Lord John in New York

by C. N. Williamson; A. M. Williamson

This seeming injustice roused Maida's sympathy. She met Granville occasionally at his mother's house, without Roger's knowledge. It was the child's first adventure, and appealed to her love of romance. The natural consequences followed. Granville proposed. She asked to remain his friend. Then to give her "friend" a glorious surprise, she worked to interest a great financier, a friend of the Odell family, in Granville's undersea light.

Unfortunately for her unselfish plan, millionaire Orrin Adriance had a son, Jim, who had been in love with Maida since she was in the "flapper" stage. This fact complicated matters. When Granville's chemical formula, in a sealed envelope, was stolen from a safe in the Adriance house, before business was completed between financier and inventor, George Granville—already jealous of Jim Adriance—was mad enough to believe that Maida had joined in a plot to trick him. He accused the Adriances of wishing to get his secret without paying for it, prophesying that a tool of theirs would presently "invent" something of the kind, after they had refused to take up his proposition. Pretending illness, he had induced his mother to send for Maida, and she, only too anxious to defend herself, had gone to the Granville house. After a cruel scene between her and the sailor, he had locked the door, put the key in his pocket, and shot himself through the heart. Mrs. Granville, who had heard a scream from the girl, before the shot, swore to the belief that Maida had killed the young man to defend herself against his love-making.

Roger, learning of the tragedy, had stifled the lie as he would have crushed a snake. How he had done this, Maida was not sure. He had refused to tell. But her name had not been connected with Granville's at the inquest. Mrs. Granville, who had been poor and lived poorly, migrated to France and was reported to have "come into money through a legacy." In any case she seemed to have been silenced. No word of scandal could be traced to her, though detectives had been employed by Roger. Nevertheless, the story had risen from time to time like the phoenix from its own ashes. Maida's fellow school-mates had whispered; her debut in society had been blighted by a paragraph in a notorious paper, afterwards gagged by Roger. Then, last and worse, had come the cancelling of the girl's presentation to the King and Queen of England.

"You see now," she said, "why I shall be happier out of the world, in a Sisterhood where I can try to help others even sadder than I have been."

"But," I threw out the bold suggestion, "what if there's a plot to get you into the Sisterhood—into this old house!"

"Oh, but that's impossible!" she cried. "You wouldn't dream of such a thing if you could meet the Head Sister and see what a splendid woman she is!"

There was my opportunity to tell about the mask, and I took it. But it availed me nothing. The mask, Miss Odell said, was no secret. She understood that the Head Sister, in saving a child from fire, had so injured her face that for the sake of others she kept it hidden. Another version had it that the motive for wearing the mask was some "sacred vow." In any case, Maida assured me, it was an honour to the good and charitable woman; and no arguments would break her resolution to give the next year to work with the Sisterhood. After that year—if I could solve the mystery of the stolen formula, and put an end for ever to scandal—she would come back and face the world again. But how could I, a stranger, do what Roger had failed to do?

That was the question. Yet I made up my mind that it must be answered in one way, or my life would be a failure. Not only would I solve that mystery, I told myself—though I dared not boast to the girl—but I would link together the old one with the new. The way to do this, I told myself, was to learn whether an enemy of Maida Odell's father had found her under her borrowed name, and had made the Granvilles and Adriances his conscious or unconscious tools.

This talk we had while the train stood still. We were sitting on a log together, out of earshot from the other passengers, when—with the name of the Grey Sisterhood on our lips—we looked up to see its veiled directress. She had, she said, been put to much trouble in securing an automobile to come for Madeleine, and see that she was not persuaded to break a promise. Maida, embarrassed and protesting, assured her friend that there was no thought of such disloyalty. Lord John—timidly the girl introduced us—had come only to try and help her throw off an old sorrow, as I had helped Roger and Grace. So she tried to "explain" me; and the Head Sister, having triumphed, could afford to heap coals of fire on my head by being coldly civil. Her one open revenge she took by requesting me not to follow them to their automobile. The chauffeur would fetch Miss Odell's hand luggage out of the train, and my "kindness would no longer be needed." I was dismissed by the conqueror; and left by the wayside with but one consolation: Maida had said "au revoir," not good-bye.

For a moment I stood crushed. Then a thought jumped into my mind: "What if this woman is the one I saw in the auto outside the theatre?"