The Malefactor

BOOK I

A SOCIETY SCANDAL

Tall and burly, with features and skin hardened by exposure to the

sun and winds of many climates, he looked like a man ready to face all

hardships, equal to any emergency. Already one seemed to see the clothes

and habits of civilization falling away from him, the former to be

replaced by the stern, unlovely outfit of the war correspondent who

plays the game. They crowded round him in the club smoking room, for

these were his last few minutes. They had dined him, toasted him, and

the club loving cup had been drained to his success and his safe return.

For Lovell was a popular member of this very Bohemian gathering, and he

was going to the Far East, at a few hours’ notice, to represent one of

the greatest of English dailies.

A pale, slight young man, who stood at this right hand, was speaking.

His name was Walter Aynesworth, and he was a writer of short stories--a

novelist in embryo.

“What I envy you most, Lovell,” he declared, “is your escape from the

deadly routine of our day by day life. Here in London it seems to me

that we live the life of automatons. We lunch, we dine, we amuse or we

bore ourselves, and we sleep--and all the rest of the world does the

same. Passion we have outgrown, emotion we have destroyed by analysis.

The storms which shake humanity break over other countries. What is

there left to us of life? Civilization ministers too easily to our

needs, existence has become a habit. No wonder that we are a tired

race.”

“Life is the same, the world over,” another man remarked. “With every

forward step in civilization, life must become more mechanical. London

is no worse than Paris, or Paris than Tokyo.”

Aynesworth shook his head. “I don’t agree with you,” he replied. “It

is the same, more or less, with all European countries, but the Saxon

temperament, with its mixture of philosophy and philistinism, more than

any other, gravitates towards the life mechanical. Existence here has

become fossilized. We wear a mask upon our faces; we carry a gauge for

our emotions. Lovell is going where the one great force of primitive

life remains. He is going to see war. He is going to breathe an

atmosphere hot with naked passion; he is going to rub shoulders with men

who walk hand in hand with death. That’s the sort of tonic we all want,

to remind us that we are human beings with blood in our veins, and not

sawdust-stuffed dolls.”

Then Lovell broke silence. He took his pipe from his mouth, and he

addressed Aynesworth.

“Walter,” he said, “you are talking rot. There is nothing very complex

or stimulating about the passion of war, when men kill one another

unseen; where you feel the sting in your heart which comes from God

knows where, and you crumple up, with never a chance to have a go at the

chap who has potted you from the trenches, or behind a rock, a thousand

yards off. Mine is going to be, except from a spectacular point of view,

a very barren sort of year, compared with what yours might be if the

fire once touched your eyes. I go where life is cruder and fiercer,

perhaps, but you remain in the very city of tragedies.”

Aynesworth laughed, as he lit a fresh cigarette.

“City of tragedies!” he exclaimed. “It sounds all right, but it’s bunkum

all the same. Show me where they lie, Lovell, old chap. Tell me where to

stir the waters.”

Several of those who were watching him noticed a sudden change in

Lovell’s face. The good humor and bonhomie called up by this last

evening amongst his old friends had disappeared. His face had fallen

into graver lines, his eyes seemed fixed with a curious introspective

steadiness on a huge calendar which hung from the wall. When at last he

turned towards Aynesworth, his tone was almost solemn.

“Some of them don’t lie so very far from the surface, Walter,” he said.

“There is one”--he took out his watch--“there is one which, if you like,

I will tell you about. I have just ten minutes.”

“Good!”

“Go ahead, Lovell, old chap!”

“Have a drink first!”

He held out his hand. They were all silent. He stood up amongst them, by

far the tallest man there, with his back to the chimney piece, and his

eyes still lingering about that calendar.

“Thirteen years ago,” he said, “two young men--call them by their

Christian names, Wingrave and Lumley--shared a somewhat extensive

hunting box in Leicestershire. They were both of good family, well

off, and fairly popular, Lumley the more so perhaps. He represented the

ordinary type of young Englishman, with a stronger dash than usual

of selfishness. Wingrave stood for other things. He was reticent and

impenetrable. People called him mysterious.”

Lovell paused for a moment to refill his pipe. The sudden light upon

his face, as he struck a match, seemed to bring into vivid prominence

something there, indescribable in words, yet which affected his hearers

equally with the low gravity of his speech. The man himself was feeling

the tragedy of the story he told.

“They seemed,” he continued, “always to get on well together, until they

fell in love with the same woman. Her name we will say was Ruth. She

was the wife of the Master of Hounds with whom they hunted. If I had the

story-writing gifts of Aynesworth here, I would try to describe her. As

I haven’t, I will simply give you a crude idea of what she seemed like

to me.

“She was neither dark nor fair, short nor tall; amongst a crowd of other

women, she seemed undistinguishable by any special gifts; yet when you

had realized her there was no other woman in the room. She had the eyes

of an angel, only they were generally veiled; she had the figure of a

miniature Venus, soft and with delicate curves, which seemed somehow

to be always subtly asserting themselves, although she affected in

her dress an almost puritanical simplicity. Her presence in a room was

always felt at once. There are some women, beautiful or plain, whose sex

one scarcely recognizes. She was not one of these! She seemed to carry

with her the concentrated essence of femininity. Her quiet

movements, the almost noiseless rustling of her clothes, the quaint,

undistinguishable perfumes which she used, her soft, even voice, were

all things which seemed individual to her. She was like a study in

undernotes, and yet”--Lovell paused a moment--“and yet no Spanish

dancing woman, whose dark eyes and voluptuous figure have won her the

crown of the demi-monde, ever possessed that innate and mystic gift of

kindling passion like that woman. I told you I couldn’t describe her! I

can’t! I can only speak of effects. If my story interests you, you must

build up your own idea of her.”

“Becky Sharpe!” Aynesworth murmured.

Lovell nodded.

“Perhaps,” he admitted, “only Ruth was a lady. To go on with my story.

A hunting coterie, as you fellows know, means lots of liberty, and a

general free-and-easiness amongst the sexes, which naturally leads to

flirtations more or less serious. Ruth’s little affairs were either too

cleverly arranged, or too harmless for gossip. Amongst the other women

of the hunt, she seemed outwardly almost demure. But one day--there was

a row!”

Lovell paused, and took a drink from a glass by his side.

“I hope you fellows won’t think that I’m spinning this out,” he said.

“It is, after all, in itself only a commonplace story, but I’ve carried

it locked up in my memory for years, and now that I’ve let it loose,

it unwinds itself slowly. This is how the row came about. Lumley one

afternoon missed Wingrave and Ruth from the hunting field. Someone most

unfortunately happened to tell him that they had left the run together,

and had been seen riding together towards White Lodge, which was the

name of the house where these two young men lived. Lumley followed them.

He rode into the stable yard, and found there Ruth’s mare and Wingrave’s

covert hack, from which he had not changed when they had left the field.

Both animals had evidently been ridden hard, and there was something

ominous in the smile with which the head groom told him that Lady Ruth

and Wingrave were in the house.

“The two men had separate dens. Wingrave’s was much the better

furnished, as he was a young man of considerable taste, and he had also

fitted it with sporting trophies collected from many countries. This

room was at the back of the house, and Lumley deliberately crossed the

lawn and looked in at the window.”

Lovell paused for a moment or two to relight his pipe.

“Remember,” he continued, “that I have to put this story together,

partly from facts which came to my knowledge afterwards, and partly from

reasonable deductions. I may say at once that I do not know what Lumley

saw when he played the spy. The housekeeper had just taken tea in, and

it is possible that Wingrave may have been holding his guest’s hand,

or that something in their faces or attitude convinced him that his

jealousy was well founded. Anyhow, it is certain that Lumley was half

beside himself with rage when he strode away from that window. Then in

the avenue he must have heard the soft patter of hounds coming along the

lane, or perhaps seen the pink coats of the huntsmen through the hedge.

This much is certain. He hurried down the drive, and returned with

Ruth’s husband.”

Lovell took another drink. No one spoke. No one even made a remark. The

little circle of listeners had caught something of his own gravity. The

story was an ordinary one enough, but something in Lovell’s manner

of telling it seemed somehow to bring into their consciousness the

apprehension of the tangled web of passions which burned underneath its

sordid details.

“Ruth’s husband--Sir William I will call him--stood side by side with

Lumley before the window. What they saw I cannot tell you. They entered

the room. The true story of what happened there I doubt if anyone will

ever know. The evidence of servants spoke of raised voices and the sound

of a heavy fall. When they were summoned, Sir William lay on the floor

unconscious. Lady Ruth had fainted; Lumley and Wingrave were both

bending over the former. On the floor were fragments of paper, which

were afterwards put together, and found to be the remains of a check for

a large amount, payable to Lady Ruth, and signed by Wingrave.

“The sequel is very soon told. Sir William died in a few days, and

Wingrave, on the evidence of Lumley and Ruth, was committed for

manslaughter, and sent to prison for fifteen years!”

Lovell paused. A murmur went round the little group of listeners. The

story, after all, except for Lovell’s manner of telling it, was an

ordinary one. Everyone felt that there was something else behind.

So they asked no questions whilst Lovell drank his whisky and soda, and

refilled his pipe. Again his eyes seemed to wander to the calendar.

“According to Lady Ruth’s evidence,” he said thoughtfully, “her husband

entered the room at the exact moment when she was rejecting Wingrave’s

advances, and indignantly refusing a check which he was endeavoring to

persuade her to accept. A struggle followed between the two men, with

fatal results for Sir William. That,” he added slowly, “is the story

which the whole world read, and which most of it believes. Here,

however, are a few corrections of my own, and a suggestion or two for

you, Aynesworth, and those of you who like to consider yourselves truth

seekers. First, then, Lady Ruth was a self-invited guest at White Lodge.

She had asked Wingrave to return with her, and as they sat together in

his room, she confessed that she was worried, and asked for his

advice. She was in some money trouble, ingeniously explained, no doubt.

Wingrave, with the utmost delicacy, offered his assistance, which was of

course accepted. It was exactly what she was there for. She was in

the act of taking the check, when she saw her husband and Lumley. Her

reputation was at stake. Her subsequent course of action and evidence

becomes obvious. The check unexplained was ruin. She explained it!

“Of the struggle, and of the exact means by which Sir William received

his injuries, I know nothing. There is the evidence! It may or may not

be true. The most serious part of the case, so far as Lady Ruth was

concerned, lay in the facts as to her husband’s removal from the White

Lodge. In an unconscious state he was driven almost twelve miles at a

walking pace. No stimulants were administered, and though they passed

two doctors’ houses no stop was made. A doctor was not sent for until

half an hour after they reached home, and even then they seemed to have

chosen the one who lived furthest away. The conclusion is obvious enough

to anyone who knows the facts of the case. Sir William was not meant to

live!

“Wingrave’s trial was a famous one. He had no friends and few

sympathizers, and he insisted upon defending himself. His cross

examination of the man who had been his friend created something like a

sensation. Amongst other things, he elicited the fact that Lumley, after

first seeing the two together, had gone and fetched Sir William. It was

a terrible half hour for Lumley, and when he left the box, amongst the

averted faces of his friends, the sweat was pouring down his face. I can

seem him now, as though it were yesterday. Then Lady Ruth followed. She

was quietly dressed; the effect she produced was excellent. She told

her story. She hinted at the insult. She spoke of the check. She had

imagined no harm in accepting Wingrave’s invitation to tea. Men and

women of the hunt, who were on friendly terms, treated one another as

comrades. She spoke of the blow. She had seen it delivered, and so on.

And all the time, I sat within a few feet of Wingrave, and I knew that

in the black box before him were burning love letters from this woman,

to the man whose code of honor would ever have protected her husband

from disgrace; and I knew that I was listening to the thing which you,

Aynesworth, and many of your fellow story writers, have so wisely and so

ignorantly dilated upon--the vengeance of a woman denied. Only I heard

the words themselves, cold, earnest words, fall one by one from her

lips like a sentence of doom--and there was life in the thing, life and

death! When she had finished, the whole court was in a state of tension.

Everyone was leaning forward. It would be the most piquant, the most

wonderful cross examination every heard--the woman lying to save her

honor and to achieve her vengeance; the man on trial for his life.

Wingrave stood up. Lady Ruth raised her veil, and looked at him from

the witness box. There was the most intense silence I ever realized.

Who could tell the things which flashed from one to the other across the

dark well of the court; who could measure the fierce, silent scorn which

seemed to blaze from his eyes, as he held her there--his slave until he

chose to give the signal for release? At last he looked away towards

the judge, and the woman fell forward in the box gasping, a crumpled up,

nerveless heap of humanity.

“‘My lord,’ he said, ‘I have no questions to ask this witness!’

“Everyone staggered. Wingrave’s few friends were horrified. After that

there was, of course, no hope for him. He got fifteen years’ penal

servitude.”

Like an echo from that pent-up murmur of feeling which had rippled

through the crowded court many years ago, his little group of auditors

almost gasped as Lovell left his place and strolled down the room.

Aynesworth laid his hand upon his shoulder.

“All the time,” he said, “you were looking at that calendar! Why?”

Lovell once more faced them. He was standing with his back to a round

table, strewn with papers and magazines.

“It was the date,” he said, “and the fact that I must leave England

within a few hours, which forced this story from me. Tomorrow Wingrave

will be free! Listen, Aynesworth,” he continued, turning towards him,

“and the rest of you who fancy that it is I who am leaving a humdrum

city for the world of tragedies! I leave you the legacy of a greater one

than all Asia will yield to me! Lady Ruth is married to Lumley, and

they hold today in London a very distinguished social position. Tomorrow

Wingrave takes a hand in the game. He was once my friend; I was in court

when he was tried; I was intimately acquainted with the lawyer’s clerk

who had the arrangement of his papers. I know what no one else breathing

knows. He is a man who never forgives; a man who was brutally deceived,

and who for years has had no other occupation than to brood upon

his wrongs. He is very wealthy indeed, still young, he has marvelous

tenacity of purpose, and he has brains. Tomorrow he will be free!”

Aynesworth drew a little breath.

“I wonder,” he murmured, “if anything will happen.”

Lovell shrugged his shoulders.

“Where I go,” he said, “the cruder passions may rage, and life and

death be reckoned things of little account. But you who remain--who can

tell?--you may look into the face of mightier things.”

OUTSIDE THE PALE

Three men were together in a large and handsomely furnished sitting room

of the Clarence Hotel, in Piccadilly. One, pale, quiet, and unobtrusive,

dressed in sober black, the typical lawyer’s clerk, was busy gathering

up a collection of papers and documents from the table, over which they

had been strewn. His employer, who had more the appearance of a country

gentleman than the junior partner in the well-known firm of Rocke and

Son, solicitors, had risen to his feet, and was drawing on his gloves.

At the head of the table was the client.

“I trust, Sir Wingrave, that you are satisfied with this account of our

stewardship,” the solicitor said, as his clerk left the room. “We have

felt it a great responsibility at times, but everything seems to

have turned out very well. The investments, of course, are all above

suspicion.”

“Perfectly satisfied, I thank you,” was the quiet reply. “You seem to

have studied my interests in a very satisfactory manner.”

Mr. Rocke had other things to say, but his client’s manner seemed

designed to create a barrier of formality between them. He hesitated,

unwilling to leave, yet finding it exceedingly difficult to say the

things which were in his mind. He temporized by referring back to

matters already discussed, solely for the purpose of prolonging the

interview.

“You have quite made up your mind, then, to put the Tredowen property on

the market,” he remarked. “You will excuse my reminding you of the fact

that you have large accumulated funds in hand, and nearly a hundred

thousand pounds worth of easily realizable securities. Tredowen has

been in your mother’s family for a good many years, and I should doubt

whether it will be easily disposed of.”

The man at the head of the table raised his head. He looked steadily at

the lawyer, who began to wish that he had left the room with his clerk.

Decidedly, Sir Wingrave Seton was not an easy man to get on with.

“My mind is quite made up, thank you, on this and all other matters

concerning which I have given you instructions,” was the calm reply. “I

have had plenty of time for consideration,” he added drily.

The lawyer had his opening at last, and he plunged.

“Sir Wingrave,” he said, “we were at college together, and our

connection is an old one. You must forgive me if I say how glad I am to

see you here, and to know that your bad time is over. I can assure you

that you have had my deepest sympathy. Nothing ever upset me so much as

that unfortunate affair. I sincerely trust that you will do your best

now to make up for lost time. You are still young, and you are rich. Let

us leave business alone now, for the moment. What can I do for you as a

friend, if you will allow me to call you so?”

Wingrave turned slightly in his chair. In his altered position, a ray of

sunshine fell for the first time upon his gaunt but striking face. Lined

and hardened, as though by exposure and want of personal care, there was

also a lack of sensibility, an almost animal callousness, on the coldly

lit eyes and unflinching mouth, which readily suggested some terrible

and recent experience--something potent enough to have dried up the

human nature out of the man and left him soulless. His clothes had the

impress of the ready-made, although he wore them with a distinction

which was obviously inherent; and notwithstanding the fact that he

seemed to have been writing, he wore gloves.

“I am much obliged to you, Rocke,” he said. “Let me repeat your

question. What is there that you can do for me?”

Mr. Rocke was apparently a little nonplussed. The absolute

imperturbability of the man who had once been his friend was

disconcerting.

“Well,” he said, “the governor sent me instead of coming himself,

because he thought that I might be more useful to you. London changes so

quickly--you would hardly know your way about now. I should like you to

come and dine with me tonight, and I’ll take you round anywhere you care

to go; and then if you don’t want to go back to your old tradespeople, I

could take you to my tailor and bookmaker.”

“Is that all?” Wingrave asked calmly.

Rocke was again taken aback.

“Certainly not,” he answered. “There must be many ways in which I could

be useful to you, but I can’t think of them all at once. I am here to

serve you professionally or as a friend, to the best of my ability. Can

you suggest anything yourself? What do you want?”

“That is the question,” Wingrave said, “which I have been asking myself.

Unfortunately, up to now, I have not been able to answer it. Regarding

myself, however, from the point of view of a third party, I should

say that the thing I was most in need of was the society of my fellow

creatures.”

“Exactly,” Rocke declared. “That is what I thought you would say! It

won’t take us long to arrange something of the sort for you.”

“Can you put me up,” Wingrave asked, “at your club, and introduce me to

your friends there?”

Rocke flinched before the steady gaze of those cold enquiring eyes, in

which he fancied, too, that a gleam of malice shone. The color mounted

to his cheeks. It was a most embarrassing situation.

“I can introduce you to some decent fellows, of course, and to some very

charming ladies,” he said hesitatingly, “but as to the club--I--well,

don’t you think yourself that it would scarcely be wise to--”

“Exactly,” Wingrave interrupted. “And these ladies that you spoke of--”

“Oh! There’s no difficulty about that,” Rocke declared with an air of

relief. “I can make up a little dinner party for tonight, if you like.

There’s an awfully smart American woman over here, with the Fanciful Fan

Company--I’m sure you’d like her, and she’d come like a shot. Then I’d

get Daisy Vane--she’s all right. They don’t know anything, and wouldn’t

care if they did. Besides, you could call yourself what you liked.”

“Thank you,” Wingrave said. “I am afraid I did not make myself quite

clear. I was not thinking of play fellows. I was thinking of the men and

women of my own order. Shall I put the matter quite clearly? Can I take

my place in society under my own name, renew my old friendships and

build up new ones? Can I do this even at the risk of a few difficulties

at first? I am not a sensitive man. I am prepared for the usual number

of disagreeable incidents. But can I win my way through?”

With his back against the wall, Rocke displayed more courage. Besides,

what was the use of mincing matters with a man who had all the

appearance of a human automaton, who never flinched or changed color,

and whose passions seemed dried up and withered things?

“I am afraid not, Sir Wingrave,” he said. “I should not recommend you to

try, at any rate for the present.”

“Give me your reasons,” was the cool response.

“I will do so with pleasure,” Rocke answered. “About the time of the

trial and immediately afterwards, there was a certain amount of

sympathy for you. People felt that you must have received a good deal of

provocation, and there were several unexplained incidents which told

in your favor. Today, I should think that the feeling amongst those

who remember the affair at all is rather the other way. You heard, I

believe, that Lady Ruth married Lumley Barrington?”

“Yes.”

“Barrington has been very successful at the Bar, and they say that he

is certain of a judgeship before long. His wife has backed him up well,

they have entertained lavishly, and today I should think that she is one

of the most popular hostesses in London. In her earlier days, I used to

hear that she was one of the very fast hunting set--that was the time

when you knew her. I can assure you that if ever that was true, she is

a completely altered woman today. She is patroness of half a dozen great

charitable schemes, she writes very clever articles in the Reviews on

the Betterment of the Poor Question, and royalty itself visits at her

house.”

“I see,” Wingrave said drily. “I was not aware of these changes.”

“If ever,” Mr. Rocke continued, “people were inclined to look a little

askance at her, that has all gone by. Today she is one of the last women

in the world of whom people would be likely to believe ill.”

Wingrave nodded slowly.

“I am very much obliged to you,” he said, “for this information. You

seem to have come here today, Mr. Rocke, with good intentions towards

me. Let me ask you to put yourself in my place. I am barely forty

years old, and I am rich. I want to make the most of my life--under the

somewhat peculiar circumstances. How and where should you live?”

“It depends a little upon your tastes, of course,” Rocke answered. “You

are a sportsman, are you not?”

“I am fond of sport,” Wingrave answered. “At least I was. At present I

am not conscious of having any positive tastes.”

“I think,” Rocke continued, “that I should first of all change my

name. Then, without making any effort to come into touch with your old

friends, I should seek acquaintance amongst the Bohemian world of London

and Paris. There I might myself, perhaps, be able to help you. For

sport, you might fish in Norway or Iceland, or shoot in Hungary; you

could run to a yacht if you cared about it, and if you fancy big game,

why, there’s all Africa before you.”

Wingrave listened, without changing a muscle of his face.

“Your programme,” he remarked, “presupposes that I have no ambitions

beyond the pursuit of pleasure.”

Rocke shrugged his shoulders. He was becoming more at his ease. He felt

that his advice was sound, that he was showing a most comprehensive

grasp of the situation.

“I am afraid,” he said, “that none of what we call the careers are open

to you. You could not enter Parliament, and you are too old for the

professions. The services, of course, are impossible. You might write,

if your tastes ran that way. Nowadays, it seems to be the fashion to

record one’s experiences in print, if--if they should happen to be in

any way exceptional. I can think of nothing else!”

“I am very much obliged to you,” Wingrave said. “Your suggestions are

eminently practical. I will think them over. Don’t let me keep you any

longer!”

“About this evening,” Rocke remarked. “Shall I fix up that little dinner

party? You have only to say the word!”

“I am very much obliged to you, but I think not,” answered Wingrave.

“I will dine with you alone some evening, with pleasure! Not just as

present!”

Rocke looked, as he felt, puzzled. He honestly wished to be of service

to this man, but he was at a loss to know what further suggestion he

could make. There was something impenetrable about his client, something

which he could not arrive at, behind the hard, grim face and measured

words. He could not even guess as to what the man’s hopes or intentions

were. Eventually, although with some reluctance, he took up his hat.

“Well, Sir Wingrave,” he said, “if there is really nothing I can do

for you, I will go. If you should change your mind, you have only to

telephone. You can command me at any time. I am only anxious to be of

service to you.”

“You have already been of service to me,” Wingrave answered quietly.

“You have spoken the truth! You have helped me to realize my position

more exactly. Will you give your father my compliments and thanks, and

say that I am entirely satisfied with the firm’s conduct of affairs

during my--absence?”

Rocke nodded.

“Certainly,” he said. “That will please the governor! I must be off now.

I hope you’ll soon be feeling quite yourself again, Sir Wingrave! It

must seem a bit odd at first, I suppose, but it will wear off all right.

What you want, after all, is society. Much better let me arrange that

little dinner for tonight!”

Wingrave shook his head.

“Later on, perhaps,” he answered. “Good morning!”

A STUDENT OF CHARACTER

Left alone, Wingrave walked for several minutes up and down the room,

his hands behind him, his head bent. He walked, not restlessly, but

with measured footsteps. His mind was fixed steadfastly upon the one

immediate problem of his own future. His interview with Rocke had

unsettled--to a certain extent unnerved--him. Was this freedom for which

he had longed so passionately, this return into civilized life, to mean

simply the exchange of an iron-barred cell for a palace whose outer

gates were as hopelessly locked, even though the key was of gold!

Freedom! Was it after all an illusion? Was his to be the hog’s paradise

of empty delights; were the other worlds indeed forbidden? He moved

abruptly to the window and threw it open. Below was Piccadilly,

brilliant with May sunshine, surging with life. Motors and carriages,

omnibuses and hansoms, were all jostled together in a block; the

pavements were thronged with a motley and ever-hurrying crowd. It seemed

to him, accustomed to the callous and hopeless appearance of a less

happy tribe, that the faces of these people were all aflame with the

joy of the springtime. The perfume from the great clusters of yellow

daffodils and violets floated up from the flower sellers’ baskets

below; the fresh, warm air seemed to bring him poignant memories of

crocus-starred lawns, of trim beds of hyacinths, of the song of birds,

of the perfume of drooping lilac. Grim and motionless, as a figure of

fate, Wingrave looked down from his window, with cold, yet discerning

eyes. He was still an alien, a denizen in another world from that which

flowed so smoothly and pleasantly below. It was something to which he

did not belong, which he doubted, indeed, if ever again he could enter.

He had no part in it, no share in that vigorous life, whose throbbings

he could dimly feel, though his own heart was beating to a slower and a

very different tune. They were his fellows in name only. Between him and

them stood the judgment of--Rocke!

The evil chances of the world are many! It was whilst his thoughts

traveled in this fashion that the electric landaulette of Lady Ruth

Barrington glided round the corner from St. James’ Street, and joined

in the throng of vehicles slowly making their way down Piccadilly. His

attention was attracted first by the white and spotless liveries of the

servants--the form of locomotion itself was almost new to him. Then he

saw the woman who leaned back amongst the cushions. She was elegantly

dressed; she wore no veil; she did not look a day more than thirty.

She was attractive, from the tips of her patent shoes, to the white

bow which floated on the top of her lace parasol; a perfectly dressed,

perfectly turned out woman. She had, too, the lazy confident air of

a woman sure of herself and her friends. She knew nothing of the look

which flashed down upon her from the window overhead.

Wingrave turned away with a little gasp; a half-stifled exclamation had

crept out from between his teeth. His cheeks seemed paler than ever, and

his eyes unnaturally bright. Nevertheless, he was completely master of

himself. On the table was a large deed box of papers, which Rocke had

left for his inspection. From its recesses he drew out a smaller box,

unlocked it with a key from his chain, and emptied its sole contents--a

small packet of letters--upon the table. He counted them one by one.

They were all there--and on top a photograph. A breath of half-forgotten

perfume stole out into the room. He opened one of the letters, and its

few passionate words came back to his memory, linked with a hundred

other recollections, the desire of her eyes, of her lips raised for his,

the caressing touch of her fingers. He found himself wondering, in an

impersonal sort of way, that these things should so little affect him.

His blood ran no less coldly, nor did his pulses beat the faster, for

this backward glance into things finished.

There was a knock at the door. He raised his head.

“Come in!”

A slim, fair young man obeyed the summons, and advanced into the room.

Wingrave eyed him with immovable face. Nevertheless, his manner somehow

suggested a displeased surprise.

“Sir Wingrave Seton, I believe?” the intruder said cheerfully.

“That is my name,” Wingrave admitted; “but my orders below have

evidently been disobeyed. I am not disposed to receive visitors today.”

The intruder was not in the least abashed. He laid his hat upon the

table, and felt in his pocket.

“I am very sorry,” he said. “They did try to keep me out, but I told

them that my business was urgent. I have been a journalist, you see, and

am used to these little maneuvers.”

Wingrave looked at him steadily, with close-drawn eyebrows.

“Am I to understand,” he said “that you are in here in your journalistic

capacity?”

The newcomer shook his head.

“Pray do not think,” he said, “that I should be guilty of such an

impertinence. My name is Aynesworth. Walter Aynesworth. I have a letter

for you from Lovell. You remember him, I daresay. Here it is!”

He produced it from his breast coat pocket, and handed it over.

“Where is Lovell?” Wingrave asked.

“He left for the East early this morning,” Aynesworth answered. “He had

to go almost at an hour’s notice.”

Wingrave broke the seal, and read the letter through. Afterwards he tore

it into small pieces and threw them into the grate.

“What do you want with me, Mr. Aynesworth?” he asked.

“I want to be your secretary,” Aynesworth answered.

“My secretary,” Wingrave repeated. “I am much obliged to you, but I am

not requiring anyone in that capacity.”

“Pardon me,” Aynesworth answered, “but I think you are. You may not have

realized it yet, but if you will consider the matter carefully, I think

you will agree with me that a secretary, or companion of some sort, is

exactly what you do need.”

“Out of curiosity,” Wingrave remarked, “I should be glad to know why you

think so.”

“Certainly,” Aynesworth answered. “In the first place, I know the story

of your life, and the unfortunate incident which has kept you out of

society for the last ten years.”

“From Lovell, I presume,” Wingrave interrupted.

“Precisely,” Aynesworth admitted. “Ten years’ absence from English life

today means that you return to it an absolute and complete stranger. You

would be like a Cook’s tourist abroad, without a guide or a Baedeker, if

you attempted to rely upon yourself. Now I am rather a Bohemian sort of

person, but I have just the sort of all-round knowledge which would be

most useful to you. I have gone a little way into society, and I know

something about politics. I can bring you up-to-date on both these

matters. I know where to dine well in town, and where to be amused. I

can tell you where to get your clothes, and the best place for all the

etceteras. If you want to travel, I can speak French and German; and I

consider myself a bit of a sportsman.”

“I am sure,” Wingrave answered, “I congratulate you upon your

versatility. I am quite convinced! I shall advertise at once for a

secretary!”

“Why advertise?” Aynesworth asked. “I am here!”

Wingrave shook his head.

“You would not suit me at all,” he answered.

“Why not?” Aynesworth asked. “I forget whether I mentioned all my

accomplishments. I am an Oxford man with a degree, and I can write

tolerable English. I’ve a fair head for figures, and I don’t require too

large a salary.”

“Exactly,” Wingrave answered drily. “You are altogether too desirable? I

should not require an Admirable Crichton for my purpose.”

Aynesworth remained unruffled.

“All right,” he said. “You know best, of course! Suppose you tell me

what sort of a man would satisfy you!”

“Why should I?” Wingrave asked coldly.

“It would amuse me,” Aynesworth answered, “and I’ve come a mile or so

out of my way, and given up a whole morning to come and see you. Go on!

It won’t take long!”

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

“I will not remind you,” he said, “that you came on your own initiative.

I owe you the idea, however, so I will tell you the sort of person I

shall look out for. In the first place, I do not require him to be a

gentleman.”

“I can be a shocking bounder at times,” Aynesworth murmured.

“He must be more a sort of an upper servant,” Wingrave continued. “I

should require him to obey me implicitly, whatever I told him to do. You

have a conscience, I presume?”

“Very little,” Aynesworth answered. “I have been a journalist.”

“You have the remnants of one, at all events,” Wingrave said, “quite

sufficient, no doubt, to interfere with your possible usefulness to me.

I must have someone who is poor--too poor to question my will, or to

dispute my orders, whatever they might be.”

“I have never,” Aynesworth declared, “possessed a superfluous half-crown

in my life.”

“You probably possess what is called a sense of honor,” Wingrave

continued. “You would certainly disapprove of some of my proceedings,

and you would probably disobey my orders.”

“Sense of honor!” Aynesworth repeated. “You have too flattering an

opinion of me. I don’t know what it is. I always cheat at cards if I get

the chance.”

Wingrave turned away.

“You are a fool,” he said, “and you won’t suit me.”

“When can I come?” Aynesworth asked.

“You can stay now,” Wingrave answered. “Your salary will be four hundred

a year. You will live at my expense. The day you disobey an order of

mine, you go! No notice, mind!”

“Agreed,” Aynesworth answered. “What should I do first? Send you a

tailor, I should think.”

Wingrave nodded.

“I will give the afternoon to that sort of people,” he said. “Here is a

list of the tradesmen I used to deal with. Kindly avoid them.”

Aynesworth glanced at the slip of paper, and nodded.

“All out-of-date now,” he remarked. “I’ll be back to lunch.”

A DELICATE MISSION

Aynesworth was back in less than an hour. He carried under his arm a

brown paper parcel, the strings of which he commenced at once to untie.

Wingrave, who had been engrossed in the contents of his deed box,

watched him with immovable face.

“The tailor will be here at two-thirty,” he announced, “and the other

fellows will follow on at half an hour’s interval. The manicurist and

the barber are coming at six o’clock.”

Wingrave nodded.

“What have you there?” he asked, pointing to the parcel.

“Cigars and cigarettes, and jolly good ones, too,” Aynesworth answered,

opening a flat tin box, and smelling the contents appreciatively. “Try

one of these! The finest Turkish tobacco grown!”

“I don’t smoke,” Wingrave answered.

“Oh! You’ve got out of it, but you must pick it up again,” Aynesworth

declared. “Best thing out for the nerves--sort of humanizes one, you

know!”

“Humanizes one, does it?” Wingrave remarked softly. “Well, I’ll try!”

He took a cigarette from the box, curtly inviting Aynesworth to do the

same.

“What about lunch?” the latter asked. “Would you care to come round with

me to the Cannibal Club? Rather a Bohemian set, but there are always

some good fellows there.”

“I am much obliged,” Wingrave answered. “If you will ask me again in

a few days’ time, I shall be very pleased. I do not wish to leave the

hotel just at present.”

“Do you want me?” Aynesworth asked.

“Not until five o’clock,” Wingrave answered. “I should be glad if you

would leave me now, and return at that hour. In the meantime, I have a

commission for you.”

“Good!” Aynesworth declared. “What is it?”

“You will go,” Wingrave directed, “to No. 13, Cadogan Street, and you

will enquire for Lady Ruth Barrington. If she should be out, ascertain

the time of her return, and wait for her.”

“If she is out of town?”

“She is in London,” Wingrave answered. “I have seen her from the window

this morning. You will give her a message. Say that you come from me,

and that I desire to see her tomorrow. The time and place she can fix,

but I should prefer not to go to her house.”

Aynesworth stooped down to relight his cigarette. He felt that Wingrave

was watching him, and he wished to keep his face hidden.

“I am unknown to Lady Ruth,” he remarked. “Supposing she should refuse

to see me?”

Wingrave looked at him coldly.

“I have told you what I wish done,” he said. “The task does not seem

to be a difficult one. Please see to it that I have an answer by five

o’clock-----”

Aynesworth lunched with a few of his particular friends at the club.

They heard of his new adventure with somewhat doubtful approbation.

“You’ll never stand the routine, old chap!”

“And what about your own work!”

“What will the Daily Scribbler people say?”

Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t imagine it will last very long,” he answered, “and I shall get

a fair amount of time to myself. The work I do on the Daily Scribbler

doesn’t amount to anything. It was a chance I simply couldn’t refuse.”

The editor of a well-known London paper leaned back in his chair, and

pinched a cigar carefully.

“You’ll probably find the whole thing a sell,” he remarked. “The story,

as Lovell told it, sounded dramatic enough, and if the man were to come

back to life again, fresh and vigorous, things might happen, provided,

of course, that Lovell was right in his suppositions. But ten or twelve

years’ solitary confinement, although it mayn’t sound much on paper, is

enough to crush all the life and energy out of a man.”

Aynesworth shook his head.

“You haven’t seen him,” he said. “I have!”

“What’s he like, Walter?” another man asked.

“I can’t describe him,” Aynesworth answered. “I shouldn’t like to try.

I’ll bring him here some day. You fellows shall see him for yourselves.

I find him interesting enough.”

“The whole thing,” the editor declared, “will fizzle out. You see if

it doesn’t? A man who’s just spent ten or twelve years in prison isn’t

likely to run any risk of going there again. There will be no tragedy;

more likely reconciliation.”

“Perhaps,” Aynesworth said imperturbably. “But it wasn’t only the

possibility of anything of that sort happening, you know, which

attracted me. It was the tragedy of the man himself, with his numbed,

helpless life, set down here in the midst of us, with a great, blank

chasm between him and his past. What is there left to drive the wheels?

The events of one day are simple and monotonous enough to us, because

they lean up against the events of yesterday, and the yesterdays before!

How do they seem, I wonder, to a man whose yesterday was more than a

decade of years ago!”

The editor nodded.

“It must be a grim sensation,” he admitted, “but I am afraid with you,

my dear Walter, it is an affair of shop. You wish to cull from your

interesting employer the material for that every-becoming novel of

yours. Let’s go upstairs! I’ve time for one pool.”

“I haven’t,” Aynesworth answered. “I’ve a commission to do.”

He left the club and walked westwards, humming softly to himself, but

thinking all the time intently. His errand disturbed him. He was to be

the means of bringing together again these two people who had played the

principal parts in Lovell’s drama--his new employer and the woman who

had ruined his life. What was the object of it? What manner of vengeance

did he mean to deal out to her? Lovell’s words of premonition returned

to him just then with curious insistence--he was so certain that

Wingrave’s reappearance would lead to tragical happenings. Aynesworth

himself never doubted it. His brief interview with the man into whose

service he had almost forced himself had impressed him wonderfully. Yet,

what weapon was there, save the crude one of physical force, with which

Wingrave could strike?

He rang the bell at No. 13, Cadogan Street, and sent in his card by the

footman. The man accepted it doubtfully.

“Her ladyship has only just got up from luncheon, sir, and she is not

receiving this afternoon,” he announced.

Aynesworth took back his card, and scribbled upon it the name of the

newspaper for which he still occasionally worked.

“Her ladyship will perhaps see me,” he said, handing the card back to

the man. “It is a matter of business. I will not detain her for more

than a few minutes.”

The man returned presently, and ushered him into a small sitting room.

“Her ladyship will be quite half an hour before she can see you, sir,”

he said.

“I will wait,” Aynesworth answered, taking up a paper.

The time passed slowly. At last, the door was opened. A woman, in

a plain but exquisitely fitting black gown, entered. From Lovell’s

description, Aynesworth recognized her at once, and yet, for a moment,

he hesitated to believe that this was the woman whom he had come to see.

The years had indeed left her untouched. Her figure was slight, almost

girlish; her complexion as smooth, and her coloring, faint though it

was, as delicate and natural as a child’s. Her eyes were unusually

large, and the lashes which shielded them heavy. It was when she looked

at him that Aynesworth began to understand.

She carried his card in her hand, and glanced at it as he bowed.

“You are the Daily Scribbler,” she said. “You want me to tell you about

my bazaar, I suppose.”

“I am attached to the Daily Scribbler, Lady Ruth Barrington,” Aynesworth

answered; “but my business this afternoon has nothing to do with the

paper. I have called with a message from--an old friend of yours.”

She raised her eyebrows ever so slightly. The graciousness of her manner

was perceptibly abated.

“Indeed! I scarcely understand you, Mr.--Aynesworth.”

“My message,” Aynesworth said, “is from Sir Wingrave Seton.”

The look of enquiry, half impatient, half interrogative, faded slowly

from her face. She stood quite still; her impassive features seemed like

a plaster cast, from which all life and feeling were drawn out. Her eyes

began slowly to dilate, and she shivered as though with cold. Then the

man who was watching her and wondering, knew that this was fear--fear

undiluted and naked.

He stepped forward, and placed a chair for her. She felt for the back of

it with trembling fingers and sat down.

“Is--Sir Wingrave Seton--out of prison?” she asked in a strange, dry

tone. One would have thought that she had been choking.

“Since yesterday,” Aynesworth answered.

“But his time--is not up yet?”

“There is always a reduction,” Aynesworth reminded her, “for what is

called good conduct.”

She was silent for several moments. Then she raised her head. She was a

brave woman, and she was rapidly recovering her self-possession.

“Well,” she asked, “what does he want?”

“To see you,” Aynesworth answered, “tomorrow afternoon, either here or

at his apartments in the Clarence Hotel. He would prefer not to come

here!”

“Are you his friend?” she asked.

“I am his secretary,” Aynesworth answered.

“You are in his confidence?”

“I only entered his service this morning,” he said.

“How much do you know,” she persisted, “of the unfortunate affair which

led--to his imprisonment?”

“I have been told the whole story,” Aynesworth answered.

Her eyes rested thoughtfully upon his. It seemed as though she were

trying to read in his face exactly what he meant by “the whole story.”

“Then,” she said, “do you think that anything but pain and

unpleasantness can come of a meeting between us?”

“Lady Ruth,” Aynesworth answered, “it is not for me to form an opinion.

I am Sir Wingrave Seton’s secretary.”

“What is he going to do?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” he answered.

“Is he going abroad?”

“I know nothing of his plans,” Aynesworth declared. “What answer shall I

take back to him?”

She looked at him earnestly. Gradually her face was softening. The

frozen look was passing away. The expression was coming back to her

eyes. She leaned a little towards him. Her voice, although it was raised

above a whisper, was full of feeling.

“Mr. Aynesworth,” she murmured, “I am afraid of Sir Wingrave Seton!”

Aynesworth said nothing.

“I was always a little afraid of him,” she continued, “even in the days

when we were friendly. He was so hard and unforgiving. I know he thinks

that he has a grievance against me. He will have been brooding about it

all these years. I dare not see him! I--I am terrified!”

“If that is your answer,” Aynesworth said, “I will convey it to him!”

Her beautiful eyes were full of reproach.

“Mr. Aynesworth,” she said, in a low tone, “for a young man you are very

unsympathetic.”

“My position,” Aynesworth answered, “does not allow me the luxury of

considering my personal feelings.”

She looked hurt.

“I forgot,” she said, looking for a moment upon the floor; “you have

probably been prejudiced against me. You have heard only one story.

Listen”--she raised her eyes suddenly, and leaned a little forward in

her chair--“some day, if you will come and see me when I am alone and

we have time to spare, I will tell you the whole truth. I will tell you

exactly what happened! You shall judge for yourself!”

Aynesworth bowed.

“In the meantime?”

Her eyes filled slowly with tears. Aynesworth looked away. He was

miserably uncomfortable.

“You cannot be quite so hard-hearted as you try to seem, Mr.

Aynesworth,” she said quietly. “I want to ask you a question. You must

answer it? You don’t know how much it means to me. You are Sir Wingrave

Seton’s secretary; you have access to all his papers. Have you seen any

letters of mine? Do you know if he still has any in his possession?”

“My answer to both questions is ‘No!’” Aynesworth said a little stiffly.

“I only entered the service of Sir Wingrave Seton this morning, and I

know nothing at all, as yet, of his private affairs. And, Lady Ruth,

you must forgive my reminding you that, in any case, I could not discuss

such matters with you,” he added.

She looked at him with a faint, strange smile. Afterwards, when he tried

to do so, Aynesworth found it impossible to describe the expression

which flitted across her face. He only knew that it left him with the

impression of having received a challenge.

“Incorruptible!” she murmured. “Sir Wingrave Seton is indeed a fortunate

man.”

There was a lingering sweetness in her tone which still had a note of

mockery in it. Her silence left Aynesworth conscious of a vague sense

of uneasiness. He felt that her eyes were raised to his, and for some

reason, which he could not translate even into a definite thought, he

wished to avoid them. The silence was prolonged. For long afterwards he

remembered those few minutes. There was a sort of volcanic intensity in

the atmosphere. He was acutely conscious of small extraneous things, of

the perfume of a great bowl of hyacinths, the ticking of a tiny French

clock, the restless drumming of her finger tips upon the arm of her

chair. All the time he seemed actually to feel her eyes, commanding,

impelling, beseeching him to turn round. He did so at last, and looked

her full in the face.

“Lady Ruth,” he said, “will you favor me with an answer to my message?”

“Certainly,” she answered, smiling quite naturally. “I will come and see

Sir Wingrave Seton at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. You can tell

him that I think it rather an extraordinary request, but under the

circumstances I will do as he suggests. He is staying at the Clarence, I

presume, under his own name? I shall have no difficulty in finding him?”

“He is staying there under his own name,” Aynesworth answered, “and I

will see that you have no difficulty.”

“So kind of you,” she murmured, holding out her hand. And again there

was something mysterious in her eyes as she raised them to him, as

though there existed between them already some understanding which

mocked the conventionality of her words. Aynesworth left the house, and

lit a cigarette upon the pavement outside with a little sigh of relief.

He felt somehow humiliated. Did she fancy, he wondered, that he was a

callow boy to dance to any tune of her piping--that he had never before

seen a beautiful woman who wanted her own way?

THE GOSPEL OF HATE

“And what,” Wingrave asked his secretary as they sat at dinner that

night, “did you think of Lady Ruth?”

“In plain words, I should not like to tell you,” Aynesworth answered. “I

only hope that you will not send me to see her again.”

“Why not?”

“Lady Ruth,” Aynesworth answered deliberately, “is a very beautiful

woman, with all the most dangerous gifts of Eve when she wanted her own

way. She did me the scanty honor of appraising me as an easy victim, and

she asked questions.”

“For instance?”

“She wanted me to tell her if you still had in your possession certain

letters of hers,” Aynesworth said.

“Good! What did you say?”

“I told her, of course,” Aynesworth continued, “that having been in your

service for a few hours only, I was scarcely in a position to know. I

ventured further to remind her that such questions, addressed from her

to me, were, to say the least of it, improper.”

Wingrave’s lips parted in what should have been a smile, but the spirit

of mirth was lacking.

“And then?”

“There was nothing else,” Aynesworth answered. “She simply dismissed

me.”

“I can see,” Wingrave remarked, “your grievance. You are annoyed because

she regarded you as too easy a victim.”

“Perhaps,” Aynesworth admitted.

“There was some excuse for her, after all,” Wingrave continued coolly.

“She possesses powers which you yourself have already admitted, and you,

I should say, are a fairly impressionable person, so far as her sex

is concerned. Confess now, that she did not leave you altogether

indifferent.”

“Perhaps not,” Aynesworth admitted reluctantly. He did not care to say

more.

“In case you should feel any curiosity on the subject,” Wingrave

remarked, “I may tell you that I have those letters which she was so

anxious to know about, and I shall keep them safe--even from you! You

can amuse yourself with her if you like. You will never be able to tell

her more than I care for her to know.”

Aynesworth continued his dinner in silence. After all, he was beginning

to fear that he had made a mistake. Lovell had somehow contrived to

impart a subtly tragic note to his story, but the outcome of it all

seemed to assume a more sordid aspect. These two would meet, there

would be recriminations, a tragic appeal for forgiveness, possibly some

melodramatic attempt at vengeance. The glamour of the affair seemed to

him to be fading away, now that he had come into actual contact with

it. It was not until he began to study his companion during a somewhat

prolonged silence that he felt the reaction. It was then that he began

to see new things, that he felt the enthusiasm kindled by Lovell’s

strangely told story begin to revive. It was not the watching for events

more or less commonplace which would repay him for the step he had

taken; it was the study of this man, placed in so strange a position,--a

man come back to life, after years of absolute isolation. He had broken

away from the chain which links together men of similar tastes and

occupations, and which goes to the creation of type. He was in a unique

position! He was in the world, but not of it. He was groping about

amongst familiar scenes, over which time had thrown the pall of

unfamiliarity. What manner of place would he find--what manner of

place did he desire to find? It was here that the real interest of the

situation culminated. At least, so Aynesworth thought then.

They were dining at a restaurant in the Strand, which Aynesworth had

selected as representing one, the more wealthy, type of Bohemian life.

The dinner and wine had been of his choosing. Wingrave had stipulated

only for the best. Wingrave himself had eaten very little, the bottle

of wine stood half empty between them. The atmosphere of the place, the

effect of the wine, the delicate food, and the music, were visible to a

greater or less degree, according to temperament, amongst all the other

little groups of men and women by whom they were surrounded. Wingrave

alone remained unaffected. He was carefully and correctly dressed in

clothes borrowed from his new tailor, and he showed not the slightest

signs of strangeness or gaucherie amongst his unfamiliar surroundings.

He looked about him always, with the cold, easy nonchalance of the man

of the world. Of being recognized he had not the slightest fear. His

frame and bearing, and the brightness of his deep, strong eyes, still

belonged to early middle age, but his face itself, worn and hardened,

was the face of an elderly man. The more Aynesworth watched him, the

more puzzled he felt.

“I am afraid,” he remarked, “that you are disappointed in this place.”

“Not at all,” Wingrave answered. “It is typical of a class, I suppose.

It is the sort of place I wished to visit.”

In a corner of the room Aynesworth had recognized a friend and fellow

clubman, who was acting at a neighboring theater. He was dining with

some young ladies of his company, and beckoned to Aynesworth to come

over and join them. He pointed them out to Wingrave.

“Would you care to be introduced?” he asked. “Holiwell is a very good

fellow, and the girls might interest you. Two of them are Americans, and

they are very popular.”

Wingrave shook his head.

“Thank you, no!” he said. “I should be glad to meet your friend some

time when he is alone.”

It was the first intimation which Aynesworth had received of his

companion’s sentiments as regards the other sex. Years afterwards,

when his attitude towards them was often quoted as being one of the

extraordinary features of an extraordinary personality, he remembered

his perseverance on this occasion.

“You have not spoken to a woman for so many years,” he persisted. “Why

not renew the experience? Nothing so humanizing, you know--not even

cigarettes.”

Wingrave’s face fell, if possible into sterner lines. His tone was cold

and hard.

“My scheme of life,” he said, “may be reconstructed more than once

before I am satisfied. But I can assure you of this! There will be no

serious place in it for women!”

Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders. He never doubted but that in a month

of two his vis-a-vis would talk differently.

“Your scheme of life,” he repeated thoughtfully. “That sounds

interesting! Have you any objection, I wonder, to telling me what manner

of life you propose to lead?”

It was several moments before Wingrave answered him. He was smoking a

cigar in a mechanical sort of way, but he obviously derived no pleasure

from it. Yet Aynesworth noticed that some instinct had led him to choose

the finest brand.

“Perhaps,” he said, letting his eyes rest coldly upon his questioner,

“if I told you all that was in my mind you would waive your month’s

salary and get back to your journalism!”

Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders.

“Why should you suppose that?” he asked. “I am not a moralist myself,

nor am I the keeper of your conscience. I don’t think that you could

frighten me off just yet.”

“Nevertheless,” Wingrave admitted, “there are times when I fear that

we shall not get on together. I begin to suspect that you have a

conscience.”

“You are the first,” Aynesworth assured him, “who has ever flattered me

to that extent.”

“It may be elastic, of course,” Wingrave continued, “but I suspect its

existence. I warn you that association with me will try it hard.”

“I accept the challenge,” Aynesworth answered lightly.

“You are rasher than you imagine,” Wingrave declared. “For instance,

I have admitted to you, have I not, that I am interested in my fellow

creatures, that I want to mix with them and watch them at their daily

lives. Let me assure you that that interest is not a benevolent one.”

“I never fancied that you were a budding philanthropist,” Aynesworth

remarked, lighting a fresh cigarette.

“I find myself,” Wingrave continued thoughtfully, “in a somewhat unique

position. I am one of the ordinary human beings with whom the world

is peopled, but I am not conscious of any of the usual weaknesses of

sentiment or morality. For instance, if that gentleman with the red

face, who has obviously eaten and drunk too much, were to have an

apoplectic fit at the moment, and die in his chair, it would not shock

or distress me in the least. On the contrary, I should be disposed to

welcome his removal from a world which he obviously does nothing to

adorn.”

Aynesworth glanced at the person in question. He was a theatrical agent

and financier of stock companies, whom he knew very well by sight.

“I suppose,” Wingrave continued, “that I was born with the usual

moral sentiments, and the usual feelings of kinship towards my fellow

creatures. Circumstances, however, have wholly destroyed them. To me,

men have become the puppets and women the dancing dolls of life. My

interest in them, if it exists at all, is malevolent. I should like to

see them all suffer exactly as I have suffered. It would interest me

exceedingly.”

Still Aynesworth remained silent. He was anxious to hear all that was in

the other’s mind, and he feared lest any interruption might divert him.

“There are men in the world,” Wingrave continued, “called

philanthropists, amiable, obese creatures as a rule, whose professed aim

in life it is to do as much good as possible. I take my stand upon the

other pole. It is my desire to encourage and to work as much evil as

possible. I wish to bring all the suffering I can upon those who come

within the sphere of my influence.”

“You are likely,” Aynesworth remarked, “to achieve popularity.”

Wingrave regarded him steadfastly.

“Your speech,” he said, “is flippant, but you yourself do not realize

how near it comes to the truth. Human beings are like dogs--they are

always ready to lick the hand that flogs them. I mean to use the scourge

whenever I can seize the opportunity, but you will find the jackals at

my heels, nevertheless, whenever I choose to whistle.”

Aynesworth helped himself to a liqueur. He felt that he needed it.

“One weakness alone distresses me,” Wingrave continued. “In all ordinary

matters of sentiment I am simply a negation. There is one antipathy,

however, which I find it hard to overcome. The very sight of a woman, or

the sound of her voice, distresses me. This is the more unfortunate,” he

continued, “because it is upon the shoulders of her sex that the greater

portion of my debt to my fellow creatures rests. However, time may help

me!”

Aynesworth leaned back in his chair, and contemplated his companion for

the next few moments in thoughtful silence. It was hard, he felt, to

take a man who talked like this seriously. His manner was convincing,

his speech deliberate and assured. There was not the slightest doubt but

that he meant what he said, yet it seemed to Aynesworth equally certain

that the time would come, and come quickly, when the unnatural hardness

of the man would yield to the genial influence of friendship, of

pleasure, of the subtle joys of freedom. Those past days of hideous

monotony, of profitless, debasing toil, the long, sleepless nights, the

very nightmare of life to a man of Wingrave’s culture and habits, might

well have poisoned his soul, have filled him with ideas such as these.

But everything was different now! The history of the world could show

no epoch when pleasures so many and various were there for the man who

carries the golden key. Today he was a looker-on, and the ice of his

years of bitterness had not melted. Tomorrow, at any moment, he might

catch a whiff of the fragrance of life, and the blood in his veins would

move to a different tune. This was how it seemed to Aynesworth, as he

studied his companion through the faint blue mist of tobacco smoke.

“This expression of your sentiments,” he remarked at last, “is

interesting so far as it goes. I am, however, a practical person, and

my connection with you is of a practical order. You don’t propose, I

presume, to promenade the streets with a cat-o-nine-tails?”

“Your curiosity,” Wingrave remarked, “is reasonable. Tomorrow I may

gratify some portion of it after my interview with Lady Ruth. In the

meantime, I might remark that to the observant person who has wits and

money, the opportunities for doing evil present themselves, I think,

with reasonable frequency. I do not propose, however, to leave things

altogether to chance.”

“A definite scheme of ill-doing,” Aynesworth ventured to suggest, “would

be more satisfactory?”

“Exactly,” he admitted.

He called for the bill, and his eyes wandered once more around the room

as the waiter counted out the change. The band were playing the “Valse

Amoureuse”; the air was grown heavy with the odor of tobacco and the

mingled perfumes of flowers and scents. A refrain of soft laughter

followed the music. An after-dinner air pervaded the place. Wingrave’s

lip curled.

“My lack of kinship with my fellows,” he remarked, “is exceedingly well

defined just now. I agree with the one philosopher who declared that

‘eating and drinking are functions which are better performed in

private.’”

The two men went on to a theater. The play was a society trifle--a

thing of the moment. Wingrave listened gravely, without a smile or any

particular sign of interest. At the end of the second act, he turned

towards his companion.

“The lady in the box opposite,” he remarked, “desires to attract your

attention.”

Aynesworth looked up and recognized Lady Ruth. She was fanning herself

languidly, but her eyes were fixed upon the two men. She leaned a little

forward, and her gesture was unmistakable.

Aynesworth rose to his feet a little doubtfully.

“You had better go,” Wingrave said. “Present my compliments and excuses.

I feel that a meeting now would amount to an anti-climax.”

Aynesworth made his way upstairs. Lady Ruth was alone, and he noticed

that she had withdrawn to a chair where she was invisible to the house.

Even Aynesworth himself could not see her face clearly at first, for she

had chosen the darkest corner of the box. He gathered an impression of

a gleaming white neck and bosom rising and falling rather more quickly

than was natural, eyes which shone softly through the gloom, and the

perfume of white roses, a great cluster of which lay upon the box ledge.

Her voice was scarcely raised above a whisper.

“That is--Sir Wingrave with you?”

“Yes!” Aynesworth answered. “It was he who saw you first!”

She seemed to catch her breath. Her voice was still tremulous.

“He is changed,” she said. “I should not have recognized him.”

“They were the best ten years of his life,” Aynesworth answered. “Think

of how and in what surroundings he has been compelled to live. No wonder

that he has had the humanity hammered out of him.”

She shivered a little.

“Is he always like this?” she asked. “I have watched him. He never

smiles. He looks as hard as fate itself.”

“I have known him only a few hours,” Aynesworth reminded her.

“I dare not come tomorrow,” she whispered; “I am afraid of him.”

“Do you wish me to tell him so?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “You are very unfeeling, Mr. Aynesworth.”

“I hope not,” he answered, and looked away towards the orchestra. He did

not wish to meet her eyes.

“You are!” she murmured. “I have no one to whom I dare speak--of this.

I dare not mention his name to my husband. It was my evidence which

convicted him, and I can see, I know, that he is vindictive. And he has

those letters! Oh! If I could only get them back?”

Her voice trembled with an appeal whispered but passionate. It was

wonderful how musical and yet how softly spoken her words were. They

were like live things, and the few feet of darkened space through which

they had passed seemed charged with magnetic influence.

“Mr. Aynesworth!”

He turned and faced her.

“Can’t you help me?”

“I cannot, Lady Ruth.”

The electric bell rang softly from outside, and the orchestra commenced

to play. Lady Ruth rose and looked at herself in the mirror. Then she

turned and smiled at her visitor. The pallor of her face was no longer

unnatural. She was a wonderful woman.

“I shall come tomorrow,” she said. “Shall I see you?”

“That,” he answered, “depends upon Sir Wingrave.”

She made a little grimace as she dismissed him. Wingrave did not speak

to his companion for some time after he had resumed his seat. Then he

inclined his head towards him.

“Have you come to terms with her ladyship?” he asked drily.

“Not yet!” Aynesworth answered.

“You can name your own price,” he continued. “She will pay! Don’t be

afraid of making her bid up. She has a good deal at stake!”

Aynesworth made no reply. He was thinking how easy it would be to hate

this man!

“HAST THOU FOUND ME, O MINE ENEMY?”

Aynesworth was waiting in the hall on the following afternoon when Lady

Ruth arrived. He had half expected that she would drive up to the

side door in a hansom, would wear a thick veil, and adopt the other

appurtenances of a clandestine meeting. But Lady Ruth was much too

clever a woman for anything of the sort. She descended at the great

front entrance from her own electric coupe, and swept into the hotel

followed by her maid. She stopped to speak to the manager of the hotel,

who knew her from her visits to the world-famous restaurant, and she

asked at once for Sir Wingrave Seton. Then she saw Aynesworth, and

crossed the hall with outstretched hand.

“How nice of you to be here,” she murmured. “Can you take me to Sir

Wingrave at once? I have such a busy afternoon that I was afraid at the

last moment that I should be unable to come!”

Aynesworth led her towards the lift.

“Sir Wingrave is in his sitting room,” he remarked. “It is only on the

first floor.”

She directed her maid where to wait, and followed him. On the way down

the corridor, he stole a glance at her. She was a little pale, and he

could see that she had nerved herself to this interview with a great

effort. As he knocked at the door, her great eyes were raised for a

moment to his, and they were like the eyes of a frightened child.

“I am afraid!” she murmured.

There was no time for more. They were in the room, and Wingrave had

risen to meet them. Lady Ruth did not hesitate for a moment. She crossed

the room towards him with outstretched hands. Aynesworth, who was

standing a little on one side, watched their meeting with intense,

though covert interest. She had pushed back her veil, her head was a

little upraised in a mute gesture of appeal.

She was pale to the lips, but her eyes were soft with hidden tears.

Wingrave stood stonily silent, like a figure of fate. His hands remained

by his sides. Her welcome found no response from him. She came to a

standstill, and, swaying a little, stretched out her hand and steadied

herself by grasping the back of a chair.

“Wingrave,” she murmured, and her voice was full of musical reproach.

Aynesworth turned to leave the room, but Wingrave, looking over her

head, addressed him.

“You will remain here, Aynesworth,” he said. “There are some papers at

that desk which require sorting.”

Aynesworth hesitated. He had caught the look on Lady Ruth’s face.

“If you could excuse me for half an hour, Sir Wingrave,” he began.

“I cannot spare you at present,” Wingrave interrupted. “Kindly remain!”

Aynesworth had no alternative but to obey. Wingrave handed a chair to

Lady Ruth. He was looking at her steadfastly. There were no signs of any

sort of emotion in his face. Whatever their relations in the past might

have been, it was hard to believe, from his present demeanor, that he

felt any.

“Wingrave,” she said softly, “are you going to be unkind to me--you,

whom I have always thought of in my dreams as the most generous of men!

I have looked forward so much to seeing you again--to knowing that you

were free! Don’t disappoint me!”

Wingrave laughed shortly, and Aynesworth bent closer over his work,

with a gathering frown upon his forehead. A mirthless laugh is never a

pleasant sound.

“Disappoint you!” he repeated calmly. “No! I must try and avoid that!

You have been looking forward with so much joy to this meeting then? I

am flattered.”

She shivered a little.

“I have looked forward to it,” she answered, and her voice was dull and

lifeless with pain. “But you are not glad to see me,” she continued.

“There is no welcome in your face! You are changed--altogether! Why did

you send for me?”

“Listen!”

There was a moment’s silence. Wingrave was standing upon the hearthrug,

cold, passionless, Sphinx-like. Lady Ruth was seated a few feet away,

but her face was hidden.

“You owe me something!” he said.

“Owe--you something?” she repeated vaguely.

“Do you deny it?” he said.

“Oh, no, no!” she declared with emotion. “Not for a moment.”

“I want,” he said, “to give you an opportunity of repaying some portion

of that debt!”

She raised her eyes to his. Her whispered words came so softly that they

were almost inaudible.

“I am waiting,” she said. “Tell me what I can do!”

He commenced to speak at some length, very impassively, very

deliberately.

“You will doubtless appreciate the fact,” he said, “that my position,

today, is a somewhat peculiar one. I have had enough of solitude. I am

rich! I desire to mix once more on equal terms amongst my fellows. And

against that, I have the misfortune to be a convicted felon, who has

spent the last ten or a dozen years amongst the scum of the earth,

engaged in degrading tasks, and with no identity save a number. The

position, as you will doubtless observe, is a difficult one.”

Her eyes fell from his. Once more she shivered, as though with physical

pain. Something that was like a smile, only that it was cold and

lifeless, flitted across his lips.

“I have no desire,” he continued, “to live in foreign countries. On

the contrary, I have plans which necessitate my living in England. The

difficulties by this time are, without doubt, fully apparent to you.”

She said nothing. Her eyes were once more watching his face.

“My looking glass,” he continued, “shows me that I am changed beyond

any reasonable chance of recognition. I do not believe that the Wingrave

Seton of today would readily be recognized as the Wingrave Seton of

twelve years ago. But I propose to make assurance doubly sure. I am

leaving this country for several years, at once. I shall go to America,

and I shall return as Mr. Wingrave, millionaire--and I propose, by the

way, to make money there. I desire, under that identity, to take

my place once more amongst my fellows. I shall bring letters of

introduction--to you.”

There was a long and somewhat ominous silence! Lady Ruth’s eyes were

fixed upon the floor. She was thinking, and thinking rapidly, but there

were no signs of it in her pale drawn face. At last she looked up.

“There is my husband,” she said. “He would recognize you, if no one else

did.”

“You are a clever woman,” he answered. “I leave it to you to deal with

your husband as seems best to you.”

“Other people,” she faltered, “would recognize you!”

“Do me the favor,” he begged her, “to look at me carefully for several

moments. You doubtless have some imperfect recollection of what I was.

Compare it with my present appearance! I venture to think that you will

agree with me. Recognition is barely possible.”

Again there was silence. Lady Ruth seemed to have no words, but there

was the look of a frightened child upon her face.

“I am sorry,” he continued, “that the idea does not appeal to you! I can

understand that my presence may serve to recall a period which you and

your husband would doubtless prefer to forget--”

“Stop!”

A little staccato cry of pain; a cry which seemed to spring into life

from a tortured heart, broke from her lips. Aynesworth heard it, and,

at that moment, he hated his employer. Wingrave paused for a moment

politely, and then continued.

“But after all,” he said, “I can assure you that you will find very

little in the Mr. Wingrave of New York to remind you of the past. I

shall do my utmost to win for myself a place in your esteem, which will

help you to forget the other relationship, which, if my memory serves

me, used once to exist between us!”

She raised her head. Either she realized that, for the present, the

man was immune against all sentiment, or his calm brutality had had a

correspondingly hardening effect upon her.

“If I agree,” she said, “will you give me back my letters?”

“No!” he answered.

“What are you going to do with them?”

“It depends,” he said, “upon you. I enter into no engagement. I make no

promises. I simply remind you that it would be equally possible for me

to take my place in the world as a rehabilitated Wingrave Seton. Ten

years ago I yielded to sentiment. Today I have outlived it.”

“Ten years ago,” she murmured, “you were a hero. God knows what you are

now!”

“Exactly!” he answered smoothly. “I am free to admit that I am a puzzle

to myself. I find myself, in fact, a most interesting study.”

“I consent,” she said, with a little shudder. “I am going now.”

“You are a sensible woman,” he answered. “Aynesworth, show Lady Ruth to

her carriage.”

She rose to her feet. Hung from her neck by a chain of fine gold, was

a large Chinchilla muff. She stood before him, and her hands had sought

its shelter. Timidly she withdrew one.

“Will you shake hands with me, Wingrave?” she asked timidly.

He shook his head.

“Forgive me,” he said; “I may better my manners in America, but a

present I cannot.”

She passed out of the room. Aynesworth followed, closing the door behind

them. In the corridor she stumbled, and caught at his arm for support.

“Don’t speak to me,” she gasped. “Take me where I can sit down.”

He found her a quiet corner in the drawing room. She sat perfectly still

for nearly five minutes, with her eyes closed. Then she opened them, and

looked at her companion.

“Mr. Aynesworth,” she said, “are you so poor that you must serve a man

like that?”

He shook his head.

“It is not poverty,” he answered. “I knew his history, and I am

interested in him!”

“You write novels, don’t you?” she asked.

“I try,” he answered. “His story fascinated me. He stands today in a

unique position to life. I want to see how he will come out of it.”

“You knew his story--the truth?”

“Everything,” he answered. “I heard it from a journalist who was in

court, his only friend, the only man who knew.”

“Where is he now?”

“On his way to Japan.”

She drew a little breath between her teeth.

“There were rumors,” she said. “It was hard for me at first, but I

lived them down. I was very young then. I ought not to have accepted

his sacrifice. I wish to heaven I had not. I wish that I had faced the

scandal then. It is worse to be in the power of a man like this today!

Mr. Aynesworth!”

“Lady Ruth!”

“Do you think that he has the right to keep those letters?”

“I cannot answer that question.”

“Will you be my friend?”

“So far as I can--in accordance with my obligations to my employer!”

She tried him no further then, but rose and walked slowly out of

the room. He found her maid, and saw them to their carriage. Then he

returned to the sitting room. Wingrave was smoking a cigarette.

“I am trying the humanizing influence,” he remarked. “Got rid of her

ladyship?”

“Lady Ruth has just gone,” Aynesworth answered.

“Have you promised to steal the letters yet?” he inquired.

“Not yet!”

“Her dainty ladyship has not bid high enough, I suppose,” he continued.

“Don’t be afraid to open your mouth. There’s another woman there besides

the Lady Ruth Barrington, who opens bazaars, and patronizes charity, and

entertains Royalty. Ask what you want and she’ll pay!”

“What a brute you are!” Aynesworth exclaimed involuntarily.

“Of course I am,” he admitted. “I know that. But whose fault is it? It

isn’t mine. I’ve lived the life of a brute creature for ten years.

You don’t abuse a one-legged man, poor devil. I’ve had other things

amputated. I was like you once. It seemed all right to me to go under to

save a woman’s honor. You never have. Therefore, I say you’ve no right

to call me a brute. Personally, I don’t object. It is simply a matter of

equity.”

“I admit it,” Aynesworth declared. “You are acting like a brute.”

“Precisely. I didn’t make myself what I am. Prison did it. Go and try

ten years yourself, and you’ll find you will have to grope about for

your fine emotions. Are you coming to America with me?”

“I suppose so,” Aynesworth answered. “When do we start?”

“Saturday week.”

“Sport west, or civilization east?”

“Both,” Wingrave answered. “Here is a list of the kit which we shall

require. Add yourself the things which I have forgotten. I pay for

both!”

“Very good of you,” Aynesworth answered.

“Not at all. I don’t suppose you’d come without. Can you shoot?”

“A bit,” he admitted.

“Be particular about the rifles. I can take you to a little corner in

Canada where the bears don’t stand on ceremony. Put everything in hand,

and be ready to come down to Cornwall with me on Monday.”

“Cornwall!” Aynesworth exclaimed. “What on earth are we going to do in

Cornwall?”

“I have an estate there, the home of my ancestors, which I am going to

sell. I am the last of the Setons, fortunately, and I am going to smash

the family tree, sell the heirlooms, and burn the family records!”

“I shouldn’t if I were you,” Aynesworth said quietly. “You are a young

man yet. You may come back to your own!”

“Meaning?”

“You may smoke enough cigarettes to become actually humanized! One can

never tell! I have known men proclaim themselves cynics for life, who

have been making idiots of themselves with their own children in five

years.”

Wingrave nodded gravely.

“True enough,” he answered. “But the one thing which no man can mistake

is death. Listen, and I will quote some poetry to you. I think--it is

something like this:--

“‘The rivers of ice may melt, and the mountains crumble into dust, but

the heart of a dead man is like the seed plot unsown. Green grass

shall not sprout there, nor flowers blossom, nor shall all the ages of

eternity show there any sign of life.’”

He spoke as though he had been reading from a child’s Primer. When he

had finished, he replaced his cigarette between his teeth.

“I am a dead man,” he said calmly. “Dead as the wildest seed plot in

God’s most forgotten acre!”

LORD OF THE MANOR

She came slowly towards the two men through the overgrown rose garden,

a thin, pale, wild-eyed child, dressed in most uncompromising black. It

was a matter of doubt whether she was the more surprised to see them, or

they to find anyone else, in this wilderness of desolation. They stood

face to face with her upon the narrow path.

“Have you lost your way?” she inquired politely.

“We were told,” Aynesworth answered, “that there was a gate in the wall

there, through which we could get on to the cliffs.”

“Who told you so?” she asked.

“The housekeeper,” Aynesworth answered. “I will not attempt to pronounce

her name.”

“Mrs. Tresfarwin,” the child said. “It is not really difficult. But she

had no right to send you through here! It is all private, you know!”

“And you?” Aynesworth asked with a smile, “you have permission, I

suppose?”

“Yes,” she answered. “I have lived here all my life. I go where I

please. Have you seen the pictures?”

“We have just been looking at them,” Aynesworth answered.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” she exclaimed. “I--oh!”

She sat suddenly down on a rough wooden seat and commenced to cry. For

the first time Wingrave looked at her with some apparent interest.

“Why, what is the matter with you, child?” Aynesworth exclaimed.

“I have loved them so all my life,” she sobbed; “the pictures, and the

house, and the gardens, and now I have to go away! I don’t know where!

Nobody seems to know!”

Aynesworth looked down at her black frock.

“You have lost someone, perhaps?” he said.

“My father,” she answered quietly. “He was organist here, and he died

last week.”

“And you have no other relatives?” he asked.

“None at all. No one--seems--quite to know--what is going to become of

me!” she sobbed.

“Where are you staying now?” he inquired.

“With an old woman who used to look after our cottage,” she answered.

“But she is very poor, and she cannot keep me any longer. Mrs. Colson

says that I must go and work, and I am afraid. I don’t know anyone

except at Tredowen! And I don’t know how to work! And I don’t want to

go away from the pictures, and the garden, and the sea! It is all so

beautiful, isn’t it? Don’t you love Tredowen?”

“Well, I haven’t been here very long, you see,” Aynesworth explained.

Wingrave spoke for the first time. His eyes were fixed upon the child,

and Aynesworth could see that she shrank from his cold, unsympathetic

scrutiny.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Juliet Lundy,” she answered.

“How long was your father organist at the church?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Ever since I was born, and before.”

“And how old are you?”

“Fourteen next birthday.”

“And all that time,” he asked, “has there been no one living at

Tredowen?”

“No one except Mrs. Tresfarwin,” she answered. “It belongs to a very

rich man who is in prison.”

Wingrave’s face was immovable. He stood on one side, however, and turned

towards his companion.

“We are keeping this young lady,” he remarked, “from what seems to be

her daily pilgrimage. I wonder whether it is really the pictures, or

Mrs. Tresfarwin’s cakes?”

She turned her shoulder upon him in silent scorn, and looked at

Aynesworth a little wistfully.

“Goodbye!” she said.

He waved his hand as he strolled after Wingrave.

“There you are, Mr. Lord of the Manor,” he said. “You can’t refuse to do

something for the child. Her father was organist at your own church, and

a hard struggle he must have had of it, with an absentee landlord, and a

congregation of seagulls, I should think.”

“Are you joking?” Wingrave asked coldly.

“I was never more in earnest in my life,” Aynesworth answered. “The girl

is come from gentlefolks. Did you see what a delicate face she had, and

how nicely she spoke? You wouldn’t have her sent out as a servant, would

you?”

Wingrave looked at his companion ominously.

“You have a strange idea of the duties of a landlord,” he remarked. “Do

you seriously suppose that I am responsible for the future of every brat

who grows up on this estate?”

“Of course not!” Aynesworth answered. “You must own for yourself that

this case is exceptional. Let us go down to the Vicarage and inquire

about it.”

“I shall do nothing of the sort,” Wingrave answered. “Nor will you! Do

you see the spray coming over the cliffs there? The sea must be worth

watching.”

Aynesworth walked by his side in silence. He dared not trust himself to

speak. Wingrave climbed with long, rapid strides to the summit of

the headland, and stood there with his face turned seawards. The long

breakers were sweeping in from the Atlantic with a low, insistent roar;

as far as the eye could reach the waves were crusted with white foam.

Every now and then the spray fell around the two men in a little

dazzling shower; the very atmosphere was salt. About their heads the

seagulls whirled and shrieked. From the pebbled beach to the horizon

there was nothing to break the monotony of that empty waste of waters.

Wingrave stood perfectly motionless, with his eyes fixed upon the

horizon. Minute after minute passed, and he showed no signs of moving.

Aynesworth found himself presently engaged in watching him. Thoughts

must be passing through his brain. He wondered what they were. It was

here that he had spent his boyhood; barely an hour ago the two men had

stood before the picture of his father. It was here, if anywhere, that

he might regain some part of his older and more natural self. Was it a

struggle, he wondered, that was going on within the man? There were

no signs of it in his face. Simply he stood and looked, and looked, as

though, by infinite perseverance, the very horizon itself might recede,

and the thing for which he sought become revealed....

Aynesworth turned away at last, and there, not many yards behind,

apparently watching them, stood the child. He waved his hand and

advanced towards her. Her eyes were fixed upon Wingrave half fearfully.

“I am afraid of the other gentleman,” she whispered, as he reached her

side. “Will you come a little way with me? I will show you a seagull’s

nest.”

They left Wingrave where he was, and went hand in hand, along the cliff

side. She was a curious mixture or shyness and courage. She talked very

little, but she gripped her companion’s fingers tightly.

“I can show you,” she said, “where the seagulls build, and I can tell

you the very spot in the sea where the sun goes down night after night.

“There are some baby seagulls in one of the nests, but I daren’t go very

near for the mother bird is so strong. Father used to say that when they

have their baby birds to look after, they are as fierce as eagles.”

“Your father used to walk with you here, Juliet?” Aynesworth asked.

“Always till the last few months when he got weaker and weaker,” she

answered. “Since then I come every day alone.”

“Don’t you find it lonely?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“At first,” she answered, “not now. It makes me unhappy. Would you like

to go down on the beach and look for shells? I can find you some very

pretty ones.”

They clambered down and wandered hand in hand by the seashore. She told

him quaint little stories of the smugglers, of wrecks, and the legends

of the fisher people. Coming back along the sands, she clung to his arm

and grew more silent. Her eyes sought his every now and then, wistfully.

Presently she pointed out a tiny whitewashed cottage standing by itself

on a piece of waste ground.

“That is where I live now, at least for a day or two,” she said. “They

cannot keep me any longer. When are you going away?”

“Very soon, I am afraid, little girl,” he answered. “I will come and see

you, though, before I go.”

“You promise,” she said solemnly.

“I promise,” Aynesworth repeated.

Then she held up her face, a little timidly, and he kissed her.

Afterwards, he watched her turn with slow, reluctant footsteps to the

unpromising abode which she had pointed out. Aynesworth made his way to

the inn, cursing his impecuniosity and Wingrave’s brutal indifference.

He found the latter busy writing letters.

“Doing your work, Aynesworth?” he remarked coldly. “Be so good as to

write to Christie’s for me, and ask them to send down a valuer to go

through the pictures.”

“You are really going to sell!” Aynesworth exclaimed.

“Most certainly,” Wingrave answered. “Heirlooms and family pictures

are only so much rubbish to me. I am the last of my line, and I doubt

whether even my lawyer could discover a next of kin for my personal

property. Sell! Of course I’m going to sell! What use is all this

hoarded rubbish to me? I am going to turn it into gold!”

“And what use is gold?” Aynesworth asked curiously. “You have plenty!”

“Not enough for my purpose,” Wingrave declared. “We are going to America

to make more.”

“It’s vandalism!” Aynesworth said, “rank vandalism! The place as it is

is a picture! The furniture and the house have grown old together. Why,

you might marry!”

Wingrave scowled at the younger man across the room.

“You are a fool, Aynesworth,” he said shortly. “Take down these

letters.”

After dinner, Wingrave went out alone. Aynesworth followed him about

an hour later, when his work was done, and made his way towards the

Vicarage. It was barely nine o’clock, but the little house seemed

already to be in darkness. He rang twice before anybody answered him.

Then he heard slow, shuffling footsteps within, and a tall, gaunt man,

in clerical attire, and carrying a small lamp, opened the door.

Aynesworth made the usual apologies and was ushered into a bare,

gloomy-looking apartment which, from the fact of its containing a

writing table and a few books, he imagined must be the study. His host

never asked him to sit down. He was a long, unkempt-looking man with a

cold, forbidding face, and his manner was the reverse of cordial.

“I have called to see you,” Aynesworth explained, “with reference to one

of your parishioners--the daughter of your late organist.”

“Indeed!” the clergyman remarked solemnly.

“I saw her today for the first time and have only just heard her story,”

Aynesworth continued. “It seems to be a very sad one.”

His listener inclined his head.

“I am, unfortunately, a poor man,” Aynesworth continued, “but I have

some friends who are well off, and I could lay my hands upon a little

ready money. I should like to discuss the matter with you and see if we

cannot arrange something to give her a start in life.”

The clergyman cleared his throat.

“It is quite unnecessary,” he answered. “A connection of her father’s

has come forward at the last moment, who is able to do all that is

required for her. Her future is provided for.”

Aynesworth was a little taken aback.

“I am very glad to hear it,” he declared. “I understood that she had

neither friends nor relations.”

“You were misinformed,” the other answered. “She has both.”

“May I ask who it is who has turned up so unexpectedly?” Aynesworth

inquired. “I have taken a great fancy to the child.”

The clergyman edged a little towards the door, and the coldness of his

manner was unmistakable.

“I do not wish to seem discourteous,” he said, “but I cannot recognize

that you have any right to ask me these questions. You may accept my

word that the child is to be fittingly provided for.”

Aynesworth felt the color rising in his cheeks.

“I trust,” he said, “that you do not find my interest in her

unwarrantable. My visit to you is simply a matter of charity. If my aid

is unneeded, so much the better. All the same, I should like to know

where she is going and who her friends are.”

“I do not find myself at liberty to afford you any information,” was the

curt reply.

Thereupon there was nothing left for Aynesworth to do but to put on his

hat and walk out, which he did.

Wingrave met him in the hall on his return.

“Where have you been?” he asked a little sharply.

“On a private errand,” Aynesworth answered, irritated by his words and

look.

“You are my secretary,” Wingrave said coldly. “I do not pay you to go

about executing private errands.”

Aynesworth looked at him in surprise. Did he really wish to quarrel?

“I imagine, sir,” he said, “that my time is my own when I have no work

of yours on hand. If you think otherwise--”

He paused and looked at his employer significantly. Wingrave turned on

his heel.

“Be so kind,” he said, “as to settle the bill here tonight. We leave by

the seven o’clock train in the morning.”

“Tomorrow!” Aynesworth exclaimed.

“Precisely!”

“Do you mind,” he asked, “if I follow by a later train?”

“I do,” Wingrave answered. “I need you in London directly we arrive.”

“I am afraid,” Aynesworth said, after a moment’s reflection, “that it is

impossible for me to leave.”

“Why?”

“You will think it a small thing,” he said, “but I have given my

promise. I must see that child again before I go!”

“You are referring,” he asked, “to the black-frocked little creature we

saw about the place yesterday?”

“Yes!”

Wingrave regarded his secretary as one might look at a person who has

suddenly taken leave of his senses.

“I am sorry,” he said, “to interfere with your engagements, but it is

necessary that we should both leave by the seven o’clock train tomorrow

morning.”

Aynesworth reflected for a moment.

“If I can see the child first,” he said, “I will come. If not, I will

follow you at midday.”

“In the latter case,” Wingrave remarked, “pray do not trouble to follow

me unless your own affairs take you to London. Our connection will have

ended.”

“You mean this?” Aynesworth asked.

“It is my custom,” Wingrave answered, “to mean what I say.”

Aynesworth set his alarm that night for half-past five. It seemed to him

that his future would largely depend upon how soundly the child slept.

THE HEART OF A CHILD

The cottage, as Aynesworth neared it, showed no sign of life. The

curtainless windows were blank and empty, no smoke ascended from the

chimney. Its plastered front was innocent of any form of creeper, but

in the few feet of garden in front a great, overgrown wild rose bush,

starred with deep red blossoms, perfumed the air. As he drew near, the

door suddenly opened, and with a little cry of welcome the child rushed

out to him.

“How lovely of you!” she cried. “I saw you coming from my window!”

“You are up early,” he said, smiling down at her.

“The sun woke me,” she answered. “It always does. I was going down

to the sands. Shall we go together? Or would you like to go into the

gardens at Tredowen? The flowers are beautiful there while the dew is on

them!”

“I am afraid,” Aynesworth answered, “that I cannot do either. I have

come to say goodbye.”

The light died out of her face all of a sudden. The delicate beauty of

her gleaming eyes and quivering mouth had vanished. She was once more

the pale, wan little child he had seen coming slowly up the garden path

at Tredowen.

“You are going--so soon!” she murmured.

He took her hand and led her away over the short green turf of the

common.

“We only came for a few hours,” he told her. “But I have good news for

you, Juliet, unless you know already. Mr. Saunders has found out some

of your friends. They are going to look after you properly, and you will

not be alone any more.”

“What time are you going?” she asked.

“Silly child,” he answered, giving her hand a shake. “Listen to what I

am telling you. You are going to have friends to look after you always.

Aren’t you glad?”

“No, I am not glad,” she answered passionately. “I don’t want to go

away. I am--lonely.”

Her arms suddenly sought his neck, and her face was buried on his

shoulder. He soothed her as well as he could.

“I must go, little girl,” he said, “for I am off to America almost at

once. As soon as I can after I come back, I will come and see you.”

“You have only been here one day,” she sobbed.

“I would stay if I could, dear,” Aynesworth answered. “Come, dry those

eyes and be a brave girl. Think how nice it will be to go and live with

people who will take care of you properly, and be fond of you. Why, you

may have a pony, and all sorts of nice things.”

“I don’t want a pony,” she answered, hanging on his arm. “I don’t want

to go away. I want to stay here--and wait till you come back.”

He laughed.

“Why, when I come back, little woman,” he answered, “you will be almost

grown up. Come, dry your eyes now, and I tell you what we will do. You

shall come back with me to breakfast, and then drive up to the station

and see us off.”

“I should like to come,” she whispered, “but I am afraid of the other

gentleman.”

“Very likely we sha’n’t see him,” Aynesworth answered. “If we do, he

won’t hurt you.”

“I don’t like his face!” she persisted.

“Well, we won’t look at it,” Aynesworth answered. “But breakfast we must

have!”

They were half way through the meal, and Juliet had quite recovered her

spirits when Wingrave entered. He looked at the two with impassive face,

and took his place at the table. He wished the child “Good morning”

carelessly, but made no remark as to her presence there.

“I have just been telling Juliet some good news,” Aynesworth remarked.

“I went to see Mr. Saunders, the Vicar here, last night, and he has

found out some of her father’s friends. They are going to look after

her.”

Wingrave showed no interest in the information. But a moment later he

addressed Juliet for the first time.

“Are you glad that you are going away from Tredowen?” he asked.

“I am very, very sorry,” she answered, the tears gathering once more in

her eyes.

“But you want to go to school, don’t you, and see other girls?” he

asked.

She shook her head decidedly.

“It will break my heart,” she said quietly, “to leave Tredowen. I think

that if I have to go away from the pictures and the garden, and the sea,

I shall never be happy any more.”

“You are a child,” he remarked contemptuously; “you do not understand.

If you go away, you can learn to paint pictures yourself like those

at Tredowen. You will find that the world is full of other beautiful

places!”

The sympathetic aspect of his words was altogether destroyed by the thin

note of careless irony, which even the child understood. She felt that

he was mocking her.

“I could never be happy,” she said simply, “away from Tredowen. You

understand, don’t you?” she added, turning confidentially to Aynesworth.

“You think so now, dear,” he said, “but remember that you are very

young. There are many things for you to learn before you grow up.”

“I am not a dunce,” she replied. “I can talk French and German, and do

arithmetic, and play the organ. Father used to teach me these things. I

can learn at Tredowen very well. I hope that my friends will let me stay

here.”

Wingrave took no more notice of her. She and Aynesworth walked together

to the station. As they passed the little whitewashed cottage, she

suddenly let go his hand, and darted inside.

“Wait one moment,” she cried breathlessly.

She reappeared almost at once, holding something tightly clenched in her

right hand. She showed it to him shyly.

“It is for you, please,” she said.

It was a silver locket, and inside was a little picture of herself.

Aynesworth stooped down and kissed her. He had had as many presents in

his life as most men, but never an offering which came to him quite like

that! They stood still for a moment, and he held out her hands. Already

the morning was astir. The seagulls were wheeling, white-winged and

noiseless, above their heads; the air was fragrant with the scent of

cottage flowers. Like a low, sweet undernote, the sea came rolling in

upon the firm sands--out to the west it stretched like a sheet of softly

swaying inland water. For those few moments there seemed no note of

discord--and then the harsh whistle of an approaching train! They took

hold of hands and ran.

It was, perhaps, as well that their farewells were cut short. There was

scarcely time for more than a few hurried words before the train moved

out from the queer little station, and with his head out of the window,

Aynesworth waved his hand to the black-frocked child with her pale,

eager face already stained with tears--a lone, strange little figure,

full of a sort of plaintive grace as she stood there, against a

background of milk cans, waving a crumpled handkerchief!

Wingrave, who had been buried in a morning paper, looked up presently.

“If our journeyings,” he remarked drily, “are to contain everywhere

incidents such as these, they will become a sort of sentimental

pilgrimage.”

Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders.

“I am sorry,” he said, “that my interest in the child has annoyed you.

At any rate, it is over now. The parson was mysterious, but he assured

me that she was provided for.”

Wingrave looked across the carriage with cold, reflective curiosity.

“Your point of view,” he remarked, “is a mystery to me! I cannot see how

the future of an unfledged brat like that can possibly concern you!”

“Perhaps not,” Aynesworth answered, “but you must remember that you are

a little out of touch with your fellows just now. I daresay when you

were my age, you would have felt as I feel. I daresay that as the years

go on, you will feel like it again.”

Wingrave was thoughtful for a moment.

“So you think,” he remarked, “that I may yet have in me the making of a

sentimentalist.”

Aynesworth returned his gaze as steadfastly.

“One can never tell,” he answered. “You may change, of course. I hope

that you will.”

“You are candid, at any rate!”

“I do not think,” Aynesworth answered, “that there is any happiness in

life for the man who lives entirely apart from his fellow creatures.

Not to feel is not to live. I think that the first real act of kindness

which you feel prompted to perform will mark the opening of a different

life for you.”

Wingrave spread out the newspaper.

“I think,” he said, with a faint sneer, “that it is quite time you took

this sea voyage.”

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

Mr. Lumley Barrington, K.C. and M.P., was in the act of stepping into

his carriage to drive down to the House, when he was intercepted by a

message. It was his wife’s maid, who came hurrying out after him.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” she said, “but her ladyship particularly

wished to see you as soon as you came in.”

“Is your mistress in?” Barrington asked in some surprise.

“Yes, sir!” the maid answered. “Her ladyship is resting, before she goes

to the ball at Caleram House. She is in her room now.”

“I will come up at once,” Barrington said.

He kept the carriage waiting while he ascended to his wife’s room. There

was no answer to his knock. He opened the door softly. She was asleep on

a couch drawn up before the fire.

He crossed the room noiselessly, and stood looking down upon her.

Her lithe, soft figure had fallen into a posture of graceful, almost

voluptuous ease; the ribbons and laces of her muslin dressing gown

quivered gently with her deep regular breathing. She had thrown off her

slippers, and one long, slender foot was exposed; the other was doubled

up underneath her body. Her face was almost like the face of a child,

smooth and unwrinkled, save for one line by the eyes where she laughed.

He looked at her steadfastly. Could the closing of the eyes, indeed,

make all the difference? Life and the knowledge of life seemed things

far from her consciousness. Could one look like that--even in sleep--and

underneath--! Barrington broke away from his train of thought, and woke

her quickly.

She sat up and yawned.

“Parsons managed to catch you, then,” she remarked.

“Yes!” he answered. “I was just off. I got away from Wills’ dinner

party early, and called here for some notes. I must be at the House”--he

glanced at the clock--“in three-quarters of an hour!”

She nodded. “I won’t keep you as long as that.”

Her eyes met his, a little furtively, full of inquiry. “I have done what

you wished,” he said quietly. “I called at the Clarence Hotel!”

“You saw him!”

“No! He sent back my card. He declined to see me.”

She showed no sign of disappointment. She sat up and looked into the

fire, smoothing her hair mechanically with her hands.

“Personally,” Barrington continued, “I could see no object whatever in

my visit. I have nothing to say to him, nor, I should think, he to me. I

am sorry for him, of course, but he’d never believe me if I told him so.

What happened to him was partly my fault, and unless he’s changed, he’s

not likely to forget it.”

She swayed a little towards him.

“It was partly--also--mine,” she murmured.

“I don’t see that at all,” he objected. “You at any rate were

blameless!”

She looked up at him, and he was astonished to find how pale she was.

“I was not!” she said calmly.

There was a short silence. Barrington had the air of a man who has

received a shock.

“Ruth!” he exclaimed, glancing towards the door, and speaking almost

in a whisper. “Do you mean--that there are things which I have never

known?”

“Yes!” she answered. “I mean that he might, if he chose, do us now--both

of us--an immense amount of harm.”

Barrington sat down at the end of the sofa. He knew his wife well enough

to understand that this was serious.

“Let us understand one another, Ruth,” he said quietly. “I always

thought that you were a little severe on Wingrave at the trial! He may

bear you a grudge for that; it is very possible that he does. But what

can he do now? He had his chance to cross examine you, and he let it go

by.”

“He has some letters of mine,” Lady Ruth said slowly.

“Letters! Written before the trial?”

“Yes!”

“Why did he not make use of them there?”

“If he had,” Lady Ruth said, with her eyes fixed upon the carpet, “the

sympathy would have been the other way. He would have got off with a

much lighter sentence, and you--would not have married me!”

“Good God!” Barrington muttered.

“You see,” Lady Ruth continued, resting her hand upon her husband’s coat

sleeve, “the thing happened all in a second. I had the check in my hand

when you and Sir William came crashing through that window, and

Sir William’s eyes were upon me. The only way to save myself was to

repudiate it, and let Wingrave get out of the affair as well as he

could. Of course, I never guessed what was going to happen.”

“Then it was Wingrave,” Barrington muttered, “who played the game?”

“Yes!” Lady Ruth answered quietly. “But I am not so sure about him now.

You and I, Lumley, know one another a little better today than we

did twelve years ago. We have had a few of the corners knocked off, I

suppose. I can tell you things now I didn’t care to then. Wingrave had

lent me money before! He has letters from me today, thanking him for

it.”

Barrington was a large, florid man, well built and well set up. In court

he presented rather a formidable appearance with his truculent chin, his

straight, firm mouth, and his commanding presence. Yet there was nothing

about him now which would have inspired fear in the most nervous of

witnesses. He looked like a man all broken up by some unexpected shock.

“If he had produced those letters--at the trial--”

Lady Ruth shrugged her shoulders.

“I risked it, anyhow,” she said. “I had to. My story was the only one

which gave me a dog’s chance, and I didn’t mean to go under--then.

Wingrave never gave me away, but I fancy he’s feeling differently about

it now!”

“How do you know, Ruth?”

“I have seen him! He sent for me!” she answered. “Lumley, don’t look at

me like that! We’re not in the nursery, you and I. I went because I had

to. He’s going to America for a time, and then he’s coming back here. I

think that when he comes back--he means mischief!”

“He is not the sort of man to forget,” Barrington said, half to himself.

She shuddered ever so slightly. Then she stretched out a long white arm,

and drawing his head suddenly down to her, kissed him on the lips.

“If only,” she murmured, “he would give up the letters! Without them, he

might say--anything. No one would believe!”

Barrington raised his eyes to hers. There was something almost pathetic

in the worshiping light which shone there. He was, as he had always

been, her abject slave.

“Can you think of any way?” he asked. “Shall I go to him again?”

“Useless!” she answered. “You have nothing to offer in exchange. He

would not give them to me. He surely would not give them to you. Shall I

tell you what is in his mind? Listen, then! He is rich now; he means

to make more money there. Then he will return, calling himself Mr.

Wingrave--an American--with imaginary letters of introduction to us. He

has ambitions--I don’t know what they are, but they seem to entail his

holding some sort of a place in society. We are to be his sponsors.”

“Is it practicable?” he asked.

“Quite,” she answered. “He is absolutely unrecognizable now. He has

changed cruelly. Can’t you imagine the horror of it? He will be always

in evidence; always with those letters in the background. He means to

make life a sort of torture chamber for us!”

“Better defy him at once, and get over,” Barrington said. “After all,

don’t you think that the harm he could do is a little imaginary?”

She brushed the suggestion aside with a little shiver.

“Shall I tell you what he would do, Lumley?” she said, leaning towards

him. “He would have my letters, and a copy of my evidence, printed in an

elegant little volume and distributed amongst my friends. It would come

one day like a bomb, and nothing that you or I could do would alter

it in the least. Your career and my social position would be ruined.

Success brings enemies, you know, Lumley, and I have rather more than my

share.”

“Then we are helpless,” he said.

“Unless we can get the letters--or unless he should never return from

America,” she answered.

Barrington moved uneasily in his seat. He knew very well that some

scheme was already forming in his wife’s brain.

“If there is anything that I can do,” he said in a low tone, “don’t be

afraid to tell me.”

“There is one chance,” she answered, “a sort of forlorn hope, but you

might try it. He has a secretary, a young man named Aynesworth. If he

were on our side--”

“Don’t you think,” Barrington interrupted, “that you would have more

chance with him than I?”

She laughed softly.

“You foolish man,” she said, touching his fingers lightly. “I believe

you think that I am irresistible!”

“I have seen a good many lions tamed,” he reminded her.

“Nonsense! Anyhow, there is one here who seems quite insensible. I have

talked already with Mr. Aynesworth. He would not listen to me!”

“Ah!”

“Nevertheless,” she continued softy, “of one thing I am very sure. Every

man is like every woman; he is vulnerable if you can discover the right

spot and the right weapons. Mr. Aynesworth is not a woman’s man, but I

fancy that he is ambitious. I thought that you might go and see him. He

has rooms somewhere in Dorset Street.”

He rose to his feet. A glance at the clock reminded him of the hour.

“I will go,” he said. “I will do what I can. I think, dear,” he added,

bending over her to say farewell, “that you should have been the man!”

She laughed softly.

“Am I such a failure as a woman, then?” she asked with a swift upward

glance. “Don’t be foolish, Lumley. My woman will be here to dress me

directly. You must really go away.”

He strode down the stairs with tingling pulses, and drove to the House,

where his speech, a little florid in its rhetoric, and verbose as became

the man, was nevertheless a great success.

“Quite a clever fellow, Barrington,” one of his acquaintances remarked,

“when you get him away from his wife.”

A FORLORN HOPE

Aynesworth ceased tugging at the strap of his portmanteau, and rose

slowly to his feet. A visitor had entered his rooms--apparently

unannounced.

“I must apologize,” the newcomer said, “for my intrusion. Your

housekeeper, I presume it was, whom I saw below, told me to come up.”

Aynesworth pushed forward a chair.

“Won’t you sit down?” he said. “I believe that I am addressing Mr.

Lumley Barrington.”

Not altogether without embarrassment, Barrington seated himself.

Something of his ordinary confidence of bearing and demeanor had

certainly deserted him. His manner, too, was nervous. He had the air of

being altogether ill at ease.

“I must apologize further, Mr. Aynesworth,” he continued, “for an

apparently ill-timed visit. You are, I see, on the eve of a journey.”

“I am leaving for America tomorrow,” Aynesworth answered.

“With Sir Wingrave Seton, I presume?” Barrington remarked.

“Precisely,” Aynesworth answered.

Barrington hesitated for a moment. Aynesworth was civil, but inquiring.

He felt himself very awkwardly placed.

“Mr. Aynesworth,” he said, “I must throw myself upon your consideration.

You can possibly surmise the reason of my visit.”

Aynesworth shook his head.

“I am afraid,” he said, “that I must plead guilty to denseness--in this

particular instance, at any rate. I am altogether at a loss to account

for it.”

“You have had some conversation with my wife, I believe?”

“Yes. But--”

“Before you proceed, Mr. Aynesworth,” Barrington interrupted, “one

word. You are aware that Sir Wingrave Seton is in possession of certain

documents in which my wife is interested, which he refuses to give up?”

“I have understood that such is the case,” Aynesworth admitted.

“Will you pardon me if I add that it is a matter which I can scarcely

discuss?”

Barrington shrugged his shoulders.

“Let it go, for the moment,” he said. “There is something else which I

want to say to you.”

Aynesworth nodded a little curtly. He was not very favorably impressed

with his visitor.

“Well!”

Barrington leaned forward in his chair.

“Mr. Aynesworth,” he said, “you have made for yourself some reputation

as a writer. Your name has been familiar to me for some time. I was at

college, I believe, with your uncle, Stanley Aynesworth.”

He paused. Aynesworth said nothing.

“I want to know,” Barrington continued impressively, “what has induced

you to accept a position with such a man as Seton?”

“That,” Aynesworth declared, “is easily answered. I was not looking for

a secretaryship at all, or anything of the sort, but I chanced to hear

his history one night, and I was curious to analyze, so far as possible,

his attitude towards life and his fellows, on his reappearance in it.

That is the whole secret.”

Barrington leaned back in his chair, and glanced thoughtfully at his

companion.

“You know the story of his misadventures, then?” he remarked.

“I know all about his imprisonment, and the cause of it,” Aynesworth

said quietly.

Barrington was silent for several moments. He felt that he was receiving

but scanty encouragement.

“Is it worth while, Mr. Aynesworth?” he asked at length. “There is

better work for you in the world than this.”

Again Aynesworth preferred to reply by a gesture only. Barrington was

watching him steadily.

“A political secretaryship, Mr. Aynesworth,” he said, “might lead you

anywhere. If you are ambitious, it is the surest of all stepping stones

into the House. After that, your career is in your own hands. I offer

you such a post.”

“I am exceedingly obliged to you,” Aynesworth replied, “but I scarcely

understand.”

“I have influence,” Barrington said, “which I have never cared to use

on my own account. I am willing to use it on yours. You have only to say

the word, and the matter is arranged.”

“I can only repeat,” Aynesworth said, “that I am exceedingly obliged

to you, Mr. Barrington, but I cannot understand why you should interest

yourself so much on my behalf.”

“If you wish me to speak in plain words,” Barrington said, “I will do

so. I ask you to aid me as a man of honor in the restoration of those

letters to my wife.”

“I cannot do it,” Aynesworth said firmly. “I am sorry that you should

have come to me with such an offer. It is quite out of the question!”

Barrington held out his hand.

“Do not decide too hastily,” he said. “Remember this. Sir Wingrave Seton

had once an opportunity of putting those letters to any use he may have

thought fit. He ignored it. At that time, their tenor and contents might

easily have been explained. After all these years, that task would be

far more difficult. I say that no man has a right to keep a woman’s

letters back from her years after any friendship there may have been

between them is over. It is not the action of an honorable man. Sir

Wingrave Seton has placed himself outside the pale of honorable men.”

“Your judgment,” Aynesworth answered quietly, “seems to me severe. Sir

Wingrave Seton has been the victim of peculiar circumstances.”

Barrington looked at his companion thoughtfully. He was wondering

exactly how much he knew.

“You defend him,” he remarked. “That is because you have not yet found

out what manner of man he is.”

“In any case,” Aynesworth answered, “I am not his judge. Mr.

Barrington,” he added, “You must forgive me if I remind you that this is

a somewhat unprofitable discussion.”

A short silence followed. With Barrington it did not appear to be a

silence of irresolution. He was leaning a little forward in his chair,

and his head was resting upon his hand. Of his companion he seemed for

the moment to have become oblivious. Aynesworth watched him curiously.

Was he looking back through the years, he wondered, to that one brief

but lurid chapter of history; or was it his own future of which he was

thinking,--a future which, to the world, must seem so full of brilliant

possibilities, and yet which he himself must feel to be so fatally and

miserably insecure?

“Mr. Aynesworth,” he said at last, “I suppose from a crude point of view

I am here to bribe you.”

Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders.

“Is it worth while?” he asked a little wearily. “I have tried to be

civil--but I have also tried to make you understand. Your task is

absolutely hopeless!”

“It should not be,” Barrington persisted. “This is one of those rare

cases, in which anything is justifiable. Seton had his chance at the

trial. He chose to keep silence. I do not praise him or blame him for

that. It was the only course open to a man of honor. I maintain that his

silence then binds him to silence for ever. He has no right to ruin

my life and the happiness of my wife by subtle threats, to hold

those foolish letters over our heads, like a thunderbolt held ever in

suspense. You are ambitious, I believe, Mr. Aynesworth! Get me

those letters, and I will make you my secretary, find you a seat in

Parliament, and anything else in reason that you will!”

Aynesworth rose to his feet. He wished to intimate that, so far as he

was concerned, the interview was at an end.

“Your proposition, Mr. Barrington,” he said, “is absolutely impossible.

In the first place, I have no idea where the letters in question are,

and Sir Wingrave is never likely to suffer them to pass into my charge.”

“You have opportunities of finding out,” Barrington suggested.

“And secondly,” Aynesworth continued, ignoring the interruption,

“whatever the right or the wrong of this matter may be, I am in

receipt of a salary from Sir Wingrave Seton, and I cannot betray his

confidence.”

Barrington also rose to his feet. He was beginning to recognize the

hopelessness of his task.

“This is final, Mr. Aynesworth?” he asked.

“Absolutely!” was the firm reply.

Barrington bowed stiffly, and moved towards the door. On the threshold

he paused.

“I trust, Mr. Aynesworth,” he said hesitatingly, “that you will not

regard this as an ordinary attempt at bribery and corruption. I have

simply asked you to aid me in setting right a great injustice.”

“It is a subtle distinction, Mr. Barrington,” Aynesworth answered, “but

I will endeavor to keep in mind your point of view.”

Barrington drove straight home, and made his way directly to his study.

Now that he was free from his wife’s influence, and looked back upon his

recent interview, he realized for the first time the folly and indignity

of the whole proceedings. He was angry that, a man of common sense, keen

witted and farseeing in the ordinary affairs of life, should have placed

himself so completely in a false, not to say a humiliating position. And

then, just as suddenly, he forgot all about himself, and remembered only

her. With a breath of violets, and the delicate rustling of half-lifted

skirts, she had come softly into the room, and stood looking at him

inquiringly. Her manner seemed to indicate more a good-natured curiosity

than real anxiety. She made a little grimace as he shook his head.

“I have failed,” he said shortly. “That young man is a prig!”

“I was afraid,” she said, “that he would be obstinate. Men with eyes of

that color always are!”

“What are we to do, Ruth?”

“What can we?” she answered calmly. “Nothing but wait. He is going to

America. It is a terrible country for accidents. Something may happen to

him there! Do go and change your things, there’s a dear, and look in at

the Westinghams’ for me for an hour. We’ll just get some supper and come

away.”

“I will be ready in ten minutes,” Barrington answered. He understood

that he was to ask no questions, nor did he. But all the time his man

was hurrying him into his clothes, his brain was busy weaving fancies.

PROFESSOR SINCLAIR’S DANCING ACADEMY

Mr. Sinclair, or as he preferred to be called, Professor Sinclair, waved

a white kid glove in the direction of the dancing hall.

“This way, ladies and gentlemen!” he announced. “A beautiful valse just

about to commence. Tickets, if you please! Ah! Glad to see you, Miss

Cullingham! You’ll find--a friend of yours inside!”

There was a good deal of giggling as the girls came out from the little

dressing room and joined their waiting escorts, who stood in a line

against the wall, mostly struggling with refractory gloves. Mr.

Sinclair, proprietor of the West Islington Dancing Academy, and host of

these little gatherings--for a consideration of eighteenpence--did his

best, by a running fire of conversation, to set everyone at their ease.

He wore a somewhat rusty frock coat, black trousers, a white dress

waistcoat, and a red tie. Evening dress was not DE RIGUEUR! The money at

the door, and that everyone should behave as ladies and gentlemen, were

the only things insisted upon.

Mr. Sinclair’s best smile and most correct bow was suddenly in evidence.

“Mademoiselle Violet!” he exclaimed to a lady who came in alone, “we

are enchanted. We feared that you had deserted us. There is a young

gentleman inside who is going to be made very happy. One shilling

change, thank you. Won’t you step into the cloak room?”

The lady shook her head.

“If you don’t mind, Mr. Sinclair,” she said, “I would rather keep my hat

and veil on. I can only stay for a few minutes. Is Mr. Richardson here,

do you know? Ah! I can see him.”

She stepped past the Professor into the little dancing hall. A young

lady was pounding upon a piano, a boy at her side was playing the

violin. A few couples were dancing, but most of the company was looking

on. The evening was young, and Mr. Sinclair, who later on officiated

as M.C., had not yet made his attack upon the general shyness. The lady

known as Mademoiselle Violet paused and looked around her. Suddenly she

caught sight of a pale, anemic-looking youth, who was standing apart

from the others, lounging against the wall. She moved rapidly towards

him.

“How do you do, Mr. Richardson?” she said, holding out her hand.

He started, and a sudden rush of color streamed into his cheeks. He took

her hand awkwardly, and he was almost speechless with nervousness.

“I don’t believe you’re at all glad to see me!” she remarked.

“Oh! Miss Violet!” he exclaimed. He would have said more, but the words

stuck in his throat.

“Can we sit down somewhere?” she said. “I want to talk to you.”

There were one or two chairs placed behind a red drugget curtain, where

adventurous spirits led their partners later in the evening. They found

a place there, and the young man recovered his power of speech.

“Not glad to see you!” he exclaimed almost vehemently. “Why, what else

do you suppose I come here for every Thursday evening? I never dance;

they all make game of me because they know I come here on the chance of

seeing you again. I’m a fool! I know that! You just amuse yourself here

with me, and then you go away, back to your friends--and forget! And I

hang about round here, like the silly ass that I am!”

“My dear--George!”

The young man blushed at the sound of his Christian name. He was

mollified despite himself.

“I suppose it’s got to be the same thing all over again,” he declared

resignedly. “You’ll talk to me and let me be near you--and make a fool

of me all round; and then you’ll go away, and heaven knows when I’ll see

you again. You won’t let me take you home, and won’t tell me where you

live, or who your friends are. You do treat me precious badly, Miss

Violet.”

“This time,” she said quietly, “it will not be the same. I have

something quite serious to say to you.”

“Something serious--you? Go on!” he exclaimed in excitement.

“Have you found another place yet?”

“No. I haven’t really tried. I have a little money saved, and I could

get one tomorrow if--”

She stopped him with a smiling gesture.

“I don’t mean that--yet,” she said. “I wanted to know whether it would

be possible for you to go away for a little time, if someone paid all

your expenses.”

“To go away!” he repeated blankly. “What for?”

Mademoiselle Violet leaned a little nearer to him.

“My mistress asked me yesterday,” she said, “if I knew anyone who could

be trusted who would go away, at a moment’s notice, on an errand for

her.”

“Your mistress,” he repeated. “You really are a lady’s maid, then, are

you?”

“Of course!” she answered impatiently. “Haven’t I told you so before?

Now what do you say? Will you go?”

“I dunno,” he answered thoughtfully. “If it had been for you, I don’t

know that I’d have minded. I ain’t fond of traveling.”

“It is for me,” she interrupted hastily. “If I can find her anyone who

will do what she wants, she will make my fortune. She has promised. And

then--”

“Well, and then?”

Mademoiselle Violet looked at him thoughtfully.

“I should not make any promises,” she said demurely, “but things would

certainly be different.”

The young man’s blood was stirred. Mademoiselle Violet stood to him for

the whole wonderful world of romance, into which he had peered dimly

from behind the counter of an Islington emporium. Her low voice--so

strange to his ears after the shrill chatter of the young ladies of

his acquaintance--the mystery of her coming and going, all went to give

color to the single dream of his unimaginative life. Apart from her, he

was a somewhat vulgar, entirely commonplace young man, of saving habits,

and with some aptitude for business, in a small way. He had been well on

his way to becoming a small but successful shopkeeper, thereby realizing

the only ideals which had yet presented themselves to him, when Madame

Violet had unconsciously intervened. Of what might become of him now he

had no clear conception of himself.

“I’ll go!” he declared.

Mademoiselle Violet’s eyes flashed behind her veil. Her fingers touched

his for a moment.

“It is a long way,” she said.

“I don’t care,” he answered valiantly.

“To--America!”

“America!” he gasped. “But--is this a joke, Miss Violet?”

She shook her head.

“Of course not! America is not a great journey.”

“But it will cost--”

She laughed softly.

“My mistress is very rich,” she said. “The cost does not matter at all.

You will have all the money you can spend--and more.”

He felt himself short of breath, and bereft of words.

“Gee whiz!” he murmured.

They sat there in silence for a few moments. A promenading couple put

their heads behind the screen, and withdrew with the sound of feminine

giggling. Outside, the piano was being thumped to the tune of a popular

polka.

“But what have I go to do?” he asked.

“To watch a man who will go out by the same steamer as you,” she

answered. “Write to London, tell me what he does, how he spends his

time, whether he is ill or well. You must stay at the same hotel in New

York, and try and find out what his business is there. Remember, we want

to know, my mistress and I, everything that he does.”

“Who is he?” he asked. “A friend of your mistress?”

“No!” she answered shortly, “an enemy. A cruel enemy--the cruelest enemy

a woman could have!”

The subdued passion of her tone thrilled him. He felt himself

bewildered--in touch with strange things. She leaned a little closer

towards him, and that mysterious perfume, which was one of her many

fascinations, dazed him with its sweetness.

“If you could send home word,” she whispered, “that he was ill, that

anything had happened to him, that he was not likely to return--our

fortunes would be made--yours and mine.”

“Stop!” he muttered. “You--phew! It’s hot here!”

He wiped the perspiration recklessly from his forehead with a red silk

handkerchief.

“What made you come to me?” he asked. “I don’t even know the name of

your mistress.”

“And you must not ask it,” she declared quietly. “It is better for you

not to know. I came to you because you were a man, and I knew that I

could trust you.”

Her flattery sank into his soul. No one else had ever called him a man.

He felt himself capable of great things. To think that, but for the

coming of this wonderful Mademoiselle Violet, he might even now have

been furnishing a small shop on the outskirts of Islington, with collars

and ties and gloves designed to attract the youth of that populous

neighborhood!

“When do I start?” he asked with a coolness which surprised himself.

She drew a heavy packet from the recesses of the muff she carried.

“All the particulars are here,” she said. “The name of the steamer, the

name of the man, and money. You will be told where to get more in New

York, if you need it.”

He took it from her mechanically. She rose to her feet.

“You will remember,” she said, looking into his eyes.

“I ain’t likely to forget anything you’ve said tonight,” he answered

honestly. “But look here! Let me take you home--just this once! Give me

something to think about.”

She shook her head.

“I will give you something to hope for,” she whispered. “You must not

come a yard with me. When you come back it will, perhaps--be different.”

He remained behind the partition, gripping the packet tightly.

Mademoiselle Violet took a hasty adieu of Mr. Sinclair, and descended to

the street. She walked for a few yards, and then turned sharply to the

left. A hansom, into which she stepped at once, was waiting there. She

wrapped herself hastily in a long fur coat which lay upon the seat, and

thrust her hand through the trap door.

“St. Martin’s Schoolroom!” she told the cabman.

Apparently Mademoiselle Violet combined a taste for philanthropy

with her penchant for Islington dancing halls. She entered the little

schoolroom and made her way to the platform, dispensing many smiles

and nods amongst the audience of the concert, which was momentarily

interrupted for her benefit. She was escorted on to the platform by a

young and earnest-looking clergyman, and given a chair in the center of

the little group who were gathered there. And after the conclusion of

the song, the clergyman expressed his gratification to the audience that

a lady with so many calls upon her time, such high social duties, should

yet find time to show her deep interest in their welfare by this most

kind visit. After which, he ventured to call upon Lady Barrington to say

a few words.

MEPHISTOPHELES ON A STEAMER

In some respects, the voyage across the Atlantic was a surprise to

Aynesworth. His companion seemed to have abandoned, for the time at

any rate, his habit of taciturnity. He conversed readily, if a little

stiffly, with his fellow passengers. He divided his time between the

smoke room and the deck, and very seldom sought the seclusion of his

state room. Aynesworth remarked upon this change one night as the two

men paced the deck after dinner.

“You are beginning to find more pleasure,” he said, “in talking to

people.”

Wingrave shook his head.

“By no means,” he answered coldly. “It is extremely distasteful to me.”

“Then why do you do it?” Aynesworth asked bluntly.

Wingrave never objected to being asked questions by his secretary. He

seemed to recognize the fact that Aynesworth’s retention of his post was

due to a desire to make a deliberate study of himself, and while his

own attitude remained purely negative, he at no time exhibited any

resentment or impatience.

“I do it for several reasons,” he answered. “First, because misanthropy

is a luxury in which I cannot afford to indulge. Secondly, because I am

really curious to know whether the time will ever return when I shall

feel the slightest shadow of interest in any human being. I can only

discover this by affecting a toleration for these people’s society,

which I can assure you, if you are curious about the matter, is wholly

assumed.”

Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders.

“Surely,” he said, “you find Mrs. Travers entertaining?”

Wingrave reflected for a moment.

“You mean the lady with a stock of epigrams, and a green veil?” he

remarked. “No! I do not find her entertaining.”

“Your neighbor at table then, Miss Packe?”

“If my affections have perished,” Wingrave answered grimly, “my taste,

I hope, is unimpaired. The young person who travels to improve her mind,

and fills up the gaps by reading Baedeker on the places she hasn’t been

to, fails altogether to interest me!”

“Aren’t you a little severe?” Aynesworth remarked.

“I suppose,” Wingrave answered, “that it depends upon the point of view,

to use a hackneyed phrase. You study people with a discerning eye for

good qualities. Nature--and circumstances have ordered it otherwise with

me. I see them through darkened glasses.”

“It is not the way to happiness,” Aynesworth said.

“There is no highroad to what you term happiness,” Wingrave answered.

“One holds the string and follows into the maze. But one does not choose

one’s way. You are perhaps more fortunate than I that you can

appreciate Mrs. Travers’ wit, and find my neighbor, who has done Europe,

attractive. That is a matter of disposition.”

“I should like,” Aynesworth remarked, “to have known you fifteen years

ago.”

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

“I fancy,” he said, “that I was a fairly average person--I mean that

I was possessed of an average share of the humanities. I have only my

memory to go by. I am one of those fortunate persons, you see, who have

realized an actual reincarnation. I have the advantage of having

looked out upon life from two different sets of windows.--By the bye,

Aynesworth, have you noticed that unwholesome-looking youth in a serge

suit there?”

Aynesworth nodded.

“What about him?”

“I fancy that he must know--my history. He sits all day long smoking

bad cigarettes and watching me. He makes clumsy attempts to enter into

conversation with me. He is interested in us for some reason or other.”

Aynesworth nodded.

“Shocking young bounder,” he remarked. “I’ve noticed him myself.”

“Talk to him some time, and find out what he means by it,” Wingrave

said. “I don’t want to find my biography in the American newspapers. It

might interfere with my operations there. Here’s this woman coming to

worry us! You take her off, Aynesworth! I shall go into the smoking

room.”

But Mrs. Travers was not so easily to be disposed of. For some reason or

other, she had shown a disposition to attach herself to Wingrave.

“Please put me in my chair,” she said to him, holding out her rug and

cushion. “No! Not you, Mr. Aynesworth. Mr. Wingrave understands so much

better how to wrap me up. Thanks! Won’t you sit down yourself? It’s much

better for you out here than in the smoking room--and we might go on

with our argument.”

“I thought,” Wingrave remarked, accepting her invitation after a

moment’s hesitation, “that we were to abandon it.”

“That was before dinner,” she answered, glancing sideways at him. “I

feel braver now.”

“You are prepared,” he remarked, “for unconditional surrender?”

She looked at him again. She had rather nice eyes, quite dark and very

soft, and she was a great believer in their efficacy.

“Of my argument?”

He did not answer her for a moment. He had turned his head slightly

towards her, and though his face was, as usual, expressionless, and his

eyes cold and hard, she found nevertheless something of meaning in his

steady regard. There was a flush in her cheek when she looked away.

“I am afraid,” she remarked, “that you are rather a terrible person.”

“You flatter me,” he murmured. “I am really quite harmless!”

“Not from conviction then, I am sure,” she remarked.

“Perhaps not,” he admitted. “Let us call it from lack of enterprise! The

virtues are all very admirable things, but it is the men and women with

vices who have ruled the world. The good die young because there is no

useful work for them to do. No really satisfactory person, from a moral

point of view, ever achieved greatness!”

She half closed her eyes.

“My head is going round,” she murmured. “What an upheaval! Fancy

Mephistopheles on a steamer!”

“He was, at any rate, the most interesting of that little trio,”

Wingrave remarked, “but even he was a trifle heavy.”

“Do you go about the world preaching your new doctrines?” she asked.

“Not I!” he answered. “Nothing would every make a missionary of me,

for good or for evil, for the simple reason that no one else’s welfare

except my own has the slightest concern for me.”

“What hideous selfishness!” she said softly. “But I don’t think--you

quite mean it?”

“I can assure you I do,” he answered drily. “My world consists of myself

for the central figure, and the half a dozen or so of people who are

useful or amusing to me! Except that the rest are needed to keep moving

the machinery of the world, they might all perish, so far as I was

concerned.”

“I don’t think,” Mrs. Travers said softly, “that I should like to be in

your world.”

“I can very easily believe you,” he answered.

“Unless,” she remarked tentatively, “I came to convert!”

He nodded.

“There is something in that,” he admitted. “It would be a great work, a

little difficult, you know.”

“All the more interesting!”

“You see,” he continued, “I am not only bad, but I admire badness. My

wish is to remain bad--in fact, I should like to be worse if I knew how.

You would find it hard to make a start. I couldn’t even admit that a

state of goodness was desirable!”

She looked at him curiously. The night air was perhaps getting colder,

for she shivered, and drew the rug a little closer around her.

“You speak like a prophet,” she remarked.

“A prophet of evil then!”

She looked at him steadfastly. The lightness had gone out of her tone.

“Do you know,” she said, “I am almost sorry that I ever knew you?”

He shook his head.

“You can’t mean it,” he declared.

“Why not?”

“I have done you the greatest service one human being can render

another! I have saved you from being bored!”

She nodded.

“That may be true,” she admitted. “But can you conceive no worse state

in the world than being bored?”

“There is no worse state,” he answered drily. “I was bored once,” he

added, “for ten years or so; I ought to know!”

“Were you married?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Not quite so bad as that,” he answered. “I was in prison!”

She turned a startled face towards him.

“Nonsense!”

“It is perfectly true,” he said coolly. “Are you horrified?”

“What did you do?” she asked in a low tone.

“I killed a man.”

“Purposely?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“He attacked me! I had to defend myself.”

She said nothing for several moments.

“Shall I go?” he asked.

“No! Sit still,” she answered. “I am frightened of you, but I don’t want

you to go away. I want to think.... Yes! I can understand you better

now! Your life was spoilt!”

“By no means,” he answered. “I am still young! I am going to make up for

those ten years.”

She shook her head.

“You cannot,” she answered. “The years can carry no more than their

ordinary burden of sensations. If you try to fill them too full, you

lose everything.”

“I shall try what I can do!” he remarked calmly.

She rose abruptly.

“I am afraid of you tonight,” she said. “I am going downstairs. Will you

give my rug and cushion to the deck steward? And--good night.”

She gave him her hand, but she did not look at him, and she hurried away

a little abruptly.

Wingrave yawned, and lighting a cigar, strolled up and down the deck.

A figure loomed out of the darkness and almost ran into him. It was the

young man in the serge suit. He muttered a clumsy apology and hurried

on.

A COCKNEY CONSPIRATOR

“The bar closes in ten minutes, sir!” the smoking room steward

announced.

The young man who had been the subject of Wingrave’s remarks hastily

ordered another drink, although he had an only half-emptied tumbler in

front of him. Presently he stumbled out on to the deck. It was a dark

night, and a strong head wind was blowing. He groped his way to the

railing and leaned over, with his head half buried in his hands. Below,

the black tossing sea was churned into phosphorescent spray, as the

steamer drove onwards into the night.

Was it he indeed--George Richardson? He doubted it. The world of tape

measures and calico counters seemed so far away; the interior of

his quondam lodgings in a by-street of Islington, so unfamiliar and

impossible. He felt himself swallowed up in this new and bewildering

existence, of which he was so insignificant an atom, the existence where

tragedy reared her gloomy head, and the shadows of great things loomed

around him. Down there in the cold restless waste of black waters--what

was it that he saw? The sweat broke out upon his forehead, the blood

seemed turned to ice in his veins. He knew very well that his fancy

mocked him, that it was not indeed a man’s white face gleaming on the

crest of the waves. But none the less he was terrified.

Mr. Richardson was certainly nervous. Not all the brandy he had

drunk--and he had never drunk half as much before in his life--afforded

him the least protection from these ghastly fancies. The step of a

sailor on the deck made him shiver; the thought of his empty state room

was a horror. He tried to think of the woman at whose bidding he had

left behind him Islington and the things that belonged to Islington! He

tried to recall her soft suggestive whispers, the glances which promised

more even than her spoken words, all the perfume and mystery of her

wonderful presence. Her very name was an allurement. Mademoiselle

Violet! How softly it fell from the lips!... God in heaven, what was

that? He started round, trembling in every limb. It was nothing more

than the closing of the smoking room door behind him. Sailors with

buckets and mops were already beginning their nightly tasks. He must go

to his state room! Somehow or other, he must get through the night...

He did it, but he was not a very prepossessing looking object when he

staggered out on deck twelve hours later, into the noon sunshine. The

chair towards which he looked so eagerly was occupied. He scarcely knew

himself whether that little gulp of acute feeling, which shot through

his veins, was of relief or disappointment. While he hesitated, Wingrave

raised his head.

Wingrave did not, as a rule, speak to his fellow passengers. Of

Richardson, he had not hitherto taken the slightest notice. Yet this

morning, of all others, he addressed him.

“I believe,” he said, holding it out towards him, “that this envelope is

yours. I found it under your chair.”

Richardson muttered something inarticulate, and almost snatched it away.

It was the envelope of the fatal letter which Mademoiselle Violet had

written him to Queenstown.

“Sit down, Mr. Richardson, if you are not in a hurry,” Wingrave

continued calmly. “I was hoping that I might see you this morning. Can

you spare me a few minutes?”

Richardson subsided into his chair. His heart was thumping against his

ribs. Wingrave’s voice sounded to him like a far-off thing.

“The handwriting upon that envelope which I have just restored to

you, Mr. Richardson, is well known to me,” Wingrave continued, gazing

steadfastly at the young man whom he was addressing.

“The envelope! The handwriting!” Richardson faltered. “I--it was from--”

An instant’s pause. Wingrave raised his eyebrows.

“Ah!” he said. “We need not mention the lady’s name. That she should be

a correspondent of yours, however, helps me to understand better several

matters which have somewhat puzzled me lately. No! Don’t go, my dear

sir. We must really have this affair straightened out.”

“What affair?” Richardson demanded, with a very weak attempt at bluster.

“I don’t understand you--don’t understand you at all.”

Wingrave leaned a little forward in his chair. His eyebrows were drawn

close together; his gaze was entirely merciless.

“You are not well this morning,” he remarked. “A little headache

perhaps! Won’t you try one of these phenacetine lozenges--excellent

things for a headache, I believe? Warranted, in fact, to cure all bodily

ailments for ever! What! You don’t like the look of them?”

The young man cowered back in his chair. He was gripping the sides

tightly with both hands, and the pallor of a ghastly fear had spread

over his face.

“I--don’t know what you mean,” he faltered. “I haven’t a headache!”

Wingrave looked thoughtfully at the box between his fingers.

“If you took one of these, Mr. Richardson,” he said, “you would never

have another, at any rate. Now, tell me, sir, how you came by them!”

“I know nothing about--” the young man began.

“Don’t lie to me, sir,” Wingrave said sharply. “I have been wondering

what the ---- you meant by hanging around after me, giving the deck

steward five shillings to put your chair next mine, and pretending

to read, while all the time you were trying to overhear any scraps of

conversation between my secretary and myself. I thought you were simply

guilty of impertinent curiosity. This, however, rather alters the look

of affairs.”

“What does?” Richardson asked faintly. “That box ain’t mine.”

“Perhaps not,” Wingrave answered, “but you found it in my state room and

filled it up with its present contents. My servant saw you coming out,

and immediately went in to see what you had stolen, and report you. He

found nothing missing, but he found this box full of lozenges, which he

knows quite well was half full before you went in. Now, what was your

object, Mr. Richardson, in tampering with that box upon my shelf?”

“I have--I have never seen it before,” Richardson declared. “I have

never been in your state room!”

The deck steward was passing. Wingrave summoned him.

“I wish you would ask my servant to step this way,” he said. “You will

find him in my state room.”

The man disappeared through the companion way. Richardson rose to his

feet.

“I’m not going to stay here to be bullied and cross examined,” he

declared. “I’m off!”

“One moment,” Wingrave said. “If you leave me now, I shall ask the

captain to place you under arrest.”

Richardson looked half fearfully around.

“What for?”

“Attempted murder! Very clumsily attempted, but attempted murder none

the less.”

The young man collapsed. Wingrave’s servant came down the deck.

“You sent for me, sir?” he inquired respectfully.

Wingrave pointed towards his companion.

“Was that the person whom you saw coming out of my state room?” he

asked.

“Yes sir,” the man replied at once.

“You could swear to him, if necessary?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“That will do, Morrison.”

The man withdrew. Wingrave turned to his victim. “A few weeks ago,” he

remarked, “I had a visit from the lady whose handwriting is upon that

envelope. I had on the table before me a box of phenacetine lozenges.

She naturally concluded that I was in the habit of using them. That lady

has unfortunately cause to consider me, if not an enemy, something very

much like it. You are in correspondence with her. Only last night you

placed in my box of these lozenges some others, closely resembling them,

but fortunately a little different in shape. Mine were harmless--as a

matter of fact, a single one of yours would kill a man in ten minutes.

Now, Mr. Richardson, what have you to say about all this? Why should I

not send for the captain, and have you locked up till we arrive at New

York?”

Richardson drew his handkerchief across his damp forehead.

“You can’t prove nothing,” he muttered.

“I am afraid that I must differ from you,” Wingrave answered. “We will

see what the captain has to say.”

He leaned forward in his chair, to attract the attention of a seaman.

Richardson interposed.

“All right,” he said thickly. “Suppose I own up! What then?”

“A few questions--nothing terrifying. I am not very frightened of you.”

“Go on!”

“How did you become acquainted with the writer of that letter?”

Richardson hesitated.

“She came to a dancing class at Islington,” he said.

Wingrave’s face was expressionless, but his tone betrayed his

incredulity.

“A dancing class at Islington! Nonsense!”

“Mind,” the young man asserted, “it was her mistress who put her up to

this! It was nothing to do with her. It was for her mistress’s sake.”

“Do you know the mistress?” Wingrave asked.

“No; I don’t know her name even. Never heard it.”

“Your letter, then, was from the maid?”

“Of course, it was,” Richardson answered. “If you recognize the writing,

you must know that yourself.”

Wingrave looked reflectively seaward. The matter was not entirely clear

to him. Yet he was sure that this young man was telling the truth, so

far as he could divine it.

“Well,” he said, “you have made your attempt and failed. If fortune had

favored you, you might at this moment have been a murderer. I might have

warned you, by the bye, that I am an exceedingly hard man to kill.”

Richardson looked uneasily around.

“I ain’t admitting anything, you know,” he said.

“Precisely! Well, what are you going to do now? Are you satisfied with

your first reverse, or are you going to renew the experiment?”

“I’ve had enough,” was the dogged answer. “I’ve been made a fool of. I

can see that. I shall return home by the next steamer. I never ought to

have got mixed up in this.”

“I am inclined to agree with you,” Wingrave remarked calmly. “Do I

understand that if I choose to forget this little episode, you will

return to England by the next steamer?”

“I swear it,” Richardson declared.

“And in the meantime, that you make no further attempt of a similar

nature?”

“Not I!” he answered with emphasis. “I’ve had enough.”

“Then,” Wingrave said, “we need not prolong this conversation. Forgive

my suggesting, Mr. Richardson, that whilst I am on deck, the other side

of the ship should prove more convenient for you!”

The young man rose, and without a word staggered off. Wingrave watched

him through half-closed eyes, until he disappeared.

“It was worth trying,” he said softly to himself. “A very clever woman

that! She looks forward through the years, and she sees the clouds

gathering. It was a little risky, and the means were very crude. But it

was worth trying!”

THE MOTH AND THE CANDLE

“Tomorrow morning,” Aynesworth remarked, “we shall land.”

Wingrave nodded.

“I shall not be sorry,” he said shortly.

Aynesworth fidgeted about. He had something to say, and he found it

difficult. Wingrave gave him no encouragement. He was leaning back

in his steamer chair, with his eyes fixed upon the sky line.

Notwithstanding the incessant companionship of the last six days,

Aynesworth felt that he had not progressed a single step towards

establishing any more intimate relations between his employer and

himself.

“Mrs. Travers is not on deck this afternoon,” he remarked a trifle

awkwardly.

“Indeed!” Wingrave answered. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Aynesworth sat down. There was nothing to be gained by fencing.

“I wanted to talk about her, sir, if I might,” he said.

Wingrave withdrew his eyes from the sea, and looked at his companion in

cold surprise.

“To me?” he asked.

“Yes! I thought, the first few days, that Mrs. Travers was simply a vain

little woman of the world, perfectly capable of taking care of herself,

and heartless enough to flirt all day long, if she chose, without any

risk, so far as she was concerned. I believe I made a mistake!”

“This is most interesting,” Wingrave said calmly, “but why talk to me

about the lady? I fancy that I know as much about her as you do.”

“Very likely; but you may not have realized the same things. Mrs.

Travers is a married woman, with a husband in Boston, and two little

children, of whom, I believe, she is really very fond. She is a foolish,

good-natured little woman, who thinks herself clever because her husband

has permitted her to travel a good deal, and has evidently been rather

fascinated by the latitudinarianism of continental society. She is a

little afraid of being terribly bored when she gets back to Boston, and

she is very sentimental.”

“I had no idea,” Wingrave remarked, “that you had been submitting the

lady and her affairs to the ordeal of your marvelous gift of analysis. I

rather fancied that you took no interest in her at all.”

“I did not,” Aynesworth answered, “until last night.”

“And last night?” he repeated questioningly.

“I found her on deck--crying. She had been tearing up some photographs,

and she talked a little wildly. I talked to her then for a little time.”

“Can’t you be more explicit?” Wingrave asked.

Aynesworth looked him in the face.

“She gave me the impression,” he said, “that she did not intend to

return to her husband.”

Wingrave nodded.

“And what have you to say to me about this?” he asked.

“I have no right to say anything, of course,” Aynesworth answered. “You

might very properly tell me that it is no concern of mine. Mrs. Travers

has already compromised herself, to some extent, with the people on

board who know her and her family. She never leaves your side for a

moment if she can help it, and for the last two or three days she has

almost followed you about. You may possibly derive some amusement from

her society for a short time, but--afterwards!”

“Explain yourself exactly,” Wingrave said.

“Is it necessary?” Aynesworth declared brusquely. “Talk sensibly to

her! Don’t encourage her if she should really be contemplating anything

foolish!”

“Why not?”

“Oh, hang it all!” Aynesworth declared. “I’m not a moralist, but she’s

a decent little woman. Don’t ruin her life for the sake of a little

diversion!”

Wingrave, who had been holding a cigar case in his hand for the last few

minutes, opened it, and calmly selected a cigar.

“Aren’t you a little melodramatic, Aynesworth?” he said.

“Sounds like it, no doubt,” his companion answered, “but after all, hang

it, she’s not a bad little sort, and you wouldn’t care to meet her in

Piccadilly in a couple of years’ time.”

Wingrave turned a little in his chair. There was a slight hardening of

the mouth, a cold gleam in his eyes.

“That,” he remarked, “is precisely where you are wrong. I am afraid you

have forgotten our previous conversations on this or a similar subject.

Disconnect me in your mind at once from all philanthropic notions! I

desire to make no one happy, to assist at no one’s happiness. My own

life has been ruined by a woman. Her sex shall pay me where it can. If

I can obtain from the lady in question a single second’s amusement,

her future is a matter of entire indifference to me. She can play the

repentant wife, or resort to the primeval profession of her sex. I

should not even have the curiosity to inquire which.”

“In that case,” Aynesworth said slowly, “I presume that I need say no

more.”

“Unless it amuses you,” Wingrave answered, “it really is not worth

while.”

“Perhaps,” Aynesworth remarked, “it is as well that I should tell you

this. I shall put the situation before Mrs. Travers exactly as I see

it. I shall do my best to dissuade her from any further or more intimate

intercourse with you.”

“At the risk, of course,” Wingrave said, “of my offering you--this?”

He drew a paper from his pocket book, and held it out. It was the return

half of a steamer ticket.

“Even at that risk,” Aynesworth answered without hesitation.

Wingrave carefully folded the document, and returned it to his pocket.

“I am glad,” he said, “to find that you are so consistent. There is Mrs.

Travers scolding the deck steward. Go and talk to her! You will scarcely

find a better opportunity.”

Aynesworth rose at once. Wingrave in a few moments also left his seat,

but proceeded in the opposite direction. He made his way into the

purser’s room, and carefully closed the door behind him.

Mrs. Travers greeted Aynesworth without enthusiasm. Her eyes were

resting upon the empty place which Wingrave had just vacated.

“Can I get your chair for you, Mrs. Travers,” Aynesworth asked, “or

shall we walk for a few minutes?”

Mrs. Travers hesitated. She looked around, but there was obviously no

escape for her.

“I should like to sit down,” she said. “I am very tired this morning. My

chair is next Mr. Wingrave’s there.”

Aynesworth found her rug and wrapped it around her. She leaned back and

closed her eyes.

“I shall try to sleep,” she said. “I had such a shocking night.”

He understood at once that she was on her guard, and he changed his

tactics.

“First,” he said, “may I ask you a question?”

She opened her eyes wide, and looked at him. She was afraid.

“Not now,” she said hurriedly. “This afternoon.”

“This afternoon I may not have the opportunity,” he answered. “Is your

husband going to meet you at New York, Mrs. Travers?”

“No!”

“Are you going direct to Boston?”

She looked at him steadily. There was a slight flush of color in her

cheeks.

“I find your questions impertinent, Mr. Aynesworth,” she answered.

There was a short silence. Aynesworth hated his task and hated himself.

But most of all, he pitied the woman who sat by his side.

“No!” he said, “they are not impertinent. I am the looker-on, you know,

and I have seen--a good deal. If Wingrave were an ordinary sort of man,

I should never have dared to interfere. If you had been an ordinary sort

of woman, I might not have cared to.”

She half rose in her chair.

“I shall not stay here,” she began, struggling with her rug.

“Do!” he begged. “I am--I want to be your friend, really!”

“You are supposed to be his,” she reminded him.

He shook his head.

“I am his secretary. There is no question of friendship between us. For

the rest, I told him that I should speak to you.”

“You have no right to discuss me at all,” she declared vehemently.

“None whatever,” he admitted. “I have to rely entirely upon your mercy.

This is the truth. People are thrown together a good deal on a voyage

like this. You and Mr. Wingrave have seen a good deal of one another.

You are a very impressionable woman; he is a singularly cold,

unimpressionable man. You have found his personality attractive. You

fancy--other things. Wingrave is not the man you think he is. He is

selfish and entirely without affectionate impulses. The world has

treated him badly, and he has no hesitation in saying that he means to

get some part of his own back again. He does not care for you, he does

not care for anyone. If you should be contemplating anything ridiculous

from a mistaken judgment of his character, it is better that you should

know the truth.”

The anger had gone. She was pale again, and her lips were trembling.

“Men seldom know one another,” she said softly. “You judge from the

surface only.”

“Mine is the critical judgment of one who has studied him intimately,”

Aynesworth said. “Yours is the sentimental hope of one fascinated by

what she does not understand. Wingrave is utterly heartless!”

“That,” she answered steadfastly, “I do not believe.”

“You do not because you will not,” he declared. “I have spoken because

I wish to save you from doing what you would repent of for the rest of

your days. You have the one vanity which is common to all women. You

believe that you can change what, believe me, is unchangeable. To

Wingrave, women are less than playthings. He owes the unhappiness of

his life to one, and he would see the whole of her sex suffer without

emotion. He is impregnable to sentiment. Ask him and I believe that he

would admit it!”

She smiled and regarded him with the mild pity of superior knowledge.

“You do not understand Mr. Wingrave,” she remarked.

Aynesworth sighed. He realized that every word he had spoken had been

wasted upon this pale, pretty woman, who sat with her eyes now turned

seawards, and the smile still lingering upon her lips. Studying her

for a moment, he realized the danger more acutely than ever before. The

fretfulness seemed to have gone from her face, the weary lines from her

mouth. She had the look of a woman who has come into the knowledge of

better things. And it was Wingrave who had done this! Aynesworth for the

first time frankly hated the man. Once, as a boy, he had seen a keeper

take a rabbit from a trap and dash its brains out against a tree. The

incident flashed then into his mind, only the face of the keeper was the

face of Wingrave!

“DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST”

Wingrave and Aynesworth were alone in a private room of the Waldorf

Astoria Hotel. The table at which the former was seated was covered with

letters and papers. A New York directory and an atlas were at his elbow.

“I propose,” Wingrave said, leaning back in his chair, “to give you

some idea of the nature of my business in this country. You will be able

then, I trust, to carry out my instructions more intelligibly.”

Aynesworth nodded.

“I thought,” he said, “that you came here simply to remain in seclusion

for a time.”

“That is one of my reasons,” Wingrave admitted, “but I had a special

purpose in coming to America. During my--enforced seclusion--I made the

acquaintance of a man called Hardwell. He was an Englishman, but he

had lived in America for some years, and had got into trouble over

some company business. We had some conversation, and it is upon his

information that I am now going to act.”

“He is trustworthy?” Aynesworth asked.

“I take the risk,” Wingrave answered coolly. “There is a small copper

mine in Utah called the Royal Hardwell Copper Mine. The shares are

hundred dollar ones, and there are ten thousand of them. They are

scarcely quoted now, as the mine has become utterly discredited.

Hardwell managed this himself with a false report. He meant to have the

company go into liquidation, and then buy it for a very small amount.

As a matter of fact, the mine is good, and could be worked at a large

profit.”

“You have Hardwell’s word for that,” Aynesworth remarked.

“Exactly!” Wingrave remarked. “I am proceeding on the assumption that he

told me the truth. I wish to buy, if possible, the whole of the shares,

and as many more as I can get brokers to sell. The price of the shares

today is two dollars!”

“I presume you will send out an expert to the mine first?” Aynesworth

said.

“I shall do nothing of the sort,” Wingrave answered. “The fact that I

was buying upon information would send the shares up at once. I mean

to buy first, and then go out to the mine. If I have made a mistake, I

shall not be ruined. If Hardwell’s story is true, there will be millions

in it.”

Aynesworth said nothing, but his face expressed a good deal.

“Here are the names of seven respectable brokers,” Wingrave continued,

passing a sheet of paper towards him. “I want you to buy five hundred

shares from each of them. The price may vary a few points. Whatever it

is, pay it. Here are seven signed checks. I shall buy myself as many as

I can without spoiling the market. You had better start out in about a

quarter of an hour and see to this. You have my private ledger?”

“Yes.”

“Open an account to Hardwell in it; a quarter of all the shares I

buy are to be in his name, and a quarter of all the profits I make in

dealing in the shares is to be credited to him.”

“A fairly generous arrangement for Mr. Hardwell,” Aynesworth remarked.

“There is nothing generous about it,” Wingrave answered coldly. “It is

the arrangement I made with him, and to which I propose to adhere. You

understand what I want you to do?”

“Perfectly,” Aynesworth answered; “I still think, however, that much the

wiser course would be to send an expert to the mine first.”

“Indeed!” Wingrave remarked politely. “That is all, I think. I shall

expect to see you at luncheon time. If you are asked questions as to why

you are dealing in these shares to such an extent, you can say that the

friend for whom you are acting desires to boom copper, and is going on

the low price of the metal at the moment. They will think you a fool,

and perhaps may not trouble to conceal their opinion after they have

finished the business. You must endeavor to support the character. I

have no doubt but that you will be successful.”

Aynesworth moved towards the door.

Once more Wingrave called him back. He was leaning a little forward

across the table. His face was very set and cold.

“There is a question which I wish to ask you, Aynesworth,” he said. “It

concerns another matter altogether. Do you know who sent the Marconigram

to Dr. Travers, which brought him to New York to meet his wife?”

“I do not,” Aynesworth answered.

“It was sent by someone on board the ship,” Wingrave continued. “You

have no suspicion as to whom it could have been?”

“None!” Aynesworth answered firmly. “At the same time, I do not mind

telling you this. If I had thought of it, I would have sent it myself.”

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

“It is perhaps fortunate for the continuation of our mutual relations

that you did not think of it,” he remarked quietly. “I accept your

denial. I shall expect you back at one o’clock.”

At a few minutes after that hour the two men sat down to luncheon.

Wingrave at that time was the possessor of six thousand shares in the

Royal Hardwell Copper Mine, which had cost him, on an average, two

dollars twenty-five. The news of the dealing, however, had got about,

and although derision was the chief sentiment amongst the brokers, the

price steadily mounted. A dozen telegrams were sent out to the mine, and

on receipt of the replies, the dealing became the joke of the day. The

mine was still deserted, and no fresh inspection had been made.

The price dropped a little. Then Wingrave bought a thousand more by

telephone, and it rose again to four. A few minutes before closing time,

he threw every share of which he was possessed upon the market, and the

next morning Royal Hardwells stood at one dollar seventy-five.

For a week Wingrave pursued the same tactics, and at the end of that

time he had made twenty thousand dollars. The brokers, however, now

understood, or thought they understood, the situation. No one bought for

the rise; they were all sellers. Wingrave at once changed his tactics.

He bought five thousand shares in one block, and sold none. Even then,

the market was only mildly amused. In a fortnight he was the nominal

owner of sixteen thousand shares in a company of which only ten thousand

actually existed. Then he sat still, and the panic began. The shares

in a company which everyone believed to be worthless stood at thirty

dollars, and not a share was offered.

A small pandemonium reigned in Wingrave’s sitting room. The telephone

rang all the time; the place was besieged with brokers. Then Wingrave

showed his hand. He had bought these shares to hold; he did not intend

to sell one. As to the six thousand owed to him beyond the number

issued, he was prepared to consider offers. One broker left him a check

for twenty thousand dollars, another for nearly forty thousand. Wingrave

had no pity. He had gambled and won. He would accept nothing less

than par price. The air in his sitting room grew thick with curses and

tobacco smoke.

Aynesworth began by hating the whole business, but insensibly the

fascination of it crept over him. He grew used to hearing the various

forms of protest, of argument and abuse, which one and all left Wingrave

so unmoved. Sphinx-like he lounged in his chair, and listened to all.

He never condescended to justify his position, he never met argument

by argument. He had the air of being thoroughly bored by the whole

proceedings. But he exacted always his pound of flesh.

On the third afternoon, Aynesworth met on the stairs a young broker,

whom he had come across once or twice during his earlier dealings in the

shares. They had had lunch together, and Aynesworth had taken a fancy to

the boy--he was little more--fresh from Harvard and full of enthusiasm.

He scarcely recognized him for a moment. The fresh color had gone from

his cheeks, his eyes were set in a fixed, wild stare; he seemed suddenly

aged. Aynesworth stopped him.

“Hullo, Nesbitt!” he exclaimed. “What’s wrong?”

The young man would have passed on with a muttered greeting, but

Aynesworth turned round with him, and led the way into one of the

smaller smoking rooms. He called for drinks and repeated his question.

“Your governor has me six hundred Hardwells short,” Nesbitt answered

curtly.

“Six hundred! What does it mean?” Aynesworth asked.

“Sixty thousand dollars, or thereabouts,” the young man answered

despairingly. “His brokers won’t listen to me, and your governor--well,

I’ve just been to see him. I won’t call him names! And we thought that

some fool of an Englishman was burning his fingers with those shares.

I’m not the only one caught, but the others can stand it. I can’t, worse

luck!”

“I’m beastly sorry,” Aynesworth said truthfully. “I wish I could help

you.”

Nesbitt raised his head. A sudden light flashed in his eyes; he spoke

quickly, almost feverishly.

“Say, Aynesworth,” he exclaimed, “do you think you could do anything

with your governor for me? You see--it’s ruin if I have to pay up. I

wouldn’t mind--for myself, but I was married four months ago, and I

can’t bear the thought of going home--and telling her. All the money

we have between us is in my business, and we’ve got no rich friends

or anything of that sort. I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to be

hammered. I’ve been so careful, too! I didn’t want to take this on, but

it seemed such a soft thing! If I could get off with twenty thousand,

I’d keep my head up. I hate to talk like this. I’d go down like a man

if I were alone, but--but--oh! Confound it all--!” he exclaimed with an

ominous break in his tone.

Aynesworth laid his hand upon the boy’s arm.

“Look here,” he said, “I’ll try what I can do with Mr. Wingrave. Wait

here!”

Aynesworth found his employer alone with his broker, who was just

hastening off to keep an appointment. He plunged at once into his

appeal.

“Mr. Wingrave,” he said, “you have just had a young broker named Nesbitt

on.”

Wingrave glanced at a paper by his side.

“Yes,” he said. “Six hundred short! I wish they wouldn’t come to me.”

“I’ve been talking to him downstairs,” Aynesworth said. “This will break

him.”

“Then I ought not to have done business with him at all,” Wingrave said

coolly. “If he cannot find sixty thousand dollars, he has no right to

be in Wall street. I daresay he’ll pay, though! They all plead

poverty--curs!”

“I think Nesbitt’s case is a little different from the others,”

Aynesworth continued. “He is quite young, little more than a boy, and he

has only just started in business. To be hammered would be absolute

ruin for him. He seems such a decent young fellow, and he’s only just

married. He’s in an awful state downstairs. I wish you’d have another

talk with him. I think you’d feel inclined to let him down easy.”

Wingrave smiled coldly.

“My dear Aynesworth,” he said, “you astonish me. I am not interested

in this young man’s future or in his matrimonial arrangements. He has

gambled with me and lost. I presume that he would have taken my money

if I had been the fool they all thought me. As it is, I mean to have

his--down to the last cent!”

“He isn’t like the others,” Aynesworth protested doggedly. “He’s only

a boy--and it seems such jolly hard luck, doesn’t it, only four months

married! New York hasn’t much pity for paupers. He looks mad enough to

blow his brains out. Have him up, sir, and see if you can’t compromise!”

“Fetch him,” Wingrave said curtly.

Aynesworth hurried downstairs. The boy was walking restlessly up and

down the room. The look he turned upon Aynesworth was almost pitiful.

“He’ll see you again,” Aynesworth said hurriedly. “Come along.”

The boy wrung his hand.

“You’re a brick!” he declared.

THE HIDDEN HAND

Wingrave glanced up as they entered. He motioned Nesbitt to a chair by

his side, but the young man remained standing.

“My secretary tells me,” Wingrave said curtly, “that you cannot pay me

what you owe.”

“It’s more than I possess in the world, sir,” Nesbitt answered.

“It is not a large amount,” Wingrave said. “I do not see how you can

carry on business unless you can command such a sum as this.”

Nesbitt moistened his dry lips with his tongue.

“I have only been doing a very small business, sir,” he answered, “but

quite enough to make a living. I don’t speculate as a rule. Hardwells

seemed perfectly safe, or I wouldn’t have touched them. I sold at four.

They are not worth one. I could have bought thousands last week for two

dollars.”

“That is beside the question,” Wingrave answered. “If you do not pay

this, you have cheated me out of my profits for I should have placed the

commission with brokers who could. Why did you wish to see me again?”

“I thought that you might give me time,” Nesbitt answered, raising his

head and looking Wingrave straight in the face. “It seems rather a low

down thing to come begging. I’d rather cut my right hand off than do it

for myself, but I’ve--someone else to think about, and if I’m hammered,

I’m done for. Give me a chance, Mr. Wingrave! I’ll pay you in time.”

“What do you ask for?” Wingrave said.

“I thought that you might give me time,” Nesbitt said, “and I’ll pay you

the rest off with the whole of my profits every year.”

“A most absurd proposal,” Wingrave said coolly. “I will instruct my

brokers to take twenty thousand dollars down, and wait one week for the

balance. That is the best offer I can make you. Good day!”

The young man stood as though he were stunned.

“I--I can’t find it,” he faltered. “I can’t indeed.”

“Your resources are not my affair,” Wingrave said. “I shall instruct my

broker to do as I have said. If the money is not forthcoming, you know

the alternative.”

“You mean to ruin me, then?” Nesbitt said slowly.

“I mean to exact the payment of what is due to me,” Wingrave said

curtly. “If you cannot pay, it seems to me that I am the person to be

pitied--not you. Show Mr. Nesbitt out, Aynesworth.”

Nesbitt turned towards the door. He was very pale, but he walked

steadily. He did not speak another word to Wingrave.

“I’m beastly sorry,” Aynesworth said to him on the stairs. “I wish I

could help you!”

“Thank you,” Nesbitt answered. “No one can help me. I’m through.”

Aynesworth returned to the sitting room. Wingrave had lit a cigarette

and watched him as he arranged some papers.

“Quite a comedy, isn’t it?” he remarked grimly.

“It doesn’t present itself in that light to me,” Aynesworth answered.

Wingrave blew the smoke away from in front of his face. “Ah!” he said,

“I forgot that you were a sentimentalist. I look upon these things

from my own point of view. From yours, I suppose I must seem a very

disagreeable person. I admit frankly that the sufferings of other people

do not affect me in the slightest.”

“I am sorry for you,” Aynesworth said shortly. “If there is going to be

much of this sort of thing, though, I must ask you to relieve me of my

post. I can’t stand it.”

“Whenever you like, my dear fellow,” Wingrave answered. “I think

that you would be very foolish to leave me, though. I must be a most

interesting study.”

“You are--what the devil made you!” Aynesworth muttered.

Wingrave laid down his cigarette.

“I am what my fellows have made me,” he said slowly. “I tasted hell for

a good many years. It has left me, I suppose, with a depraved taste.

Ring up my brokers, Aynesworth! I want to speak to Malcolmson. He had

better come round here.”

The day dragged on. Aynesworth hated it all, and was weary long before

it was half over. Everyone who came was angry, and a good many came whom

Wingrave refused to see. Just before five o’clock, young Nesbitt entered

the room unannounced. Aynesworth started towards him with a little

exclamation. The young man’s evident excitement terrified him, and he

feared a tragedy. Malcolmson, too, half rose to his feet. Wingrave alone

remained unmoved.

Nesbitt walked straight up to the table at which Malcolmson and Wingrave

were sitting. He halted in front of the latter.

“Mr. Wingrave,” he said, “you will give me my receipt for those shares

for fifty-seven thousand six hundred dollars.”

Wingrave turned to a paper by his side, and ran his forefinger down the

list of names.

“Mr. Nesbitt,” he said. “Yes! sixty thousand dollars.”

The young man laid a slip of paper upon the table.

“That is a certified check for the amount,” he said. “Mr. Malcolmson,

please give me my receipt.”

“Ah!” Mr. Wingrave remarked. “I thought that you would find the money.”

Nesbitt bit his lip, but he said nothing till he had the receipt and

had fastened it up in his pocket. Then he turned suddenly round upon

Wingrave.

“Look here!” he said. “You’ve got your money. I don’t owe you a cent.

Now I’m going to tell you what I think of you.”

Wingrave rose slowly to his feet. He was as tall as the boy, long, lean,

and hard. His face expressed neither anger nor excitement, but there was

a slight, dangerous glitter in his deep-set eyes.

“If you mean,” he said, “that you are going to be impertinent, I would

recommend you to change your mind.”

Nesbitt for a moment hesitated. There was something ominous in the cool

courage of the older man. And before he could collect himself, Wingrave

continued:--

“I presume,” he said, “that you chose your own profession. You knew

quite well there was no place in it for men with a sense of the higher

morality. It is a profession of gamblers and thieves. If you’d won,

you’d have thought yourself a smart fellow and pocketed your winnings

fast enough. Now that you’ve lost--don’t whine. You sat down willingly

enough to play the game with me. Don’t call me names because you lost.

This is no place for children. Pocket your defeat, and be more careful

next time.”

Nesbitt was silent for a moment. Wingrave, cool and immovable, dominated

him. He gave a little laugh, and turned towards the door.

“Guess you’re right,” he declared; “we’ll let it go at that.”

Aynesworth followed him from the room.

“I’m awfully glad you’re out of the scrape,” he said.

Nesbitt caught him by the arm.

“Come right along,” he said. “I haven’t had a drink in the daytime for

a year, but we’re going to have a big one now. I say, do you know how I

got that money?”

Aynesworth shook his head.

“On easy terms, I hope.”

They sat down in the American Bar, and a colored waiter in a white linen

suit brought them whisky and Apollinaris in tall tumblers.

“Listen,” Nesbitt said. “My brain is on the reel still. I went back

to my office, and if it hadn’t been for the little girl, I should have

brought a revolver by the way. Old Johnny there waiting to see me, no

end of a swell, Phillson, the uptown lawyer. He went straight for me.

“‘Been dealing in Hardwells?’ he asked.

“I nodded.

“‘Short, eh?’

“‘Six hundred shares,’ I answered. There was no harm in telling him for

the Street knew well enough.

“‘Bad job,’ he said. ‘How much does Wingrave want?’

“‘Shares at par,’ I answered. ‘It comes to close on fifty-seven thousand

six hundred dollars.’

“‘I’m going to find you the money,’ he said.

“Then I can tell you the things in my office began to swim. I’d an idea

somehow that he was there as a friend, but nothing like this. I couldn’t

answer him.

“‘It’s a delicate piece of business,’ he went on. ‘In fact, the fewer

questions you ask the better. All I can say is there’s a chap in Wall

Street got his eye on you. Your old dad once helped him over a much

worse place than this. Anyhow, I’ve a check here for sixty thousand

dollars, and no conditions, only that you don’t talk.’

“‘But when am I to pay it back?’ I gasped.

“‘If my client ever needs it, and you can afford it, he will ask for

it.’ Phillson answered. ‘That’s all.’

“And before I could say another darned word, he was gone, and the check

was there on my desk.”

Aynesworth sipped his whisky and Apollinaris, and lit a cigarette.

“And they say,” he murmured, “that romance does not exist in Wall

Street. You’re a lucky chap, Nesbitt.”

“Lucky! Do you think I don’t realize it? Of course, I know the old

governor had lots of friends on the Street, but he was never in a

big way, and he got hit awfully hard himself before he died. I can’t

understand it anyway.”

“I wouldn’t try,” Aynesworth remarked, laughing. “By the bye, your

friend, whoever he was, must have got to know pretty quickly.”

Nesbitt nodded.

“I thought of that,” he said. “Of course, Phillsons are lawyers for

Malcolmson, Wingrave’s broker, so I daresay it came from him. Say,

Aynesworth, you don’t mind if I ask you something?”

“Not at all,” Aynesworth answered. “What is it?”

“Why the devil do you stop with a man like Wingrave? He doesn’t seem

your sort at all.”

Aynesworth hesitated.

“Wingrave interests me,” he answered. “He has had a curious life, and he

is a man with very strange ideas.”

Nesbitt finished his drink, and rose up.

“Well,” he said, “he’s not a man I should care to be associated with.

Not but what I daresay he was right upstairs. He’s strong, too, and he

must have a nerve. But he’s a brute for all that!”

Nesbitt went his way, and Aynesworth returned upstairs. Wingrave was

alone.

“Have we finished this miserable business?” Aynesworth asked.

“For the present,” Wingrave answered. “Mr. Malcolmson will supply

you with a copy of the accounts. See that Hardwell is credited with a

quarter share of the profits. Our dealings are over for the present.

Be prepared to start on Saturday for the West. We are going to look for

those bears.”

“But the mine?” Aynesworth exclaimed. “It belongs to you now. Aren’t you

going out to examine it?”

Wingrave shook his head.

“No,” he said, “I know nothing about mines. My visit could not teach me

anything one way or the other. I have sent a commission of experts. I am

tired of cities and money-making. I want a change.”

Aynesworth looked at him suddenly. The weariness was there indeed--was

it his fancy, or was it something more than weariness which shone out of

the dark, tired eyes?

BOOK II

“MR. WINGRAVE FROM AMERICA”

“Four years ago tonight,” Aynesworth said, looking round the club

smoking room thoughtfully, “we bade you farewell in this same room!”

Lovell, wan and hollow-eyed, his arm in a sling, his once burly frame

gaunt and attenuated with disease, nodded.

“And I told you the story,” he remarked, “of--the man who had been my

friend.”

“Don’t let us talk of Wingrave tonight!” Aynesworth exclaimed with

sudden emphasis.

“Why not?” Lovell knocked the ashes from his pipe, and commenced

leisurely to refill it. “Why not, indeed? I mean to go and see him as

soon as I can get about a little better.”

“If your description of him,” Aynesworth said, “was a faithful one, you

will find him changed.”

Lovell laughed a little bitterly.

“The years leave their mark,” he said, “upon us all--upon all of us,

that is, who step out into the open where the winds of life are blowing.

Look at me! I weighed eighteen stone when I left England. I had the

muscles of a prize fighter and nerves of steel. Today I turn the scale

at ten stone and am afraid to be alone in the dark.”

“You will be yourself again in no time,” Aynesworth declared cheerfully.

“I shall be better than I am now, I hope,” Lovell answered, “but I

shall never be the man I was. I have seen--God grant that I may some

day forget what I have seen! No wonder that my nerves have gone! I saw

a Russian correspondent, a strong brutal-looking man, go off into

hysterics; I saw another run amuck through the camp, shooting right

and left, and, finally, blow his own brains out. Many a night I sobbed

myself to sleep. The men who live through tragedies, Aynesworth, age

fast. I expect that I shall find Wingrave changed.”

“I would give a good deal,” Aynesworth declared, “to have known him when

you did.”

Lovell nodded.

“You should be able to judge of the past,” he said, “by the present.

Four years of--intimate companionship with any man should be enough!”

“Perhaps!” Aynesworth declared. “And yet I can assure you that I know

no more of Wingrave today than when I was first attracted to him by your

story and became his secretary. It is a humiliating confession, but it

is the truth.”

“That is why you remain with him,” Lovell remarked.

“I suppose so! I have often meant to leave, but somehow, when the time

comes, I stay on. His life seems to be made up of brutalities, small and

large. He ruins a man with as little compunction as one could fancy him,

in his younger days, pulling the legs from a fly. I have never seen him

do a kindly action. And yet, all the time I find myself watching for

it. A situation arises, and I say to myself: ‘Now I am going to see

something different.’ I never do, and yet I always expect it. Am I

boring you, Lovell?”

“Not in the least! Go on! Anything concerning Wingrave interests me.”

“It is four years ago, you know, since I went to him. My first glimpse

of his character was the cold brutality with which he treated Lady Ruth

when she went to see him. Then we went down to his country place in

Cornwall. There was a small child there, whose father had been the

organist of the village, and who had died penniless. There was no one to

look after her, no one to save her from the charity schools and domestic

service afterwards. The church was on Wingrave’s estate, it should

have been his duty to augment the ridiculous salary the dead man had

received. Would you believe it, Wingrave refused to do a single thing

for that child! He went down there like a vandal to sell the heirlooms

and pictures which had belonged to his family for generations. He had no

time, he told me coldly, for sentiment.”

“It sounds brutal enough,” Lovell admitted. “What became of the child?”

“One of her father’s relations turned up after all and took care of

her,” Aynesworth said. “Wingrave knew nothing about that, though. Then

on the voyage across the Atlantic, there was a silly, pretty little

woman on board who was piqued by Wingrave’s indifference and tried to

flirt with him. In a few days she was his slave. She was going home to

her husband, and you would have thought that any decent fellow would

have told her that she was a little fool, and let her go. But not

Wingrave! She was landing with him at New York, but someone amongst the

passengers, who guessed what was up, sent a Marconigram to her husband,

and he met us at the landing stage.”

“Nothing came of that, then?”

“No, but it wasn’t Wingrave’s fault. Then he began dealing with

some shares in a mine--THE mine, you know. They were supposed to be

worthless, and one boy, who was a little young to the game, sold him too

many. Wingrave was bleeding these brokers for hundreds of thousands of

dollars, and the boy came and asked to be let off by paying his whole

fortune to escape being hammered. Wingrave refused. I believe if the boy

hadn’t just been married, he’d have blown his brains out!”

Lovell laughed.

“I don’t envy you your job,” he remarked. “Is there nothing to set down

on the credit side of the ledger?”

“Not much,” Aynesworth answered. “He is a fine sportsman, and he

saved my life in the Rockies, which makes me feel a bit uncomfortable

sometimes. He has a sense of justice, for he heard of this mine from a

man in prison, and he has kept accounts showing the fellow’s share down

to the last halfpenny. But I have never yet known him to speak a kindly

word or do a kindly deed. He seems intent upon carrying out to the

letter his own principles--to make as many people as possible suffer for

his own broken life. Now he is back here, a millionaire, with immense

power for good or for evil, I am almost afraid of him. I wouldn’t be

Lady Ruth or her husband for something.”

Lovell smoked thoughtfully for a time.

“Wingrave was always a little odd,” he remarked, “but I never thought

that he was a bad chap.”

“Go and see him now!” Aynesworth said. “Tell me if you think he wears a

mask or whether he is indeed what he seems.”

The hall porter entered the room and addressed Aynesworth.

“Gentleman called for you, sir,” he announced.

“It is Wingrave,” Aynesworth declared. “Come and speak to him!”

They descended the stairs together. Outside, Wingrave was leaning back

in the corner of an electric brougham, reading the paper. Aynesworth put

his head in at the window.

“You remember Lovell, Mr. Wingrave?” he said. “We were just talking when

your message came up. I’ve brought him down to shake hands with you.”

Wingrave folded his paper down at the precise place where he had been

reading and extended a very limp hand. His manner betrayed not the

slightest interest or pleasure.

“How are you, Lovell?” he asked. “Some time since we met!”

“A good many years,” Lovell answered.

“Finished your campaigning?” Wingrave inquired. “Knocked you about a

bit, haven’t they?”

“They very nearly finished me,” Lovell admitted. “I shall pick up all

right over here, though.”

There was a moment’s silence. Lovell’s thoughts had flashed backwards

through the years, back to the time when he had sat within a few feet

of this man in the crowded court of justice and listened through the

painful stillness of that heavy atmosphere, charged with tragedy, to the

slow unfolding of the drama of his life. There had been passion enough

then in his voice and blazing in his eyes, emotion enough in his

twitching features and restless gestures to speak of the fire below. And

now, pale and cold, the man who had gripped his fingers then and held on

to them like a vise, seemed to find nothing except a slight boredom in

this unexpected meeting.

“I shall see you again, I hope,” Wingrave remarked at last. “By the

bye, if we do meet, I should be glad if you would forget our past

acquaintance. Sir Wingrave Seton does not exist any longer. I prefer to

be known only as Mr. Wingrave from America.”

Lovell nodded.

“As you wish, of course,” he answered. “I do not think,” he added,

“that you need fear recognition. I myself should have passed you in the

street.”

Wingrave leaned back in the carriage.

“Aynesworth,” he said, “if you are ready, will you get in and tell the

man to drive to Cadogan Square? Good night, Mr. Lovell!”

Lovell re-entered the club with a queer little smile at his lips. The

brougham glided up into the Strand, and turned westwards.

“We are going straight to the Barringtons’?” Aynesworth asked.

“Yes,” Wingrave answered. “While I think of it, Aynesworth, I wish you

to remember this. Both Lady Ruth and her husband seem to think it part

of the game to try and make a cat’s paw of you. I am not suggesting that

they are likely to succeed, but I do think it possible that one of

them may ask you questions concerning certain investments in which I am

interested. I rely upon you to give them no information.”

“I know very little about your investments--outside the mine,”

Aynesworth answered. “They couldn’t very well approach a more ignorant

person. Are you going to help Barrington to make a fortune?”

Wingrave turned his head. There was a slight contraction of the

forehead, an ominous glitter in his steel grey eyes.

“I think,” he said, “you know that I am not likely to do that.”

The two men did not meet again till late in the evening. Lady Ruth’s

rooms were crowded for it was the beginning of the political season, and

her parties were always popular. Nevertheless, she found time to beckon

Wingrave to her before they had been in the room many minutes.

“I want to talk to you,” she said a little abruptly. “You might have

come this afternoon as you promised.”

Lady Ruth was a wonderful woman. A well-known statesman had just asked a

friend her age.

“I don’t know,” was the answer, “but whatever it is, she doesn’t look

it.”

Tonight she was almost girlish. Her complexion was delicate and

perfectly natural, the graceful lines of her figure suggested more the

immaturity of youth than any undue slimness. She wore a wonderful collar

of pearls around her long, shapely neck, but very little other jewelry.

The touch of her fingers upon Wingrave’s coat sleeve was a carefully

calculated thing. If he had thought of it, he could have felt the slight

appealing pressure with which she led him towards one of the smaller

rooms.

“There are two chairs there,” she said. “Come and sit down. I have

something to say to you.”

THE SHADOW OF A FEAR

For several minutes Lady Ruth said nothing. She was leaning back in

the farthest corner of her chair, her head resting slightly upon her

fingers, her eyes studying with a curious intentness the outline of

Wingrave’s pale, hard face. He himself, either unconscious of, or

indifferent to her close scrutiny, had simply the air of a man possessed

of an inexhaustible fund of patience.

“Wingrave,” she said quietly, “I think that the time has gone by when I

was afraid of you.”

He turned slightly towards her, but he did not speak.

“I am possessed,” she continued, “at present, of a more womanly

sentiment. I am curious.”

“Ah!” he murmured, “you were always a little inclined that way.”

“I am curious about you,” she continued. “You are, comparatively

speaking, young, well-looking enough, and strong. Your hand is firmly

planted upon the lever which moves the world. What are you going to do?”

“That,” he said, “depends upon many things.”

“You may be ambitious,” she remarked. “If so, you conceal it admirably.

You may be devoting your powers to the consummation of vengeance against

those who have treated you ill. There are no signs of that, either, at

present.”

“We have excellent authority,” he remarked, “for the statement that a

considerable amount of satisfaction is derivable from the exercise of

that sentiment.”

“Perhaps,” she answered, “but the pursuit of vengeance for wrongs of the

past is the task of a fool. Now, you are not a fool. You carry your life

locked up within you as a strong man should. But there are always some

who may look in through the windows. I should like to be one.”

“An empty cupboard,” he declared. “A cupboard swept bare by time and

necessity.”

She shook her head.

“Your life,” she said, “is molded towards a purpose. What is it?”

“I must ask myself the question,” he declared, “before I can tell you

the answer!”

“No,” she said, “the necessity does not exist. Your reckless pursuit of

wealth, your return here, the use you are making of my husband and me,

are all means towards some end. Why not tell me?”

“Your imagination,” he declared, “is running away with you.”

“Are you our enemy?” she asked. “Is this seeming friendship of yours a

cloak to hide some scheme of yours to make us suffer? Or--” She drew a

little closer to him, and her eyes drooped.

“Or what?” he repeated.

“Is there a little left,” she whispered, “of the old folly?”

“Why not?” he answered quietly. “I was very much in love with you.”

“It is dead,” she murmured. “I believe that you hate me now!”

Her voice was almost a caress. She was leaning a little towards him; her

eyes were seeking to draw his.

“Hate you! How impossible!” he said calmly. “You are still a beautiful

woman, you know, Ruth.”

He turned and studied her critically. Lady Ruth raised her eyes once,

but dropped them at once. She felt herself growing paler. A spasm of the

old fear was upon her.

“Yes,” he continued, “age has not touched you. You can still pour, if

you will, the magic drug into the wine of fools. By the bye, I must not

be selfish. Aren’t you rather neglecting your guests?”

“Never mind my guests,” she answered. “I have been wanting to talk to

you alone for days. Why have you done this? Why are you here? What is it

that you are seeking for in life?”

“A little amusement only,” he declared. “I cannot find it except amongst

my own kind.”

“You have not the appearance of a pleasure seeker,” she answered.

“Mine is a passive search,” he said. “I have some years to live--and of

solitude, well, I have tasted at once the joys and the depths.”

“You are not in love with me any longer, are you?” she asked.

“I am not bold enough to deny it,” he answered, “but do not be afraid

that I shall embarrass you with a declaration. To tell you the truth, I

have not much feeling left of any sort.”

“You mean to keep your own counsel, then?” she asked.

“It is so little to keep,” he murmured, “and I have parted with so

much!”

She measured the emotion of his tone, the curious yet perfectly natural

indifference of his manner, and she shivered a little. Always she feared

what she could not understand.

“I had hoped,” she said sadly, “that we might at least have been

friends.”

He shook his head.

“I have no fancy,” he declared, “for the cemeteries of affection. You

must remember that I am beginning life anew. I do not know myself yet,

or you! Let us drift into the knowledge of one another, and perhaps--”

“Well! Perhaps?”

“There may be no question of friendship!”

Lady Ruth went back to her guests, and with the effortless ease of long

training, she became once more the gracious and tactful hostess. But in

her heart, the fear had grown a little stronger, and a specter walked

by her side. Once during the evening, her husband looked at her

questioningly, and she breathed a few words to him. He laughed

reassuringly.

“Oh! Wingrave’s all right, I believe,” he said, “it’s only his manner

that puts you off a bit. He’s just the same with everyone! I don’t think

he means anything by it!”

Lady Ruth shivered, but she said nothing. Just then Aynesworth came up,

and with a motion of her fan she called him to her.

“Please take me into the other room,” she said “I want a glass of

champagne, and on the way you can tell me all about America.”

“One is always making epigrams about America,” he protested, smiling.

“Won’t you spare me?”

“Tell me, then, how you progress with your great character study!”

“Ah!” he remarked quietly, “you come now to a more interesting subject.”

“Yes?”

“Frankly, I do not progress at all.”

“So far as you have gone?”

“If,” he said, “I were to take pen and paper and write down, at this

moment, my conclusions so far as I have been able to form any, I fancy

that they would make evil reading. Permit me!”

They stood for a few minutes before the long sideboard. A footman had

poured champagne into their glasses, and Lady Ruth talked easily enough

the jargon of the moment. But when they turned away, she moved slowly,

and her voice was almost a whisper.

“Tell me this,” she said, “is he really as hard and cold as he seems?

You have lived with him now for four years. You should know that, at

least.”

“I believe that he is,” Aynesworth answered. “I can tell you that much,

at least, without breach of faith. So far as one who watches him can

tell, he lives for his own gratification--and his indulgence in it does

not, as a rule, make for the happiness of other people.”

“Then what does he want with us?” she asked almost sharply. “I ask

myself that question until--I am terrified.”

Aynesworth hesitated.

“It is very possible,” he said, “that he is simply making use of you to

re-enter the world. Curiously enough, he has never seemed to care for

solitude. He makes numberless acquaintances. What pleasure he finds in

it I do not know, but he seldom avoids people. He may be simply making

use of you.”

“What do you think yourself?”

“I cannot tell,” Aynesworth answered. “Indeed I cannot tell.”

She left him a little impatiently, and Aynesworth joined the outside

of the circle of men who had gathered round Wingrave. He was answering

their questions readily enough, if a little laconically. He was quite

aware that he occupied in society the one unique place to which princes

might not even aspire--there was something of divinity about his

millions, something of awe in the tone of the men with whom he talked.

Women pretended to be interested in him because of the romance of his

suddenly acquired wealth--the men did not trouble to deceive themselves

or anyone else. A break up of the group came when a certain great and

much-talked-about lady sent across an imperative message by her cavalier

for the moment. She desired that Mr. Wingrave should be presented to

her.

They passed down the room together a few moments later, the Marchioness

wonderfully dressed in a gown of strange turquoise blue, looking up at

her companion, and talking with somewhat unusual animation. Everyone

made remarks, of course--exchanged significant glances and unlovely

smiles. It was so like the Marchioness to claim, as a matter of course,

the best of everything that was going. Lady Ruth watched them with a

curious sense of irritation for which she could not altogether account.

It was impossible that she should be jealous, and yet it was equally

certain that she was annoyed. If Wingrave resisted his present fair

captor, he would enjoy a notability equal to that which his wealth

already conferred upon him. No man as yet had done it. Was it likely

that Wingrave would wear two crowns? Lady Ruth beckoned Aynesworth to

her.

“Tell me,” she said, “what is Mr. Wingrave’s general attitude towards my

sex?”

“Absolute indifference,” he declared promptly, “unless--”

He stopped short.

“You must go on,” she told him.

“Unless he is possessed of the ability to make them suffer,” he answered

after a moment’s hesitation.

“Then Emily will never attract him,” she declared almost triumphantly,

“for she has no more heart that he has.”

“He has yet to discover it,” Aynesworth remarked. “When he does, I think

you will find that he will shrug his shoulders--and say farewell.”

“All the same,” Lady Ruth murmured to herself, “Emily is a cat.”

Lady Ruth spoke to one more man that night of Wingrave--and that man was

her husband. Their guests had departed, and Lady Ruth, in a marvelous

white dressing gown, was lying upon the sofa in her room.

“How do you get on with Wingrave?” she asked. “What do you think of

him?”

Barrington shrugged his shoulders.

“What can one think of a man,” he answered, “who goes about like an

animated mummy? I have done my best; I talked to him for nearly half an

hour at a stretch today when I took him to the club for lunch. He is

the incarnation of indifference. He won’t listen to politics; women, or

tales about them, at any rate, seem to bore him to extinction; he drinks

only as a matter of form, and he won’t talk finance. By the bye, Ruth,

I wish you could get him to give you a tip. I scarcely see how we are

going to get through the season unless something turns up.”

“Is it as bad as that?” she asked.

“Worse!” her husband answered gloomily. “We’ve been living on our

capital for years. Every acre of Queen’s Norton is mortgaged, and I’m

shot if I can see how we’re going to pay the interest.”

She sighed a little wearily.

“Do you think that it would be wise?” she asked. “Let me tell you

something, Lumley. I have only known what fear was once in my life. I

am afraid now. I am afraid of Wingrave. I have a fancy that he does not

mean any good to us.”

Barrington frowned and threw his cigarette into the fire with a little

jerk.

“Nonsense!” he exclaimed. “The man’s not quite so bad as that. We’ve

been useful to him. We’ve done exactly what he asked. The other matter’s

dead and buried. We don’t want his money, but it is perfectly easy for

him to help us make a little.”

She looked up at him quietly.

“I think, Lumley, that it is dangerous!” she said.

“Then you’re not the clever woman I take you for,” he answered, turning

to leave the room. “Just as you please. Only it will be that or the

bankruptcy court before long!”

Lady Ruth lay quite still, looking into the fire. When her maid came,

she moved on tiptoe for it seemed to her that her mistress slept. But

Lady Ruth was wide awake though the thoughts which were flitting through

her brain had, perhaps, some kinship to the land of dreams.

JULIET ASKS QUESTIONS

“Any place,” the girl exclaimed as she entered, “more unlike a

solicitor’s office, I never saw! Flowers outside and flowers on your

desk, Mr. Pengarth! Don’t you have to apologize to your clients for

your surroundings? There’s absolutely nothing, except the brass plate

outside, to show that this isn’t an old-fashioned farmhouse, stuck down

in the middle of a village. Fuchsias in the window sill, too!”

He placed a chair for her, and laid down the deed which he had been

examining, with a little sigh of relief. It really was very hard work

pretending to be busy.

“You see, Miss Juliet,” he explained with twinkling eyes, “my clients

are all country folk, and it makes them feel more at home to find a

lawyer’s office not very different from their own parlor.”

She nodded.

“What would the great man say?” she inquired, pointing to the rows of

black tin boxes which lined the walls.

“Sir Wingrave Seton is never likely to come here again, I am afraid,”

he answered. “If he did, I don’t think he’d mind. To tell you the truth,

I’m rather proud of my office, young lady!”

She looked around.

“They are nice,” she said decidedly, “but unbusinesslike.”

“You’re going to put up the pony and stay to lunch, of course?” he said.

“I’ll ring for the boy.”

She stopped him.

“Please don’t!” she exclaimed. “I have come to see you--on business!”

Mr. Pengarth, after his first gasp of astonishment, was a different man.

He fumbled about on the desk, and produced a pair of gold spectacles,

which he adjusted with great nicety on the edge of his very short nose.

“On business, my dear!” he repeated. “Well, well! To be sure! Is it Miss

Harrison who has sent you?”

Mr. Pengarth’s visitor looked positively annoyed. She leaned across the

table towards him so that the roses in her large hat almost brushed his

forehead. Her wonderful brown eyes were filled with reproach.

“Mr. Pengarth,” she said, “do you know how old I am?”

“How old, my dear? Why, let me see!” he exclaimed. “Fourteen and--why,

God bless my soul, you must be eighteen!”

“I am nineteen years old, Mr. Pengarth,” the young lady announced with

dignity. “Perhaps you will be kind enough to treat me now--er--with a

little more respect.”

“Nineteen!” he repeated vaguely. “God bless my--nineteen years old?”

“I consider myself,” she repeated, “of age. I have come to see you about

my affairs!”

“Yes, yes!” he said. “Quite natural.”

“For four years,” she continued, “I seem to have been supported by some

relative of my father, who has never vouchsafed to send me a single line

or message except through you. I have written letters which I have

given to you to forward. There has been no reply. Have you sent on those

letters, Mr. Pengarth?”

“Why certainly, my dear, certainly!”

“Can you tell me how it is that I have had no answer?”

Mr. Pengarth coughed. He was not at all comfortable.

“Your guardian, Miss Juliet, is somewhat eccentric,” he answered, “and

he is a very busy man.”

“Can you tell me, Mr. Pengarth, exactly what relation he is to me?”

There was a dead silence. Mr. Pengarth found the room suddenly warm, and

mopped his forehead with a large silk handkerchief.

“I have no authority,” he declared, “to answer any questions.”

“Then can you tell me of your own accord,” she said, “why there is all

this mystery? Why may I not know who he is, why may I not write to him?

Am I anything to be ashamed of, that he will not trust me even with his

name? I am tired of accepting so much and not being able to offer even

my thanks in return. It is too much like charity! I have made up my mind

that if this is to go on, I will go away and earn my own living! There,

Mr. Pengarth!”

“Rubbish!” he exclaimed briskly. “What at?”

“Painting!” she declared triumphantly. “I have had this in my mind for

some time, and I have been trying to see what I can do best. I have

quite decided, now, to be an artist.”

“Pictures,” he declared sententiously, “don’t sell!”

“Mine do,” she answered, smiling. “I have had a check for three guineas

from a shop in London for a little sea piece I did in two afternoons!”

He regarded her admiringly.

“You are a wonderful child!” he exclaimed.

“I am not a child at all,” she interrupted warmly, “and you can just sit

down and write to your silly client and tell him so.”

“I will certainly write to him,” he affirmed. “I will do so today. You

will not do anything rash until I have had time to get a reply?”

“No!” she answered graciously. “I will wait for a week. After

that--well, I might do anything!”

“You wouldn’t leave Tredowen, Miss Juliet!” he protested.

“It would break my heart, of course,” she declared, “but I would do it

and trust to time to heal it up again. Tredowen seems like home to me,

but it isn’t really, you know. Some day, Sir Wingrave Seton may want to

come back and live there himself. Are you quite certain, Mr. Pengarth,

that he won’t be angry to hear that we have been living at the house all

this time?”

“Certain,” Mr. Pengarth declared firmly. “He left everything entirely

in my hands. He did not wish me to let it, but he did not care about its

being altogether uninhabited. The arrangement I was able to make with

your guardian was a most satisfactory one.”

“But surely he will come back himself some time?” she asked,

The lawyer shook his head sorrowfully.

“I am afraid,” he said, “that Sir Wingrave has no affection for the

place whatever.”

“No affection for Tredowen,” she repeated wonderingly. “Do you know what

I think, Mr. Pengarth? I think that it is the most beautiful house in

the world!”

“And yet you talk of leaving it.”

“I don’t want to go,” she answered, “but I don’t want to be accepting

things all my life from someone whose name even I do not know.”

“Well, well,” he said, “you must wait until I have written my letter.

Time enough to talk about that later on. Now, if you won’t stay to

lunch, you must come and see Rachael and have some cake and a glass of

wine.”

“How sweet of you,” she exclaimed. “I’m frightfully hungry. Can I do

anything to stop growing, Mr. Pengarth? I’m getting taller and taller!”

She stood up. She was head and shoulders taller than the little lawyer,

slim as a lath, and yet wonderfully graceful. She laughed down at him

and made a little grimace.

“I’m a giraffe, am I not?” she declared; “and I’m still growing. Do show

me your garden, Mr. Pengarth. I want to see your hollyhocks. Everyone is

talking about them.”

They were joined in a few minutes by a prim, dignified little lady,

ridiculously like Mr. Pengarth, whom he called sister, and she Miss

Rachael. Juliet walked down the garden between them.

“Sister,” Mr. Pengarth said, “Juliet has come today to see me on

business. In effect, she has come to remind me that she is grown up.”

“Grown up,” Miss Rachael protested vigorously, “rubbish!”

“I am nineteen years old,” Juliet declared.

“And what if you are,” Miss Rachael replied briskly. “In my young days

we were in the nursery at nineteen.”

“Quite so,” Mr. Pengarth assented with relief. “You took me by storm

just now, Miss Juliet. After all, you are only a child.”

“I am old enough to feel and to mean all that I said to you, Mr.

Pengarth,” she answered gravely. “And that reminds me, too--there was

something else I meant to ask you.”

“Sister,” Mr. Pengarth said, “have you ordered the wine and the cake?”

“Bless me, no!” Miss Rachael declared. “It shall be ready in five

minutes.”

She entered the house. Mr. Pengarth stooped to pick some lavender.

“The only time I ever saw Sir Wingrave Seton,” she said, “was on the day

before I was told that a relation of my father had been found, who was

willing to take charge of me. There was a younger man with him, someone

very, very different from Sir Wingrave. Do you know who he was?”

“A sort of secretary of Sir Wingrave, I believe, dear. I never met him.

I was, unfortunately, away at the time they came.”

“He was very nice and kind to me,” the girl continued, “just as nice as

Sir Wingrave was horrid. I suppose it was because they came on that day,

but I have always connected him somehow with this mysterious relation of

mine. Mr. Aynesworth didn’t help to find him, did he?”

“Certainly not!” the lawyer answered. “The instructions I had came first

from Mr. Saunders, the vicar of the parish. It was he who appeared to

have made the necessary inquiries.”

“Horrid old man!” she declared. “He used to make me feel that I wanted

to cry every time that I saw him.”

“Miss Rachael is calling us,” the lawyer declared with obvious relief.

“New cake!” Juliet declared, “I can smell it! Delicious!”

LADY RUTH’S LAST CARD

“There are two letters,” Aynesworth announced, “which I have not opened.

One, I think, is from the Marchioness of Westhampton, the other from

some solicitors at Truro. They were both marked private.”

Wingrave was at breakfast in his flat; Aynesworth had been in an

adjoining room sorting his correspondence. He accepted the two letters,

and glanced them through without remark. But whereas he bestowed

scarcely a second’s consideration upon the broad sheet of white paper

with the small coronet and the faint perfume of violets, the second

letter apparently caused him some annoyance. He read it through for a

second time with a slight frown upon his forehead.

“You must cancel my engagements for two days, Aynesworth,” he said. “I

have to go out of town.”

Aynesworth nodded.

“There’s nothing very special on,” he remarked. “Do you want me to go

with you?”

“It is not necessary,” Wingrave answered. “I am going,” he added, after

a moment’s pause, “to Cornwall.”

Aynesworth was immediately silent. The one time when Wingrave had spoken

to him as an employer, was in answer to some question of his as to what

had eventually become of the treasures of Tredowen. He had always since

scrupulously avoided the subject.

“Be so good as to look out the trains for me,” Wingrave continued. “I

cannot go until the afternoon,” he added after a momentary pause. “I

have an engagement for luncheon. Perhaps, if you are not too busy, you

will see that Morrison packs some things for me.”

He moved to the writing table, and wrote a few lines to the Marchioness,

regretting that his absence from town would prevent his dining with

her on the following day. Then he studied the money column in several

newspapers for half an hour, and telephoned to his broker. At eleven

o’clock, he rode for an hour in the quietest part of the park, avoiding,

so far as possible, anyone he knew, and galloping whenever he could. It

was the only form of exercise in which he was known to indulge although

the knowledge of English games, which he sometimes displayed, was a

little puzzling to some of his acquaintances. On his return, he made

a simple but correct toilet, and at half-past one he met Lady Ruth at

Prince’s Restaurant.

Lady Ruth’s gown of dove color, with faint touches of blue, was

effective, and she knew it. Nevertheless, she was a little pale, and her

manner lacked that note of quiet languor which generally characterized

it. She talked rather more than usual, chattering idly about the

acquaintances to whom she was continually nodding and bowing. Her face

hardened a little as the Marchioness, on her way through the room with a

party of friends, stopped at their table.

The two women exchanged the necessary number of inanities, then the

Marchioness turned to Wingrave.

“You won’t forget that you are dining with me tomorrow?”

Wingrave shook his head regretfully.

“I am sorry,” he said, “but I have to go out of town. I have just

written you.”

“What a bore,” she remarked. “Business, of course!”

She nodded and passed on. Her farewell to Lady Ruth was distinctly curt.

Wingrave resumed his seat and his luncheon without remark.

“Hateful woman,” Lady Ruth murmured.

“I thought you were friends,” Wingrave remarked.

“Yes, we are,” Lady Ruth assented, “the sort of friendship you men don’t

know much about. You see a good deal of her, don’t you?”

Wingrave raised his head and looked at Lady Ruth contemplatively.

“Why do you ask me that?” he asked.

“Curiosity!”

“I do,” he remarked; “you should be grateful to her.”

“Why?”

“It may save you a similar infliction.”

Lady Ruth was silent for several moments.

“Perhaps,” she said at last, “I do not choose to be relieved.”

Wingrave bowed, his glass in his hand. His lips were curled into the

semblance of a smile, but he did not say a word. Lady Ruth leaned a

little across the table so that the feathers of her hat nearly brushed

his forehead.

“Wingrave,” she asked, “do you know what fear is? Perhaps not! You are

a man, you see. No one has ever called me a coward. You wouldn’t, would

you?”

“No!” he said deliberately, “you are not a coward.”

“There is only one sort of fear which I know,” she continued, “and that

is the fear of what I do not understand. And that is why, Wingrave, I am

afraid of you.”

He set down his glass, and his fingers trifled for a moment with its

stem. His expression was inscrutable.

“Surely,” he said, “you are not serious!”

“I am serious,” she declared, “and you know that I am.”

“You are afraid of me,” he repeated softly. “I wonder why.”

She looked him straight in the eyes.

“Because,” she said, “I did you once a very grievous wrong. Because I

know that you have not forgiven me. Because I am very sure that all the

good that was in you lies slain.”

“By whose hand?” he asked quietly. “No! You need not answer. You know.

So do I. Yes, I can understand your fear. But I do not understand why

you confess it to me.”

“Nor I,” she answered. “Nor do I understand why I am here--at your

bidding, nor why I keep you always by my side whenever you choose to

take your place there. Are you a vain man, Wingrave? Do you wish to pose

as the friend of a woman whom the world has thought too ambitious to

waste time upon such follies? There is the Marchioness! She would do you

more credit still.”

“Thank you,” he answered. “I like to choose the path myself when I pass

into the maze of follies!”

“You have not yet explained yourself,” she reminded him. “Of all people

in world, you have chosen us for your presumptive friends. Why? You

hate us both. You know that you do. Is it part of a scheme? Lumley is

investing money on your advice, I am allowing myself to be seen about

with you more than is prudent--considering all things. Do you want

to rake out the ashes of our domestic hearth--to play the part

of--melodramatic villain? You are ingenious enough, and powerful

enough.”

“You put strange ideas into my head,” he told her lightly. “Why should

I not play the part that you suggest? It might be amusing, and you

certainly deserve all the evil which I could bring upon you.”

She leaned a little across the table towards him. Her eyes were soft

and bright, and they looked full into his. The color in her cheeks was

natural. The air around him was faintly fragrant with the perfume of her

clothes and hair.

“We couldn’t leave off playing at the game--and act it, could we?” she

murmured. “We couldn’t really--be friends?”

Lady Ruth had played her trump card. She had touched his fingers with

hers, her eyes shone with the promise of unutterable things. But if

Wingrave was moved, he did not show it.

“I wish,” he said, “that I could accept your offer in the spirit

with which you tender it. Unfortunately, I am a maimed person. My

sensibilities have gone. Friendship, in the more intimate sense of

the word, I may never hope to feel again. Enmity--well, that is more

comprehensible; even enmity,” he continued slowly, “which might prompt a

woman to disguise herself as her own lady’s maid, to seek out a tool

to get rid of the man she feared. Pardon me, Lady Ruth, you are eating

nothing.”

She pulled down her veil.

“Thank you, I have finished,” she said in a low tone.

He called for the bill.

“Pray, don’t let my little remark distress you,” he said. “I had almost

forgotten the circumstance until something you said brought it into

my mind. It is you yourself, you must remember, who set the example of

candor.”

“I deserve everything you can say,” she murmured, “everything you can

do. There is nothing left, I suppose, but suffering. Will you take me

out to my carriage? You can come back and have your coffee with the

Marchioness! She keeps looking across at you, and it will please her to

think that you got rid of me.”

He glanced at his watch.

“I am afraid,” he said, rising, “that I must deny myself the pleasure of

seeking the Marchioness again today. I have a train to catch in half an

hour. You are ready?”

“Quite!”

They made their way through the maze of tables towards the door, Lady

Ruth exchanging greetings right and left with her friends, although the

tall, grave-looking man who followed her was by far the greater object

of interest.

“Just like Ruth to keep him in her pocket,” remarked her dearest friend,

looking after them; “they say that he has millions.”

She sighed a little enviously.

“The Barrington menage needs a little backing up,” her companion

remarked. “I should say that he had come just in time. The Marchioness

has her eye upon him too. There may be some fun presently.”

Lady Ruth’s dearest friend smiled.

“I will back Ruth,” she said drily. “Emily is beautiful, but she is too

obvious, and too eager! Ruth’s little ways are more subtle. Besides,

look at the start she has. She isn’t the sort of woman men tire of.”

Lady Ruth held out her hand through the window of her electric coupe.

“Thank you for my luncheon,” she said. “When shall we see you again?”

“In a few days,” he answered, standing bareheaded upon the pavement. “I

shall call directly I return.”

Lady Ruth nodded and leaned back. Wingrave smiled faintly as he turned

away. He had seen the little shudder which she had done her best to

hide!

Lady Ruth found her husband at home, writing letters in his study. She

sank wearily into a chair by his side.

“Been lunching out?” he inquired.

She nodded.

“At Prince’s, with Wingrave.”

He made no remark, but he seemed far from displeased.

“If I’d only had the pluck,” he remarked a little disconsolately, “I

might have made thousands by following his advice this week. It was you

who put me off, too!”

“It turned out all right?” she asked.

“Exactly as he said. I made five hundred! I might just as well have made

five thousand.”

“Can you let me have a couple of hundred?” she asked. “The people are

all bothering so.”

“You know that I can’t,” he answered irritably. “I had to send the lot

to Lewis, and then it wasn’t a quarter of what he is pressing for. We

shall never get through the season, Ruth, unless--”

She raised her eyes.

“Unless what?”

“Unless something turns up!”

There was a short, uncomfortable silence. Lady Ruth rose to her feet and

stood facing the fireplace with her back to him.

“Lumley,” she said, “let’s face it!”

He gave a little start.

“Face what?” he inquired.

“Ruin, the Bankruptcy Court, and all the rest of it!” she declared, a

note of defiance creeping into her tone.

Her husband’s face was white with astonishment. He stared across at her

blankly.

“Are you mad, Ruth?” he exclaimed. “Do you know what you are saying?”

“Quite well,” she answered. “I’m a little sick of the whole show. The

tradespeople are getting impertinent. I don’t even know where to get

flowers for dinner tonight or where to go for my Ascot gowns. It must

come sooner or later.”

“You’re talking like a fool,” he declared harshly. “Do you know that I

should have to give up my seat and my clubs?”

“We could live quietly in the country.”

“Country be--hanged!” he exclaimed savagely. “What use is the country to

you and me? I’d sooner put a bullet through my brain. Ruth, old lady,”

he added more gently, “what’s gone wrong? You’re generally such a well

plucked’un! Have you--had a row with Wingrave?” he asked, looking at her

anxiously.

“No!”

“Then what is it?”

“Nothing! I’ve lost my nerve, I suppose!”

“You want a change! It isn’t so very long to Cowes now and, thank

heavens, that’ll cost us nothing. We’re going on Wingrave’s yacht,

aren’t we?”

“Yes! We did accept.”

Barrington fidgeted for a moment with a paper knife.

“Ruth,” he asked, “what’s wrong between you and Wingrave?”

“Nothing,” she answered; “I’m afraid of him, that’s all!”

“Afraid of him! Afraid of Wingrave!” he repeated.

“Yes! I do not think that he has forgotten. I think that he means to

make us suffer.”

Barrington was almost dignified.

“I never heard such nonsense in my life, Ruth!” he exclaimed. “I have

watched Wingrave closely, and I have seen no trace of anything of

the sort. Nonsense! It is worse than nonsense! You must be getting

hysterical. You must get all this rubbish out of your head. To tell you

the truth--”

“Well?”

“I was thinking that you might ask Wingrave to help us a bit. I don’t

believe he’d hesitate for a moment.”

Ruth looked her husband in the face. There was a curious expression in

her eyes.

“Do you think that it would be wise of me to ask him?” she demanded.

“Why not?” he answered. “You can take care of yourself. I can trust

you.”

“I told you that I was afraid of Wingrave,” she reminded him. “I can

take care of myself as a rule--and I do--as you know. I have elected to

be one of the unfashionables in that respect. But to ask Wingrave for

money is more than I dare do.”

“Then I shall ask him myself,” Barrington declared.

She picked up her gloves and turned to leave the room.

“I should prefer even that,” she said.

GUARDIAN AND WARD

“Up to the present, then,” Wingrave remarked, “the child has no idea as

to who has been responsible for the charge of her?”

“No idea at all, Sir Wingrave,” the lawyer declared. “Your wishes have

been strictly carried out, most strictly. She imagines that it is some

unknown connection of her father. But, as I explained to you in my

letter, she has recently exhibited a good deal of curiosity in the

matter. She is--er--a young lady of considerable force of character for

her years, and her present attitude--as I explained in my letter--is a

trifle difficult.”

Wingrave was sitting in the lawyer’s own chair. Mr. Pengarth, who was a

trifle nervous, preferred to stand.

“She shows, I think, a certain amount of ingratitude in forcing this

journey and explanation upon me,” Wingrave declared coldly. “It should

have been sufficient for her that her benefactor preferred to remain

anonymous.”

“I regret, Sir Wingrave, that I must disagree with you,” Mr. Pengarth

answered boldly. “Miss Juliet, Miss Lundy I should say, is a young lady

of character--and--er--some originality of disposition. She is a great

favorite with everyone around here.”

Wingrave remained silent. He had the air of one not troubling to reply

to what he considered folly. Through the wide open window floated in the

various sounds of the little country town, the rumbling of heavy carts

passing along the cobbled streets, the shrill greetings of neighbors and

acquaintances meeting upon the sidewalk. And then the tinkling bell of a

rubber-tired cart pulling up outside, and a clear girlish voice speaking

to some one of the passers-by.

Wingrave betrayed as much surprise as it was possible for him to show

when at last she stood with outstretched hand before him. He had only an

imperfect recollection of an ill-clad, untidy-looking child, with pale

tear-stained cheeks, and dark unhappy eyes. The march of the years had

been a thing whose effects he had altogether underestimated. The girl

who stood now facing him was slight, and there was something of the

child left in her bright eager face, but she carried herself with all

the graceful assurance of an older woman. Her soft, dark eyes were

lit with pleasure and excitement, her delicately traced eyebrows and

delightful smile were somehow suggestive of her foreign descent. Her

clothes were country-made, but perfect as regarded fit and trimness,

her beflowered hat was worn with a touch of coquettish grace, a trifle

un-English, but very delightful. She had not an atom of shyness or

embarrassment. Only there was a great surprise in her face as she held

out her hands to Wingrave.

“I know who you are,” she exclaimed. “You are Sir Wingrave Seton. To

think that I never guessed.”

“You remember seeing me, then?” he remarked, and his tone sounded all

the colder after the full richness of her young voice.

“I just remember it--only just,” she answered. “You see you did not

take much notice of me that time, did you? But I have lived amongst your

ancestors too long to make any mistake. Why have you stayed away from

Tredowen so long?”

“I have been abroad,” Wingrave answered. “I am not fond of England.”

“You had trouble here, I know,” she said frankly. “But that is all past

and over. I think that you must forget how beautiful your home is or

you would never bear to live away from it. Now, please, may I ask you a

question?”

“Any that you think necessary,” Wingrave answered. “Spare me as much as

possible; I am not fond of them.”

“Shall I leave you two together for a little time?” Mr. Pengarth

suggested, gathering up some papers.

“Certainly not,” Wingrave said shortly. “There is not the slightest

necessity for it.”

Mr. Pengarth resumed his seat.

“Just as you please,” he answered. “But you must sit down, Juliet.

There, you shall have my clients’ chair.”

The girl accepted it with a little laugh. There was no shadow of

embarrassment about her manner, notwithstanding the cold stiffness of

Wingrave’s deportment. He sat where the sunlight fell across his chair,

and the lines in his pale face seemed deeper than usual, the grey hairs

more plentiful, the weariness in his eyes more apparent. Yet she was not

in the least afraid of him.

“First of all, then, Sir Wingrave, may I ask you why you have been so

extraordinarily kind to me?”

“There is nothing extraordinary about it at all,” he answered. “Your

father died and left you friendless in a parish of which I am Lord of

the Manor. He received a starvation pittance for his labors, which it

was my duty to augment, a duty which, with many others, I neglected. I

simply gave orders that you should be looked after.”

She laughed softly.

“Looked after! Why, I have lived at Tredowen. I have had a governess, a

pony to drive. Heaven knows how many luxuries!”

“That,” he interrupted hastily, “is nothing. The house is better

occupied. What I have done for you is less in proportion than the

sixpence you may sometimes have given to a beggar for I am a rich, a

ridiculously rich man, with no possible chance of spending one-quarter

of my income. You had a distinct and obvious claim upon me, and, at no

cost or inconvenience to myself, I have endeavored, through others, to

recognize it.”

“I will accept your view of the situation,” the girl said, still

smiling, but with a faint note of disappointment in her tone. “I do not

wish to force upon you expressions of gratitude which you would only

find wearisome. But I must thank you! It is in my heart, and I must

speak of it. There, it is over, you see! I shall say no more.”

“You are a sensible young lady,” Wingrave said, making a motion as

though to rise. “I have only one request to make to you, and that is

that you keep to yourself the knowledge which Mr. Pengarth informs me

that you insisted upon acquiring. You are nearly enough of age now, and

I will make you your own mistress. That is all, I think.”

The smile died away from her lips. Her tone became very earnest.

“Sir Wingrave,” she said, “for all that you have done for me, I am, as

you know grateful. I would try to tell you how grateful, only I know

that it would weary you. So we will speak only of the future. I cannot

continue to accept--even such magnificent alms as yours.”

“What do you mean, child?” he asked, frowning across at her.

“I mean,” she said, “that now I am old enough to work, I cannot accept

everything from one upon whom I have no claim. If you will help me a

little still, I shall be more than grateful. But it must be in my own

way.”

“You talk about work,” he said. “What can you do?”

“I can paint,” she answered, “fairly well. I should like to go to London

and have a few lessons. If I cannot make a living at that, I shall try

something else.”

“You disappoint me,” Wingrave said. “There is no place for you in

London. There are thousands starving there already because they can

paint a little, or sing a little, or fancy they can. Do you find it dull

down here?”

“Dull!” she exclaimed wonderingly. “I think that there can be no place

on earth so beautiful as Tredowen.”

“You are happy here?”

“Perfectly!”

“Then, for heaven’s sake, forget all this folly,” Wingrave said hardly.

“London is no place for children. Miss Harrison can take you up for a

month when you choose. You can go abroad if you want to. But for the

rest--”

She rose suddenly, and sweeping across the office with one graceful

movement, she leaned over Wingrave’s chair. Her hands rested upon

his shoulders, her eyes, soft with gathering tears, pleaded with his.

Wingrave sat with all the outward immobility of a Sphinx.

“Dear Sir Wingrave,” she said, “you have been so generous, so kind, and

I may not even speak of my gratitude. Don’t please think me unreasonable

or ungracious. I can’t tell you how I feel, but I must, I must, I must

go away. I could not live here any longer now that I know. Fancy for

a moment that I am your sister, or your daughter! Don’t you believe,

really, that she would feel the same? And I think you would wish her to.

Don’t be angry with me, please.”

Wingrave’s face never changed; but his fingers gripped the arms of his

chair so that a signet ring he wore cut deep into his flesh. When he

spoke, his tone sounded almost harsh. The girl turned away to dash the

tears from her eyes.

“What do you think of this--folly, Pengarth?”

The lawyer looked his best client squarely in the face. “I do not call

it folly, Sir Wingrave. I think that Miss Lundy is right.”

There was a pause. Her eyes were still pleading with him.

“Against the two of you,” Wingrave remarked, “I am, of course,

powerless. After all, it is no concern of mine. I shall leave you,

Pengarth, to make such arrangements as Miss Lundy desires!”

He rose to his feet. Juliet now was pale. She dashed the tears from her

eyes and looked at him in amazement mingled with something which was

almost like despair.

“You don’t mean,” she exclaimed, “you are going away without coming to

Tredowen?”

“Why not?” he asked. “I never had any intention of going there!”

“You are very angry with me,” she cried in despair. “I--I--”

Her lip quivered. Wingrave interposed.

“I shall be happy to go and have a look at the place,” he said

carelessly, “if you will drive me back. I fancy I have almost forgotten

what it is like.”

She looked at him as at one who had spoken irreverently. Her eyes were

full of wonder.

“I think that you must have indeed forgotten,” she said, “how very

beautiful it is. It is your home too! There is no one else,” she added

softly, “who can live there, amongst all those wonderful things, and

call it really--home!”

“I am afraid,” he said, “you will find that I have outlived all

sentiment; but I will certainly come to Tredowen with you!”

GHOSTS OF DEAD THINGS

“It was here,” she said, as they passed through the walled garden

seawards, “that I saw you first--you and the other gentleman who was so

kind to me.”

Wingrave nodded.

“I believe that I remember it,” he said; “you were a mournful-looking

object in a very soiled pinafore and most untidy hair.”

“I had been out on the cliffs,” she reminded him, “where I am taking you

now. If you are going to make unkind remarks about my hair, I think that

I had better fetch a hat.”

“Pray don’t leave me,” he answered. “I should certainly lose my way.

Your hair in those days was, I fancy, a little more--unkempt!”

She laughed.

“It used to be cut short,” she said. “Hideous! There! Isn’t that

glorious?”

She had opened the postern gate in the wall, and through the narrow

opening was framed a wonderful picture of the Cornish sea, rolling

into the rock-studded bay. Its soft thunder was in their ears; salt

and fragrant, the west wind swept into their faces. She closed the gate

behind her, and stepped blithely forward.

“Come!” she cried. “We will climb the cliffs where we left you alone

once before.”

Side by side they stood looking over the ocean. Her head was thrown

back, her lips a little parted. He watched her curiously.

“You must have sea blood in your veins,” he remarked. “You listen as

though you heard music all the time.”

“And what about you?” she asked him, smiling. “You are the grandson of

Admiral Sir Wingrave Seton who commanded a frigate at Trafalgar, and an

ancestor of yours fought in the Armada.”

“I am afraid,” he said quietly, “that there is a hiatus in my life

somewhere. There are no voices which call to me any more, and my family

records are so much dead parchment.”

Trouble passed into her glowing face and clouded her eyes.

“Ah!” she said, “I do not like to hear you talk so. Do you know that

when you do, you make me afraid that something I have always hoped for

will never come to pass?”

“What is it?” he asked.

“I have always hoped,” she said, “that some day you would come once more

to Tredowen. I suppose I am rather a fanciful person. This is a country

of superstitions and fancies, you know; but sometimes when I have been

alone in the picture gallery with all that long line of dark faces

looking down upon me from the walls, I have felt like an interloper.

Always they seem to be waiting! Tonight, after dinner, I will take you

there. I will try and show you what I mean.”

He shook his head.

“I shall never come back,” he said, “and there are no more of my name.”

She hesitated. When at last she spoke, the color was coming and going in

her cheeks.

“Sir Wingrave,” she said, “I am only an ignorant girl, and I have no

right to talk to you like this. Please be angry with me if you want to.

I deserve it. I know all about--that ten years! Couldn’t you forget it,

and come back? None of the country people round here, your own people,

believe anything evil about you. You were struck, and you struck back

again. A man would do that. You could be as lonely as you liked here,

or you could have friends if you wished for them. But this is the place

where you ought to live. You would be happier here, I believe, than in

exile. The love of it all would come back, you would never be lonely.

It is the same sea which sang to you when you were a child, and to your

fathers before you. It would bring you forgetfulness when you wanted it,

or--”

Wingrave interrupted her. His tone was cold, but not unkind.

“My dear young lady,” he said, “it is very good of you to be so

sympathetic, but I am afraid I am not at all the sort of person you

imagine me to be. What I was before those ten years--well, I have

forgotten. What I am now, I unfortunately know. I am a soured,

malevolent being whose only pleasure lies in the dealing out to others

some portion of the unhappiness which was dealt out to me.”

“I do not believe it,” she declared briskly.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Nevertheless, it is true,” he declared coolly. “Listen! More or less

you interest me. I will tell you something which I have never yet

told to a single human being. I need not go into particulars. You will

probably believe a broad statement. My ten years’ imprisonment was more

or less an injustice!”

“Sir Wingrave!”

He checked her. There was not a tremor in his tone. The gesture with

which he had repelled her was stiff and emotionless.

“I went into prison one man, I came out another. While I live, I

shall never be able to think kindly again of a single one of my fellow

creatures. It was not my fault. So far as our affections are concerned,

we are machines, all of us. Well, my mainspring has broken.”

“I don’t believe it,” she declared.

“It is, nevertheless, true,” he affirmed calmly. “I am living in exile

because I have no friends, because friends have become an impossibility

to me. I shall not tell you any more of my life because you are young

and you would not believe me if I did. Some day,” he added grimly, “you

will probably hear for yourself.”

“I shall never believe anything,” she declared, “which I do not choose

to believe. I shall never believe, for instance, that you are quite what

you think yourself.”

“We will talk of other things,” he said. “Five years ago, you showed

Aynesworth where the seagulls built.”

“And now I will show you,” she exclaimed, “if you are sure that your

head is steady enough. Come along!”...

It was after dinner that she took him into the picture gallery. Miss

Harrison, very much disturbed by the presence of the master of Tredowen,

and still more so by the hint which she had already received as to

coming changes, followed them at a little distance.

“I am so sorry,” Juliet said, “that we have no cigars or cigarettes.”

“I seldom smoke,” Wingrave answered.

“If only we had had the slightest idea of your coming,” Miss Harrison

said for the tenth time, “we would have made more adequate preparations.

The wine cellar, at least, could have been opened. I allowed Mr. and

Mrs. Tresfarwin to go for their holiday only yesterday, and the cellars,

of course, are never touched.”

“Your claret was excellent,” Wingrave assured her.

“I am quite sure,” Miss Harrison said, “that claret from the local

grocer is not what you are accustomed to--”

“My dear madam,” Wingrave protested, “I seldom touch wine. Show me which

picture it is, Juliet, that you--ah!”

She had led him to the end of the gallery and stopped before what seemed

to be a plain oak cupboard surrounded by a massive frame. She looked at

him half fearfully.

“You want to see that picture?” he asked.

“If I might.”

He drew a bunch of keys from his pocket and calmly selected one. It was

a little rusty, but the cupboard turned at once on its hinges. A woman’s

face smiled down upon them, dark and splendid, from the glowing touch

of a great painter. Juliet studied it eagerly, and then stole a sidelong

glance at the man by her side. He was surveying it critically and

without any apparent emotion.

“Herkomer’s, I think,” he remarked. “Quite one of his best.”

“It is your mother?” she whispered.

He nodded.

“I’m not great at genealogy,” he said, “but I can go as far back as

that. She was by way of being a great lady, the daughter of the Duke of

Warminster.”

“You were an only son,” she said softly. “She must have been very fond

of you.”

“Customary thing, I suppose,” he remarked. “Lucky for her, under the

circumstances, that she died young.”

He closed the oaken door in front of the picture, and locked it.

“I should like to see the armory,” he said; “but I really forget--let me

see, it is at the end of the long gallery, isn’t it?”

She led him there without a word. She was getting a little afraid of

him. They inspected the library and wandered back into the picture

gallery. It was she, now, who was silent. She had shown him all her

favorite treasures without being able to evoke a single spark of

enthusiasm.

“Once,” she remarked, “we all had a terrible fright. We were told that

everything was going to be sold.”

He nodded.

“I did think of it,” he admitted; “but there seemed to be no hurry. All

these things are growing into money year by year. Some day I shall send

everything to Christie’s.”

She looked at him in horror.

“You cannot--oh, you cannot mean it?” she cried.

“Why not? They are no use to me.”

“No use?” she faltered.

“Not a bit. I don’t suppose I shall see them again for many years. And

the money--well, one can use that.”

“But I thought--that you were rich?” she faltered.

“So I am,” he answered, “and yet I go on making more and more, and I

shall go on. Money is the whip with which its possessor can scourge

humanity. It is with money that I deal out my--forgive me, I forgot that

I was talking aloud, and to a child,” he wound up suddenly.

She looked at him, dry-eyed, but with a strained look of sorrow

strangely altering her girlish face.

“You must be very unhappy,” she said.

“Not at all,” he assured her. “I am one of those fortunate persons

who have outlived happiness and unhappiness. I have nothing to do but

live--and pay off a few little debts.”

He rose directly afterwards, and she walked with him out to the gardens

whence a short cut led to the village.

“I have not tried again to make you change your mind,” he said as they

stood for a moment on the terrace. “If my wishes have any weight with

you, I trust that you will do nothing without consulting Mr. Pengarth.”

“And you--” she faltered, “are you--never in London? Sha’n’t I see you

again any time?”

“If you care to, by all means,” he answered. “Tell Mr. Pengarth to let

me have your address. Goodbye! Thank you for taking care of my treasures

so well.”

She held his cold hand in hers and suddenly raised it to her lips. Then

she turned away and hurried indoors.

Wingrave stood still for a moment and gazed at his hand through the

darkness as though the ghosts of dead things had flitted out from the

dark laurel shrubs. Then he laughed quietly to himself.

SPREADING THE NETS

“By the bye,” the Marchioness asked him, “have you a Christian name?”

“Sorry,” Wingrave answered, “if I ever had, I’ve forgotten it.”

“Then I must call you Wingrave,” she remarked. “I hate calling anyone I

know decently well Mr. anything.”

“Charmed,” Wingrave answered; “it isn’t a bad name.”

“It isn’t,” she admitted. “By the bye,” she continued, looking at him

critically, “you are rather a surprising person, aren’t you?”

“Glad you’ve found it out,” Wingrave answered. “I always thought so.”

“One associates all sorts of terrible things with

millionaires--especially African and American ones,” she remarked. “Now

you could pass anywhere for the ordinary sort of decent person.”

Wingrave nodded.

“I was told the other day,” he remarked reflectively, “that if I would

only cultivate two things, I might almost pass as a member of the

English aristocracy.”

“What were they?” she asked rashly.

“Ignorance and impertinence,” he answered.

The Marchioness was silent for a moment. There was a little more color

than usual in her beautiful cheeks and a dangerous glitter in her eyes.

“You can go home, Mr. Wingrave,” she said.

He rose to his feet imperturbably. The Marchioness stretched out a long

white hand and gently forced him back again.

“You mustn’t talk like that to me,” she said quietly. “I am sensitive.”

He bowed.

“A privilege, I believe, of your order,” he remarked.

“Of course, if you want to quarrel--” she began.

“I don’t,” he assured her.

“Then be sensible! I want to talk to you.”

“Sensible, alone with you!” he murmured. “I should establish a new

record.”

“You certainly aren’t in the least like a millionaire,” she declared,

smiling at him, “you are more like a--”

“Please go on,” he begged.

“I daren’t,” she answered, shaking her head.

“Then you aren’t in the least like a marchioness,” he declared. “At

least, not like our American ideas of one.”

She laughed outright.

“Bring your chair quite close to mine,” she ordered, “I really want to

talk to you.”

He obeyed, and affected to be absorbed in the contemplation of the

rings on the hand which a great artist had called the most beautiful in

England. She withdrew it a little peevishly, after a moment’s pause.

“I want to talk about the Barringtons,” she said. “Do you know that they

are practically ruined?”

“I heard that Barrington had been gambling on the Stock Exchange the

last few days,” he answered.

“He has lost a great deal of money,” she answered, “and they were almost

on their last legs before. Are you going to set them straight again?”

“No idea,” he answered. “I haven’t been asked, for one thing.”

“Ruth will ask you, of course,” the Marchioness said impatiently. “I

expect that she is waiting at your flat by now. I want to know whether

you are going to do it.”

The hand was again very close to his. Again Wingrave contemplated the

rings.

“I forgot that you were her friend, and are naturally anxious,” he

remarked.

“I am not her friend,” the Marchioness answered, “and--I do not wish you

to help them.”

Wingrave was silent. The hand was insistent, and he held it for a moment

lightly, and then let it go.

“Well, I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “The Barringtons have been

very hospitable to me.”

“Rubbish!” the Marchioness answered. “You have done quite enough for

them already. Of course, you are a man--and you must choose. I am sure

that you understand me.”

He rose to his feet.

“I must think this out,” he said. “The Barringtons have a sort of claim

on me. I will let you know which way I decide.”

She stood close to him, and her hand fell upon his shoulder.

“You are not going!” she exclaimed. “I have told them that I am at home

to no one, and I thought that you would stay and entertain me. Sit down

again, Wingrave!”

“Sorry,” he answered, “I have a lot to do this afternoon. I came

directly I had your note; but I have had to keep some other people

waiting.”

“You are going to see Lady Ruth!”

“Not that I know of,” he declared. “I have heard nothing from her. By

the bye, I lost some money to you at bridge the other evening. How much

was it? Do you remember?”

She looked at him for a second, and turned away.

“Do you really want to know?” she asked.

“If you please. Put the amount down on a piece of paper, and then I

sha’n’t forget it.”

She crossed the room to her desk, and returned with a folded envelope.

He stuffed it into his waistcoat pocket.

“I shall be at the opera tonight,” she said. “Will you come there and

tell me what--which you decide?”

“With pleasure,” he answered, “if I can get away from a stupid dinner in

time.”

She let him go reluctantly. Afterwards she passed into her own room,

and stood looking at herself in the pier glass. Artists and the society

papers called her the most beautiful woman in England; fashion had

placed her upon such a pinnacle that men counted it a distinction to be

seen speaking to her. She dealt out her smiles and favors like Royalty

itself; she had never once known a rebuff. This afternoon she felt that

she had received one. Had she been too cold or too forward? Perhaps she

had underestimated the man himself. She rang for her maid.

“Celeste,” she said, “I shall wear my new Paquin gown tonight at the

opera, and my pearls.”

“Very good, your ladyship.”

“And I am going to lie down for an hour or two now. Don’t let me be

disturbed. I want to look my best tonight. You understand?”

“Perfectly, your ladyship.”

The Marchioness rested, but she did not sleep. She was thinking of

Wingrave!

It was not Lady Ruth, but her husband, who was waiting to see Wingrave

on his return. Aynesworth was talking to him, but at once withdrew.

Wingrave nodded with slightly upraised eyebrows. He never shook hands

with Barrington.

“You wanted to see me?” he inquired, carelessly turning over a little

pile of letters.

Barrington was ill at ease. He hated himself and he hated his errand.

“Yes, for a moment or two--if you’re not busy,” he said. “May I smoke?

I’m nervous this morning.”

“Help yourself,” Wingrave said shortly. “Cigarettes and cigars on the

sideboard. Touch the bell if you’ll take anything to drink.”

“Thanks--Aynesworth gave me a brandy and soda. Capital fellow,

Aynesworth!”

“Have another,” Wingrave said shortly.

He crossed the room to the sideboard. Wingrave glanced up from his

letters, and smiled coldly as he saw the shaking fingers.

“I don’t often indulge like this,” Barrington said, turning away from

the sideboard with a tumbler already empty in his hands. “The fact is,

I’ve had rather a rude knock, and Ruth thought I’d better come and see

you.”

Wingrave remained a study of impassivity. His guest’s whole demeanor,

his uneasy words and nervous glances were an unspoken appeal to be

helped out in what he had come to say. And Wingrave knew very well

what it was. Nevertheless, he remained silent--politely questioning.

Barrington sat down a little heavily. He was not so carefully dressed

as usual; he looked older, his appearance lacked altogether that air of

buoyant prosperity which was wont to inspire his friends and creditors

with confidence.

“I’ve been a fool, Wingrave,” he said. “You showed me how to make a

little money a few weeks ago, and it seemed so easy that I couldn’t

resist having a try by myself, only on rather a larger scale. I

lost! Then I went in again to pull myself round, and I lost again. I

lost--more than I can easily raise before settlement.”

“I am sorry,” Wingrave said politely. “It is very unwise to meddle in

things you know so little about.”

For a moment the worm turned. Barrington rose to his feet, and with

a deep flush upon his cheeks moved towards the door. But his spark of

genuine feeling died out almost as soon as it had been kindled. Outside

that door was ruin; within, as he very well knew, lay his only chance of

salvation. He set down his hat, and turned round.

“Wingrave,” he said, “will you lend me some money?”

Wingrave looked at him with upraised eyebrows.

“I,” he remarked, “lend you money? Why should I?”

“Heaven knows,” Barrington answered. “It is you who have chosen to

seek us out. You have forced upon us something which has at least the

semblance of friendship. There is no one else whom I could ask. It isn’t

only this damned Stock Exchange transaction. Everything has gone wrong

with me for years. If I could have kept going till next July, I should

have been all right. I have made a little success in the House, and I

am promised a place in the next government. I know it seems queer that

I should be asking you, but it is that--or ruin. Now you know how things

are with me.”

“You are making,” Wingrave said quietly, “a mistake. I have not

pretended or given the slightest evidence of any friendship for

yourself.”

Barrington looked at him with slowly mounting color.

“You mean--”

“Precisely,” Wingrave interrupted. “I do not know what I might or might

not do for Lady Ruth. I have not considered the subject. It has not, in

fact, been presented to me.”

“It is the same thing,” Barrington declared hoarsely.

“Pardon me--it is not,” Wingrave answered.

“What I ask you to do,” Barrington said, “I ask on behalf of my wife.”

“As an ambassador,” Wingrave said coldly, “you are not acceptable to

me. It is a matter which I could only discuss with Lady Ruth herself. If

Lady Ruth has anything to say to me, I will hear it.”

Barrington stood quite still for several moments. The veins on his

forehead stood out like tightly drawn cords, his breath came with

difficulty. The light in his eyes, as he looked at Wingrave, was almost

murderous.

“If Lady Ruth desires to see me,” Wingrave remarked slowly, “I shall be

here at nine o’clock this evening. Tomorrow my movements are uncertain.

You will excuse me if I hurry you away now. I have an engagement which

is already overdue.”

Barrington took up his hat and left the room without a word. Wingrave

remained in his chair. His eyes followed the departing figure of his

visitor. When he was absolutely sure that he was alone, he covered his

face with one hand. His engagement seemed to have been with his thoughts

for he did not stir for nearly an hour later. Then he rang the bell for

Aynesworth.

IN THE TOILS

Wingrave did not speak for several moments after Aynesworth had entered

the room. He had an engagement book before him and seemed to be deep in

its contents. When at last he looked up, his forehead was furrowed with

thought, and he had the weary air of a man who has been indulging in

unprofitable memories.

“Aynesworth,” he said, “be so good as to ring up Walters and excuse me

from dining with him tonight.”

Aynesworth nodded.

“Any particular form of excuse?” he asked.

“No! Say that I have an unavoidable engagement. I will see him tomorrow

morning.”

“Anything else?” Aynesworth asked, preparing to leave the room.

“No! You might see that I have no visitors this evening. Lady Ruth is

coming here at nine o’clock.”

“Lady Ruth is coming here,” Aynesworth repeated in a colorless tone.

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders, but made no remark. He turned towards

the door, but Wingrave called him back.

“Your expression, Aynesworth,” he said, “interests me. Am I or the lady

in question responsible for it?”

“I am sorry for Lady Ruth,” Aynesworth said. “I think that I am sorry,

too, for her husband.”

“Why? She is coming of her own free will.”

“There are different methods of compulsion,” Aynesworth answered.

Wingrave regarded him thoughtfully.

“That,” he said, “is true. But I still do not understand why you are

sorry for her.”

“Because,” Aynesworth said, “I know the history of a certain event, and

I know you. It is, I suppose, for this end that you made use of them.”

Wingrave nodded.

“Quite right,” he declared. “I think that the time is not far off when

that dear lady and I can cry quits. This time, too, I see nothing to

impair my satisfaction at the probable finale. In various other cases,

as you might remember, I have not been entirely successful.”

“It depends,” Aynesworth remarked drily, “upon what you term success.”

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

“I think,” he said coldly, “that you are aware of what my feelings and

desired course of action have been with regard to those of my fellow

creatures with whom I have happened to come into contact. It seems to me

that I have been a trifle unfortunate in several instances.”

“As for instance?” Aynesworth asked.

“Well, to take a few cases only,” Wingrave continued, “there was the

child down at Tredowen whom you were so anxious for me to befriend. Of

course, I declined to do anything of the sort, and she ought, by rights,

to have gone to some charitable institution, founded and supported by

fools, and eventually become, perhaps, a domestic servant. Instead

of which, some relation of her father turns up and provides for her

lavishly. You must admit that that was unfortunate.”

“It depends upon the point of view,” Aynesworth remarked drily.

“Personally, I considered it a most fortunate occurrence.”

“Naturally,” Wingrave agreed. “But then you are a sentimentalist. You

like to see people happy, and you would even help to make them so if you

could without any personal inconvenience. I am at the other pole. If I

could collect humanity into one sentient force, I would set my heel upon

it without hesitation. I try to do what I can with the atoms, but I have

not the best of fortune. There was Mrs. Travers, now! There I should

have been successful beyond a doubt if some busybody hadn’t sent that

cable to her husband. I wonder if you were idiot enough to do that,

Aynesworth?”

“If I had thought of the Marconigram,” Aynesworth said, “I am sure I

should have done it. But as a matter of fact, I did not.”

“Just as well, so far as our relations are concerned,” Wingrave said

coldly. “I did manage to make poor men of a few brokers in New York,

but my best coup went wrong. That boy would have blown his brains out,

I believe, if some meddling idiot hadn’t found him all that money at the

last moment. I have had a few smaller successes, of course, and there

is this affair of Lady Ruth and her estimable husband. You know that he

came to borrow money of me, I suppose?”

“I guessed it,” Aynesworth answered. “You should be modern in your

revenge and lend it to him.”

Wingrave smiled coldly.

“I fancy,” he said, “that Lumley Barrington will find my revenge modern

enough. I may lend the money they need--but it will be to Lady Ruth! I

told her husband so a few minutes ago. I told him to send his wife to

me. He has gone to tell her now!”

“I wonder,” Aynesworth remarked, “that he did not thrash you--or try

to.”

Again Wingrave’s lips parted.

“Moral deterioration has set in already,” he remarked. “When he pays

his bills with my money, he will lose the little he has left of his

self-respect.”

Aynesworth turned abruptly away. He was strongly tempted to say things

which would have ended his connection with Wingrave, and as yet he was

not ready to leave. For the sake of a digression, he took up a check

book from the table.

“There are three checks,” he remarked, “which I cannot trace. One

for ten thousand pounds, another for five, and a third for a thousand

pounds. What account shall I put them to?”

“Private drawing account,” Wingrave answered. “They represent a small

speculation. By the bye, you’d better go and ring up Walters.”

“Do you wish the particulars entered in your sundry investment book?”

Aynesworth asked.

Wingrave smiled grimly.

“I think not,” he answered. “You can put them to drawing account. If

you want me again this evening, I shall dine at the Cafe Royal at eight

o’clock, and shall return here at five minutes to nine.”

. . . . . . . . . . .

Lady Ruth was punctual. At a few minutes past nine, Morrison announced

that a lady had called to see Mr. Wingrave by appointment.

“You can show her in,” Wingrave said. “See that we are not disturbed.”

Lady Ruth was scarcely herself. She was dressed in a high-necked muslin

gown, and she wore a hat and veil, which somewhat obscured her features.

The latter she raised, however, as she accepted the chair which Wingrave

had placed for her. He saw then that she was pale, and her manner

betrayed an altogether unfamiliar nervousness. She avoided his eyes.

“Did you expect me?” she asked.

“Yes!” he answered, “I thought that you would come.”

Her foot, long and slender, beat impatiently upon the ground. She looked

up at him once, but immediately withdrew her eyes.

“Why did you bring me here?” she asked in a low tone.

“My dear Lady Ruth!” he protested.

“If you want to play at being friends,” she said, “for heaven’s sake

call me Ruth. You found it easy enough once.”

“You are very kind,” he answered. “Ruth, by all means.”

“Now will you answer my question?” she said. “Do you mean--to help us?”

“Us--no!” he answered; “you--perhaps yes!” he added.

Then she looked at him, and found herself puzzled by the perfect

impassivity of his features. Surely he would drop the mask now. He had

insisted upon her coming!

“Perhaps?” she repeated. “What then--are the conditions?”

He bent over towards her. Curiously enough, there was, mingled with

many other sensations, a certain sense of triumph in the thought, it was

almost a hope, that at last he was going to betray himself, that he was

going to admit tacitly, or by imputation, that her power over him was

not wholly dead. It was a terrible situation--in her heart she felt so,

but it had its compensations. Wingrave had been her constant attendant

for months. He had seen her surrounded by men, all anxious to secure a

smile from her; he had seen her play the great lady in her own house,

and she played it very well. She knew that she was a past mistress in

the arts which fascinate his sex, she understood the quiet speeches, the

moods, every trick of the gamester in emotions, from the fluttering

of eyelids to the unchaining of the passions. And he had loved her.

Underneath it all, he must love her now. She was determined that he

should tell her so. It was genuine excitement which throbbed in her

pulses, a genuine color which burned in her cheeks.

“The conditions?” he repeated. “You believe, then, that I mean to make

conditions?”

She raised her eyes to his, eloquent eyes she knew, and looked at him.

The mask was still there--but he had moved a little nearer to her.

“I do not know,” she said softly. “You must tell me.”

There was a moment’s silence. She had scarcely given herself credit for

such capacity for emotion. He was on his feet. Surely the mask must go

now! And then--she felt that it must be a nightmare. It was incredible!

He had struck a match and was calmly lighting a cigarette.

“One,” he said coolly, “is that Mademoiselle Violet employs no more

amateur assassins to make clumsy attempts upon my life.”

She sat in her place rigid--half frozen with a cold, numbing fear. He

had sent for her, then, only to mock her. She had failed! They were not

even to have the money! Speech was quite impossible. Then he continued.

“I will take your assent for granted,” he said. “Do you know how much

you require to free yourself?”

“About eight thousand pounds!” she answered mechanically.

He sat down and wrote a check, which he laid before her.

“You will have to endorse that,” he remarked in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Your name at the back will do instead of a receipt.”

She sprang to her feet.

“Keep your money,” she cried. “I will not touch it. Please open the door

for me! I am going.”

“By all means--if you wish it,” he answered undisturbed. “At the same

time, I am curious to know why you came here at all if you did not

intend to accept it.”

She faced him, hot and angry.

“I did intend to accept it,” she declared. “It is that or ruin. But you

are too cruel! You make it--impossible.”

“You surprise me,” he answered. “I suppose you know best.”

“For heaven’s sake tell me,” she cried passionately, “what has come to

you, what manner of a man are you? You loved me once! Now, even, after

all these years, you cannot deny it. You have gone out of your way to

be with me, to be my companion wherever we are. People are beginning to

smile when they see us together. I don’t mind. I--for God’s sake tell

me, Wingrave! Why do you do it? Why do you lend me this money? What can

I do for you? What do you want me to be? Are you as cold as a stone?

Have you no heart--no heart even for friendship!”

“I would not seek,” he answered, “to buy--your friendship with a check!”

“But it is yours already,” she cried, holding out her hands. “Give me

a little kindness, Wingrave! You make me feel and seem a perfect idiot.

Why, I’d rather you asked me anything that treated me like this.”

“I was under the impression,” Wingrave remarked, “that I was behaving

rather well. I wonder what would really satisfy you!”

“To have you behave as you are doing, and want to behave differently,”

she cried. “You are magnificent--but it is because you are indifferent.

Will you kiss me, Wingrave?”

“With pleasure!” he answered.

She drew away from him quickly.

“Is it--another woman?” she asked. “The Marchioness?”

Her eagerness was almost painful. He did not answer her at once. She

caught hold of his wrist and drew him towards her. Her eyes searched his

face.

“The Marchioness,” he said, “is a very beautiful woman. She does not,

however, affect the situation as between you and me.”

“If she dared!” Lady Ruth murmured. “Wingrave, won’t you try and be

friends with me?”

“I will try--certainly,” he answered. “You would be surprised, however,

if you could realize the effect of a long period of enforced seclusion

upon a man of my--”

“Don’t!” she shrieked; “stop!”

“My temperament, I was about to say,” he concluded. “There was a time

when I am afraid I might have been tempted, under such circumstances as

these, to forget that you were no longer free, to forget everything that

except we were alone, and that you--are as beautiful as ever you were!”

“Yes!” she murmured, moving imperceptibly a little nearer towards him.

He picked up the check and gave it to her.

“I am no actor,” he said, looking at her steadily. “At present, I make

no conditions. But--”

She leaned towards him. He took her face between his hands and kissed

her on the lips.

“I may make them later,” he said. “I reserve my right.”

She looked at him for a moment, and dropped her veil.

“Please take me down to my carriage,” she asked.

THE INDISCRETION OF THE MARCHIONESS

“I am perfectly certain,” Juliet declared, “that we ought not to be

here.”

“That,” Aynesworth remarked, fanning himself lightly with his pocket

handkerchief, “may account for the extraordinary sense of pleasure which

I am now experiencing. At the same time, I can’t see why not.”

“I only met you this afternoon--a few hours ago. And here we are,

absolutely wedged together on these seats--and my chaperon is dozing

half the time.”

“Pardon me,” Aynesworth objected, “I knew you when you were a child.”

“For one day!”

“Nevertheless,” Aynesworth persisted, “the fact remains. If you date our

acquaintance from this afternoon, I do not. I have never forgotten the

little girl in short frocks and long black hair, who showed me where the

seagulls built, and told me Cornish fairy stories.”

“It was a very long time ago,” she remarked.

“Four years,” he answered; “for you, perhaps, a long time, because

you have changed from a child--into a woman. But for a man approaching

middle age--as I am--nothing!”

“That is all very well,” she answered, “but I am not sure that we ought

to be in the gallery at Covent Garden together, with a chaperon who will

sleep!”

“She will wake up,” he declared, “with the music.”

“And I,” she murmured, “will dream. Isn’t it lovely?”

He smiled.

“I wonder how it really seems to you,” he remarked. “We are breathing an

atmosphere hot with gas, and fragrant with orange peel. We are squashed

in amongst a crowd of people of a class whom I fancy that neither you

nor I know much about. And I saw you last in a wilderness! We saw only

the yellow sands, and the rocks, and the Atlantic. We heard only

the thunder of the sea and the screaming of seagulls. This is very

different.”

“Wonderfully, wonderfully different,” she answered. “I miss it all! Of

course I do, and yet one is so much nearer to life here, the real life

of men and women. Oh, one cannot compare it. Why should one try? Ah,

listen!”

The curtain went up. The music of the orchestra subsided, and the music

of the human voice floated through the Opera House--the human voice,

vibrant with joy and passion and the knowledge which lies behind the

veil. Juliet found no time to talk then, no time to think even of her

companion. Her young cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright with

excitement. She leaned a little forward in her place, she passed with

all the effortless facility of her ingenuous youth, into the dim world

of golden fancies which the story of the opera was slowly unfolding.

Beside her, Mrs. Tresfarwin dozed and blinked and dozed again--and on

her left Aynesworth himself, a little affected by the music, still found

time to glance continually at his companion, so radiant with life and

so fervently intent upon realizing to the full this, the first of its

unknown joys. So with crashing of chords and thunder of melody the act

went on. And when it was over, Juliet thought no more of the Cornish

sea and the lullaby of the waves. A new music was stirring in her young

blood.

They were in the front row of the gallery, and presently she leaned over

to gaze down at the panorama below, the women in the boxes and stalls,

whose bare shoulders and skillfully coiffured hair flashed with jewels.

Suddenly her hand fell upon Aynesworth’s arm.

“Look!” she cried in some excitement, “do you see who that is in the box

there--the one almost next to the stage?”

Aynesworth, too, uttered a little exclamation. The lights from beneath

were falling full upon the still, cold face of the man who had just

taken a vacant chair in one of the boxes.

“Wingrave!” he exclaimed, and glanced at once at his watch.

“Sir Wingrave Seton,” she murmured. “Isn’t it strange that I should see

him here tonight?”

“He comes often,” Aynesworth answered. “Music is one of his few

weaknesses.”

There was a movement in the box, and a woman’s head and shoulders

appeared from behind the curtain. Juliet gave a little gasp.

“Mr. Aynesworth,” she exclaimed, “did you ever see such a beautiful

woman? Do tell me who she is!”

“A very great lady in London society,” Aynesworth answered. “That is

Emily, Marchioness of Westchester.”

Juliet’s eyes never moved from her until the beautiful neck and

shoulders were turned away. She leaned over towards her companion, and

she did not again, for some few minutes, face the house.

“She is the loveliest woman I ever saw in my life,” Juliet said with

a little sigh. “Is she a great friend of Sir Wingrave Seton, Mr.

Aynesworth?”

“He has no friends,” Aynesworth answered. “I believe that they are very

well acquainted.”

“Poor Sir Wingrave!” Juliet murmured softly.

Aynesworth looked at her in some surprise.

“It is odd that you should have recognized him from up here,” he

remarked thoughtfully. “He has changed so much during the last few

years.”

Juliet smiled, but she did not explain. She felt that she was obeying

Wingrave’s wishes.

“I should have recognized him anywhere,” she answered simply. “I wonder

what they are talking about. She seems so interested, and he looks so

bored.”

Aynesworth looked at his watch. It was barely ten o’clock.

“I am very glad to see him here this evening,” he remarked.

“I should like so much,” she said, still gazing at them earnestly, “to

know that they are talking about.”

. . . . . . . . . . .

“So you will not tell me,” the Marchioness murmured, ceasing for a

moment the graceful movements of her fan, and looking at him steadily.

“You refuse me this--almost the first thing I have ever asked you?”

“It is scarcely,” Wingrave objected, “a reasonable question.”

“Between you and me,” she murmured, “such punctiliousness is scarcely

necessary--is it?”

He withstood the attack of those wonderful eyes lifted swiftly to his,

and answered her gravely.

“You are Lady Ruth’s friend,” he remarked. “Probably, therefore, she

will tell you all about it.”

The Marchioness laughed softly, yet with something less than mirth.

“Friends,” she exclaimed, “Lady Ruth and I? There was never a woman in

this world who was less my friend--especially now!”

He asked for no explanation of her last words, but in a moment or two

she vouchsafed it. She leaned a little forward, her eyes flashed softly

through the semi-darkness.

“Lady Ruth is afraid,” she said quietly, “that I might take you away

from her.”

“My dear lady,” he protested, “the slight friendship between Lady Ruth

and myself is not of the nature to engender such a fear.”

She shrugged her beautiful shoulders. Her hands were toying with the

rope of pearls which hung from her neck. She bent over them, as though

examining the color of the stones.

“How long have you known Ruth?” she asked quietly.

He looked at her steadfastly. He could not be sure whether it was his

fancy, or whether indeed there was some hidden meaning in her question.

“Since I came to live in England,” he answered.

“Ah!”

There was a moment’s silence. Then with a little wave of her hands and a

brilliant smile, she figuratively dismissed the subject.

“We waste time,” she remarked lightly, “and we may have callers at

any moment. I will ask you no more questions save those which the

conventions may permit you to answer truthfully. We can’t depart from

our code, can we, even for the sake of an inquisitive woman?”

“I can assure you--” he began.

“But I will have no assurances,” she interrupted smilingly. “I am going

to talk of other things. I am going to ask you a ridiculous question.

Are you fond of music?--seriously!”

“I believe so,” he answered. “Why?”

“Because,” she answered, “I sometimes wonder what there is in the world

that interests you! Certainly, none of the ordinary things seem to.

Tonight, almost for the first time, I saw you look a little drawn out

of yourself. I was wondering whether it was the music or the people. I

suppose, until one gets used to it,” she added, looking a little wearily

around the house, “an audience like this is worth looking at.”

“It certainly is not the people,” he said. “Do you make as close a study

of all your acquaintances?”

“Naturally not,” she answered, “and I do not class you amongst my

acquaintances at all. You interest me, my friend--very much indeed!”

“I am flattered,” he murmured.

“You are not--I wish that you were,” she answered simply. “I can

understand why you have succeeded where so many others have failed.

You are strong. You have nerves of steel--and very little heart. But

now--what are you going to do with your life, now that wealth must even

have lost its meaning to you? I should like to know that. Will you tell

me?”

“What is there to do?” he asked. “Eat and drink, and juggle a little

with the ball of fate.”

“You are not ambitious?”

“Not in the least.”

“Pleasure, for itself, does not attract you. No! I know that it does

not. What are you going to do, then?”

“I have no idea,” he answered. “Won’t you direct me?”

“Yes, I will,” she answered, “if you will pay my price.”

He looked at her more intently. He himself had been attaching no

particular importance to this conversation, but he was suddenly

conscious that it was not so with the woman at his side. Her eyes were

shining at him, soft and full and sweet; her beautiful bosom was rising

and falling quickly; there had come to her something which even he was

forced to recognize, that curious and voluptuous abandonment which a

woman rarely permits herself, and can never assume. He was a little

bewildered. His speech lost for a moment its cold precision.

“Your price?” he repeated. “I--I am stupid. I’m afraid I don’t

understand.”

“Marry me,” she whispered in his ear, “and I will take you a little

further into life than you could ever go alone You don’t care for me, of

course--but you shall. You don’t understand this world, Wingrave, or how

to make the best of it. I do! Let me be your guide!”

Wingrave looked at her in grave astonishment.

“You are not by any chance--in earnest?” he asked.

“You know very well that I am,” she answered swiftly. “And yet you

hesitate! What is it that you are afraid of? Don’t you like to give up

your liberty? We need not marry unless you choose. That is only a matter

of form nowadays at any rate. I have a hundred chaperons to choose from.

Society expects strange things from me. It is your companionship I want.

Your money is fascinating, of course. I should like to see you spend it,

to spend it with both hands. Don’t be afraid that we should be talked

about. I am not Lady Ruth! I am Emily, Marchioness of Westchester, and I

live and choose my friends as I please; will you be chief amongst them?

Hush!”

For Wingrave it was providential. The loud chorus which had heralded

the upraising of the curtain died away. Melba’s first few notes were

floating through the house. Silence was a necessity. The low passion of

the music rippled from the stage, through the senses and into the hearts

of many of the listeners. But Wingrave listened silent and unmoved. He

was even unconscious that the woman by his side was watching him half

anxiously every now and then.

The curtain descended amidst a thunder of applause. Wingrave turned

slowly towards his companion. And then there came a respite--a knock at

the door.

The Marchioness frowned, but Wingrave was already holding it open.

Lady Ruth, followed by an immaculate young guardsman, a relative of her

husband, was standing there.

“Mr. Wingrave!” she exclaimed softly, with upraised eyebrows, “why have

you contrived to render yourself invisible? We thought you were alone,

Emily,” she continued, “and took pity on you. And all the time you had a

prize.”

The Marchioness looked at Lady Ruth, and Lady Ruth looked at the

Marchioness. The young guardsman was a little sorry that he had come,

but Lady Ruth never turned a hair.

“You must really have your eyes seen to, dear,” the Marchioness remarked

in a tone of tender concern. “When you can’t see such an old friend as

Mr. Wingrave from a few yards away, they must be very bad indeed.

How are you, Captain Kendrick? Come and tell me about the polo this

afternoon. Sorry I can’t offer you all chairs. This is an absurd box--it

was only meant for two!”

“Come into ours,” Lady Ruth said; “we have chairs for six, I think.”

The Marchioness shook her head.

“I wish I had a millionaire in the family,” she murmured. “All the same,

I hate large parties. I am old-fashioned enough to think that two is a

delightful number.”

Lady Ruth laid her hand upon Wingrave’s arm.

“A decided hint, Mr. Wingrave,” she declared. “Come and let me introduce

you to my sister. Our box is only a few yards off.”

“I AM MISANTHROPOS, AND HATE MANKIND”

Wingrave had just come in from an early gallop. His pale cheeks were

slightly flushed, and his eyes were bright. He had been riding hard to

escape from disconcerting thoughts. He looked in at the study, and found

Aynesworth with a mass of correspondence before him.

“Anything important?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Aynesworth answered. “The letters marked private I have sent

up to your room. By the bye, there was something I wanted to tell you.”

Wingrave closed the door.

“Well?” he said.

“I was up in the gallery of the Opera House last night,” Aynesworth

said, “with a--person who saw you only once, soon after I first came

to you--before America. You were some distance away, and yet--my friend

recognized you.”

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

“That, of course, is possible,” he answered. “It really does not matter

so very much unless they knew me--as Wingrave Seton!”

“My friend,” Aynesworth said, “recognized you as Sir Wingrave Seton.”

Wingrave frowned thoughtfully for a moment.

“Who was it?” he asked.

“A most unlikely person,” Aynesworth remarked smiling. “Do you remember,

when we went down to Tredowen just before we left for America, a little,

long-legged, black-frocked child, whom we met in the gardens--the

organist’s daughter, you know?”

“What of her?” Wingrave asked.

“It was she who was with me,” Aynesworth remarked. “It was she who saw

you in the box with the Marchioness of Westchester.”

Aynesworth was puzzled by the intentness with which Wingrave was

regarding him. Impenetrable though the man was, Aynesworth, who had not

yet lost his early trick of studying him closely, knew that, for some

reason or other, his intelligence had proved disturbing.

“Have you then--kept up your acquaintance with this child?” he demanded.

Aynesworth shook his head.

“She is not a child any longer, but a very beautiful young woman,” he

said. “I met her again quite by accident. She is up in London, studying

art at the studio of an old friend of mine who has a class of girls. I

called to see him the other afternoon, and recognized her.”

“Your acquaintance,” Wingrave remarked, “has progressed rapidly if she

accepts your escort--to the gallery of the Opera!”

“It was scarcely like that,” Aynesworth explained. “I met her and Mrs.

Tresfarwin on the way there, and asked to be allowed to accompany them.

Mrs. Tresfarwin was once your housekeeper, I think, at Tredowen.”

“And did you solve the mystery of this relation of her father who turned

up so opportunely?” Wingrave asked.

Aynesworth shook his head.

“She told me nothing about him,” he answered.

Wingrave passed on to his own room. His breakfast was on the table

awaiting him, and a little pile of letters and newspapers stood by his

plate. His servant, his head groom, and his chauffeur were there to

receive their orders for the morning. About him were all the evidences

of his well-ordered life. He sent both the men away and locked the

door. It was half an hour before he touched either his breakfast or his

letters....

He lunched at Westchester House in obedience to a somewhat imperative

summons. There were other guests there, whom, however, he outstayed. As

soon as they were alone, his hostess touched him on the arm and led him

to her own room.

“At last!” she exclaimed, with an air of real relief. “There, sit down

opposite to me, please--I want to watch your face.”

She was a little paler than usual, and he noticed that she had avoided

talking much to him at luncheon time. And yet he thought that he had

never seen her more beautiful. Something in her face had altered. He

could not tell what it was for he was not a man of much experience as

regarded her sex. Yet, in a vague sort of way, he understood the

change. A certain part of the almost insolent quietness, the complete

self-assurance of her manner, had gone. She was a little more like an

ordinary woman!

“Lady Ruth proved herself an excellent tactician last night,” she

remarked. “She has given me an exceedingly uncomfortable few hours. For

you, well for you it was a respite, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know that I should call it exactly that,” he answered

thoughtfully.

She looked at him steadfastly, almost wistfully.

“Well,” she said, “I am not going to make excuses for myself. But the

things which one says naturally enough when the emotions provoke them

sound crude enough in cold blood and colder daylight. We women are

creatures of mood, you know. I was feeling a little lonely and a little

tired last night, and the music stole away my common sense.”

“I understand,” he murmured. “All that you said shall be forgotten.”

“Then you do not understand,” she answered, smiling at him. “What I said

I do not wish to be forgotten. Only--just at that moment, it sounded

natural enough--and today--I think that I am a little ashamed.”

He rose from his seat. Her eyes leaped up to his expectantly, and the

color streamed into her cheeks. But he only stood by her side. He did

nothing to meet the half-proffered embrace.

“Dear Lady Emily,” he said, “all the kind things that you said were

spoken to a stranger. You did not know me. I did not mean anyone to know

me. It is you who have commanded the truth. You must have it. I am not

the person I seem to be. I am not the person to whom words such as yours

should have been spoken. Even my name is an assumed one. I should prefer

to leave it at that--if you are content.”

“I am not content,” she answered quietly; “I must hear more.”

He bowed.

“I am a man,” he said, “who spent ten years in prison, the ten best

years of my life. A woman sent me there--a woman swore my liberty away

to save her reputation. I was never of a forgiving disposition, I was

never an amiably disposed person. I want you to understand this. Any of

the ordinary good qualities with which the average man may be endowed,

and which I may have possessed, are as dead in me as hell fire could

burn them. You have spoken of me as of a man who failed to find a

sufficient object in life. You were wrong. I have an object, and I do

my best to live up to it. I hate the whole world of men and women who

laughed their way through life whilst I suffered--tortures. I hate the

woman who sent me there. I have no heart, nor any sense of pity. Now

perhaps you can understand my life and the manner of it.”

Her hands were clasped to the side of her head. Something of horror had

stolen into the steadfast gaze with which she was still regarding him.

Yet there were other things there which puzzled him.

“This--is terrible!” she murmured. “Then you are not--Mr. Wingrave at

all?”

He hesitated. After all, it was scarcely worth while concealing anything

now.

“I am Sir Wingrave Seton,” he said. “You may remember my little affair!”

She caught hold of his hands.

“You poor, poor dear!” she cried. “How you must have suffered!”

Wingrave had a terrible moment. What he felt he would never have

admitted, even to himself. Her eyes were shining with sympathy, and it

was so unexpected. He had expected something in the nature of a cold

withdrawal; her silence was the only thing he had counted upon. It was a

fierce, but short battle. His sudden grasp of her hands was relaxed. He

stood away from her.

“You are very kind,” he said. “As you can doubtless imagine, it is a

little too late for sympathy. The years have gone, and the better part

of me, if ever there was a better part, with them.”

“I am not so sure of that!” she whispered.

He looked at her coldly.

“Why not?”

“If you were absolutely heartless,” she said, “if you were perfectly

consistent, why did you not make me suffer? You had a great chance! A

little feigned affection, and then a few truths. You could have dragged

me down a little way into the pit of broken hearts! Why didn’t you?”

He frowned.

“One is forced to neglect a few opportunities!”

She smiled at him--delightfully.

“You foolish man!” she murmured. “Some day or other, you will turn out

to be a terrible impostor. Do you know, I think I am going to ask you

again--what I asked you last night?”

“I scarcely think that you will be so ill-advised,” he declared coldly.

“Whether you believe it or not, I can assure you that I am incapable of

affection.”

She sighed.

“I am not so sure about that,” she said with protesting eyebrows, “but

you are terribly hard-hearted?”

He was entirely dissatisfied with the impression he had produced. He

considered the attitude of the Marchioness unjustifiably frivolous. He

had an uneasy conviction that she was not in the least inclined to take

him seriously.

“I don’t think,” he said, glancing at the clock, “that I need detain you

any longer.”

“You are really going away, then?” she asked him softly.

“Yes.”

“To call on Lady Ruth, perhaps?”

“As it happens, no,” he answered.

Suddenly her face changed--she had remembered something.

“It was Lady Ruth!” she exclaimed.

“Exactly!” he interrupted.

“What a triumph of inconsistency!” she declared scornfully. “You are

lending them money!”

“I am lending money to Lady Ruth,” he answered slowly.

Their eyes met. She understood, at any rate, what he intended to convey.

Certainly his expression was hard and merciless enough now!

“Poor Ruth,” she murmured.

“Some day,” he answered, “you will probably say that in earnest.”

JULIET GAINS EXPERIENCE

“Of course,” Juliet said, “after Tredowen it seems very small, almost

poky, but it isn’t, really, and Tredowen was not for me all my days. It

was quite time I got used to something else.”

Wingrave looked around him with expressionless face. It was a tiny

room, high up on the fifth floor of a block of flats, prettily but

inexpensively furnished. Juliet herself, tall and slim, with all the

fire of youth and perfect health on her young face, was obviously

contented.

“And your work?” he asked.

She made a little grimace.

“I have a good deal to unlearn,” she said, “but Mr. Pleydell is very

kind and encouraging.”

“You will go down to Cornwall for the hot weather, I hope?” he said.

“London is unbearable in August.”

“The class are going for a sketching tour to Normandy,” she said,

“and Mr. Pleydell thought that I might like to join them. It is very

inexpensive, and I should be able to go on with my work all the time.”

He nodded thoughtfully.

“I hear,” he said, “that you have met Mr. Aynesworth again.”

“Wasn’t it delightful?” she exclaimed. “He is quite an old friend of Mr.

Pleydell. I was so glad to see him.”

“I suppose,” he remarked, “you are a little lonely sometimes?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “But I sha’n’t be when I get to know the

girls in the class a little better.”

“I have some friends,” he said thoughtfully, “women, of course, who

would come and see you with pleasure. And yet,” he added, “I am not sure

that you would not be better off without knowing them.”

“They are fashionable ladies, perhaps?” she said simply.

He nodded.

“They belong to the Juggernaut here which is called society. They would

probably try to draw you a little way into its meshes. I think, yes, I

am sure,” he added, looking at her, “that you are better off outside.”

“And I am quite sure of it,” she answered laughing. “I haven’t the

clothes or the time or the inclination for that sort of thing. Besides,

I am going to be much too happy ever to be lonely.”

“I myself,” he said, “am not an impressionable person. But they tell me

that most people, especially of your age, find London a terribly lonely

place.”

“I can understand that,” she answered, “unless they really had something

definite to do. I have felt a little of that myself. I think London

frightens me a little. It is so different from the country, and there is

a great deal that is difficult to understand.”

“For instance?”

“The great number of poor people who find it so hard to live,” she

answered. “Some of the small houses round here are awful, and

Mr. Malcolm--he is the vicar of the church here, and he called

yesterday--tells me that they are nothing like so bad as in some

other parts of London. And then you take a bus, it is such a short

distance--and the shops are full of wonderful things at such fabulous

prices, and the carriages and houses are so lovely, and people seem to

be showering money right and left everywhere.”

“It is the same in all large cities,” he answered, “more or less.

There must always be rich and poor, when a great community are herded

together. As a rule, the extreme poor are a worthless lot.”

“There must be some of them, though,” she answered, “who deserve to

have a better time. Of course, I have never been outside Tredowen, where

everyone was contented and happy in their way, and it seems terrible to

me just at first. I can’t bear to think that everyone hasn’t at least a

chance of happiness.”

“You are too young,” he said, “to bother your head about these things

yet. Wait until you have gathered in a little philosophy with the years.

Then you will understand how helpless you are to alter by ever so little

the existing state of things, and it will trouble you less.”

“I,” she answered, “may, of course, be helpless, but what about those

people who have huge fortunes, and still do nothing?”

“Why should they?” he answered coldly. “This is a world for individual

effort. No man is strong enough to carry even a single one of his

fellows upon his shoulders. Charity is the most illogical and pernicious

of all weaknesses.”

“Now you are laughing at me,” she declared. “I mean men like that

Mr. Wingrave, the American who has come to England to spend all his

millions. I have just been reading about him,” she added, pointing to an

illustrated paper on the table. “They say that his income is too vast

to be put into figures which would sound reasonable; that he has estates

and shooting properties, and a yacht which he has never yet even

seen. And yet he will not give one penny away. He gives nothing to the

hospitals, nothing to the poor. He spends his money on himself, and

himself alone!”

Wingrave smiled grimly.

“I am not prepared to defend my namesake,” he said; “but every man has a

right to do what he likes with his own, hasn’t he? And as for hospitals,

Mr. Wingrave probably thinks, like a good many more, that they should be

state endowed. People could make use of them, then, without loss of self

respect.”

She shook her head a little doubtfully.

“I can’t argue about it yet,” she said, “because I haven’t thought

about it long enough. But I know if I had all the money this man has,

I couldn’t be happy to spend thousands and thousands upon myself while

there were people almost starving in the same city.”

“You are a sentimentalist, you see,” he remarked, “and you have not

studied the laws on which society is based. Tell me, how does Mrs.

Tresfarwin like London?”

Juliet laughed merrily.

“Isn’t it amusing?” she declared. “She loves it! She grumbles at the

milk, and we have the butter from Tredowen. Everything else she finds

perfection. She doesn’t even mind the five flights of stone steps.”

“Social problems,” Wingrave remarked, “do not trouble her.”

“Not in the least,” Juliet declared. “She spends all her pennies on

beggars and omnibus rides, and she is perfectly happy.”

Wingrave rose to go in a few minutes. Juliet walked with him to the

door.

“I am going to be really hospitable,” she declared. “I am going to walk

with you to the street.”

“All down those five flights?” he exclaimed.

“Every one of them!”

They commenced the descent.

“There is something about a flat,” she declared, “which makes one

horribly curious about one’s neighbors--especially if one has never had

any. All these closed doors may hide no end of interesting people, and

I have never seen a soul go in or out. How did you like all this

climbing?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t appreciate it,” he admitted.

“Perhaps you won’t come to see me again, then?” she asked. “I hope you

will.”

“I will come,” he said a little stiffly, “with pleasure!”

They were on the ground floor, and Juliet opened the door. Wingrave’s

motor was outside, and the man touched his hat. She gave a little

breathless cry.

“It isn’t yours?” she exclaimed.

“Certainly,” he answered. “Do you want to come and look at it?”

“Rather!” she exclaimed. “I have never seen one close to in my life.”

He hesitated.

“I’ll take you a little way, if you like,” he said.

Her cheeks were pink with excitement.

“If I like! And I’ve never been in one before! I’ll fly up for my hat. I

sha’n’t be a moment.”

She was already halfway up the first flight of stairs, with a whirl of

skirts and flying feet. Wingrave lit a cigarette and stood for a moment

thoughtfully upon the pavement. Then he shrugged his shoulders. His face

had grown a little harder.

“She must take her chances,” he muttered. “No one knows her. Nobody is

likely to find out who she is.”

She was down again in less time than seemed possible. Her cheeks were

flushed and her eyes bright with excitement. Wingrave took the wheel

himself, and she sat up by his side. They glided off almost noiselessly.

“We will go up to the Park,” he said. “It is just the time to see the

people.”

“Anywhere!” she exclaimed. “This is too lovely!”

They passed from Battersea northwards into Piccadilly, and down into the

Park. Juliet was too excited to talk; Wingrave had enough to do to drive

the car. They passed plenty of people who bowed, and many who glanced

with wondering admiration at the beautiful girl who sat by Wingrave’s

side. Lady Ruth, who drive by quickly in a barouche, almost rose from

her seat; the Marchioness, whose victoria they passed, had time to wave

her hand and flash a quick, searching glance at Juliet, who returned

it with her dark eyes filled with admiration. The Marchioness smiled to

herself a little sadly as the car shot away ahead.

“If one asked,” she murmured to herself, “he would try to persuade one

that it was another victim.”

NEMESIS AT WORK

Wingrave was present that evening at a reception given by the Prime

Minister to some distinguished foreign guests. He had scarcely exchanged

the usual courtesies with his host and hostess before Lady Ruth, leaning

over from a little group, whispered in his ear.

“Please take me away. I am bored. I want to talk to you.”

He paused at once. Lady Ruth nodded to her friends.

“Mr. Wingrave is going to take me to hear Melba sing,” she said. “See

you all again, I suppose, at Hereford House!”

They made slow progress through the crowded rooms. Once or twice

Wingrave fancied that his companion hung a little heavily upon his arm.

She showed no desire to talk. She even answered a remark of his in a

monosyllable. Only when they passed the Marchioness, on the arm of one

of the foreign guests in whose honor the reception was given, she seemed

to shiver a little, and her grasp upon his arm was tightened. Once, in

a block, she was forced to speak to some acquaintances, and during

those few seconds, Wingrave studied her curiously. She was absolutely

colorless, and her strange brilliant eyes seemed to have lost all their

fire. Her gown was black, and the decorations of her hair were black

except for a single diamond. There was something almost spectral about

her appearance. She walked stiffly--for the moment she had lost the

sinuous grace of movement which had been one of her many fascinations.

Her neck and shoulders alone remained, as ever, dazzlingly beautiful.

They reached a quiet corner at last. Lady Ruth sank with a little

gesture of relief into an easy chair. Wingrave stood before her.

“You are tired tonight,” he remarked.

“I am always tired,” she answered wearily. “I begin to think that I

always shall be.”

He said nothing. Lady Ruth closed her eyes for a moment as though from

sheer fatigue. Suddenly she opened them again and looked him full in the

face.

“Who was she?” she asked.

“I do not understand,” he replied.

“The child you were with--the ingenue, you know--with the pink cheeks

and the wonderful eyes! Is she from one of the theaters, or a genuine

article?”

“The young lady to whom you refer,” he answered, “is the daughter of

an old friend of mine. I am practically her guardian. She is in London

studying painting.”

“You are her guardian?” Lady Ruth repeated. “I am sorry for her.”

“You need not be,” he answered. “I trust that I shall be able to fulfill

my duties in a perfectly satisfactory manner.”

“Oh! I have no doubt of it,” she answered. “Yet I am sorry for her.”

“You are certainly,” he remarked, “not in an amiable mood.”

“I am in rather a desperate one if that is anything,” she said, looking

at him with something of the old light in her tired eyes.

“You made a little error, perhaps, in those calculations?” he suggested.

“It can be amended.”

“Don’t be a brute,” she answered fiercely.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“That sounds a little severe,” he remarked.

“Don’t take any notice of anything I say tonight,” she murmured softly.

“I am a little mad. I think that everything is going against me! I know

that you haven’t a grain of sympathy for me--that you would rather see

me suffer than not, and yet you see I give myself away entirely. Why

shouldn’t I? Part of it is through you in a way.”

“I rather fancied,” he remarked, “that up to now--”

“Yes! Of course!” she interrupted, “you saved me from ruin, staved it

off at any rate. And you held over the reckoning! I--I almost wish--”

She paused. Again her eyes were searching his.

“I am a little tired of it all, you see,” she continued. “I don’t

suppose Lumley and I can ever be the same again since I brought

him--that check. He avoids being alone with me--I do the same with him.

One would think--to watch the people, that the whole transaction was in

the Morning Post. They smile when they see us together, they grin when

they see you with anybody else. It’s getting hateful, Wingrave!”

“I am afraid,” he said quietly, “that you are in a nervous,

hypersensitive state. No one else can possibly know of the little

transaction between us, and, so far as I am concerned, there has been

nothing to interfere with your relations with your husband.”

“You are right,” she answered, “I am losing my nerve. I am only afraid

that I am losing something else. I haven’t an ounce of battle left in

me. I feel that I should like to close my eyes and wake up in a new

world, and start all over again.”

“It is nothing but a mood,” he assured her. “Those new worlds don’t

exist any longer. They generally consist of foreign watering places

where the sheep and the goats house together now and then. I think I

should play the game out, Lady Ruth, until--”

“Until what?”

“Perhaps to the end,” he answered. “Who can tell? Not I! By this time

tomorrow, it might be I who would be reminding you--”

“Yes?”

“That there are other worlds, and other lives to live!”

“I should like,” she whispered very softly, “to hear of them. But I

fancy somehow that you will never be my instructor. What of your ward?”

“Well! What of her?” he answered calmly.

She shivered a little.

“You were very frank with me once, Wingrave,” she said. “You are a man

whose life fate has wrecked, fate and I! You have no heart left, no

feeling. You can create suffering and find it amusing. I am beginning to

realize that.”

He nodded.

“There is some truth,” he declared, “In what you say.”

“What of that child? Is she, too, to be a victim?”

“I trust,” he answered, “that you are not going to be melodramatic.”

“I don’t call it that. I really want to know. I should like to warn

her.”

“I am not at war with children,” he answered. “Her life and mine are as

far apart as the poles.”

“I had an odd fancy when I saw you with her,” Lady Ruth said slowly.

“She is very good-looking--and not so absurdly young.”

“The fancy was one,” he remarked coldly, “which I think you had better

get rid of.”

“In a way,” she continued thoughtfully, “I should like to get rid of it,

and yet--how old are you, Wingrave? Well, I know. You are very little

over forty. You are barely in the prime of life, you are strong, you

have the one thing which society today counts almost divine--great,

immeasurable wealth! Can’t you find someone to thaw the snows?”

“I loved a woman once,” he answered. “It was a long time ago, and it

seems strange to me now.”

Lady Ruth lifted her eyes to his, and their lambent fires were suddenly

rekindled.

“Love her again,” she murmured. “What is past is past, but there are the

days to come! Perhaps the woman, too, is a little lonely.”

“I think not,” he answered calmly. “The woman is married, she has lived

with her husband more or less happily for a dozen years or so! She is

a little ambitious, a little fond of pleasure, but a leader of society,

and, I am sure, a very reputable member of it. To love her again would

be as embarrassing to her--as it would be difficult for me. You, my dear

Lady Ruth, I am convinced, would be the last to approve of it.”

“You mock me,” she murmured, bending her head. “Is forgiveness also an

impossibility?”

“I think,” he said, “that any sentiment whatever between those two would

be singularly misplaced. You spoke of Melba, I think! She is singing in

the further room.”

Lady Ruth rose up, still and pale. There was fear in her eyes when she

looked at him.

“Is it to be always like this, then?” she said.

“Ah!” he answered, “I am no prophet. Who can tell what the days may

bring? In the meantime...”

The Marchioness was very much in request that evening, and she found

time for only a few words with Wingrave.

“What have you been doing to poor Ruth?” she asked. “I never saw her

look so ill!”

“Indeed!” he answered, “I had not noticed it.”

“If I didn’t know her better,” she remarked, “I might begin to suspect

her of a conscience. Whose baby were you driving about this afternoon?

I didn’t know that your taste ran to ingenues to such an extent. She’s

sweetly pretty, but I don’t think it’s nice of you to flaunt her before

us middle-aged people. It’s enough to drive us to the rouge box. Come to

lunch tomorrow!”

“I shall be delighted,” he answered, and passed on.

An hour or so later, on his way out, he came upon Lady Ruth sitting a

little forlornly in the hall.

“I wonder whether I dare ask you to drop me in Cadogan Square?” she

asked. “Is it much out of your way? I am leaving a little earlier than I

expected.”

“I shall be delighted,” he answered, offering his arm.

They passed out of the door and down the covered way into the street.

A few stragglers were loitering on the pavement, and one, a tall, thin

young man in a long ulster, bent forwards as they came down the steps.

Wingrave felt his companion’s grasp tighten upon his arm; a flash of

light upon the pale features and staring eyes of the young man a few

feet off, showed him to be in the act of intercepting them. Then, at a

sharp word from Wingrave, a policeman stretched out his arm. The young

man was pushed unceremoniously away. Wingrave’s tall footman and

the policeman formed an impassable barrier--in a moment the electric

brougham was gliding down the street. Lady Ruth was leaning back amongst

the cushions, and the hand which fell suddenly upon Wingrave’s was cold

as ice!

RICHARDSON TRIES AGAIN

“You saw--who that was?”

Lady Ruth’s voice seemed to come from a greater distance. Wingrave

turned and looked at her with calm curiosity. She was leaning back in

the corner of the carriage, and she seemed somehow to have shrunk into

an unusual insignificance. Her eyes alone were clearly visible through

the semi-darkness--and the light which shone from their depths was the

light of fear.

“Yes,” he answered slowly, “I believe that I recognized him. It was the

young man who persists in some strange hallucination as to a certain

Mademoiselle Violet.”

“It was no hallucination,” she answered. “You know that! I was

Mademoiselle Violet!”

He nodded.

“It amazes me,” he said thoughtfully, “that you should have stooped to

such folly. That my demise would have been a relief to you I can, of

course, easily believe, but the means--they surely were not worthy of

your ingenuity.”

“Don’t!” she cried sharply. “I must have been utterly, miserably mad!”

“Even the greatest of schemers have their wild moments,” he remarked

consolingly. “This was one of yours. You paid me a very poor compliment,

by the bye, to imagine that an insignificant creature like that--”

“Will you--leave off?” she moaned.

“I daresay,” he continued after a moment’s pause, “that you find him now

quite an inconvenient person to deal with.”

She shuddered.

“Oh, I am paying for my folly, if that is what you mean,” she

declared. “He knows--who I am--that he was deceived. He follows me

about--everywhere.”

Wingrave glanced out of the carriage window.

“Unless I am very much surprised,” he answered, “he is following us

now!”

She came a little closer to him.

“You won’t leave me? Promise!”

“I will see you home,” he answered.

“You are coming on to Hereford House.”

“I think not,” he answered; “I have had enough of society for one

evening.”

“Emily will be there later,” she said quietly.

“Even Lady Emily,” he answered, “will not tempt me. I will see you

safely inside. Afterwards, if your persistent follower is hanging about,

I will endeavor to talk him into a more reasonable frame of mind.”

She was silent for a moment. Then she turned to him abruptly.

“You are more kind to me sometimes than I deserve, Wingrave,” she

remarked.

“It is not kindness,” he answered. “I dislike absurd situations. Here we

are! Permit me!”

Wingrave kept his word. He saw Lady Ruth to her front door, and then

turned back towards his carriage. Standing by the side of the footman, a

little breathless, haggard and disheveled-looking, was the young man who

had attempted to check their progress a few minutes ago.

Wingrave took hold of his arm firmly.

“Get in there,” he ordered, pointing to the carriage.

The young man tried to escape, but he was held as though in a vise.

Before he well knew where he was, he was in the carriage, and Wingrave

was seated by his side.

“What do you want with me?” he asked hoarsely.

“I want to know what you mean by following that lady about?” Wingrave

asked.

The young man leaned forward. His hand was upon the door.

“Let me get out,” he said sullenly.

“With pleasure--presently,” Wingrave answered. “I can assure you that I

am not anxious to detain you longer than necessary. Only you must first

answer my question.”

“I want to speak to her! I shall follow her about until I can!” the

young man declared.

Wingrave glanced at him with a faint derisive smile. His clothes were

worn and shabby, he was badly in need of a shave and a wash. He sat

hunched up in a corner of the carriage, the picture of mute discomfort

and misery.

“Do you know who she is?” Wingrave asked.

“Mademoiselle Violet!” the young man answered.

“You are mistaken,” Wingrave answered. “She is Lady Ruth Barrington,

wife of Lumley Barrington and daughter of the Earl of Haselton.”

The young man was unmoved.

“She is Mademoiselle Violet,” he declared.

The coupe drew up before the great block of buildings in which was

Wingrave’s flat. The footman threw open the door.

“Come in with me,” Wingrave said. “I have something more to say to you.”

“I would rather not,” the young man muttered, and would have slouched

off, but Wingrave caught him by the arm.

“Come!” he said firmly, and the youth obeyed.

Wingrave led the way into his sitting room and dismissed his servant who

was setting out a tray upon the sideboard.

“Sit down,” he ordered, and his strange guest again obeyed. Wingrave

looked at him critically.

“It seems to me,” he said deliberately, “that you are another of those

poor fools who chuck away their life and happiness and go to the dogs

because a woman had chosen to make a little use of them. You’re out of

work, I suppose?”

“Yes!”

“Hungry?”

“I suppose so.”

Wingrave brought a plate of sandwiches from the sideboard, and mixed a

whisky and soda. He set them down in front of his guest, and turned away

with the evening paper in his hand.

“I am going into the next room for some cigarettes,” he remarked.

He was gone scarcely two minutes. When he returned, the room was in

darkness. He moved suddenly towards the electric lights, but was pushed

back by an unseen hand. A man’s hot breath fell upon his cheek, a

hoarse, rasping voice spoke to him out of the black shadows.

“Don’t touch the lights! Don’t touch the lights, I say!”

“What folly is this?” Wingrave asked angrily. “Are you mad?”

“Not now,” came the quick answer. “I have been. It has come to me here,

in the darkness. I know why she is angry, I know why she will not speak

to me. It is--because I failed.”

Wingrave laughed, and moved towards the lights.

“We have had enough of this tomfoolery,” he said scornfully. “If you

won’t listen to reason--”

He never finished his sentence. He had stumbled suddenly against a soft

body, he had a momentary impression of a white, vicious face, of eyes

blazing with insane fury. Quick to act, he struck--but before his hand

descended, he had felt the tearing of his shirt, the sharp, keen pain

in his chest, the swimming of his senses. Yet even then he struck again

with passionate anger, and his assailant went down amongst the chairs

with a dull, sickening crash!

Then there was silence in the room. Wingrave made an effort to drag

himself a yard or two towards the bell, but collapsed hopelessly.

Richardson, in a few moments, staggered to his feet.

He groped his way to the side of the wall, and found the knobs of the

electric lights. He turned two on and looked around him. Wingrave was

lying a few yards off, with a small red stain upon his shirt front.

His face was ghastly pale, and he was breathing thickly. The young man

looked at him for several moments, and then made his way to the side

table where the sandwiches were. One by one he took them from the dish,

and ate deliberately. When he had finished, he made his way once more

towards where Wingrave lay. But before he reached the spot, he stopped

short. Something on the wall had attracted his attention. He put his

hand to his head and thought for a moment. It was an idea--a glorious

idea.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Lady Ruth’s maid stepped back and surveyed her mistress ecstatically.

“Milady,” she declared, “has never, no never, appeared more charming.

The gown, it is divine--and the coiffure! Milady will have no rivals.”

Lady Ruth looked at herself long and earnestly in the glass. Her face

reflected none of the pleased interest with which her maid was still

regarding her. The latter grew a little anxious.

“Milady thinks herself a trifle pale, perhaps--a little more color?”

Lady Ruth set down the glass.

“No, thank you, Annette,” she answered. “I shall do very well, I

suppose. Certainly, I won’t have any rouge.”

“Milady knows very well what becomes her,” the woman answered

discreetly. “The pallor, it is the more distinguished. Milady cannot

fail to have all the success she desires!”

Lady Ruth smiled a little wearily. And at that moment, there came a

knock at the door. A servant entered.

“Someone wishes to speak to your ladyship on the telephone,” the girl

announced.

“On the telephone, at this time of night?” Lady Ruth exclaimed.

“Ridiculous! They must send a message, whoever they are!”

“Parkins told them so, your ladyship,” the girl answered; “but they

insisted that the matter was important. They would give no name, but

said that they were speaking from Mr. Wingrave’s rooms.”

Lady Ruth raised her eyebrows.

“It is very extraordinary,” she said coldly, “but I will come to the

telephone.”

“IT WAS AN ACCIDENT”

Lady Ruth took up the receiver. Some instinct seemed to have prompted

her to close the door of the study.

“Who is there?” she asked. “Who is it that wants me?”

A thin, unfamiliar voice answered her.

“Is that Lady Ruth Barrington?”

“Yes!”

“Is it--Mademoiselle Violet?”

The receiver nearly dropped from her hand.

“I don’t understand you,” she answered, “I am Lady Ruth Barrington! Who

are you?”

“You are Mademoiselle Violet,” was the answer, “and you know who I am!

Listen, I am in Mr. Wingrave’s rooms.”

She would have liked to have rung off and gone away, but it seemed a

sheer impossibility for her to move! And all the time her knees were

shaking, and the fear of evil things was in her heart.

“What are you doing there?” she asked.

“He brought me in himself,” the thin voice answered. “Can you hear me?

I don’t want to speak any louder for fear anyone else should be

listening.”

“Yes, I can hear,” she answered. “But how dared you ring me up? Say what

you desire to quickly! I am going away.”

“Wait, please,” the voice answered. “I know why you have been angry with

me. I know why you have kept away from me, why you have been so cruel!

It was because I failed. Was it not, dear Mademoiselle Violet?”

She had not the breath or the courage to answer him. In a moment or two

he continued, and there was a note of suppressed exultation in his tone.

“Listen! This time--I have not failed!”

She nearly screamed. The receiver in her hand burned like a live thing.

Her eyes were set in a fixed and awful stare as though she were trying

to see for herself outside the walls of the little room where she stood

into the larger chamber from which the voice--that awful voice--came!

Her own words were hysterical and uncertain, but she managed to falter

them out at last.

“What do you mean? Where is Mr. Wingrave? Tell me at once!”

The voice, without being raised, seemed to take to itself a note of

triumph.

“He is dying--on the floor--just here! Listen hard! Perhaps you can hear

him groan! Now will you believe that I am not a coward?”

Her shriek drowned his words. She flung the receiver from her with a

crash and rushed from the room into the hall. She brushed past her maid

with a wild gesture.

“Never mind my wraps. Open the door, Parkins! Is the carriage waiting?”

“Yes, Milady! Shall--”

But she was past him and down the steps.

“No. 18, Grosvenor Mansions,” she cried to the man. “Drive fast.”

The man obeyed. The servants, who had come to the door, stood there

a little frightened group. She ignored them and everything else

completely. The carriage had scarcely stopped when she sprang out and

crossed the pavement in a few hasty steps. The tall commissionaire

looked in amazement at her. She wore an opera cloak--she was a

bewildering vision of white satin and diamonds, and her eyes were

terrible with the fear which was in her heart.

She clutched him by the arm.

“Come up with me to Mr. Wingrave’s rooms,” she exclaimed. “Something

terrible has happened. I heard through the telephone.”

The man dashed up the stairs by her side. Wingrave’s suite was on the

first floor, and they did not wait for the lift. The commissionaire

put his finger on the bell of the outside door. She leaned forward,

listening breathlessly. Inside all was silence except for the shrill

clamor of the bell.

“Go on ringing,” she said breathlessly. “Don’t leave off!”

The man looked at her curiously. “Mr. Wingrave came in about an hour ago

with a young man, madam,” he said.

“Yes, yes!” she cried. “Listen! There’s someone coming.”

They heard a hesitating step inside. The door was cautiously opened. It

was Richardson, pale, disheveled, but triumphant, who peered out.

“Mademoiselle--Mademoiselle Violet,” he cried. “You have come to see for

yourself. This way!”

She raised her arm and struck him across the face so that, with a little

moan, he staggered back against the wall. Then she hastened forward into

the room towards which he had pointed and the door of which stood open.

The commissionaire followed her. The servants were beginning to appear.

The room was in darkness save for one electric light. A groan, however,

directed them. She fell on her knees by Wingrave’s prostrate figure and

raised his head slightly. His servant, too, was hurrying forward. She

looked up.

“Get me some brandy,” she ordered. “Send someone for a doctor. Don’t let

that young man escape. The brandy, quick!”

She forced some between his lips. There was already a spot of blood upon

the gown which, a few minutes ago, had seemed so immaculate. One of the

ornaments fell from her hair. It lay unnoticed by her side. Suddenly

Wingrave opened his eyes. She saw at once that he was conscious and that

he recognized her.

“Don’t move, please,” she begged. “It will be better for you not to

speak. The doctor will be here directly.”

He nodded.