The Malefactor
by E. Phillips Oppenheim
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

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.
Whey 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-barrel 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 hee 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 no
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 ante-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 to
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 anyy 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 you 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 every 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 Sr.
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 Sr.
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 stateroom! 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'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?