather the
approaches to them have been mined, under his instructions. My
mission in this country, here at Dreymarsh--do not shrink from
me if you can help it--was to obtain a copy of his mine protection
scheme of a certain town on the east coast."
"Why should I shrink from you?" she murmured. "This is all too
wonderful! What a little beast Henry must think me!" she added,
with truly feminine and marvellously selfish irrelevance.
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