BOOK TWO
CHAPTER I. RECALLED BY THE DOUBLE-FOUR
It is the desire of Madame that you should join our circle here on Thursday evening next at ten o’clock.
The man looked up from the sheet of note-paper which he held in his hand, and gazed through the open French-windows before which he was standing. It was a very pleasant and very peaceful prospect. There was his croquet lawn, smooth-shaven, the hoops neatly arranged, the chalk-mark firm and distinct upon the boundary. Beyond, the tennis court, the flower gardens, and, to the left, the walled fruit garden. A little farther away was the paddock and orchard, and a little farther still, the farm, which for the last four years had been the joy of his life. His meadows were yellow with buttercups; a thin line of willows showed where the brook wound its lazy way through the bottom fields. It was a home, this, in which a man could well lead a peaceful life, could dream away his days to the music of the west wind, the gurgling stream, the song of birds, and the low murmuring of insects. Peter Ruff stood like a man turned to stone, for, even as he looked, these things passed away from before his eyes, the roar of the world beat in his ears—the world of intrigue, of crime, the world where the strong man hewed his way to power, and the weaklings fell like corn before the sickle.
“It is the desire of Madame!”
Peter Ruff clenched his fists as he stood there. It was a message from a world every memory of which had been deliberately crushed, a world, indeed, in which he had seemed no longer to hold any place. Scarcely yet of middle age, well-preserved, upright, with neat figure dressed in the conventional tweeds and gaiters of an English country gentleman, he not only had loved his life, but he looked the part. He was Peter Ruff, Esquire, of Aynesford Manor, in the county of Somerset. It could not be for him, this strange summons.
The rustle of a woman’s soft draperies broke in upon his reverie. He turned around with his usual morning greeting upon his lips. If country life had agreed with Peter Ruff, it had transformed his wife. Her cheeks were no longer pale; the extreme slimness of her figure was no longer apparent. She was just a little more matronly, perhaps, but without doubt a most beautiful woman. She came smiling across the room—a dream of white muslin and pink ribbons.
“Another forage bill, my dear Peter?” she demanded, passing her arm through his. “Put it away and admire my new morning gown. It came straight from Paris, and you will have to pay a great deal of money for it.”