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Title: The Malefactor

Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim

Posting Date: August 24, 2008 [EBook #1314]
Release Date: May, 1998

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by Theresa Armao





THE MALEFACTOR

by E. Phillips Oppenheim




CONTENTS

     BOOK I  Chapter

     I.      A Society Scandal
     II.     Outside the Pale
     III.    A Student of Character
     IV.     A Delicate Mission
     V.      The Gospel of Hate
     VI.     "Hast Thou Found Me, O Mine Enemy?"
     VII.    Lord of the Manor
     VIII.   The Heart of a Child
     IX.     The Sword of Damocles
     X.      A Forlorn Hope
     XI.     Professor Sinclair's Dancing Academy
     XII.    Mephistopheles on a Steamer
     XIII.   A Cockney Conspirator
     XIV.    The Moth and the Candle
     XV.     "Devil Take the Hindmost"
     XVI.    The Hidden Hand

     BOOK II

     I.      "Mr. Wingrave, From America"
     II.     The Shadow of a Fear
     III.    Juliet Asks Questions
     IV.     Lady Ruth's Last Card
     V.      Guardian and Ward
     VI.     Ghosts of Dead Things.
     VII.    Spreading the Net
     VIII.   In the Toils
     IX.     The Indiscretion of the Marchioness
     X.      "I am Misanthropos, and Hate Mankind"
     XI.     Juliet Gains Experience
     XII.    Nemesis at Work
     XIII.   Richardson Tries Again
     XIV.    "It Was an Accident"
     XV.     Aynesworth Plans a Love Story
     XVI.    A Deed of Gift
     XVII.   For Pity's Sake
     XVIII.  A Dream of  Paradise
     XIX.    The Awakening
     XX.     Revenge is--Bitter
     XXI.    The Way of Peace
     XXII.   "Love Shall Make all Things New"





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.

"I don't think that I am much hurt," he said slowly. "Your young friend
was a born bungler!"

She shuddered, but said nothing.

"How on earth," he asked, "did you get here?"

She whispered in his ear.

"The brute--telephoned. Please don't talk."

The doctor arrived. His examination was over in a few moments.

"Nothing serious," he declared. "The knife was pretty blunt fortunately.
How did it happen? It seems like a case for the police."

"It was an accident," Wingrave declared coolly.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. He was busy making bandages. Lady
Ruth rose to her feet. She was white and giddy. The commissionaire and
Morrison were talking together at the door. The latter turned to Lady
Ruth.

"Do you think that we had better send for the police, your ladyship?" he
asked. "It was the young man who came in with Mr. Wingrave who must have
done this! I thought he was a very wild-looking sort of person."

"You heard what Mr. Wingrave said," she answered. "I don't think that I
should disobey him, if I were you. The doctor says that, after all, it
is not very serious."

"He can't have got far," the hall porter remarked. "He only slipped out
as we came in."

"I should let him go for the present," Lady Ruth said. "If Mr. Wingrave
wishes to prosecute afterwards, it will be easy for him to do so."

She stepped back to where Wingrave lay. He was in a recumbent position
now and, although a little pale, he was obviously not seriously hurt.

"If there is nothing else that I can do," she said, "I will go now!"

"By all means," Wingrave answered. "I am exceedingly obliged to you
for your kindness," he added a little stiffly. "Morrison, show Lady
Barrington to her carriage!"

She spoke a few conventional words of farewell and departed. Outside on
the pavement she stood for a moment, looking carefully around. There was
no sign of Richardson anywhere! She stepped into the carriage and leaned
back in the corner.




AYNESWORTH PLANS A LOVE STORY

Wingrave disappeared suddenly from London. Aynesworth alone knew where
he was gone, and he was pledged to secrecy. Two people received letters
from him. Lady Ruth was one of them.

"This," she remarked quietly, handing it over to her husband, "may
interest you."

He adjusted his eye glasses and read it aloud:--

"Dear Lady Ruth,--I am leaving London today for several weeks. With the
usual inconsistency of the person to whom life is by no means a valuable
asset, I am obeying the orders of my physician. I regret, therefore,
that I cannot have the pleasure of entertaining your husband and
yourself during Cowes week. The yacht, however, is entirely at your
disposal, and I have written Captain Masterton to that effect. Pray
extend your cruise, if you feel inclined to.--I remain, yours sincerely,
W."

Mr. Barrington looked at his wife inquiringly.

"That seems to me entirely satisfactory, Ruth," he said. "I think that
he might have added a word or two of acknowledgment for what you did for
him. There is no doubt that, but for your promptness, things might have
gone much worse."

"Yes," Lady Ruth said slowly, "I think that he might have added a few
words."

Her husband regarded her critically.

"I am afraid, dear," he said, "that all this anxiety has knocked you up
a little. You are not looking well."

"I am tired," she answered calmly. "It has been a long season. I should
like to do what Wingrave has done--go away somewhere and rest."

Barrington laid his hand upon hers affectionately. It seemed to him that
the rings hung a little loosely upon the thin, white fingers. She was
pale, too, and her eyes were weary. He did not notice that, as soon as
she could, she drew her hand away.

"Pon my word," he said, "I wish we could go off somewhere by ourselves.
But with Wingrave's yacht to entertain on, we must do something for a
few of the people. I don't suppose he minds whom we ask, or how many."

"No!" she answered, "I do not suppose he cares."

"It is most opportune," Barrington declared. "I wanted particularly to
do something for the Hendersons. He seems very well disposed, and his
influence means everything just now. Really, Ruth, I believe we are
going to pull through after all."

She smiled a little wearily.

"Do you think so, Lumley?"

"I am sure of it, Ruth," he answered. "I only wish I could see you a
little more cheerful. Surely you can't still--be afraid of Wingrave," he
added, glancing uneasily across the table.

She looked him in the eyes.

"That is exactly what I am," she answered. "I am afraid of him. I have
always been afraid. Nothing has happened to change him. He came back to
have his revenge. He will have it."

Lumley Barrington, for once, felt himself superior to his clever wife.
He smiled upon her reassuringly.

"My dear Ruth," he said, "if only you would reflect for a few moments,
I feel sure you would realize the absurdity of such fancies. We did
Wingrave a service in introducing him to society here, and I am sure
that he appreciated it. If he wished for our ruin, why did he lend us
eight thousand pounds on no security? Why does he lend us his yacht to
entertain our friends? Why did he give me that information which enabled
me to make the only money I ever did make on the Stock Exchange?"

She smiled contemptuously.

"You do not understand a man like Wingrave," she declared. "Nothing that
he has done is inconsistent with my point of view. He gave you a safe
tip, knowing very well that when you had won a little, you would try
again on your own account and lose--which you did. He lent us the money
to become our creditor; and he lends us the yacht to give another handle
to the people who are saying already that he occupies the position
in our family which is more fully recognized on the other side of the
Channel!"

"You are talking rubbish," he declared vehemently. "No one would dare to
say such a thing of you--of my wife!"

She laughed unmercifully.

"If you were not my husband," she said cruelly, "you would have heard
it before now. I have been careful all my life--more careful than most
women, but I can hear the whisperings already. There are more ways to
ruin than one, Lumley."

"We will refuse the yacht," Barrington said sullenly, "and I will go to
the Jews for that eight thousand pounds."

"We will do nothing of the sort," Lady Ruth answered. "I am not going
to be a laughing stock for Emily and her friends if I can help it.
We'll play the game through now! Only--it is best for you to know the
risks..."

Wingrave's second letter was to Juliet. She found it on her table one
afternoon when she came back from her painting class. She tore it open
eagerly enough, but her face clouded over as she read.

"Dear Juliet,--I am sorry that I am unable to carry out my promise to
come and see you, but I have been slightly indisposed for some days, and
am leaving London, for the present, almost at once. I trust that you are
still interested in your work, and will enjoy your trip to Normandy.

"I received your letter, asking for my help towards re-establishing in
life a poor family in whom you are interested. I regret that I cannot
accede to your request. It is wholly against my principles to give money
away to people of this class. I look upon all charity as a mischievous
attempt to tamper with natural laws, and I am convinced that if everyone
shared my views, society would long ago have been re-established on
a sounder and more logical basis. To be quite frank with you, also, I
might add that the gift of sympathy has been denied to me. I am quite
indifferent whether the family you allude to starve or prosper.

"So far as you yourself are concerned, however, the matter is entirely
different. If it gives you pleasure to assist in pauperizing any number
of your fellow creatures, pray do so. I enclose a check for L100. It is
a present to you. Use it entirely as you please--only, if you use it
for the purpose suggested in your letter to me, remember that the
responsibility is yours, and yours alone.--I remain, sincerely yours,
Wingrave Seton."

Juliet walked straight to her writing table. Her cheeks were flushed,
and her eyes were wet with tears. She drew out a sheet of note paper and
wrote rapidly:--

"My dear guardian,--I return you the check. I cannot accept such
presents after all your goodness to me. I am sorry that you feel as you
do about giving money away. You are so much older and wiser than I am
that I dare not attempt to argue with you. Only it seems to me that life
would be a cruelly selfish thing if we who are so much more fortunate
than many of our fellow creatures did not sometimes try to help them a
little through their misery. Perhaps I feel this a little more keenly
because I wonder sometimes what might not have become of me but for your
goodness.

"I am sorry that you are going away without coming to see me again.
You are not displeased with me, I hope, for asking you this, or for any
other reason? I am foolish enough to feel a little lonely sometimes.
Will you take me out again when you come back?--Your affectionate ward,
Juliet."

Juliet went out and posted her letter. On the way back she met
Aynesworth.

"Come and sit in the Park for a few minutes," he begged.

She turned and walked by his side willingly enough.

"Have you been in to see me?" she asked.

"Yes!" he answered. "I have some tickets for the Haymarket for tonight.
Do you think we could persuade Mrs. Tresfarwin to come?"

"I'm sure we could," she answered, laughing. "Hannah never wants any
persuading. How nice of you to think of us!"

"I am afraid," he answered, "that I think of you a good deal."

"Then I think that that also is very nice of you!" she declared.

"You like to be thought of?"

"Who doesn't? What is the play tonight?"

"I'll tell you about it afterwards," he said. "There is something else I
want to say to you first."

She nodded. She scarcely showed so much interest as he would have liked.

"It is about Berneval," he said, keeping his eyes fixed upon her face.
"I saw Mr. Pleydell today, and he told me that you were all going there.
He suggested that I should come too!"

"How delightful!" she exclaimed. "Can you really get off?"

"Yes. Sir Wingrave is going away, and doesn't want me. I must go
somewhere, and I thought that I might go over and take rooms near you
all. Would you care to have me?"

"Of course I would," she answered frankly. "Oh!" she exclaimed suddenly,
her face clouding over--"I forgot!"

"Well?"

"I am not sure," she said, "that I am going."

"Not going?" he repeated incredulously. "Mr. Pleydell told me that it
was all arranged."

"It was--until today," she said. "I am a little uncertain now."

He looked at her perplexed.

"May I know why?" he asked.

She raised her eyebrows slightly.

"You are rather an inquisitive person," she remarked. "The fact is, I
may need the money I have saved for Berneval for somewhere else."

"Of course," he said slowly, "if you don't go--I don't. But you can't
stay in London all through the hot weather!"

"Miss Pengarth has asked me to go down there," she said.

He laid his hand suddenly upon hers.

"Juliet," he said.

She shook her head.

"Miss Lundy, please!"

"Well, Miss Lundy then! May I talk to you seriously?"

"I prefer you frivolous," she murmured. "I like to be amused."

"I'll be frivolous enough later on this evening. I've been wondering
if you'd think it impertinent if I asked you to tell me about your
guardian."

"What do you want to know?" she asked.

"Just who he is, and why he is content to let you live with only an old
woman to look after you. It isn't the best thing in the world for you,
is it? I should like to know him, Juliet."

She shook her head.

"I am sorry," she said, "I cannot tell you anything."

There was a short silence. Aynesworth was disappointed, and showed it.

"It isn't exactly ordinary curiosity," he continued. "Don't think that!
Only I feel that you need someone who has the right to advise you and
look after you. I should like to be your guardian, Juliet!"

She laughed merrily.

"Good!" she declared. "I like you so much better frivolous. Well, you
shall have your wish. You shall be my guardian for the evening. I have
one cutlet for dinner, and I am sure it will be spoilt. Will you come
and share it?"

She rose to her feet and stood looking down upon him. He was struck, for
the first time, by something different in her appearance. The smooth,
delicate girlishness of her young face was, as yet, untroubled. Her eyes
laughed frankly into his, and all the grace of natural childhood seemed
still to linger about her. And yet--there was a change! Understanding
was there; understanding, with sorrow in its wake. Aynesworth was
suddenly anxious. Had anything happened of which he was ignorant? He
rose up slowly. He was sure of himself now! Was he sure of her?




A DEED OF GIFT

Wingrave threw the paper aside with an impatient exclamation. A small
notice in an obscure corner had attracted his attention; the young man,
Richardson, had been fished out of the river half drowned, and in view
of his tearful and abject penitence, had been allowed to go his way by
a lenient magistrate. He had been ill, he pleaded, and disappointed. His
former employer, in an Islington emporium, gave him a good character,
and offered to take him back. So that was an end of Mr. Richardson, and
the romance of his days!

A worm like that to have brought him--the strong man, low! Wingrave
thought with sullen anger as he leaned back in his chair with
half-closed eyes. Here was an undignified hiatus, if not a finale, to
all his schemes, to the even tenor of his self-restrained, purposeful
life! The west wind was rippling through the orchards which bordered
the garden. The muffled roar of the Atlantic was in his ears, a strange
everlasting background to all the slighter summer sounds, the murmuring
of insects, the calling of birds, the melodious swish of the whirling
knives in the distant hayfield. Wingrave was alone with his thoughts,
and he hated them!

Even Mr. Pengarth was welcome, Mr. Pengarth very warm from his ride,
carrying his hat and a small black bag in his hand. As he drew nearer,
he became hotter and was obliged to rest his bag upon the path and mop
his forehead. He was more afraid of his client than of anything else in
the world.

"Good afternoon, Sir Wingrave," he said. "I trust that you are feeling
better today."

Wingrave eyed him coldly. He did not reply to the inquiry as to his
health.

"You have brought the deed?" he asked.

"Certainly, Sir Wingrave."

The lawyer produced a roll of parchment from his bag. In response to
Wingrave's gesture, he seated himself on the extreme edge of an adjacent
seat.

"I do not propose to read all that stuff through," Wingrave remarked.
"I take it for granted that the deed is made out according to my
instructions."

"Certainly, Sir Wingrave!"

"Then we will go into the house, and I will sign it."

Mr. Pengarth mopped his forehead once more. It was a terrible thing to
have a conscience.

"Sir Wingrave," he said, "I apologize most humbly for what I am about to
say, but as the agent of your estates in this county and your--er--legal
adviser with regard to them, I am forced to ask you whether you are
quite determined upon this--most unexampled piece of generosity.
Tredowen has been in your mother's family for a great many years, and
although I must say that I have a great affection for this young lady,
I have also an old fashioned dislike to seeing--er--family property pass
into the hands of strangers. You might, forgive me--marry!"

Wingrave smiled very faintly, otherwise his face was inscrutable.

"I might," he admitted calmly, "but I shall not. Do you consider me, Mr.
Pengarth, to be a person in possession of his usual faculties?"

"Oh, most certainly--most certainly," the lawyer declared emphatically.

"Then please do not question my instructions any further. So far as
regards the pecuniary part of it, I am a richer man than you have any
idea of, Mr. Pengarth, and for the rest--sentiment unfortunately
does not appeal to me. I choose to give the Tredowen estates away, to
disappoint my next of kin. That is how you may regard the transaction.
We will go into the house and complete this deed."

Wingrave rose slowly and walked with some difficulty up the gravel path.
He ignored, however, his companion's timid offer of help, and led
the way to the library. In a few minutes the document was signed and
witnessed.

"I have ordered tea in the garden," Wingrave said, as the two
servants left the room; "that is, unless you prefer any other sort of
refreshment. I don't know much about the cellars, but there is some
cabinet hock, I believe--"

Mr. Pengarth interposed.

"I am very much obliged," he said, "but I will not intrude upon you
further. If you will allow me, I will ring the bell for my trap."

"You will do nothing of the sort," Wingrave answered testily. "You will
stay here and talk to me."

"I will stay with pleasure if you desire it," the lawyer answered. "I
had an idea that you preferred solitude."

"Then you were wrong," Wingrave answered. "I hate being alone."

They moved out together towards the garden. Tea was set out in a shady
corner of the lawn.

"If you will forgive my remarking it," Mr. Pengarth said, "this seems
rather an extraordinary place for you to come to if you really dislike
solitude."

"I come to escape from an intolerable situation, and because I was ill,"
Wingrave said.

"You might have brought friends," the lawyer suggested.

"I have no friends," Wingrave answered.

"Some of the people in the neighborhood would be very glad--" Mr.
Pengarth began.

"I do not wish to see them," Wingrave answered.

Mr. Pengarth took a peach, and held his tongue. Wingrave broke the
silence which followed a little abruptly.

"Tell me, Mr. Pengarth," he said, "do I look like a man likely to fail
in anything he sets out to accomplish?"

The lawyer shook his head vigorously.

"You do not," he declared.

"Nor do I feel like one," Wingrave said, "and yet my record since I
commenced, shall I call it my second life, is one of complete failure!
Nothing that I planned have I been able to accomplish. I look back
through the months and through the years, and I see not a single purpose
carried out, not a single scheme successful.

"Not quite so bad as that, I trust, Sir Wingrave," the lawyer protested.

"It is the precise truth," Wingrave affirmed drily. "I am losing
confidence in myself."

"At least," the lawyer declared, "you have been the salvation of our
dear Miss Juliet, if I may call her so. But for you, her life would have
been ruined."

"Precisely," Wingrave agreed. "But I forgot! You don't understand! I
have saved her from heaven knows what! I am going to give her the home
she loves! Benevolence, isn't it? And yet, if I had only the pluck, I
might succeed even now--so far as she is concerned."

The lawyer took off his spectacles and rubbed them with his
handkerchief. He was thoroughly bewildered.

"I might succeed," Wingrave repeated, leaning back in his chair, "if
only--"

His face darkened. It seemed to Mr. Pengarth as he sipped his tea under
the cool cedars, drawing in all their wonderful perfume with every puff
of breeze, that he saw two men in the low invalid's chair before him. He
saw the breath and desire of evil things struggling with some wonderful
dream vainly seeking to realize itself.

"Some of us," the lawyer said timidly, "build our ideals too high up in
the clouds, so that to reach them is very difficult. Nevertheless, the
effort counts."

Wingrave laughed mockingly.

"It is not like that with me," he declared. "My plans were made down in
hell."

"God bless my soul!" the lawyer murmured. "But you are not serious, Sir
Wingrave?"

"Ay! I'm serious enough," Wingrave answered. "Do you suppose a man, with
the best pages of his life rooted out, is likely to look out upon his
fellows from the point of view of a philanthropist? Do you suppose that
the man, into whose soul the irons of bitterness have gnawed and eaten
their way, is likely to come out with a smirk and look around him for
the opportunity of doing good? Rubbish! My aim is to encourage suffering
wherever I see it, to create it where I can, to make sinners and thieves
of honest people."

"God bless my soul!" the lawyer gasped again. "I don't think you can
be--as bad as you think you are. What about Juliet Lundy?"

Fire flashed in Wingrave's eyes. Again, at the mention of her name, he
seemed almost to lose control of himself. It was several moments before
he spoke. He looked Mr. Pengarth in the face, and his tone was unusually
deliberate.

"Gifts," he said, "are not always given in friendship. Life may easily
become a more complicated affair for that child with the Tredowen
estates hanging round her neck. And anyhow, I disappoint my next of
kin."

Morrison, smooth-footed and silent, appeared upon the lawn. He addressed
Wingrave.

"A lady has arrived in a cab from Truro, sir," he announced. "She wishes
to see you as soon as convenient."

A sudden light flashed across Wingrave's face, dying out again almost
immediately.

"Who is she, Morrison?" he asked.

The man glanced at Mr. Pengarth.

"She did not give her name, sir."

Mr. Pengarth and Wingrave both rose. The former at once made his adieux
and took a short cut to the stables. Wingrave, who leaned heavily upon
his stick, clutched Morrison by the arm.

"Who is it, Morrison?" he demanded.

"It is Lady Ruth Barrington, sir," the man answered.

"Alone?"

"Quite alone, sir."




FOR PITY'S SAKE

The library at Tredowen was a room of irregular shape, full of angles
and recesses lined with bookcases. It was in one of these, standing
motionless before a small marble statue of some forgotten Greek poet,
that Wingrave found his visitor. She wore a plain serge traveling dress,
and the pallor of her face, from which she had just lifted a voluminous
veil, matched almost in color the gleaming white marble upon which
she was gazing. But when she saw Wingrave, leaning upon his stick, and
regarding her with stern surprise, strange lights seemed to flash in
her eyes. There was no longer any resemblance between the pallor of her
cheeks and the pallor of the statue.

"Lady Ruth," Wingrave said quietly, "I do not understand what has
procured for me the pleasure of this unexpected visit."

She swayed a little towards him. Her head was thrown back, all the
silent passion of the inexpressible, the hidden secondary forces of
nature, was blazing out of her eyes, pleading with him in the broken
music of her tone.

"You do not understand," she repeated. "Ah, no! But can I make you
understand? Will you listen to me for once as a human being? Will
you remember that you are a man, and I a woman pleading for a little
mercy--a little kindness?"

Wingrave moved a step further back.

"Permit me," he said, "to offer you a chair."

She sank into it--speechless for a moment. Wingrave stood over her,
leaning slightly against the corner of the bookcase.

"I trust," he said, "that you will explain what all this means. If it is
my help which you require--"

Her hands flashed out towards him--a gesture almost of horror.

"Don't," she begged, "you know that it is not that! You know very well
that it is not. Why do you torture me?"

"I can only ask you," he said, "to explain."

She commenced talking quickly. Her sentences came in little gasps.

"You wanted revenge--not in the ordinary way. You had brooded over it
too long. You understood too well. Once it was I who sought to revenge
myself on you because you would not listen to me! You hurt my pride.
Everything that was evil in me rebelled--"

"Is this necessary?" he interrupted coldly. "I have never reproached
you. You chose the path of safety for yourself. Many another woman in
your place would doubtless have done the same thing! What I desire to
know is why you are here in Cornwall. What has happened to make this
journey seem necessary to you?"

"Listen!" she continued. "I want you to know how thoroughly you have
succeeded. Before you came, Lumley and I were living together decently
enough, and, as hundreds of others live, with outside interests for
our chief distraction. You came, a friend! You were very subtle, very
skillful! You never spoke a word of affection to me, but you managed
things so that--people talked. You encouraged Lumley to speculate--not
in actual words, perhaps, but by suggestion. Then you lent me money.
Lumley, my husband, let me borrow from you. Everyone knew that we were
ruined; everyone knew where the money came from that set us right. So
misery has been piled upon misery. Lumley has lost his self respect, he
is losing his ambition, he is deteriorating every day. I--how can I do
anything else but despise him? He let me, his wife, come to your rooms
to borrow money from you. Do you think I can ever forget that? Do you
think that he can? Don't you know that the memory of it is dragging us
apart, must keep us apart always--always?"

Wingrave leaned a little forward. His hands were clasped upon the handle
of his stick.

"All that you tell me," he remarked coldly, "might equally well have
been said in London! I do not wish to seem inhospitable, but I am still
waiting to know why you have taken an eight hours' journey to recite a
few fairly obvious truths. Your relations with your husband, frankly, do
not interest me. The deductions which society may have drawn concerning
our friendship need scarcely trouble you, under the circumstances."

Then again the light was blazing in her eyes.

"Under the circumstances!" she repeated. "I know what you mean. It is
true that you have asked for nothing. It is true that all this time you
have never spoken a single word which all the world might not hear, you
have never even touched my fingers, except as a matter of formality.
Once I was the woman you loved--and I--well you know! Is this part of
your scheme of torture, to play with me as though we were marionettes,
you and I, with sawdust in our veins, dull, lifeless puppets! Well, it
is finished--your vengeance! You may reap the harvest when you will!
Publish my letters, prove yourself an injured man. Take a whip in your
hand if you like, and I will never flinch. But, for heaven's sake,
remember that I am a woman! I am willing to be your slave, nurse you,
wait upon you, follow you about! What more can your vengeance need? You
have made me despise my husband, you have made me hate my life with
him! You have forced me into a remembrance of what I have never really
forgotten--and oh! Wingrave," she added, opening her arms to him with
a little sob, "if you send me away, I think that I shall kill myself.
Wingrave!"

There was a note of despair in her last cry. Her arms fell to her side.
Wingrave was on his way to the further end of the room. He rang the bell
and turned towards her.

"Listen," he said calmly, "you will return to London tonight. If ever
I require you, I shall send for you--and you will come. At present I do
not. You will return to your husband. Understand!"

"Yes," she gasped, "but--"

He held out his hand. Morrison was at the door.

"Morrison," he said, "you will order the motor to be round in half an
hour to take Lady Ruth to Truro, She has to catch the London express.
You will go with her yourself, and see that she has a reserved carriage.
If, by any chance, you should miss the train, order a special."

"Very good, sir."

"And tell the cook to send in tea and wine, and some sandwiches, in ten
minutes."

Once more they were alone. Lady Ruth rose slowly to her feet and,
trembling in every limb, she walked down the room and fell on her knees
before Wingrave.

"Wingrave," she said, "I will go away. I will do all that you tell me;
I will wear my chains bravely, and hold my peace. But before I go, for
heaven's sake, say a kind word, look at me kindly, kiss me, hold my
hands; anything, anything, anything to prove to me that you are not
a dead man. I could bear unkindness, reproaches, abuse. I can bear
anything but this deadly coldness. It is becoming a horror to me! Do,
Wingrave--do!"

She clasped his hand--he drew it calmly away.

"Lady Ruth," he said, "you have spoken the truth. I am a dead man. I
have no affections; I care neither for you nor for any living being. All
that goes to the glory and joy of life perished in that uncountable roll
of days, when the sun went out, and inch by inch the wall rose which
will divide me forever from you and all the world. Frankly, it was not
I who once loved you. It was the man who died in prison. His flesh and
bones may have survived--nothing else!"

She rose slowly to her feet. Her eyes seemed to be dilating.

"There is another woman!" she exclaimed softly. Her voice was like
velvet, but the agony in her face was unmistakable.

"There is no other woman," he answered.

She stood quite still.

"She is here with you now," she cried. "Who is it, Wingrave? Tell me the
truth!"

"The truth is already told," he answered. "Except my cook and her
assistants, there is not a woman in the house!"

Again she listened. She gave a little hoarse cry, and Wingrave started.
Out in the hall a girl's clear laugh rang like a note of music to their
ears.

"You lie!" she cried fiercely. "You lie! I will know who she is."

Suddenly the door was thrown open! Juliet stood there, her hands full of
roses, her face flushed and brilliant with smiles.

"How delightful to find you here!" she exclaimed, coming swiftly across
to Wingrave. "I do hope you won't mind my coming. Normandy is off, and I
have nowhere else to go."

She saw Lady Ruth and stopped.

"Oh! I beg your pardon!" she exclaimed. "I did not know."

"This is Lady Ruth Barrington," Wingrave said; "my ward, Miss Juliet
Lundy."

"Your--ward?" Lady Ruth said, gazing at her intently.

Juliet nodded.

"Sir Wingrave has been very kind to me since I was a child," she said
softly. "He has let me live here with Mrs. Tresfarwin, and I am afraid
I sometimes forget that it is not really my home. Am I in the way?" she
asked, looking wistfully towards Wingrave.

"By no means!" he exclaimed. "Lady Ruth is just going. Will you see that
she has some tea or something?"

Lady Ruth laughed quietly.

"I think," she said, "that it is I who am in the way! I should love
some tea, if there is time, but whatever happens, I must not miss that
train."




A DREAM OF PARADISE

It seemed to Wingrave that the days which followed formed a sort of
hiatus in his life--an interlude during which some other man in his
place, and in his image, played the game of life to a long-forgotten
tune. He moved through the hours as a man in a maze, unrecognizable to
himself, half unconscious, half heedless of the fact that the garments
of his carefully cultivated antagonism to the world and to his fellows
had slipped very easily from his unresisting shoulders. The glory of
a perfect English midsummer lay like a golden spell upon the land. The
moors were purple with heather, touched here and there with the fire of
the flaming gorse, the wind blew always from the west, the gardens were
ablaze with slowly bursting rhododendrons. Every gleam of coloring,
every breath of perfume, seemed to carry him unresistingly back to the
days of his boyhood. He fished once more in the trout streams; he threw
away his stick, and tramped or rode with Juliet across the moors. At
night time she sang or played with the windows open, Wingrave himself
out of sight under the cedar trees, whose perfume filled with aromatic
sweetness the still night air. Piles of letters came every day, which he
left unopened upon his study table. Telegrams followed, which he threw
into the wastepaper basket. Juliet watched the accumulating heap with
amazement.

"Whatever do people write to you so much for?" she asked one morning,
watching the stream of letters flow out of the post bag.

Wingrave was silent for a moment. Her question brought a sudden and
sharp sting of remembrance. Juliet knew him only as Sir Wingrave Seton.
She knew nothing of Mr. Wingrave, millionaire.

"Advertisements, a good many of them," he said. "I must send for
Aynesworth some day to go through them all."

"What fun!" she exclaimed. "Do send for him! He thinks that I am staying
with Miss Pengarth, and I haven't written once since I got here!"

To Wingrave, it seemed that a chill had somehow stolen into the hot
summer morning. His feet were very nearly upon the earth again.

"I forgot," he said, "that Aynesworth was--a friend of yours. He came
and saw you often in London?"

She smiled reflectively.

"He has been very, very kind," she answered. "He was always that, from
the first time I saw you both. Do you remember? It was down in the lower
gardens."

"Yes!" he answered, "I remember quite well."

"He was very kind to me then," she continued, "and you--well, I was
frightened of you." She stopped for a moment and laughed. Her eyes were
full of amazed reminiscence. "You were so cold and severe! I never
could have dreamed that, after all, it was you who were going to be
the dearest, most generous friend I could ever have had! Do you know,
Walter--I mean Mr. Aynesworth--isn't very pleased with me just now?"

"Why not?"

"He cannot understand why I will not tell him my guardian's name. I
think it worries him."

"You would like to tell him?" Wingrave asked.

She nodded.

"I think so," she answered.

Wingrave said no more, but after breakfast he went to his study alone.
Juliet found him there an hour later, sitting idly in front of his
table. His great pile of correspondence was still untouched. She came
and sat on the edge of the table.

"What are we going to do this morning, please?" she asked.

Wingrave glanced towards his letters.

"I am afraid," he said, "that I must spend the day here!"

She looked at him blankly.

"Not really!" she exclaimed. "I thought that we were going to walk to
Hanging Tor?"

Wingrave took up a handful of letters and let them fall through his
fingers. He had all the sensations of a man who is awakened from a dream
of Paradise to face the dull tortures of a dreary and eventless life.
His eyes were set in a fixed state. An undernote of despair was in his
tone.

"You know we arranged it yesterday," she continued eagerly, "and if you
are going to send for Mr. Aynesworth, you needn't bother about these
letters yourself, need you?"

He turned and regarded her deliberately. Her forehead was wrinkled a
little with disappointment, her brown eyes were filled with the soft
light of confident appeal. Tall and elegantly slim, there was yet
something in the graceful lines of her figure which reminded him
forcibly that the days of her womanhood had indeed arrived.

She wore a plain white cambric dress and a simple, but much beflowered
hat; the smaller details of her toilet all indicated the correct taste
and instinctive coquetry of her French descent. And she was beautiful!
Wingrave regarded her critically and realized, perhaps for the first
time, how beautiful. Her eyes were large and clear, and her eyebrows
delicately defined. Her mouth, with its slightly humorous curl, was a
little large, but wholly delightful. The sun of the last few weeks had
given to her skin a faint, but most becoming, duskiness. Under his
close scrutiny, a flush of color stole into her cheeks. She laughed not
altogether naturally.

"You look at me," she said, "as though I were someone strange!"

"I was looking," he answered, "for the child, the little black-frocked
child, you know, with the hair down her back, and the tearful eyes. I
don't think I realized that she had vanished so completely."

"Not more completely," she declared gaily, "than the gloomy gentleman
who frowned upon my existence and resented even my gratitude. Although,"
she added, leaning a little towards him, "I am very much afraid that
I see some signs of a relapse today. Don't bother about those horrid
letters. Let me tell Mrs. Tresfarwin to pack us up some lunch, and take
me to Hanging Tor, please!"

Wingrave laughed a little unsteadily as he rose to his feet. One day
more, then! Why not? The end would be soon enough!...

Sooner, perhaps, than even he imagined, for that night Aynesworth came,
pale and travel-stained, with all the volcanic evidences of a great
passion blazing in his eyes, quivering in his tone. The day had passed
to Wingrave as a dream, more beautiful even than any in the roll of its
predecessors. They sat together on low chairs upon the moonlit lawn, in
their ears the murmur of the sea; upon their faces, gathering strength
with the darkness, the night wind, salt and fragrant with all the
sweetness of dying flowers. Wingrave had never realized more completely
what still seemed to him this wonderful gap in his life. Behind it all,
he had a subconsciousness that he was but taking a part in some mystical
play; yet with an abandon which, when he stopped to think of it,
astonished him, he gave himself up without effort or scruple to this
most amazing interlude. All day he had talked more than ever before;
the flush on his cheeks was like the flush of wine or the sun which had
fired his blood. As he had talked the more, so had she grown the more
silent. She was sitting now with her hands clasped and her head thrown
back, looking up at the stars with unseeing eyes.

"You do not regret Normandy, then?" he asked.

"No!" she murmured. "I have been happy here. I have been happier than I
could ever have been in Normandy."

He turned and looked at her with curious intentness.

"My experience," he said thoughtfully, "of young ladies of your age is
somewhat limited. But I should have thought that you would have found
it--lonely."

"Perhaps I am different, then," she murmured. "I have never been lonely
here--all my life!"

"Except," he reminded her, "when I knew you first."

"Ah! But that was different," she protested. "I had no home in those
days, and I was afraid of being sent away."

It was in his mind then to tell her of the envelope with her name
upon it in his study, but a sudden rush of confusing thoughts kept him
silent. It was while he was laboring in the web of this tangled dream of
wild but beautiful emotions that Aynesworth came. A pale, tragic figure
in his travel-stained clothes, and face furrowed with anxiety, he stood
over them almost before they were aware of his presence.

"Walter!" she cried, and sprang to her feet with extended hands.
Wingrave's face darkened, and the shadow of evil crept into his suddenly
altered expression. It was an abrupt awakening this, and he hated the
man who had brought it about.

Aynesworth held the girl's hands for a moment, but his manner was
sufficient evidence of the spirit in which he had come. He drew a little
breath, and he looked from one to the other anxiously.

"Is this--your mysterious guardian, Juliet?" he asked hoarsely.

She glanced at Wingrave questioningly. His expression was ominous, and
the light faded from her own face. While she hesitated, Wingrave spoke.

"I imagine," he said, "that the fact is fairly obvious. What have you to
say about it?"

"A good deal," Aynesworth answered passionately. "Juliet, please go
away. I must speak to your guardian--alone!"

Again she looked at Wingrave. He pointed to the house.

"I think," he said, "that you had better go."

She hesitated. Something of the impending storm was already manifest.
Aynesworth turned suddenly towards her.

"You shall not enter that house again, Juliet," he declared. "Stay in
the gardens there, and presently you shall know why."




THE AWAKENING

Wingrave had risen to his feet. He was perfectly calm, but there was a
look on his face which Juliet had never seen there before. Instinctively
she drew a little away, and Aynesworth took his place between them.

"Are you mad, Aynesworth?" Wingrave asked coolly.

"Not now," Aynesworth answered. "I have been mad to stay with you for
four years, to look on, however passively, at all the evil you have
done. I've had enough of it now, and of you! I came here to tell you
so."

"A letter," Wingrave answered, "would have been equally efficacious.
However, since you have told me--"

"I'll go when I'm ready," Aynesworth answered, "and I've more to say.
When I first entered your service and you told me what your outlook upon
life was, I never dreamed but that the years would make a man of you
again, I never believed that you could be such a brute as to carry out
your threats. I saw you do your best to corrupt a poor, silly little
woman, who only escaped ruin by a miracle; I saw you deal out what might
have been irretrievable disaster to a young man just starting in life.
Since your return to London, you have done as little good, and as much
harm, with your millions as any man could."

Wingrave was beginning to look bored.

"This is getting," he remarked, "a little like melodrama. I have no
objection to being abused, even in my own garden, but there are limits
to my patience. Come to the point, if you have one."

"Willingly," Aynesworth answered. "I want you to understand this. I have
never tried to interfere in any of your malicious schemes, although I
am ashamed to think I have watched them without protest. But this one
is different. If you have harmed, if you should ever dare to harm this
child, as sure as there is a God above us, I will kill you!"

"What is she to you?" Wingrave asked calmly.

"She--I love her," Aynesworth answered. "I mean her to be my wife."

"And she?"

"She looks upon me as her greatest friend, her natural protector, and
protect her I will--even against you."

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

"It seems to me," he said, "that the young lady is very well off as she
is. She has lived in my house, and been taken care of by my servants.
She has been relieved of all the material cares of life, and she has
been her own mistress. I scarcely see how you, my young friend, could do
better for her."

Aynesworth moved a step nearer to him. The veins on his forehead were
swollen. His voice was hoarse with passion.

"Why have you done this for her?" he demanded, "secretly, too, you a
man to whom a good action is a matter for a sneer, who have deliberately
proclaimed yourself an evil-doer by choice and destiny? Why have you
constituted yourself her guardian? Not from kindness for you don't know
what it is; not from good nature for you haven't any. Why, then?"

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

"I admit," he remarked coolly, "that it does seem rather a problem; we
all do unaccountable things at times, though."

"For your own sake," Aynesworth said fiercely, "I trust that this is
one of the unaccountable things. For the rest, you shall have no other
chance. I shall take her to Truro tonight."

"Are you sure that she will go?"

"I shall tell her the truth."

"And if she does not believe you?"

"She will! If you interfere, I shall take her by force."

"I interfere!" Wingrave remarked. "You need not be afraid of that. The
affair as it stands is far too interesting. Call her, and make your
appeal."

"I shall tell her the truth," Aynesworth declared.

"By all means! I shall remain and listen to my indictment. Quite a novel
sensation! Call the young lady, by all means, and don't spare me."

Aynesworth moved a few steps up the path. He called to her softly, and
she came through the little iron gates from the rose gardens. She
was very pale, and there was a gleam in her eyes which was like fear.
Aynesworth took her by the hand and led her forward.

"You must be brave, dear," he whispered. "I am compelled to say some
disagreeable things. It is for your good. It is because I care for you
so much."

She looked towards Wingrave. He was sitting upon the garden seat, and
his face was absolutely expressionless. He spoke to her, and his cold,
precise tone betrayed not the slightest sign of any emotion.

"Aynesworth," he remarked, "is going to tell you some interesting facts
about myself. Please listen attentively as afterwards you will be called
upon to make a somewhat important decision."

She looked at him a little wistfully and sighed. There was no trace
any longer of her companion of the last few weeks. It was the stern and
gloomy stranger of her earlier recollections who sat there with folded
arms.

"Is it really necessary?" she asked.

"Absolutely," Aynesworth answered hurriedly. "It won't take long, but
there are things which you must know."

"Very well," she answered, "I am listening."

Aynesworth inclined his head towards the place where Wingrave sat.

"I will admit," he said, "that the man there, whom I have served for the
last four years and more, never deceived me as to his real character and
intentions. He had been badly treated by a woman, and he told me plainly
that he entered into life again at war with his fellows. Where he could
see an opportunity of doing evil, he meant to do it; where he could
bring misery and suffering upon anyone with whom he came into contact,
he meant to grasp the opportunity. I listened to him, but I never
believed. I told myself that it would be interesting to watch his life,
and to see the gradual, inevitable humanizing of the man. So I entered
his service, and have remained in it until today."

He turned more directly towards Juliet. She was listening breathlessly
to every word.

"Juliet," he said, "he has kept his word. I have been by his side, and
I speak of the things I know. He has sought no one's friendship who has
not suffered for it, there is not a man or woman living who owes him the
acknowledgment of a single act of kindness. I have seen him deliberately
scheme to bring about the ruin of a harmless little woman. I have seen
him exact his pound of flesh, even at the cost of ruin, from a boy. I
tell you, Juliet, of my own knowledge, that he has neither heart nor
conscience, and that he glories in the evil that his hand finds to do.
Even you must know something of his reputation--have heard something of
his doings, under the name he is best known by in London--Mr. Wingrave,
millionaire."

She started back as though in terror. Then she turned to Wingrave, who
sat stonily silent.

"It isn't true," she cried. "You are not--that man?"

He raised his eyes and looked at her. It seemed to her that there was
something almost satanic in the smile which alone disturbed the serenity
of his face.

"Certainly I am," he answered; "when I returned from America, it
suited me to change my identity. You must not doubt anything that
Mr. Aynesworth says. I can assure you that he is a most truthful and
conscientious young man. I shall be able to give him a testimonial with
a perfectly clear conscience."

Juliet shuddered as she turned away. All the joy of life seemed to have
gone from her face.

"You are Mr. Wingrave--the Mr. Wingrave. Oh! I can't believe it," she
broke off suddenly. "No one could have been so kind, so generous, as you
have been to me."

She looked from one to the other of the two men. Both were silent, but
whereas Aynesworth had turned his head away, Wingrave's position and
attitude were unchanged. She moved suddenly over towards him. One hand
fell almost caressingly upon his shoulder. She looked eagerly into his
face.

"Tell me--that it isn't all true," she begged. "Tell me that your
kindness to me, at least, was real--that you did not mean it to be for
my unhappiness afterwards. Please tell me that. I think if you asked me,
if you cared to ask me, that I could forgive everything else."

"Every vice, save one," Wingrave murmured, "Nature has lavished upon me.
I am a poor liar. It is perfectly true that my object in life has
been exactly as Aynesworth has stated it. I may have been more or less
successful--Aynesworth can tell you that, too. As regards yourself--"

"Yes?" she exclaimed.

"I congratulate you upon your escape," Wingrave said. "Aynesworth is
right. Association of any sort with me is for your evil!"

She covered her face with her hands. Even his tone was different.
She felt that this man was a stranger, and a stranger to be feared.
Aynesworth came over to her side and drew her away.

"I have a cart outside," he said. "I am going to take you to Truro--"

Wingrave heard the gate close after them--he heard the rumble of the
cart in the road growing fainter and fainter. He was alone now in the
garden, and the darkness was closing around him. He staggered to his
feet. His face was back in its old set lines. He was once more at war
with the world.




REVENGE IS--BITTER

At no time during his career did Wingrave appear before the public more
prominently than during the next few months. As London began to fill up
again, during the early part of October, he gave many and magnificent
entertainments, his name figured in all the great social events, he
bought a mansion in Park Lane which had been built for Royalty, and the
account of the treasures with which he filled it read like a chapter
from some modern Arabian Nights. In the city, he was more hated and
dreaded than ever. His transactions, huge and carefully thought out,
were for his own aggrandizement only, and left always in their wake ruin
and disaster for the less fortunate and weaker speculators. He played
for his own hand only, the camaraderie of finance he ignored altogether.
In one other respect, too, he occupied a unique position amongst the
financial magnates of the moment. All appeals on behalf of charity he
steadily ignored. He gave nothing away. His name never figured amongst
the hospital lists; suffering and disaster, which drew their humble
contributions from the struggling poor and middle classes, left him
unmoved and his check book unopened. In an age when huge gifts on behalf
of charity was the fashionable road to the peerage, his attitude was
all the more noticeable. He would give a thousand pounds for a piece
of Sevres china which took his fancy; he would not give a thousand
farthings to ease the sufferings of his fellows. Yet there were few
found to criticize him. He was called original, a crank; there were even
some who professed to see merit in his attitude. To both criticism and
praise he was alike indifferent. With a cynicism with seemed only to
become more bitter he pursued his undeviating and deliberate way.

One morning he met Lady Ruth on the pavement in Bond Street. She pointed
to the vacant seat in her landau.

"Get in, please, for a few minutes," she said. "I want to talk to you. I
will take you where you like."

They drove off in silence.

"You were not at the Wavertons' last night," he remarked.

"No!" she answered quietly. "I was not asked."

He glanced at her questioningly.

"I thought that you were so friendly," he said.

"I was," she answered. "Lady Waverton scarcely knows me now! It is the
beginning of the end, I suppose."

"You are a little enigmatical this morning," he declared.

"Oh, no! You understand me very well," she answered. "Everybody knows
that it is you who keep us going. Lumley has not got quite used to
taking your money. He has lost nearly all his ambition. Soon his day
will have gone by. People shrug their shoulders when they speak of us.
Two years ago the Wavertons were delighted to know me. Society seems
big, but it isn't. There are no end of little sets, one inside the
other. Two years ago, I was in the innermost, today I'm getting towards
the outside edge. Look at me! Do you see any change?"

He scrutinized her mercilessly in the cold morning light.

"You look older," he said, "and you have begun to use rouge, which is a
pity."

She laughed hardly.

"You think so? Well, I don't want Emily to see my hollow cheeks--or you!
Are you satisfied, Wingrave?"

"I am afraid I don't understand--" he began.

"Don't lie," she interrupted curtly. "You do understand. This is your
vengeance--very subtle and very crafty. Everything has turned out
exactly as you planned. You have broken us, Wingrave! I thought myself a
clever woman, but I might as well have tried to gamble with the angels.
Why don't you finish it off now--make me run away with you?"

"It would bore us both," he answered calmly. "Besides, you wouldn't
come!"

"I should, and you know that I would," she answered. "Everyone expects
it of us. I think myself that it would be more decent."

He looked at her thoughtfully.

"You are a strange woman," he said. "I find it hard sometimes to
understand you."

"Then you are a fool," she declared in a fierce little whisper. "You
know what is underneath all my suffering, all my broken pride! You know
that I was fool enough to keep the flame flickering--that I have cared
always and for no one else!"

He stopped the carriage.

"You are the most original woman I ever met," he said quietly. "I
neither wish to care nor be cared for by anyone. Go home to your
husband, and tell him to buy Treadwells up to six."

That same afternoon Wingrave met Aynesworth and cut him dead. Something
in the younger man's appearance, though, perplexed him. Aynesworth
certainly had not the air of a successful man. He was pale, carelessly
dressed, and apparently in ill health. Wingrave, after an amount of
hesitation, which was rare with him, turned his car towards Battersea,
and found himself, a few minutes later, mounting the five flights of
stone steps. Juliet herself opened the door to him. She gave a little
gasp when she saw who it was, and did not immediately invite him to
enter.

"I am sorry," Wingrave said coldly, "to inflict this visit upon you. If
you are alone, and afraid to ask me in, we can talk here."

Her cheeks became as flushed as a moment before they had been pale. She
looked at him reproachfully, and, standing on one side to let him pass,
closed the door behind him. Then she led the way into her sitting room.

"I am glad that you have come to see me," she said. "Won't you sit
down?"

He ignored her invitation, and stood looking around him. There was a
noticeable change in the little room. There were no flowers, some of the
ornaments and the silver trifles from her table were missing. The place
seemed to have been swept bare of everything, except the necessary
furniture. Then he looked at her. She was perceptibly thinner, and there
were black rings under her eyes.

"Where is Mrs. Tresfarwin?" he asked.

"In Cornwall," she answered.

"Why?"

"I could not afford to keep her here any longer."

"What are you doing for a living--painting still?"

She shook her head a little piteously.

"They can't sell any more of my pictures," she said. "I am trying to get
a situation as governess or companion or--anything."

"When did you have anything to eat last?" he asked.

"Yesterday," she answered, and he was just in time to catch her. She had
fainted.

He laid her upon the sofa, poured some water over her face, and fanned
her with a newspaper. His expression of cold indifference remained
unmoved. It was there in his face when she opened her eyes.

"Are you well enough to walk?" he asked.

"Quite, thank you," she answered. "I am so sorry!"

"Put on your hat," he ordered.

She disappeared for a few minutes, and returned dressed for the street.
He drove her to a restaurant and ordered some dinner. He made her drink
some wine, and while they waited he buried himself in a newspaper.
They ate their meal almost in silence. Afterwards, Wingrave asked her a
question.

"Where is Aynesworth?"

"Looking for work, I think," she answered.

"Why did you not stay down in Cornwall?"

"Miss Pengarth was away--and I preferred to return to London," she told
him quietly.

"When are you going to marry Aynesworth?" he asked.

She looked down into her glass and was silent. He leaned a little
towards her.

"Perhaps," he remarked quietly, "you are already married?"

Still she was silent. He saw the tears forced back from her eyes. He
heard the sob break in her throat. Yet he said nothing. He only waited.
At last she spoke.

"Nothing is settled yet," she said, still without looking at him.

"I see no reason," he said calmly, "why, until that time, you should
refuse to accept your allowance from Mr. Pengarth."

"I cannot take any more of your money," she answered. "It was a mistake
from the first, but I was foolish. I did not understand."

His lip curled with scorn.

"You are one of those," he said, "who, as a child, were wise, but as
a young woman with a little knowledge, become--a prig. What harm is my
money likely to do you? I may be the Devil himself, but my gold is not
tainted. For the rest, granted that I am at war with the world, I do not
number children amongst my enemies."

She raised her eyes then, and looked him in the face.

"I am not afraid of you," she declared. "It is not that; but I have been
dependent long enough. I will keep myself--or starve."

He shrugged his shoulders and paid the bill.

"My man," he said, "will take you wherever you like. I have a call to
make close here."

They stood upon the pavement. She held out her hand a little timidly.
Her eyes were soft and wistful.

"Goodbye, guardian," she said. "Thank you very much for my lunch."

"Ah!" he said gravely, "if you would let me always call myself that!"

She got into the car without a word. Wingrave walked straight back to
his own house. Several people were waiting in the entrance hall, and
the visitors' book was open upon the porter's desk. He walked through,
looking neither to the right nor the left, crossed the great library,
with its curved roof, its floor of cedar wood, and its wonderful
stained-glass windows, and entered a smaller room beyond--his absolute
and impenetrable sanctum. He rang the bell for his servant.

"Morrison," he said, "if you allow me to be disturbed by any living
person, on any pretense whatever, until I ring, you lose your place. Do
you understand?"

"Perfectly, sir."

Wingrave locked the door. The next hour belonged to himself alone...

When at last he rang the bell, he gave Morrison a note.

"This is to be delivered at once," he said.

The man bowed and withdrew. Wingrave, with his hands behind him,
strolled out into the library. In a remote corner, a small spectacled
person was busy writing at a table. Wingrave crossed the room and stood
before him.

"Are you my librarian?" he asked.

The man rose at once.

"Certainly, sir," he answered. "My name is Woodall. You may have
forgotten it. I am at work now upon a new catalogue."

Wingrave nodded.

"I have a quarto Shakespeare, I think," he said, "that I marked at
Sotheby's, also a manuscript Thomas a Kempis, and a first edition of
Herrick. I should like to see them."

"By all means," the man answered, hurrying to the shelves. "You have,
also, a wonderful rare collection of manuscripts, purchased from the
Abbey St. Jouvain, and a unique Horace. If you will permit me."

Wingrave spent half an hour examining his treasures, leaving his
attendant astonished.

"A millionaire who understands!" he exclaimed softly as he resumed his
seat. "Miraculous!"

Wingrave passed into the hall, and summoned his major domo.

"Show me the ballroom," he ordered, "and the winter garden."

The little man in quiet black clothes--Wingrave abhorred liveries--led
him respectfully through rooms probably unequaled for magnificence in
England. He spoke of the exquisite work of French and Italian artists;
with a gesture almost of reverence he pointed out the carving in the
wonderful white ballroom.

Wingrave listened and watched with immovable face. Just as they had
completed their tour, Morrison approached.

"Mr. Lumley and Lady Ruth Barrington are in the library, sir," he
announced.

Wingrave nodded.

"I am coming at once," he said.




THE WAY OF PEACE

They awaited his coming in varying moods. Barrington was irritable and
restless, Lady Ruth gave no signs of any emotion whatever. She had the
air of a woman who had no longer fear or hope. Only her eyes were a
little weary.

Barrington was walking up and down the room, his hands in his pockets,
his eyes fixed upon his wife. Every now and then he glanced nervously
towards her.

"Of course," he said, "if he wants a settlement--well, there's an end of
all things. And I don't see why he shouldn't. He hasn't lent money out
of friendship. He hates me--always has done, and sometimes I wonder
whether he doesn't hate you too!"

Lady Ruth shivered a little. Her husband's words came to her with
peculiar brutality. It was as though he were blaming her for not having
proved more attractive to the man who held them in the hollow of his
hand.

"Doesn't it strike you," she murmured, "that a discussion like this
is scarcely in the best possible taste? We cannot surmise what he
wants--what he is going to do. Let us wait!"

The door opened and Wingrave entered. To Barrington, who greeted him
with nervous cordiality, he presented the same cold, impenetrable
appearance; Lady Ruth, with quicker perceptions, noticed at once the
change. She sat up in her chair eagerly. It was what she had prayed for,
this--but was it for good or evil? Her eyes sought his eagerly. So much
depended upon his first few words.

Wingrave closed the door behind him. His greetings were laconic as
usual. He addressed Lady Ruth.

"I find myself obliged," he said, "to take a journey which may possibly
be a somewhat protracted one. I wished, before I left, to see you
and your husband. I sent for you together, but I wish to speak to you
separately--to your husband first. You have often expressed a desire to
see over my house, Lady Ruth. My major domo is outside. Will you forgive
me if I send you away for a few minutes?"

Lady Ruth rose slowly to her feet.

"How long do you wish me to keep away?" she asked calmly.

"A few minutes only," he answered. "You will find me here when Parkinson
has shown you round."

He held the door open and she passed out, with a single upward and
wondering glance. Wingrave closed the door, and seated himself close to
where Barrington was standing.

"Barrington," he said, "twenty years ago we were friends. Since then we
have been enemies. Today, so far as I am concerned, we are neither."

Barrington started a little. His lips twitched nervously. He did not
quite understand.

"I am sure, Wingrave--" he began.

Wingrave interrupted him ruthlessly.

"I give you credit," he continued, "for understanding that my attitude
towards you since I--er--reappeared, has been inimical. I intended you
to speculate, and you did speculate. I meant you to lose, and you have
lost. The money I lent to your wife was meant to remain a rope around
your neck. The fact that I lent it to her was intended to humiliate you,
the attentions which I purposely paid to her in public were intended to
convey a false impression to society--and in this, too, I fancy that I
have been successful."

Barrington drew a thick breath--the dull color was mounting to his
cheeks.

Wingrave continued calmly--

"I had possibly in my mind, at one time," he said, "the idea of drawing
things on to a climax--of witnessing the final disappearance of yourself
and your wife from the world--such as we know it. I have, however,
ceased to derive amusement or satisfaction from pursuing what we may
call my vengeance. Consequently, it is finished."

The light of hope leaped into Barrington's dull eyes, but he recognized
Wingrave's desire for silence.

"A few feet to your left, upon my writing table," Wingrave continued,
"you will find an envelope addressed to yourself. It contains a
discharge, in full, for the money I have lent you. I have also ventured
to place to your credit, at your own bank, a sum sufficient to give you
a fresh start. When you return to Cadogan Square, or, at least, this
evening, you will receive a communication from the Prime Minister,
inviting you to become one of the International Board of Arbitration on
the Alaskan question. The position, as you know, is a distinguished one,
and if you should be successful, your future career should be assured."

Barrington broke down. He covered his face with his hands. Great sobs
shook him. Wingrave waited for a few minutes, and then rose to his feet.

"Barrington," he said, "there is one thing more! What the world may say
or think counts for very little. Society reverses its own judgments and
eats its own words every day. A little success will bring it to your
feet like a whipped dog. It is for yourself I say this, for yourself
alone. There is no reason why you should hesitate to accept any service
I may be able to render you. You understand me?"

Barrington's face was like the face of a young man. All the cloud of
suspicion and doubts and fears was suddenly lifted. He looked through
new eyes on to a new world.

"Thank God!" he exclaimed. "Not that I ever doubted it, Wingrave,
but--thank God!"...

Barrington left the house radiant,--Lady Ruth and Wingrave were
alone. She watched him close the door and turn towards her, with a new
timidity. The color came and went in her pale cheeks, her eyes were
no longer tired. When he turned towards her, she leaned to him with a
little seductive movement of her body. Her hands stole out towards him.

"Wingrave!" she murmured.

His first action seemed to crush all the desperate joy which was rising
fast in her heart. He took one hand, and he led her to a chair.

"Ruth," he said, "I have been talking to your husband. There are only a
few words I want to say to you."

"There are only three I want to hear from you," she murmured, and her
eyes were pleading with him passionately all the time. "It seems to me
that I have been waiting to hear them all my life. Wingrave, I am so
tired--and I am losing--I want to leave it all!"

"Exactly," he answered cheerfully, "what you are going to do. You are
going to America with your husband."

"What do you mean?" she asked sharply.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I am rather tired of the game," he said, "that is all. I am like the
child who likes to build up again the house of bricks which he has
thrown down. I have procured for your husband a seat on the Alaskan
Board. It is a very distinguished position, and you will find that it
will entail considerable social obligations in America. When you return,
he will be able to claim a judgeship, or a place in the Government. You
will find things go smoothly enough then."

"But you!" she cried; "I want you!"

He looked at her gravely.

"Dear Lady Ruth," he said, "you may think so at this moment, but you are
very much mistaken. What you really desire is a complete reconciliation
with your husband and a place in the great world which no one shall be
able to question. These things are arranged for you; also--these."

He handed her a little packet. She dropped it idly into her lap. She was
looking steadfastly away from them.

"You are free from me now," he continued. "You will find life run quite
smoothly, and I do not think that you will be troubled with me when you
come back from America. I have other plans."

"There was a slave," she murmured, "who grew to love her gaoler, and
when they came to set her free and take her back to her own people--she
prayed only to be left in her cell! Freedom for her meant a broken
heart!"

"But that was fiction," he answered. "For you, freedom will mean other
things. There is work for you to do, honorable work. You must fan the
flame of your husband's ambition, you must see that he does justice to
his great opportunities. You have your own battle to fight with society,
but you have the winning cards for, before you go, you and your husband
will be received as guests--well, by the one person whose decision is
absolute."

She looked at him in amazement.

"My word of honor," he said quietly, "was enough for Lord Marendon. You
will find things go smoothly with you."

"You are wonderful," she gasped, "but--you--you spoke of going away."

"I am going to travel," he said quietly, "rather a long journey. I have
lived three lives, I am going to try a fourth!"

"Alone?" she asked.

"Quite alone," he answered.

"Tell me where you are going?" she begged.

"I cannot do that," he answered. "It is my secret."

She rose to her feet. She was very pale. She stood in front of him, and
she laid her hands upon his shoulders.

"Wingrave," she said, "I will obey. I will live the life you have shown
me, and I will live it successfully. But I will know this. Who is it
that has succeeded where I have failed?"

"I do not understand you," he answered.

"You do!" she declared, "and I will know. For years you have been a man
with a shell upon your heart. Every good impulse, every kind thought
seemed withered up. You were absolutely cold, absolutely passionless!
I have worn myself out trying to call you back to your own, to set
the blood flowing once more in your veins, to break for one moment the
barriers which you had set up against Nature herself. Some day, I
felt that it must come--and it has! Who has done it, Wingrave? It is
not--Emily?"

"Emily!" he exclaimed. "I have not seen her for months. She has no
interest for me--she never had."

"Then tell me who it is!"

"Nature unaided," he answered carelessly. "Human intervention was not
necessary. It was the swing of the pendulum, Ruth, the eternal law
which mocks our craving for content. I had no sooner succeeded in my new
capacity--than the old man crept out."

"But Nature has her weapons always," she protested. "Wingrave, was it
the child?"

He touched the electric bell. Taking her hands, he bent down and kissed
them.

"Dear lady," he said, "goodbye--good fortune! Conquer new worlds, and
remember--white is your color, and Paquin your one modiste. Morrison,
Lady Barrington's carriage."




"LOVE SHALL MAKE ALL THINGS NEW"

Mr. Pengarth was loth to depart. He felt that all pretext for lingering
was gone, that he had outstayed his welcome. Yet he found himself
desperately striving for some excuse to prolong an interview which was
to all effects and purposes concluded.

"I will do my best, Sir Wingrave," he said, reverting to the subject of
their interview, "to study Miss Lundy's interests in every way. I will
also see that she has the letter you have left for her within eight days
from now. But if you could see you way to leave some sort of address so
that I should have a chance of communicating with you, if necessary, I
should assume my responsibilities with a lighter heart."

Wingrave gave vent to a little gesture of annoyance.

"My dear sir," he said, "surely I have been explicit enough. I have told
you that, within a week from now, I shall be practically dead. I shall
never return to England--you will never see me again. I have given life
here a fair trial, and found it a failure. I am going to make a new
experiment--and it is going to be in an unexplored country. You could
not reach me there through the post. You, I think, would scarcely care
to follow me. Let it go at that."

Mr. Pengarth took up his bag with a sigh.

"Sir Wingrave," he said, "I am a simple man, and life with me has always
been a very simple affair. I recognize the fact, of course, that I am
not in a position to judge or to understand the mental attitude of one
who, like yourself, has suffered and passed through great crises. But I
cannot help wishing that you could find it possible to try, for a time,
the quiet life of a countryman in this beautiful home of yours."

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

"Mr. Pengarth," he said, "no two men are born alike into this world.
Some are blessed with a contented mind, some are wanderers by destiny.
You will forgive me if I do not discuss the matter with you more fully.
My journey, wherever and whatever it is, is inevitable."

Mr. Pengarth was braver than he had ever been in his life.

"Sir Wingrave," he said, "there is one journey which we must all take
in God's good time. But the man who starts before he is called finds no
welcome at the end. The greatest in life are those who are content to
wait!"

"I am not in the least disposed to doubt it, Mr. Pengarth," Wingrave
said calmly. "Now I must really send you away."

So Mr. Pengarth went, but Wingrave was not long destined to remain
in solitude. There was a sound of voices in the hall, Morrison's
protesting, another insistent. Then the door opened, and Wingrave looked
up with darkening face, which did not lighten when he recognized the
intruder.

"Aynesworth!" he exclaimed, "what are you doing here? What do you want
with me?"

"Five minutes," Aynesworth answered, "and I mean to have it. You may as
well tell your man to take his hand off my shoulder."

Wingrave nodded to Morrison.

"You can go," he said. "Come back when I ring."

They were alone! Aynesworth threw down his hat and crossed the room
until he was within a few feet of Wingrave.

"Well, sir?"

Aynesworth laughed a little unnaturally.

"I had to come," he said. "It is humiliating, but the discipline is good
for me! I was determined to come and see once more the man who has made
an utter and complete fool of me."

Wingrave eyed him coldly.

"If you would be good enough to explain," he began.

"Oh, yes, I'll explain," Aynesworth answered. "I engaged myself to you
as secretary, didn't I, and I told you the reason at the time? I wanted
to make a study of you. I wanted to trace the effect of your long period
of isolation upon your subsequent actions. I entered upon my duties--how
you must have smiled at me behind my back! Never was a man more
completely and absolutely deceived. I lived with you, was always by your
side, I was there professedly to study your actions and the method of
them. And yet you found it a perfectly simple matter to hoodwink me
whenever you chose!"

"In what respect?" Wingrave asked calmly.

"Every respect!" Aynesworth answered. "Let me tell you two things which
happened to me yesterday. I met a young New York stockbroker, named
Nesbitt, in London, and in common with all London, I suppose, by this
time, I learnt the secret of all those anonymous contributions to the
hospitals and other charitable causes during the last year."

"Go on," Wingrave said.

"I have come here on purpose to tell you what I think you are,"
Aynesworth said. "You are the greatest hypocrite unhanged. You affect to
hate your fellows and to love evil-doers. You deceived the whole world,
and you deceived me. I know you now for what you are. You conceived your
evil plans, but when the time came for carrying them out, you funked
it every time. You had that silly little woman on the steamer in your
power, and you yourself, behind your own back, released her with that
Marconigram to her husband, sent by yourself. You brought the boy
Nesbitt face to face with ruin, and to his face you offered him no
mercy. Behind his back you employ a lawyer to advance him your own money
to pay your own debt. You decline to give a single penny away in charity
and, as stealthily as possible, you give away in one year greater sums
than any other man has ever parted with. You decline to help the poor
little orphan child of the village organist, and secretly you have her
brought up in your own home, and stop the sale of your pictures for the
sake of the child whom you had only once contemptuously addressed. Can
you deny any one of these things?"

"No!" Wingrave answered quietly, "I cannot."

"And I thought you a strong man," Aynesworth continued, aggrieved and
contemptuous. "I nearly went mad with fear when I heard that it was you
who were the self-appointed guardian of Juliet Lundy. I looked upon this
as one more, the most diabolical of all your schemes!"

Wingrave rose to his feet, still and grave.

"Aynesworth," he said, "this interview does not interest me. Let us
bring it to an end. I admit that I have made a great failure of my life.
I admit that I have failed in realizing the ambitions I once confided to
you. I came out from prison with precisely those intentions, and I was
conscious of nothing in myself or my nature to prevent my carrying them
out. It seems that I was mistaken. I admit all this, but I do not admit
your right to force yourself into my presence and taunt me with my
failure. You served me well enough, but you were easily hoodwinked, and
our connection is at an end. I have only one thing to say to you. I
am leaving this part of the world altogether. I shall not return. That
child has some foolish scruples about taking any more of my money. That
arises through your confounded interference. She is poor, almost in
want. If you should fail her now--"

Aynesworth interrupted with a hoarse little laugh.

"Wingrave," he said, "are you playing the simpleton? If Juliet will not
take your money, why should she take mine?"

Wingrave came out from his place. He was standing now between Aynesworth
and the door.

"Aynesworth," he said, "do I understand that you are not going to marry
the child?"

"I? Certainly not!" Aynesworth answered.

Wingrave remained quite calm, but there was a terrible light in his
eyes.

"Now, for the first time, Aynesworth," he said, "I am glad that you are
here. We are going to have a complete understanding before you leave
this room. Juliet Lundy, as my ward, was, I believe, contented and
happy. It suited you to disturb our relations, and your excuse for doing
so was that you loved her. You took her away from me, and now you say
that you do not intend to marry her. Be so good as to tell me what the
devil you do mean!"

Aynesworth laughed a little bitterly.

"You must excuse me," he said, "but a sense of humor was always my
undoing, and this reversal of our positions is a little odd, isn't it?
I am not going to marry Juliet Lundy because she happens not to care for
me in that way at all. My appearance is scarcely that of a joyous lover,
is it?"

Wingrave eyed him more closely. Aynesworth had certainly fallen away
from the trim and carefully turned out young man of a few months back.
He was paler, too, and looked older.

"I do not understand this," Wingrave said.

"I do!" Aynesworth answered bitterly. "There is someone else?"

"Someone whom I do not know about?" Wingrave said, frowning heavily.
"Who is he, Aynesworth?"

Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders. He said nothing. Wingrave came a step
nearer to him.

"You may as well tell me." he said quietly, "for I shall postpone my
journey until I know the whole truth."

"It is not my secret," Aynesworth answered. "Ask her yourself!"

"Very well," Wingrave declared, "I will. I shall return to London
tonight."

"It is not necessary," Aynesworth remarked.

Wingrave started.

"You mean that she is here?" he exclaimed.

Aynesworth drew him towards the window.

"Come," he said, "you shall ask her now."

Wingrave hesitated for a moment. An odd nervousness seemed to have taken
possession of him.

"I do not understand this, Aynesworth," he said. "Why is she here?"

"Go and ask her your question," Aynesworth said. "Perhaps you will
understand then."

Wingrave went down the path which led to the walled garden and the
sea. The tall hollyhocks brushed against his knees; the air, as mild as
springtime, was fragrant with the perfume of late roses. Wingrave took
no note of these things. Once more he seemed to see coming up the path
the little black-frocked child, with the pale face and the great sad
eyes; it was she indeed who rose so swiftly from the hidden seat. Then
Wingrave stopped short for he felt stirring within him all the long
repressed madness of his unlived manhood. It was the weakness against
which he had fought so long and so wearily, triumphant now, so that his
heart beat like a boy's, and the color flamed into his cheeks. And all
the time she was coming nearer, and he saw that the child had become a
woman, and it seemed to him that all the joy of life was alight in her
face, and the one mysterious and wonderful secret of her sex was
shining softly out of her eager eyes. So that, after all, when they met,
Wingrave asked her no questions. She came into his arms with all the
graceful and perfect naturalness of a child who has wandered a little
away from home....

"I am too old for you, dear," he said presently, as they wandered about
the garden, "much too old."

"Age," she answered softly, "what is that? What have we to do with
the years that are past? It is the years to come only which we need
consider, and to think of them makes me almost tremble with happiness.
You are much too rich and too wonderful a personage for a homeless
orphan like me; but," she added, tucking her arm through his with a
contented little sigh, "I have you, and I shall not let you go!"





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